One Hundred Promises

by Kelly Collins

  “Oh God,” she moaned as the undulating waves washed over her. When she looked at him, his jaw was tense.

  “I’m holding on by a thread.” He pulled back and pressed forward. Slowly he stroked every shudder from her body. When she finished pulsing around him, he picked up his pace. It didn’t take long for him to get her to the edge again. It wasn’t a surprise when he pulled out. Wes was into the long game. He didn’t seem fixated on the end result.

  “What are you doing?” she asked. Her body tightened and tensed.

  “I’m learning you. Anything worth keeping is worth learning.”

  Her heart raced. He thought she was worth keeping. That brought warmth and fear. “You can’t keep me.” Her body hummed under his touch. God she wished he could keep her.

  “You’re mine for now, or do you want me to stop?” He cocked an eyebrow.

  “That’s not fair. It’s like dangling a donut in front of a weak dieter.”

  “Take the donut, Lydia, you’ll like it.”

  The heat of his breath almost took her there. “I’m so weak.”

  He chuckled. “I’ll take that as a yes.” He dove in and pulled her second climax with his tongue. Damn the man for having so much to offer. Most men excelled at something, but it would appear Wes was a master at most everything.

  Her body lay limp and boneless when he entered her again. Languid soft strokes built up to powerful thrusts. From somewhere she found the energy to meet him thrust for thrust, and when that familiar rush of heat pooled in her belly, and the tingle of desire threaded through her veins, she soared over the edge with him.

  He rolled to her side. Once he’d wrapped the spent condom inside a tissue, he folded his arms around her, pulled her tightly to his chest, and told her she was perfect. She felt like she was home for the first time in years.

  She tried to convince herself that it was dopamine or endorphins. She was only experiencing the aftereffects of great sex, but she knew better. She liked Wes a whole hell of a lot more than she should.

  This was her foray into something short-term, an encounter that was supposed to be meaningless and superficial. The problem was nothing about it was meaningless or superficial.

  Chapter Eighteen

  How had this woman gotten under his skin in mere days? They said manufacturers of food had the perfect mix of sugar, fat, and salt down to an art to make a consumer crave more. Lydia’s combination of vulnerability, strength, and compassion were the perfect combo to lure him in. Especially her compassion.

  He’d watched her in action with Courtney. His ex had done nothing to garner Lydia’s favor, but when she came in drunk, Lydia had gotten her water and painkillers. When they’d come home to find Courtney still at the house, she’d offered to drive her to her car.

  Wes knew he’d fall hard and fast for Lydia but he didn’t expect it to be this hard or this fast.

  He drew circles around the smiley face tattooed to her ass while he watched her nap. It seemed fitting for the girl who handed out smiley stickers and ink marks to have one herself. There was a story to this tattoo he wanted to hear. One look at Lydia and she didn’t come across as an emoji girl. He wanted to take a drive to Denver General and beat the pulp out of Adam for taking the smile out of her life.

  If he couldn’t persuade her to stay in Aspen Cove, then he’d settle for putting a smile back on her face. He’d seen her smile, and it was as bright as a nuclear explosion and almost as deadly because when she smiled, his heart seized.

  “Higher,” she moaned.

  He flattened his hand and rubbed firm circles from her bottom to her shoulders. “You sore?” That didn’t come out the way he meant it. He referred to jumping off the cliff into the water, but he imagined she was sore all over.

  “Mmm.” She rolled to her side, so they were face to face. “Yes, but it hurts so damn good.”

  His insides liquefied when her eyes lit up. Some people’s eyes said more than their mouths. Lydia was one of those people blessed or cursed with expressive eyes.

  He nuzzled her neck. “I can make you positively scream.”

  She ran her hand down his chest and gripped his hardening length. “You already did.”

  “Are you finished with me?” The words left a lump in his throat. He hoped she would not hop out of his bed and pretend what they shared wasn’t beyond amazing. He’d had a lot of sex in his years, but sex with Lydia was the best. She responded to his touch. Her needy body gripped him like a damn vise. “I was hoping we could go for round two.”

  Lydia leaned back. Her laugh bubbled from deep inside. It vibrated through her chest and came out low and throaty. “You’re only counting that as one? But I had three.”

  “The only thing I’m counting is how long it will take me to get back inside you.”

  She pushed him back and straddled his body. He was hard and ready. “It’s my turn to give.” The way she licked her lips made him twitch. Just seeing her on top of him caused him to ache everywhere. Never had he wanted a woman so badly. He reached for the condoms and tore one off.

  She snagged it from his hand. “Not so fast. I’m in charge.” She slid down his body and put those wet lips to work.

  “Shit, Lydia.” His hands went straight to fist the sheets. He didn’t set the pace or the pressure with his hips. He lay back and enjoyed her superior skills. Like he’d done earlier, she teased him to the edge and eased him down repeatedly. “Can we stay here forever?”

  She laughed around his length. The vibration nearly sent him over the edge. When she pulled away, he wasn’t sure if he was disappointed or relieved. The torture of being kept on the edge was maddening but it was pure ecstasy.

  Even rolling the condom on was sexy because she did it with her mouth. When she eased her body onto his length, he was lost. He fought the urge to turn them over take control. But this was her turn and he wouldn’t take anything away from her.

  Lydia found a rhythm that pushed her quickly to the edge, and thank God because he couldn’t stop the unraveling that started at his toes and curled around his body until he burst inside her.

  She fell forward with her head on his chest. This was perfect. So damn perfect.

  He woke and reached for her body but the sheets were cold. He rolled out of bed and rummaged through the pile of clothes on his floor for his jeans. Had she left his bed for hers? The short trip through the bathroom told him no. Her bed was empty, but the smell of something wonderful came from downstairs.

  The savory garlic smell lured him to the kitchen, where Lydia stood in his yellow T-shirt and stirred the pot in front of her.

  Her hips moved to a tune inside her head. He shouldered the wall and watched. “I’ve died and gone to heaven.”

  She swung around with a spoon in her hand. Red sauce dripped to the floor. “Oh shit.” She looked at the spoon and the floor and back to him. “I’ll get it.”

  Wes moved quickly to get to the towel before she could. “I got it.” He kneeled and cleaned up the speck of red sauce. Once he’d tossed the towel into the corner, he rose slowly, running his hands from her ankles to her calves to her thighs until they skimmed her hips. “I missed you.”

  She lifted on tiptoes and kissed him softly. “We need to eat. If we’re going to continue to exercise like that, I need food.”

  “I like that word continue.”

  “Me too, but food first. I hope you like spaghetti.”

  “Love it. How long have you been up?” The sun had set but the orange glow still lingered on the horizon. He guessed it was somewhere around seven.

  “I couldn’t sleep so as soon as you were out, I got up and came downstairs.” She looked toward the table where her computer was opened and a pad of paper and a pencil sat nearby.

  His stomach cramped with a fist-like punch. “Looking for a job again?” He tried to make his voice sound basic like her leaving was no big deal, but he knew it would be. She’d not only moved into his house but also his heart. “Any luck?”


  Her deep sigh told the story. Inside he celebrated her defeat, which felt wrong on so many levels.

  “There are a few things. A hospital in Tampa has shown interest, but they want letters of recommendation. I have some from other doctors, but no one who can truly attest to my skills.”

  She plated the precooked pasta and put a scoop of sauce on top.

  “I can write you a letter and attest to certain skills.” He took the plates from her hands and walked into the formal dining room. He hadn’t eaten in here since he bought the place. One person sitting at a table this large only emphasized how alone he was.

  “You think I have skills, huh?” She opened the oven and took out garlic bread.

  “No doubt you have skills.” He knew he didn’t have sauce or pasta in the house, and definitely not garlic bread, so he’d add magician to her resume. “Did you go shopping?”

  She sliced the crunchy French loaf into pieces. “Corner Store. This is the frozen stuff, but it’s good. The sauce comes from a jar and the spaghetti a package. This meal is one step up from Sage’s reheating skills. Let’s eat.”

  Wes got a bottle of wine from the rack and poured them a glass. He sat at the end of the table with Lydia on his right. It was downright domestic. He looked at the four empty chairs and could see his children there. He shook the thought from his head. His heart was moving faster than his brain.

  “Thanks for making dinner. You didn’t have to do that.”

  She reached her hand to cover his. “I wanted to. You brought something out of me that’s been buried for months, maybe years. My self-esteem had hit an all-time low.”

  Wes gripped his fork so tight his fingertips turned white. “I know I said I didn’t want to talk about Adam, but I think some things need to be said. I have questions if you’re willing to answer them.”

  She pulled her hand back slowly. Was she distancing herself? When she reached for a piece of bread, he realized she was left handed and hungry.

  “I have questions too. Lots, so ask away.” She took a bite and moaned. “Oh my God, I’m starved. Even butter on cardboard tastes good.”

  Wes twisted ropes of spaghetti onto his fork. “No one makes jar spaghetti sauce better than you.”

  “You already got lucky, no need to flatter me.” She sipped her wine.

  “First question. Why did you stay with a man who didn’t deserve you?”

  Lydia swallowed and took another sip of wine. She seemed to need copious amounts of alcohol to loosen her lips so he topped off her glass.

  “It’s hard to say. There was the Adam I thought I knew and the Adam he really was. After my parents died”—she shook her head as if trying to get some vision to disappear—“things were bleak. I’d grown up to believe anything was possible, but in a second flat all my dreams died.”

  He moved his chair closer to hers and cupped her cheek. “I’m so sorry for your loss. I have parents I can’t stand to be in the same room with.”

  “You never truly miss something until it’s gone.”

  Wes sipped his wine and thought about her answer and knew it to be true. The biggest loss he suffered was when his grandfather passed away. He no longer had a man to shape and mold him into a decent human being. He only had his father who had decided long ago that Wes would never be enough. “Doesn’t answer why you let Adam treat you badly.”

  “I’m almost embarrassed to tell you. In fact, I don’t think I knew why until this second.” She took a bigger drink of her wine. “I think I took what life gave me because at least I had something. Too afraid to challenge the universe, I accepted that I deserved less. Funny because I was raised to want more and in many things I demand it, but I didn’t with him. Somewhere deep inside I knew he wasn’t permanent and if I said anything, he’d leave me—which he did, anyway.”

  Wes pushed his almost empty plate away. “You deserve so much more.”

  “Advice coming from the guy who married a Bratz doll.”

  If she only knew he’d compared her to Barbie when he first met her. “I was a different person when I met her.”

  “Shallow? Superficial? Stupid?” She chomped into her last bite of garlic toast.

  “Why do you think I was in charge of the park? Why do you think I’m in charge of building the Guild Center?”

  She rolled her beautiful eyes. “Because you’re the only construction guy in town?”

  He leaned in. “You really think little of me, don’t you?”

  She grabbed her head. “I think about you all the time.” She picked up her near-empty glass. “Damn wine. One glass in and my filter is gone.”

  He filled her glass up and put a splash in his. “I like you honest.”

  “What about you? Have you been honest with me?”

  Wes considered her words. “I haven’t been dishonest.”

  “Tell me why you married Courtney.”

  “My story is not too far off from yours, only my parents are alive but dead to me. As for Courtney, I was fighting my father’s system, and she liked being my weapon. It’s been a very expensive experience.” He swirled the red wine in the glass. “I paid for her education.”

  “What? Why would you do that?”

  The reason would make him seem like a saint but he wasn’t. “I’d misled Courtney. She’d married an architect with dreams of living large and I changed the rules and showed her who I really was—a simple man with simple needs.”

  “You’re an architect?” She twisted her head to the side.

  “Was an architect. Award-winning, actually. You know that hospital in Colorado Springs where you wanted to work? I designed it. It was one of my first projects and honestly it was good but my problem was that nothing was ever good enough for my father. He loved that word almost. I’ve been trying to break myself from using it. It’s an awful word.”

  “How the hell did you get so damn lucky? You’re a Guild, an architect, a builder, hot as hell, have a big…” She caught herself looking at the zipper of his jeans and snapped her attention back to his face. “You kiss like a porn star, though I’ve never kissed a porn star, but you kiss how I think one would kiss. You know…someone with lots of kissing experience.” She pushed the wineglass away. “Hell, if I drink any more I’ll be telling you all my secrets and asking you to have my baby.”

  “Secrets I can do. The baby would be a neat trick.”

  “So you chose this life over having everything?”

  He knew he had to pick his words carefully. “Lydia, I had a title, lots of money, a great flat in downtown Denver and a closet full of custom suits. I had a trophy wife, I drove a Porsche, and I hated myself. Be careful what you ask for—you might get it and decide it wasn’t everything you thought it would be.”

  “But I made promises. Promises I intend to keep.”

  It twisted his insides. No doubt those promises were made to people no longer present in her life. “Your parents would be proud of you. Hell, I’m proud of you, but the most important promise to keep is the one you make to yourself. What’s the most important thing you want to accomplish in the world?”

  Without hesitation she said, “I want to leave the world in a better place than I found it, and I can do that by being a good doctor.”

  “That’s the promise you need to keep then. Nothing says you have to work at the Mayo Clinic or St. Jude. Good doctors are found everywhere, and you’re one.” He opened his palm and revealed his stitches. “You did this. You healed me.”

  “That was nothing.” She squirmed in her seat.

  “Nothing to you, but everything to me. That day you were a hellion wearing a halo.”

  “You did not just say that.” She pushed from her seat and climbed into his lap. “Take it back.”

  He slapped his hand over her right ass cheek. “I’ll take it back if you tell me why you have a smiley face tattooed on your ass.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Lydia washed her hands and thought about last night. Who knew that an ass tattoo would be
a conversation starter? Wes never let up. The only way to stop the endless questions was to take him to bed and tire him out.

  “Last patient before lunch is here.” Sage walked in and handed her Ray’s folder.

  “Again?” She didn’t need to review it. The man had been here less than a week ago.

  “Called this morning and said he was feeling tired.”

  “Again,” she repeated.

  The old man shuffled into the room. Rather than point to the exam table, Lydia pulled the corner chair forward. She grimaced when he fell into it and the legs creaked. Any minute she expected them to give way. Not because Ray was heavy but because the chair wasn’t industrial strength. It was the type of chair a person could buy at an office supply store.

  “What’s up, Ray? Miss 60 Minutes again?” She squatted in front of him. Her legs screamed in agony. Between the cliff diving and the endless hours of Wes she was sore.

  “Nope, got the whole show in.” He wheezed, then leaned forward. “Got this here pain in my chest.”

  At the mention of chest pain, Lydia pulled out her stethoscope and listened. “Your heart rate is fast today, Ray. Are you exerting yourself too much?” She took his pulse and temperature and recorded the information.

  “I walked in here, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, you did, and that’s a good thing. I’d say more walking will do you good.” She glanced back at a questionnaire he filled out at his annual exam. It noted that bacon and eggs were staple foods in his diet. He had a shot or two of whisky each night and smoked a half a pack of filterless cigarettes each day. “You need to cut out the bacon, booze, and cigarettes. I promise you’ll feel better if you do.”

  His beard twitched. “Hell, if you take all the good things away, I might as well die. Next thing you know you’ll be telling me to not have sex anymore.”

  “You have sex?”

  Above his caveman beard, Ray blushed. “Betty from Buttercups in Silver Springs treats me real nice if I tip her well. Cheaper than a wife.”