She looked fucking gorgeous and Rob’s prick, still all riled up after their little conversation out under the tree, jerked in his trousers.
God Almighty, he wanted her. On so many levels.
“Tell me why you were so determined to beat cancer, Rob,” Joseph said. “To what end?”
“You know why. I have too much life left to live.”
“With who?”
Joseph’s pointed question made Rob blink and he yanked his stare from Emily, swivelling back to the bar. “Shut up, Joe. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t I? Funny, but as I recall only ten months ago I found out my best mate was going to die. I went through the hell of knowing the one constant in my universe was going to be taken away. When you didn’t, mate, when you told me Dr. Knox had cured you, I thought two things. One, I wanted to hug the woman who had given you back to me, and two, life is precious. Damn precious. And if you don’t realise those two things are bloody well connected, Thorton, if you can’t see those two are connected—the woman who came after you when she didn’t need to, and the life you now have—then you’re a bloody idiot.”
Rob slammed his ice water back to the bar. Hot anger rolled through him. His head throbbed. “Just because I owe my life to her doesn’t mean—”
“Doesn’t mean shit,” Joseph cut him off. “But it’s not your life I’m talking about now, mate. It’s your heart.” He stared at Rob, the inescapable stare of a man who at one point in time had just about every politician and businessman in the country hanging on his every word. A look that said he’d had enough of the crap.
Before he could stop himself, and fuck, did he try, Rob turned his head, his stare automatically and unerringly finding Emily.
Your heart, Rob.
“You’ve done some crazy-arsed shit in your life,” Joseph continued, the tone of his voice now less the ruthless businessman and more the young bloke Rob could trust more than anyone else, “and some bloody scary shit as well. Now, I think it’s time to do the bravest.”
Rob gazed at Emily, his heart—yeah, his heart—so heavy it felt like it was about to burst from his chest. She was beautiful, strong, determined, caring, kind…
Joseph’s firm hand on his shoulder jerked Rob’s attention back to his friend.
“Go, on.” Joe smiled, rising to his feet. “I dare you.”
Rob watched him weave through the dance floor until he reached Anna and her movie star dance partner, tapping the tall man on the shoulder before taking his place before the grinning bride and twirling her away in a laughing circle.
Rob’s throat grew thick and he turned his gaze back to Emily.
“Is there anything else I can give you tonight?”
The barkeeper’s murmur tickled over his ears, and he’d have to be a dead man to miss the offer in the woman’s throaty question. But he wasn’t a dead man. He was very, very much a live man.
Go on, Joseph’s voice repeated in his head, I dare you.
He turned back to the blonde and her sexy-arsed uniform and gave her a wide smile. “No thanks, love. I’ve got an appointment with my doctor.”
Rising to his feet, he pushed himself from the bar and crossed the dance floor, past Joseph and Anna, past Hugh Jackman and his wife, past everyone. Until he stopped at the colossal mountainside cake.
His stare found Emily’s eyes and his heart pounded into his throat. “Dance with me, Dr. Knox.”
“Do you mind, Thorton?” a male, heavily Australian accented voice barked beside Emily. “Don’t think you might be interrupting something here, do you?”
She blinked, jerking her stare from Robert’s face to look at the man standing beside her, remembering far too slowly she’d been involved in a conversation before Rob approached her.
“Don’t mind at all, Trev,” Rob grinned. “Now bugger off.”
The man—Trevor—curled his lip. “Feeling better, I see?”
Rob gave him a wide grin. “You could say that.”
Trevor flicked her a quick look before, with a huff and a muttered expletive Emily swore sounded like arrogant bastard, he nodded once at her and walked away.
She turned back to Rob. Just in time to see him step toward her and capture her hand and waistline with long, steady fingers.
He pulled her to his body with a gentle tug, the hand on her waist sliding to the small of her back to draw her closer still. Their hips aligned perfectly, her belly pressed to his, her breasts crushed against his chest. She pulled in a ragged breath, feeling his heart slamming in his body. Or was it hers beating so hard? She couldn’t tell anymore. He was holding her. Wasn’t that all that mattered?
She lifted her chin a fraction, enough to meet his gaze. “I didn’t mean—” she began, but he shook his head.
“Neither did I,” he cut her off, voice low and gentle. “Now shut up. I’m trying to seduce you with my awesome dancing skills.”
She went to say something else. Something like, I didn’t mean to sound like a doctor, or worse still, are you sure you should be dancing? but the words died on her lips. She lowered her head and rested her forehead against his neck instead, incapable of holding his stare any longer. Not unless she wanted to melt into a pool of aching want at his feet. The desire in his eyes, the undeniable longing burning in their blue depths was too much.
Rob’s fingers curled around hers and he brought their hands closer to their heads, his other hand smoothing up the line of her spine to the middle of her back. He held her closer still, his body swaying a little in time to music she didn’t hear. She didn’t need to. Her body moved with his as if the very beat of his heart was the only rhythm it ever needed to hear or feel again.
She closed her eyes, the soft friction of his thighs stroking hers, the firm heat of his groin nestled against hers, sending warm licks of rising tension through her. Pinching her nipples into twin points of aching longing. Oh God, he was holding her.
Her heart constricted at the sheer joy in the thought, her breath catching in her throat. It should have frightened her, how deeply she’d become addicted to him. It should have terrified her. She’d never been one for flights of foolish fancy, as her mother so often dismissed the notion of romantic love. Growing up with a heart surgeon for a father and forensic pathologist for a mother, she’d been taught only that which you could see was real. The heart was nothing but an organ formed to pump blood around a body, needed for life. The heart bore no relevance to emotion and as such, no relevance to love. And yet her heart, that eleven ounce, four-chambered, multi-valved biological necessity had never ached as much as it did now. Her heart, the thing she’d spent almost twenty-seven years of her life relegating to a simple organ, both growing up and at medical school, now seemed to rule her very existence. Radiating an intangible…hell, she didn’t know how to explain it…yearning so potent and unfathomable she felt as if it would be crushed.
Is this what pure desire feels like?
Is this what love feels like?
She drew a deep breath at the thought, her pulse pounding faster.
Love?
Tugging her closer, Rob turned his head slightly, his lips brushing her cheek in a caress barely describable as a kiss. And yet, the gentle sensation only served to heighten the tension mounting in her body and she let out a soft sigh, feeling the crotch of her knickers grow damp. She’d fought what she’d felt for him for so long. She’d argued against it and when she couldn’t argue any more, she’d forced herself to wait. To see if her heart survived when Robert had gone. But it had only taken thirteen days to accept the truth. He was her life and her future and she wanted him. Less than a day later and she was on a plane.
She’d risked everything to be here with this man—her career, her reputation, her heart—and it was worth it all, if for nothing other than this dance. This moment.
As if hearing her very thoughts, he pulled away from her a little, the slight separation of their bodies making her want to cry out. No, she wanted to feel
his heart beating against hers. She needed it. As much as she needed to breathe in his scent to survive.
She gazed into his eyes, her pussy fluttering at the undisguised desire she saw there. “If I ask you to come back to my place tonight after the reception,” he asked, sliding his hand on her back up to the nape of her neck to thread his fingers through her hair, “will you say yes?”
Her heart quickened, its beat echoing the eager throb between her thighs. “Yes.”
The corners of Rob’s lips curled. “Will you come back to my place after the reception, Emily Knox?”
She gave him a steady look. “Yes.”
Rob’s smile stretched wider. “Then if you’ll excuse me for a second, I better go tell Joe to hurry the hell up and bugger off.”
Chapter Four
He couldn’t make it to his home. The proverbial snowball stood a greater chance in hell then Rob did waiting until he’d driven the seven and a half kilometres between Dunbar House and his townhouse overlooking Bondi Beach. After dancing with Emily for the last three hours before Joe and Anna finally decided to leave their own wedding reception, holding her against his body, breathing in her soft, delicate scent, pretending what had happened beneath the tree hadn’t happened, trying to play it cool and laid-back and relaxed, he couldn’t wait any longer. Five minutes with Emily in his car, the subtle heat of her body licking over him in the Audi’s small cabin, the soft sound of her thighs sliding against each other as she shifted in her seat…it was too much. He couldn’t make it home. He had to kiss her. Now. His headache was gone, thanks to the Tylenol, and his vision was perfect. There was nothing physically stopping him except the fact he was driving.
Without hesitation or warning, Rob yanked the wheel to the left, swerving the sports car to the side of the road.
Emily turned to him, and before her lips finished parting—no doubt to ask him what he was doing—he’d released his seatbelt and tangled his hands in her hair, taking possession of her mouth in a kiss he knew was far from gentle.
She met his hunger with equal force, one hand scrambling for the seat belt release as the other slid up his chest to cup his jaw. He groaned into her mouth, dragging his hands from her hair and down her back, wishing the car’s handbrake and gear lever to hell. How the hell could he get close enough to her with two bloody metal rods stuck between them?
“Jesus, Emily,” he moaned against her lips, breaking the kiss with something akin to frustrated fury, “I want you so fucking bad I can’t wait until we get home.”
“I don’t want you to wait, Robert.”
Her response, coming from her in ragged pants, made his cock throb harder. Her fingertips dug into his cheek a little, as if she feared he was going to move away from her completely.
He wouldn’t. Even if he wanted to, he was incapable of drawing further space between them, but he wanted their first time to be so much more than a frantic thrust and poke in a cramped, confined car.
Still, if he didn’t do something now, they would be in danger of having an accident before they made it to his townhouse. He was losing too much blood to his brain to focus on the road, all of it rushing to his dick instead.
“Not here.” He shook his head, chuckling at the dismayed cry of protest escaping Emily. “Not that at least. Not on the side of the road in my car.” He smoothed his right hand around her ribcage, brushing his fingers over the swell of her left breast contained by the lace of her bra and the silken fabric of her dress. His mouth watered, the need to dip his head and take her pebbled nipple between his lips almost too much to deny. Instead, he forced himself to move his caressing hand to her face, resting his palm against her cheek as he stared into the smoky depths of her eyes. “When I bury myself inside your sweet, hot sex,” he continued, “I want you splayed out before me on my bed, gloriously naked, legs askew, the tops of your thighs glistening with moisture from your juices and my tongue.”
A shudder rocked through Emily and her eyelids fluttered closed, her lips parting as a raw groan tore from her throat. “Oh Lord, Robert…”
“But I can’t wait any longer. I need…” he broke off, the words to describe the aching want in the lowest pit of his belly, the agonizing urgency in his groin, lost to him. He recognized the paradox of the situation. He couldn’t wait to make love to her, but he couldn’t make love to her until they waited. Why the fuck hadn’t he bought a bigger car? Better yet, an apartment next to Joe’s reception centre?
If you’d known you’d be suffering this kind of blissful torture, maybe you would have, but Hudo had kept Emily’s arrival a secret, hadn’t he? Another reason to thump the bastard when he gets back from his honeymoon.
Emily moaned again, her fingers threading through his on her face. She turned her head slightly, pressing her lips to the centre of his palm, kissing the sensitive skin first before touching it with the tip of her tongue. “I can’t wait either,” she whispered against his hand. “I feel like I’m on the verge of an orgasm already.”
The statement was all it took. His blood roaring in his ears, Rob couldn’t control himself any longer. He would give her what she needed and she would see he wasn’t weak. Never taking his stare from Emily’s tormented face, he raked his hand down her body, over the flat plane of her belly to the junction of her thighs. With an impatient tugged on her dress he bunched her hemline high and dipped his fingers between her legs.
“Oh, yes.”
Emily gasped, arching in her seat as his fingertips stroked the velvet-soft folds of her pussy through the sodden silk of her knickers.
A violent spasm jolted through Rob’s cock at the slick friction beneath his fingers. He sucked in a ragged breath, drinking in the undeniable musky perfume of Emily’s desire filling the Audi’s cabin. It was potent, an aphrodisiac beyond his experience. His cock jerked in his trousers again, and with a flick of his wrist, he hooked the damp crotch of her undies aside and sank his middle finger into her slit.
“Oh, yes!” Emily bucked her hips forward, her eyes still closed, her face contorting with pleasure. “Yes!”
He thrust his finger in and out, the wet sucking sounds of each penetration and withdrawal as arousing as the soft whimpers and mewling cries falling from Emily’s parted lips. She was tight around his finger. So tight. So tight and so very wet.
And it still wasn’t enough. He wanted more. He wanted to taste her. Right now.
Without removing his hand from its delicious sheath, he repositioned himself on his seat, releasing the handbrake with his free hand before leaning over the centre console and finding her clit with his tongue.
“Oh my God!” Emily cried out, her hips slamming forward, whacking the curve of her mound against his face. From the corner of his eye, Rob saw her scrambled for an anchor, flailing blindly above her head, beside it, until she resorted to ramming one hand to the car’s ceiling and wrapping the other around the fold down grab-handle above the window.
He hummed his approval, flicking at her clit with his tongue again as he slipped another finger into her pussy. “You are so tight, Doc.” He licked at her folds, penetrating her moist heat with a slow stroke. “So tight and so fucking sweet.”
She writhed in her seat, the sound of her breathing—a long, shaking inhalation—furthering his need. He wriggled his two fingers deeper into her sex, scissoring them with increasing speed, mirroring the pace with the tip of his tongue on her clitoris.
“Robert…” Emily gasped, jerking her hips higher. Her hands scrabbled at his back, tugged at his hair. “Robert…this feels, this is…oh God, this is so good, but what if someone…”
He lifted his head from between her thighs, grinning up at her. “The closest streetlight is too far away.” He blew a thin stream of cool air on her sodden flesh, his cock twitching at Emily’s responding whimper. “And my windows are tinted with privacy glass. No one is seeing in here, babe.” He laved his tongue along her pussy lips again, circling her clit in a series of little flicks before drawing the tiny button in
to his mouth and sucking gently.
“Oh Lord, that feels…” Emily bucked again, once, twice and with another whimper far louder than the last, fresh cream flooded over Rob’s tongue.
It was deliriously exquisite, turning his dick to a rod of agonizing steel even as her release filled him with sheer joy. His balls ached, rising high toward his body and he knew without a doubt all it would take was one single touch of Emily’s fingers on his shaft and he would erupt. He’d never been more turned on.
Jesus, if you don’t come soon you’ll be back in hospital with a ruptured cock.
With one last caress of her sex with his mouth, he pulled back, turning his gaze to her face.
She sat with her eyes still closed, her lips parted as she sucked in one breath after another, each one as shallow and ragged as its predecessor. The pale perfection of her skin took on an ethereal quality in the car’s shadowed interior, as if her complexion was the product of an artist’s airbrush and not natural beauty. She was an angel sent to grant him life. Give him life. And all he could think about was fucking her brains out.
Really? Or is it something else? Something you won’t consider until your lust-fogged brain is clear?
“Fuck a duck, I need to come.”
He didn’t realize the muttered confession had escaped his thoughts until Emily opened her eyes and looked at him, her breath still shaky, her lids heavy. “Let me—” She moved in her seat, leaning toward him, but he shook his head, cupping her jaw in his hand.
“No.” He traced the soft fullness of her bottom lip with the pad of his thumb. “If you even breathe on my dick now I will lose it.” He placed a kiss—a chaste one, of all things—on her lips and then settled himself back in his own seat, clipping in his seatbelt before he could change his mind. “Splayed out on my bed before me, remember? With no giddy head or gear shift or handbrake to interrupt us.”
Dare Me: Red Hot Weekend Page 4
