Wicked: Whispering Cove, Book 3 Page 4

  Now, at the moment, nothing mattered. The desire simmering in his gut for the doctor who’d efficiently sewn up the gash spanning from his eyebrow to his hairline didn’t matter. Her wintergreen scent or the way it washed him back to having her naked beneath him didn’t matter. The arousal quickening his blood and swelling his dick didn’t matter.

  Didn’t matter. Couldn’t matter. Wouldn’t matter.

  “What are you doing here?” Danica’s prickly voice at his shoulder jarred Braydon.

  He turned and met her curious stare through the screened-in family room window. Her hair was pulled into a messy ponytail with tangled strands falling free to frame her round face. Her lips pressed into a thin line as she waited. The gauzy curtain floated around her head like a fluttering veil.

  He couldn’t inhale. Each attempt became a silent fight against the grip closing his throat.

  “Braydon?” She leaned forward on the windowsill and narrowed her eyes. “Are you okay?”

  He couldn’t speak, and she clearly expected an answer.

  “Shit. Don’t move.” She disappeared inside.

  She shouldn’t worry about him moving. He wasn’t sure his legs would work any better than the rest of him, but why had she suddenly sounded so panicky?

  He touched his head gingerly. The bruised bulge surrounding his stitches hurt, but it didn’t feel like he’d popped a stitch. He wasn’t bleeding.

  What had rattled the delicious doctor?

  Before he’d puzzled it out, she rounded the corner of the house and knelt before him, dropping a medical bag at his feet.

  “Are you okay?” She took his wrist, resting her fingers over his pulse. “Any headaches, vomiting, rapid breathing? Your pulse is fast.”

  Bumping his legs apart, she moved between his knees and took his chin in her hand. She examined his eyes, the bruise, the sutures.

  His dick swelled, begging for more of her ministrations. For more direct and personal attention.

  “Did you sleep last night?”

  He gripped the wrist of her hand holding his face and stared into her gaze. His lungs constricted, complicating his breathing. “Danica.”

  “I told Byron not to let you go back to the boat.”

  He’d seen her in competent ER doctor mode. This was different. She was scared for him. Why? Was it guilt for being the one to wound him? Or something more…personal?

  “I stayed at Granddad’s, but no, I didn’t sleep well.” Every time he’d closed his eyes, images of Danica had slipped to the forefront.

  Her hair spread out on his pillow while she writhed in orgasm. Her perky breasts subtly swaying with the gentle rocking of the boat. Her pussy open, wet and ready for him. Her wicked abandon.

  “You should have found me earlier. That blow to your head was serious.”

  Braydon swallowed and shoved back the urge to rip her clothes off and plunge into her. He demanded as much control of himself as he expected of the rigging on his boat. Now was no different, so rather than pillage and plunder, he held her hand on his chin captive and cupped her neck with his free one.

  Pulling her close, so close her mouth almost brushed his, he drew in her scent. His eyes pulsed in a mini-throb thing they did when he concentrated too hard on something. He held his resolve, keeping their gazes locked.

  “I’m here now, Doctor. Will you examine me?”

  Her tongue swept across her lips and bumped his. His cock pressed more adamantly against his zipper. He’d have to stick with drawstring swim trunks the rest of his visit. He seemed to need the extra room around her.

  “Braydon.” Her pupils dilated with excitement, but her tone reeked of refusal. Her free hand rested on his leg for support.

  He pulled her the remaining distance and put his lips to hers. He kept the caress soft and steady. Her balancing hand slipped forward, her fingers eased beneath the denim edge. His balls tightened. His spine tingled.

  Every time she touched him, his body responded predictably. “Say yes, Doc.”

  He kissed a trail from her mouth, along her cheek, to below her earlobe and along the front of her neck. At the hollow of her throat, he lingered. A lick, a nibble, a kiss. She gasped and dropped her head back.

  He followed the sway of her body. Moving in slow motion, he eased out of the deep chair and lowered them toward the weathered wood porch.

  “This isn’t smart.” Danica arched against him even as she debated the wisdom.

  “But it’s right for the moment.” He plucked the tail of her purple tank top from the waist of her denim shorts, slipped it up and off.

  He was going to give her a sunset to remember.

  “You’re right.”

  Pinned to the hard wood beneath Braydon wasn’t where she’d planned to spend the evening, but damn if he didn’t make it impossible to resist. And though resistance would save her pain when he sailed away, she couldn’t turn from the man who was bringing her fantasies eagerly into the realm of reality.

  She’d missed his touches after leaving him last night. Self-preservation mattered, but so did enjoying life. Braydon was extremely enjoyable.

  If the moment was all she could have, she’d live in it and cherish the memories. Decided, she locked her hands behind Braydon’s neck and pulled him to her.

  He thrust his tongue into her mouth. Their teeth scraped and he slowed, moving more leisurely into the exploration, swiping his tongue between her gums and teeth before continuing to entice her through the erotic waltz.

  Her pulse thumped. She’d craved him. He stripped her naked, left her heart unprotected, yet she was giving him everything she had to offer. If he looked beyond the sex, he would see through the transparency of her emotions. She loved him, always had, and no amount of rationale would temper her emotions or desires.

  Braydon flipped the bra hook between her breasts and thumbed her nipples. They hardened. The soft breeze fluttering over her skin was an additional caress. Her pussy quivered.

  He repeated the path he’d taken earlier, kissing his way to the hollow of her throat where he lingered for only a moment, just long enough to make her squirm before proceeding. Rather than going straight for her breasts, or sucking her nipples into his wicked mouth like she wanted, he granted his attention to the less tender, but still sensitive skin along the outer swells.

  Hungry, eager for him to be naked and in her, she grabbed his shirt and yanked it over his head, breaking his touches only long enough to rid him of the barrier. It wasn’t enough.

  She reached between them and loosened the fasteners of his shorts. Raising her right hip, she rolled against him and nudged him to his back so she could more easily strip him.

  With his mouth teasing her breast, his hands worked her shorts loose and off until they were skin to skin.

  “We’re gonna have splinters in our asses.”

  “I know a doctor.” He nibbled a path toward a nipple. “She probably has some tweezers.”

  Laughing, Danica angled her head and kissed his ear. It was a weak spot she’d discovered the night before. A spot which drove him to one of two actions. He would push her away and focus somewhere else, or he would relinquish control and devour her.

  She was hoping for the devouring.

  Braydon swung up and pulled her against him, positioning her pussy against his cock. Her inner muscles trembled. Devouring.

  She rolled her hips, brushing her clit against the ridges of his erection.

  He spread his hands wide, and taking a breast in each one, squeezed with a rhythmic pulsing that echoed the beat in her head. She kissed his neck, worked her way down to his collarbone and across his shoulder. He tasted lightly of sea salt and adventure. A delectable adventure. Flattening her palms on his chest, she pushed until he lay beneath her on the deck, and then slid her hands toward his rippling sailor abs and lower still toward the crown of his cock.

  Brushing a thumb over the tip, she captured a bead of precome and lifted her hand with his arousal glistening on her finger. Her
eyes sought his. His sought hers. They entangled with pulsing pupils and sparking passion.

  She loved watching his eyes and the way the shifted, showing his emotions.

  She placed her thumb against her bottom lip and slowly brushed her tongue along the pad, tasting him.

  “Fuck, woman.”

  She didn’t respond other than to suck her finger into her mouth. To move the digit in and out, sucking and moaning lightly as she rocked her hips and continued rubbing her clit against his cock.

  She was lubricating them both. His entry would be a smooth glide, filling her in width and depth. The head of his dick would bump her G-spot.

  The muscles between her shoulder blades tingled. Tightened. Tension tripped along her spine and spread like electric impulses through her skull and down her back.

  His fingers dug into her breasts with bruising force. She arched deeper into his touch, eager to drive him farther away from his control. She pulled her finger from her mouth with a wet popping sound and slid the moisture down the middle of his chest.

  When she reached his cock, he released a breast and grabbed her wrist. “Touch me again and this will be over.”

  “No.” She reached behind her back and between his legs and massaged his balls. They swelled and tightened. “We’re just beginning.”

  He dropped his head back, driving his hips up and against her. A groan rumbled from his chest. Excited anticipation had her pussy twitching. His control was about to shatter.

  “I’m going to break your restraint, Braydon.” He grabbed her hips and lifted her so she could no longer tease herself with his length. Or so she could no longer tease him. Undeterred by him crushing her body against his, Danica cupped his balls in her fingers and rolled them back and forth, tugging gently at the flesh beneath, dragging her nails lightly over the taut skin a little lower.

  A gurgle visibly shook his throat, inciting an echoing groan from her. Using his grip on her hips, he pushed her back and drove into her.

  She grasped his thighs, arching her chest toward the porch roof, and dug her nails in as she screamed with the instant orgasm.

  Braydon held firm, holding her immobile when she’d much prefer riding him to a frantic and sweaty end. His jaw muscles flinched beneath the power of his clenched teeth. He didn’t move, or allow her to move, until her pulsing inner walls stopped twitching against him.

  Then he dropped his grip, took her face in his hands and kissed her. He’d maintained control, and it had only heightened the desire shining in his eyes. The connection of his touch stole through her soul and left her floundering. She’d convinced herself she could survive a fling. She’d been wrong.

  His gaze didn’t say fling.

  His gaze held passion and affection and admiration.

  His gaze granted dreams.

  “You’re amazing, Danica.”

  Her heart bounced around in her chest, battering and bruising her ribs. All through school she’d wanted his attention. She’d dreamed about it through adulthood. Struggling to draw air into her lungs, she breathed in small open-mouthed gasps and became more deeply entranced.

  “I’m going to love you all night.” Erotic assurances whispered beneath the husky arousal thickening his voice. “When I finish, your legs are going to be floppier than a jelly fish.”

  “Gee. That’s sexy.” Her pussy spasmed around him.

  “Maybe the image isn’t, but your responses are.” Grinning, he crossed his legs beneath her ass and stood. “The journey certainly will be.”

  Walking as if he owned her and her house, he carried her inside and headed upstairs. Each step drove his cock against her G-spot, rubbed her clit. Each step incited the barely cooled desire raging in her body.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “To make sure you think of me when you pace your widow’s walk from now on.”

  “Oh.” Holy damn. He knew she’d watched him. Those times he’d turned her way and she’d imagined him looking at her—he had.

  If she’d hoped to walk away unscathed it was too late. He was her heart’s master.

  Chapter Four

  The woman was temptation.

  Scrubbing the stubble on his chin, Braydon turned away from the late night/early morning view of the bay. The moon’s illumination landed on her lavender sheet as the light cover rose and fell, shimmering with glints of silver satin, as Danica’s chest rose and fell.

  The curve of her breast peeking above the sheet tempted him.

  The expanse of her leg sticking out the side and showing off her powerful thighs tempted him.

  Even her petite snore tempted him.

  In the moonlight, with the glasses lying abandoned on the bedside table instead of perched on her delicate nose, she was neither awkward girl nor confident doctor. Stripped of her glasses and clothes, she turned into a seductress.

  Compelled, Braydon moved to the bed’s side and brushed a sweep of hair away from her eye. She shifted her head against the pillow and sighed as a soft smile stole across her lips that were still swollen from exploring his body. The wicked lips she’d wrapped around him.

  His cock hardened at the thought, and at the idea of crawling beneath the sheet to wake beside her. Sleeping with women wasn’t something he did, yet with Danica the idea held too much appeal.

  The clock read one a.m. He’d promised to have breakfast with Granddad in the morning, so he should get to bed. Sleep wouldn’t come. Only dreams of Danica Kent would come, just as they had the night before. Tonight would likely be worse, because tonight he’d gotten a stronger taste of her lures.

  He shook his head and went after his clothes. He couldn’t go home, but he couldn’t stay with her. He sure as hell wouldn’t go to Granddad’s and risk an inquisition. That left the Seaside Pub where someone would be up for a beer or game of pool. Anything to keep him from thinking of the delectable doc.

  On the way to reclaim his clothes, Braydon paused by a hallway table with a stack of the magazines he wrote for. They each looked as if they’d been read and re-read several times, and damn if pride and pleasure didn’t swell inside. Smiling, he detoured to look at the family photos with Danica. Maybe it was a result of knowing the present day Danica, but in every picture of an awkward girl, he saw her beauty. Her spirit.

  He wished he’d gotten to know her long ago.

  He was halfway back up the stairs before he stopped himself. Snuggling up to Danica wasn’t safe. She wasn’t his style, or rather her permanence wasn’t, so he shook off the sentimentality and turned back downstairs.

  Fifteen minutes later, he walked into the Seaside Pub. With its back wall of shutter doors open and offering an unobstructed view of the bay, the dark wood floors and teak bar with the brass foot rail before the backless wooden stools, the place was masculine.

  Softer touches were added in the buttercream-colored paint—which reminded Braydon of the icing Grandma Ruth used to put on his birthday cakes—covering the top half of the paneled walls and muted lighting to set a romantic mood. If romance could be found in a beer-scented place with scarred tables and red-and-green dome lights dangling over the pool tables.

  Apparently it could after the noise died down. A few couples snuggled in cozy corners wrapped in the solitude of companionship. He’d been cozy in Danica’s bed. Could still be.

  “Well hell!” Hauk Michaelsen tossed a rag in the bar sink and grinned. “If it isn’t Sail-away Mitchell. Wondered if you’d show your face here.”

  Hauk’d never been to Norway for more than brief visits to his grandparents, aunts and uncles, but the dialect of the cities lived rich in his voice.

  “Well, if it isn’t Landlocked Michaelsen.” Grateful for a new train of thought, Braydon crossed to the bar and clasped Hauk’s hand. “How’ve you been?”

  “Same old routine.” His grin hadn’t changed since high school. Broad and warm, showing off the chipped tooth he’d gotten from an out-of-bounds ball and a wayward elbow during a junior varsity game. They’d bot
h gotten better at football.

  “Don’t you get tired of the same thing day in and day out?” Braydon slipped onto the nearest stool.

  Hauk poured him a beer and leaned on the counter. “Don’t you get tired of being alone on that boat of yours?”

  “Who said I was alone?”

  “The entire town. Well, at least those not talking about you and the lovely Dr. Dani.”

  What could people be saying? They’d only been in public for the lunch with Granddad. Everything else had been private. Well, mostly everything. He had been ready to strip her above deck on the boat.

  “There’s nothing between us.” Braydon worked the angered lie from his tone. “She’s Granddad’s doctor.”

  Hauk leaned closer and gave an exaggerated bloodhound sniff around Braydon. “Try that bullshit when you don’t smell like her.”

  The appreciation and familiarity slurring Hauk’s voice drilled through Braydon and had his fists clenching. “You don’t know shit. She’s Granddad’s doctor.”

  He repeated the last bit slowly, hoping it would penetrate the layer of beer foam clouding Hauk’s brain. Still, questions nagged.

  How did Hauk know Danica’s scent so well? How familiar were they? And damn it, why should he care?

  “She may be your granddad’s doc, but that doesn’t make men blind to her any more than you can claim women don’t pursue you because of your no-roots life.”

  Braydon shrugged. “I like my life. Have no interest in being stuck in a go-nowhere town with no ambition and kids to support.”

  Hauk’s eyes narrowed to sharp pricks. Defensiveness hardened his jaw and would no doubt snap in his tone. Braydon knew he’d misstepped.

  He’d just described the life Hauk had always wanted to avoid. The life people said he’d been unable to escape.

  “There are worse things than raising a kid in this town. And ambition is different for everyone.”

  Yep. Hauk’s tone was clipped and void of the camaraderie they’d been sharing.

  “Shit. Hauk. I didn’t mean… Sorry.”