by J. S. Scott
Snapping the planner closed, he slid it into the pocket of his suit and rolled her chair back, her delectable ass still planted in it, just enough to slide one arm under her knees and the other behind her back. “Time for bed, Maddie,” he whispered in a husky voice.
“Tired,” she said, irritated. “Go away.”
Sam glanced at Maddie’s face as he stood with the petite bundle of femininity in his arms. She hadn’t even opened her eyes. But she was still feisty. Head resting against his shoulder, she stirred, her arms creeping around his neck instinctively to make herself more comfortable. “Can’t carry me. I’m too fat,” she protested, her words slurred as if drunk.
Maddie’s comment was so ridiculous that Sam grinned at her, raking his eyes over her body as he shifted her weight against his chest. She had a body made for sin, a body that had always been the most unholy temptation he had ever seen. Sam liked a woman with curves, and Maddie had them in abundance. Her breasts would fill a man’s hands, and her skin was like silk. That ample, curvaceous ass was firm, and he got hot just fantasizing about those shapely thighs wrapped around his waist, Maddie urging him to fuck her. Just the feel of her softness against him made his cock strain against the zipper of his pants, eager to bury itself inside her, lose himself in that petite, curvy body.
Maddie never did like her body even though she’s my ideal.
He chuckled as he snagged her purse from the back of the office chair, placing it on her abdomen as he strolled out of the office and to the lobby. Stopping at the locked door, he waited for security to open the outer door, putting his mouth to Maddie’s ear. “You have the body of a goddess, Sunshine,” he told her in a low, graveled voice, knowing she wasn’t coherent, but needing to tell her regardless.
“Too fat,” she answered on a soft sigh.
“Perfect,” he answered, amused.
“Ugly red hair,” she whispered, her eyes still closed.
“Beautiful,” he retorted.
“You’re crazy,” she said with a feminine grunt of irritation.
“Probably,” he admitted, exiting through the door as his employee opened it and stopping at the passenger side of his Bugatti. The guard caught Sam’s subtle message and rushed to open the door of the automobile.
Maddie let loose another soft sigh, her warm breath caressing his neck. Sam bit back a groan.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Sam deposited Maddie’s cuddly body into the seat. He couldn’t be that close to her. Her scent, the feel of her body made him fucking insane. He fastened her seatbelt and settled her handbag into her lap before closing the door. Taking a deep breath, he moved around the car, lifting his hand in a silent gesture of thanks to his helpful security employee as he opened the driver’s door and settled himself into his seat. Closing the door, he started the engine and strapped on his own seatbelt, his gaze drifting back to Maddie.
Shit! He hated seeing Maddie this way, so obviously exhausted. Even if it rankled, he’d rather see her spitting fire at him, her eyes flashing, her voice dripping with sarcasm or anger. Seeing her look so tired, so lost, so vulnerable ripped his fucking heart from his chest.
Tearing his eyes away from her, he shifted his Veyron into gear, making a decision that was definitely going to piss her off, but deciding he didn’t give a shit. No doubt, if he didn’t intervene, she’d be right back in action in the morning, hauling her drained body out of bed and into the clinic before the rehearsal and dinner the following afternoon.
Not happening! So what if she hates me for it? She already knows that I’m an asshole. Doesn’t matter. As long as she’s healthy.
He plugged his cell phone into its dashboard holder, intending to make some calls as he swung the car into a U-turn and headed back in the same direction he had been driving earlier.
He grinned, shooting a quick glance at Maddie before he dialed the first number, barking orders into the phone even though it was after one o’clock in the morning. Luckily, his personal assistant was sharp, and responded immediately. It wasn’t every night that Sam called him at this hour; in fact, Sam never had called his PA at this hour, and David caught on instantly that the orders were important to his boss.
Totally oblivious, Maddie slumbered on, oblivious to the fact that she was about to take a short vacation, whether she wanted it or not.
*****
Sam deposited Maddie onto his ridiculously high thread count Egyptian cotton sheets and watched as she snuggled into the soft fabric, tugging the pillow under her head with a satisfied moan - a throaty, erotic sound that nearly had him panting.
There’s never been a day when I haven’t panted after her, not since the first time I laid eyes on her.
Yeah, he’d wanted her then too. His eyes had zoomed in on that bright, fiery mane of hers, pulled back from her face and cascading down her back, his cock jerking as his eyes landed on her beautiful face with those oh-so-conservative glasses perched on her nose, a slight frown of confusion on her cherry-red lips. She’d looked like a damn naughty librarian, and he’d gotten instantly hard every time he’d seen her from that day forward.
Wonder what happened to her glasses?
Gently, Sam lifted one of her eyelids to make sure she wasn’t wearing contacts that need to be removed, chuckling as she grunted with displeasure at the invasion. Satisfied that she must have had her vision corrected with laser surgery, he pulled his hand away from her face and sighed. Damn…he used to love to pull those glasses from her face and kiss her breathless. A small part of him mourned the loss, but a larger portion was relieved that she could see and that she had been able to get rid of the hated glasses.
He pulled off her tennis shoes and let them drop to the floor, deciding she could sleep in her scrubs. They were obviously clean and probably comfortable.
He stripped, watching her sleep while he discarded his clothing, disrobing until he stood only in his boxer briefs. Walking around the bed, he slipped between the sheets on the other side, flipping off the light beside his bed, his body tense. It was a big bed, but it wasn’t big enough. Was he completely insane? How the fuck was he supposed to sleep with Maddie in his bed? This moment was surreal, an event he had dreamed about forever and fantasized about often.
Go to sleep, asshole. You’re watching over her. If you don’t stay with her she’ll probably sneak out before you can catch her.
Oh, hell no. There was no way she was working tomorrow. That bullshit needed to stop.
Punching his pillow, he rolled to his side, facing Maddie. God, she was beautiful. Everything about her was absolutely perfect. Unable to stop himself, he reached out his hand, scooting closer to her, as though drawn by a magnet. He fingered her curls, and then ran the back of his hand down her delicate face. The room was lit only by moonlight, but it was bright enough to see her features. As he ran his hand down her arm, she stirred, her eyelids fluttering. Her body moving restlessly, she inched toward him until she was rubbing against him, her body plastered against his entire front. Her arms circled his neck, nestling against his body like she belonged there.
“She does,” he whispered fiercely. “There’s no way she could feel this fucking good unless she belongs here with me.”
“Sam?” she murmured in a confused voice.
His heart thundering, he answered, “Yeah?”
“I hate you. Why are you here?” She snuggled against him, belying her words as she clung to his fiery body like a heat-seeking missile.
“I know you do, Sunshine. Just sleep,” he answered gravely.
He wrapped his arms around her. She might hate him, but she needed him right now. And he was determined to be there for her.
Like I should have been all along. I didn’t fucking know she had never gotten married. Unless she got married and didn’t change her name; but what sort of guy would let his woman work the way she does? I thought she’d have half a dozen kids by now.
Sam figured she must at least have a man in her life and he shuddered at the thought.
Closing his eyes, he let his senses absorb her fragrance, the feel of her body pressed against him.
It was agony and ecstasy all at once.
He lay there, listening to Maddie’s steady, even breathing, indicating that she’d finally settled and was deeply asleep.
Strangely enough, Sam followed her into slumber moments later, his body relaxing, and his mind, for the first in years, completely content.
Chapter 3
Maddie woke the next morning confused, her head pounding like she had the mother of all hangovers- except for the fact that she rarely drank more than a glass of wine.
What in the hell happened? Where am I?
Pushing the hair back from her face, she blinked as she opened her eyes, her whole head foggy.
Hearing a masculine groan beneath her, she pushed to sit up, her fingers greeted by hot skin and tight muscle as she pushed against an enormous male chest.
What the hell?!
Maddie’s eyes grew wide, coming totally awake in seconds as she looked at the body beneath hers. “Hudson,” she hissed, noticing that she was straddling him, torso to torso, her head having previously rested on his shoulder. “Take your hands off my ass.”
His eyes were wide open, shooting her a hot, intense look that nearly incinerated her. Her heart thundered as his sizzling green eyes devoured her.
“You called me Sam last night, Sunshine,” he told her in a low, sultry voice. “And if you’re going to spread that luscious body out on top of me, you should expect to have this delicious ass groped. I’m not exactly a saint.”
Maddie shivered as he cupped her ass in his hands, bringing her core flush with his raging erection. Last night? Last night? What exactly had happened? Thinking furiously, she tried to remember if she and Sam had been…intimate. The last thing she remembered was putting her head on her desk at the clinic, just thinking she needed to rest her burning eyes for a moment. And then…nothing. “I can’t remember last night. Did we-” She stopped abruptly, unable to ask Sam Hudson that mortifying question.
“Did we fuck?” he asked her casually. He released a beleaguered masculine sigh as he continued, “Sadly…no we didn’t. But if we had, you would have remembered it.”
Thank God!
Swinging her leg over his body, she scrambled away from him, moving to the other side of the bed. Swiping the irritating curls from her face, she gave him an annoyed glance. She was still dressed in the clean scrubs she had donned after her shower at the clinic. He, however, was naked; at least from the waist up. She tried not to notice that sculpted chest, covered in a light dusting of blond hair, and the enticing trail that went down his navel to his…
Shit!
Pulling her eyes away from him, completely disgusted with herself for drooling over his ripped body, she asked abruptly, “What happened? Why am I here?” She assumed that this was his home, since she was in the same bed as him. A bed, that she had to admit, had damn nice sheets, in a bedroom with lovely furnishings.
Sam sat up, and Maddie held her breath as the sheet slipped lower, her eyes drawn unerringly back to his abdomen. Then, she noticed the elastic band that sat low on his hips, proof that he wasn’t completely naked. She released her breath, hating herself for being disappointed.
“I’d love to tell you that I came to your clinic and you were so overcome with lust that you begged me to take you home and fuck you,” he replied, his hot green eyes raking her face and body. “But you weren’t and I didn’t. I went to your office and you were fast asleep on your desk. I tried to wake you but you were so exhausted that I had to carry you here and put you to bed.”
Sliding from the bed, she asked, “Why? I would have woken up eventually.” She put her hands on her hips, annoyed that he had invaded her clinic. Again.
Flipping back the covers, he stood, shooting her a dangerous look. “Are you fucking kidding me? You were out for the count. What in the hell are you trying to do, Maddie? Kill yourself with exhaustion? Nobody crashes that hard unless they’ve been drinking or are entirely sleep deprived. It’s bullshit,” he growled, walking across the room to retrieve a gray silk robe from a chair.
She opened her mouth to give him a scathing reply, but closed it as she watched him swagger across the room. Holy glutes, the man had an ass so tight that she could see every movement, every muscle contract and release as he strode across the room. Now that was the kind of ass a woman wanted to grope. Sam was ripped everywhere. He was damn near perfect, so incredibly masculine that he took her breath away. He still had the light scars on his back, strips of lighter skin that she had asked him about years ago but had never gotten a clear answer as to how he had gotten them.
Shrugging into the robe, he turned, giving her a quick glimpse of his morning erection that was prominently outlined by the snug undergarments. Catching her eyes with his, he smirked and raised a naughty brow.
Don’t look at him. This is Sam Hudson. Asshole extraordinaire. He might look incredible, but his heart is as black as coal.
Jerking her eyes away from that teasing emerald glance, she tried to remember what she wanted to say. Oh, yeah. “What I do is none of your business. You had no right to abduct me from my office.”
He snorted. “You weren’t exactly complaining. You had your arms around my neck when I carried you to the car.”
Oh, shit. “You carried me?”
He held his hand up in warning, “Don’t go there. Your body is perfect.” His face was fierce as he continued. “What have you been doing at the clinic at all hours? You already have a full-time job. You can’t keep carrying both loads.”
“I have to. Those people need me,” she whispered. “They don’t have anyone else to go to.”
Maddie had left her private practice almost a year ago to work as a hospitalist, hoping she could spend more time at the clinic. She had more days off to spend at the clinic, but it did make for a heavy workload and she was feeling the strain.
Sam’s face softened as he approached her. “You can’t save the world, Maddie. You’re only one person. It won’t bring Crystal back.”
Maddie flinched, the mention of her childhood best friend still causing her pain. Crystal had died at the age of ten from bacterial meningitis because she hadn’t gotten treatment soon enough, her poverty stricken parents having no insurance. I must have told Sam years ago and he still remembers it. It was one of the reasons she had wanted to be a doctor, and was still her primary motivation to keep the clinic open. She looked up him, leaning back against the thick bedpost. “Don’t you think I know that? I had a five-year-old kid who I almost didn’t diagnose in time. He was chronically sick, tired, fatigued. It took a while to do the testing because I’m not at the clinic every day. He had type 1 diabetes. He could have died.” She dropped her head, staring at the carpet, thinking of what could have happened had she not finally found a correct diagnosis. “I have to spend as much time there as I can.” The incident with Timmy had scared her, made her push herself harder. What if there was another case out there, one that she couldn’t get to in time?
Sam crowded her, pressing his large bulk against her, wedging her between his powerful body and the post. Taking her chin between his fingers, he tipped her head up, her gaze meeting his intense, penetrating look. “He didn’t die, because you were there. But you aren’t helping the working poor by exhausting yourself. There’s a limit to what you can do.”
“I need-”
“You need rest. You need to be able to fully function to give the best care you can,” he told her sternly. “I know you, Maddie. You were a crusader even when we were younger. You can’t save the world. You have to help one person at a time and hope you can make a difference.” He yanked her into his arms, pressing her head against his chest as he stroked her hair. “I always knew you’d be a phenomenal doctor, but it will eat your soul if you let it. You take the responsibility of the world on your shoulders. You always have.”
<
br /> Maddie sighed, giving herself one moment to relax against the strong male body holding her, making her feel so safe, forgetting for just a brief time that she hated Sam Hudson. “I don’t know what to do,” she admitted. And it was true. She was so torn between her need to survive, pay her bills every month, and her desperation to help the people who truly needed medical care but couldn’t afford it.
“I have a proposition for you,” Sam answered, his hand moving soothingly up and down her back.
“What?” Pushing on his chest, she glanced up at him curiously.
“We can talk about it at breakfast. I’m starving,” he answered casually.
“No. I need to shower and get to the clinic. Shit! I don’t have any clothes here. I’ll have to wear the same scrubs and-”
“You’ll find everything you need in the master bath. I had my personal assistant pick up some things for you.” He moved back and motioned toward a door on the other side of bedroom. “I’ll use the other bathroom and meet you in the kitchen.”
“I told you I have to go. I have appointments today,” she answered stubbornly, walking across the bedroom toward the bathroom.
“Actually, you don’t,” he answered as he yanked clothing from his closet.
“I have a full schedule until the wedding rehearsal,” she informed him indignantly. Really, did he think she was so out of it that she had forgotten her appointments?
“You don’t. Your clinic is being covered by another doctor for a while. With the help of a few nurses.” He imparted that information as he reached for the handle of the bedroom door.
“What? How? Why?” Maddie knew she was babbling, but she didn’t have a clue what he was saying.
He opened the door and turned, his expression dark, his eyes turbulent. “It was done on my orders, my arrangement.”
“You can’t just take over my clinic, Hudson. Or my life for that matter,” she snapped at him, furious.
