After Hours (InterMix)(113)

It was nothing like the things we’d done before. The angle was awkward, the eye contact intense and intimate and humbling. He let me watch every stage of his arousal as it transformed his expression from intrigued to dirty to desperate. As he neared orgasm, he cupped my ear, fingers fidgeting in my hair. No orders this time, just a series of near-silent grunts as I stroked him closer to the edge. Then—

“Please.”

He needn’t have begged. Just now, watching him was as hot as f*cking him, and I was as antsy for his release as he was.

“Yes. Please.” Again his eyes shut, expression pure and perfect agony. His twitching arm and hips told me he was a goner.

He came with the softest, sweetest moan, filling my cupped hand in three long spurts.

“Good.” I left him panting, slipping away to tidy my palm with a tissue. He moved so I could free the covers and we kicked our way between the sheets. I hadn’t even realized how chilly the room had grown until we were enveloped by all that warmth.

“You need something?” he asked.

I kissed his temple. “No, I’m perfect.” Perfectly satisfied, and perfectly exhausted, same as him.

“I’ll get you back,” he mumbled, already fading. “Don’t you worry.”

“I’m sure you will. Thanks for making it sound like a threat.”

“Mmm,” he hummed with a smile, and rolled over. I switched off the reading lamp and draped my arm around his waist.

“I’m gonna fall in love with you,” Kelly said. His words hung in the darkness, bright as candle flames.

“You think so?”

“Yeah. And I don’t think I’ve ever been in love with anybody. Not beyond that dumb kind you feel when you’re young.”

For a long moment I just nibbled my lip, dumbstruck. When I did speak, all that came out was a soft, “Wow.”

“I’ve never loved anybody, for the right reasons,” he said quietly. “I love my mom, but I don’t respect her. I loved my grandfather, but I also never really felt like I knew him. A part of me might even love Don, but I can’t ever tell him that . . .

“If I fall in love with you, it’ll be because I know you inside and out, and because you’re somebody I want to be a better person for—instead of in spite of.”

What he said gave me chills. It felt like he’d opened some secret door and let me come inside and handle the softest parts of him, off-limits to the rest of the world. It meant far more than the bones of any dusty secrets I might exhume on my own.

“There’s nothing I can say that’ll be anywhere as nice as what you just said.”

“Just let me say it first.”

I smiled, unseen. “As you command.”

After a pause he added, “You know, it’s not so bad, needing someone. And not even needing someone . . . Letting someone help you.”

“Are you saying this to me, or yourself?”

“You . . . And maybe me.”

“I’d rather want someone than need them,” I decided. “But you’re right. It’s nice to have someone to fall back on, when things suddenly go to shit.” I’d had that in Kelly, that night at the ER. I just hadn’t known it until he strode into the waiting room.

“Someone to rely on,” Kelly murmured. “Some man who’d bust his ass so you could work through your RN, full-time. Or something more. If you wanted that.”

I blinked in the darkness. “He’d have to be an awfully rich man, if I tricked myself into thinking I was cut out for medical school.”

“Nah. Just some loner with his house already paid off and inexpensive tastes.”

These were thoughts for another time. For another year. I had plenty to learn as I found my feet at Larkhaven in the coming months. Just as much to learn as I fumbled my way into a romance with this strange and startling man.

I squeezed his fingers. “I don’t know what I want yet, for the future. I just know I want . . . I want you to need me back,” I whispered. “For more than just sex.”

“Sweetheart, I already do. I need you for what you let me be for you last night.”

“Oh.”

“I’m nothing without people relying on me. You ever feel tempted to offer me a foot rub, save your energy and ask me to fix something instead.”

“If it makes you so happy, I’ll break stuff on purpose.”