“My god, you’re altruistic. You want to derail my plan like some goddamned tree falling over a train track. One grizzly thud. It’ll be glorious. I’ll explode into a mass of floating particles like glitter and wonder, dancing in swirls until I kiss the earth reborn. You’re worse than the religion I grew up brainwashed with. Dipping people in water and calling themselves re-fucking-virginized. Telling prepubescent girls they owed—motherfucking owed—their virginity to God until they married. Don’t you understand how all of that fucked me up? I didn’t have a bump in life. I nearly lost my life and I took the lives of others because of my stubbornness. I trapped him just like my religion trapped me. Be careful.”
She inhales a long, slow breath as I shove my hands through my hair, never letting my gaze leave hers. Then she stands, walks in circles, and shakes a finger and directs a needling glare at me. “You and your perfect life, and career, and family, and untainted childhood. Brave and fearless and…going with your gut like a fucking warrior. And, oh so…damn it to hell! What are you doing in my life anyway? I didn’t ask for you! What the hell do you want? Don’t you have enough patients to heal or whatever the fuck it is you’re trying to do to me?”
She spins, showing her back to me. “I have a plan I need to stick to, and you and your amazingness are ruining it. Because, apparently, for some crazy reason I cannot understand, I am falling in like with you. I don’t know how to be this free. I want you so much but can’t have you, because I know you’ll end up leaving me. Don’t fucking lie to me like he did. They all lied to me. You will leave. Everyone has. They always do.”
Tears run down her face when she looks at me. The connection between us, which produces a fist-like force, charges me, ramming its way through my chest. My calf muscles tighten as I lunge to my feet. But she’s out of reach and closing the door to her side of the tent before I’m able to stop her. The clicking lock on her door is our goodnight.
When I head into my side of the tent, I’m frozen in place. Her silhouette, visible through the canvas, anchors me. She cradles her face, her shoulders shaking. Night’s symphony is the only noise I hear as she silently weeps.
I tap the thick canvas then press my palms to it. “Hey, Happy. I swear I won’t hurt you. I’m okay with everything you’ve told me.”
She sniffles then sinks onto her bed. “I want to believe you,” she says softly. “You captured my heart and now you know.”
I crash onto my bed and watch her figure move with the grace of a swan as she undresses. She has no idea what she does to me.
“I can see all of you right now, and you’re beautiful. Every last inch. Your brain, your heart, your body. And I’m glad you like me. I’m sorry you’re confused about it. But I’m glad you said what you did. And you’re right about all of it. I do want to derail you.”
She rotates and looks toward her door. “You can see me? Oh, my lights. You see my silhouette. Well, that’s not much.” She shrugs. “Whatever. It’s all black.” Her voice is hollow.
“You sleep naked?” I ask as she climbs under her covers and reaches up to pull the chain on the lamp.
“Yeah. I can’t sleep with clothes on, makes me nuts. The only benefit I can recall to wearing PJs in bed is when you move your legs fast and put your head under the covers; it’s like watching fireflies without getting bit by mosquitoes.”
We both chuckle.
I pull the chain on my light so she can see my silhouette. “Tell me what you want.”
Long seconds later, she softly says, “To watch you.”
My pulse races. “You want me to come over there?”
“No, just—”
“I’ll stay here. It’s okay.”
After kicking my boots off and yanking my shirt over my head, I reach for my belt. Slowly, I open it. The metal clinks and the leather slaps together as I tug it through the loops. Then I end the tease with a quick crack. She’s watching, all right. Every last breath she sucks in, she releases as a hiss. I imagine her hands sliding down her body, landing between her legs in a pool of want. In response, I pivot my body to give her a side view, and when I drop my briefs, she gifts me with a gasp.
“You do this to me.” Gripping my shaft, I slide one hand up my erection.
Her shaky breaths and murmurs provide an erotic mood. A nuance of lust that’s building. I’d do anything to go to her, if only she’d ask.
“Yeah?” she says in a low voice.
“Yeah. And I can’t help it.” I continue to stroke myself. “Can’t help this or the words I’ve been saying since we first met. I’m not going to ignore it. Can’t.” I tug my balls as I tighten the grip on my shaft, all the while imagining her on her knees, sucking me off.
She moans out a little sound, a mewl or a purr. My cock twitches.
“Where are your hands?” The words tear from my throat. “Tell me.”
“Hunt,” she whispers.
I want to lay with her, explore and savor her. I want to climb inside this woman and make myself at home. Call her my own.
“Happy, when you were on my exam table the first time—fuck, you were so pink and wet. I wanted to lick you front to back and sink my teeth into your perfect ass. I wanted to follow you home, fuck you all night, then wake up to see my teeth marks on you and lick every wet drop of you all over again.”
“Hunt… Oh, Jesus.”
“Say it.” My voice strains, balls tighten.
I spit into my hand, and fuck if my strokes and her words don’t throw me into a pre-orgasmic state of mind.
“Tell me. Where are your hands? Fuck, I’m so close.”
“Hunt, I—”
Her final cry is a mix of pain and ecstasy. As if she’s flying off the edge of something beautiful and powerful and gut-wrenching, the only response her body offers is a ribbon of emotion. A song, a call, a bewitching chant. What I wouldn’t give to see her face.
Every fiber in my body tightens; my chest muscles and my legs are on fire. My throat aches. Sweat prickles my skin as my blood rises in a wave of heat while my heart pounds for two things.
A release and her acceptance.
Chapter 35
Don’t forget to be awesome
Happy
Hunt crashes onto his bed. God, to hear him call my name, to be so near and the reason he’s come undone. Goose bumps, heart tremors, and other mind-altering sensations I can’t ignore seize my senses. I shiver at the thought of being alongside him. His firm body, the strength and warmth of his flesh informing mine how to respond. His chest pressed to me, our hearts hammering to meet, our uneven breaths and drugged kisses. And yet, I didn’t allow him to come to me.
“You doing okay over there?” he asks, his voice full of depth and concern. He presses a hand against the canvas, traces of wetness bleeding through.
My face flushes, and an all-too-familiar twist in my chest hacks further into my heart as I ache for him. “Hunt, I… Listen, I just…” I’m not sure what I want to tell him.
“Happy. Talk to me, anything.”
My lips all but pounce on the words. I can’t remember a time beyond Sebastian when I’ve wanted to be in someone’s arms so badly. I roll to my side, my open hand finding his. Is it against my will or aligned with it to want him the way I do? Every tingle, in every finger, sends a shock through my nerves. What’s amazing is how powerless I feel, especially now, over my emotions more than anything. The chapped skin on my thumb drags against my tongue as I gnaw it in worry.
“Don’t be afraid of me, please,” he says as if he’s reading my mind.
“How many times can a person endure?”
“As many as it takes. Opening a wounded heart isn’t easy. But you’re learning to be brave. You asked for something tonight. That took nerve.”
“I think I’m going to need more than nerve. I couldn’t even invite you over. I wanted you to charge through the door, to lie by me, but I couldn’t ask.”
“You still can.”
“I can’t tonight, but I lik
ed watching you,” I whisper as I roll closer to the wall, pressing my body alongside the cool, smooth canvas.
He groans and drags his hands down my front. I swallow over nervousness when he stops to stroke my breasts.
“From afar?” he asks.
“It felt close to me,” I answer. His erection is evident as he thrusts against me. “Hunt?”
“Yeah?” His voice, low and rich, reaches inside me with its achy timbre.
“Thanks.”
“For what?”
“You’re an all-right guy.” I’m smiling into pitch-black. Smiling through my fear, at the idea of him, because I’m not sure what else to do.
“Thanks. You’re an all-right girl.”
His voice, certain and full of sensuality, makes all the feelings I have for him explode in a mass-produced bolt of emotions.
“You think so?”
“Yeah.”
“You afraid of the dark?” I ask.
“No, little bluebird. You?”
“Kinda.”
“You sure you don’t want to lie together and get tangled up in Christmas lights?” He nudges me.
I take a long moment to think through his offer. The crackle from the fire, the owl hoots in the distance, and the hum of nighttime insects become a backdrop for my heart, which drums in a high-speed chase between yes-come-over and not-a-chance-that-can-happen.
“Hey, maybe we could doodle birds in costumes and cuddle. I could draw them all over your beautiful body.”
The image of us in my bed entangled in Christmas lights as Hunt draws birds on my body makes me laugh. “Better not. It’s safer with you on that side.”
He chuckles out a sort of I-get-you chuckle. It’s terribly endearing—not that he wasn’t already. “Okay. I’ll stay on my side. Pass me a marker under the wall, and plug your lights in, little bluebird.”
“Give me a sec.” I plug the lights in then grab my journal. After tearing out a blank page, I quickly draw a key with a tag hanging from it. On the tag, I write the words: use with care xo your little bluebird. Then I shove two markers under the wall along with the page.
“Eight-letter word for birth.” I tap on the canvas.
“Delivery?”
“Yep. Mail down under.”
Hunt presses against the canvas as he reaches for the paper and the markers. “Was that meant to be dirty?”
I lean my back against the canvas, and seconds later, Hunt’s warm body presses against mine.
“I’ll let you think it was filthy,” I say as I draw a bird on top of a woman’s head in my journal.
“You’re giving me a key?” he asks softly. “‘Use with care…’ You know I won’t hurt you. I think I’ve told you this twenty times now.”
“Not hurt me deliberately anyway, right?” I poke him in the back.
“I’m not going to hurt you. And, thank you for this.”
“You deserve something. An olive branch. You’ve been such a good boy staying on your side.”
“I’m really not a good boy based on the doodles I’m drawing.”
I imagine him smiling as he sits on the other side of the canvas, nude, while doodling. “Birds and bees?”
He tickles my lower back. “Dirty birds doing dirty deeds.”
“I’m sorry. This is what I’ve done to you. I know what you’d rather be doing. God, I suck.”
He clears his throat. “No, that’s what I want you to do to me.”
“Good thing you’re on that side, Mr. Goodtime.”
“Later, I’ll do dirty finger shadows if you’d like.”
“You already gave me an awfully nice dirty shadow.”
“Suit yourself. So, have you been afraid of the dark since you were a kid?”
“Yeah. I used to make blanket forts in my bedroom and string them up with lights. It made me feel like I was sleeping under stars. Just imagine if stars were all different colors, not just white. Wouldn’t that be amazing!”
“A sky full of happy shine and sparkle. Yes, that would be amazing. Just like you.”
I blush all over. “Just like you.” He really does like something about me. Maybe more than something. What an amazing thing it is to feel breathless and filled with so much emotion about another person that you think your heart might explode. I want to jump out of my skin and stare at myself with the same wonder, to see what he sees, to see the beautiful parts I know exist. Things I’m trying to free.
“I like you, Hunt.”
“I like you too, Happy.”
I’m sure he realizes that this is my fucked-up way of saying, Yeah, sorry if I’m inconveniencing you a little, but you make my heart twitchy in all sorts of unfathomable ways.
Full paragraphs of diatribe force their way through my brain until it surrenders to sleep. I wake up to an arrow of sunlight shooting its way through my room at the very same time Hunt shoots one into my heart, when I realize his palm is pressed against the canvas touching mine.
Chapter 36
Clue~ out of this world *just dandy
HUNT
A knock at the door wakes me. I roll over, grab my watch, and sit up. Six a.m.
“Just a sec.” I flip out of bed. Hopping on one foot and stumbling toward the door, I tug my jeans on.
Happy’s shy smile and half-mast eyes light with mystery as I open the screen.
“Hey. Come on in.”
Her gaze travels from my eyes, to my lips, and down my chest before landing at my zipper. “You’re open,” she says, her face flushing as she motions to my zipper.
“Oops. And commando. Well then, good morning!” I zip my pants.
“I brought you some blueberry muffins. I’m sorry for last night.” She thrusts an open tin of muffins toward me. An invisible cloud of sweet trails up to my nose.
“Well, aren’t you nice. No apologies please. You gave me a couple of nice gifts last night.”
Our eyes meet for a few seconds. “I was up early, went to meet Clara in the kitchen. She’s just lovely, and boy, does she adore you.”
“I kind of figured you two would connect. She’s very special.” I inch toward Happy and lift her chin. “You doing okay today?”
She sucks her bottom lip then smiles as she fidgets with the strap of her bra.
“Yeah, thanks. Was that weird for you last night?”
I touch her mouth with my fingertips, wishing instead it were my lips and my tongue. “If, by weird, you mean sexy, yeah. Weird. I’d like to get even weirder. How about you?”
After she takes my fingers in her hand and studies them for a couple of seconds, she says, “Yes, it was the same kind of weird for me. I liked it. Next time, maybe we could, well…” She pauses, and while running one hand through her messy, golden locks, she says, “Be closer. I would like to try that. Off-road, if you know what I mean. Oh, god, that was stupid. I meant my—”
“I got what you meant. Your plan. I’d like that too. Nothing between us. And you can take that any way you like. Walls or clothes—whatever.”
“Nothing,” she repeats.
Her chest rises in a deep breath. A smile tugs the corner of her mouth. Restraint. I remind myself as I touch her cheek. I could, in this second, gently toss her on my bed and make love to her. Christ, to be in her, nothing between us. Her innocence—fuck, I want to steal it.
“I was wondering. Would you want to spend the day together, doing whatever? Maybe we could go for another ride. Wing it,” she says, her eyes glittering as she grins, and it’s like seeing a live angel.
“I’d love nothing more than to spend the day with you. I have something I’ve been thinking I’d like to show you.”
After over an hour-long ride—most of it on dusty trails and meadows crisscrossed with animal tracks—we arrive at the destination. With the sky about to open, we tie the horses under a lean-to near the barn then walk, laden with food and gear, through overgrown grasses and forgotten rose gardens to the house.
A sun-faded hammock strung between two close
-by trees flips erratically as the ring of wind chimes clatter. Happy’s face lights up as we stare at the ramshackle cottage.
“You brought me to a haunted house?”
“Abandoned.” I clear my throat as she looks around the yard.
Her eyes stop at two red-capped, smiling gnomes peeking out of a bramble of blackberries.
“Not haunted.”
“Like me?” She quirks her brow.
“Beautiful like you, and in need of TLC.”
We push past an unkempt arch of pale-pink, sweetly scented roses to reach the somewhat-rotten staircase, where we drop our things.
Happy backtracks and inhales the roses, humming out a contented sound. “You knew I’d fall in love with it, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, and somewhere along the line, I hope you fall in love with me.”
Her grin catches me off guard. As does the pang in my heart when her gaze, filled with something I’d call interest, meets mine.
Wind swirls around us, sweeping strands of hair across her face in playful, wispy tendrils. A gentle patter of rain lands on her cheeks, and her voice cracks as she says, “I want to see what abandoned-meets-beautiful looks like in your eyes.”
“I want to say the same to you. Let me in a little more today, okay?” I step toward her, gripping her shoulders then run my hands down her arms. I linger at her wrists, feeling her pulse on my thumbs, until our fingers entwine.
Her eyes mist. “You really see something in me, don’t you?”
“So much, and I only want to see more.”
We still as cracks of lighting blaze across the sky and rain falls in sheets. I move close to her lips, our breaths mingling. I could scare her away or I could claim her, or I could a thousand other things her. Love.
“Hunt.” She lets my hands go and touches my jaw with her fingertips. “You make me feel weak.”
“I want to make you feel strong like I see you.”
“Weak in a good way. Strong too. You make me shiver and blush and—”
Of Winged Creatures & Nesting Grounds: (A Quirky, Sexy, Dirty Doctor Romance) Page 16
