In the middle of the night, she’d awakened with his feverish arm across her waist, pulling her to him, his breath hot against her ear. He’d been sound asleep, but still reaching for her. She’d let him snuggle against her and absorb her warmth, because even though he was burning her through their clothes he’d been shivering like he was freezing. So had she, just from his nearness. She’d wanted so desperately to turn and kiss him, put her hands all over him, germs and all. He probably wouldn’t have even known who she was at that moment. The half-terrified virgin in her had held her still.
When she’d awakened later, she’d found him on the couch, and the pain of that had been brutal. Still, those few minutes in his arms had been worth the misery of the illness that followed. Over the years, her mind had taken that moment and expanded it into some pretty delicious fantasies.
“After I caught it, you practically wrote a paper for me, didn’t you?” she asked, forcing herself to snap out of it. She had reality now, and it was ten times more delicious. “I’m like you, I barely remember anything about that week.” Except for him only leaving her side to attend the most crucial classes…and only then because she begged him to go since he’d already missed so much.
“Your prof wouldn’t budge on the due date because you’d had over a month to do it already, but some of that you’d spent taking care of me. So I outlined your Juvenile Justice paper for you. You did the rest. Though I did proofread it, and honestly, it looked like a monkey had written it. In the dark. So I fixed it for you.”
“Jeopardizing our future careers,” she said, shaking her head.
He waved a hand dismissively. “They never would have figured it out. I looked back through some of your old papers to see if you had any quirks I needed to know about. I can be pretty crafty when I need to be.”
“So I’ve seen,” she said, leaning forward for a kiss. He moved to meet her, only he paused inches away.
“You’ve always been there for me. It’s never gone unappreciated, Kelsey, even if I neglect to tell you often enough.”
“I know,” she whispered. “You didn’t have to say anything. You were always there for me, too.”
“I always wondered why you gave a damn about me.”
She sat back. “Why would you wonder that?”
“Because I was a shit back then, and you know it.” He laughed. “When it came to most of my relationships and even my friendships, I was the proverbial bull in a china shop.”
“I never saw that in you. I’ll admit, that day in class when Dr. Roberts assigned us to work together, and I didn’t know you, I thought, ‘Great, I know who’ll be doing all the work on this project. Me.’ Because every day you walked in class like you owned it and you sat with a horde of giggling females around you, always flirting with them and pulling out their hairclips…”
He was shaking his head self-deprecatingly now, covering his eyes. If the lighting weren’t so dim out here, she would swear he was blushing. She couldn’t tell him that aside from the dread she’d felt toward doing one hundred percent of the work that lay ahead, her heart had flipped over on itself at the thought of even possibly spending time with him. He was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen. “But then I got to know you,” she went on. “You weren’t stuck on yourself at all. I thought…you were amazing, and I felt bad for stereotyping you like I did at first. I was so glad that you still seemed to want to be friends with me after we were finished working together.”
“You really kept my feet on the ground back then. You came into my life at a time when I could’ve thrown it all away.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I was slipping. I was twenty. There was always a party to go to or people to see. It was becoming more important than what I was there for. Then you came along. Cracking your whip, keeping me in line.”
She smoothed her napkin in her lap, a little smile curling her lips. “Are you saying I helped you become the man you are today?”
Evan threw back his head and laughed. “I guess so, honey. God only knows where I’d be without you.” He took another sip of wine, his gaze meeting hers over the rim.
She wanted to ask him, if she was so important, why he hadn’t wanted her back then. Why, no matter what she did, he seemed to look at her as nothing more than a little sister. It wasn’t that she was an ugly-duckling-turned-swan case. She was barely any different now than she’d been at twenty. Maybe a few more wrinkles, and just after her divorce she’d discovered her first gray hair, which had sent her into another tailspin. But the same twenty-year-old Evan had ignored sexually, he’d ravished at thirty. It shouldn’t matter anymore, except that she still had a few old wounds from it that had been left to fester all these years. They’d been reopened after the debacle her life had become.
Kelsey couldn’t ask him about any of that. She might not like what he had to say.
Their food arrived, and she tried to focus on just how heavenly her coconut shrimp tasted. Exist in the moment, she told herself. Awesome food, awesome scenery and the company she most craved on this earth. Forget old hurts, don’t anticipate new ones. It was hard for her, who’d grown so accustomed to looking at the dark side of things. To waiting for the axe to fall. She wished she could be like Evan, who did see that glass as half full and would argue his case to death. Just for that alone, she admired him more than she could ever tell him.
He fascinated her. Every move he made, her eyes followed it. For the thousandth time, she wondered what it was about him that kept her so riveted. Why she shivered at the simple way he held his wineglass, or his fork, or his pen when he signed the credit card slip with a flourish. Why those little things never struck her from other people. Never had she salivated just watching the way Todd’s lips touched the rim of his glass.
Kelsey was taking a sip of her own water when Evan’s hand slid over her nak*d knee, and she nearly spit it out at the shock of his touch. Maybe that was why. She was imagining that touch on her flesh, not some inanimate object that couldn’t appreciate it. His fingertips slid beneath the hem of her flimsy black-and-white print skirt and over the flesh of her inner thigh, leaving little trails of fire. She set her glass down, trying to retain her composure when she wanted to erupt out of her chair and straddle him where he sat.
“You have the softest skin I’ve ever touched,” he murmured, and it was only then she dared to look him in the eyes. In the dimness, they were dark, unreadable. As if there was hardly a sliver of green around his pupils. Aroused.
“Evan…” She trailed away when his fingers crept as far up her leg as they could without him leaning over and looking too obvious. It wasn’t far enough. She inched down in her seat, just barely, surely imperceptibly, and spread her legs, thanking God this tablecloth was so long. His touch slid higher. Still not enough. “Oh, God.”
“I think we’ve tortured ourselves enough today,” he said, watching her. “Are you ready to head back?”
Her breath was a shudder. Last night, every minute of it, was a blazing beacon in her thoughts. She wanted that again. All of it. Unable to speak, she nodded.
He remembered everything about that night he’d been so sick. He remembered waking up with her in his arms, so hard it hurt. When it became impossible to lie still next to her without the urge to grind his aching c*ck into her backside, he’d had to get up, gulp more Tylenol and crash on the couch. She’d looked so tired he hadn’t wanted to wake her.
All that day one single scary thought had been at the forefront of his mind: This girl is wife material. It had been thoughts like that one that sent him running for the hills, desperate to replace it with rationalizations. This is your very good, very sweet, very virginal friend. Yes, she’s pretty. Yes, she’s perfect. She’s everything you should want to find in someone. Which is why you’re going to keep your dick far, far away from her. You have a girlfriend. Don’t do it, don’t be that guy.
The years had only removed all those inhibitions. “Wife material” wasn’t such a terrifying concept anymore. Someone who was perfect for him was to be treasured, not run from. No girlfriends anywhere in sight. And he couldn’t wait to get inside Kelsey again.
Evan had always found it quite hard, though not at all unpleasant, to drive with a scorching hot woman trying to crawl into his lap. Planting nibbling, sucking little kisses along his throat. Her hands doing unspeakable things in unspeakable places, driving him out of his mind. God, but Kelsey was going to get it when he could stop this vehicle. He only hoped he could wait to get into the suite to give it to her. She didn’t know how close she was to inducing him to pull over into some dark lot, drag her onto his lap and impale her on his c*ck right here where he sat. He didn’t think she would complain. And God knew at this point he probably wouldn’t last long enough to get them busted. She had him ready to blow.
“Honey,” he groaned as she nibbled his earlobe and gave his stiff shaft a long, hard stroke through his pants. “I’m concerned for the safety of the public right now.”
“I trust you,” she murmured, moving her lips around to the corner of his mouth. “I think the public is in good hands.”
“Mmm, and I think you’re about to be.”
“God, Evan, I’m so wet.”
He nearly drove off the road. The need to take his hand off the wheel and investigate her claim was almost more than he could resist. It would be easy; she was so close, half kneeling in her seat, and if they hadn’t almost reached the hotel he’d probably exhort her to sit and put her seatbelt on. In the interest of safety, and all. But what she was doing felt so good, and they’d be there in a minute…
He managed to squeeze into a darkened space without grazing any other vehicle. It was a miracle. Kelsey’s hands were under his shirt, her lips wet and hot on the side of his neck. He was hard enough to break rocks, barely managing to shove the gearshift into Park before he grabbed her face between his palms and kissed her deeply, thoroughly. She moaned and crawled over him, her hands twisting in his hair.
So easy, it would be so easy to unzip his pants, tug her panties to the side and slide up inside her… He pushed his hand up her skirt to cup her ass and realized it would be easier than he thought. She wasn’t wearing any panties.
Christ. He had to get a grip, or this would be over before it started.
“Sweetie, let’s go inside,” he whispered. “We have all night. I’m not going anywhere.”
Her eyes were wild in the dim green glow from the dashboard lights, her lips dark and full from the pressure of his. “I want you so much. I want to give you everything.”
The words drew out something primeval and possessive inside him, the need to cherish her and protect her and above all else, claim her as his own. Erase all memory that she’d ever belonged to anyone else, that she’d ever given anything to a man who didn’t appreciate her and didn’t treasure her with his entire being. She was the one who deserved everything, everything he had to give.