Forever Sheltered (17 page)

I closed the door behind me. He was here. In my apartment. Well, Corabelle’s. I texted both her and Jenny while Darion paid for the takeout pizza, warning them to stay away.

“The doctor is making a house call,” I told them.

Corabelle responded with nothing but exclamation marks. Jenny said, “Time to break in the Pink Monster!”

Darion ran a hand over the fur. “Is this your usual style?” he asked.

I had to laugh. “Are visions of tackiness dancing in your head?” I dropped my bag and keys on a side table and plopped down on it. “My friend Jenny has this bizarre boyfriend who keeps buying her stuff. This is one of her castoffs.”

Darion lowered himself gingerly onto the sofa. “I’m picturing bodily fluids mixed in the fur.”

“Are you now?” I took the pizza box from him and set it on the coffee table. “Is it disturbing your sense of sterility?”

“Are you telling me you haven’t thought about it?”

“I’ve only had the sofa for two days.”

He ran his hands over the surface. “I’ve definitely never seen anything like it.”

“Let’s imagine pizza grease on it first.” I popped open the box. “I’ll get some plates.”

I dashed into the kitchen, then peered around the cabinet. I still couldn’t get over it. Dr. Darion was sitting on my pink sofa.

I tightened my ponytails. Why was I nervous about this? I wasn’t exactly a virginal teenager. I pulled a couple of Corabelle’s plates from a shelf.

I peeked around the corner again. “You’re not a knife-and-fork guy, are you? With pizza?”

“Not a chance,” Darion said. He leaned back on the sofa and surveyed the room. I saw his gaze land on Albert’s mermaid.

I returned to the sofa. “One of my patients made that,” I said, then remembered when he’d insisted I didn’t have patients. “Well, one of the hospital patients. I guess they aren’t mine.”

Darion frowned. “I’m sorry I said that. I shouldn’t have.”

I shrugged. “It’s okay. I know what I am.” I plunked a piece of pizza on each plate. My half was just cheese. Darion had gotten all sorts of junk on his. Sausage and anchovies and peppers.

“I’m so glad to be away for a little while.” He took a bite and leaned his head on the back of the sofa.

“I bet. Do doctors often sleep at the hospital?”

“During our internship and residency, sure.”

“Aren’t you a staff doctor now?”

“I’m a little unusual. I completed a residency in oncology, but now I’m also working in pediatrics. I have another year to go on that. But technically, yes, I’m staff, not a resident.”

“I’m trying to figure out what program to do for the hospital. Be a social worker or a therapist.”

“Very different things,” Darion said.

“What do you think?” I set my plate down. I wasn’t really hungry. Having him here put me off balance. “For, you know, a lazy artist type.”

Darion rested his plate on the pizza box and turned me around to face him, my legs draping across his lap. My heart sped up a little as he ran his hands along the stockings.

“That’s a tough call. I don’t see a lot of places where social workers can do art therapy, though. You probably want to go the psychology route for that.”

Darion’s fingers slid up the bump of my knee, pushing my broomstick skirt out of the way. I kicked off my Mary Janes and let them fall to the floor.

He made it up to the elastic band at the base of my thigh and ran his finger inside the edge. “I like these,” he said.

“Everyone thinks I should give them up,” I said.

“Why?”

“Be a grown-up.”

He shrugged. “People want everyone to be like everybody else. I say just be you.”

Cool air hit my skin as he tugged the stocking down. His fingers traced the indentations in my skin from the elastic. “I’ve always found it fascinating how skin is so easily altered, and how quickly it corrects itself.”

I realized with no small panic that too many lights were on, and that my skin had not corrected itself at all on my wrists. The scars would be very visible. Time to get this show on another road.

I dropped my legs to the floor. “Let me put the pizza away,” I said.

He watched me get up and take the box and plates into the kitchen. Dang it, I should have planned better. I thought about the lighting. Maybe we should just go to the bedroom now.

No, that seemed too fast. But if the sweater came off, and it was going to…crap.

I flipped on the kitchen light. The box went into the fridge, and I dumped the plates in the sink. Now to just get the main light in the living room off. Without weirdness.

I walked back toward Darion. “Let me get the light in here,” I said.

His eyes followed me as I moved to the door and turned off the overhead. The room dimmed considerably, lit only by the distant light of the kitchen.

I sat back on the sofa. “I assume you know your way around a body and don’t need surgical illumination.”

He leaned toward me, his mouth on mine. He must have been holding back before, as he crushed me against him, pushing us both back on the sofa. His body was solid and muscled, braced above me. His lips took mine hungrily, the kiss deepening.

I could barely catch my breath. One of his hands went beneath my head to pull me in more tightly. The other moved along my body, breast to hip, and beneath the sweater. I knew it made him crazy that I didn’t wear a bra. I kept pulling out my thickest sweaters so I could do it again.

His palm reached a breast, and my hips pressed up against him. I could feel him erect between us. I wondered what sort of lover he would be, sensitive or passionate, slow or fast.

He braced himself on one arm and pushed the sweater up over my belly. I had been right, this was the first to go. But the light was way too low for him to see the faint scars. I would tell him eventually, but not now, not yet. Normally I didn’t have to worry about it, one-and-done. But this was going to be different. It already was.

He broke the kiss to pull the sweater over my head. I shivered for a second from the loss of warmth, and Darion pulled me against his body. His shirt was rough, the buttons pressing into my skin. He kissed along the curve of my neck and along my shoulder. I quit thinking about anything but his mouth and hands.

He made his way down to that territory we covered in the surgical room, his lips surrounding a nipple and drawing it in.

Blood pounded through me, sending waves of heat in its path. His tongue took its time learning every curve. One of his hands moved lower, pushing the skirt out of his way.

His hand shifted my knee farther out, giving him access. My breathing sped up as he felt his way up a thigh and his fingertips brushed against the lace edge of my panties.

I clutched at his head. He moved from one breast to the other, taking his time. He cupped me between the legs, holding me gently at first, then letting one finger slide against the folds, still covered by thin fabric.

I writhed beneath him, wanting more, wanting it faster. He knew what did it for me after that time on the beach. But he was patient, slow, and only after long agonizing moments where I pressed up into his hand did he slip a finger inside my panties and into me.

I could barely hang on. Despite our beach moment, it felt so long since I’d fallen into a hot encounter like this. Sometimes my exit strategy weighed on my mind before we were even done. But this time, I had none.

Darion lifted his head and whispered against my cheek, “I think I sent you a message about this part.”

He had. A very hot, very sexy text about the Courbet painting and what would happen when I struck that pose.

His body shifted down, and the finger moved out of me to the edge of the panties and pulled them down my legs. My skirt was gathered in a bunch around my waist. I ran my hand through his hair as he made his way down.

“I think I might have mentioned something like this.” His mouth landed on me, my knees on his shoulders, and now my neighbors were going to know who I was because I cried out without any control.

Darion didn’t start slow, or take his time. Everything went into it, fingers, tongue, his lips. Pleasure crashed through me, blasting out like a dynamite strike. I clutched at the furry pink cushion, utterly lost, out of control. I couldn’t hold anything back even if I wanted to.

He never hesitated, never slowed down, not waiting on my rhythm, but creating it, controlling my response.

The sensations began to pulse, like a heartbeat, like breathing, and then it all let go, the orgasm blossoming out from my body, surrounding him, engulfing his mouth and hand.

I relaxed against the sofa, the world spinning. Damn. Even if I had wanted to cut and run from him, I wasn’t sure certain parts of my body would have come with me. They already belonged to the doctor.

He kissed his way back up my thigh, across my hip, and skipped the bunched-up skirt to find my belly. He gazed up at me, his eyes dark in the low light. “I love every sound you make,” he said.

My face burned hot. I didn’t trust my voice yet to reply.

He sat up on his knees and closed his grip on the waist of the skirt. “This is in the way,” he said, and yanked it down. He tossed it aside. He smoothed the one loose stocking back into place. “These can stay.” He nipped my skin just above the elastic band.

His hand went back into me, and I was shocked to find that I still had so much need inside. Darion seemed to want to pillage me over and over again, his hands and mouth everywhere, never stopping, stroking, sucking. Little red marks bloomed across my belly as he made his way over my body.

“I hope I don’t need a physical exam anytime soon,” I said.

“Mmmm hmmm,” he said, landing low again. My head fell back. God, I was going crazy with it. This time he kept stopping each time I got close. My hands were worn out from clutching his shoulders.

“Please,” I said.

He grinned up at me with an expression I would never have imagined on his face. “Please what?”

“Get naked.”

“I live to serve,” he said.

He loosened his cuffs and a few top buttons, then whipped his shirt over his head. The T-shirt beneath was tight and hugged his ribs and abs. I ran my hands along the warm cotton, then grabbed the bottom edge.

“And this,” I said, yanking it up.

I couldn’t reach all the way, so he pulled it off. His chest was hairless and toned. I fitted my thumbs in the indentations of his belly, my throat thick. He was damn beautiful.

He unlatched his belt and slid it from the loops. I lay back to watch as he shucked his pants. A boxer boy, the fitted type. His shoes rolled away, and the black socks. Now it was just the navy underwear.

I reached for him, sliding along his length, straightening him until he peeked out the top. I couldn’t wait anymore and grasped at the waistband and jerked them down. He sprang at me, powerful and long.

Darion kicked the boxers away. “We really are going to break in the Pink Monster, aren’t we?”

“Yes,” I said, reaching out for him again. “Yes, we are.”

He braced himself over me, and I got hold of him, grasping at the base and sliding my fingers to the end. He sucked in a breath, his eyes closed, and I kept working it, rearranging myself beneath him so my stocking-covered knees were outside his legs. I wasn’t letting him get away this time.

His face dropped to my neck, burying itself there. I worked him until I felt a tremor in his arm. “My turn to say please,” he said into my ear.

“Condom?” I asked. I’d been on the shot forever, plus I had an IUD. I had no intention of accidentally getting pregnant ever again. But still, no use taking a risk for anything else.

He nodded against my shoulder and reached for the discarded pants. I kept my hands on him while he fumbled with his wallet and tore open the package.

“I’ll do the honors,” I said, and took it from him.

He groaned a little as I touched the circle to the tip and slowly rolled it down his length. He was trim but not bare at the base.

Darion didn’t dive in immediately, but reached between us. “I have been thinking about this for weeks,” he said.

“Weeks? Since that first time you asked to see me?”

“Yes.”

“But you never came back.”

He stilled a moment. “I had to leave town suddenly,” he said. “I had no way to contact you.”

“It was fine.” We shouldn’t have this conversation now. “Come here.” I grabbed his bulging shoulders and brought him down closer. “Show me how sorry you are for standing me up.”

He plunged in then, and I nearly screamed. God, it had been forever. He split me wide open, and I couldn’t do anything but hang on as he set the speed and rhythm. His breath puffed against my neck as he worked. I locked my ankles around his back. After a moment he sat up and brought me with him. I straddled him, sitting high, and he held my waist to assist as I moved up and down.

I felt dizzy, lost, like I wasn’t sure which direction was up or down. I held on to his shoulders, letting everything course through me, the splintering pleasure rising up, the burn in my thighs, the ache in my belly from need.

He slowed me down, letting each stroke get long and deep. I cycled against him, clutching his head against my chest. I could do this forever, truly forever.

But he reached between us to work that little nub. And I found that I needed to move, to pick up the tempo, to work it again. My legs were on fire, and I must have quivered, because Darion knew, and dropped me back on the sofa again.

His finger never left me, and now his strokes were powerful and fast. I couldn’t keep up with him and just let him take over, let him take me. I could hear us both, his groans, my faint gasps. I could feel the keen edge he balanced on, and so I just let go, stopped trying to control myself, and the second orgasm blasted out with more intensity than the first.

My ears were ringing with my own cries when Darion grasped my hips and pulsed against me, letting out one elongated groan.

I could barely breathe, my chest heaving. I wanted to cry, feeling so damn emotional. I tried to remind myself that this was just an act, just sex, but something had come over me. I couldn’t rein anything in, I couldn’t laugh it off or coat it with disdain. All the things that let me blow the guy off at the end were well out of reach, carried off in the tidal wave.