Addicted to You (One Night of Passion 1)

“No,” he stated harshly.

He pushed himself off the door, not really sure where his reserve of strength came from, seeing how it was so glaringly absent just moments ago. He wouldn’t allow himself to glance up as he hastily pulled up his underwear and jeans.

When he finally did look, it was to see that the opening at the bottom of the double Dutch door was empty.

She’d gone.

Why the hell had he bothered stopping himself from opening that door all the way and taking Katie in the way he craved? he thought bitterly. He’d doused himself in alcohol daily.

Might as well drown in self-loathing as well.

Seven

Four days later, Katie sat on a stack of floor mats in the Prairie Lakes Hospital physical therapy gym. Errol’s physical therapist was hot. Katie knew this, but recognized his attractiveness like she might a dreary work duty. She knew she should have some sort of reaction to his warm glances and sexy smiles. Instead, she was consumed with what it’d been like to have Rill Pierce’s cock convulse in orgasm in her mouth . . . what it’d been like to have him give himself to her.

Even if he had given himself in half measure. Even if he obviously hadn’t really wanted to surrender. Even if they’d hardly spoken since then.

Katie had joined league with Rill in his avoidance efforts. It was amazing how two people could coexist inside a house and never catch as much of a glimpse of each other, if they had their minds set to it.

At least he was eating the meals she made him. Not with her. But she’d noticed that the meals she prepared for him and covered with plastic wrap were disappearing from the refrigerator for the past few days. Small comfort, to know he wasn’t starving himself to death like he had been. In addition, Katie didn’t think he’d been drinking, either. Drunk people weren’t as quiet and elusive as Rill had been lately.

She forced herself to focus on Errol’s blond, svelte therapist—Dave Portland—when he approached her.

“I did an assessment on him. He’s strong as a horse, so that’ll really help him recuperate,” Dave was saying. He stood in front of her, his slim hips outlined in dark blue cotton surgical pants, his broad shoulders encased in a sky-blue hue. Had he winked when he finished speaking? Katie’s brain was too preoccupied to fully interpret flirtation.

What did flirtation matter to her?

Rill wouldn’t know the meaning of flirtation if it socked him in his gorgeous, scowling mouth.

Forget about how he’d interpret a woman going down on her knees for him and sucking for her life. She’d never done anything like that before, never been so hungry for a man. It’d been like some kind of void had opened inside her, a hole she hadn’t known existed until she’d tasted Rill on her tongue.

Now this thing had happened between them. Sure, it’d happened on that night she arrived as well, when he’d bent her over that bed and worked his cock into her until she’d screamed in pleasure. But Rill had been drunk that night. He didn’t have the memory searing his consciousness like Katie did. Knowing that he didn’t recall it had made it easier for her to look him in the eye. Well, somewhat easier. Not that she’d had much of an opportunity to look into Rill’s eyes much since coming to Vulture’s Canyon.

But four days ago—that’d been different. Rill hadn’t been drunk. Somehow she knew Rill had been stone-cold sober when he’d traced her lower lip deliberately with the tip of his cock and anointed her mouth with his semen. If he’d been drunk, she wouldn’t have felt his ambivalence so acutely.

“So . . . are you related to Errol?” Dave the physical therapist asked.

“Hmmm?” Katie asked as she licked her lower lip distractedly. When she realized Dave’s expression had gone rigid as he followed the movement of her tongue, she straightened and stood, donning her professional manner.

“No. No, we’re not related at all.”

“She ran me over,” Errol stated bluntly as he hobbled up to them in his crutches, still wearing the baseball cap that made his ears seem to poke out even farther from his head than nature had. Katie had been able to make out the letters beneath the dirt today: us AIR FORCE. The hat must have belonged to Errol’s dad. She wondered if he ever took it off. She grimaced apologetically at Errol’s bald statement, but Errol didn’t seem upset. He hadn’t seemed angry, in fact, ever since she’d hit him with her car. His lack of vengefulness, his bland acceptance of his incapacity, only increased Katie’s guilt.

“Her uncle is Howard Hughes. He flew planes, like my dad,” Errol told Dave.

“Not an uncle. Just a distant relative. You ready to go, Errol?” Katie asked.

“Yeah.”

“Will you be here for Errol’s first rehab appointment?” Dave asked Katie eagerly.

“Er . . . sure. I’m bringing Errol to all his appointments.”

“You hungry, Errol?” Katie asked him fifteen minutes later just before she hit the turnoff that would lead either to town or to Errol’s riverside shack.

“Yeah.”

“How about if I buy you a burger from the diner to take home with you?”