Parker trusted Stank—he was a good cop, and didn’t let emotion get in the way of his job. But he wasn’t a miracle worker, either. What were the odds the detective could crack the case in less than three days when he’d been working on it for weeks now?
The thought—and the lack of any real answers—drove Parker to his feet. He considered pacing a pointless waste of time and energy, so he never bothered. Instead he usually burned off his frustrations in the weight room downstairs.
Since he didn’t want to be downstairs and zoned out if Mandy needed him, he opted for another form of therapy, heading for the kitchen and filling a small copper watering can, then adding a few granules of fertilizer.
Even before he’d crossed to the nearest hanging pot, where a spider plant dangled runners and starbursts of rootless offspring, he felt himself relaxing slightly.
The plants had been the decorator’s idea; she’d said he needed something alive in the town house. Since he’d been sleeping with her at the time, he’d let her have her way.
The decorator hadn’t lasted long—none of his liaisons did, thanks to his careful choices—but oddly enough the plants had stuck. He thought feng shui was a crock, but had to admit that the greenery was pleasant. He hadn’t gone so far as to talk to the things, but he watered them precisely on schedule and had even added a row of African violets in the front room, for a bit of texture and color.
From the spider plant in the kitchen he moved out into the main room, checking dampness with his forefinger and adding as needed—a little more for the begonias near the window, less for the cactus, which was a favorite of his because it looked spiky and fierce but felt soft to the touch.
As he moved around the room, hardly even aware that he was humming softly, his mind continued to work.
The lab hadn’t been able to find any of the testable poisons in Mandy’s blood, and all of her clinicals were within normal limits, just like the two patients before her. The lack of a detectable poison could mean it was cleared almost immediately from the blood, taking up residence in specific organs or tissues.
That possibility had some potential, Parker mused. A number of companies were working on targeting vectors that could help deliver a drug directly to the site of action, thus decreasing overall toxicities and side effects. What if—
“Parker?”
He spun at the sound of his name, and found Mandy standing halfway up the stairs, sleepy-eyed and pale, but with a light in her eyes that made his heart stutter in his chest.
She wore a pale blue T-shirt and dark blue bike shorts that should’ve looked practical rather than sexy but somehow managed both, nearly causing Parker to dump the last half-gallon of water on the floor.
Cautiously he set the watering can aside. “You should get some more sleep. You need the rest.”
“Stop trying to tell me what I need and what I should be doing,” she said, but there was no rancor in the words. Just a statement of fact. She continued down the stairs, and though part of Parker told him to move forward—or away—he stayed rooted to the spot. When she reached him, she pulled back one of the cap sleeves of her T-shirt, baring her upper arm and shoulder. “Look.”
There was a pinprick red rash, about the size of a half-dollar, high on her shoulder.
“Irene had a patch on her thigh,” she said. “She assumed it was road rash from the mugging. It wasn’t. It was an injection site reaction.”
Parker cursed and felt something snap tight within him. It wasn’t until he saw that rash, that proof of contamination, that it hit him, really hit him.
She was dying in front of his eyes.
“Mandy,” he began, then fell silent because he didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t been the man she’d needed four years ago and he hadn’t treated her well, but some piece of him had felt a measure of satisfaction knowing that she was out there, living her life, far happier than she would’ve been if he’d tried to keep her.
In a few short days, he wouldn’t even have that cold comfort.
“I know,” she said. She looked away from him as though not wanting him to see the sheen of tears in her eyes. “This really, really stinks. The thing is, crying and complaining about the unfairness of it all isn’t going to change anything. Unless we come up with a miracle, I have a little over sixty hours left.” She squared her shoulders as though talking herself into being brave, and faced him, letting him see the tears in her eyes, along with something else.
Something that looked an awful lot like an invitation.
“Don’t do anything you’ll regret,” he said, though he wasn’t sure which one of them he was trying to warn off. “We could still beat this thing. We could still—”
“Or we might not,” she said, interrupting him. “And if we don’t, the only thing I’ll regret is not taking this chance right now.” She took a deep breath, as though gathering her courage, and said, “Even if we weren’t in this together, I think you’d be the man I’d track down for one last fling, Parker. We couldn’t make the emotional stuff work out between us back then, and I doubt we could manage it now, but the sex was nothing short of fantastic. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t done any better in the years since.”
Though it wasn’t a question, Parker found himself shaking his head. “No. Me, neither.”
He’d had lovers since, but none like her. None that had tempted him to want more, despite all the other stuff being a bad match.
“Then we have tonight and tomorrow night,” she said with quiet dignity. “For tonight, at least, this is what I want. I want you, Parker. I want us back, at least for a few hours.”
He felt a strange pressure in his chest, a ripping, tearing pain that quickly faded to a dull throb. He looked away for a second, unable to find his voice when all he wanted to do was curse the unfairness, the wrongness of what had happened to her, what he’d let happen. But she didn’t need the anger from him right now, he knew. She needed more than he would usually be able to give, more than he’d ever given before.
And by damn he was going to find a way to give it to her.
He stepped into her, framed her face in his hands and looked into her eyes, willing her to believe the truth of it when he said, “If that’s what you want, then you’ve got it. For tonight and tomorrow night, I’m yours.”
Then he kissed her.
MANDY EXPECTED—was looking forward to—the commanding sexuality she remembered from before, a rush of heat and flame that would help her forget herself for a few precious, necessary hours.
Instead she found a level of tenderness that both melted and unnerved her.
Parker’s kiss began with a whisper and a sigh, and when she parted her lips on a murmur of pleasure, he moved in closer and aligned himself with her, mouth to mouth, tongue to tongue, testing and touching rather than taking, asking rather than demanding.
The gentleness was a surprise, and something of a danger, because it made her wish for impossible things. As his lips cruised across hers, though, she found part of what she’d been looking for. She found oblivion.
The kiss spun out slowly, softly, coating her in an insulating warmth that made her feel that they were the only two people in existence, that the universe began and ended where their tongues touched.
His hands slid across the skin of her waist and lower back, beneath the gym shirt she’d slept in, which suddenly felt as though it were made of the softest silk, the sexiest lace. Her bike shorts chafed between her legs, rubbing at the aching flesh that demanded release. Demanded him.
Heat flared through her, whipping around her core and settling there in a fiery response that felt so blessedly normal amidst the craziness of the past few days that she almost wept with the sensation. Instead of crying, though, she focused on making him feel the same sort of burn, the same need.
Somewhere deep inside her, she acknowledged a basic truth. She wanted Parker to miss her when she was gone, just as she’d missed him over the past four years.
She po
ured herself into the kiss, into the moment, and was rewarded by his hum of pleasure when they slid deeper into the kiss. Together.
He broke the kiss and looked at her, really looked at her, his cobalt-blue eyes focused intently, making her feel as though she was the only thing that mattered to him just then. He slid his hand up her arm, pushing her short sleeve up over the pinprick rash that had been the final confirmation, the final blow that might’ve shattered her resolve, but instead had sent her downstairs in search of what she wanted. What she needed.
He touched his lips to the spot, making the skin there burn even hotter than before. Then he looked at her once again, and said simply, “I’m yours. You’re mine.”
“For tonight,” she agreed, knowing that was why he’d been able to drop his natural barriers as far as he had, and let her inside. If there had been any threat of a future together, she never would’ve gotten this far. They never would’ve been together, as they were together now.
He might not be able to do a lifetime of commitment, but he could—and would—give her the next sixty hours.
“Let’s go upstairs.” He slid his hand down her arm and linked his fingers with hers in achingly simple intimacy.
When she nodded, he led her back the way she’d come. She half expected them to wind up in the guest room that had become hers, for a few days at least. Instead he led her to the master suite. His space. His privacy.
Telling herself not to make the gesture into more than it actually was, Mandy followed him into the bedroom. He kept the bedroom lamps off, but light spilled in from the hallway, and from a night-light in the master bath, creating a shadowy illumination that was almost painfully romantic.
She knew this wasn’t about romance at all, but her heart shuddered in her chest when he turned to face her and lifted her hand, then kissed her inner wrist, where the blood pulsed just beneath her skin.
The dim light shadowed his face, but she could see his eyes, which gleamed with heat and something that she thought might be tenderness. The presence of that emotion, which she’d asked for from him before and been denied, only served to remind her of the situation and the fleeting futility of it all, but she forced herself to shove the thought aside and focus on that moment.
She wanted this, damn it. She’d missed this, and if she could pick one set of sensations to take with her, it would be this. It would be him, and what she felt when she was with him.
Recognizing that simple truth when nothing else was simple, she withdrew her hand from his and pulled her T-shirt off, slowly and with quiet dignity, but without preamble. She shimmied out of her bike shorts and panties next, until she was standing there, in the center of his bedroom, clothed in nothing but shadows while he remained fully dressed.
“Take me to bed,” she said. “Now.”
He stared at her for a long moment before the corner of his mouth kicked up faintly. “Far be it from me to go against a doctor’s orders.”
Then he took her in his arms, lifting her as though she weighed nothing, and carried her to the bed.
He set her down gently, as though she were fragile and precious, and followed her down and stretched out alongside her, still fully clothed. They pressed close, kissing and touching, and when she slid her leg up his and hooked her calf around his hips, baring herself to his touch, the rasp of his pants fabric against the sensitive skin of her inner thigh was brutally erotic.
She murmured and arched against him, moaning when his fingers found her, touching and teasing her, bringing her blood to a slow, insistent burn. That burn brought frustration when she couldn’t touch him in return, and she tugged at his shirt, sliding her hands beneath so she could go to work on his jeans.
“You’re wearing too many clothes,” she said, caught between a groan and a laugh when her fingers slipped on the button of his jeans. “And please tell me you have a condom. Preferably more than one.”
He chuckled and drew her in for a long kiss, where tenderness was edged with growing passion. “Be right back.”
The mattress dipped under his weight and then sprang back when he stood. She watched him undress, loving the play of light and dark across his skin. When he was fully naked, and she saw him standing proud and erect for her, her heart hitched faintly in her chest and the burn of tears gathered at the back of her eyes. She wasn’t feeling sadness, though, or regret. It was a kick of anger that he hadn’t wanted to share this with her before, that he’d been too selfish to compromise, too caught up in himself to see how good they could be together.
Or maybe he’d seen it, and it hadn’t been enough for him, she thought on a bite of temper, and the thought made her want to brand herself onto his soul. That was why, when he returned to the bed and lay beside her once more, facing her and looking into her eyes, she cupped his face in her hands and touched her lips to his. “Remember me,” she whispered. “Remember this.”
Surprising her, he caught her wrists in his hands and deepened the kiss until she felt as though he’d reached inside her, and she into him. “I do,” he said simply. “I will.”
And with those words, so like the marriage vows she’d probably never exchange with another in her lifetime, he rolled over and settled himself atop her, their bodies fitting together so exquisitely, the sensation was almost painful in its intensity.
He looked down at her, into her, and everything else ceased to exist. The world became him, nothing but him, as she wrapped her legs around his hips and angled herself so his latex-sheathed length was poised for entry.
They paused there for a second, for an eternity, staring into each other’s eyes. Then slowly, inch by filling inch, he eased inside her, stretching her, pressing on neurons that had been long dormant, but now flared to blazing life.
Mandy moaned and moved restlessly against him, wanting the flash and flame, wanting all of him, wanting the madness only he could bring her.
He stayed slow, though, until he was fully inside her. Then he paused once again, making her acutely conscious of his good, solid weight, and how the scent of their lovemaking drenched her senses. She burrowed her face into the side of his neck, pressing her cheek against him as tears threatened, as panic threatened with the realization that she might never again feel this way.
“Hush, sweetheart,” he said, his voice a low rumble in his chest. “I’ve got you. Hang on to me and everything will be okay.”
It was an empty promise, perhaps, but it was exactly what she needed. Nodding against his neck, she wrapped her arms around him, tightened her legs around him, and held on for all that she was worth as he began to move.
He thrust strongly, rhythmically, with all the control that might be frustrating in daily life, but became an asset in the bedroom, allowing him to draw out her pleasure, sending her spiraling ever upward.
Abandoning her fears and resentments to the joy of the moment, Mandy threw her head back and held on. He quickened the tempo, gripping her hips and driving into her, deeper and deeper until he touched her core, touched the center of her being, where the need and heat had coiled, hard and hot. He groaned as he rocked against her, bowing his head until his hair brushed against her cheek and collarbone, soft in comparison to the hardness everywhere else, and the excitement within her.
The first orgasm caught her almost unawares, rising up and slapping through her thin layer of self-control, leaving her scrambling to catch up with her own body as she bowed beneath him and cried out.
Sensation piled atop sensation when he didn’t stop, didn’t slow, driving her immediately up to another, sharper orgasm that wrung a groan out of her as her inner muscles clamped down, pulsing against his hard length until he finally cut loose with a shout, coming within her, clamping his arms around her and holding on until she could barely breathe. But she didn’t need to breathe, didn’t need to think, didn’t need to do anything but hold onto Parker’s solid body, which anchored her against the storm of sensation within.
Murmuring half-heard endearments to each other, they
clung as the waves passed and they could lie there, still joined, breathing in unison. There was no need for conversation, for a postmortem, each of them knew why they were there and how much it had meant—or hadn’t meant—in future terms.
Knowing it, Mandy didn’t hesitate when he rolled off her and onto his side. She took his hand, wrapped it around her waist and snuggled up against him, so they were pressed together back-to-front, sweat cooling them together.
They lay like that, unspeaking in the darkness, with no words necessary. After a while, Parker’s rhythmical breathing indicated he’d fallen asleep, which was good, because she wasn’t the only one who’d been short on rest.
The few hours she’d gotten—and the sex—had charged her batteries, though, and she found herself too revved to doze. Maybe it was the unexpected intimacy she’d found in his arms, maybe the specter of a giant countdown hanging over her. Either way, she found herself driven out of the warm cocoon of bedclothes and man.
In the guest room she rummaged through the duffel she’d thrown together back at her apartment, and changed into a pair of jeans and heavy socks, along with a turtleneck and a sweatshirt from a long-ago medical convention down in Florida, which she, Kim and a handful of other Wannabes had attended more for the beaches and party atmosphere than the actual meeting.
The thought of her friends brought a stab of renewed fear and remorse to go with the residual hum of good sex, reminding her that it wasn’t just Parker and what they might’ve had that she would be leaving behind if she died, it was everything else: Kim and the Wannabes, her patients, even her father and stepfamily. She might not be close to them, but that didn’t mean she ever in a million years wanted to cause them the pain of losing a daughter the way she’d lost her mother.
With the thought came a new sense of resolution. It’s not over yet, she told herself, drawing a measure of strength from the inner words. She scratched absently at the rash on her arm, but forced herself to stop when she realized what she was doing.
Doctor's Orders Page 9
