by Julie Miller
“It sounds lonely to me.” He dipped a finger beneath her chin and tipped her face up to his. She felt the warm fan of his breath across her cheek and lost herself in the depths of his eyes. “You don’t know what to make of me, do you? You’re attracted to me but you can’t explain why. You need me, but it doesn’t make sense to you. I came into your life and busted up your little plan, didn’t I? Because I don’t play by your rules.”
He lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her, a chaste, lingering kiss that gave her permission to either pull away or deepen the kiss. When she didn’t immediately respond, he moved his lips to the apple of her cheek. To the soft bend of her brow. They were gentle kisses. Soothing kisses. Rachel let her eyes drift shut as she succumbed to his seductive magic.
“If I played by your rules—” his lips grazed the tip of her nose, and when she laughed in response, he stopped up her open mouth with a kiss “—we never would have met.”
His tongue wet the bow of her lips and she trembled in response. “Josh…?”
“Tell me what you want.” He nibbled her mouth. “Forget the rules and tell me exactly what you want.”
She felt herself melting into his touch. “I…” She tilted her chin back and stretched her neck, trying to catch her breath and a sane thought.
“There?” He pressed his lips to the long column of her throat. “Do you want me to kiss you here—?”
His tongue dipped into the hollow at the base of her throat, and Rachel moaned as an invisible line of warm honey gathered in the spot and lapped outward in a gentle, consuming heat.
“You like that, hmm?”
She felt him smile against her tender skin, felt a matching smile form on her own lips. “Josh?” She was an expert at relationships and communication. She knew the first rule was identifying her feelings. Admitting them. “I am scared.”
He was busy unbuttoning the top of her tunic, pushing the knit aside with his nose and kissing each new revelation of bare skin. But he stopped and looked at her, nestling her snugly in his arms. “Are you scared of me?”
“I’m scared I’m going to get hurt when all is said and done.”
“Not by me.” He leaned back and spread his left hand across the curve of her belly. “I swear on this baby’s life—not by me.”
She covered his hand with both of hers where it rested. She believed the quiet promise in his voice, the sincerity in his eyes. She believed the gentle grin on his mouth. Now she just had to believe in herself.
“Kiss me, Josh.”
His grin flashed into that devilishly irresistible smile. “If you insist.”
He bent down and claimed her lips. It was a slow, thorough, painstakingly mind-blowing kiss of promise. Of reassurance. Of need and desire.
Rachel let her hands slide to his shoulders, and she hung on as he moved the seduction along her jaw and down her throat.
A funnel opened inside her and the languid, liquid heat he ignited inside her tumbled down to the achy juncture between her thighs. “You have such beautiful skin,” he praised her. His tongue stroked the shadowed valley between her breasts. “You smell like peaches. Peaches and cream.”
His hands had slid down her back to cup her bottom. He squeezed and lifted her onto her toes, slipping his thigh between hers. When he rubbed against her down there, Rachel’s fingers clenched. Her thighs clenched. Her entire body clenched with the sudden, potent possibilities he was making her feel.
“Why, Josh? Why are you doing this?” She framed his face between her hands and brought him back up to eye level.
His eyes were a deep, midnight blue, drowsy with passion. He smiled and his magic lips moved closer to claim hers. “Because you’re a desirable woman. Because I’ve been wanting to do this for weeks.” He pulled back just far enough to watch her eyes. “And because you want it, too.”
Rachel was nodding. “I do.” She leaned forward and kissed him. He grinned at her bold initiative. “I’m afraid of how much I do.” She kissed him again. He caught her to him and lifted her right off the floor.
By the time he had her sprawled in his lap on the love seat, the gentle seduction was gone from their kiss. At her willing invitation, a clutching, needy passion blazed between them. “Take off your shirt.”
His fingers bumped hers as they raced to undo buttons. They untucked, pushed sleeves off shoulders. “Now yours,” he demanded.
They kissed at every opportunity. Searing, slaking, pulsating kisses. Quick. Slow. Eager.
“Touch me,” she begged.
“I need you,” he said hoarsely against her mouth.
Her tunic hit the floor and then his hands were on her breasts. Big hands. Gentle hands. Hands that cupped and squeezed and kneaded the full, aching tips through the lace of her bra. And then his mouth was there, nuzzling and nipping. Then again on bare skin as he pushed the bra aside.
Rachel traced the hard contours of his chest. Drank in the heat and taste and smell of his bare skin. She loosened his belt and jeans. Then he was standing with her in his strong arms. Linking his mouth to hers as he set her down. Toying with her breasts as she moaned with pleasure.
They left a trail of clothes and shoes and inhibitions behind as they made their way to the bedroom.
When they were naked, Josh lay down on the bed beside her. He stroked his hand across her belly and kissed her neck, stringing her taut with frantic desire, and easing her lingering fears.
“Will the baby be okay?”
She covered his hand with hers, touched by his concern. “We can’t put direct pressure on her. And you’ll have to wear, uh… Oh, no. I didn’t even think of that.”
Josh kissed her soundly on the mouth and came up grinning. In his right hand he waved a small foil packet. “I’ve got you covered, Doc. So to speak.”
She stroked her fingers across his strong, handsome mouth and gazed into eyes that were fiery with passion, yet gentled by some sweet inner light that spoke to the heart of her woman’s soul. “I haven’t done this for so long. I wish—”
“Shh.” He kissed her fingertips, then kissed her. “I’ve never done it like this. So fast. So perfect. I’m dying to be inside you right now, Rachel.” When he pulled back, the expression on his face was uncharacteristically serious. “Is this what you want?”
She did want to feel this way again. She wanted to feel like a woman. His woman.
“This is crazy,” she whispered, wanting to believe in the approval and desire in his eyes. “I’ve never done crazy before.”
“You haven’t been with me before.” His matter-of-fact statement bespoke confidence, not ego. It spoke promise, not doubt.
“Josh. What if I can’t—?”
“You can.” He stopped her protest with a deep, drugging kiss. The hand on her abdomen slipped lower, until he cupped her most tender center. Her thighs clenched around him, her body heating like a steaming kettle at each stroke of his fingers. His mouth dropped to tease her tight, sensitive breasts. With his hand and mouth he brought her to the brink of paradise.
And when she thought she would burst with the pleasure her body had been too long denied, he rolled her onto her side and entered her from behind. With one hand hugging her breast, the other cradling the precious miracle she carried, he pressed his lips to her neck and plunged inside.
He took her far beyond her cautious dreams, far beyond her fears. And when he thrust inside her one final time and ignited her explosive release, Rachel cried out with the sheer bliss of being a woman. Josh’s woman. His only woman.
JOSH AWOKE to the touch of a tiny shove against his stomach and the weight of a beautiful sleeping beauty draped against his side.
He ignored the first long enough to visually appreciate the lush contours of Rachel’s ultrafeminine body.
This was how it should be between them. No holds barred. No rules. No reservations.
In Rachel’s heart, she had to know the same thing. That a man and a woman this in tune with each other’s wants and needs belon
ged together.
There was no psychology to explain the connection they shared. It just was.
It was the kind of connection that should withstand outside threats and demanding jobs and an age difference.
The baby punched again, telling Josh in no uncertain terms that he needed to move out of her way. He grinned. There was another Livesay female he’d have to open up to another way of thinking.
He pressed a kiss to the crown of Rachel’s hair. He kissed his fingers and touched them to her belly. Then, moving slowly so as not to wake her, Josh slipped out of bed and went in search of their scattered clothes.
As he stepped into the living room, the phone rang. After Rachel’s stressful night—and physically demanding morning—the woman needed her sleep. Josh ran back into the bedroom and picked up the phone on the second ring.
“Livesay residence.”
Rachel awoke to the energetic greeting in Josh’s low voice. Before even opening her eyes, she sighed in deep contentment. He was taking care of her again.
“Who is this?” he asked, apparently repeating the caller’s question.
Her eyes snapped open. Caller? Question? Her contentment vanished as if turned off by a light switch.
She reached for her covers. Oh God. They were tangled at her feet. She was lying in her bed, completely naked! Her lumbering pregnant body exposed for all the world to see.
“Could I take a message, Dr. Jeffers?”
“No.” Rachel sat up. Dean Jeffers? Josh smiled down at her, listening to whatever message the dean was giving him. She tried to scoot to the edge of the bed, but the baby wouldn’t cooperate. Why hadn’t he let the answering machine pick up? It was ten in the morning, for goodness sake. How could she explain having a man in her condo? She wasn’t equipped to deal with this right now.
A lot of years had passed since her disastrous marriage. A lot of years had passed since she’d made love. That was a lot of years to be overcome by a single morning of blissful passion.
Finally, she got up the only way she could, by rolling onto her hands and knees and crawling to the edge of the bed. Any memory of her restful sleep was erased by the panicked feeling of being caught where she shouldn’t be. She snatched the phone from Josh’s hand.
“Give me that.”
With a reeling lack of grace, she stumbled to her feet and put the phone to her ear. “This is Dr. Livesay.” She tugged at the corner of the sheet, but the damn thing was caught under the corner of the mattress and wouldn’t budge.
Frantically, she looked around for her robe. It must still be hanging behind the bathroom door.
“Rachel?” William Jeffers’ voice rasped with a timbre somewhere between confusion and concern. “I want to see you in my office. As soon as possible.”
She spotted the chambray shirt in Josh’s hand and grabbed it. She clutched it to her chest, letting the length of his shirttails cover her breasts and baby in a tardy show of modesty. “What’s this about?”
She could hear the dean tutting. “I don’t want to do this over the phone,” he said. “Please.”
“I’ll be there in about thirty minutes.”
“Good.”
As soon as she hung up, Rachel slipped her arms into the sleeves of Josh’s shirt and hooked a couple of strategic buttons. She rolled the extra inches of sleeve length above her wrist. Seeing her panties lying in the doorway, she grabbed them and tugged them on. Then she found her leggings, her bra, her sweater.
She had everything but her boots on in record time. And it wasn’t until she’d zipped the boots that she realized Josh had been watching her the whole time. Standing in the doorway to her bedroom. Outrageously sexy. Gloriously naked. A young buck in the prime of his life.
“I guess the rules are back in place, huh?”
“Josh, please. The dean still thinks you’re one of my students. We have to act as if you still are, right? I’m sorry.” She gestured toward the bedroom behind him. “That should never have happened. It was wonderful. But I shouldn’t have let it happen. Someone could find out.” She glanced at the phone on the end table. “I think someone just did.”
“You mean someone could find out that a healthy, beautiful woman is sleeping with a man who’s falling in love with her?”
“No.” Rachel felt herself go still with shock. Completely still, except for the foolishly active baby in her belly whose rolls and punches seemed to be cheering the announcement. “Don’t say that. You’re too young to know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m a man, Doc. Not a kid.”
“I’m sorry. Something’s up with the dean. I can’t deal with this right now. I’m sorry.”
Neither arguing nor accepting her apology, he moved. In two long strides he stood in front of her. Before she could guess his intent, he reached out with one hand and palmed the back of her head. He lifted her up to his mouth and kissed her. Soundly.
He released her just as quickly. She rocked back on her heels. He grabbed his T-shirt from the sofa and started to dress.
“Think about this, Doc.” His eyes, looking tired and strangely ancient beyond his years, never left her. “Are you sure you regret this morning because you’ve been caught in flagrante delicto with a so-called student? Or are you worried that the truth will take away your best excuse for pushing me out of your life?”
“WHY DID YOU GO to the dean?” Rachel demanded, blocking Curt Norwood’s path as he came out of his lecture class.
“Good afternoon to you, too.”
“Forget the pleasantries, Curt.” Several stragglers filed out of the lecture hall, forcing Rachel to step aside. But she wouldn’t let him go without an explanation. “I’ve just been ‘strongly cautioned’ by Dean Jeffers to watch my moral and ethical behavior. Why on earth would you tell him I might be risking my personal life and professional career?”
“Because you wouldn’t listen to me.” Curt folded his coat over the crook of his arm and headed down the hall toward his office.
Rachel fell into step beside him. “Your accusations are slanderous.”
“I have it on good authority that your young friend, Mr. Tanner, is running with a pretty dangerous crowd.”
“What are you talking about?”
Curt pushed open the door to his secretary’s office and invited Rachel to precede him in. He hung his coat on the rack next to the door and offered to take Rachel’s. She impatiently went through the motions of letting him take her hat and coat, simply because he refused to say anything more until they’d gone through the standard niceties shared by old friends. He set his bag on the secretary’s desk and checked a stack of messages before continuing.
“Last night he was seen at a club downtown, accepting a large sum of money.”
“Maybe he works there.”
“Only if he sells drugs. Or takes them. It’s that kind of place.”
Rachel’s eyes widened in shock. Hearing Josh say he was a cop and hearing details of the sort of undercover work he was doing were two different things.
Last night at the hospital it had frightened her to think about how easily Josh stepped into dangerous situations. Taking three men on in a fight. Subduing a crazed drug addict without harming the youth. Would he step in front of a bullet to protect someone? Take on an entire army of drug dealers?
And she’d never seen Josh armed. The only weapon she’d noted was the gun locked in his truck. The one she had foolishly thought he’d hurt her with.
She’d tracked down Curt on his way out of class intending to defend herself against the dean’s suggestion that she was spending an inappropriate amount of time with one certain student. That, because of concerns reported by Professor Norwood, he felt compelled to reprimand her about spending any more private time with said student.
Instead, she found herself defending Josh against Curt’s allegations. “Josh Ta— Tanner isn’t a drug addict. He’s too bright, his eyes too clear. He’s too health-conscious to be involved with that kind of thing.”<
br />
“Maybe.” Curt pursed his lips as if trying to hold back an unpleasant comment. He guided Rachel to the chair behind the secretary’s desk. “I heard about Kevin Washburn’s episode yesterday. He’s one of my advisees.”
The one you refused to listen to when he tried to ask for help.
“Someone had to have sold him that meth. Guess who his newest friend is on campus.” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “Josh Tanner.”
“Josh doesn’t sell drugs.”
“How do you know?”
“He’s a good man—” she lowered her voice and corrected herself “—a good kid. He helped me with a flat tire the other night.”
“In the middle of the night? What was he doing on campus then?”
“He had been at a party.”
Curt nodded his head as if that revelation proved his point.
Rachel crossed her arms. What was she supposed to do now? Did Curt’s deduction mean that Josh was doing his job well? Or did it mean that he was in danger? Oh God. She didn’t want to care about this. She didn’t want to care about Josh.
But she did.
He might walk out of her life and break her heart tomorrow, but that didn’t stop her from caring today. Josh was right. She was too paranoid to let the relationship between them happen. Too frightened to take a chance on happiness because of the hurt that was sure to follow.
Curt softened his expression with an indulgent smile. Misinterpreting the cause of her extended silence, though recognizing the sadness and confusion she must be projecting, he took her hands in his and sat down on the edge of the desk. “Rache. If you’re in some kind of trouble because of this Tanner kid…”
“Trouble?” How could her life be any more troubled? The dean considered her a scarlet woman. Her baby’s father was spying on her. Rachel’s breath caught in a silent gasp as her rational mind took over the confusion in her heart. Spying. She raised her gaze to Curt. “How do you know Josh accepted a payment at a club downtown?” She eased the accusation with a bit of humor. “Were you out cattin’ around last night?”
Did she imagine the tension that momentarily stiffened his shoulders? In an unexpected show of tenderness, Curt raised her hands to his mouth and kissed them. “I don’t cat around, Rache.”
