Harlequin E Contemporary Romance Box Set Volume 3: Falling from the SkyMaid to LoveWhen the Lights Go DownStart Me Up

by Sarina Bowen

  Callie stopped him. “You can use that if you want to, but…”

  He eyed her, fingering the packet. “We don’t need this?”

  She shook her head. “I’m clean and protected against pregnancy, and you’ve had every medical test in the book. And I thought…” She cleared her throat. “They diminish sensation.”

  With a chuckle, he tossed the condom across the room. Then he covered her with his body, his forehead pressing against hers. “Callie, I did something really presumptuous earlier.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I took a pill.” His lopsided grin was wicked.

  “I guess it wasn’t an aspirin?”

  His dark eyes flashed as he kissed her. “No.”

  “Something your urologist gave you?”

  “Mmm-hmm,” he said, his teeth nipping at her lower lip. “And for best results, I need to give it another ten minutes to take effect. I wonder if I can think of a good way to spend the time?” He hitched a bit lower down her body, treating her nipples to more of his worship.

  Heat surged between her legs, and she pressed her hips up against him.

  “You know,” he broke off to slide a bit lower, kissing her belly. “There’s one part of me that was never injured.”

  “What?” she gasped, the weight of him delicious on her body.

  “My tongue.” He began to kiss his way past her belly button, his lips pausing to close around one hip bone. And then they slid lower, toward the inside of her thigh.

  “Oh jeez,” she gasped. She felt herself tense up.

  He lifted his head. “Not a fan?”

  Callie sucked in oxygen. She looked down, stunned at the sight of those gorgeous brown eyes looking up at her from between her legs, and those powerful, inked shoulders hovering between her knees. She flopped her head back against the pillow. “I…I really have no idea if I’m a fan.” Nathan had never offered to kiss her there. And whatever drunken exploits she’d undertaken in college were long forgotten.

  He made a clucking sound against the inside of her thigh. “Well, then you’ll think about it while I taste you. And you can give me your opinion when I’m done.”

  Callie forced herself to press back against the sheets. At first, his mouth worshipped only the tender skin of her inner leg, and so she relaxed. But while he sucked gently on her thigh, his thumb slid over to trace a lazy circle around her aching bud. She let out her breath in one big gasp. Then, while his thumb wandered down to slick a path around her opening, he moved his lips to the very top edge of her mound, where he dropped gentle kisses that left her quivering with anticipation. One finger teased its way inside her, and just as she was processing how glorious that felt, his tongue slid slowly onto her clit.

  “Oh, my God,” she gasped.

  His chuckle was muffled by her…jeez. But she sucked in another lungful of air and decided to be embarrassed about it later. He backed off for a second while she caught her breath. But then his sneaky fingers crooked deeper inside her, and he lowered his mouth onto her body again. She saw speckles on the insides of her eyelids.

  “Oh, sweet Jesus…” she whispered.

  “That’s right,” he said between licks. “Mmm.”

  She shivered as every nerve ending in her body stood at attention. Her hips rolled toward him—it would have been impossible to keep them still. Hank’s mouth picked up a delicious pace, drowning her in sensation. After only a minute or so, she was so close. How was he so good at this? The question stuttered her enjoyment. His nickname said everything, didn’t it? He was going to be Hazardous to her heart. But then he did something that made her forget that pinprick of worry. He closed his lips around her clit and gently sucked.

  A cry stuck in her throat as her body suddenly squeezed Hank’s fingers. Callie rolled her hips in ecstasy as her climax broke over her, pulsing through her in waves. When she couldn’t take it anymore, he gentled his touch. His two thumbs slowly smoothed down her wet mound. Then he placed his lips lightly on her body for one last, tender kiss.

  Wrung out, Callie lay still as he crawled back up to lie next to her. He stroked her cheek with the pad of one damp thumb. “I owed you one from that toe curler you gave me on the massage table.” He chuckled. “I’m still thinking about that day.”

  She smiled at him, but her heart gave a painful squeeze. For Hank, this was all about gratification—about pounding hearts and curling toes. But Callie knew she would never get this night out of her head, or her heart. Those flashing dark eyes and that lopsided bad-boy smile would forever be burned on her heart. So would the sight of those sculpted shoulders between her thighs.

  Nobody else would ever compare. The Nathans of the world would never be enough anymore.

  Callie skimmed Hank’s exquisite chest with her hands and tried not to care too much.

  * * *

  Hank pulled Callie close, stroking her back while she recovered. She lay sweet and flushed in his arms, and he was enjoying every moment. He hadn’t had sex for the better part of a year, and he was bursting for it. But really, what was another ten minutes between friends? Tonight he would get there. And if for some reason it didn’t work, he would talk her into trying again tomorrow. He was through with worrying.

  And anyway, Callie was a girl to go slow with, to savor. His days of banging a strange girl in the bathroom of a bar were over, and it had taken him almost a year to discover that he didn’t actually care. All that time without intimacy—and fearing himself incapable of it—was a surefire way to remember what it was really for. If you did it right, sex was as close as you could be to someone. And here in his bed was the woman he most wanted to be close to. He pressed his face into Callie’s hair and breathed deeply.

  After a time, she shifted position, reaching her hand down to stroke his cock, which miraculously was still hard. Hank sent out silent prayers of gratitude to whichever big pharmaceutical company was playing wingman tonight.

  No fear, he reminded himself. Before last December, Hank had never had any trouble with courage. Failure was his friend. For every trick that Hank had landed in competition, he’d face-planted two dozen times beforehand. And he’d always been cool with that. When he’d found a boundary that his body did not seem to want to cross, he’d only become more determined to make it work.

  Until recently.

  He’d let his shock and fear take over. And the result was pure disaster. Anxiety hadn’t done him any favors. In fact, anxiety had made him act like an ass.

  But no more. Hank closed his eyes and sank into the sensation of Callie’s touch. Things didn’t feel exactly the same as they had before his accident. But now that he wasn’t panicking anymore, he was capable of saying that they felt pretty damned good. This new version of arousal was more like a slow burn than a tinderbox. Either way, he was hot for her, and the anticipation had his stomach muscles tightening as her soft hand stroked him.

  “Mmm,” he said, taking her touches as an invitation. He rolled over, blanketing her body with his own.

  “You feel good up there,” she breathed.

  He kissed her slowly, settling his hips against hers. The air was heavy with anticipation between them. “I want you, Callie. Can I have you?”

  She nodded, cupping her hand around the nape of his neck.

  It took him a moment to organize his wayward legs between hers. Then he pressed up on one arm, using his other hand to guide himself toward home. How many times had he done this in his lifetime? He had no idea. All he knew was that he had never once appreciated it as much as he did right now. “Callie…” he whispered as the crown of his cock sank inside. Without a condom, all the wet velvet of her body seemed to drink him in.

  Her sexy, hooded eyes held his as he slowly pushed inside. She was so warm and tight that he had to close his eyes and draw another deep breath. She spread her legs to take him all the way in, and he stretched her until he was seated to the hilt against her body.

  And then, overwhelmed, he dropped his face into t
he comfort of her hair.

  “Hello, gorgeous,” she murmured, one hand stroking the nape of his neck. Then two hands skimmed down his back. He felt her fingertips sweep downward toward the supersensitive band at his waist, and he shivered in her arms. So slowly as to be torturous, she did it again.

  God, there was nothing better than this.

  With a growl, he reared up to claim her mouth for his own, tasting her and sliding his tongue against hers. He pressed his forearms down on the bed and used his triceps to rock his body back and forth over hers until she began to whimper with gratitude.

  “Callie,” he rasped. “I don’t think I can go slow. The first time is going to be fast and sweaty.”

  “Do it,” she gasped.

  “Do what, gorgeous?” He looked into her eyes and smiled. If he could get her to ask him to fuck her again, he would be only too happy to say yes.

  But she only narrowed her eyes, then reached a hand down to slap him on the ass.

  With a chuckle, he dropped a quick kiss onto her pouting mouth. “All right, even if you won’t ask, I’m still going to make you yell my name.” Her eyes went a little wide at the dirty talk, and her cheeks flushed pink. God, she was terrific. And she was gorgeous, and he was the lucky bastard buried deep inside her.

  Unbelievable.

  Hank stretched one arm overhead, grasping the rail of his modern iron headboard. He used the handhold as an anchor, thrusting deeper into her, quickening his pace. Beneath him, Callie’s breath came in gasps. He gentled his motion, slowing down. “Too much?”

  “No, don’t stop,” she panted, pressing her hips up against him.

  He couldn’t help but give a loud groan of happiness. Bending his arm again, he drove into her. Every stroke felt richer than the last. Callie was here in his bed at last, holding him with every part of her body, her sweet breath on his skin, her warmth seeping into his very soul.

  There had never been a more perfect moment in his life. All his frustrations fell away, replaced by a potent cocktail of affection and triumph. Every part of him—even the scars he carried on his body and in his heart—came alive for this moment. All his prior suffering was here with him, too, every bit of it feeding and stoking today’s pleasure. Until now, he hadn’t understood that one made the other so much sweeter.

  As he moved, Callie splayed her fingers out against both sides of his torso. Each slide of his body caused her fingertips to drag like rakes onto his sensitive waist. The effect made him shiver. “Harder,” he bit out. Her fingertips became fingernails, and he nearly hollered at the thrill of it.

  “God, kiss me,” she breathed.

  He plunged his tongue into her mouth, and she arched off the bed with a moan. Her breaths became gasps. He kept up his end of their excellent bargain, pumping against her beautiful body, kissing her as if his life depended on it. And in a way, it did. Somehow he’d arrived at this point, in spite of his own fear and stubbornness. Callie was handing him his life back, and he didn’t even deserve it.

  Then she clung to him, crying out with each stroke. And the sound of her climax detonated him. He felt his balls tighten and his hips buck, while a furious tingle spread through his pelvis. And then he was pouring himself into a woman for the first time in almost a year. “Oh Jesus,” he gasped. “Finally.” He clenched again and again before finally collapsing onto his forearms, panting into Callie’s neck.

  And then all was still; the only sounds were their own quick breaths. Still inside her, he licked a bead of sweat from Callie’s collarbone. She put a hand over her face and turned her head. But he lifted it and looked into her eyes. “Still with me, gorgeous?”

  Callie smiled, breathing hard. “That was intense.”

  He touched his lips to hers. “I think we both needed that. Very, very badly.” Reluctantly he disengaged, sliding down to her side, gathering his girl into his arms and holding her close. “Callie. There aren’t even words for how I feel right now.”

  In answer, she gave only a happy sigh.

  Hank closed his eyes and felt more peace than he had in a very long time.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Curled up in Hank’s arms, Callie felt blissed out. Hank traced gentle circles on her back with his fingertips. Eventually, his hand dragged across her waistline, under her belly button. The sensation made her shiver. “Right here,” he said, his voice hoarse. His fingers drew a horizontal line across her belly. “It’s the weirdest thing. When you touch me here, it makes me crazy. It’s almost embarrassing.”

  She twined her fingers through his. “As a kink, needing to have your waist tickled isn’t so outrageous. Not when there are people who use whips and chains. Or shove pieces of fruit into their orifices.”

  “Fruit? Are you shitting me?”

  “When you work next door to the E.R. for a couple of years, you see some things.”

  He laughed, and she snuggled into his body. His fingers stroked a lock of her hair across his chest. “I always wondered how your hair would feel right here,” he murmured. “The answer is: awesome.”

  But Callie had become distracted by thoughts of the hospital. “Hank,” she whispered. “This job I applied for in California…”

  He moved fast. Before she knew what was happening, he found her lips with his. After a lingering kiss, he said, “Every time you bring that up I’m just going to kiss you again.”

  She returned the kiss, taking the hint. It wasn’t really the time to discuss it, was it? She had just had the best sex of her life, and the important conversations could just wait a few more hours.

  Outside Hank’s window, the sky had blackened, and they were still wrapped in the wonderful cocoon of one another. She enjoyed the feel of his lips grazing her brow line, and the rock-hard muscles of his painted chest. But then, even through the fog of post-coital bliss, Callie was sure she heard footsteps on the other side of the bedroom door. “Um, Hank…?”

  He shifted quickly, yanking the comforter up over the two of them. Callie froze as she heard a quick knock, followed by a man’s voice. “Hazardous? Are you in there?”

  Hank lifted his head to answer. “Give us a few minutes, man.”

  “Christ!” an oddly familiar voice said. “Typical Hazardous.” She heard a chuckle move away from the door again.

  “What the hell?” Callie whispered. “Are you having guests, Hank? Why didn’t you say anything?”

  He wiggled his eyebrows. “Because I was trying to get you into my bed, Callie. What fool would mention company?”

  She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “This is going to be awkward. Is there a back door I can sneak out of?”

  “Don’t you dare,” he chuckled. “We’re all friends here.”

  She looked around his shoulder again, toward the door. But it was shut. “How do you figure?”

  Hank leaned down, touching his forehead to hers. “You know who that was, right?”

  She shook her head.

  “That was Dane. They’re staying with me.”

  “What?” She wiggled out from under him, sitting up. “Willow is here, too? How do I not know this? Oh…” She palmed her forehead. “There was a voice mail and three texts.”

  Hank gave a belly laugh. “The good doctor is behind on her messages.”

  “I’ve been a little preoccupied.”

  “With what?” He lifted his head and sucked her nipple into his mouth.

  “Oh, my God,” Callie fell back onto the pillows. “Please stop. I can’t think when you do that.”

  “Thinking is overrated.” He gave her other breast some of the same before sitting up. “But I guess it would be rude if I didn’t greet our guests. Though I bet Dane has already found the beer.”

  Callie put her face in her hands. “Can I jump in your shower for a minute? Or, like, three hours? That’s how long it will take to compose myself.”

  He wrapped his arms around her waist. “Only if you promise to stay here tonight. I’m not ready to let you go.”

 
Hank waited until he heard the shower running before wriggling into his jeans. Once dressed, he wheeled into the living room. “Sorry about that.”

  Dane grinned at him from over the rim of a can of Heady Topper. “Don’t apologize, man. I should have known better than to go around knocking on doors. I forgot who I was dealing with.”

  “No kidding.” Hank couldn’t resist adding this bit of bravado, even though Dane could have wandered through his bedroom every day for the past eleven months without finding anyone inside other than his lonely ass. “Hey, Dane? Be cool to her, okay? It’s a new thing.”

  “When am I not cool?” Dane winked.

  Willow came in the front door then, carrying a very sleepy toddler. “She didn’t want to wake up. Hi, Hazardous!” She ran over and planted a kiss on his cheek. Then she looked around. “Where’s Callie? I saw her car in the driveway.”

  At that, Dane choked on his beer.

  “Are you okay?” Willow trotted over to pat her man on the back, but he began to grin even as he sputtered.

  “Callie?” Dane coughed.

  Hank shook his head. “I told you to be cool, dude.”

  Dane threw back his head and laughed. “It’s always the quiet ones.”

  “What’s so funny?” Willow demanded. “Where’s Callie?”

  “You might check the bedroom,” Dane grinned, pointing with his beer can.

  Willow’s eyes grew wide with understanding. Without a word, she handed the little girl to Dane, who took Finley in one arm. Then she headed for the bedroom door. “Callie?” she said, knocking twice. Then she opened the door and disappeared behind it.

  * * *

  When Callie came out of Hank’s bathroom, Willow was sitting on the corner of the bed, just a few feet from the scene of the crime. “Callie,” she said. “Last time we spoke I asked you ‘what’s up,’ and you said ‘nothing.’ You’re not a shoo-in for Best Friend of the Year if you leave the good stuff out.” Callie could tell she was fighting off a smile.