Come Lie With Me - Linda Howard [88]
When she went back upstairs he was right behind her. She looked at him questioningly when he entered the bedroom with her. “Take your shower,” he said, taking her shoulders and turning her in the direction of the bathroom. “I’ll wait out here for you. I want to make sure you’re okay before I go to bed.”
“I’m fine,” she protested.
“I’ll stay,” he said firmly, and that was that. Knowing that he was waiting, she hurried through her shower. When she came out of the bathroom he was sitting in the chair he’d occupied before, and he got to his feet.
“Bedtime.” He smiled, pushing the robe off her shoulders. She hadn’t fastened it, knowing that she would be taking it right off again, and it slipped to the floor. He leaned down and lifted her off her feet, then deposited her on the bed. She gasped and clutched at his shoulder.
“What was that for?” she asked, looking up at him.
“For this,” he answered calmly, and kissed her. It was a deeply intimate kiss, his mouth opening over hers and his tongue moving in to touch hers. She dug her nails into his shoulder in surprise.
“Let me go,” she said, pulling her mouth way from his.
“I’ll let you go tomorrow,” he murmured. “Tonight is mine.”
He bent down to her again, and she rolled her head away; denied the sweet bloom of her lips, he found the sensitive slope where her neck met her shoulder and nipped at it with his teeth, making her gasp again. He dipped his hand into the bodice of her nightgown, rubbing his palm over the rich globes that had lured him.
“Blake…don’t do this,” she pleaded achingly.
“Why? You love me to touch your breasts,” he countered.
She turned her head to look at him, and her lips were trembling. “Yes,” she admitted. “But I’m leaving tomorrow. This…will only make it more difficult. I’ve accepted another job, and I have to go.”
“I understand,” he murmured, still stroking her flesh. “I’ll put you on a plane tomorrow, if that’s what you want, but we still have tonight together, and I want to spend it making love to you. Don’t you like what we do to each other? Don’t you like making me go out of my skull? You do. You make me wild, with your body like hot silk on me. One more night, darling. Let us have this last night together.”
It was exactly what she hadn’t wanted, to make love to him and know that she never would again, but the sensual promise he was making her with his hands and body was a heady lure. One more night, one more memory.
“All right,” she whispered, beginning to unbutton his shirt. His hot flesh beckoned her, and she pressed her lips to him, feeling the curling hair under her mouth and the shiver that rippled over him. The intoxicating excitement that always seized her at his touch was taking over again, and she unbuckled his pants, helped him kick them away. He parted her legs and fit himself between them, the fever of feeling so high that no more preparation was needed, no more loving required to make her ready for him.
With a slow, smooth thrust he took her, and she adjusted her body to his weight and motion, letting the excitement well up like a cresting wave and take her away.
One more night. Then it would be finished.
Chapter Thirteen
It didn’t get any better. She had thought that it would get easier, even if the wound never quite healed, but from the time Blake saw her onto the plane at Sky Harbor Airport, the hurting never peaked, then declined. It stayed with her, eating at her. If she could forget about it during the day while she worked with Kevin, who was her new patient, it returned full force at night when she went to bed and lay there alone.
Milwaukee was at the opposite end of the world from Phoenix, or seemed like it. In a matter of a few hours she had exchanged a dry desert for several feet of snow, and she couldn’t seem to get warm. The Colberts were nice, friendly people, anxious to do what they could to help her with Kevin, and Kevin was a darling, but he wasn’t Blake. The childish arms that hugged her so spontaneously didn’t satisfy the need she felt