He flashed her a wolfish grin.
"How are we going to deal with this? I mean, people have thought of us as purely platonic friends."
"I don't care what anyone else thinks, only what you think." He held his breath.
"Platonic was hard," she admitted, her thumb rasping over his nipple, and his breath hissed out between clenched teeth.
"Darlin', you don't know the meaning of the word hard." He laid down on her, his knee insinuating erotically between her thighs, spreading her wide.
"Yes, I do." She wrapped her hand around his erection, and Lucas trembled.
Then he kissed her. A deep consuming kiss that had her arching off the bed to get closer to him.
"Tell me that's platonic," he breathed against her lips. "Everything between us is stronger now, Angel. Now hush up and let me make love to you."
And he did.
When logic told her to protest, he kissed her throat, the simple touch melting her bones. When her mind screamed that they'd made love without protection and the consequences would be grave, he closed his lips around her nipple and drew deeply, sending a divine tingling radiating through her blood. He assassinated her senses. Never giving her a chance to draw a breath before another crowded on the last. It was as if Lucas knew what would drive her wild, knew what made her gasp for her next breath. And he knew where she was ticklish and played over her sensitive hip till she screamed and laughed for him to stop.
"You've been driving me nuts for fifteen years," he said against her muscled thigh. "From the instant I saw you in that dorky cheerleading uniform."
"It wasn't dorky, it was cute."
"No, you were cute in it."
Angela smiled as his mouth floated over her flesh, his hands rubbing, caressing, then he slid off the bed and pulled her to the edge. She sat up, but he pushed her down, spread her thighs wide and covered her softness with his mouth.
She came off the bed. "Lucas!"
He chuckled darkly, imprisoning her as his lips and tongue stroked her into reckless pleasure. He adored her gasps and cries and how she held him to her, moaning his name.
His name.
She grappled for him, pulling him off the floor and onto the bed.
"Now, Lucas." Impatience marked her moves as she urged him closer. "Now."
Reaching for the nightstand drawer, he paused to kiss her. "Please tell me you have condoms." He blindly groped for the square foils.
"It's a little late, isn't it?" She wrapped his arousal, stroking him.
He choked. "It's never too late, Angel," he said, dropping a handful of protection onto the bed.
She grabbed a condom and watched his face as she rolled it down. Lucas thought he'd come apart right then. Then she shoved him on his back and straddled his thighs.
Lucas watched the most erotic vision as she guided him deep into her body. "Oh, sweet heaven!" he groaned, slamming his eye shut. "Don't move."
"I can't."
"Baby, please." He rose up and met her gaze. They were nearly nose to nose, his hands cupping her breasts, thumbs circling her nipples.
"Be still," he whispered.
"You don't ask much, do you?"
He smiled tenderly. "I can feel your body holding me tighter and tighter. It's like wet velvet wrapping me."
She didn't blush as she closed her arms around his neck and kissed him. Still he held her. "I want to move, Luc."
"I know." He grinned. He reached between their bodies and stroked the bead of her sex, one hand keeping her still when she was wont to squirm.
"Lucas," she said on a breathy rasp. "This is torture."
"I know," he said, chuckling when she pushed against him. Lucas loved it, had dreamed of a moment like this. "I knew we'd be good together baby, I knew it."
Then she moved, long measured thrusts against him, her words repaying his torture. "I feel every inch of you," she whispered, then told him how he made her feel—in detail.
And her throaty words stole his control. He tossed her on her back and pushed, taking her with him on the passionate journey neither could stop. She held his gaze, memorizing the sharpness of his features, the softness of his blue eyes as she held him inside.
Her pulse quickened with their pace, her body thrumming like a war drum toward a tingling crescendo.
"Lucas," she cried out softly as she joined him, their bodies blending with the beat of their hearts. As the throb of desire continued to ripple through her, Angela knew she'd lost the battle with her very soul.
She loved Lucas like a woman loves a man. She always had. She just didn't dare believe it before. He was the best part of her life. The only man she wanted in it. Her throat closed when she thought of the future, but the feel of him making love to her, his hard warmth, obliterated the thought as he took her on the wild rush to heaven and let her find it in his arms.
* * *
Angela rolled over and found her bed empty. She sat up sharply, an odd panic sweeping her until she heard the shower running. The scent of coffee filled the room, and she found a cup on the bedside table, still steaming. Beside two aspirin. Her head didn't hurt much, but she took them anyway with a sip of coffee, listening to Lucas hum over the sound of the running water. Yet her gaze kept falling on the rumpled sheets, the empty condom wrappers.
"Oh, Lord," she groaned, giving up counting them. Mercy, she would never look at her kitchen table again without thinking of him licking strawberry jam off her breasts, then making love to her on the cool floor. They'd explored and learned each other. In one night they'd gone from buddies to lovers. And it was the most incredible, powerful sex she'd ever had. Heck, she'd known Lucas was a lady's man simply by his reputation with women, and secretly she admitted she'd been jealous that women who were unworthy of him received the benefit of his skill.
Oh, man, was he skilled.
Her body tingled with the memory, and she squirmed on the bed.
"Mornin', Angel," came a deep husky voice.
She looked up as he strolled from the bathroom in a wake of steam. Long, lean and deliciously dangerous in only a towel, she thought, growing warm and flushed. His muscles flexed and jumped as he used another towel to dry his hair, and all Angela wanted to do was throw him down on the bed and make love to him again. He'd been hard on her senses before. Now he was complete chaos.
"Good morning," she said.
Lucas read the look in her eyes, the same one he'd seen all night, every time he touched her. It thrilled him, made him want to roar with the knowledge that making love with her wasn't a mistake.
"I hope that smile is because of last night."
"If I say so, then you'll just go and get all arrogant on me." She waved him off. "And you know how I hate arrogant men."
He grinned. "Yeah, you've mentioned that a time or two in the last fifteen years."
She blinked, his words bringing back the fact that years of friendship were now permanently altered.
"No, don't regret it," he said, a plea and warning in his tone.
"I don't, but the fact remains, Lucas, we might have had wonderful sex, but we still don't want the same things."
His features turned harsh. She wanted babies, he didn't. "And we did it once without protection."
He seemed to be ignoring her real point. The lack of a future. "Yeah," she said. "That, too."
"Angela, honey," he began, and she didn't like the forgive-me tone he was using. "I want you to know that I—"
His pager went off, the sound blaring reality into the somber bedroom. Lucas muttered a curse and walked to the nightstand. "I just told them I'd be in, for heaven's sake." He called the hospital, speaking softly, his irritation turning to concern. Hanging up, he faced her. "I have to go."
She nodded.
"I know this isn't the best time, but—"
"I understand, Luc. Believe me."
"Go back to sleep," he said, slipping onto the bed and pulling her into his arms. "Dream of me."
She smiled. "There's that arro
gance again."
"No, just hope."
Her smile fell, and she ran her fingers through his damp hair. "We'll have to talk."
"I know, but not now." He checked her eyes, felt the lump on her head that was down considerably.
"So now you see if I'm okay?" she said, falsely appalled.
"Didn't think about that last night when I was licking jam off you, when I was inside you and you were screaming my name."
"I didn't scream."
"Wanna bet?" He slid his hand under the sheets and parted her, his fingertips playing seductively over her flesh. And she called out his name. "Ah, Angel, it feels like I've waited an eternity to hear you say my name like that."
"Okay, you win. You win!" He thrust two fingers inside her— "Oh, Lucas." He bent to her breast, taking her nipple deep into the heat of his mouth as his fingers brought her to a quick, shattering climax. She'd barely caught her breath when she reached for the towel. And for him.
He caught her hand. "I have to get to the hospital. Plus run by my place for extra clothes."
"Look in my car. I picked up your dry cleaning yesterday morning."
"That's my good little wife for hire," he said and she punched him playfully.
"Watch it, buster."
Laughing to himself, he left the bed. She watched him pull on his jeans, enjoying the sight of all that man in her bedroom.
Lucas searched for his shirt.
"It's downstairs," she said.
"Probably in shreds."
She blushed and threw a pillow at him. "And please don't let the world see you looking like that."
He looked down at himself, his arousal pressing again the fabric of his jeans. Only his gaze shifted to her, ice-blue eyes beneath a shock of black hair. The look made her hot all over again "I've been in this state for the past two years, Angel. Get used to it."
She blinked, her eyes rounded. Then she smiled like a cat.
"Don't look so pleased. We have a lot of time to make up for."
He leaned down and kissed her, wrapping one arm around her waist and dragging her up to her knees and against him. It was a consuming, possessive kiss, like their first one.
With the same affect.
He drew back, gulping for air. "Whoa."
Angela sank into the bed, and Lucas stared at her, his gaze rolling over her bare skin and committing the vision to memory before he said goodbye. He told her he would call her in a couple of hours, then left.
Angela felt suddenly alone.
But the unspoken words hung in the air.
That no matter how great they were together, no matter how much she loved him, she knew he wouldn't change his mind about children.
Even for her.
And she prayed they hadn't made one in the heat of passion.
Because it was the surest way to lose him.
* * *
Chapter 8
« ^ »
Lucas had a job he couldn't rush through when he needed to be somewhere else. And he needed to be with Angela.
He could only imagine what she must be thinking right now. Because he was, frankly, standing her up. They were supposed to have lunch together at Plum's, out on a real date. Angela'd be fighting mad, he thought. Especially since he hadn't had the chance to call since he left her that morning.
His lips curved as he finished making the last stitch in his patient's little thumb, then wrote prescriptions while Sandy bandaged the wound. He could hardly think straight all day, the images of Angela in his arms and taking him into her body throbbing through his blood like hot wine. He only had to think about her bare skin beneath his mouth and he grew hard. It made for a very long day.
"Doctor?"
He shook free from the sensual thought and looked at Sandy. She held out a chart for him to sign. He read the notations she'd made, her handwriting always better than his, then scribbled his signature.
As she escorted the child and his mother out, Lucas headed for the phone on the wall. He never made it.
"Oh, no, not yet, Dr. Ryder. Joey Marsh is waiting."
Lucas groaned, facing Sandy. "What is it this time?"
"Has a pea up his nose." She tried to hide her smile and failed.
"Only one?" Lucas laughed softly. "Let's go see if we can calm Mrs. Marsh. That boy must drive her crazy."
They walked from the treatment room down the hall as Sandy spoke softly. "She said if he did it again he was going to spend the next three years breathing out of his mouth because she threatened to tape his nose shut."
Lucas smiled, knowing Mrs. Marsh never would do it. He glanced at his watch, the phone on the nurse's station, then to the stack of charts and the corridor full of patients waiting for his attention. He just didn't have time to call, he thought, then stepped into his office.
Four hours later, when he finally sank into his chair behind his desk, he dialed Angela's number. He got her machine and left a message. Then he called his own place thinking maybe she was working there, but got his own machine.
Where was she? he wondered. She wasn't due to go on the air for several hours. Was she mad that he hadn't called? Was she avoiding him? The image of her standing right by the phone, listening to the tape, skipped through his mind. No, he thought, don't get worked up. This was Angela, and she rarely kept quiet when she was mad. Lucas rubbed his hand across his mouth, realizing he felt a little insecure about his relationship with her when he never had before.
With women in his past, sex had made little difference. With Angela, it had changed everything. He could always count on her and know what she was thinking.
Now he couldn't.
Because now, he was afraid of losing her.
* * *
When Lucas didn't show up for their date, Angela felt abandoned, her heart bruised till she'd called the hospital and learned he was backed up with patients. Instantly she forgave him, but her own wild thoughts were driving her crazy. So she did her Wife Incorporated job, looking at his place, his things, a little differently this time. Especially his grand four-poster bed.
When she found herself lying in the center of it, inhaling his scent, she knew she needed to get out for some fresh air and a friendly ear to bend. Now she and Katherine Davenport sat at a table for two at a waterfront café. The air was humid, but the sultry breeze coming off the river pushed at her hair, cooling her off. Tourists strolled the wooden walk near the river. Waiters moved around, serving customers.
"I knew it the minute I heard your voice on the phone," Katherine said, then forked a piece of her salad. "You had an excited 'Oh, Lord, what have I done' tone in your voice."
"I want you to explain that to me someday," Angela said, sinking back into her chair. "Sounds like a 'Jeopardy' question."
Kat was right, though. She was thrilled about being with Lucas. Last night had been some of the most satisfying moments of her life. Like finding peace after a lifetime of turmoil. And the powerful need for him just kept growing, smothering her sense with just the thought of lying with him. Yet her happiness lay under a haze of confused feelings that had pelted her all day.
She loved Lucas. There had never been any doubt. He was her soul mate. Always had been. And once she allowed her true feelings to flood in as she'd dreamed, they poured through her and sprouted wings. It was as if she'd been awakened from a long sleep with a single kiss.
And a little more than a kiss, she thought with a private smile.
Yet it also left her feeling uncertain.
For the differences between them were glaring. And she hated that it was over something as joyful as having babies.
"Well?" Kat pestered into her thoughts.
Angela met her gaze. "I won't kiss and tell."
"Sugah, from that smile, looks like y'all did a lot more than kiss."
Angela reddened. "Yeah, well." Suddenly she leaned forward, her voice low. "What am I going to do?"
Katherine looked at her as if she were the village idiot. "Love him, marry him."
"Heck, you would have had a brood of black-haired babies by now."
Sudden joy punched her in the chest, and Angela allowed herself to have a fleeting vision of holding Lucas's baby, then it dissolved into reality. "And what if I'm pregnant?"
Kat inhaled a sharp breath, and Angela read the question in her eyes.
"Only once."
"That's all it takes."
Angela made a sour face, a tinge of fear skating up her spine. "Hush up, I don't need to think about that right now." It wasn't her most fertile time, she thought, then remembered what he'd said when he'd hunted down protection. It's never too late. It proved to her what he'd been saying all along. No kids. Not even by accident.
"Oh, yes, Katie Scarlett O'Hara, tomorrow is another day. That helps a lot right now." Abruptly Katherine set down her fork. "Oh, Lord, you're still going through with it."
It. Artificial insemination. "Yes." Her voice lacked a bit of confidence, she noticed.
"How can you do that when your relationship with Lucas has changed?"
"Because if I don't do what I want, then it will never be a real relationship. I will regret it if I married him and didn't have children because he didn't want them."
"He could change his mind after marriage," Kat said.
"I'd end up resenting him and he'd feel guilty. I don't want him that way."
"I think you need to be talking to him."
"I 'spect there will be more yelling than talk."
"You're asking for trouble. Everything has changed between you two. Why wouldn't this change for him, too?"
She shook her head. "Not Lucas. I know him." He was so dead set against it Angela was surprised he hadn't had a vasectomy to prove it. "Unfortunately, the only baby I want to have is his, and he won't give it to me."
So why then, she wondered, was she even considering going through with this procedure?
* * *
A school bus accident kept him busy. Lucas never left the hospital, and even when her misgivings were on the rise, Angela packed a lunch and fresh clothes, leaving the bundle with Sandy because he was in ICU with the injured children.
HAVING HIS CHILD Page 8
