running through her head, Maddy slowly stretched up and touched her lips to his.
THE DOOR SLAMMED open to her apartment and in an instant Kaleb had her trapped against the foyer wall, his mouth slanting over hers in a kiss that robbed her lungs of breath. Then he was shoving the top to her scrubs up and over her head, letting it fall to the ground. Her bra soon followed.
Maddy was just as desperate to get his clothes off. Before she’d had a chance to revel in the feel of his bare chest against hers, he backed up a step and stripped off his trousers, socks and shoes. He was soon naked in front of her. But he didn’t rejoin her immediately.
“Wait right there.”
“What? No.” She went ahead and pushed her own scrubs down and kicked off her sensible, comfortable shoes. The last thing she wanted right now, though, was to be comfortable.
She wanted to be taken.
By this man.
He retrieved his wallet from his pants and found a foil-wrapped packet, his eyes slowly trailing down her body.
Liquid fire pumped through her veins. “Hurry.”
He ripped the condom open with his teeth, but before he could remove it, Maddy moved forward, taking it from his hands and setting it on the padded bench to her left. “I changed my mind. We won’t be needing that quite yet.”
“Oh, no?” One brow went up. She was thankful there was no hint of fear in his voice. He trusted her to do the right thing. And she wouldn’t chance putting him through what he’d suffered with his daughter. She wouldn’t risk a pregnancy.
The fact that he knew she wouldn’t, though, sent an ache shimmering through her gut. Pushing past it, she slid her fingers over his shoulders and pressed her body tight against his, loving the sensation of her curves settling into the hard planes of his torso and hips. And that pulsing flesh against her belly found a matching need inside her.
The human body was exquisitely designed.
“I thought you wanted to hurry.”
She laughed. “You’re like an expensive box of chocolates. Much too good to swallow all at once.” The naughty words hung in the air, eliciting a response from a certain part of his anatomy that made her grin. It was as if they’d never had that difficult conversation in the hospital garden. And that was just what she wanted. To help him forget, if only for a few moments.
“Maddy...” The warning in his voice sounded very real. And she loved it.
When she planted a kiss on his left shoulder, he didn’t try to stop her. Nor when she trailed down past his pec. Or his abdomen, although the muscles in it jumped at her touch. The real test came when she bent her knees and slowly glided down until she knelt in front of him.
“Don’t do this.” This time his words sounded half strangled.
“Are you telling me no, Doctor?” And if he was? Maybe he was one of those rare guys who saw oral sex as something to be reviled. If he did, she would be disappointed, but she would still make love to him. On his terms. She was willing to compromise, if necessary. But, oh, how she wanted to...
“No.” His Adam’s apple took a quick dip. “I’m not telling you no.”
She smiled, allowing her tongue to dance across her mouth in preparation. “Well, in that case...”
Her lips parted around him, the warm, taut flesh brushing across her tongue. Her ex had demanded she do this. But Kaleb seemed to almost fear it. Which was why she wanted to so badly. To erase the memories of shame and ridicule and replace them with good ones. Healthy ones. With a man who had no expectations. No hidden agendas. No trying to force her in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.
She let herself enjoy it. Each hiss of air that sounded above her drove her almost wild with need. She wanted to push him over the edge, wanted to take him deeper. To—
Hands on her shoulders gave a light squeeze and edged her backward, her lips leaving him with an audible pop. She licked them again.
“If you’re trying to kill me, Maddy, you’re doing a hell of a job.”
She wasn’t trying to kill him. Just hoped to make him want her as much as she wanted him. And from the look in his eyes, she might very well have succeeded.
“Come here.”
When she tried to slide forward again as if misunderstanding him, the grip on her shoulders tightened slightly. “Up here. All the way up here.”
He held out his hands to help her, her body tingling with need. Foreplay didn’t need long sessions of heavy petting, evidently, because she felt as if she were going to explode the second he touched her. And touch her he did. Soon she was off her feet and on her bed.
Kaleb pushed inside her with a quick thrust that had her writhing beneath him, the sensation of fullness almost overwhelming.
“Again.” She arched up to meet him this time, needing to reach the peak quickly...needing him to take her there.
Gripping his shoulders, she didn’t let him slow the pace, and when he tried to, she shoved him until he was flat on his back. Then she rode him hard, exulting in the echoed need on his face—at the hands that reached to pull her close, to kiss her, even as she was tumbling over the edge, her world on fire. Two more thrusts and he joined her, breathing out her name as she took everything he had and tried to give it back to him.
And just like that, Maddy realized she was done. Over. Kaput.
She loved him. And this time there was no going back.
* * *
It couldn’t be this easy. Could it? Over a week had gone by and their trip to the Space Needle was here. Chloe stood beside him on the observation deck, practically buzzing with excitement as she looked out over the huge city.
Surprisingly, Maddy had let him spend the last couple of days in their company, despite her earlier statements about not wanting the little girl to get attached.
Maybe Maddy had been worried about the wrong person all along. Because he was attached. To Maddy. To Chloe. Even Roxy had an oddball charm to her that made him shrug off things that would have ordinarily irritated him. Like her question this morning about whether or not he was as into Maddy as she was evidently into him.
Maddy had gone red to her very roots, while shooting her sister looks that threatened death and dismemberment if she didn’t shut up. Not that it stopped Roxy for even a second.
Some things had clicked inside Kaleb after he’d made love to Maddy. First, he’d made love to her at her place again. And he hadn’t died. Or even fainted. And he’d been more than happy to spend the night, except that Maddy had shooed him on his way, saying she had to pick Chloe up from Roxy’s. When he’d called her the next night to ask if they could rent a movie and watch it together—the three of them—Maddy hadn’t told him to get lost. She’d simply read the name of a movie she and Chloe had been hoping to see. He’d shown up at her door with said
