Playing Doctor (Bandit Creek Books) (9 page)

She wanted him to make her forget everything.

But that was the coward’s way out.

“Abby,” he whispered, his lips caressing the tip of her ear. “I’m not hungry for food.”

“Neither am I, but I don’t know if it’s a good idea to become too distracted by…” She stopped talking as his hands abandoned her neck, slid down her sides and up her shirt to cup her breasts. He moulded and caressed them as if he were worshipping her.

“Let yourself live a little.”

“We already did that. Remember? Last night?”

“Then live a little more.”

She turned off the gas burner on the stove, set the pot aside and turned to put her hands on his shoulders. “Is that what you want, to live a little?”

“Living is good.”

“Is it enough?”

Chapter Ten

“I
t’s enough for now.”

She supposed that was as good an answer as she was going to get.

He was hot under her hands, his erection a brand against her lower belly and though they both knew she was damaged, he still wanted her.

But for how long?

He’d been there for her in
Afghanistan
and showed up yesterday when things didn’t seem to be going in a healthy direction. When would he leave?

Fear rose to damn near choke her.

Fuck that. She hadn’t been through hell and come out the other side to allow a little thing like fear to hamstring her.

She stretched up on her tiptoes and kissed him.

He groaned and immediately took over, his lips devouring hers, his hands pulling her in until she was plastered to him hip to neck. One arm held her in place while his other hand spread out over her butt to pull her closer there too.

She rubbed up against him and he groaned again. Her hands kneaded his chest, then one went questing until it sunk itself in his hair, the other teasing his flat male nipples.

“Keep doing that,” he said, nipping at her bottom lip. “And we won’t even get to use that damn bed upstairs.”

“So, let’s just use the stairs.”

“Fuck that’s hot.”

She took in his dilated pupils and grinned. “Yeah.”

He jerked like she zapped him with a tazer then dragged her toward the stairs. He stopped, looked at them then looked at her. “Nope, that doesn’t look comfortable.” He continued to drag her up the stairs to the bed.

Before they reached it, he turned and enveloped her in his arms, kissing her like she was the only thing important in his world, the only thing he cared about.

It turned her inside out.

She didn’t know how long they had, but she was going to give him all she could. He was the only man who’d earned her trust, the only man whose touch she could accept, and she wanted as much of him as she could get.

One of her hands left his shoulders to find his erection, tracing the impressive length through his jeans. He groaned into her mouth and ground his hips into her hand.

She pulled her mouth from his and whispered in his ear, “I want this. I want to taste you and feel you shudder as you give me everything you’ve got.”

“Abby,” he moaned. Then he was falling with her onto the bed. There were no blankets, only a couple of sleeping bags left by whoever had used the cabin last. He pinned her to the bed, both hands chained by one of his next to her head. He kissed her until she was sure she’d need scuba gear then moved down to her neck.

“How can I taste anything like this?”

He paused. “As fun as that sounds I think I need more than a quickie.”

“I promise to make it last.”

“Tempting…but no. I’m enjoying myself far too much.” He nibbled his way to the edge of her t-shirt. “This is in my way again.” He levered himself off her, pulled her into a sitting position and stripped her shirt off. Then he did the same with her bra.

“Mercy,” he whispered, staring at her breasts.

She leaned back on her elbows and glanced down at herself. “You don’t think they’re too big?”

“There’s no such thing as too big.” He took them in his hands, then brought them together so he could lick and suck both nipples alternately.

Abby let her head fall back as the pleasure zinged from her breasts to deep in the pit of her belly. “Harder.”

He gave her the edge of his teeth. Not a bite, but close enough to ratchet up her sensitivity, winding a spring she desperately wanted to release.

“Stop teasing me. I need you.”

“What do you need?”

“You, inside me. Now.”

“That is an order I can get behind.” He slid off the bed and stripped out of his clothes.

She did the same, her gaze taking in his wonderfully defined muscles and impressive cock. She licked her lips. “Delicious.”

He grinned as he climbed on the bed and over her. “You don’t make it easy to resist, do you?” He made a space between her thighs and took nipple into his mouth again.

After a few strong pulls, she tugged on his hair. “How do you want me?”

“Wet.”

“I’m so there.”

He laughed, a deep rumbling sound that turned her on as much as his touch did. He put his hands on her hips and flipped her onto her stomach then pulled her up one her knees, putting her ass in the air.

She caught her breath as his hands stroked over both cheeks, then delved between.

“Hot, wet and ready.”

“Only for you.”

He paused for a fraction of a second then circled her clit with a finger as he leaned over her to whisper in her ear, “Only for you.”

His cock slid over the entrance to her body then pressed inside. Two strokes later he was seated to the root. She felt every…single…inch.

Shivering, she groaned out, “God, you feel huge.”

He stroked out then in. “And you feel tight, hot and very wet.” He put one hand on the bed next to hers while the other tormented her nipples. His thrusts sped up, lengthened and she couldn’t keep her pleasure quiet.

“More, give me more.”

He responded by speeding up and thrusting harder, hitting every pleasure nerve ending she had. She began to shake as nirvana wound tighter and tighter in the pit of her belly.

He left her breasts to flick her clit and her orgasm sprang loose. It wound around her, dragging her down into a pool of heat that made her shake, shiver and moan.

Smitty sped up, thrusting hard then groaned out her name as he came. He slowly bent over to rest his forehead on her back. He kissed his way up to her neck and whispered, “Doc, you’re something else.”

Her knees gave out on her and she lay on the bed with her eyes closed, feeling more relaxed than she could remember for a long time. “I’m wore out, that’s what I am.”

“Damn, and here I thought we could do this all night.”

“In your dreams, soldier.”

“You feature in them nightly.”

“Do I?”

“Yeah, since we met.”

“Smitty, I wore a uniform and body armor most of the time. You could hardly tell if I’m male or female when I was geared up.”

“Sweetheart, there’s no hiding your sexy wiggle when you walk or your I’ll-take-you-to-heaven smile.”

“Why wait so long to say or do anything?”

“Because a combat situation is no place to be initiating anything more than a one-night-stand.”

“This isn’t a combat situation?”

He shook his head. “I’d have come regardless of the circumstances.”

She rolled over and petted him with one hand. “I used to watch you, too. You move like a big cat, graceful and dangerous.”

“But…?”

“You have the power to hurt me. You’re the one man I trust. The only one who doesn’t set my internal alarms off.”

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

“No?”

“No. I’m going to stick to you like glue.”

“What about after we find the guy who’s been shooting at me?”

“I have no plans to leave.” He ran a hand down her face. “In fact, I’ve discovered I really like it here.”

“Really like it?”

“Yeah.” He leaned forward and kissed her.

They cuddled together a bit longer, then went down stairs to finish cooking supper and put their supplies away. They ate then went back to bed, making love again.

Smitty liked to snuggle when he slept, curling around her body and holding her like she was precious. She tried to relax, to enjoy the feeling of having someone close, but the series of events from the second shooting kept replaying through her mind.

The wood exploding behind her head.

Yes, she agreed that the shot had been aimed at her, but it was also only a couple of feet from Smitty.

He could have died as easily as she.

Who was the ghost behind the sniper rifle?

If this person really thought she’d found the mine, she had to do something to convince them she hadn’t.

The simplest thing would be to show them, but could she do that without getting killed first?

She’d been tossing dynamite into the lake for weeks and nothing happened until Smitty came along. The only thing she’d done differently had been to give him the dynamite and miss a morning.

Perhaps she shouldn’t miss this morning.

She wiggled out from Smitty’s embrace, found her clothes and got dressed. The keys to Smitty’s Jeep were in his jeans pocket. She hated to strand him like this, but it was only about ten miles back to the ranch from the cabin, so he’d be fine.

She’d ensure it.

She started the Jeep and drove off, hoping he wouldn’t wake up until she was well into her insane plan.

Setting herself up as a target could only be called crazy, but it was also the only plan she could come up with that might end things without anyone other than herself getting killed. If it worked even she would still be around to wake the dead.

Driving through the yard at the ranch was fun. She had to turn off the headlights and creep past the house, but no lights came on, so she figured she’d made it through without waking anyone. She headed back to town and her house.

The key to the whole problem lay there. She’d kept quiet about where she’d gotten the dynamite because her grandmother asked it of her in a private letter she’d left for Abby in her will. The letter included a map to where the dynamite was stored.

Abby had visited the site a couple of times, removing enough dynamite for a few weeks of daily explosions, but there was still some left.

Hopefully, Ghost would be watching. She’d thought of a way to ensure that too.

She arrived in town and carefully began searching up and down the streets for a particular person. She found him sleeping on the back step of her office. Again.

“Get up JD,” she said, nudging him with one foot. “Rise and shine.”

“It’s still dark outside,” came the grumpy reply.

“I don’t care. You and I have a mission.”

“A what?” he sat up and looked at her bleary eyed.

“A mission. I want your buddy Ghost to see something.”

“Ghost isn’t watching me, he’s watching you.”

“Well, I’m not taking any chances. Come on.”

“You’re going to show me and Ghost the mine?”

“No, I’m going to show you where I got the dynamite. Two very different things.”

He frowned and reared his head back. “You’re not going to try to blow up the lake anymore?”

“Actually, I’m planning one heck of an explosion over there in an hour or so.”

He lay back down on the cement. “I don’t like loud noises.”

“I don’t like getting shot at. Now get your ass up and come with me.”

“There’s no need to get snippy with me.” He cracked open one eye. “Which reminds me, where’s your boyfriend?”

“A long way from here.”

He smirked. “You left him up at your folk’s cabin, didn’t you?”

“How did you know where we were going?”

He snorted. “Didn’t take much to figure that out.”

“I’m way too predicable.”

“I don’t know about that,” he said, rubbing his face. “I didn’t think you’d come back to town and wake me up to do some fool stupid thing in the middle of the night.”

She quirked an eyebrow. “Surprise.”

He laughed. “Well, if you don’t take the cake. What the hell, I didn’t have anything important to do right now anyway.” He got to his feet, wobbled a little then straightened. “Lead on MacDuff.”

“You don’t think we’ll come out of this alive.”

“Nobody gets out alive. We’re all going to go someday. I don’t know that it’ll be today, but what you want to do isn’t without risk.”

“You sound suspiciously like a military officer, JD.”

He looked at her like she’d insulted his mother. “No name calling or I’m going back to bed.”