Nobody's Angel

by Sarah Hegger

  “I thought when she came over here the other day to talk, it meant she was going to give us a chance. Apparently, I was wrong.” He went for his beer again and Lucy left it alone. Hell! She’d be drinking if that were an option for her.

  “Why did she come, then?” Lucy could make a fairly accurate guess, but she wanted to see if he could do the same. Richard was too chivalrous for his own good sometimes. She had certainly taken shameless advantage in her time.

  “Because of you.” He swore softly around the lip of his beer. “I thought she was going to reconsider, maybe give us a chance, but Ashley wanted to make sure I was not getting too friendly with you.” He was silent for a moment. “She doesn’t want me, but she’d die before she let you have me.” He grunted softly. “I tried to explain that you and I, we were over, but it doesn’t matter to her.” His eyes cut back to her, intent and keen in their focus. “And she doesn’t believe me.”

  Lucy struggled to hold his stare. There was so much conflict in his blue eyes, it made her want to touch him and soothe some of it away. Except, she was the cause of most of it. Again. Shit, she didn’t even have to try to screw up his life.

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured.

  “You’re sorry?” He gaped at her. “Oh man, Lucy. That is unbelievable, because this time you have nothing to be sorry for.”

  “Being here,” she said, shrugging. “My being here has made your life more difficult.”

  “Yeah,” he said, nodding slowly as his expression grew contemplative. “But that’s not your fault. I’m the dickhead who can’t seem to get it straight in his head. I’m sitting with Ashley, trying to explain how this thing between you and me is all over and then it hits me.” He shook his head slowly. “It hits me that it’s not over and what chance do I have of convincing anyone else of that, when I know I’m lying.”

  Lucy opened her mouth to say something, anything, but the words weren’t there. The truth hung in the kitchen between them. The air around them crackled with possibilities.

  “What a fucking mess.” He stalked away suddenly, leaving a vacuum where so much intense, turbulent energy had been. “I don’t get it.” His hands went up in the air as if he could wrench the answers from the heavens. “Tell me why, Lucy? What is so goddamned awful about being with me?”

  The rapid subject change threw her at first. Then she got it and Lucy’s heart contracted. This had to be hell on any man, to have lost not one, but the two women you have loved. “There’s nothing awful about being with you.”

  “Then tell me,” he demanded as his eyes raked over her. “I’m one of the good guys. I’m a doctor, for Christ’s sake. Every girl wants a doctor.”

  “I can’t speak for Ashley.” Lucy’s legs felt rubbery and she leaned against the counter behind her for support.

  “Then don’t.” He yanked out a chair and threw himself into it. “Speak for you.”

  “I told you why.” Lucy felt as if her voice were an entity separate from the rest of her. “I was broken and hurting and I couldn’t allow myself to be loved. I wanted to prove that everybody was right about me. I was no good and not worth anything. So, I did. I destroyed the one thing that was good and wonderful in my life.”

  “Why didn’t you stay? We could have fixed it.”

  “No, Richard.” Lucy shook her head. Behind her breastbone she could feel the old hurt gather and swell. “I am the only one who could fix it. It took me six years to figure that out and another three to start putting the pieces back together again. And I can say with absolute certainty that it was not you.”

  “Great,” he jeered. He sprung out of his chair, eating up the ground between them until he loomed dark and dangerous in front of her.

  Lucy’s heart leapt into her throat, but she held her ground. He would never hurt her, at least, not physically.

  “The old it’s-not-you-it’s-me kiss-off. Ashley said the same thing.” He was right in her face, but Lucy didn’t move.

  She could see the turmoil in his eyes. It was like a taste of gunpowder in the air.

  “She says she married me as some kind of ultimate win against you.” Ashley had apparently spared him nothing. Lucy felt the hurt climb into her throat and she tried to swallow it back down again. “She said she never really loved me, but that I was a good husband and we were content together. Now, content is not good enough. You getting all this?”

  Lucy’s mouth was too dry to speak, so she nodded.

  His breath was hot and moist against her face and he smelled of malt and hops. The counter dug into her butt as she pressed herself away from him. She wanted to bring up her hands to put between them, but he moved closer, caging her with his body. His arms rested besides her hips, his knuckles white with his grip on the wood.

  “Ashley thinks this is all about you, Lucy Flint,” he spoke directly into her ear. He surrounded her. His arms kept her prisoner. The heat from his body wrapped around her and his breath fanned the skin of her neck. Part of her was frightened at his suppressed fury, but she couldn’t deny he excited her at the same time. Her legs felt weak and she sank against the counter. Desire surged hot and strong through her. It washed over her in waves that she couldn’t fight anymore.

  “She says that it has always been you, for me.”

  Lucy made a soft, needy gasp as he pressed closer. She sensed the wildness in him and it sizzled and crackled through her body in a live circuit. Her breathing came short and quick. Her core tightened with need, pulling at her reason and demanding that she submit to the tug of fierce, reckless passion. She wanted to rip away any pretense of civility and feel.

  “You know what I think?” His voice against her skin tormented her.

  Her head reeled with the attempt to keep her focus sharp. It was too much for her. Her body vibrated like a tuning fork with his proximity and her thoughts tangled and tripped over her base needs. Somewhere deep inside a voice was warning her, but Richard drowned out the sound with his hot, hard body and the smell of man.

  Lucy shook her head. She had no words, only the need to press herself a half inch closer until her flesh touched his. Her breasts felt heavy and swollen. Her nipples rasped against the front of her shirt. She had underestimated the strength of this thing that hissed and snapped between them. Desire fisted in her belly and moved lower. There had always been only him for her, but she dared not say the words. They jammed up in her throat and so she shook her head again. Small skeins of her hair caught on the roughness of his chin. Every inch of her being sought the contact.

  “I think.” He didn’t brush the tiny connection of her hair away. His voice was tumescent with what he didn’t say and she dared not. “I think it always comes down to you, Lucy. What is it about you that imprints every facet of my life?”

  Harsh, hot breath fanned her cheek. “From the moment I saw you, you have cursed me.” Lucy wanted to howl her denial. “I can still remember it like it was this morning.” He breathed through his nose, inhaling the scent of her and Lucy’s head tilted to give him access. A silent offering that she didn’t want to control.

  His head dipped in response until she felt the brush of his breath against the curve of her neck.

  A small whimper escaped her at the graze of his mouth against her skin. It was barely a touch, but she felt it right through to her center. Her fingers dug into the countertop and she battled through the fog to hear what he was saying.

  “You were standing next to Ashley, talking to her. She was supposed to be my girlfriend, but it was you I was watching. I stood there and stared. I must have stood like that for ten minutes. You didn’t know that, did you?”

  Lucy shook her head again.

  His beard rasped lightly against her cheek. “And then you turned to me and it was like being punched. I couldn’t breathe, Lucy. I swear to God, I stopped breathing. You were so unbelievably beautiful and I wanted you so much. I was rock hard, Lucy, and I was standing half a room away from you.” He pushed toward her and Lucy felt the jutting pressur
e of his erection.

  She moaned softly as her body flooded with answering moisture.

  His mouth was beside hers and Lucy’s entire being locked on the spot where they nearly connected. All she had to do was turn her head a quarter inch to the right and she could feel his mouth on hers. The need almost overwhelmed the fear, but the fear was greater. Terrified he would move away and even more terrified he wouldn’t. So she stayed, her body locked in a stasis of longing and desire. Trembling, out of control, and bereft of will and choices, paralyzed by her longing.

  “Ashley says you have always been first, but she has no idea. Does she, Lucy?” Her name was breathed across her bottom lip. “She thinks she knows, but she has no idea how it was for us.” He released the counter suddenly to clasp her face between his palms and Lucy allowed him to pull her gaze from his mouth to his eyes.

  It was all there, the impotent fury that he was helpless against her. It mirrored her desperation so fully. Lucy had no idea that she was crying until she felt his thumbs roughly push the moisture from her cheeks. He cradled her face between his hands, his fingers buried deep within her hair and pressing lightly against her scalp.

  “Every flash of your eyes …” His voice dropped deeper and grew ragged with his breathing. “Every smile …” He touched the corner of her mouth and dragged his thumb across her bottom lip.

  Lucy could taste the salty moisture of her tears.

  “Every time you said my name or laughed. I watched you like I could never get enough of you. And I couldn’t. I could never have enough of you. Even when I was buried inside you, with these legs wrapped around me, as close to you as I could get, it still wasn’t enough. What is it about you, Lucy Flint?” He lowered his head toward her, but the battle still raged in his eyes. “And it was the same for you, Lucy. I can’t be wrong about that.”

  It was a plea and she heard it. “You aren’t wrong.”

  So soft she barely heard her own voice, but he heard it and he closed the breath of space between them and touched his mouth to hers, tentatively, at first, as if he was not sure this was really happening.

  Need exploded in Lucy and she made a stifled, animal sound and pressed her mouth fully against his.

  For a heartbeat, he didn’t move, but his entire body tensed like a coil. Then the grip on her scalp tightened and he tugged her closer to him, more fully into the kiss.

  Their mouths opened to each other greedily, tongues, lips, and teeth, all tasting, inhaling, devouring the essence of each other with a hunger that raged through her. For Lucy it was like coming alive again.

  His kiss bruised, but Lucy pressed even closer, moaning her need in low murmurs into his mouth. He drank her desire thirstily, taking her mouth and plundering. Trying to sate something stronger than either of them. Against her body, he was hard and unyielding and it thrilled her.

  The taste of him was heady. It was familiar and not at all the same. She pushed deeper into the kiss, as if she could satisfy her need like this.

  It wasn’t enough for either of them and she felt his hand, hard and demanding against her hips, pulling her against him, rubbing his rigid cock against the juncture of her thighs.

  This was Richard, her body exalted and he was harder, stronger, and bigger than she remembered. But the smell of him was the same and the way they fit together, so incredibly, achingly familiar.

  His hips moved against her, his erection full and swelling against her female flesh and Lucy responded. Moving against him as the thrust of his hips and tongue became more insistent.

  He pressed into her, bending her over backward. He released her head only to lift her hips onto the counter behind her. Parting her thighs and pressing forward, dominating her with his body and his mouth until Lucy felt the hard press of unyielding wood beneath her back.

  His body pressed down onto hers.

  She gripped his back, holding him in place with her thighs around his hips and her arms around his neck. He was hard where she was wet and wanting. The rough texture of his big hands against the skin of her waist made Lucy cry out into his mouth.

  “I need to touch you.” He pulled away enough to watch his hand disappear beneath the hem of her shirt, riding the gentle rise of her ribcage.

  Lucy arched into his touch. It burned against her skin until his palm closed over her breast.

  He captured her moan in his mouth. Taking possession of her mouth and the full, aching mound of her breast in one devastating movement.

  There was no hesitation in his possession. No tentative exploration, but a certainty of his ability to drive them both mindless with pleasure; the awkward apology of a boy’s touch had been replaced by a sure, slow hand of a man.

  The thought beamed through the haze of lust.

  In that split second between one heartbeat and the next, Lucy saw herself, spread like a sacrificial offering across the countertop, her body straining against his, her heart and her soul on offer with it. And just like that, it wasn’t enough. The lust he offered was not enough. She reached desperately for that thought, beating back the need to ignore everything and submit.

  She craved the closeness and the oblivion, but she wanted more.

  It took him a moment to sense her withdrawal and then he raised his head. His eyes were feverish and his face flushed as he stared down at her. “Lucy?”

  The question was there and with nearly every fiber of her being she wanted to answer yes, to give him permission to take her body.

  “Not like this,” she whispered instead.

  He frowned and recoiled away from her as if she’d slapped him. “Jesus, Lucy.” She winced as his voice shot across the kitchen. “Are you playing games with me?”

  “No games.” She pulled her shirt down with shaking hands and tried to wriggle off the counter. It was undignified and her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. Her position a powerful reminder of what had nearly happened here. What she still wanted to happen. “I’m not playing games.”

  He watched her with hot, angry eyes.

  Lucy could see the rigid grip he exerted on his control.

  “I was right there with you. And I want this,” she said, gesturing toward the two of them. “But not like this. Not in anger.” She took a shallow, shaky breath. “Don’t make love to me in anger.”

  He stayed where he was, frozen to the spot as the desire receded and reality tiptoed unwelcome fingers through his brain.

  Lucy watched it all happen, the disbelief, then the shock, and, finally, the regret. And inside, she died a little bit right there. He would have had sex with her and he would have regretted it. Her tattered dignity was not quite enough of a consolation, but it was all she had.

  “Come to me because you want me, Richard.” She drew even with him as she made for the front door. “Don’t use the attraction between us to ease your anger and your hurt.”

  Still he didn’t move and Lucy let herself out of the house.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Richard was grumpy, but he didn’t give a shit as he slammed his car door and stalked toward his office. The heat hit him like a wave as he opened the door. A Chinook packed full of the assembled smells and sounds of the gathered humanity.

  As one they looked up when he walked in, their faces reflecting largely divergent levels of patience. Most looked like they were bending the needle toward Where the hell have you been? I have a life, which does not include sitting here getting old in your waiting room. He couldn’t blame them.

  He was late. Horribly and irrevocably late and he would have the unmitigated delight of taking it on the chin for the rest of the day.

  Lucy was back in town and his life was, once again, sliding to hell in a handbasket. She had that effect on things. Lucy arrived with her pet avatars of chaos and disruption and the three of them played knick-knack paddywhack all over his head.

  Actually, it wasn’t entirely her fault this time. True, trying to get to sleep with a raging hard-on had not helped. He’d overslept and then spent a frustrati
ng two hours trying to get Lynne to make a decision. His entire time in Lynne’s kitchen his one eye had kept creeping toward the stair to see if Lucy would join them. She hadn’t and it was ridiculous how much that pissed him off.

  Ah, shit. Richard caught sight of his first patient.

  Brad-Leigh blinked back at him, two slimy trails of snot glued to the four-year-old’s top lip. He hoped his nurse, Carmen, had remembered to restock the examination rooms with Kleenex.

  “There you are.” Carmen rolled her eyes at him. “You decided to take the day off, or what?” Richard threw her the look.

  “Brooke,” he said, nodding a greeting to the boy’s mother and passing her a Kleenex. He suppressed the desire to shudder. He was a doctor, for the love of God. Blood, gore, throw-up and, yes, even Brad-Leigh’s snot was all in a day’s work. “Sorry I’m late. I will just be a minute.”

  Brooke twittered something, but Richard didn’t hear her. He was already on the move toward his office.

  Carmen glared at him from over the top of her reading glasses as he sidled past her desk. Richard was sure the woman wouldn’t be in such a perpetually pissy mood if she conceded defeat and went two doors down to the opticians and got a decent prescription.

  “Perhaps there is a reason you are late, hmm?” Carmen’s sneer had all heads snapping in his direction.

  “Give me a couple of minutes and then send in Brooke and Brad-Leigh.” He kept up his professional face.

  “You’re very behind,” she called after him, unnecessarily. “It is going to be a very long day.” Again, with the unsolicited and obvious, Richard didn’t deign to reply, but threw Carmen another look of complete, icy disdain. As per usual, she was unimpressed and merely glared right back.

  “You have snow on your pants,” deadpanned his middle-aged nemesis.

  Richard made it into his office, barely taking the time to put on his lab coat, before he heard Brad-Leigh and his snot trundling down the corridor toward one of the three patient rooms. He winced at the unmistakable clatter of Brad-Leigh discovering the tray of instruments. Brooke’s voice rose in the usual token, and unconvincing, reprimand.