“I can think of more interesting ways to waste time,” Hank said.
“Oh, really?” Nothing was going to happen, Chelsea reminded herself. In his current state, Hank probably couldn’t perform even if she were foolish enough to let him try.
The air crackled between them as he studied her. Then his mouth curved ruefully. “I’m afraid I’m not up on the local customs.”
“Local customs?”
“The sexual taboos,” Hank clarified. Lamplight raised amber glints in his brown eyes. A woman could get lost in them, Chelsea thought.
“This is Los Angeles. There are no sexual taboos.” Realizing that her comment might be taken amiss, she added, “Except the ones I set for myself.”
“Of course,” Hank said. “That’s what I meant. Just tell me what to do. And not do.”
“You’re very agreeable.”
“Not usually.” He gave her a frank look. “Enjoy it while you can.”
Despite her reservations, Chelsea found herself liking this man. She felt as if they were both on the same side of an equation, working together to figure out the value of X.
“I’ll take you up on your offer to cook,” she said.
“Done.” Hank slowly made his way into the kitchenette and, without asking annoying questions or grousing about the messy cabinets and fridge, proceeded to assemble an omelette.
Chelsea had never before eaten eggs with pineapple bits and water chestnuts. “This is good,” she said after she tasted it.
Hank sat across from her at the small battered table, wolfing down his portion. His nose was a little off-center, she noticed, just enough to offset his otherwise classically sculpted bone structure.
“The flavors are intense,” he agreed when his food had disappeared.
“That’s because you’re still high,” Chelsea said.
“I’m also je…” He stumbled over the word, and finished thickly, “Jagged.”
His word choice puzzled her. “Jagged?”
“You know. I’ve been flying,” Hank said.
“So I noticed. You need to take it easy.”
“I don’t want to take it easy.” His gaze bored into her. “I want to make love to you.”
Heat flushed through Chelsea. She wondered how it would feel to kiss this man. To muss that soft, thick hair. To find out whether he was really wearing a jock strap of any persuasion.
“I don’t know.” Brilliant, Chelsea. Incisive and definitive! “I mean, it’s been a long time for me.”
“Me, too,” said Hank. “Two years.”
Was that possible? she wondered. There wasn’t a place in this country where women could have spent the past two years keeping their hands off a hunk like this, unless he’d been in a monastery. “Did you take vows or something?”
“Only a vow I made to myself,” he said.
Desperately, Chelsea tried to get a grip on her self-control. Maybe Hank was manipulating her, pretending to be naive and celibate. Maybe he’d maneuvered her into bringing him home and was right now trying to trick her into bed.
If that was his scheme, it was working.
“I wouldn’t want you to break any vows for my sake,” she said weakly.
“It won’t be a sacrifice, I promise,” said Hank, and, sliding off his chair, disappeared under the table.
HE HADN’T MEANT to duck under the table. In his current disoriented state, however, the other paths toward Chelsea struck Barry as clumsy. Going around would take too long. Climbing on top would be messy.
So he went below.
When he hit the linoleum, he considered the possibility of curling up there and going to sleep. He wasn’t exactly sleepy, though. He was in a delicious state of suspended reality.
It was about to get even more delicious, if he had anything to say about it.
Down here, he got another close-up of Chelsea’s red-stone-studded toenails. Even in the dim light, they glowed like magic orbs.
Her legs were lightly tanned, smooth and slender. Barry ran a hand up one.
“Hey!” Chelsea’s face appeared at the bottom edge of the table, turned sideways so she could peer at him. “What are you doing?”
“Making love to you,” he said.
“From down there?”
“It seemed like a good idea,” Barry said.
She smiled and sat up. “I have to admit, you’re original.”
Encouraged, he rested his head in her lap. The touch of her fingers in his hair relaxed him. Teased him. Aroused him.
Barry lifted his head and found himself at eye level with her breasts. Tilting his chin so he could see Chelsea’s face, he said, “Kiss me.”
“I’m not a contortionist.”
“I’ll help you.” Bracing himself on both sides of her chair, he pushed upward. The table edge dug into his back, stopping him short. “Sorry.”
“You’ve earned that kiss.” After pushing her chair back, Chelsea stood up. “Let’s go somewhere more comfortable.”
When Barry rose, he discovered that he had lost patience with halfway measures. His body had achieved a ferocious state of readiness fueled by two years of painful self-control and the nearness of a delectable woman.
“Let’s start right here.” He caught her in his arms, and made an interesting discovery.
The last time Barry had had a girlfriend, he’d been a socially inept pediatric resident. His amorous efforts had inspired laughter as often as passion.
For two years, he’d worked off his frustrated libido by helping the islanders hoe their crops, dive for shellfish and construct tin-roofed wooden homes to replace ones knocked down by high winds. In his spare time, he’d watched, on video, old movies featuring sophisticated heroes like Cary Grant and Clark Gable.
As a result, he’d developed two things: a powerful body and romantic finesse.
Slipping one arm beneath Chelsea’s knees, he scooped her against him horizontally. When her lips parted in astonishment, he pressed his mouth over them.
The tip of her tongue met his, tentatively at first and then with real enthusiasm. Supple and wonderfully curvy, she nestled into his arms. Barry couldn’t have invented a more perfect partner for his fantasies.
Holding her easily, he reveled in the softness of her lips, then transferred his attention to the pulse at her throat. He trailed kisses across the vulnerable points where her shoulders met her chest and down the silky open vee of her blouse to the waiting swell of her breasts.
Chelsea gasped. “You’re a bold one.”
“Let me show you a few more things.” Barry started toward one bedroom, but, feeling her tension, swung toward the other instead. “This one?”
She nodded against his bicep.
As he lowered her onto a patchwork velvet coverlet, the lights of the city sparkled through the flimsy curtains, bathing them both in a half-glow. Barry took a moment to appreciate the shadowed valleys that defined Chelsea’s face and figure. “You’re beautiful.”
“You’re not bad yourself.” She released a long breath, although whether from admiration or apprehension, Barry wasn’t sure.
He shrugged out of his jacket and yanked off his shirt, careless of a few popped buttons. The rope-tied pants slid down easily. His knees still felt wobbly but he ignored them.
“Where’s the faux fur?” murmured Chelsea, trailing one hand down the contour of his leg.
“Guess I forgot it.” Barry’s tight gray underpants were in imminent danger of being split apart as he straddled her. With a couple of tugs, her blouse came open to reveal a tiny wisp of a brassiere.
Chelsea’s eyes widened in the semidarkness. “Wait a minute. We were eating omelettes and then…how did I get into this position?”
“I don’t quite remember,” Barry said honestly, and opened the bra to reveal small, firm breasts. “Shall we try a replay?”
“No need.” She moaned as his palms caressed her taut nubs. “There’s a…in the drawer. A safe…thing.”
He bent to kiss h
er again, and felt a vibration as their bodies pressed together. “A condom. Yes.” With one hand, Barry fumbled for the drawer.
Even in his fuzzy mental state, he remembered about safe sex. He’d lectured the natives and performed numerous demonstrations in village squares, using a banana.
That was nothing like trying to slip this piece of rubberized frustration over himself while his blood seethed and Chelsea shifted rhythmically beneath him. Her skirt had unwrapped itself, and those tiny silken panties disappeared almost as quickly.
The world had tilted off its axis. Only one act would put it right. Determined to save the universe, Barry gave the condom one more well-meaning twitch and, with a great sense of coming home, entered Chelsea.
FOR A YEAR and a half of self-denial, Chelsea had feared this moment, believing that she was partly to blame for her fiancé’s problems. That there was something wrong with her.
Yet here was Hank, every manly inch of him filling her with shuddering joy. She had never felt more womanly, more in control of her life or more eager to yield. Against all common sense, she trusted this man.
His movements inside her were long and intense. Yet he never tore his eyes from hers, never stopped drinking her in. He kept them connected in every way.
If this was the kind of men that grew in Texas, maybe she ought to move there, she thought vaguely. On the other hand, she preferred to stay right here.
Hank arched over her, licking the points of her breasts, nuzzling her throat and then kissing her again. She wanted more of him, endlessly, but as the thrusting speeded up, her desire demanded release.
Surrendering the last of her inhibitions, Chelsea caught his hips and urged him along. They were flying. What had he called this sensation…jagged? Yes, it was rough and magnificent.
She couldn’t distinguish her cries from his. Maybe there was no difference. They formed one moaning, writhing ball of light, exploding into a shower of brilliant colors and then slipped together into a glimmering, mercurial stream of satisfaction.
Chelsea wrapped her arms around Hank and cuddled against his chest. It was only after a few minutes that she realized he wasn’t wearing a condom.
Her throat clamped shut. She never took chances like this. Besides, she’d seen him put it on.
“Hank?” Her voice trembled.
“Hmmm?” He rolled against her, relaxed and sleepy.
“What happened to the safe?”
She could feel his eyelashes flicker against her cheek as his hand fumbled down below, searching for what wasn’t there. “I’m not sure.”
“You were wearing one, weren’t you?”
“I thought I was.” He didn’t sound alarmed. On the other hand, she recalled, he was still under the influence of whatever drug had been slipped into his drink. “Guess I didn’t put it on right.”
Chelsea hoped to high heaven that he hadn’t put her at risk of catching some kind of weird disease. “I know I’m okay. I haven’t been with a man for a year and a half, and I get annual checkups,” she said. “Have you…I mean, is there any chance that you’ve caught something?”
“I thought I had malaria once, but it was the flu,” he said.
“Malaria?” Chelsea propped herself on one elbow. “Since when do people catch malaria in Texas?”
In the glow through the window, she saw the ivory glint of his smile. “I haven’t been to Texas in years.”
Her stomach sank. The man had fooled her all the way around. “You lied to me!”
“No,” he said. “About what?”
“Being so naive and out of it. Like you didn’t know your way around.” She wished she didn’t sound so vulnerable. That wasn’t the way she pictured herself.
“I am naive and out of it.” His amused tone might have reassured her, if not for the awkward circumstances. “I spent the past two years on an island in the South Pacific. Behaving myself, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Her worries refused to be assuaged so easily. “What were you doing on an island?”
“Serving in the Peace Corps,” the man said. “I’m a doctor. Believe me, I had every medical test in the book before I came back, so you have no cause for concern.”
Two years on an island. He’d just returned and immediately gone to a brand-new nightclub known only to savvy locals?
It was also known to Chelsea’s employer, who’d asked her to recommend a nightspot for his freshly arrived partner. “Hank?” she said.
He slid one arm beneath her, pillowing her head on his strong shoulder. A shoulder that she wasn’t going to be able to lean on, regardless of what happened, she thought with a twist of regret. “Hmm?”
“Your name wouldn’t be short for Hancock, would it?”
Her question had an electric effect on him. He sat upright, nearly knocking her off the bed. “How the heck did you know that?”
“Pleased to meet you.” Chelsea sat up and extended one hand. “I’m Chelsea Byers, your new receptionist.”
3
THE DRUG that had been lazing through Barry’s veins jolted out of his system. In a burst of adrenaline, he saw what a fool he’d made of himself.
His first night back in the States after two years of celibacy, he’d slept with a complete mismatch. The woman might be quick-witted and dynamite in bed, but she wasn’t his type and, he suspected, he wasn’t hers. Now it turned out that she worked in his office.
“Andrew hired a receptionist with purple hair?” he blurted, then felt even more stupid than before, if that was possible.
“It was pink that week,” Chelsea said. “He didn’t hire me, though. Sandy did—she’s the office manager. Believe it or not, I’m a good receptionist.”
“I’m sure you are.” Barry rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m sorry about my remark. Your hair color is none of my business, or Andrew’s, either.”
“Should I call you Hank or do you go by Barry?” Sitting up in bed with her bare breasts peeking over the covers and her lips gently parted, Chelsea looked so irresistible that he wanted to make love to her again.
Resist, you idiot.
“I go by Barry,” he said. “Listen, Chelsea, I’m afraid we got off to a bad start.”
“I wouldn’t call this a bad start.” She gestured at the rumpled sheets.
“We have to work together. This is completely unprofessional.” Barry finger-combed his hair, more from anxiety than from any expectation of neatening it. He felt alert and confused at the same time. Things had never been this complicated on Prego Prego.
Chelsea hopped out of bed and, retrieving a lavender Chinese-style robe, draped it around herself. “Just pretend there are two of me. The one at the office is a complete stranger.”
“I can’t do that because…” Barry stopped, unable to complete the thought because he didn’t know his own mind.
A part of him balked at giving up this unexpected woman. Yet he didn’t want to blunder into a miserable pairing of opposites like his parents.
As he struggled to collect his thoughts, Chelsea strolled toward a ramshackle cinderblock-and-board shelf construction. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”
“Who is it?” Barry hadn’t heard her roommate come into the apartment. In any case, he certainly wasn’t in the mood to meet her now.
“This is Smithee.” After opening the door of a cage he hadn’t noticed before, Chelsea lifted out a small, furry animal.
It hopped onto her shoulder and sat regarding him sharply. The creature was gray, about the size of a squirrel, only more rabbitlike. “What on earth is that?”
“A chinchilla.” Indicating a couple of smaller cages, she added, “That’s Myrtle, the hamster. The other cage is for Oscar, the mouse, but he escaped last night and I haven’t found him yet.”
Barry fought down the urge to check the bed for a furry invader. “You collect rodents?”
“They were all given away by people who got tired of them,” Chelsea said. “If I hadn’t taken them in, they�
�d have been turned loose and fallen victim to a cat.”
Although rodents weren’t his first choice for pets, Barry considered it a good sign that Chelsea liked them. If she was that concerned about animals, she probably wanted children, too.
Children. Oh, heavens, how had he missed the obvious? If he hadn’t been so off-kilter, it would have struck him much sooner. “The condom. The one that went astray. Chelsea, you might be pregnant.”
She stared at him for a stunned heartbeat. Then her expression cleared. “It’s okay. Wrong time of the month.”
“You can’t be certain,” he pointed out. “Ovulation is unpredictable.”
“I hate doctors. They’re such know-it-alls.” She returned Smithee to his cage and put some food inside. “Take my word for it, okay?”
Barry didn’t see that he had much choice. “If it turns out that you are, you can count on me for help.”
“It won’t happen.” After feeding the other animals, Chelsea swung toward him. In the morning light, he could see that her eyes were blue with brown flecks, not purple and black as they’d looked at the club. “By the way, I wanted to warn you about the patients’ mothers. They’re going to fall all over you. A Hancock in their midst!”
“They’ve already got a Hancock in their midst,” he pointed out. “Andrew.”
“He’s married,” she said.
“Aren’t they? The mothers, I mean?”
“Not all,” Chelsea said. “I could advise you on their personalities, if you’re interested.”
Studying her face, Barry decided he especially liked her straight, definitive nose. “I don’t date patients’ mothers. Besides, why should you give me advice on other women? You’re the one I’m involved with.”
She shook her head. “Obviously, we have to call it quits.”
“You don’t want to see me again?” Although he’d been thinking the same thing Barry felt as if he’d had the wind knocked out of him. Chelsea might be all wrong for him, but there was a lot to be said for transitional relationships. “I’m not suggesting anything serious. On the other hand, we shouldn’t give up too easily.”
“It won’t work,” she said. “Tell me something quick. How do you organize your shirts?”
The Doc's Double Delivery & Down-Home Diva Page 3
