Rapid Pulse: A Limited Edition Spicy Romance Collection

by Gina Kincade

  Bending closer, she lapped at the head of his penis with her tongue. “Kate,” he warned, ready to blow. His grip tightened on the steering wheel whitening his knuckles. In answer, she took his entire cock deep into her mouth and sucked hard. “Ah, fuck yes!” He pistoned up fucking her mouth, greedily accepting all she had to offer and taking more.

  Roaring his release, his body stiffened, his cock spilled his seed into Kate’s welcoming mouth. She sucked him dry as tiny shivers and aftershocks continued to rock his body straight to his very soul. That’s when he knew his world was irrevocably changed forever. This woman had completely turned his world upside down in a few short weeks. He slid the truck into his garage and threw the gearshift into park. The question was, what did he intend to do about it?

  Chapter Eleven

  As the weeks progressed, Grant fell in love with Kate a little more every day. With her by his side and in his bed it was easy to go out and face the world. That nagging little voice in his head was all but nonexistent. Her outgoing personality and inquisitive nature were the key to his sanity. And the sex. Grant exhaled a low whistle while he stared out his office window at the downtown Phoenix skyscrapers. The sex was fucking incredible. So far, there hadn’t been anything off limits.

  The only problem in his perfect little domain was the fact Kate still planned on taking that fucking base-jumping trip down to Burro Creek Canyon. He swore loudly and began to pace his office. His next appointment wasn’t due for another fifteen minutes. How the hell was he going to keep her from going? Every time he broached the subject, an argument ensued followed by the most incredible makeup sex. Sometimes he thought he’d just tie her to his bed and keep her there for her own good, but then reality set in and he knew that wasn’t a real solution, as much as the idea appealed to him.

  Kate would argue he was trying to control her, but Grant didn’t see things that way. All he was doing was trying to keep her safe. Couldn’t she see that if anything happened to her... He squeezed his eyes shut, unable to finish the thought. She was too important to him, to his recovery, to keeping his life on track. Why couldn’t she see that?

  A knock sounded on his door before it opened. “You’re 11:30 appointment is here, Dr. Anderson,” his secretary, Doris said.

  “Send him in,” Grant said, rounding his desk. He sighed, determined that tonight he would make Kate see reason.

  KATE LOVED MOVIE NIGHTS with Grant. In her opinion, there was nothing better than broadening someone’s horizons when it came to cinematic classics—namely sci-fi and action adventure flicks. Tonight, she’d hit him with the new Captain America flick. When he’d told her the other day he hadn’t seen it, she’d been aghast asking him if he’d lived under a rock. His answer a noncommittal shrug and it was only then she’d remembered his agoraphobia. Shame had filled her. The poor guy had missed out on so much because of his condition.

  After a night of blissfully naughty sex, he’d confided in her that she was a key component to him being able to reach his goals with his own therapy. That being with her made it easy for him to venture out into the world and had even gone so far to say that if she hadn’t come into his life, he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t have relapsed, moving back into his grandmother’s house. That was when she’d found out that he hadn’t sold the property yet, preferring to hold on to the old place like a security blanket.

  Outwardly she’d been pleased to be such an integral part of his progress, but secretly worried that he placed too much value on her role in his life and wasn’t giving himself enough credit for reaching his goals. He was a grown man, able to stand on his own two feet and conquer the world. Why couldn’t he see the value in himself the way she did?

  She sighed heavily and grabbed the small stepladder that she used to reach the top shelf in her pantry where she kept the extra large bowl she used for the popcorn. A loud burst of thunder clapped overhead. Kate jumped, lost her balance, screamed, and fell. Her head slammed into the tiled floor and blackness consumed her consciousness.

  Chapter Twelve

  Grant heard Kate scream as he was about to knock on her front door. Panic seized him and he pounded. “Kate? Kate, it’s Grant. Let me in.”

  Silence greeted him. Swearing, he grasped the door handle and turned the knob. Locked. Shit!

  With his shoulder, he rammed the door, adrenaline fueling his strength and making him numb to the pain. After what seemed like an eternity, the door flew open on its hinges, propelling him through the threshold on unsteady legs. Righting himself, he shouted Kate’s name over and over looking for her frantically.

  She has to be all right. She just has to be.

  On his way toward the bedroom his glance happened upon a single flip flop lying haphazardly on the tiled floor of the kitchen. Changing directions, he veered off and rounded the kitchen counter and that’s where he saw Kate’s unconscious body in a crumpled heap on the floor in a pool of blood. A small stepladder lay overturned on its side near her body.

  “Kate!”

  For a moment, all Grant could do was stand there, staring, paralyzed with fear. He was transported back into time to that fateful day that had changed his life forever. All the old memories of the fatal crash that had claimed the life of his mother and father crowded in on his mind. The smell of gasoline, the excruciating pain of his own injuries wracking his small body, his mother’s moans before she’d lost consciousness... Worst of all, the empty, blank stares of his parent’s lifeless bodies.

  His body trembled. This is all your fault, the voice sneered in his head. You couldn’t keep her safe, either. She’s dead. Just like your parents.

  “No,” he whispered. “That’s not true.” Grant shook his head hard. “It’s not true,” he repeated, louder this time.

  He rushed to her side and gently probed her body for injuries. There was a large knot and laceration on the back of her head. She must’ve struck her head on the granite countertop when she’d fallen. Yanking out his cell from the back pocket of his jeans, he dialed 911. With his free hand he grasped a kitchen towel from where it hung on the refrigerator door and held direct pressure on the gash to stem the flow of bleeding.

  “911 Operator. What’s your emergency?” the calm female voice said.

  “My girlfriend fell off a step ladder, hit her head, and is unconscious and bleeding. You need to send an ambulance immediately,” Grant said, striving for a calm he didn’t feel.

  “Your girlfriend fell and hit her head, sir?” the woman repeated. “And she’d unconscious and bleeding?”

  “Yes,” Grant snapped. “That’s what I just said. You need to send help right away.”

  “What is your location?”

  “4800 N. Woodmere Fairway, number three, Scottsdale. Please hurry,” he said, barely holding on to his sanity. He’d propped Kate’s limp body onto his chest to elevate her head to decrease intracranial pressure in case she had internal bleeding.

  “An ambulance is on the way, sir. Please remain on the line,” the dispatcher said.

  Grant placed his phone on speaker and set it on the tiled floor. “Kate,” he said. “Baby, please open those beautiful brown eyes. Say something. Anything, please,” he begged, but she remained silent.

  After what seemed like several lifetimes, the paramedics arrived. “Oh, thank Christ, you’re here,” Grant said.

  A young man in his early twenties came through the open doorway of the apartment, followed by a young woman about the same age. They both were dressed in sky-blue short-sleeved shirts, dark navy blue pants, and black utility boots. The male knelt beside them on the floor. There was a Southwest Ambulance emblem on the matching navy baseball cap he wore. He slid a trauma pack off his shoulder.

  “Hi, sir. My name is Joe and this is my partner Jill.” He gestured to his partner who lowered a stretcher to the floor. “What happened here?”

  Grant relayed what he knew, which wasn’t much he thought sourly, and watched the medics work. After a cursory examination, they gently placed Kat
e’s body onto their gurney, secured the seatbelts, then applied the heart monitor leads to her chest and took a blood pressure. Jill wrapped Kate’s head in some sort of gauze bandage while her partner checked a blood sugar level.

  “How long has she been out?” Joe asked.

  Grant scrubbed his chin and thought. “I don’t know. Maybe twenty minutes?”

  “Is she allergic to anything? Taking any medications?” Jill asked, typing furiously on a portable tablet.

  “No on the medications, but I have no idea if she’s allergic to anything. She’s a nurse over at Phoenix General,” Grant said. “Wouldn’t they know?”

  “Only if she’s been a patient there before,” Joe said. “That’s where we will be taking her. It’s the closest facility and they have neurosurgeons there.”

  Neurosurgery? His knees nearly buckled. He grasped the countertop for support. “Can I ride with her to the hospital?” Grant asked.

  Jill and Joe both glanced at each other before Joe slowly shook his head. “No, sorry. That’s against policy.”

  Disappointment stabbed Grant’s chest, he didn’t want to leave Kate’s side. He wanted to kick, scream, and beg them to take him with, but he knew that wouldn’t help his cause. After she was secured in the back of the ambulance and on her way to the emergency room, Grant ran back upstairs to his own condo, grabbed his keys, and that’s when he noticed the blood all over his hands for the first time.

  Kate’s blood.

  An image of her still body on her kitchen floor crashed into his mind. His chest seized and he couldn’t catch his breath. Bending over with palms on his knees, he gasped for air sucking in deep greedy pulls. Horrible thoughts of head injuries with internal bleeding and swelling causing brain herniation and death filled his mind.

  She had to be okay. She just had to be. He couldn’t lose her, too.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Kate’s skull had a major jackhammer pounding into the bone. Her very brain throbbed with the vibration of each spike. She opened her eyes and sat up. Her vision swam and bile rose in the back of her throat. Groaning, she flopped back on the pillow and closed her lids, fresh pain ricocheting through her head.

  “Kate?” Warm, strong hands engulfed her cold ones. “Thank God you’re awake.”

  Slowly, she opened her lids, still nauseous. “Grant?” she said. “What happened? Where am I? And why the hell does my head feel like I’ve undergone a craniotomy with no anesthesia?” She groaned again. “Oh God. I think I’m going to be sick.”

  Her body grew hot and her throat tightened. Then in a rush, the contents of her stomach spewed into the pink plastic bucket Grant placed in front of her. Acid burned the back of her throat as her stomach lurched even though it was empty. Grant said nothing, just held her hair for her and gently rubbed her back. When she was done he offered her a glass of water and she rinsed out her mouth.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, mortified. “That’s gross and you shouldn’t have had to see that.”

  “Sweetheart, you can’t help it. You have one whopping concussion. You’re entitled,” he said.

  “What happened? Where am I?” she repeated. She decided keeping her eyes closed was the best line of defense against the room spinning and nausea.

  “Phoenix General ER,” he answered. “You fell in your kitchen off the step ladder and hit your head.” He frowned. “You don’t remember?”

  Kate shook her head, instantly regretting the action. She winced. “Yikes. That makes my head hurt even more.”

  “You’ve been unconscious for about an hour,” he said scooping up her hand in his once more. “You scared the hell out of me.”

  The anguish in his voice had her lifting her heavy lids. She tried to focus her gaze on his face but try as she might, there were still two concerned Grants staring at her. “I’m so tired,” she said closing her eyes. “And there’s two of you. Did they scan my head?”

  “Yes. No hemorrhage, just a nasty bump, head laceration, and concussion. They’re going to keep you overnight for observation.”

  “Well, that’s something, I guess. Always a win/win if there’s no brain surgery involved,” she joked.

  “Kate,” Grant said his voice sounding angry. “Now you have to see that if you can fall and seriously hurt yourself in your kitchen, then think of what can happen to you if you go base-jumping. I am absolutely forbidding you to go. It’s not safe.”

  “You forbid me?” she repeated his words, fists tightening on the bed linens. “Look, Grant,” she said in clipped tones. She jerked her hand from his grasp. “We’ve only been dating for a couple of months. I certainly don’t care for your controlling attitude. So why don’t you take your domineering self right out that door and don’t come back!” She shouted each word placing another spike into her skull with each syllable. God, she felt like total shit and not just because of her head injury, either. The look of hurt on Grant’s face wrenched her heart.

  “Damn it, Kate. Can’t you see that you could die? That you could’ve died today?” Anguish and terror filled his voice. “I love you, you stubborn, nosey, woman! You’ve made my life worth living again. With you by my side, I can face the world without fear for the first time since I can remember. I don’t know how to live without you. And I won’t let you commit suicide just because you have Boredom Susceptibility seeking needless thrills to fill a void in your life!”

  I love you...

  Kate’s heart stuttered at his words. But she couldn’t do this. Not right now. Maybe not ever as the rest of his words sunk into her pained consciousness and her anger spiked.

  “Now you’re diagnosing me like one of your patients? How dare you! You don’t know me, what I’ve had to put up with in my life. Get out!” she shouted. Her head ached and her nausea was on the rise. Tossing her cookies in front of him once was enough embarrassment to last her a lifetime.

  A stunned look of disbelief etched his strong features. “Kate, wait, that’s not what I—”

  “Leave, now,” she said, tears filling her eyes. “You don’t really love me, Grant,” she said sadly. “In your desperation to be free of your self induced prison, you’ve latched onto me like a lifeline. I’m not your cure.”

  “You’re wrong, Kate, so very wrong. This isn’t over,” he said and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead. “We will talk about this later. Get some rest, love.”

  His tenderness deflated her anger. She shut her heavy lids and tears spilled onto her cheeks. She loved him, too, she realized. How could she have let this happen? Fallen in love with a bossy OCD psychiatrist who thought she was the answer to his problem?

  Chapter Fourteen

  Kate managed to avoid Grant for several days after being discharged from the hospital. It wasn’t as hard of a task as she’d thought it would be considering she worked night shift and he worked regular doctor’s hours Monday through Friday 9am to 5pm. But she couldn’t stay at work forever and there were only so many places she could go on her days off. Her friends were beginning to ask questions. Questions she’d like to avoid. And when he’d started blowing up her phone with text messages and phone calls, she’d just turned the device off. Avoidance really was one of her best qualities. Bitterness sat heavy in the middle of her chest.

  Had Grant been right when he’d accused her of being a thrill seeker? Had she been looking to fulfill a void in her life by doing the dangerous stunts she performed during her downtime? Truth was, she envied others with close-knit families. If she had a mother and father who cared for her and would be proud of her, would she have developed her interests in skydiving, base-jumping, and zip-ling? Oh, she knew others had similar interests, but not a single one of her friends tried reckless things on purpose.

  Boredom Susceptibility. She’d actually gone so far as to look up the term. According to Google, it was the tendency to become easily bored by familiar situations, people, and routine work. That certainly described her to a T. She’d always been restless with life, seeking more.


  She sighed, pulling into her drive. She knew she couldn’t avoid him forever. Searching the parking lot she didn’t see Grant’s truck. Relief swept through her. Score one for her, she thought miserably. Once inside her condo, she stripped off her scrubs, deposited them in the laundry basket, and slipped into her favorite worn oversized Dbacks T-shirt. Exhausted from her double shift in the ER, she fell into bed and let sleep overtake her.

  GRANT DRUMMED HIS FINGER on his large maple desk, lost in thought. How the hell was he going to get Kate to listen to him? He’d be damned if he’d just let her throw away what they had because of her stubbornness. So what if he was bossy? They could work this out and compromise like any other normal civilized adults.

  He could kick himself in the ass for throwing out psych terminology at her, but he’d been so terrified he’d lost her he’d gone back to doing what he’d always been good at. Telling people what to do with their lives. But why did he have to be such an asshole and go all caveman on her? Women didn’t like that. Well, most women, he amended. There were those unusual types of submissive women out there who lived to please, but Kate wasn’t one of those. Not by a long shot.

  So how did he fucking fix this if she wouldn’t answer his calls or text messages? Whatever he came up with it had to be a big, over the top grand gesture. Something that showed Kate that he loved and valued her for being the one woman who’d stolen his heart, body, and soul. But how? He’d learned all of Kate’s rituals, obsessed over them even. There had to be a way to use that to his advantage.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Kate glanced over the vast canyon as she stood on the old Burro Creek Bridge. Helmet in place, gloves on, and her line secured, she was ready to jump. It was almost her turn, but she had yet to feel that old excitement. She cringed when the word thrill popped into her head. The beautiful scenery before her against the streaked colored sky at dusk made her sad. She used to enjoy desert sunsets with Grant on their shared patio with a glass of wine and catch up on their time apart.