Best of Three (Counting on Love) (7 page)

He wasn’t sure how to respond to that. She was right, of course. So he did shut up.

They stood facing the stage and the floor below them. He was aware of every inch of her. Especially when she shifted again, this time to lean back against him slightly. He knew she might not even be aware of it. She was seeking a position that would take weight off her sore leg and leaning against a support would help with that. But the position, thanks to her heels, put her butt right against his fly.

He held his breath and tried to ignore it, making his mind focus on searching the crowd for his son.

Then she wiggled.

Whether she meant to or not, he couldn’t handle that. He put his hands on her hips to stop her squirming and moved her an inch forward. That was all he needed. An inch of space between their bodies.

He felt the tension in her body immediately and assumed that meant she either hadn’t intended the position to be what it was, or his hands made her stiffen up. Which could be good or bad.

After several seconds, he started to relax. But right when he thought maybe he was safe and again began his search for his son, Emma turned.

His hands skimmed over her body as she spun, and when she faced him, he wasn’t inclined to remove them.

“You want to make both of us feel better?” she asked.

He could hear her, but he didn’t want to miss anything. He put his hand to the back of her head, holding her still, and leaned in. “Tell me.”

She lifted onto her toes, her mouth right against his ear. “We try some of the high level things I want to do…together. Then you can see that it
is
actually hard for me and get off my ass about it…or you show me that it’s fine and alleviate my fears and then I’ll listen to all your instructions from here on out.”

He worked on simply breathing. He wanted to press her more firmly against the railing and test some of her hip range of motion right here and now. And he couldn’t deny that the idea of her listening to all his instructions from here on out was really fucking tempting. “I’m guessing we’re not talking about jogging now.”

“I hate jogging.”

“I don’t know much about yoga.”

“Then we’ll stay away from the yoga.”

He pulled back to look down at her. Dammit. He couldn’t sleep with her, but there were so many reasons that he wanted to and with her standing so close, the dark and the music and her scent and her lips right there…the reasons why it was a bad idea were fuzzy.

Nate didn’t do fuzzy. A woman who muddled his brain and distracted him so easily was the last person he should—and would—get involved with.

He liked to be in control in his relationships.

It came from a history of a controlling son-of-a-bitch grandfather and two women who had made choices, without his input, that had changed his life profoundly.

He was never going to be in a position again where someone else made decisions that affected his life and his loved ones.

Staring at Emma now, he shook his head. It was ironic, but he loved strong, independent women and knew that none of the women he was attracted to would put up with his chauvinistic, controlling tendencies in a full-blown relationship. Therefore, he kept women specifically compartmentalized to the bedroom. There they didn’t seem to mind him being demanding.

Bringing Emma into his bedroom seemed inevitable. But he knew Emma Dixon would not
stay
compartmentalized. Keeping Emma to one part of his life would be like telling a tornado to only tear apart a room instead of taking the whole house. It would never work and he’d be left with a big mess to clean up afterward.

“You’re thinking about it too hard,” Emma told him.

She gripped the front of his shirt and pulled him down for a kiss.

The moment their lips met, as heat and desire and need swirled in him, Nate knew the tornado comparison was exactly right. And that it was futile to try to resist its force.

Nate had been fighting this for months. There had been opportunities before this. He could have had her before this; he knew that. But he’d fought it. Fought against his natural instincts. Fought against his body clamoring for hers whenever she was within a few feet of him. Fought because her brother, his teammate and a damned good guy, would want to kick his ass. Fought because there was no way they could make this more than a night. Or two. Maybe a long weekend.

Now it was happening, in spite of all that, and he couldn’t fight anymore.

He was going to let the tornado sweep him away this one time. For just a moment.

He slanted his mouth on hers, taking over the kiss. One hand still held her head, the other gripped her ass and brought her fully against him. He stroked his tongue deep, tasting her mouth fully, reveling in the feel of her lips against his as she arched closer.

Her hands went from his shirt front to his neck, holding on tight and he backed her up the two inches to the railing, the firm support behind her enough that he could press his hips into hers.

He felt her groan more than heard it and he wanted to see her face, to see how he was affecting her. He held her face in both hands and pulled away.

Her lipstick was smudged, her lips swollen and parted as she breathed fast. Her cheeks were pink and her eyes opened slowly. When she did lift her gaze to his, she definitely looked dazed.

“Holy shit,” she said. “We should have done that a long time ago.”

“Emma—” But something caught his eye over her shoulder. Someone winding through the crowd on the first floor. He tried to peer closer, but the person—who looked very much like his son—moved out of view.

“Nate.”

She moved her mouth to his again and for a moment he was lost. She tasted like cake. From the vodka. All at once, flavored vodka seemed like a hell of an idea.

Then he remembered seeing Michael. Or someone that looked like Michael.

He tore his mouth from hers. “Emma, stop.”

She was breathing hard as she stared up at him.

“I think I saw Michael.”

She closed her eyes and breathed deep. When she opened them again, she nodded. “Okay. Right.”

She swiveled to look at the stage and the crowd below while Nate struggled to get his breathing, heart rate and the need to grab her and put his hands all over her under control.

The breathing and heart rate calmed. The need to have her didn’t dissipate at all.

Chapter Three

Emma turned back after a moment and said loudly, “They’re not there anymore.”

Nate sighed. “Okay.” Fuck. Now what? Did Emma know more about their plans? Would she tell him? Should he check her phone again? He might as well. After all, it was a better reason to put his hands on her again than because he wanted to start taking her clothes off. “We need to…” Then her words sunk in. He scowled. “
Anymore
? You saw them.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Dammit.”

“Yeah, dammit.” He took her by the upper arm and turned her toward the staircase.

As they headed for the truck, he worked on not yelling. Which resulted in him not speaking at all. She’d fucking kissed him to distract him so Michael and Shannon could sneak out.

That pissed him off way more than it should. It shouldn’t have surprised him. Yet he found himself completely surprised and…hurt. No, not hurt. That was stupid and pathetic. He was…annoyed. Very annoyed.

Which obviously meant that he’d wanted the kissing to mean more to her than it had and he was feeling offended—at least that was better than
hurt
—by the idea that it had all been nothing but a diversion.

She wisely didn’t talk until they got in the truck.

Nate opened the door and nudged Emma in.

Once he’d climbed in and shut the door, he turned to her, careful to keep his voice even. “I don’t like being manipulated.”

“I know how that seemed, but—”

“Don’t make it worse by lying,” he cautioned. He’d shown her that she could get to him. Until now, he’d held the power because she’d thought he’d never cave. But he had.

She took a deep breath and turned to face him. “Full truth. I don’t want you following Michael and Shannon tonight. But you already knew that. Yes, I saw them there. But I didn’t know they were leaving and I didn’t kiss you so you wouldn’t see them. I didn’t even mean to kiss you. We were talking about my hip.”

“And then you made a smart-ass comment about trying out all the things you were worried about doing,” he pointed out. “That wasn’t supposed to distract me?”

“It was supposed to get your attention,” she admitted. “The way you always talk about my hip like you know how it’s feeling and how it’s working makes me nuts.”

“I put it back together,” he said even while he acknowledged that it was dumb to defend himself like this. “I know your hip better than anyone.”

“Not better than
me
,” she insisted. “You might know how the pieces look and how many pins are in there, but you don’t know how it
feels
.”

In the time Nate had known Emma, he’d often had moments where he was torn between shaking her and kissing her. But up until tonight, he hadn’t known what kissing her would be like. Now that he did, the urge to shut her up with his own mouth was nearly overpowering.

“And I thought,” she went on, “that maybe if it affected you personally, it would make you more empathetic when your patients told you things were tough. That if you saw it up close and personal, it would help your bedside manner.”

“Affect me personally?” he asked.

Emma braced her hand on the seat between them and leaned in, her voice dropping, her gaze on his lips. “You know, like if you were trying to get my leg up on your shoulder so you could thrust nice and deep, but it couldn’t quite make it and you had to adjust.”

And that was what he got when he let Emma Dixon run away with a conversation.

He shook his head as heat shot through his body. “Jesus, Emma.”

She gave him a smug smile and leaned back, apparently satisfied with his reaction. Because of course he’d reacted to her
again
. After months of resisting reaction, he was sure as hell making up for it tonight.

“Anyway,” she said, now lounging casually, her arms crossed. “I didn’t mean to kiss you. But you were right there and once I started…holy hell, Nate, I forgot about everything else but kissing you some more.” She looked at him and sighed. “Seriously, we should have been doing that for a long time now.”

Fuck.

Nate closed his eyes and tipped his head back on the seat. “Where are Michael and Shannon?”

“We’re not going to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Right now or ever?”

“Ever.”

“I think we should.”

His head came up and he looked at her with a frown. “We shouldn’t,” he said firmly. “Trust me.”

“You’re telling me that you have absolutely no interest in doing it again?”

“Emma,” he said, through gritted teeth. “We are
not
talking about this. Now or ever. Drop it.”

She looked at him thoughtfully for several seconds. “Tell you what. You don’t have to talk about it. But I don’t think there’s a way to keep
me
from talking about it.”

He narrowed his eyes. If she started talking, he knew there was no way she was going to keep the topic only to the kiss they’d shared in the theater either. He’d never survive this.
This
was definitely part of the reason he’d never let on that she could get him worked up. Because Emma didn’t know when to say when. She had no boundaries and no filter. She’d keep at him until she wore him down. And then she’d hate the result.

“Why do you want to talk about it anyway?” he asked, letting his irritation show.

“Because I want to do it again,” she said, as if it should have been obvious. “And I want to do more than that.”

But she didn’t. Not really. Emma Dixon didn’t know everything, in spite of what she thought, and getting into a relationship with him was something she would
not
enjoy.

“If I’m not around when you’re talking, I guess it won’t matter, will it?” he asked.

“You’re taking me home?” she asked.

“That seems like the best choice.”

“How are you going to find out where Michael and Shannon are?”

He’d planned on calling and texting his son increasingly horrible threats until Michael called back or came home. He frowned at Emma. “You know where they’re going after this?”

“I might.”

“Emma,” he said in the voice he used in the ER when his staff wasn’t moving fast enough. It always got a positive response. “Tell me where they are.”

“Only if you keep me with you.”

“Is it on your phone?”

She held her phone up, then tucked it under her skirt. “You’re sure welcome to check.”

He wanted to. Far too much. Bringing her along in the first place was a horrible idea.

And he’d think of her the next time he had cake or whipped cream. He was sure of it.

“Give me the address.” Once he knew where the kids were, he could drop her off.