“No one?”
Unable to meet his eyes, she shook her head. It was kind of embarrassing to admit how much he’d affected her. How he’d ruled certain parts of her life, even in his absence.
“Not once in two years?”
Her nostrils flared. “No! I said I haven’t. What? You don’t believe me?”
He took the bowl from her and set it on the table before wrapping both arms around her and hugging her against his chest.
“I should have never let you go, Jess. I should have gone after you. I should have fixed it. Whatever I had to do, I should have—”
She pulled back to look into his eyes. His watery gaze drifted to the ceiling as he tried to get a handle on his emotions.
“I have plenty of regrets of my own, Sed, but I’ve decided to let them go. You should too. We can’t change the past, but we can move forward.”
“So much wasted time.”
She shook her head. “No regrets.” She grabbed his chin to gain his attention and gave him a stern look. “And you’re talking way too much. If you say one more word, I’m cancelling our trip next week.”
That shut him up, but it didn’t stop him from expressing his feelings with his hands and lips. He suckled the pulse point beneath her ear and she gasped, her body instantly igniting with need.
“Before you get me too worked up, I should warn you that I have the first draft of a paper to write this weekend, so you’re going to have to entertain yourself while I hit the books.”
He pulled back to look at her, scowling.
“You’re the one who insisted I go back to school. Remember?”
He sighed and nodded.
“But tonight, I’m yours.”
He grinned and reached for the dry erase board. You don’t want to be a nurse anymore? he wrote.
She flushed and shook her head. “I was just afraid to go back to law school. The way Dean Taylor made me feel and that whole failure thing… I’m over it.” She grinned at him. “But I can still be your nurse. Tell me how I can make you more comfortable, Mr. Lionheart.” She ran a finger down the center of his chest.
Feed me, he wrote. Not the request she’d had in mind, but okay.
“What would you like? Mashed potatoes? Cheese soup?”
Something cold.
“Your throat’s really bothering you, isn’t it?”
He nodded. She shouldn’t have let him talk as much as she had. She would be a more attentive nurse from this point forward.
She scanned the table for something cold and soothing. “Gelatin? Or I can get a Popsicle out of the freezer.”
His hand tightened on her hip, telling her he didn’t want her to get up.
Jell-O is fine.
She claimed the bowl of orange gelatin cubes and fed them to him with her fingers.
Tell me about school today, he wrote and set the dry erase board aside.
“Um, okay. I found out I’m not the only one the dean has propositioned sexually. I also found out how Dr. Ellington gets her way and the reason she probably hates me in the first place.”
Sed lifted an eyebrow in interest, his tongue teasing her fingertips as he accepted her offering of gelatin.
“Ellington sucks the dean’s c**k in his office. And I’m pretty sure it pisses her off that he calls my name while she does it. I heard him.”
Sed choked on the jiggly orange cube he’d just slurped down his throat. Before he could vocalize a protest, Jessica covered his lips with her fingers.
“He’s no threat to you, sweetheart. And now that I know what a slime ball he is, I’m no longer intimidated by him. I’ve dealt with his kind before. He can’t get to me. I won’t give him that power ever again.”
She could tell Sed was struggling with his strong protective instincts. He probably wanted to pound Dean Taylor into the ground which, honestly, she wouldn’t mind watching. After several deep breaths, Sed nodded at her to continue. She smiled and offered him another cube of gelatin.
“So I’m building a sexual harassment case against him. A big one. You might call it huge. His secretary knows all kinds of things that go on behind closed doors and she was happy to share information. She told me about a student who graduated a few years ago who is now a practicing lawyer. Apparently, Taylor harassed a friend of hers until she dropped out of school. Sound familiar?”
Sed cupped her cheek, sympathy in his blue eyes.
“Anyway, I went and talked to her lawyer friend this afternoon. She agreed to take on the case pro bono. I’ll be doing a lot of the leg work—building the case, contacting witnesses and stuff—because she’s so busy with her current case load, but I cannot wait to get to work on this. Taylor is not going to get away with that kind of behavior anymore. I wish I was done with school so I could cross-examine that bastard on the stand. One more year and I can put slime balls like him in their place. I had planned to become a defense attorney, but this is what I want to do. Protect women from jackasses who use their positions of power to sexually harass them. It pisses me off to no end.”
Sed surprised her by kissing her until she was breathless. When he pulled away, he gazed into her eyes with a new awareness.
“You get off on this shit,” he murmured.
She laughed. “Well, yeah, I guess so.”
“I get it now.” She could practically see the light bulb go on over his head. “God, baby, I’m sorry I ever asked you to give it up.”
He kissed her again, starving for her mouth. And she didn’t have to wonder if he kissed other women like this. He didn’t kiss other women at all. Only her. The bowl of gelatin slipped from her grip and landed with a ploppy-clatter somewhere on the marble floor. She didn’t care. She had to keep kissing him. Kissing him and holding his handsome face while she sucked at his lips.
She rocked her hips against him, rubbing her mound against the hard bulge in his pants. Too many clothes. Too many. She needed him. Inside. Desperately. Now.
Thank God he was a mind reader.
Sed reached between them, unfastened his pants, and released his cock. She cried out against his lips, unwilling to separate their mouths even when he slid the crotch of her panties aside and directed his rigid member into her throbbing flesh. She sank down, shuddering with delight as he filled her. Her feet found the rails under the chair and she used them for leverage to rise and fall over him. Faster, she rode him. Faster. Fueling her need. Still kissing him.
His cock, hard and thick, rubbed her in exactly the right spot each time it plunged into her body. He felt so good inside her. Perfect. Her pleasure built quickly to its climax. Pulsations of sheer delight rippled through her insides. She cried out into his mouth and shuddered against him.