it, what was he thinking? Her back had just gone through hell and back, and here he was, mauling her to within an inch of her life.
But wasn’t she mauling him right back, her fists buried in his starched shirt and hanging on for dear life?
Still, he had to be sure.
“Your back,” he whispered against her lips.
“Forgotten.”
“But—”
She pulled him close and cut off his words with another lingering kiss.
Okay, if that’s the way she wanted to play this, who was he to complain? Besides, he was tired of warring against his emotions, trying to keep them in check so as not to alarm his patients, or hand out undue hope, if things took a turn for the worse.
Like with Martha Brookstone?
No, don’t think of that right now.
He was with someone who’d fought the disease. Who’d won. He gloried in that. Celebrated Hannah’s life. Her health. It was why he’d surrounded himself with people just like her, to remind himself that cancer could be beaten. Not all of the time. His own sister had …
His fingers tightened in Hannah’s hair, desperate to feel the life force coursing through her body, her heart pumping strongly against his own.
Life! This was what it was about. The need for closeness, to reaffirm your own existence.
Surely just this once he could block out the real world.
The blinds were closed. Door locked. Alarm set.
And, most of all, there was a beautiful, willing woman in his arms.
Her low sigh melted his resistance even further, and Greg gentled his kiss, taking the time to taste her, to measure the softness of her lips against his. His tongue slid in a slow arc across the surface of her teeth, then back again, his senses roaring to life when she opened her mouth in invitation. Stunned by the force of his reaction, he hung around outside for a second or two, until her tongue touched the underside of his, leading him inside. Coaxing him, just like she’d done with his meal. Before he knew it, he was right there, the interplay of textures and heat making it impossible for him to retreat again.
His hand left her hair, sliding down her back until it lay just above the curve of her buttocks. A very dangerous place to be. Once he took that leap there’d be no going back.
On that note, he lingered in her mouth, needing to show her exactly what she was doing to him, and that if she intended to call a halt to things, it needed to be soon.
She didn’t. She met each stroke by moving closer, protested each withdrawal with a soft bite to his lower lip. His hands slid down and over in unison, his fingers curving on the rounded flesh he found there. It filled his palms, set his whole body on fire.
He pulled her up and against him, hoping to relieve a little of the ache that was growing steadily worse. And hoping the shock would knock them both back into the realm of reality. Except Greg didn’t want reality. He wanted the fantasy … to keep her here. With him. Wanted to wish their clothing gone and to drive every last inch of himself into her—to fill her to capacity and beyond.
Hannah released her hold on his shirt, and at first he thought she meant to pull away. Instead, the top button of his shirt popped free, as if …
His lips left hers in question, and he caught her smile. Then another button was plucked loose.
She was undoing his shirt. There went the third button. It was either allow her to keep going or let go of her and stop her.
Her hands settled on his bare chest, upping the ante. Especially when they wandered down, purposely sliding over his nipples in the process. His eyes squeezed shut as he tried to hold on to some small portion of his sanity.
When her fingers seemed to want to stay and visit for a while, teasing and testing, he had no choice. He let go of her, reaching up to capture her wrists and carry them behind her back.
“You’re treading on dangerous ground.”
Her brows went up. “I hadn’t even gotten to the dangerous part yet.”
Greg couldn’t stop a quick laugh of surprise. This was a side of Hannah he hadn’t known existed. But he liked it.
He took her mouth again. Harder this time. His free hand slid beneath her blouse and claimed the very thing he’d just denied her, the lacy bra providing almost no barrier. And he reveled in it—in the tightly drawn nipple that pressed against the fabric and scraped lusciously against his palm. When he rolled the bud between his thumb and forefinger, she moaned into his mouth.
Yes.
God, he wanted her. Now.
He let go of her and grasped the bottom of her blouse, holding her gaze as she slowly raised her arms above her head so he could take it off. Her shirt was as far as he got, though, because she reached back and unhooked the black bra herself, letting it fall from her body. Still no sign that her back was bothering her. But, hell, if the sight of her naked breasts didn’t hurt him in a very different kind of way.
When he started to move forward again, she backed up a step and reached for the button of her slacks. “Here’s where it starts getting dangerous.”
Holy hell. Surely she didn’t mean to …
In an instant she’d unzipped them and pushed them down her hips, kicking them away from her. Her black panties were barely there, just a scrap of lace with a crisscrossing of strings on the sides. He had no idea where they led or what the back looked like, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
“Hannah,” he warned, when her fingertips slipped beneath the ties.
She gave a soft laugh. “Your turn, then.”
His turn to what? Take off his clothes? Remove her last article of clothing himself?
He assumed she meant for him to start shucking his own clothes, so he finished unbuttoning his shirt and slung the garment to the side. His fingers weren’t quite as steady as hers, but it had been a long time since he’d been with anyone. A very long time. His hours were too crazy, and he was too exhausted by the time he got home.
And yet right now he seemed to have the energy of an eighteen-year-old boy.
Hannah moved back in before he could go any further and slid her palms up his chest, and rested them on his shoulders, leaning in to kiss the base of his throat.
That wasn’t where he wanted her. “Hey.”
When she looked up, he took her mouth, wrapping his arms around the bare skin of her back, trying to absorb everything at once. The heat of her skin against his, the softness of her breasts.
Breasts he wanted to devour.
He gripped her hips, intending to ease her back so he could cup them, but the strings on her panties sidetracked him. He followed them around. The back had a satiny feel as opposed to the lace in front.
