Maybe it made him selfish, but he wanted to be here, alone with her. Tending her.
Her teeth started to chatter then as another chill gripped her, followed by the dry-heaves that were about all her stomach could handle at that point. But then, instead of swinging back to fever, the cycle quit. The heaves subsided. Her temperature stayed normal.
After ten minutes, her eyes started to clear.
“Ugh.” She sat up gingerly, moving slowly, as though afraid to believe the miserable illness had passed.
Parker put down his book and turned to her, watching warily for a new symptom. “Anything?”
She sat for a moment, assessing, then shook her head and smiled with relief. “Nothing. I feel fine. Well, I’m achy and I could use a shower, but otherwise I feel okay. Better than okay, even. Almost borderline good.”
“Give it a minute to make sure before you hit the shower, okay?”
When she nodded, Parker stood and, needing to do something to burn off the excess energy that had suddenly gathered in the wake of relief, he collected the cups of half-melted ice chips, and the other supplies he’d kept on hand, just in case he’d needed them. He took the debris into the kitchen and dumped it in the trash.
Then he leaned his forehead against the stainless steel fridge and shut his eyes.
Never again, he thought. He’d never go through something like that again if it killed him. He’d hated every impotent moment of it, had hated not being able to control her symptoms, hated that he’d been unable to do anything but wait for the illness to run its course.
For the first time he’d understood what his mother had been thinking when she’d gone into a friend’s house without backup, responding to a grisly domestic abuse call with shots fired. He’d understood how she’d let emotion overrule common sense, how caring had made her vulnerable. How it had killed her.
He didn’t want that, had never wanted it. So how had it happened?
Out in the other room, he heard her call, “I’m headed up for a shower. If you don’t see me in ten minutes, it might be worth taking a peek and making sure I’m on my feet.”
“Will do,” he called back, never lifting his forehead away from the cool metal of the fridge.
He felt wrung-out and exhausted. Dispirited. And this was quite likely only the beginning. God only knew what other side effects might manifest themselves over the next few hours as the Anti-P kicked the Substance P off its receptors and triggered a widespread immune response.
He refused to consider the other alternative—that the Anti-P wouldn’t work at all—because the only thing it seemed like he could control just then were his thoughts, and he’d be damned if they’d come this far only to have her—
No, he reminded himself. Don’t think it. Because if he thought it, then he’d have to think about his own response to the possibility of her being dead within the next day or so, and he wasn’t ready for that.
Upstairs, he heard the master shower come to life with a rush of water and the whirr of exhaust fans. The master bath was directly above the kitchen, because he’d decided to save money with shared plumbing lines when he’d planned the renovations. Now, the setup allowed him to stand in the kitchen like an idiot, picturing Mandy as she undressed and stepped into the shower.
He wanted to go to her, wanted to be with her, not only for sex, but to hold her, to make her feel better and let her know she wasn’t alone.
Then again, she wasn’t alone, was she? He’d heard the phone calls, heard her tell her friend and her father that she loved them. The words had come as easily to her as the sentiment did. She’d tried to explain it four years earlier, how love wasn’t something to be afraid of, something to consider a burden or a problem. It just was, like the air. Like the beat of his heart.
He hadn’t gotten it then and wasn’t sure he got it now. Yet still, he wanted to go to her.
“Be a man,” he said aloud, forcing himself to straighten away from the fridge. “Make her some food and put her to bed. Alone.”
Him making love to her—having sex, whatever—the night before had been defensible. She’d needed the comfort and human contact. But things were different now. Everything was different, because it looked like—please, God—she had a shot at making it through this thing with her life, and that complicated matters.
Last night had been about endings. If they made love again tonight, it would be an attempt at a beginning, and he couldn’t promise that. He’d never wanted to lose himself in the emotion she needed from him.
“I’m a selfish bastard,” he said aloud. Why else would he be yearning for something that would only hurt a woman he—yes, damn it—cared about?
Cursing under his breath, torn between what he wanted to do and what he damn well ought to do, he spun toward the refrigerator. Then, helpless to do otherwise, he walked right past it into the sitting room, headed for the stairs.
Mandy was waiting for him halfway up, wearing a fluffy towel and a smile of invitation.
WHEN MANDY had stalled on the stairs originally, she’d thought she’d needed to talk herself out of taking what she wanted. Now, she realized she’d been waiting for him to meet her halfway.
When he did, when he emerged from the kitchen with his eyes hot and his jaw set, looking as though he knew exactly what he wanted, her heart leaped in her chest.
He crossed the room, his gaze never leaving hers, and paused at the bottom of the stairs.
Mandy felt her blood pulse in her veins, felt it rise up to flush the skin of her cheeks and throat. She tried not to think of the drugs in her blood, tiny molecules fighting a submicroscopic battle for her life. Instead she concentrated on the moment, only the moment, as she stretched out a hand to the man she wanted, the man she was just now realizing was it for her. He was the one.
He always had been.
His fingers touched hers, linked with hers, holding fast as if he never wanted to let go ever again. Then they were climbing the stairs together, hand in hand, and walking to his bedroom without another word exchanged, and it was perfect. Absolutely perfect.
She’d set the lighting before she’d gone to get him; the soft glow from the bathroom night-light glowed in the faint mist from the heat of the long, bone-melting shower she’d taken. The moist air carried the scent of his soap and shampoo, along with the lighter fragrance of her body spray, which was one of her few feminine indulgences she’d retrieved from her apartment. The scents mingled, creating something that was part of them both, bringing a wash of heat to her body and a sneaky slide of warmth to her heart.
“Mandy,” he began, “I—”
“Don’t.” She silenced him with the touch of her finger against his mouth. “Don’t worry about it.” It wasn’t that she knew exactly what he was going to say, it was more that she didn’t want to know. Not now. Not tonight.
Instead of saying anything more, she lifted her fingers to the buttons of his shirt and began to undress him.
If the night before had been about what he could make her feel, tonight would be the reverse. It was her turn. Her time. And though she refused to consciously admit that it might be her last time, that the antidote might not be working and the humming sense of wellness inside her was nothing more than the beginning of the end, the knowledge was inside her, making everything more poignant.
She knew it might be the end when she rose up on her tiptoes to kiss him as she undid his shirt, and the same knowledge was in his eyes when he pulled away and framed her face in his hands. He looked down at her for a long moment, then looked away, inhaling as though preparing to speak.
But he didn’t. He just pressed her face into the hollow of his throat. They stood there, holding each other, their hearts beating in tandem.
“Oh, Mandy,” he finally said, and there was a wistful note in his voice that she’d never heard before. But when she pulled away and looked up at him, he simply shook his head, leaned down and touched his lips to hers, and his kiss conveyed everything she needed to kno
w.
Yes, it said. I’m here. I care. If you wake up tomorrow morning, we can give it another try. Maybe it even said, I love you, too.
She gloried in the kiss, returning it even as she finished with his shirt and pushed it off over his shoulders, leaving it to snag on his cuffs where his hands gripped her hips with increasing intensity. He changed the angle of the kiss, delving deeper, and she opened to him, glorying in the taste and feel of him, the potent male flavor on her tongue and the strong hardness of his body beneath her fingertips as she went to work on his pants.
When he reached for her towel, where she’d folded it over between her breasts, she backed away, leading him toward the bed.
“Let me,” she said, and waited until he was standing staring at her before she undid the towel and let it fall.
She was naked beneath, and aching for him. The illness of an hour before was gone. In its place was a hum of heat and sensation.
A small corner of her brain recorded the escalating sensations and wondered if perhaps blinding lust was a side effect of the antidote, whether the unblocking of her pain receptors had triggered a pleasure response in its wake. The larger part of her didn’t care one way or the other, though. Or rather, it knew that the lust was no drug side effect. It was Parker. Only Parker.
Without another word or hesitation, he shucked out of his shirt and pants, then skimmed his boxers down over his hips and stepped out of them, leaving him bare to her as she was bare to him. They came together, not with the heat and flame of the night before, but with the surety of lovers who had come back to each other and had no doubts this time.
Because of that surety, and the love she was just beginning to acknowledge, Mandy took control of the kiss, nudging him toward the bed and following him down.
Better yet, he let her take that control.
Feeling a thrill of power, she rose above him, letting her hair brush against the side of his throat, where his pulse pounded, evidence of the rush of blood beneath his skin and the heavy beat of his heart. They locked eyes, and his slow smile was all the permission she needed.
She sent her lips on a long cruise down his body, tasting here, nipping there, while he fisted one hand in the bedclothes, the other in her hair. His strong fingers massaged her scalp as his body arched beneath her. She could feel the tension in him, and knew what it cost him to let her have the upper hand, even here, in his bedroom.
That a man who so needed to be in control would let her control him here…that was the ultimate statement, the final proof that he trusted her. Maybe even loved her, she thought, and the emotion of it, the feeling of it grew within her, tangling around her heart and squeezing until she almost couldn’t breathe.
For half a second she couldn’t breathe, and panic flared at the thought that it was the toxin or the antidote, that she’d miscalculated. Then her lungs unlocked and she could breathe again, and with that breathing came a simple, irrefutable fact.
She loved Parker.
Despite—or perhaps because of—his irascible temper and many failings, she loved him. She hadn’t spent the past four years pining for him, but she had been waiting. Waiting for their lives to circle back around to each other, waiting for him to be ready for what they could have together.
She could’ve gone to Michigan, could’ve gone to half a dozen other E.R.s across the country, but she’d chosen Boston, on some level hoping it was time for them now.
And it was.
Knowing it, believing it, loving it, she returned to his mouth, kissing him as she reached for the nightstand and found a condom. As the kiss spun out, he slid his hands along her body, from where her knees pressed into the mattress on either side of his big body, up her thighs and buttocks to her waist.
Heat flared in the wake of his touch. Need. Deciding in favor of expediency over control, she pressed the condom into his hand and waited while he opened the packet and donned the latex barrier without breaking the kiss.
Then he tossed the empty wrapper aside, returned his hands to her waist and urged her downward.
Knowing she’d been ready for him since the moment she’d stepped out of the shower, she slid down onto him in a single strong move.
He filled her. Stretched her. Completed her. With his hard flesh seated to the hilt within her, she paused for a breathless instant, absorbing the sensations, reveling in the heat.
Then, with his hands on her hips and her lips against his, she began to move, building the rhythm slowly at first, and then faster and faster as the heat flared between them and her body demanded not gentleness anymore, but the slap of flesh against flesh and the groan of the man beneath her.
He met her thrust for thrust as she strained toward the first peak, hovering near but not quite reaching the pinnacle until he broke with a shout, wrapped his arms around her waist and neatly reversed their positions. With him above and her below, he thrust home, touching her deeper with each sure move. She cried out and arched against him, wanting more, demanding more, and he gave and gave and kept giving until she was there.
She cried his name as the pleasure spun out and then coalesced, and she was coming in glorious waves of release. Of a new beginning.
He groaned deep in his chest and followed her over, and the pulse of his flesh within her prolonged the orgasm, drawing it out until they collapsed against each other, spent with pleasure.
At some point they both fell asleep, still intertwined.
Later, when the moon had come and gone, they turned to each other again and made slow, soft love as morning approached and the hours counted down.
When the alarm went off at 6:00 a.m., Mandy woke with a jolt, her eyes flying open and her hands grabbing for the nearest solid object, which turned out to be Parker.
“I’m alive,” she said, knowing it was stupid but needing to say it just the same. As a groggy Parker rolled over to face her, she ran a quick mental inventory and didn’t find so much as a twinge of pain. “Nothing hurts!” She leaned in and kissed him hard on the mouth, then threw her arms up in victory, not caring that the sheet slid down and she was naked beneath. “It worked!”
When that didn’t seem like a sufficient celebration, she jumped up and did a little dance around the room.
It was a cold morning; frost furred the sun-brightened windows and the air in the bedroom was sharp despite the town house’s central heating. Mandy’s skin tightened and her nipples hardened to buds, and she spun, thinking about diving back under the covers with Parker and putting her sudden burst of energy to good use.
Then she got a look at his face, and stopped dead.
Chapter Thirteen
“Oh, hell,” Mandy said, her stomach plummeting to her toes at the absolute stillness of his body, and the closed-off blank of his expression.
He sat in the center of his bed, and though it was a king-size mattress, it suddenly seemed as though there was only room for one person. He looked, if possible, even more unreachable than he had the first time he’d seen her back at Boston General and hadn’t even blinked.
Even worse, he looked trapped.
The cool air on her skin, which had been invigorating only moments before, was suddenly harsh and punishing. She crossed her hands ineffectively over her breasts and inwardly cursed herself, cursed him. Aloud, though, all she said was, “I’ll go get dressed.”
She escaped to the guest room, pulled on underwear, jeans, a shirt and socks at random, and jammed the rest of her things in the leather duffel she’d brought with her from her apartment. She knew the danger wouldn’t truly be past until Stankowski and the others had caught Paul Durst’s killer, which meant she couldn’t go back to her apartment yet, but she’d be damned if she spend another night in Parker’s town house. Not because of the way he’d just looked at her, or because of their inevitable parting, but because she’d gone and done it again.
She’d fallen for him when he didn’t feel the same. Not even close.
“Mandy, I’m sorry. I wish I could promise to g
ive you what you want,” he said from the doorway.
“Don’t bother, I get it.” She zipped the duffel, then looked up at him. He stood in the doorway, looking as though he’d dressed as hurriedly as she. His hair was still bed-messy and he was wearing last night’s jeans and the Harvard sweatshirt without another shirt underneath.
Only the day before, she would’ve imagined sliding her hands into the warmth beneath that sweatshirt, and touching the man beneath. Now, all she could think about was getting the hell out of there.
Running away again? her inner voice demanded. You haven’t grown up as much as you thought.
The realization had her blowing out a long breath and pausing in her flight. She stood and faced him squarely before saying, “Look, I made the ground rules and I broke them by thinking we might have a chance at something more. That’s on me. But if you don’t think there’s something special between us, something that could be wonderful if you let it, then you’re an idiot.”
For a second she imagined a hint of warmth in his eyes, and felt a burst of hope that he might give it a chance after all.
Then he looked away and shook his head. “I don’t want what you want. I’ve been married, and it doesn’t work for me.”
“Because you won’t let it. Because you won’t let anyone inside.” Defeat pressed on her chest, squeezing her heart until tears seemed like the only option. “But like I said, my bad for thinking you’d changed.”
“Mandy…” He trailed off, because they both knew there was nothing else to say.
“I’m out of here.” She shoved her feet into her sneakers, yanked the laces tight and stood, swinging the duffel over her shoulder. Holding up a hand to stem his protest, she said, “I know. I won’t go back to the apartment, and I’ll stay in plain sight. I’ll even carry your cell if that’d make you feel better. But please don’t ask me to stay here and be civilized—I’m just not feeling it right now. It wasn’t your fault I got in too deep, but that doesn’t mean I want to hang out with you, either.”
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