Damn, what she wouldn’t give to make this man roar. But there wouldn’t be any more opportunities for that, would there? He certainly wouldn’t be up for it. She might, though. Oh, holy hell, after that? He might have to beat her away with a stick.
As passion’s grip released them both, she eased down over his body and struggled to catch her breath. His arms—still minding her sensitive skin—wound around her shoulders and the small of her back. At least he gave her that much. She snuggled her face into the crook between his neck and shoulder and breathed deeply, feeling her heart rate slow. His still beat strong against her.
He smelled so good. Hell, they smelled good together…his spice and her musk and their sex blending into an intoxicating perfume. No wonder she’d felt so drunk, so drugged.
She chuckled lazily at the sappy, romantic direction her thoughts were taking. God knew she was aware of what this was all about. She’d needed to get laid; she’d needed to be desired. He’d seemed like a good candidate—and damn, had he ever lived up to her expectations.
“What’s so funny?” he asked, and despite the grounding nature of her feelings now, she could appreciate the huskiness of his voice and how satiated he sounded. She’d done that for him, and it was a kick.
“Just thinking about how we smell.”
Now it was his turn to laugh. “How we smell? Are you trying to tell me something?”
“No, idiot. You smell magnificent. And so do I, if I do say so myself. But together we smell…amazing.” Exasperated, she gave him a little pinch. “Don’t you agree?”
He sniffed the air, then sniffed at her while she laughed. “You smell like…hmm…I don’t know. You’d smell better, though, if you smelled like bacon.”
“What?”
“Come on, now. Bacon is the greatest smell in the world.”
When her stomach took that moment to protest its emptiness, she was kind of inclined to agree with him. But still. Really? “I’m going to take that as a personal affront. That I don’t smell as good as bacon.”
“You shouldn’t feel that way. It’s just, you know…fact. It’s not like you can help it.”
“Are we really talking about this?”
“Well, you brought it up.”
“I didn’t bring up bacon.” This had to be the dorkiest conversation she’d ever been a party to, and that was saying a lot. “Tell you what. If you say you have some on hand, and one of us can fry it up, I’ll forgive you for letting me know I’m inadequate according to your olfactory system.”
He touched her hair, tracing one long strand with the tip of his finger. “Sure. We can do that. How about a BLT?”
“Sounds heavenly.”
As Ian crawled from the bed, Gabby propped her head up and allowed herself to thoroughly appreciate the view. While they’d been tangled up in each other, he’d never completely lost his jeans, but he’d lost them enough that she had a full view of his ass. What she wouldn’t give for her back to be healed so maybe he could throw her down and really put those tight, wonderful muscles to work on her. Even now she wanted to sink her fingernails into his firm curves, and fantasized about doing so while he bent her knees to her ears and pounded into her.
Whew, damn. If she wasn’t careful, she’d get herself all worked up again and burn even more calories she was desperate to replace.
Hell, she was already worked up. If he wanted to go again, she’d be all for it. But he disappeared into the bathroom, and a second later, light flooded in from the doorway. With a contented sigh, Gabby collapsed back on the bed and stared at the ceiling…and wondered what Mark was doing right now.
If that wasn’t a freaking unwelcome intrusion. It wasn’t that she cared. Or, more accurately, it wasn’t that she wanted to care—because, damn him, she did. Every now and then he trespassed on her thoughts when he should be the furthest thing from her mind. Like after she’d just had great sex with someone who wasn’t him. Her first great sex since he dumped her. Her only sex.
So yeah, she still thought about him, and she dreaded—dear God, she dreaded—going back to Dallas, where he might be inclined to seek her out.
Not that she really thought he would. But he’d made a comment about their timing being wrong, about how someday maybe it would be right. He could go on waiting for that moment, she’d told him, because she damn sure wasn’t. To be so brilliant, he’d proven himself a fool to think she’d go for that. “Oh, sure, Mark, I’ll just hang around and wait for ‘someday’ and the next wedding you decide to skip out on. Sounds like a plan.”
And why was she dwelling on it? She had a hot man who’d just f**ked her senseless, emerging from the bathroom at this very moment in his low-slung ripped jeans, giving her an electric smile before heading toward what she assumed was the kitchen. She’d be the fool, she decided, if she didn’t get up and follow that. So she put on his T-shirt and did.
Chapter Six
Ian straightened from retrieving the bacon, lettuce and tomato from the fridge as Gabby sauntered in, wearing his shirt. If she’d looked incredible earlier in the parlor and later in the bar—and dear God, nak*d in his arms—she looked insanely gorgeous right now, her long hair tousled up on one side and her dewy olive skin glowing against the contrast of the shirt. It fell just above mid-thigh on her, and the thought that she might still be bare and wet from their sex underneath it set off all kinds of lustful thoughts in his head. He set the stuff on the counter and wiped his palms on his jeans, mind going blank. What the hell was he doing? Bacon. Right.
“I’ll cook if you chop,” she said, her voice an octave lower than he remembered it.
Full lips even fuller than he remembered them. All from his kisses. He directed her to the skillet and utensils and tried to get his f**king thoughts together.
He’d been an idiot to take her up on her bet, but he’d have been a bigger idiot not to. At least, it had been easy to look at it that way at the time. Now, he had to think about going to work tomorrow and looking his boss in the eye. Shit.
What did it matter? It wasn’t as if anything would come of this. No one ever had to know. From what Brian had told him earlier today, she was a woman looking for a good time to get over a shitty ordeal. And he really had no problem being used, at least not in that capacity. They were a match made in a very brief heaven.
“So,” he said, positioning his knife over a tomato and mentally scrabbling for conversation, “a doctor, huh?”
“Looks that way.” She put the skillet on the stove and turned on the burner. He tried to imagine it, but he just couldn’t see her in scrubs. “After nursing for several years, I started to feel like I knew as much as any of the pediatricians I’ve ever worked for, so why not? And I love kids so much.”
“Well, that’s great. Good on you for following your dreams.”
One of her shoulders lifted nonchalantly. “I should have followed it fifteen years ago.”
Fifteen years ago, he was still in middle school. He chuckled at the thought.
“What’s so funny?”
“You just kinda…brought home our age difference.”
“Oh.” She laid a strip of bacon in the skillet, where it sizzled angrily. “I hate to even ask how old you are.”
“So don’t. I’ll tell you. I’m twenty-eight.”
She laughed out the word “Jesus,” giving it several more syllables than it contained. “Well, Ian, I hope you don’t mind being with an older woman.”
“As long as you don’t mind being with a younger man.”
“After tonight, I might rob the cradle from now on.”
He could damn sure say, for his part, he didn’t mind being robbed from the cradle. Not if she was the one doing the robbing. “I know I’m not supposed to ask…” he began, dangling the invitation for her to fess up.
She gave him a sultry glance over her shoulder. “So don’t. Only, I won’t tell you.”
“I’ll just find out from your brother,” he teased.
“He’ll want to know why you’re interested.”
“Maybe I’ll tell him.”
“Right. As hard as I had to work to get you here because you’re so scared of him? I don’t think so.”
“I’m not scared of him, dammit, and I’ll let you in on a little secret. You really didn’t have to work that hard to get me here.”
“Well. It felt like I did.” He could hear the smile in her voice, and it was impossible not to answer it with one of his own.
“Sorry about that.”
“So then, why did you play so hard to get?” Gabby continued her task, laying a couple more pieces in the skillet. He finished the tomato and started on the lettuce in the time it took him to formulate an answer.
It was complicated. He’d only ten seconds ago had the thought that he didn’t care about being used…at least not for sex. On a deeper level, though, something inside him ached. He recalled sitting in the bar and feeling like he was the prey and she the predator. He’d spent too much of his life that way. He’d worked too hard to escape it all. Any little reminder could send him spinning back mentally, and that was the one thing he tried to avoid at all costs. The less he thought about his past, the better.
But a beautiful woman coming on strong wasn’t enough to make that happen. There was more to it than that.
“You seem like a go-getter. I guess I wanted to see how hard you’d work to get me.” It wasn’t the truth, but it sounded like a good substitute. It might placate her.
“You like throwing down a challenge, then?”
“Maybe.”
“I guess I like a challenge.”
“Given your chosen profession, I’m not surprised.”
They created idle chitchat while they finished food prep and eventually sat down on the barstools at the counter to eat. He marveled that Gabriella Ross could look sexy as hell just eating a BLT. There was simply something about a woman who enjoyed her food, and she obviously did.
“I was starving,” she said finally, wiping her mouth with one of the napkins he’d put out. “And I haven’t had one of those in ages. Thanks for bringing up bacon.”
He chuckled and started on his second. “You’re welcome.”
“Tell me about yourself.”
Caught with a mouthful, he struggled to swallow quickly and shrugged. “What do you want to know?”
“Let’s start basic. Full name?”
“Bastian Anderson Rhodes.”
“Oh!” She laughed. “That’s…thorough. I guess I have to give up my middle name now too.”
“If you want. I don’t require it or anything.”
She smiled. “I don’t mind. It’s—” She said something that sounded foreign and beautiful and that he could never hope to pronounce. “But that’s Irene to you. It’s Italian. From my grandmother.”