Defying death is the ultimate dare. Defying love? Well, that’s just stupid. A Red Hot Weekend Story Back-to-back medical degrees took Emily Knox right where she planned to be: treating patients in an alternative cancer clinic. But nothing prepared her for a cocky, cheeky Aussie who strode into her life and dared her to cure him. She told herself it was his challenge she couldn’t resist—not his daredevil charm. Eight months later, Rob’s out of danger…and Emily’s in trouble. She’s in deep, too deep. Worse, Rob has left the clinic against doctor’s orders. There’s nothing for it but to follow him across eleven thousand miles of land and sea to give him what for—as his doctor, of course. Rob never expected to survive the brain tumor. Nor did he expect to fall head over heels for his very proper, very English oncologist. The problem? Her Hippocratic Oath hangs between them, keeping her just out of reach. Now, with “cured” on his medical chart and his duty as best man for his best mate calling, he takes off for home to start getting his old life back. Trouble is, while the good doctor cured his cancer, she seems to have inflicted him with something else—desire he just can’t shake. Warning: Rob Thorton is addictive. Also, there’s scorching passion, undeniable lust, soul-shattering desire, heartbreaking angst, explosive sex and of course, Australian sarcasm. Did you really expect anything else?
eBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work. This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. Samhain Publishing, Ltd. 11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B Cincinnati OH 45249 Dare Me Copyright © 2012 by Lexxie Couper ISBN: 978-1-60928-904-1 Edited by Lindsey Faber Cover by Kanaxa All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: January 2012 www.samhainpublishing.com
Dare Me Lexxie Couper
Dedication
For Vicky Loftus. Who showed me just how strong a true survivor of brain cancer can be. Bet you didn’t think you’d be my inspiration when I was copying from you in Maths at school, did you, Vic?
Chapter One
Rob Thorton took one look at his best mate and burst out laughing. The powder-blue tuxedo, complete with royal-blue velvet trimmed ruffling was, if nothing else, a conversation stopper, and when all was said and done, when the groom entered the church for the first time on his wedding day, the conversation was pretty much meant to come to a halt. “I’m going to kill you, Thorton,” Joseph Hudson muttered, adjusting his sapphire-studded cufflinks as he bestowed the hovering priest with a wide smile. Rob laughed again, shaking his head at the tall man beside him who had been his best friend since they were five. “No you’re not.” He adjusted his own cufflinks, a matching set to Joseph’s pair and dropped a wink at the vivacious blonde in the body-hugging red dress perched on the second pew back from the alter. “You’re going to get married. Besides, you almost look as good as I do. What are you complaining about?” Joseph tugged at the collar of his shirt, a silk number a shade lighter than his tux before turning his fingers to his bow tie. “I’m complaining because I’m marrying the love of my life dressed like I’ve just stepped out of a really bad porn film from the seventies. How the hell did I let you talk me into this?” The soft sound of the priest clearing his throat made Joseph wince and he shot the man a quick look. “Sorry, Reverend.” Rob laughed once more. “I didn’t talk you into it, Hudo. I dared you. Big difference. And you accepted that dare. Anyway, Anna’s not going to give a flying—” He caught the word fuck just as it was forming on his lips. “Anna’s not
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going to give a rat’s bum what you’re wearing. You could be standing here in a fluro-green kilt and Captain Kirk T-shirt and she’d want to hump your brains out.” The priest cleared his throat again, louder this time. Joseph shook his head, and for the first time since returning to Australia—all of fifteen days ago—Rob detected a faint hint of nerves in his best friend’s normally collected composure. With a grin, he slapped Joseph on the shoulder. “Think of it this way, Joe. She’s never going to forget this day.” Joseph tugged at his collar again. “Or forgive you.” He gave Rob a sideward glance, his brown eyes more than a little concerned. What he was concerned about, Rob wasn’t sure. At this point, it could be any number of things: what Anna was going to make of his rather unorthodox attire, whether the bar had stocked enough beer, whether he was going to remember his vows, or whether his best man was going to collapse in heap on the floor. Rob grinned. “She’ll forgive me. I broke out of the hospital to be here. She’s obliged to forgive me.” “You didn’t break out of the hospital to be here.” Joseph pointed out. “You were released, on condition of seeing your old specialist. Something I might add, you haven’t done yet. And as for Anna feeling obliged to forgive you, well, consider yourself lucky you’ve just survived brain cancer, otherwise I think you’d be getting a serious kick up the arse.” The corner of Joseph’s mouth curled in a lop-sided grin and he turned back to the alter. “Or a serious nipple-cripple.” Rob couldn’t help himself. For the fourth time since entering St. Andrew’s Cathedral a little over thirty minutes ago, he laughed. Joseph was right of course; he had been released from the Centro de Medicinas Alternativas, but only on paper. The doctor who’d treated him had been quite
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adamant he not risk the twenty-seven hour flight back to Australia in his lessthan-perfect physical state. There wasn’t a doctor on this planet, however, who could keep him from his best friend’s wedding, no matter how dogged and stubborn and sexy. Rob’s belly knotted. Sexy was an understatement for Doctor Emily Knox. The English oncologist with a predilection for completely experimental methods was sexier than sin. And absolutely one hundred percent against him leaving Barcelona. But here he was, on the other side of the world, fighting fit (again), high on life (even more so), with the wedding rings tucked safely in his inside pocket (thank freaking God), ready to watch his best friend get married before partying the night away. Wonder if she’s missing you? With a snort and a shake of his head, Rob shut the thought down. Dr. Knox was thinking of him, he didn’t doubt that—but it had nothing to do with the reasons she kept creeping back into his mind. Those direct grey eyes of hers, her creamy pale skin, her straighter-than-straight red hair wouldn’t leave him, no matter how hard he tried—nor would the body more likely seen on a swimsuit model than a cancer doctor and a bed-side manner part caring, part tenacious thorn. Thoughts of the good doctor had him “up” all night back when he wasn’t well enough to stand on his feet, lying stretched out on his hospital bed in the alternative cancer treatment centre and in serious pain from everything she’d been subjecting him to. As for his lasting impression on Dr. Knox? He didn’t want to think what it was. Bloody hell, among other things, she’d spent day after day after day rubbing his back as he puked his guts up in his room’s toilet after the medications she’d placed him on. She’d pretty much single-handedly saved
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his life. Sure, he still had headaches from time to time, and was a bit weak if he overdid things, and partying hard at Joseph’s bachelor party the night before last probably wasn’t a good idea, but who was here to stop him? Definitely not Emily Knox. “I still can’t believe I’m wearing this tux,” Joseph abruptly muttered, jerking Rob’s attention from the doctor on the other side of the world. He grinned at his best friend. “Stop your belly-aching, Hudo. Just think, in about—” he pushed his own powder-blue sleeve a little up his arm and flicked a glance at his watch, “—forty minutes or so Anna will be stripping it off you.” Joseph arched an eyebrow at him. “Forty minutes?” “The reception centre’s on the other side of Sydney Harbour, right? That gives you about an hour of travelling in the back of a stretched limo with your new wife.” The reverend cleared his throat for the third time. Rob gave Joseph a pointed look. “What better way to fill the travelling time, mate,” he said, leaning a little closer. “Go on. I dare you.” The sound of close to a hundred pairs of feet moving on the cathedral’s polished wooden floor stopped Joseph responding. Rob watched as his friend pulled in a deep breath before the majestic pipe organ began playing the piece of music Anna had selected for her walk down the aisle. The first five notes rung out of the heritage-listed brass pipes, unmistakable and unexpected, and unable to help himself Rob started laughing once more. “That’s some woman you’re marrying, Hudo,” he chuckled, the sound of AC/DC’s “It’s A Long Way To The Top” reverberating through the historic church. Joseph straightened his spine, closed his eyes for a brief moment and took another steadying breath.
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“Fuck a duck, Hudo,” Rob murmured, turning to look at Anna McCarthy, the American park ranger who’d “rescued” them from a frozen night on the Colorado Rockies ten months ago. “She looks gorgeous.” She stood at the end of the aisle, wearing a simple white shift that hugged her slim body to perfection and a wide smile that mirrored Joe’s perfectly. Joseph turned, and Rob couldn’t miss the utter adoration in his best mate’s expression. “Bloody gorgeous,” Joseph breathed, “And mine.” AC/DC continued to bellow via the church organ’s pipes, the one hundred and forty-three year old cathedral’s walls bouncing back the classic rock beat with gusto. Anna walked toward them both, her gaze holding Joseph’s, before, with one final step—and a mischievous lift of her eyebrow—she stood beside him. Rob saw Joseph’s Adam’s apple jerk up and down in his throat, and he grinned. Joe’s American ranger. The woman who saved him from the mountain and stole his heart. Who had shared something so profound with both he and Rob and yet who knew exactly what Joseph wanted, needed. Joe’s kick-up-thearse, as Rob called her. His partner. “Hello, lover.” Her clear voice reverberated through the cathedral, the building’s acoustics amplifying her words. Her American accent had not lessened one bit in the ten months since she’d moved to Australia. Each vowel and consonant rang rich with a subtle growl that still made Rob’s belly tighten in appreciation. “Hello, lover,” Joseph answered with a grin. The priest cleared his throat, and Rob burst out laughing. “I think you’re on the verge of burning in hell, Hudo,” he muttered, leaning toward Joseph. “Too bad,” Joseph answered, gazing at Anna.
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She smiled at him, touching the tip of her tongue to the subtle pink gloss on her bottom lip. “I'm prepared to risk it, Mr. Hudson. How ’bout you?” The reverend cleared his throat—for the last time, Rob suspected by his tone—and gave them all a stern look. “May we begin now, Joseph?” Rob chuckled. Joseph nodded, taking Anna’s free hand and lacing his fingers through hers. “You better bloody believe we can begin.” The reverend’s eyebrows rose, most likely at Joseph’s rather inappropriate language considering the location, but possibly at the undeniable impatience in Joseph’s voice. With one last level stare at the groom, he turned his attention to the congregation. “So,” he said, his voice rolling through the cavernous building, “let’s get this party started, shall we?” Rob burst out laughing. Again. “Hell yeah!”
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Chapter Two
Doctor Emily Knox, MBBS, PhD and MSc in medical oncology, Harvard and Oxford graduate at the young age of twenty-six leant forward in her seat and passed the taxi driver two brightly coloured fifty-dollar notes. She would never get used to Australian money. There was something inherently wrong with a currency that looked like it belonged in a board game box. The taxi driver took the fifties—two golden-green notes with an image of what looked like Mrs. Doubtfire on one side—and tucked them in his pocket. He nodded at her. “Thanks, miss.” She sat in the taxi for a second before she realised he wasn’t coming around to open her door. She let out an embarrassed grunt. She hated men opening doors for her. She could open her own doors, thank you very much, but after five years at Barcelona where every man rushed to open a lady’s door or car door, she’d become accustomed to it. This particular taxi driver, however, didn’t budge from behind the wheel, grumbling loudly under his breath instead about the “bloody pommy bastards” cheating in the Ashes. Emily tried not to laugh. It’d been a while since she’d paid attention to the rest of the world, but she knew very well the Australians detested losing a cricket game to her home country, especially a game as important as those played in the Ashes series. By the decidedly disgruntled demeanour of her driver, it would seem such a thing had occurred. With a chuckled thank you, she shuffled over on the seat and opened her door. Climbing from the taxi’s rather musky interior, she gazed at Dunbar
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House, a building perched on the bluff of a cliff overlooking Sydney Harbour that could have been ripped from the pages of a travel brochure. She let out a slow breath. She should be used to glorious vistas by now. Barcelona was absolutely breathtaking in its exotic beauty, but there was something about Sydney…something she just couldn’t put her finger on. You’ve only been in the country for two hours, Emily. And the last sixty minutes of that was spent with your less-than-jovial taxi driver. That was true, but ignoring that—it was cricket after all—the very moment she’d exited Sydney International Airport, a lot of her fury at her reason for being here seemed to dissipate. The air was cleaner, for one thing. Each breath she took was like taking the surf and the sun and the trees into her body. There was a sweetness to it her inner-London nose was not used to, a relaxed peace to it despite the hustle and bustle. Five years in Barcelona, with its overly attentive, somewhat chauvinistic men, raucous city sidewalks and crowded streets had ill prepared her for such a sudden change, and if she wasn’t so determined to get her hands on Robert Thorton and drag his disobedient, defiant and foolish arse back to the Centro de Medicinas Alternativas, she’d either hail another taxi and get back on a plane as soon as possible, or go buy a bike and see where her new two wheels led her. But she wasn’t here for sightseeing and she sure as hell wasn’t leaving without the irritating Australian. How dare he take off without her permission? How dare he leave without her say-so? She’d saved his life. She said when he was well enough to fly and under no circumstances should Robert Thorton have been flying anywhere, let alone eleven thousand miles away from her. She was his doctor. No, damn it. Emily, you’re not his doctor. Not anymore.
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Not since she’d signed off his case. Not since she’d realized the feelings she’d developed for him went against every professional and ethical obligation she’d sworn to uphold. Which means you had no authority to tell him anything. But after eight months of treatment it was hard to step away. Difficult to remember she was no longer his official caregiver. It was almost impossible to separate her professional self from her emotional one. But if she had any hope of both remaining a doctor and keeping her ex-patient in her life, she had no choice but to make that distinction. That still didn’t mean she had to like it. Or the fact that he’d left. Not after the way he kissed you the night before he did so. Without the decency of saying goodbye, no less. If he’d said goodbye, you would have strapped him to his bed. He knew that. Emily let out a frustrated sigh. Why was she here? Really? Was it just to give Robert Thorton a piece of her mind as his once doctor? No. It’s not. And you know that, don’t you? A rabble of butterflies filled her stomach, their wings beating a nervous tattoo. She ran her hands over her hair, wishing she’d had time for a shower before leaving the airport. Even a quick inspection in a restroom mirror would have been nice. She had no idea how she looked, but after a twenty-seven-hour flight, she suspected not her best. The butterflies in her belly fluttered again. Joseph Hudson had been vague during their last telephone conversation about where she would find Rob on touching down in Sydney. When she’d told him her flight details two days ago, he’d laughed, the carefree sound a lot like Robert’s through the connection. She’d fidgeted on her stool in her office, the soft throb between her thighs at the mere thought of the exasperating Australian unsettling her. Clearing her throat, she’d
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asked Joseph what was so funny, but all he’d done was laugh again before giving her an address and the very cryptic suggestion she wear “something a little dressy”. It had made no sense then, but now, standing on the sidewalk looking at the majestic building before her, with its warm glowing lights and muted music wafting from within, she understood completely. Robert Thorton’s best friend had directed her to his wedding. His wedding. The very event Rob had risked his health to attend. “Well,” she muttered, raking her fingers though the thick curtain of her hair in an attempt to make it look less like she’d just stepped from a plane and more like she’d just stepped from a designer salon, “it’s a good thing I’m wearing a dress.” She looked down at the simple green dress she wore. Sleeveless, short and flowing, it was perfect for a long-haul flight. Now, if only she’d had the sense to pack a pair of heels in her satchel. Why? You’re almost the same height as Robert anyway. Yes, but the Australian had a way of…throwing her off kilter. Especially when he grinned at her, his blue eyes glinting with a devilish mischief, his lips curling up at the edges, the dimple in his right cheek flashing… The junction between her thighs throbbed and she let out a frustrated groan. You must be out of your mind. Coming all this way to try and convince a man you’ve already signed off as your patient he needs to come back to the centre. Is that what she was doing here? Was she still worried about his treatment? Did she really believe he should be back at the centre, under someone else’s care? Or was her real reason for being here a far more personal one? One that had nothing to do with the patient Rob, and everything to do with the man Rob?
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What would he say to her? What was she going to say to him? She could try and convince him she was here in her capacity as his ex-doctor, his treating specialist who had—through a combination of traditional and radically alternative medicine—cured the inoperable brain cancer the doctors here in Sydney had declared would kill him within six months. She could try. Emily let out a huff. No, she couldn’t. She no longer had a professional involvement in his case. If she did try to convince him, it would have to be as an impartial bystander, not a doctor. But how on earth could she be impartial about Rob? There was not one single bone in her body that felt any sort of impartiality toward him. She was here to slip her arms around his lean waist, place her cheek on his shoulder and feel his warmth seep into her own, no matter how much she wished otherwise. The way she had the night before he left. Her sex throbbed again, with more urgency this time, the memory of Robert’s body pressed to hers too evocative. Too potent. Oh, Emily Julie Knox, you really are out of your flipping mind, aren’t you? She gazed up at the building before her, her heart hammering. “It would seem so.” Hitching her satchel higher up her shoulder, she fixed her stare on the beautifully carved double entry door and began walking. She had a wedding reception to attend and a stubborn man to seduce. She couldn’t waste time standing on the sidewalk.
Rob wriggled his eyebrows at Penny Johnston, stowing her with a wide smile as he swung her in his arms. She giggled, her arms slinking around his
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shoulders, her body pressing to his with excited joy. Around them on the dance floor, other guests shuffled aside, giving them the room to really move their stuff. Rob rubbed his forehead against hers, the sound of her laughter bubbling his own up through his chest. “I think you’ve stolen my heart, Miss Johnston.” She clung to him with fierce pressure, her blue eyes twinkling—yes, twinkling—behind eyelashes longer and blacker than eyelashes had a right to be. “You’re silly, Uncle Rob.” Rob affected a wounded expression, twirling Joseph’s youngest cousin across the dance floor to the live band’s frenetic rendition of something sounding a lot like Lady Gaga on speed. His head ached a little, but not enough to bloody well stop him dancing with Penny. “Silly?” He spun her once more, barely able to control his grin when she squealed with delight and clung to him tighter. He grinned. Headaches and pain and giddiness could all go jump if it meant he was responsible for such innocent joy. “Silly? Right, that’s it. I’m afraid I can’t ask you to marry me now.” Penny, all of about eight if he remembered rightly, giggled again. “Marry you? Eew. Then I’d get boy germs.” He cocked an eyebrow, rubbing his forehead on hers again. “You’ve been dancing with me all night, Penny Johnston,” he intoned with mock severity, “you’ve already got boy germs.” “Eew!” Penny pulled a face, wriggling in his arms as she laughed. “Gross.” He spun her one last time, an elaborate turn that made the girl squeal so loudly with joy a lull fell over Joe and Anna’s guests for a moment before more than one person chuckled.
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Rob lowered Penny to the floor, a warm ache filling his cheeks. This was what it was about. Smiling, laughing until it hurt. Loving every moment lived. Living every moment to its fullest. Spying the site of Anna approaching from his right, he bent at the waist and bestowed Penny a quick kiss on her forehead. “If I dance with the bride for a bit, promise not to get too jealous?” Penny giggled, swiping at her forehead with the back of her hand. “Only if you promise to spin her like you did me.” He grinned. “Is that a dare?” Blue eyes twinkled again. “Yes.” “Deal.” With a wink, Rob swooped around and snared Anna around the waist, catching her completely unaware. Another wave of lightheadedness washed over him, but he ignored it. He twirled her upward, lifting her feet off the floor in a graceful arc, the sound of her laughter as wonderful as Penny’s. “Awesome, Uncle Rob,” he heard Penny cry. “Awesome, Mr. Thorton,” Anna laughed, sliding her arms around Rob’s neck as her feet returned to the floor. She smiled up at him, cheeks flushed, lips parted. “And yet, why do I feel like I should be giving you a lecture?” He grinned again. “Because I’ve just stared death in the face and you’re worried about me?” Anna rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I forgot about your ego.” Rob laughed, capturing her hands as she gave his chest a slight shove. He tugged her against his body. “No you didn’t,” he said, moving them both in time to the music—now a somewhat subdued rendition of U2’s “Desire”. “Nice band, by the way.”
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Anna raised an eyebrow. “Don’t change the subject. I know you’re high on life at the moment, but I don’t want to be rushing back from my honeymoon because you’ve decided to ignore doctor’s orders.” She pulled away a little and gave him a stern frown. “I’m sure she’d be less than impressed if she knew you were flinging females around a dance floor.” The pit of Rob’s stomach tightened at Anna’s offhanded mention of his exdoctor. That he was still a tad weak, and more than a tad inclined to suffer headaches was something he wasn’t sharing with anyone, let alone Anna. It was a good bloody thing the only person he would consider telling was on the other side of the world. Actually, he wouldn’t tell her either. She’d just try and take his blood pressure and order him to bed, the last place he wanted to be. Unless it was with— He killed the thought. But not before an image of Emily filled his head—tall, slim and gorgeous, her eyes studying him with a guarded compassion he’d grown to both ache for and despise, her rosebud lips curled in a small smile equally as unreadable. More than once in the eight months he’d spent in her care he’d wanted to kiss those lips. Feel them against his own to see if they really did taste as sweet as he suspected they would. But he was the patient and she was his doctor. She’d taken the Hippocratic oath. What she felt for him had nothing to do with her heart and everything to do with the chart that hung at the end of his bed. Nothing had ever happened to make him believe otherwise. Until the night before he signed himself out, that was. His lips tingled with the sudden memory of their kiss as they lay on his narrow hospital cot together, their hearts beating in rapid harmony, the soft glow from his side lamp throwing their bodies in muted shadows. His cock twitched
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with the memory of her fingers wrapped around its rigid length, exploring it with feverish heat as her thigh slid over his leg and her tongue— He spun Anna away in a flamboyant twirl, not wanting her to feel his rather inappropriately timed semi. Damn it, why couldn’t he get the bloody doctor out of his head? “Mind if I cut in?” Joseph’s deep voice sounded behind him and Rob started, watching his best mate step around him. “Or do you plan to hog all the beautiful women this evening, Thorton?” Rob took a step backward, holding out his hand with a grin on his face, watching Joseph snare Anna in rough embrace and jerk her to his body. “Hello, Mrs. Hudson,” he murmured. “Hello, Mr. Hudson,” she murmured back, snaking her arms around Joseph’s shoulders before rising up on tiptoe and brushing her lips over his. Rob took another step away from the couple. “Think that’s my cue to go find the bridesmaid.” With one last smile at the two most important people in his life, Rob turned away from them, ready to seek out Anna’s stunning redheaded friend from the U.S. And found himself staring straight into the smoke-grey eyes of Dr. Emily Knox, PhD, MBBS, MSc and about a billion other medical initials. “What the—?” The question died on his lips. Or rather, it was replaced by a drawn-out breath as he stared at the woman who had cured him. A woman he’d thought over eighteen thousand kilometers away. The ache in his head gave a little throb. His heart jumped in his chest. She’s here.
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Catching himself staring, he gave her a lopsided grin—the sardonic kind he knew exasperated her. “Care to dance?” He saw the edges of her eyes tighten, a sure sign she wanted to say something sharp and altogether clipped. He knew this woman well. Better than he’d known any woman before. Hell, he should. He’d spent every day of the last eight months with her. He braced himself for what was to come—a distant part of his mind making a note to give Joseph a bloody smack in the jaw (who else would have invited Emily to the wedding than his best mate?)—another part wondering what she would do if he told her about his headache, and almost fell over with shock when she stepped toward him, pressed her tall, slim body to his and slid her left hand up his arm to rest it on his right shoulder. “Yes,” she said, closing the fingers of her right hand around his left. “I would.” Her soft voice played over his senses like it always had, her English accent more pronounced than ever. Or was that because his ears had become acclimatized to the Australian accents around him again? He didn’t know. He pulled in a slow breath, headache forgotten, the subtle scent of Emily’s perfume filtering into his body. His stomach knotted, his balls grew harder, that delicate fragrance flooding him with memories too haunting to bear. She’d cured him of anaplastic astrocytoma, and in the process inflicted him with something else. Something powerful and—he was discovering all too quickly—inescapable. Desire. You desired her from day one, Thorton. When she walked up to you in the Centro de Medicinas Alternativas foyer wearing snug denim jeans, a Yoda T-shirt and a white coat so pristine it almost blinded you.
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With an ambiguous smile he’d never seen before, she began to move to the music, her thighs brushing his, her hips and belly rubbing against his in little side-to-side strokes that made his cock jerk. Jesus Christ, Rob. You thought you had a semi before? He looked into her upturned face, knowing there wasn’t a hope in hell she wouldn’t feel his now-more-than-semi-hard hard-on. “So, is this some extreme version of a house call?” he asked, the ruffles of his shirt doing nothing to stop him feeling the tips of her breasts skim against his chest as they danced. “Or did I forget to pay the bill?” “Let’s call this an extension of my bedside manner, shall we?” He cocked an eyebrow, trying to ignore the way her body melded to his so perfectly. And the way his already rigid cock twitched at the word bed. Damn it, was he a juvenile? “I remember your bedside manner, Dr. Knox. Unless I did exactly what you said, you were prickly.” “And I remember you rarely doing what I told you to do. Case in point, you being here now.” Emily tilted her head to the side, her thick curtain of hair tumbling over her shoulder as she did so. Rob swallowed, his fingers itching to thread through those silken strands. He’d never seen it worn any other way but in a ponytail. It was gorgeous. He wanted to snare a fistful, bury his nose in its glossy weight and take a deep breath. Instead, he fixed her with a level gaze. “And that’s why you’re here now? To lecture me? You didn’t just come all this way for cake?” Emily’s jaw tightened at his sarcasm. She stopped dancing, her grey eyes angry. “No it isn’t, Robert. You need to come back. We need to—” Rob frowned at her, his chest tightening. “Come back? Why? I’m cured, remember? You cured me. You signed off as my doctor over fifteen days ago and told me I was cancer-free. I’m not going back.” He released her hand and took a
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step back. He sure as hell wasn’t going to tell her about his headache now. Or even let on he felt weak and giddy at times. “I’m going to dance the night away, see my best friend off on his honeymoon and then collapse in bed somewhere around four a.m.” “Robert—” “Then tomorrow morning,” he continued, an anger he couldn’t understand rising in his gut, “I’m going to climb the Harbour Bridge and watch the sun come up before jumping on my bike and heading up north to go scuba diving on the reef. Then after I’ve done that for a few days I’m going to jump a charter flight and spend a week in Bali, maybe hire a tuk-tuk. After that, I’m going to backpack around Vietnam, then I’m flying back home and going bush.” “Going bush?” Emily’s calm voice grated on his nerves. Always in control, was the good doctor. “Going bush. Walking out the front door, heading to the Outback and seeing where my feet—and life—take me. I can do that now, Doc. Death can’t stop me. I’ve got all the time in the world.” She studied him, her face set in that unreadable expression he despised so much, the one that haunted his dreams every night since she walked into his bloody hospital room and declared she would cure him of brain cancer. “And you’re going to do this a whole fifteen days after I tell you you’re completely cancer-free?” “I’m cured,” he ground out, the knot of anger in his gut growing hot. “I have the scars to prove it.” Emily’s gaze flicked to the side of his head. He knew what she was thinking about. The scar running the vertical length of his scalp behind his right ear, a reminder of the first time she’d cut open his skull and went digging for gold.
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But is that the scar you were referring to, Rob? Or were you referring to the scar the annoying bloody woman left on your heart? He bit back a muttered curse. Damn it, why was she here? “So, let me get this straight,” Emily said, each word clipped by her accent, “you’re going climbing, riding, swimming, flying and walking all within a week and a half of being declared cancer-free to prove death doesn’t hold sway over you anymore, correct?” Rob narrowed his eyes, a lump forming in his throat. “That’s right.” “And you’re doing this alone?” He let out a sharp breath, dragging his hands through his cropped hair. “Of course I’m doing it alone. Who else would I be doing it with?” Emily didn’t answer for a moment and for some reason Rob realized he was holding his breath. “Well?” he snapped, uncaring of the guests around him. Fuck it, he needed to know the answer. He needed to know what Emily no-we-can’tI’m-your-doctor Knox thought about it. He needed to know badly. She lifted her chin, her gaze holding his. “Me.”
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Chapter Three
He didn’t let her say anything else. Nostrils flaring, Rob curled his fingers around her biceps and walked from the dance floor. He didn’t stop at any of the beautifully decorated tables, he didn’t stop to collect his jacket, which she could only assume was the powder blue one she spied slung over the back of a chair, he didn’t stop in the foyer to return the “g’day” from someone who may or may not have been the Australian Prime Minister. He walked straight out the doors into the lush moonlit garden surrounding the building, taking her with him. It was a good thing she was tall, Emily realized, otherwise she’d have found it difficult to keep up with his strides. Something about the set in Robert’s jaw however, told her he wouldn’t have slowed down, even if she couldn’t match his pace. Whatever he was doing, he was doing it with the same determination she’d seen in him the day he entered the Centro de Medicinas Alternativas and declared he wasn’t going to die. Just without the wicked grin and flashing dimple. Without warning, he stopped, spinning her around until she faced him. “Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?” Emily stared at him, her heart thumping up into her throat. This was it. Confession time. But before she could open her mouth, Rob pointed his finger at her. “You told me there wasn’t a chance in hell of us—” he waved his finger back and forth between them like an insane maestro conductor, “—happening. You told me your Hippocratic bloody Oath meant we could never be.”
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She licked her lips, sucking a deep breath through her nose. “We kissed—” “We did more than kiss, honey,” he cut her off. “Our clothes were off, our legs were tangled. Hell, your hand was wrapped around my dick and my hand was—” “We kissed,” she continued, raising her voice, “and I realized what I was doing. What I shouldn’t have been doing. I…I got frightened.” He shook his head. “Nope. You don’t get frightened, Dr. Knox. You control. And when you realized you couldn’t control the sexual chemistry between us anymore, when you almost burnt up in it, lying in my narrow bloody bed, our bodies pressed together, when you lost yourself in it, you shoved my bloody chart in my bloody face and told me you’d made a mistake. You told me you couldn’t feel the way you did for a patient. You said it was unethical. And unless you can tell me differently this patient is staying put.” He glared at her, for the first time since she’d met him showing emotion other than the sardonic humor he perpetually wore as a shield. True anger. Anger at her. It wasn’t the emotion she’d hoped for. Then give him what he wants. Or you’ll lose him. Again. Emily’s heart hammered against her breastbone. Eight months caring for him, fighting with the high-grade gliomas in his brain to give him the rest of his life back. Trying treatments the rest of the medical world scoffed at. Investing every moment of her day in him, using him as a guinea pig. Eight months spending just about every day and night with him and every day she’d grown more and more in love with him. Eight months growing more and more worried that love was born, not from her heart, but from her doctor’s need to heal. Fighting it. Denying it. No matter what she thought her feelings for him, he was her patient. And then the night she’d told him he was cancer-free, the night she’d
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told him he no longer needed treatment, he, her patient, had kissed her and she’d realised exactly what she wanted. Robert. Completely and forever. And it scared her witless. Tell him, Emily. She stared at him, her heart in her throat. “Robert…” “Ah, fuck it,” he growled, blue eyes piercing her in the garden’s muted light. “I can’t wait anymore.” He grabbed her wrist and, nostrils flaring, yanked her to his body and crushed her mouth with his. His tongue plunged past her lips, stroking over her tongue in a kiss that was far more forceful than the one they’d shared in his hospital room fifteen days ago. That kiss had been gentle in its molten hunger. It had filled her with aching desire. This kiss, however…there was nothing gentle about it. He took complete possession of her mouth, invading it with not just hunger but ravenous greed. Its ferocity flooded her sex with damp pressure and made her head swim. She groaned, letting her tongue tangle with his as she stole her free hand to his chest. Her fingers splayed over his heart, its pounding rhythm filling her with a thrill she didn’t need to analyze, and she deepened the kiss. The sweet trace of champagne danced over her taste buds and, for a stupidly dizzy second she almost tore her lips from his to berate him for drinking alcohol so close to the completion of his treatment. But then the woman she was at her very core told the doctor she’d trained to be to shut the hell up. She pressed her hips to his, rolling the curve of her sex up the length of his utterly unmistakable erection.
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A low moan rumbled up Rob’s chest and he pushed her backward, his tongue mating with hers even as he pinned her against the smooth trunk of some massive tree behind her. He moaned again, dragging his hands up her arms, over her shoulders to tangle in her hair. “I love your hair, Doc,” he whispered against her lips, shifting his legs until he’d placed one thigh between hers. She sucked in a swift breath, a shard of wicked pleasure spearing into her sex as the top of his thigh ground against her clit. Rob moved his leg again, stroking her pussy with the hard length of his thigh. She groaned, small darts of pleasure sinking into her core. Her clit throbbed and she rolled her hips, rubbing her sex harder against his leg. He deepened the kiss, his tongue mimicking the stroking torture of his knee. Oh God, she wanted this. So badly. Another groan escaped her and she shuddered, the rising tension between her thighs making her head swim. “Damn,” Rob murmured against her lips, his hands roaming her body—up and down her arms, over her ribcage, up to her breasts. “You have no idea how many times I’ve imagined doing this to you. I couldn’t get you out of my head, no matter how hard I tried.” She closed her eyes, his confession sending spirals of wicked heat into the core of her being. Robert hadn’t stopped thinking about her? Damn it, she hadn’t stopped thinking about him. Not since the very moment he walked into the medical centre. “Please…” she whispered, pushing her pussy against his leg. “Please…” “I want to hear you whimper, Emily,” Rob said, returning his lips to her throat. “I want to hear you lose control for me.” He nibbled on her ear, flicking his tongue into its shallow shell as he stroked her sex harder with his leg. His quadriceps muscle was lean and steely, a corded length of warm pressure. Emily
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moaned again, the nub of her clit—shielded by her now sodden knickers— aching so much she wanted to cry. She raked her hands up his arms, over his shoulders, clinging to him as a wave of rising tension rolled through her sex. She was going to come. If he didn’t stop soon, she was going to come. Out here. Against a tree. Under the stars. And what’s wrong with that? She couldn’t think of an argument. “I want you,” she whispered, rolling her head to the side as Rob’s searing lips explored her throat. “I want this more than you know.” “Fucking hell, woman,” Rob groaned, thrusting his hips forward. His thigh scraped harder against her clit and she gasped, a shard of concentrated tension stabbing into her centre. “Say it again. Please, say it again. I need to hear it.” The raw urgency in Rob’s voice sent fresh blood flooding into Emily’s already swollen sex. She squirmed, feeling her orgasm approaching. Fast. “Say it again,” Rob ground out, dragging one hand up her torso until his fingers found her breast. He cupped its weight, worshipping its form through the soft fabric of her dress. She gasped again, arching her back. “I want you,” she panted, the sensations his fingers on her breast created almost stealing her ability to speak. “I want you. I have from the very—” He didn’t let her finish. His lips claimed hers, his hand squeezing and massaging her breast as his tongue plundered her mouth. He pinched her nipple with hungry force, his tongue matching the ferocity of the caress. Her body burned with pleasure at his feverish actions, the undeniable desire each stoke of his tongue, each flick of his fingers wrought on her body pushing her closer and closer to eruption.
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He rubbed his thigh harder against her pussy, an exquisite torment she willingly surrendered to. She’d never felt so…so… Uninhibited. The thrilling word whispered through her head just as Rob’s fingers hooked the deep V of her neckline and tugged it aside. Cool, night air kissed her exposed breast a mere heartbeat before Rob captured her puckered nipple through the lace of her bra. Ribbons of constricting heat unfurled through her core and she ground her sex to his leg with desperate need. God, she was so close to coming. So close. She opened her eyes, staring with pleasure-clouded wonder at the foreign stars above her. She was really here. In Australia. In Robert Thorton’s arms. Drowning in the pleasure he’d awakened in her all those days and months ago. For eight months she’d gone home from work with only Rob on her mind— admiring his tenacious determination to beat the insidious tumour devouring his right cerebral hemisphere, attracted to the laconic humour of his larger-than-life personality, aching for the utterly male sensuality she saw smouldering beneath it all. Eight months of holding herself at bay. Torn between the desire she felt and the ethical demands of her position. Doing everything she could to convince herself it was just her concern for a patient. Disgusted and terrified when she realised it wasn’t. His health had to come first. It had to. And then, that last fatal night before he’d up and left, he’d closed his fingers around her ponytail and kissed her as she was about to perform one last ocular motility check and she’d lost all control. Giving herself over to the hungering desire she’d repressed for so long. Until her fingertips had brushed the knotted scar tissue slashed across the back of his head and what she was doing had slammed into her. She’d signed off from being his doctor on paper for all of about five minutes. It was too soon. Too
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unethical. She was taking advantage of a situation already too strung with heightened emotion. The shameful realisation had hit her hard, rocking her to the very core, and she’d left him. And then, he’d left six hours later and she’d never felt so torn apart. Bereft of purpose. Empty. So she came for him. “Whimper for me, Doc,” Rob rasped, dragging his thumb over the tip of her nipple. “Show me how out of control I make you.” Tight pleasure speared through her. Her sex contracted and her breath quickened. She didn’t feel empty now. Now she felt heavy with aching need. Mounting want. A soft cry sounded in the back of her throat—a strangled sigh of rising pleasure. Rob’s hand squeezed her breast, his lips journeyed her jaw line. “Yes, that’s it. That’s it.” She arched into his thigh, grinding herself on its solid length, another low cry escaping her as constricting tension pulsed through her core. “Fuck, I want to hear you come.” Rob caught her earlobe between his teeth, gave it a little nip before flicking his tongue in her ear. “I want to hear you lose control and know I’m the one that stripped it from you.” His thumb stroked her nipple again, his lips scoring a languid path over her jaw and throat once more. “Show me why you’re really here, Doc,” he whispered, rubbing his thigh against her pussy with increasing rhythm, “and I will show you it was worth the fucking trip.” The pit of her belly coiled. She gasped, her hips pumping back and forth as she rode his leg. She gripped his shoulders, her breath shallow, rapid. “Rob…” His name fell from her lips, barely audible above the pounding of her heart. “Oh God…Rob.”
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“Come for me, baby,” he murmured against her ear, cupping her breast as he pressed his thigh harder to her pussy. “Come for me.” He dipped his tongue into her ear at the very second he pinched her nipple between his knuckles and thrust his own hips forward, dragging his thigh in one long stroke against her folds. Liquid electricity detonated in her core. She cried out, the raw sound tearing from her throat as she clung to Rob’s shoulders. Her sex contracted, powerful pulses that made her buck and grind herself against his leg. Her nipples turned to rock-hard points, the soles of her feet tingled, her blood roared in her ears. “Oh, yes, oh, yes…” The words left her in rapid pants, her orgasm wringing each one from her as her pussy gushed with cream. He’d made her come. Standing outside, fully dressed, with the sounds of his best friend’s wedding reception the accompanying music to their pleasure. He’d made her come. Oh God, he’d made her come. It was exquisite. “Christ, that sounds so fucking hot, Doc.” His breath fanned her neck, and she felt the muscles in his body coil as he shifted his weight, pressing the length of his body against hers. “I wanna hear it again. I want to hear you come as I eat you out. I want to hear you come again and again as I fuck your pussy with my mouth. Right here, right now.” His proclamation sent new lust stabbing straight into Emily’s sex. She sucked in a sharp breath as he took a step backward, his eyes locked on hers, their blue depths burning. Eat you out. Fuck your pussy with my mouth. Right here, right now.
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She watched him take another minute step away, knowing what he was going to do, wanting it more than life its— He stumbled slightly to the left. Cold fear sheered through her and she grabbed for him, her fingers snaring around his arms. “Robert—” God, what had she been thinking? Letting him exert himself so much. She stepped toward him, running her hands up his arms, her heart slamming into her throat. “Your health…” she began, searching his face for signs of vertigo or extreme fatigue, “I shouldn’t have let you… This was a—” She slid her fingers to his neck, seeking his pulse, when Rob’s own fingers suddenly closed around her wrist and he pulled her hand away. Her stare snapped to his face and she frowned, the cold anger etched in his stony expression shocking her. “Let me get this straight,” he spoke lowly, his nostrils flaring. “After what we just did, after what I just did to you, you think I’m not well enough to do more? Sure, my head’s a little fuzzy, but you don’t think I can deal with it? I can. And you need to as well. One little stumble and you think I’m going to keel over and die?” Emily stared at him, her answer stuck in her throat. She’d never seen him so angry. So furious. Disgust boiled in his eyes. And yet his words…my head’s a little fuzzy… How fuzzy? Since when? And for how long? She needed to check his pulse, his eyes, his blood pressure. “Your head is fuzzy? Robert, you need to let me—” “I’m fucking cured, Dr. Knox.” His voice cut over hers, each word almost a growl. “I’m not going to die. You fucking said so yourself.” “Rob,” she began again, her heart thumping in her throat, her ears. She reached for him with her free hand, seeking his fingers with hers.
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“I don’t need to be coddled, Doc,” he snarled, stepping out of her reach as he all but threw her other hand away. “Not by you or anyone. And I’m not your patient anymore. The treatment finished when I walked out the door of the Centro de Medicinas Alternativas. So if that’s the real reason you came here, to be my doctor again, then I suggest you get back on a plane and go find your next victim to cure.” He glared at her, a long steady stare devoid of anything but hurt and rage. She parted her lips, wanting to ease both. Uncertain how to do so. What did she say? What did she do? With a snort and a slow shake of his head, Rob turned away from her, and before she could utter a word, he stormed through the shadows of the garden and was gone. Leaving her standing beneath the towering tree. Still lost for words, the fading pulse of her orgasm mocking her. Oh God, how had this gone so wrong?
Rob held the squat crystal glass in his right hand, staring hard at the icy beads of water on its surface. Each drop clung to the glass, secure in the notion it was where it would be forever, safe, secure. Defying everything to just be there before the laws of physics shat on that foolish fucking notion and gravity sucked at that bead of water until it was nothing but a dry trickle down the cold, hard wall of existence. Jesus, Thorton, you need to get a grip. Pushing himself slightly away from the opulent bar, he lifted the glass to his lips and threw back his head, swallowing the ice-cold liquid and the Tylenol waiting on his tongue with a single mouthful.
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“Here’s to getting a grip,” he muttered, returning the glass to the bar. The dull ache behind his eyes had returned, but be damned if he was going to think about that. Thinking about it was as bad as admitting it was there. If he did that he may as well curl up in ball and wait for the Grim Reaper. Or Dr. Knox. Hell, she had him half in the grave already by the looks of it. A bloke gives her an orgasm and she wants to take his pulse? So much for moving beyond the doctor/patient relationship. Aren’t you overreacting a bit? You did get giddy out there with Emily. Your head did spin and your eyesight went blurry for a sec. You’re not as well as you pretend to be, whether you want to admit it or not and of everyone around you, Emily’s the one who’s going to notice that. Rob ground his teeth. No. He wasn’t overreacting. He was cured. But are you the same man you used to be? He ignored the unwanted question and waved at the stunning blonde in the very sexy uniform watching him from the other side of the bar. “Another please?” “You sure about that, mate?” Rob shot his best friend a quick sideward glance, noting the somewhat apprehensive expression on Joseph’s face as the man slid onto the bar stool beside him. “It’s only water,” he said, giving the bar keeper and her sexy uniform a sidewards grin as she placed another sweating glass before him. “Ta muchly, love.” The prickling sensation on the side of his head told him Joseph was fixing him with a steady stare. “Don’t you have anything better to do, Hudson?” he asked, raising his ice water to his lips. “Like oh, I dunno, go dance with your wife?” “My wife is dancing with Hugh Jackman at the moment, so no, not really.”
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Rob grunted. “Celebrity weddings. Is Brad Pitt going to walk through the door any time soon?” “Nah, but he’s joining us on our honeymoon so…” The unfinished sentence made Rob turn and look at his best friend. “Being married hasn’t improved your sense of humour. It still sucks.” Joseph raised his eyebrows, giving Rob an expectant look. The pit of Rob’s gut twisted and he turned back to his glass. He wasn’t in the mood for this. “So,” Joseph went on, obviously deciding to ignore Rob’s subtle hint. “You gonna tell me what’s pissed you off so much you’re sulking over here at the bar?” “I’m not sulking.” “Bullshit.” “You right, are you, mate?” Rob placed his glass on the bar and twisted on his stool, giving Joseph an exasperated glare. “Bloody hell, a man only just survives brain cancer and his best friend’s giving him a hard time about not being the life of the party? Fair dinkum.” Much to Rob’s disgust, Joseph—the man he’d known since they were both six—burst out laughing. “Since when do you use cancer as an excuse for being pathetic, Robert Thorton?” Joseph shook his head, leaning forward enough to close his fingers around Rob’s glass of water before straightening back on his stool. “I think all this sulking has something to do with a certain English doctor standing near the wedding cake.” Rob reached out and plucked his glass from his Joseph’s loose grip. “Yeah, meant to say thanks for that, Joe. Real glad you invited her to your wedding. Onya.”
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Joseph chuckled, a low sound Rob recognised all too well. The man was enjoying himself. “Hey, she rang me. Something about a certain someone jumping a flight to Sydney before he was meant to. All I did was give her the directions to where she could find you.” Rob lifted his glass to his mouth. Damn it, why was his mouth so hard? Dry. Don’t you mean dry? Your mouth is dry. Your dick is— “All you did was bloody well invite her to your wedding. And now she’s here…” He petered off, unsure what the rest of the sentence was going to be. For fuck’s sake, Thorton. What the hell did the woman do to you? Steal your ability to think? “And now she’s here,” Joseph went on with an amused twist on his lips, glancing over Rob’s shoulder in the direction of a surreal creation of icing sugar and chocolate cake designed to look like the main mountain ridge of Wolf Creek, Colorado. “Currently being chatted up by my cousin Trevor.” Something cold and hard slammed into Rob’s gut and he spun on his stool, fixing his stare on the tall, lanky man who looked like a skinnier, blonder Joseph standing beside the mountain side cake, leering at Emily over the butter-frosting snow. “What the fuck?” he muttered. “I thought Trevor was engaged?” For an answer, Joseph cocked an eyebrow. “Not anymore. The last I heard, Trev was on the hunt.” “Well, he can bloody well fuck off and hunt somewhere else. Emily’s—” Rob snapped his mouth shut, unprepared for where the statement was heading. Damn it, what was he doing? What the hell was he doing? The good Doctor was more concerned with him as a patient than she was as a man. She’d made that perfectly clear under the tree, and that meant whatever he thought was going to
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happen between them wasn’t. And that meant he had no bloody right getting jealous over Trevor I-can-touch-my-nose-with-my-tongue Turnball. Joseph however, wasn’t quite so prepared to leave it alone. Typical bloody Hudson. “Emily’s what, Rob?” he said, that expectant expression on his face again. “Too English? Too tall? Too smart? Too…yours?” Rob ignored him. Or tried to. It was a bit hard when the bloke wouldn’t shut the hell up. “You remember when you orchestrated that wonderful little trip to the Rockies last year?” Joseph continued. “Y’know the one? Where you had a helicopter drop us off on the side of a snow covered mountain without any idea of where we were going to stay and we almost died of exposure while we were wandering around that mountain side looking for a cabin?” He didn’t wait for an answer. He was after all, Time Australia’s Businessman of the Year. When Joseph Hudson was on a roll, he didn’t wait for the Prime Minister of the country. “Remember what happened that night?” A tight not stirred in the pit of Rob’s belly. Three things happened that night—Ranger Anna McCarthy came and rescued them, they had the most mind-blowing threesome he’d ever had in his life, and he’d told his best friend he was dying of brain cancer. He turned his head, giving Joseph a quick look before letting his gaze settle on Emily Knox, standing beside the wedding cake disguised as Knife Ridge. Her thick red hair fell about her shoulders in a glossy curtain, her pale skin almost luminescent in the warm light, her expression somewhere between confused anger and frustrated acceptance as she listened to whatever crap Trev Tongue-Man Turnball was carrying on with. She looked fucking gorgeous and Rob’s prick, still all riled up after their little conversation out under the tree, jerked in his trousers. God Almighty, he wanted her. On so many levels.
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“Tell me why you were so determined to beat cancer, Rob,” Joseph said. “To what end?” “You know why. I have too much life left to live.” “With who?” Joseph’s pointed question made Rob blink and he yanked his stare from Emily, swivelling back to the bar. “Shut up, Joe. You don’t know what you’re talking about.” “Don’t I? Funny, but as I recall only ten months ago I found out my best mate was going to die. I went through the hell of knowing the one constant in my universe was going to be taken away. When you didn’t, mate, when you told me Dr. Knox had cured you, I thought two things. One, I wanted to hug the woman who had given you back to me, and two, life is precious. Damn precious. And if you don’t realise those two things are bloody well connected, Thorton, if you can’t see those two are connected—the woman who came after you when she didn’t need to, and the life you now have—then you’re a bloody idiot.” Rob slammed his ice water back to the bar. Hot anger rolled through him. His head throbbed. “Just because I owe my life to her doesn’t mean—” “Doesn’t mean shit,” Joseph cut him off. “But it’s not your life I’m talking about now, mate. It’s your heart.” He stared at Rob, the inescapable stare of a man who at one point in time had just about every politician and businessman in the country hanging on his every word. A look that said he’d had enough of the crap. Before he could stop himself, and fuck, did he try, Rob turned his head, his stare automatically and unerringly finding Emily. Your heart, Rob. “You’ve done some crazy-arsed shit in your life,” Joseph continued, the tone of his voice now less the ruthless businessman and more the young bloke Rob
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could trust more than anyone else, “and some bloody scary shit as well. Now, I think it’s time to do the bravest.” Rob gazed at Emily, his heart—yeah, his heart—so heavy it felt like it was about to burst from his chest. She was beautiful, strong, determined, caring, kind… Joseph’s firm hand on his shoulder jerked Rob’s attention back to his friend. “Go, on.” Joe smiled, rising to his feet. “I dare you.” Rob watched him weave through the dance floor until he reached Anna and her movie star dance partner, tapping the tall man on the shoulder before taking his place before the grinning bride and twirling her away in a laughing circle. Rob’s throat grew thick and he turned his gaze back to Emily. “Is there anything else I can give you tonight?” The barkeeper’s murmur tickled over his ears, and he’d have to be a dead man to miss the offer in the woman’s throaty question. But he wasn’t a dead man. He was very, very much a live man. Go on, Joseph’s voice repeated in his head, I dare you. He turned back to the blonde and her sexy-arsed uniform and gave her a wide smile. “No thanks, love. I’ve got an appointment with my doctor.” Rising to his feet, he pushed himself from the bar and crossed the dance floor, past Joseph and Anna, past Hugh Jackman and his wife, past everyone. Until he stopped at the colossal mountainside cake. His stare found Emily’s eyes and his heart pounded into his throat. “Dance with me, Dr. Knox.” “Do you mind, Thorton?” a male, heavily Australian accented voice barked beside Emily. “Don’t think you might be interrupting something here, do you?”
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She blinked, jerking her stare from Robert’s face to look at the man standing beside her, remembering far too slowly she’d been involved in a conversation before Rob approached her. “Don’t mind at all, Trev,” Rob grinned. “Now bugger off.” The man—Trevor—curled his lip. “Feeling better, I see?” Rob gave him a wide grin. “You could say that.” Trevor flicked her a quick look before, with a huff and a muttered expletive Emily swore sounded like arrogant bastard, he nodded once at her and walked away. She turned back to Rob. Just in time to see him step toward her and capture her hand and waistline with long, steady fingers. He pulled her to his body with a gentle tug, the hand on her waist sliding to the small of her back to draw her closer still. Their hips aligned perfectly, her belly pressed to his, her breasts crushed against his chest. She pulled in a ragged breath, feeling his heart slamming in his body. Or was it hers beating so hard? She couldn’t tell anymore. He was holding her. Wasn’t that all that mattered? She lifted her chin a fraction, enough to meet his gaze. “I didn’t mean—” she began, but he shook his head. “Neither did I,” he cut her off, voice low and gentle. “Now shut up. I’m trying to seduce you with my awesome dancing skills.” She went to say something else. Something like, I didn’t mean to sound like a doctor, or worse still, are you sure you should be dancing? but the words died on her lips. She lowered her head and rested her forehead against his neck instead, incapable of holding his stare any longer. Not unless she wanted to melt into a pool of aching want at his feet. The desire in his eyes, the undeniable longing burning in their blue depths was too much.
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Rob’s fingers curled around hers and he brought their hands closer to their heads, his other hand smoothing up the line of her spine to the middle of her back. He held her closer still, his body swaying a little in time to music she didn’t hear. She didn’t need to. Her body moved with his as if the very beat of his heart was the only rhythm it ever needed to hear or feel again. She closed her eyes, the soft friction of his thighs stroking hers, the firm heat of his groin nestled against hers, sending warm licks of rising tension through her. Pinching her nipples into twin points of aching longing. Oh God, he was holding her. Her heart constricted at the sheer joy in the thought, her breath catching in her throat. It should have frightened her, how deeply she’d become addicted to him. It should have terrified her. She’d never been one for flights of foolish fancy, as her mother so often dismissed the notion of romantic love. Growing up with a heart surgeon for a father and forensic pathologist for a mother, she’d been taught only that which you could see was real. The heart was nothing but an organ formed to pump blood around a body, needed for life. The heart bore no relevance to emotion and as such, no relevance to love. And yet her heart, that eleven ounce, four-chambered, multi-valved biological necessity had never ached as much as it did now. Her heart, the thing she’d spent almost twentyseven years of her life relegating to a simple organ, both growing up and at medical school, now seemed to rule her very existence. Radiating an intangible…hell, she didn’t know how to explain it…yearning so potent and unfathomable she felt as if it would be crushed. Is this what pure desire feels like? Is this what love feels like? She drew a deep breath at the thought, her pulse pounding faster. Love?
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Tugging her closer, Rob turned his head slightly, his lips brushing her cheek in a caress barely describable as a kiss. And yet, the gentle sensation only served to heighten the tension mounting in her body and she let out a soft sigh, feeling the crotch of her knickers grow damp. She’d fought what she’d felt for him for so long. She’d argued against it and when she couldn’t argue any more, she’d forced herself to wait. To see if her heart survived when Robert had gone. But it had only taken thirteen days to accept the truth. He was her life and her future and she wanted him. Less than a day later and she was on a plane. She’d risked everything to be here with this man—her career, her reputation, her heart—and it was worth it all, if for nothing other than this dance. This moment. As if hearing her very thoughts, he pulled away from her a little, the slight separation of their bodies making her want to cry out. No, she wanted to feel his heart beating against hers. She needed it. As much as she needed to breathe in his scent to survive. She gazed into his eyes, her pussy fluttering at the undisguised desire she saw there. “If I ask you to come back to my place tonight after the reception,” he asked, sliding his hand on her back up to the nape of her neck to thread his fingers through her hair, “will you say yes?” Her heart quickened, its beat echoing the eager throb between her thighs. “Yes.” The corners of Rob’s lips curled. “Will you come back to my place after the reception, Emily Knox?” She gave him a steady look. “Yes.” Rob’s smile stretched wider. “Then if you’ll excuse me for a second, I better go tell Joe to hurry the hell up and bugger off.”
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Chapter Four
He couldn’t make it to his home. The proverbial snowball stood a greater chance in hell then Rob did waiting until he’d driven the seven and a half kilometres between Dunbar House and his townhouse overlooking Bondi Beach. After dancing with Emily for the last three hours before Joe and Anna finally decided to leave their own wedding reception, holding her against his body, breathing in her soft, delicate scent, pretending what had happened beneath the tree hadn’t happened, trying to play it cool and laid-back and relaxed, he couldn’t wait any longer. Five minutes with Emily in his car, the subtle heat of her body licking over him in the Audi’s small cabin, the soft sound of her thighs sliding against each other as she shifted in her seat…it was too much. He couldn’t make it home. He had to kiss her. Now. His headache was gone, thanks to the Tylenol, and his vision was perfect. There was nothing physically stopping him except the fact he was driving. Without hesitation or warning, Rob yanked the wheel to the left, swerving the sports car to the side of the road. Emily turned to him, and before her lips finished parting—no doubt to ask him what he was doing—he’d released his seatbelt and tangled his hands in her hair, taking possession of her mouth in a kiss he knew was far from gentle. She met his hunger with equal force, one hand scrambling for the seat belt release as the other slid up his chest to cup his jaw. He groaned into her mouth, dragging his hands from her hair and down her back, wishing the car’s
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handbrake and gear lever to hell. How the hell could he get close enough to her with two bloody metal rods stuck between them? “Jesus, Emily,” he moaned against her lips, breaking the kiss with something akin to frustrated fury, “I want you so fucking bad I can’t wait until we get home.” “I don’t want you to wait, Robert.” Her response, coming from her in ragged pants, made his cock throb harder. Her fingertips dug into his cheek a little, as if she feared he was going to move away from her completely. He wouldn’t. Even if he wanted to, he was incapable of drawing further space between them, but he wanted their first time to be so much more than a frantic thrust and poke in a cramped, confined car. Still, if he didn’t do something now, they would be in danger of having an accident before they made it to his townhouse. He was losing too much blood to his brain to focus on the road, all of it rushing to his dick instead. “Not here.” He shook his head, chuckling at the dismayed cry of protest escaping Emily. “Not that at least. Not on the side of the road in my car.” He smoothed his right hand around her ribcage, brushing his fingers over the swell of her left breast contained by the lace of her bra and the silken fabric of her dress. His mouth watered, the need to dip his head and take her pebbled nipple between his lips almost too much to deny. Instead, he forced himself to move his caressing hand to her face, resting his palm against her cheek as he stared into the smoky depths of her eyes. “When I bury myself inside your sweet, hot sex,” he continued, “I want you splayed out before me on my bed, gloriously naked, legs askew, the tops of your thighs glistening with moisture from your juices and my tongue.”
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A shudder rocked through Emily and her eyelids fluttered closed, her lips parting as a raw groan tore from her throat. “Oh Lord, Robert…” “But I can’t wait any longer. I need…” he broke off, the words to describe the aching want in the lowest pit of his belly, the agonizing urgency in his groin, lost to him. He recognized the paradox of the situation. He couldn’t wait to make love to her, but he couldn’t make love to her until they waited. Why the fuck hadn’t he bought a bigger car? Better yet, an apartment next to Joe’s reception centre? If you’d known you’d be suffering this kind of blissful torture, maybe you would have, but Hudo had kept Emily’s arrival a secret, hadn’t he? Another reason to thump the bastard when he gets back from his honeymoon. Emily moaned again, her fingers threading through his on her face. She turned her head slightly, pressing her lips to the centre of his palm, kissing the sensitive skin first before touching it with the tip of her tongue. “I can’t wait either,” she whispered against his hand. “I feel like I’m on the verge of an orgasm already.” The statement was all it took. His blood roaring in his ears, Rob couldn’t control himself any longer. He would give her what she needed and she would see he wasn’t weak. Never taking his stare from Emily’s tormented face, he raked his hand down her body, over the flat plane of her belly to the junction of her thighs. With an impatient tugged on her dress he bunched her hemline high and dipped his fingers between her legs. “Oh, yes.” Emily gasped, arching in her seat as his fingertips stroked the velvet-soft folds of her pussy through the sodden silk of her knickers. A violent spasm jolted through Rob’s cock at the slick friction beneath his fingers. He sucked in a ragged breath, drinking in the undeniable musky
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perfume of Emily’s desire filling the Audi’s cabin. It was potent, an aphrodisiac beyond his experience. His cock jerked in his trousers again, and with a flick of his wrist, he hooked the damp crotch of her undies aside and sank his middle finger into her slit. “Oh, yes!” Emily bucked her hips forward, her eyes still closed, her face contorting with pleasure. “Yes!” He thrust his finger in and out, the wet sucking sounds of each penetration and withdrawal as arousing as the soft whimpers and mewling cries falling from Emily’s parted lips. She was tight around his finger. So tight. So tight and so very wet. And it still wasn’t enough. He wanted more. He wanted to taste her. Right now. Without removing his hand from its delicious sheath, he repositioned himself on his seat, releasing the handbrake with his free hand before leaning over the centre console and finding her clit with his tongue. “Oh my God!” Emily cried out, her hips slamming forward, whacking the curve of her mound against his face. From the corner of his eye, Rob saw her scrambled for an anchor, flailing blindly above her head, beside it, until she resorted to ramming one hand to the car’s ceiling and wrapping the other around the fold down grab-handle above the window. He hummed his approval, flicking at her clit with his tongue again as he slipped another finger into her pussy. “You are so tight, Doc.” He licked at her folds, penetrating her moist heat with a slow stroke. “So tight and so fucking sweet.” She writhed in her seat, the sound of her breathing—a long, shaking inhalation—furthering his need. He wriggled his two fingers deeper into her sex,
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scissoring them with increasing speed, mirroring the pace with the tip of his tongue on her clitoris. “Robert…” Emily gasped, jerking her hips higher. Her hands scrabbled at his back, tugged at his hair. “Robert…this feels, this is…oh God, this is so good, but what if someone…” He lifted his head from between her thighs, grinning up at her. “The closest streetlight is too far away.” He blew a thin stream of cool air on her sodden flesh, his cock twitching at Emily’s responding whimper. “And my windows are tinted with privacy glass. No one is seeing in here, babe.” He laved his tongue along her pussy lips again, circling her clit in a series of little flicks before drawing the tiny button into his mouth and sucking gently. “Oh Lord, that feels…” Emily bucked again, once, twice and with another whimper far louder than the last, fresh cream flooded over Rob’s tongue. It was deliriously exquisite, turning his dick to a rod of agonizing steel even as her release filled him with sheer joy. His balls ached, rising high toward his body and he knew without a doubt all it would take was one single touch of Emily’s fingers on his shaft and he would erupt. He’d never been more turned on. Jesus, if you don’t come soon you’ll be back in hospital with a ruptured cock. With one last caress of her sex with his mouth, he pulled back, turning his gaze to her face. She sat with her eyes still closed, her lips parted as she sucked in one breath after another, each one as shallow and ragged as its predecessor. The pale perfection of her skin took on an ethereal quality in the car’s shadowed interior, as if her complexion was the product of an artist’s airbrush and not natural beauty. She was an angel sent to grant him life. Give him life. And all he could think about was fucking her brains out.
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Really? Or is it something else? Something you won’t consider until your lustfogged brain is clear? “Fuck a duck, I need to come.” He didn’t realize the muttered confession had escaped his thoughts until Emily opened her eyes and looked at him, her breath still shaky, her lids heavy. “Let me—” She moved in her seat, leaning toward him, but he shook his head, cupping her jaw in his hand. “No.” He traced the soft fullness of her bottom lip with the pad of his thumb. “If you even breathe on my dick now I will lose it.” He placed a kiss—a chaste one, of all things—on her lips and then settled himself back in his own seat, clipping in his seatbelt before he could change his mind. “Splayed out on my bed before me, remember? With no giddy head or gear shift or handbrake to interrupt us.” “Are you telling me, Robert,” Emily’s low murmur fell in the shadows between them, “that you’re healthy enough to endure the rest of the drive back to your place without me…relieving the pressure?” Rob’s arse clenched at the innuendo behind her question. Pressure? Shit, his balls were under so much fucking pressure he felt certain they were about to rupture along with his swollen cock. He reached for the ignition, waking the Audi’s engine with a flick of his wrist even as an image of Emily’s lips sliding down his shaft flashed through his mind. He gripped the steering wheel with both hands, ignoring the tormenting image with as much success as he ignored the aching throb in his groin. “That’s exactly what I’m saying, Doctor Knox,” he growled, throwing the car into gear and flattening the accelerator to the floor. He negotiated the sparse two a.m. traffic with rising impatience, breaking the posted speed limit more than once, running more than one amber light. Emily sat
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silently beside him, the musky scent of her pleasure infusing every breath he took, making his already straining dick even harder and his attention to the road tenuous at best. He hadn’t had sex since Colorado. He’d gone through medical hell and back and he had no fucking clue if he had the stamina, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to take it easy when he finally made love to her. Not after aching for her for so long. He didn’t allow himself to ponder what would happen after he buried himself between her legs. Raw, physical need dictated his actions now. His need for Emily. His need to possess her, claim her. So is it just mindless fucking, Rob? Or is it something totally messed up like needing to say thank you for your life in the most elemental, primitively male way? Or is it something else. Something much much more? He didn’t allow himself to think about that either. But his denial didn’t ease the aching urgency in his groin, nor make his dick any softer. By the time he directed his car into the underground car park of his townhouse complex, his head was swimming, his hands were trembling and his pulse was thumping so hard in his neck he was surprised the good doctor beside him didn’t whip out her stethoscope and declare him at risk of a heart attack. But it is your heart being attacked, Rob, isn’t it? In a way you never suspected. Because when Emily crosses the threshold of your home, it’s not going to be as your doctor, and it’s sure as hell isn’t going to be as a one-night stand. He pulled his car into his allotted bay and killed the engine, holding the wheel for a still moment as he counted to ten. Emily’s intoxicating scent threaded through his being and for a surreal, ridiculous second he wished to hell Joseph was with him. He knew who he was with Hudo. He knew where he was going and what he was doing. He was the flippant clown to his best mate’s serious success story. He was the daredevil prankster to Joe’s grounded grown-up.
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But Joe’s not here, Thorton. Joe’s with his wife, starting his new life. And you’ve got yours stretching out in front of you. Starting with the woman who gave it to— “Robert?” Emily’s soft voice, uttering his name in a hesitant question made him jump. Shit, he was behaving like a nervous schoolboy. He was behaving like… Like Joseph on the base of Knife Ridge Chutes the moment he came face to face with Anna. All over, Red Rover. The thought made Rob laugh. He popped his seatbelt, leaning toward Emily to snare a fistful of her silken hair at the nape of her neck. “Ready for me to prove how healthy I am, Doctor Knox?” He kissed her before she could answer. A long, deep kiss that made her moan against his mouth and snake her arms around his neck.
They fell through his door. If Emily hadn’t been aroused beyond comprehension, she would have been mortified by the clichéd moment. Rob’s lips and tongue moved over hers as they tumbled over the threshold, Emily moving backward, Rob forward, their hands pulling and tugging at each other’s clothes in a feverish attempt to disrobe. Her fingers fumbled with the buttons on Rob’s shirt, releasing the top two before Rob grabbed at the ruffled neckline and tore it open. The sound of fabric tearing and pearl buttons bouncing across the wooden floor ignited a base lust in Emily and she raked her hands over his now exposed chest, exploring its hard planes even as Rob continued to propel her backward. His lips dragged over her throat, her jawline. His hands, finished with shedding his shirt, returned to her body. They ran them over her ribcage, her waist, up to her breasts. He cupped each one with demanding urgency,
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squeezing them through her dress before returning to her waist again. “Fuck, Emily…” he groaned against her neck, and before she knew what he was doing, he’d slammed her against what felt like the back of a sofa. Her butt cheeks rammed the cushioned edge and for a wild heartbeat she was perilously close to losing her balance and falling backward. But Rob held her tight, one hand catching the back of her thigh and hooking her leg upward. He grabbed her arse, pushing his hips to hers as his mouth crushed hers again. The rigid length of his erection ground against her spread folds and she whimpered, the bruising contact flooding her pussy with eager moisture. She ran her hands over his bare torso, marveling at how lean and sinewy he was. When he’d first entered the Centro de Medicinas Alternativas there was more bulk to his form, ropey muscles sculpted into sublime perfection, the body of the adrenaline junkie he confessed to being, but there was something about his body now—stripped of pretension and ego, a fighter’s body, a survivor’s body. Her sex contracted at the steely strength beneath her palms and she moaned, rolling her hips to stroke her pussy up his contained shaft. “The bed…” he rasped against her lips, yanking her leg higher. He thrust his hips forward, his cock rubbing at her clit through their clothes. “Undress me,” she panted back. She couldn’t wait for the bed. She needed to feel that long, thick organ now. In her hands, in her mouth. In her sex. He did as he was told, breaking their kiss long enough to yank her dress over her head. He threw it aside, taking a slight step backward to gaze at her, his stare devouring what its removal had revealed. “Christ, woman, you are beautiful.” She perched on the sofa’s backrest, Rob’s hand sliding to her thigh, her body on utter display. Her nipples pebbled under his molten inspection, chafing against the lace of her black bra. She watched his face as his eyes roamed every
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inch of her, her pussy fluttering with increasing urgency, growing heavy with wet need. He lifted his gaze to hers, stepping back into the embrace of her spread thighs. “So beautiful.” His mouth found hers again, his tongue delving past her lips until he captured hers. His hands travelled her back, up her spine, to her shoulders, burying in her hair as he made love to her mouth with his tongue. She clung to him, her head swimming, her pulse racing. Oh Lord, she wanted to come. He’d made her come twice already since she’d arrived in the country and it wasn’t even close to enough. She wanted to come again and again and again. Twisting her head to the side, she tore her lips from his, her breath shallow as he scored a line of nipping bites along her jaw. “Please, Robert…” Her begging moan was almost strangled by her aching desire. “Please make love to me.” “The bed…” He worked his lips down the column of her throat, across the line of her collarbone. “Stretched before me…” He teased the curve of her shoulder with his teeth, his hands skimming over her back. “Gloriously naked…” She was about to protest when his fingers released her bra clasp. Her breasts fell free of the skimpy lace, Rob helping them along by pulling her bra from her body and tossing it away. He captured one nipple between his lips and the other between his thumb and fingers, sucking and twisting and tormenting. She arched her back, every molecule of her existence thrumming with mounting tension. Holding his head to her breast, she hooked her leg around his back. Deprived of his hardness against her pussy, she groaned with both frustration and pleasure. His mouth was doing things to her nipple she’d never imagined possible. Not just suckling on it, but biting and teasing in such a way she felt the muscles of her womb begin
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to contract. Lord, she was going to orgasm. He was making her climax with just his mouth and fingers on her breasts. “Rob,” she gasped, a quiver building through her. Her hips bucked forward, her sex gripping a cock not yet there. “Rob, I’m going to…” He dropped to his knees and yanked the sodden crotch of her knickers to the side, burying his tongue into her folds. Thrusting in and out, in and out, he paused only to suck on her clit, nibble it with his lips before returning his tongue to her folds, lapping at her, penetrating her slit until the quiver in her body turned to a shudder in her core and she threw back her head, crying out words with no sound, her cream flooding her sex. Three times, Emily. Three times he’s made you climax. Three times. The barely lucid thought whispered through her head as the pulsing throb between her thighs began to fade. She drew in a long breath, forcing her heart to calm. To steady. And then Rob straightened to his feet, snaking his arms around her back. “I think it’s time for the bed now, Doc,” he murmured, the dimple in his right cheek flashing, and her heart starting beating wildly again. He flung her over his shoulder. Just like that, as if she were a rag doll and not a woman almost as tall as he was. As if he hadn’t just finished eight months of draining, debilitating cancer treatment. She let out a shout, surprised and sinfully turned on by his unexpected show of caveman psyche. And yet, the doctor she still was—his doctor—wanted to order him to put her down. Only a few hours ago he’d confessed to having a giddy head. He couldn’t do this now. It was too straining. Too exerting. If you tell him to do so, Emily, you may as well collect your bag and passport and catch the next flight back to Barcelona alone. Treat him like a patient now and you will destroy any chance the two of you have for a—
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She didn’t finish the thought. The abrupt shift in the world as Rob threw her on his bed replaced the word future with a delighted squeal. She wriggled on the mattress, gazing up at him through her lashes, the silken caress of the feathersoft duvet beneath her almost as delicious as the unmistakable desire smoldering in his eyes. He stood at the foot of the bed, lean bare torso a golden sheen in the room’s warm light. His nipples, small and brown, drew her stare and she caught her bottom lip between her teeth. What would they feel like under her tongue? She’d wondered that very thing more than once during the last few months of his treatment, during the hours when she sat at her desk supposedly writing her notes but thinking instead of him in ways a doctor was never meant to think of their patient. She’d seen him naked many times before. She’d touched him while he was so, when conducting his weekly physical, while he’d endured the daily forty-five minutes of complete sun exposure required for his treatment, while he’d tolerated clinical showers pre- and post-surgery, but never with desire controlling her heart. Every time she’d forced the stirring tension in the pit of her belly aside. Ignoring it until that last night. And even then, she’d fled his room before her lips could taste his nipples like they so longed to do. The slow movement of his hands jerked her stare from his chest and her mind from their past. She watched, breath caught in her throat as he released the buckle on the pale blue belt circling his hips. Her mouth turned dry and she swallowed, her full attention locked on his fingers lowering the zipper of his fly. This is really it, Emily. Three orgasms to his zero. With a slight shimmer of his legs, his tuxedo trousers fell from his hips, his cock—engorged with blood—jutting straight up from the dark nest of curls between his thighs. Lord, it’s blooming magnificent.
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“Now,” he said, toeing his shoes off and removing his socks, “I’m pretty bloody certain I said gloriously naked, didn’t I.” Before she could supply a response, he placed his right knee on the end of the bed and smoothed his hands up her legs, inside her thighs until his fingers brushed over the curve of her mons with taunting strokes. “And as sexy as these undies are,” he continued, tracing the low waistline of her lacy knickers from one hip to another, “they’ve gotta go.” He slipped his fingers under the black lace and, stare holding hers, slowly, slowly slid them down her legs until they were discarded on the floor. Emily’s heart thumped hard against her breastbone. Her pussy contracted, the cool air of Rob’s bedroom kissing her newly exposed sex. “And there was something about moisture from your juices and my tongue on your thighs, correct?” His voice was rough, each syllable sounding strained. His nostrils flared as he placed his other knee on the bed, nudging her legs wider. Opening her pussy lips to him. A wicked thrill shot through Emily, pinching her nipples tight. She’d never been so completely exposed, so completely at someone’s mercy. It made her pulse pound and her core clench. She could feel the product of her excitement, warm and wet, seep from her sex. She could smell it. Her raw pleasure. Hanging on the air, filling her breath. And that, too, made her all the more aroused. Lord, I’m so wanton. The old-fashioned term tickled at her rational mind and she closed her eyes. Not because she was ashamed of herself, but because she wanted to lose herself to the pure sensations of what she knew Rob was about to do. He didn’t keep her waiting, dipping two fingers into her sex in one slow, steady penetration. He rolled his wrist, stroking the inside of Emily’s walls with
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deliberate attention. She lifted her hips, the action taking him deeper inside her. He made a little sound, like a groan and a sigh combined, and then just as slow and steady, withdrew his fingers. “Your juices,” he murmured, smearing the slick cream from within her centre over her pussy lips, the tops of her thighs. She sucked in a choppy breath, the very idea of what he was doing to her driving her faster to the brink of sexual oblivion. “And my tongue,” he continued, voice lower. Closer. His body heat replaced the cool air of the room on her spread sex a second before his tongue lapped a line from the puckered opening of her anus to the blood-engorged nub of her clit. She bucked her hips higher, a soft whimper vibrating in her throat, growing louder as Rob placed his hands flat on the inside of her knees and pushed her legs wider apart. He licked her labia, her perineum, he explored with thorough and unhurried focus every inch of her spread pussy. And just when she thought she was going to fall over the precipice into mindless release, he moved his mouth to her inner thighs and painted her skin with his tongue. Emily let out another cry, her pussy heavy. “So,” Rob whispered, raising onto his knees. His voice shook. “You are gloriously naked, stretched out before me, your thighs glistening wet from your juices and my tongue.” His hands skimmed up to her hip, under her arse. Holding her. Holding her. “What’s next, Emily? Tell me.” “You bury yourself into my sweet, hot sex.” “Bingo,” he breathed, jerking her arse up off the bed and sinking his cock deep into her very soul.
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Chapter Five
He moved inside her. Long hard strokes he barely controlled. His scrotum slapped her butt cheeks, his fingers digging into the firm muscle of each as he withdrew and penetrated again and again. A distant part of his mind whispered the word condom, another equally distant part whispered back sterile. He didn’t care about either word. Whether his treatment had left him incapable of procreating or not—and according to Emily, it had—meant nothing to him at that very moment. What mattered was the sheer and absolute pleasure filling her face. Pleasure he’d created in her. “Fuck, you are so tight,” he groaned, sliding one hand from her backside and up over her hip. He smoothed his palm, fingers splayed, along her belly to her ribcage, watching her eyelids flutter closed when the tips of his finger brushed the underswell of her breast. “So tight and so wet.” He returned his hand to her arse, holding her butt off the mattress as he thrust deeper into her pussy. The exquisite muscles of her sex sucked at his length with greedy hunger, making his head spin and his balls hard. He could feel the bulbous head of his cock slide against her walls, could feel the lips of her cream-slicked channel slip up and down his length. It was unlike anything he’d experienced before. How can it be, Rob? It’s sex. Something you’ve had many times before. No, it wasn’t just sex. This was something else. This was… Making love?
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He groaned, thrusting into her again, a powerful stroke that lowered her body back to the mattress. He went with her, still embedded in her exquisite heat, his legs framed by hers, stare locked on her face. “I knew we would be the perfect fit,” he murmured, driving his cock deeper into her. He tasted her lips, her chin, back to her lips again, thrusting in, pulling out with each gentle kiss. Emily’s nails bit into his shoulders. Her legs wrapped around his hips. She met his motion with her own, rocking in time to his hips, her thighs gripping him with inescapable strength. He didn’t want to escape. He was exactly where he wanted to be. Lowering his head, he buried his face against her neck, sucking in her delicate scent as he thrust harder and harder. Faster. He felt lightheaded, but had no idea why. His health? His pleasure? Who the fuck cared? He was going to come soon. The sexual electricity building in his groin had already started to spike up his spine. Too many months craving this very thing—being with Emily, being inside her, holding her—meant whatever skill he had at controlling his release was shot to hell. He couldn’t help that. He wanted her too fucking much. But he wanted her to come with him. He needed her to come with him. Dragging his lips up to her ear, he nipped at her earlobe, tangling his hands in strands of her hair fanned out around her head on the mattress. He was going to come soon, but not until he’d made her scream his name. “The perfect fit, Emily,” he whispered with another nip at her earlobe, withdrawing his cock slowly from her sex until just its head remained engulfed by her heat. She arched beneath him, her hands travelling his back. “Robert…” She shook her head, her leg muscles coiling as she tried to drive him back into her. “Don’t…”
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He tilted his hips forward, inching a fraction back into her pussy, dragging his length against her clit. “Don’t what?” He withdrew again, his blood roaring at the rapture etching Emily’s face. “Don’t tell you we are perfect together?” He slid back into her again, a little farther this time. A little deeper. “No.” The word left Emily in a rasping pant, her body quivering beneath him as she once again tried to pull him into her upward thrust. Her nails scratched at his hips, her eyes ablaze. “Don’t torture me.” He chuckled, sliding out of her folds a little. “Greedy woman.” He pushed back in, letting the domed head of his cock linger at the mouth of her pussy. “You’ve had three orgasms already.” “I want more.” The raw confession sent a surge of fresh blood into Rob’s balls. The fire dancing up his spine grew hotter, a rising inferno he couldn’t fight for much longer. “So do I,” he answered. His heart slammed into his throat at the three words. He wasn’t just talking about orgasms. He was talking about his life. Their life. “Tell me we are perfect together, Emily. Tell me we are the perfect fit and I will let you come.” “You know we are,” she panted, staring up at him as she writhed beneath his pinning weight. “Please…” He smoothed his hand over her torso to capture the perfect curve of her breast. She closed her eyes and pushed her hips higher to his, her hand joining his on her breast, helping him squeeze and massage its soft form. “Tell me I’m not just a patient to you anymore.” She shook her head, her legs tugging him closer, her nails digging into his flesh. “Oh God, Robert,” she moaned, a frown of escalating pleasure pulling at her forehead, “I don’t think you ever were.”
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It was all he needed to hear. For now. He drove his cock into her in one savage thrust, burying himself to the hilt. His balls slapped against her arse, a painful blow so pleasurable he cried out. Liquid fire spiked through him, his head swam, he closed his eyes and slammed into her again, again, the sheath of her tight vagina driving him wild. “Fuck, yes!” Emily clung to him, bucking her hips into every stabbing penetration. She mauled her breast with his fingers, her face contorting with what Rob knew was unadulterated rapture. It consumed him too. Made him weak, made him breathless. Made him invincible. For the woman in his arms, he would defy not just death, but definition. She was his everything. She was his life. “Christ, Emily,” he ground out, gazing into her face as he pumped into her, “I can’t…I can’t hold on. I’m going to come. I’m going to—” Her eyes flung open. A split second before her pussy contracted around his cock in a gripping pulse and a scream burst from her lips. “Yes, Rob! Yes yes yes!” She came. And so did he, thick wads of come spurting from his cock, oozing from their joined sex as rhythm deserted him and his climax consumed him. He laughed, he cried, sweat stinging his closed eyes, his balls throbbing as his release poured from his soul into Emily’s very core. Filling her until he couldn’t thrust anymore, couldn’t move anymore. Heart pounding, he collapsed on top of her, claiming her lips with his as he did so, making love to her mouth with his tongue as his spent cock continued to spasm inside her pussy. Wanting to give her pleasure even as the steel left his length. She wrapped her arms around his back, tangling her legs with his as she returned his kiss. The pulsing pressure of her fading orgasm on his dick was an
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unbearable caress he would willingly endure until the end of time. An affirmation of the pleasure he gave her. A confirmation of what his heart had been telling him since he’d first laid eyes on her: he was hers. Irrevocably and unquestionably. With one last nibbling kiss on her bottom lip, he raised his head, resting on his elbows to frame her face with his hands. He’d done it. He’d made love to her. He hadn’t passed out, his vision had stayed clear and he’d made love to her. Glorious, passionate, wild love. A grin pulled at his lips. “Now tell me I’m not healthy enough, Doctor Knox.” She rolled her eyes, her fingers trailing little patterns up and down his spine, the corners of her mouth curling. “I’ll have to look at your chart,” she answered. He laughed, rolling to the side and tugging her into the curve of his body. He let his hand roam the dip and rise of her hip and waist before cupping her breast, playing his thumb over her distended nipple. “The chart can go to hell.” She stilled for a moment, her breath caught in her throat. Rob frowned, feeling the unexpected tension claim her muscles. “What did I say wrong?” She didn’t answer him. Not straight away, at least. Releasing a sigh, she twisted in his arms, turning her head until her gaze met his. “The chart can’t go to hell, Rob,” she said. “It will always exist. You must know that?” Her words sent a dull shard of something cold and dark into Rob’s gut. He shook his head, drawing her closer into his embrace. “I’m not going to let those fucking sick brain cells rule my life, Emily. I’m not. And after what we just did, you should know that.” With another sigh, Emily pushed herself away from his body, positioning herself in a sitting position before him, her knees tucked under her chin. She looked down at him, an unreadable expression playing over her face. “I will
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always be a doctor, Robert. And you will always be a cancer survivor. Those two things will never change no matter how many times you make love to me.” “What are you saying? That you’re going to check my vitals every time we fool around? Hold a mirror under my nose every morning when you wake up?” The cold darkness in Rob’s belly knotted and he rolled onto his back, glaring at his bedroom’s ceiling. Not once since the specialists here in Sydney told him he had inoperable brain cancer, almost a year ago, had he ever let self-pity get the better of him. He knew all about the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance, and couldn’t give any of them a fucking toss. The simple fact of the matter was, he had cancer, he’d dealt with cancer, and now he was cancer-free. Now he was getting on with his life and be damned if he was going to let that life be dictated by the illness he’d beaten. If the woman perched on his bed thought otherwise, then she didn’t know him like he thought she did. And maybe he didn’t know her either. Which made the cold in his gut colder. “Robert?” Emily’s warm hand on his chest, directly above his heart, made him clench his jaw. Christ, why was she here? Just to make him doubt everything? “Robert, look at me.” The command was spoken in a tone he recognized all too well. The oncologist was in the room with him. “Look at me.” He turned his head, fixing her with a level stare. “I’m glad you had anaplastic astrocytoma,” she said, her face serious. “Because if you didn’t, I never would have met you. But before there can be an us, Robert, you need to come to terms with who you are now.”
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“I know who I am now,” he stated, his pulse thumping in his neck. “I’m the same bloke I’ve always been. Nothing’s changed about me except I’ve got a funky new buzz cut and I’m packing blanks.” Emily shook her head. “You’re wrong. Everything’s changed about you.” She leant forward, enough to brush her lips over his with gentle pressure before climbing off the bed to gaze down at him. “I love you, Robert Thorton. You have turned my world upside down, but I’m still a cancer specialist and if you can’t acknowledge the man who survived cancer, if you can’t dare to see him, how can I live with him?” She turned and walked from his bedroom, not looking back, her spine straight, her steps steady, and despite every fibre of Rob’s being screaming at him to get off his fucking arse and go after her, he didn’t. Not even when he heard the apartment door close softly, leaving his townhouse as still as a crypt. He pressed his hands to his face, driving his fingertips hard against his forehead. “Jesus, Rob. You surely screwed this one up, didn’t you?” The low sounds of Bon Jovi’s “Bad Medicine” wafted from his mobile phone somewhere on the floor and Rob sat up, swinging his feet off the bed. Whoever the hell was calling him, they had perfect bloody timing. He leant forward and snagged his tuxedo trousers—so recently tossed aside in the heat of frantic passion—from the floor, digging around in the first one hip pocket and then the other until he found his phone. Joseph’s image filled the screen, doofus grin plastered over his face, and Rob’s chest tightened. It wasn’t the first time his best friend had called right at the most perfect moment. The man had an uncanny knack for knowing when to call. Swiping his thumb across the screen, he lifted the phone to his ear. “What the hell are you doing calling me?” he growled. “It’s your wedding night for fuck’s sake. Aren’t you meant to be bonking your new wife silly?”
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Joseph laughed on the other end of the connection and for one brief painful second Rob longed for the days when he and Hudo were stupid teenagers with nothing to worry about except who was going to try and buy the beer on the weekend. “Just taking a breather, Thorton,” Joseph chuckled. “Just taking a breather. Besides, I felt the need to check in with my best man. See if he’s being a fucking legend or just a fuckwit.” He paused. “And by the amount of profanity coming out of your mouth, I’m guessing fuckwit.” “How’s fuck off sound?” “Like a typical Thorton response when he knows he’s being a wanker.” Slumping backward onto the bed, Rob let out a sigh, studying the ceiling with a blank stare. “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, Joe,” he muttered, dragging a hand through his hair. “Jesus, I don’t have a fucking clue who I am anymore. Am I the bloke who scaled the Harbour Bridge buck naked because you said I didn’t have the balls, or am I the bloke who’ll need regular check-ups just to make sure I’m not going to kick the bucket tomorrow?” “Why can’t you be both?” Joseph’s question came without hesitation, a confused note to his words. Rob ground his teeth. “Because one’s not afraid of anything and the other’s apparently too fucking feeble to walk out his front door.” “Says who?” “Says me.” “Then you truly are a fuckwit,” Joseph shot back. “And you deserve to be alone.” “Hey there, mate,” Rob snapped. “Aren’t you meant to be making your best man feel better?” “Not when he’s being a dickhead,” Joseph answered, his voice blunt. “I take it the good doctor is no longer in your presence?”
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Huffing out another sigh, Rob scrubbed at his face with his free hand. “No. After the most amazing sex of my life, she told me I had to accept I was a cancer survivor and up and left.” “I don’t see the problem,” Joseph said, nothing in his tone glib or joking. “You are a cancer survivor.” Rob stared at the ceiling, his blood roaring in his ears. “I love her, Joe,” he blurted out, the unexpected but undeniable words tearing at his heart. “I really do. So fucking much it hurts, but no matter how hard I try, every time I look at her I can’t help but remember why we met, and that scares the shit out of me.” “Why?” Joseph’s quiet question made Rob’s already pounding heart thump harder. “Because what if it comes back? What if the cancer comes back and takes me away from her? What if I’m only given a taste of heaven before I’m thrown into hell?” Joseph was silent. Long enough for Rob to wonder if his best mate had given up on him for the pathetic joke he was. “You’re not going to hell, Rob,” Joseph finally said, each syllable a calm note of certainty. “The Devil would kick you out for being a bad influence.” Rob snorted. “You’re not helping me here, mate.” Joseph let out a sigh. “You’ve never been afraid of anything. Now’s not the time to be afraid of life. Especially a life you almost had denied you.” Rob closed his eyes, an image of Emily filling his head immediately, her lips curled in a soft smile, her eyes filled with patient compassion and undeniable passion. It wasn’t just his doctor he saw, but the woman he’d desired since the night she’d dared him to fight for his life. The last thing she said to him whispered through his mind—if you can’t acknowledge the man who survived cancer, if you can’t dare to see him, how can I live with him?
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He uttered a low groan. He knew who exactly who he was. Right at this very moment he, Robert Thorton, was a fucking moron. “Rob?” Joseph’s voice jerked him back to the now and he opened his eyes, jolting upright on the bed, “I gotta go, mate,” he said into the phone, scurrying to his feet. “Yeah,” Joseph chuckled, “thought you—” Rob didn’t hear the rest. He tossed his phone onto the bed, grabbed his tux trousers from the floor and shoved his legs into them, hopping across the floor as he did so. Damn it, he had to catch his doctor. It was a matter of life or fucking-moron death.
Standing on the curb, her fingers curled tightly around the strap of her satchel, her dress a crumpled mess clinging to her body, Emily blinked back tears. Tears, of all things. Lord, where was the detached English doctor when she was needed? I do believe you left her somewhere back in Barcelona, Emily. Along with your career and professional ethics. She bit back a disgusted growl, chewing harder on her lip. That was correct. All she’d packed to bring to Australia was her passport, a clean pair of underpants—currently rubbing against her still swollen, sodden folds—and her foolish heart. Look where that had got her. Hurting the one man she loved, the only person who mattered to her, and pretty much destroying any chance she had of being with him.
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She closed her eyes and let out a sigh. Why couldn’t she have kept her mouth shut? Why couldn’t she have told Rob the chart didn’t matter? Damn it, why couldn’t she have told him she loved him before telling him he had no clue about himself? Because despite the excruciating agony in her chest, the numb emptiness in her soul, she was correct. She couldn’t be with Robert if he denied what he’d been through. She would always, always, spend every day thinking about what he’d beaten. It was who she was. She couldn’t switch that off. She didn’t want to. She only wished Rob could understand that. And know acknowledging what he’d been through didn’t make him less the man he’d been before. It had always surprised her he’d never seemed distraught over the likely sterilization his treatment could cause. He’d banked samples of his semen of course, it was part of the pre-treatment procedure, but it was only on her insistence. In the early stages of their relationship—the doctor/patient stage— she’d put it down to bravado. Now, she realized it wasn’t Rob’s sexual prowess that defined him, unlike so many of her male patients that had come before him, but his ability to thumb his nose at fear. By denying what he’d survived, Robert was, essentially, telling not only death, but fear itself it had no power over him. But that couldn’t work in this situation. She knew that. Robert had to take the cancer and make it a part of who he was now. If he didn’t he wasn’t denying fear, he was denying life. And he burned far, far too brightly to deny life. “Oh Lord, Emily,” she muttered, scrubbing her face with her hand, “why couldn’t you have become a dog walker instead?” “Because I don’t own a dog,” a deep voice said behind her and she spun around, staring at Rob where he stood on the sidewalk a few feet away, dressed in nothing but those powder blue tuxedo trousers. “Which means we never
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would have met,” he continued. “Well, that and the fact we would be living on opposite sides of the world.” She studied him, her throat thick, her chest tight. A grin—sheepish and hesitant—pulled at the edges of his lip, the dimple in his right cheek barely visible. He didn’t move, waiting for her to say the next word. She couldn’t. She didn’t know what it was. Grin faltering a little, he pushed his hands into the back pockets of his trousers. “I don’t suppose you’ll consider coming back upstairs, would you?” She caught her bottom lip with her teeth, a frown pulling at her eyebrows. “Please?” She almost said yes. It wasn’t the word that changed her mind, but the way Rob said it: a raw growl of urgency. Unlike any she’d heard from him before. And completely not what she’d expected. No flippant sarcasm, no cheeky I dare you. Just one word spoken with undeniable need. And she couldn’t deny that need. It smoldered inside her as well. But she couldn’t go to him. Not yet. Not until he answered a question. She studied him, her whole body aching. “Why did you follow me out here?” He blinked. “Because…” He stopped, looking around the dark street as if searching for the answer. “Because I can’t stand the thought of you going.” Emily’s throat grew thick. She shook her head. “That’s not enough. I need more.” Rob’s jaw clenched. “More? A ring?” Her belly knotted. “That’s not what I mean and you know it.”
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Rob let out a hissed breath, dragging his hands through his hair. Once again his gaze jumped around the street before finally returning to her face. “You want me to say I’m a different person now?” She nodded, keeping her expression calm. Poised. Inside, her stomach churned, her heart hammered and her pulse raced. “You want me to say I’m a wanker who thought he could just go back to his normal way of life after surviving something so few do?” Emily drove her nails into her palms. If she didn’t she’d run to him and hold him and tell him not to say any more, not when it so obviously pained him. Oh Lord, how could she still be standing motionless? But she was. She had to. She refused to crumble for his sake. For their sake. “That I could forget all about the uncertainty of my future, the fact the cancer may come back one day, if I denied I had it in the first place?” She drew in a short breath. “Is that what you’ve been doing?” Rob looked at her, the shadows of the street doing little to hide the torment in his eyes. “It is.” She licked her lips. She wanted to take a step toward him. But she wouldn’t. Not yet. There was still too much to be said. From both of them. “Robert, I know who you are. I love who you are, but yes, there is a chance your cancer may return. There’s always a chance. I know that as a doctor and you know it as a survivor.” “So I just have to swallow that?” He let out a ragged breath. “Do you know how hard it is to be me and a cancer survivor at the same time? I bloody well sky-dive from the Eiffel Tower, I don’t take the lift to the top of it.” “Not even if you were holding my hand as we rode in that lift?” His lips curled at her question, a small smile she wanted to see stretch wider. Instead, he raked his hands through his hair, looking away from her again. “Joe
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says I can do it. He says I’ve done stupid things and brave things, now’s the time to do the smart thing.” He turned back to her, his eyes haunted. “But babe, it scares the shit out of me—that future. And the fact I’m scared scares me even more. What if I can’t do what defines me anymore? What if the cancer comes back just when I thought our life was perfect? What if…ah, hell, what if I just fuck everything up by being a moron? Or dying?” Emily’s chest squeezed tight. The last question was a muttered growl, but she could hear his heartache. Hear it, and felt it with him. “You have two ways to approach your life now, without hesitation, or without hope. I know the choice you’ve made—without hesitation—and it’s that choice that shows me—and the world—you’re not afraid of what you should be afraid of, but that doesn’t mean you have to be foolish or stubborn.” He surprised her by laughing, a short, self-deprecating chuckle she’d never heard from him before. “Stubborn. That’s one way to describe it. Foolish? Yeah, I’ll give you that too.” She laughed in return, a wobbly sound she wished was stronger. More confident. But it wasn’t. Not when she knew what she had to say next. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you, Robert.” She held up her hands when he went to take a step toward her. “No, you need to listen to this. Please?” He stopped, studying her across the footpath. “Okay.” A cool coastal breeze blew up from the beach and played with his hair. She watched the dark strands move about his head, for a brief second revealing the surgical scar she’d given him on the right side of his head. Unbidden, the doctor part of Emily’s mind told her he was outside at night without a shirt. You see, Emily? This is one of the things you both need to come to terms with.
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She let out a breath. This was it. She had to say it. If she didn’t she was cheating them both. “I will always be a doctor, Robert, and when it comes to you, that is my curse.” He frowned. “What do you mean?” Emily’s heart beat harder against her breastbone. Her pulse thumped in her throat. “I love you so much, the thought of losing you to your stubbornness scares me silly, but the thought of losing you to cancer, when I am meant to be your savior…it petrifies me. And that’s the thing when you’re an oncologist. Every day I will be aware of signs you’re not. Every day there will be a part of me looking for signs you don’t even know exist. I will live with the possibility the one disease I’ve dedicated my life so far to defeating may, despite it all, defeat me.” He stared at her, his Adam’s apple working up and down his throat. “Emily…” Her name was a husky breath. “Don’t you see that?” Her own voice was hoarse. “Don’t you see how scared I am too?” She blinked back the tears threatening to undo her. Damn it, she didn’t cry. She didn’t. Yes you do, Emily. For Robert, you do. And you will. Tears of pain or tears of happiness, but tears all the same. “But here’s the thing. I’m prepared to face that fear every day with you. Every day. Because I want to. Because I need to. Because without you, the reason I fight cancer stops being the reason I live and becomes the only way to remember what you gave me. Hope for a future I want so badly, a woman no longer responsible for your health, but your happiness. Just your happiness. Please tell me that makes sense? That you understand what I’m trying to say?” He didn’t blink. Didn’t move. “Come inside with me, Emily.”
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She looked at him for a long, unwavering moment. And then nodded. Had they resolved anything? She didn’t know. But at least it was out there now. All of it. At least they were being honest with each other. Whatever happened afterward, the pain that may come, the heartache, she couldn’t walk away from the chance to spend one last rapturous moment making love to him, being made love to by him. Not when they both needed it so badly. Rob destroyed the space between them in a single step, his hands fisting in her hair, his mouth crushing hers. Liquid heat pooled between her thighs, her sex constricting with eager want as Rob pressed his body to hers. His lean form fit against hers with perfection, the long ridge of his erection growing thicker, harder with every stab and thrust of his tongue past her lips. She whimpered, rising onto tiptoe to align the curve of her pussy with his cock, needing to feel its insistent length against her. “Jesus, Doc,” he groaned, tearing his lips from hers. His hands roamed her back, her ribcage, her breasts. “If we don’t get inside soon, I’m going to lean you over the bonnet of the closest car and do things to your body that’ll probably get me arrested.” Fresh moisture flowed through Emily’s core. She closed her eyes, reveling in not only Rob’s brazen claim but the searing urgency of his lips on her neck, his hands on her breasts. A part of her she’d never surrendered to before almost dared him to do just so. Ram her against something hard and cold, spread her legs and feast on her pussy before impaling her with his cock, driving into her as the stars and moon and anyone looking out their window watched. A deep ripple of sheer lust claimed her at the thought and she rolled her hips again, threading her fingers through Rob’s hair as she held his lips to her bowed throat. “Lord Robert, don’t threaten me with such things…” “It’s not a threat, babe,” he growled.
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Without warning, he pushed her backward, his hips and thighs pinning her to something cold and smooth and decidedly car-shaped. She gasped, the soft sound turning to a cry of surprise when Rob ran one hand down the length of her body and under the hem of her dress. “Bet my neighbour never expected his Porsche to be the scene of such debauchery,” he murmured against Emily’s jaw, sliding his fingers up the inside of her thighs. He slipped first one finger and then another between the drenched crotch of her knickers and the even more drenched folds of her pussy, teasing her for a heartbeat before dipping both into her wet sex. She sucked in a sharp breath, instinctively parting her thighs more to grant his hand deeper access. “Oh Robert, that feels…” He slid a third finger into her slit, rasping the swollen nub of her clit as he did so. She bucked her hips forward, her fists tightening in his hair, her eyes closed. That someone, anyone, could discover them at any given second didn’t matter to her. That the taxi she’d called the moment she’d left his townhouse was probably this very instant turning the corner into the street meant nothing. Let them watch. Oh Emily, where is your shame? She didn’t care about that either. Not when Rob’s fingers were stroking her to a very rapidly approaching climax. He raked his other hand, the one not buried so masterfully in her sex, up her ribcage, over her breast until his fingers found the neckline of her dress. Her pulse quickened, her pussy growing wetter as he yanked the soft material down, exposing her breast to the night. His lips closed around her taut nipple, sucking it with savage pressure through the lace of her bra. She cried out, the keening sound bouncing off the walls of the surrounding townhouses and apartments.
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Somewhere nearby, a dog started to bark, but it barely penetrated Emily’s pleasure-fogged mind. Rob suckled on her nipple, each drawing pull in perfect sync with his thrusting, wriggling fingers, each delving thrust pushing her closer and closer to the edge of release. “Rob…” she panted, “Rob…what if your neighbour…his car…” “Fuck it,” Rob rasped against her breast, scissoring his fingers in her sodden pussy, “I’ll just buy the damn thing off him.” He sucked her nipple back into his mouth, cupping and squeezing her breast as he did so. She arched against him, the cool metal of the Porsche’s bonnet beneath her arse a wicked compliment to the feverish heat of her desire. And it was that realization—how exposed they were—that pushed her over the edge. That and Rob’s thumb rolling over her clit as his tongue rolled over her nipple. “Yes,” she cried, trying her bloody hardest to strangle the call before it could burst from her. She failed completely. There wasn’t a hope in hell of suppressing it. “Fuck a duck, I love the way your cunt grips my fingers,” Rob groaned, his lips scoring a line up her throat to her mouth. He swirled his tongue over hers and then nipped at her bottom lip, all the while thrusting his fingers into her constricting sex. She climaxed again, the soles of her feet prickling, her breath so shallow and rapid her head swam. “Oh, yes, babe,” he wriggled deeper into her sex, lips and tongue and teeth teasing hers. “One more. Just one more.” He rolled her clit under his creamslicked fingertips before pinching it with gentle force. Another shuddering contraction pulsed through Emily’s core, a convulsing throb that made her cry out once again, and then Rob was withdrawing his hand
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from between her thighs and pulling her from the car’s bonnet, his lips brushing her parted ones. “I’m going to lick you clean when we get back inside,” he murmured, snaking his arms around her waist and holding her close to his body. He cupped her arse, squeezed each cheek, and then turned on his heel and walked back toward his townhouse, his hand catching hers. She followed him, adjusting her dress as she did so, her chest still heaving, her pussy still throbbing. Tilting her chin a little, she searched the buildings around them through lowered lashes, her cheeks filling with heat when she spied more than one silhouetted shape standing in more than one window. Witnesses to her uninhibited surrender to Rob’s touch. And still, there is no way they could be more turned on than I am, she thought, catching her bottom lip with her teeth even as she smiled. She returned her gaze to Rob’s tall, lean form, watching the sinewy muscles in his back coil and flex as he opened the foyer door of his townhouse. Lick you clean… The promise sent a shard of squirming anticipation into the pit of her belly, just as a loud car horn punched the silence behind them. She jerked around, the sight of a grimy white taxi idling beside Rob’s neighbour’s Porsche making her breath catch in her throat. So close to being completely caught out. So close… The passenger window lowered and the driver’s face appeared, peering at them from inside the dimly lit cabin. “You pair call a taxi?” “Sorry, mate,” Rob called back, shoving the foyer door wide. “We’re not going anywhere but the bedroom.”
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Chapter Six
They didn’t make it to the bedroom. The moment the door to Rob’s home swung closed behind them, he pushed her against its smooth wooden surface and pressed his body against hers, snaring her hands in his and sliding them up above her head. He gazed into her eyes, his steely erection nudging the junction of her thighs. “Now, what did I have to do next?” Emily laughed, rolling her hips as she hooked one leg around his hip. “Something about licking me clean?” His blue eyes twinkled. “Oh, yes, that’s right.” He slowly slid down the length of her body, catching her bent leg before she could remove it from his back and wrapping it around his shoulder. He cupped her calf with one hand and lifted her dress’s hem with the other. Leaning forward, he stroked his tongue over her thighs, lapping with deliberate attention at the wet remains of her orgasm still slicking her skin. She pushed her hips forward, eager—no desperate—for his tongue to find her pussy, her clit. But it didn’t, Rob teasing her instead with the occasional flick over her mons through the lace of her knickers when he ventured from the flushed flesh of her thighs. “You bastard,” she breathed when he rose to his feet, her sex untouched by his mouth. The dimple flashed in his cheek, even as his stare burned with blue hunger. “Me?”
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She lifted her chin, smoothing her palms over his bare chest. “Yes, you.” He lowered his head to hers, the scent of her own musk slipping into her breath as he brushed his lips against hers. “So, do something about it.” The challenge sent a spear of charged need into Emily’s core and she let her lips curl into a small smile. “Very well,” she murmured. “I shall.” She dropped to her knees, tugging open his fly and releasing his erection with smooth ease. It jutted free, long and thick and venous. “I have been a student of human anatomy for many, many years, Robert Thorton,” she commented, wrapping her fingers around his girth, a low chuckle vibrating in her chest at his swift intake of breath. “But this is by far the most impressive organ I have ever seen.” “Christ, woman,” Rob’s trembling groan caressed her ears and she shot him a quick look, the stretched tension on his face making her pussy flutter, “you better do something with that impressive organ soon or I’m going to embarrass myself.” She smiled, dragging her thumb over the bulbous head of his cock, smearing the tiny beads of pre-ejaculate leaking from its slit. “Something like what?” “Suck it,” he ground out. “Stick it in your mouth and suck it.” For a brief moment, Emily toyed with the idea of doing no such thing, torturing him with denied release in the very way he’d just tortured her, but she couldn’t. She wanted to slide her mouth over his massive cock and draw on it. She wanted to feel its silken length under her lips, against her tongue. Lord, at that very second, she wanted nothing else. Heart thumping, she leant forward, flicking the tip of her tongue over the domed end of his cock. The salty taste of Rob’s flesh and the sweet tang of his pre-come danced over her taste-buds and she let out a low moan, her mouth filling with saliva.
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She licked at his cock again, slower this time, one hand sliding down to cup his heavy balls. Their firm weight filled her palm, tensing a little when she gave them a gentle tug. “Damn, that’s good.” Rob’s moan rumbled deep in his chest, a spasm hitching his abs at the caress of her tongue and fingers. She rolled his sac in her grip, trailing the fingers of her other hand up and down his length, following the raised lines his blood-engorged veins as she dipped her parted lips over his cock’s head. He moaned again, his hands tangling in her hair. “You have no idea how many times I’ve imagined you doing this.” The almost breathless confession made her pussy throb. She flattened her tongue and lowered her head farther down his turgid shaft, squeezing his balls with steady pressure. “So many times,” he murmured, thrusting his hips toward her. “So many times, and I was never even close to how amazing it feels.” He raked his fingers through her hair, combing it away from her face. “How fucking amazing it looks.” His voice shook on the last word, the tremble echoed by the shudder claiming his body as she suddenly plunged her mouth down the entire length of his cock, sucking as she did so. “Fuck, yes!” he burst out, bucking deeper into her mouth, his balls slapping against her chin, his fists knotting in her hair. She rolled her tongue over the root of his erection, the back of her throat sliding against its demanding head, her teeth grazing its velvet flesh. She’d never understood the appeal of fellatio, the act seemed too…unclean to her medical sensibilities…but the exquisite sensation of Rob’s penis pumping in and out of
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her mouth, her lips sliding up and down its length, her saliva making its taut skin glisten…this was more than appealing. This was… Addictive. “If you don’t stop soon, babe, I’m going to come in your mouth.” Rob’s choked confession played over her senses. She drew with greater force on his cock, taking him deeper still into her mouth. A hot thrill sank into her core at the very notion of swallowing Rob’s pleasure. And yet, at the same time, she knew this time she wanted to feel him erupt somewhere far more intimate. Inside your very centre. Still, how could she pull her mouth from something so thick and hard and impressive? How could she deny her lips and tongue the molten length of his cock? “Jesus, Doc,” he ground out, pumping his hips faster. “I’m about to explode.” Her heart hammering wildly against her breastbone, Emily did the unthinkable. With a loud, slurping pop, she withdrew her mouth from Rob’s erection and straightened to her feet. “Fuck me, Robert. Hard.” She whispered the begging command. And he obeyed. Nostril flaring, he spun her around, slamming the front of her thighs against the back of the nearest sofa. He bent her over the cushioned leather backrest, his legs between hers, his hands ravishing the curves of her arse, the sodden folds of her pussy. She bit back a whimper, her eyes squeezing tight when he grabbed at her panties and tore them apart, letting their shredded lace fall to the floor at their feet. “Your pussy is so wet, Emily.” He plunged a finger into her slit, wriggled it about and withdrew it. “So wet and so tight.”
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Before she could respond, he was bunching her skirt up around her waist, his palms smoothing her butt cheeks again, inching them apart until the crevice between them spread wide enough for the room’s cool air to play over her anus. The deliciously unfamiliar sensation sent a wanton shiver through Emily, her nipples puckering into painful points. Oh Lord was he… Rob pumped three fingers into her cream-slicked pussy, once, twice, three times, before stroking those fingers over her perineum, painting the clenching hole of her anus with her own juices. He paused. Long enough for Emily’s body to ache with frustrated pleasure. “If you tell me to stop, I will.” He placed one fingertip on her hole. “But I have to tell you, I don’t want to.” “Then don’t.” The words passed her lips on a breath. He didn’t hesitate, his finger entering her virgin arse with steady pressure. She’d read all about the abundance of nerve endings in the anal region; she knew all about the sphincter muscle and its highly sensitive membrane. She’d studied it all in med school, and yet knowing hadn’t prepared her for the concentrated, sheer pleasure detonating in her anus. “Oh God!” She bucked her hips, unable to stop herself. “Oh my God, Rob…” He slid his finger deeper into her hole, his first knuckle and then his second pushing past the tight ring of muscle. She bucked again, the intensity of his penetration not only making her gasp, but flooding her pussy with new cream. “Christ, babe, you are so, so tight.” Rob’s warm breath fanned her neck as he pressed his body to her bent back. The head of his cock nudged at her folds, and her sex constricted with eager want. Oh, what would it feel like to have him sink his rigid length into her pussy as his fingers delved into her arse?
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Her head swam at the delirious thought and she moaned, lifting her backside closer to his hand and groin. “I want to fuck your sweet, sweet cunt and your tight, hot arse, Emily,” he groaned in her ear, his cockhead parting her pussy lips. “I want to pump into you with my dick and my fingers until you scream. Will you let me do that, babe? Will you let me fuck you with—” “Yes,” she cried over his panted question, “yes!” He drove his cock into her sex, a single thrust that stretched her to the limit. “Jesus, I…” He didn’t finish whatever he was going to say. Instead, he slid his cock out of her vagina, almost to the distended head, and then plunged back in, his finger squirming in her arse as he did so. Emily whimpered, a mewling sound of raw pleasure. She could feel Rob’s finger stroking against his cock inside her. She could feel the friction of his shaft stimulating her clit. With every stroke of his cock and wriggle of his finger, she could feel the filaments of her clitoris stretching back to her anus sizzle with liquid electricity. Rob raked his free hand over her shoulder, down her arm. He cupped her breast, capturing her nipple between his fingers, massaging it in perfect rhythm with his pumping cock. She bowed her back, grinding back into his penetrations, wanting more. Wanting it harder. Oh Lord, she’d never felt so consumed by pleasure. So possessed by raw physical rapture. It was as if she was a creature born from desire, a being created for Rob’s worship. And she reveled in that erotic, carnal worship. She reveled in the sensual fire engulfing her. She reveled in it and willingly surrendered to it. “Rob…” she panted, “Rob, that feels…that feels… Oh Lord, I’m going to…”
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“I love you, Emily,” Rob moaned in her ear, his lips on her flesh as he thrust harder, faster into her body. “I love you so fucking much I can’t live without you.” Emily’s chest ached at the declaration—an excruciating vice of absolute joy— at the very second her orgasm claimed her. She threw back her head, wild convulsions of pulsing tension undoing her. Her pussy gripped Rob’s pumping cock, her arse squeezing his finger. She cried out, nonsensical sounds that rebounded off the walls, their feverish note as wild as Rob’s rhythm. And then he too, was coming. His ejaculate spurting from him in hot wads she felt flood her sex. He let out a roar, pumping into her, his finger pulling free of her arse, his hands gripping her hips as he anchored himself to her body. Yanking her back into his erratic thrusts, his balls slamming against the curve of her pussy, his nails digging into her hips. He drove faster, faster. Deeper. And just when Emily thought she couldn’t take anymore, when she thought she would be incinerated in the inferno of pleasure he ignited in her body, she came again, again. Each climax pushing her higher, higher, until there was nothing she could do but scream Rob’s name, a writhing, whimpering ghost of her former self. Her control, her life lost forever to the man whose life she’d defied the odds to save. “I love you,” Rob whispered, voice hoarse as he returned his body to hers, his sweat-slicked skin hot against her back. He withdrew his spent shaft from her, a small sound of protest vibrating in the back of Emily’s throat at the sudden absence of his flesh in hers. She lay slumped over the sofa, too exhausted, too sated to even think about commanding her muscles to move.
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She heard Rob move through his apartment, heard a tap running and then he was behind her once more, one gentle hand smoothing up her spine as he wiped something soft and warm and damp over her sex and anus. Closing her eyes, Emily smiled at the intimate act. Her chest welled with a sigh. Once, she would have been mortified to be in such a position, her most private of body parts cleaned by someone else, but now… She’d been right to fall in love with this man, this stubborn, sardonic Australian. She’d been right to lose her heart to him, even if it meant losing it forever. The gentle caress of his hands on her back made her open her eyes and she lifted her head, smiling at him where he now crouched naked in front of her and the sofa. He gave her a lopsided grin, the dimple creasing his right cheek. “Any chance you’d like to join me in the bedroom?” She raised her eyebrows, the fading pulses of her orgasm growing stronger at his question. “Really?” Her gaze dropped to his still long, semi-hard shaft hanging between his thighs. She had little doubt he would be ready to make love to her again in but a matter of moments and for the first time since seeing him dancing with Joseph Hudson’s bride, the doctor she was bore no sway on her reaction. Lord, I want him to bury its length to the hilt in my sex. Right now. He nodded, his grin stretching wider. As if he knew exactly the entirely female thought whispering through her mind. “Really really.” He rose to his feet and, before she knew what he was going to do, he rounded the sofa, scooped his arms under her belly and hauled her up onto his shoulder.
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Four orgasms later—give or take a few—Rob lay stretched on his back, completely and utterly spent. Fucked would have been the term he’d have used months ago if he’d been bragging about it to Joe. Well and truly fucked. He didn’t think there was a muscle in his body not aching from the physical workout he’d given it, nor a drop of cum left in his sac. But fucked and all the base lust it implied wasn’t even remotely close to the appropriate word to describe what he and Emily had just done. Fucked was what one did with a sexual partner when the heart wasn’t in control. What he and Emily had done, what they’d just spent the last three and a half glorious hours doing, was lovemaking. As corny and clichéd as it was, he could think of no other word. Lovemaking. Making love—love—to the woman sharing his bed. Rolling to his side, he bent his elbow and propped his head on his hand, gazing down at her. Love. A slow smile curled the sides of his mouth. “What are you smiling about, Robert Thorton?” He smiled wider. “I know the answer to all the questions now,” he said. “The ones fucking with my mind. I know what Hudo has been trying to make me see, what you’ve been trying to make me see.” She studied him, her body still, her gaze unwavering. “And what’s that?” He lifted his hand and traced the line of her lips with a gentle stroke. “The man I am now isn’t just a daredevil fighter who survived cancer. He’s a man who loves you with all his heart. You the woman and you the doctor.” He did. There was no doubt. No trepidation. No fear. None at all.
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A small frown pulled at Emily’s eyebrows. “You say that now, but what happens when I notice you have a headache and suggest you take a painkiller? What happens then?” He chuckled. “I give you permission to hit me if I’m behaving like a moron.” She cocked her eyebrow. “And if you’re behaving like a wanker?” He grinned, an indescribable warmth settling in his soul. “You get to hit me twice as hard.” She laughed, a soft happy sound he could spend the rest of his life—no matter how long it was—listening to. He touched her lips again, loving the way they felt under his fingertips. Velvety-soft and giving. “I feared little in life until I met you,” he murmured, watching her face. “Now I realize, what I fear the most is a life without you.” Emily’s eyelids fluttered closed. He lowered his head and brushed a soft kiss on her lips. “As I said before, I’m a bit of a wanker at times.” She opened her eyes and smiled at him. “You could say that.” He chuckled, stroking the back of his fingers along her jaw. “Yeah yeah. Point taken. But here’s the thing, Dr. Knox. The answer to the ultimate question of who I am? Yours. I’m yours, and with you I want discover myself all over again. And if you’ll have me, I want to explore my new life with you by my side to support me.” Emily caught her bottom lip with her teeth, a wholly adorable affectation he completely loved. “If I’ll have you?” He nodded. “You don’t just make me healthy, Dr. Knox, you make me whole. And if you need to check my vitals every day, it’s only because you love me as much as I love you.” He gave her a lopsided grin. “I get that now. And I’m pretty bloody certain I can live with it. As long as you’re living with me.” He skimmed his other hand over her belly, up to her beautiful breasts and back
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down to the subtle curve of her hip. “Don’t go back to Barcelona,” he said, his throat tight, his voice—he was embarrassed to notice—a touch shaky. “Stay here. We’ll buy a dog and spend our days walking it together.” Emily looked up at him, the soft light of dawn streaming through the window into his bedroom catching in her clear grey eyes, hiding whatever emotion lay in their depths. She caught her bottom lip with her teeth, a stillness stealing over her body only moments ago languid with the aftermath of their lovemaking. “Stay in Australia with me, Dr. Knox,” Rob murmured, smoothing his palm up her body to cup her face with gentle fingers. “I promise I’ll make it worth your while. I’ll even let you play doctor and patient with me if you want.” “Oh, well in that case,” Emily answered, snaking her arms around his neck and tugging him closer to her, “how can I possibly say no? Duty of care, and all?” He chuckled. A heartbeat before Emily’s lips claimed his. And before he knew it, he somehow ended up splayed out before her, his legs askew, the tops of his thighs glistening with the tiny beads of pre-come leaking from his rigid shaft and the wet strokes of Emily’s tongue. Of course. Damn, life was good. Bloody good.
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Epilogue
Nineteen months later. The puppy stuck its black-and-white patched butt up in the air and wagged its tail, the ridiculously expensive, designer-label running shoe trapped between its drool-dripping jaws looking like a ridiculously expensive, designer-label chew-toy. Rob glared at the mutt, wondering not for the first time what he and Emily had been thinking when they’d adopted the Great Dane puppy from the local dog rescue centre three months ago. After almost half a year travelling around Australia, sometimes camping out doors, sometimes checking into five star resorts, falling asleep almost every night naked and entwined in each other’s arms no matter where they were, they’d deluded themselves into the belief they were up to any challenge. A new adventure, he’d called it. Hell, what better way to spend his days while Emily worked at the Royal North Shore Hospital’s oncology department than running on the beach with a playful dog? A dog wouldn’t interfere with his new career—professional blogger of all things adventurous—either. It was a perfect choice. Even Rob’s new follow-up cancer care specialist—a dour man with thinning hair and no sense of humour to speak of—thought the idea highly recommendable. “Animals have always made good therapy companions,” he commented during a particularly time-dragging session. The playful dog, however, had turned into a playful behemoth that loved nothing more than to sleep in their bed, drink from the toilet and destroy Emily’s
Dare Me
shoes. Rob highly doubted whether those three items made it to the good therapy companions checklist. He studied the slobber-glistening shoe poking out at him from between the dog’s equally slobber-glistening teeth. “You are so going to get it when the doc gets home, Roofus.” Roofus wagged his tail again, knocking a framed photo of Rob and Emily standing atop the Sydney Harbour Bridge from its place on the bedside table. “Don’t think I’m going to defend you,” Rob went on, pointing a finger at the quivering Great Dane. “Unlike you, I know I’m not silly enough to bite the hand that feeds me. Or should that be, bites the shoe of the foot belonging to the same body as the hand that feeds me?” Roofus lifted his head and let out a raucous woof, and unable to help himself, Rob burst out laughing. “Okay, okay,” he shook his head, scratching at the dog’s ears as he—gingerly—removed Emily’s runner from Roofus’s mouth. “I’ll just buy her a new pair.” Roofus pricked up his ears, head swinging in the direction of the bedroom door a fraction of a second before Rob heard a set of keys drop onto the glass table in the living room. “Buy me a new pair of what?” Emily asked, walking into the bedroom, her English accent still as subtle (and as arousing, in Rob’s humble opinion) as ever. He held up her runner, pulling a face as a long finger of drool stretched from the ruptured toe and dripped onto the floor. “Errr…” Emily studied the shoe for a silent moment and then turned her stare to Roofus. “Why is it always my shoes?” The dog barked again, tail thumping on the floor like a sledgehammer. She nodded. “You’re right. Mine do smell better.”
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“Hey!” Rob chuckled, tossing her runner over his shoulder and snaring her hands in his. He tugged her to his body, sliding his arms around her waist and dropping a kiss on her smiling lips. “My feet don’t smell.” He kissed her again. “That much.” Emily raised her eyebrows. Wriggling her hips closer to his, she smoothed her hands up his chest, threading her fingers together behind his neck. “Yes they do. But that’s not going to stop me marrying you.” She tugged his head down to hers and kissed him—much more deeply than he’d kissed her—and Rob’s pulse leapt into very eager flight. Breaking the kiss, he ran his hands up her arms, the feel of the diamond ring—a most impressive chunk of rock, he had to admit—circling her finger not only making him grin like a lunatic, but filling his balls with hungry need. Damn it, who would have known the thought of getting married would turn him on so bloody much? “There’s a parcel for you on the table,” Emily said. “The delivery man was dropping it off when I came home.” The words who gives a flying fuck dangled on the edge of Rob’s tongue. He had other things on his mind right now than opening parcels. Wicked, dirty things. Things involving lots of oil, plenty of silk rope and maybe a cube or two of ice. But before he could voice his thoughts on the situation, Emily disengaged herself from his embrace. “Go and take a look,” she said, crouching down to give Roofus a long, gentle scruff under both his floppy ears. “It’s from Joseph.” Rob cocked an eyebrow. What the hell was Joe sending him the bloke couldn’t deliver in person? They only lived thirty-five minutes drive apart.
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Curious despite the growing hard-on poking at his trousers, he retrieved the parcel from the living room. Tearing at the packaging, he walked back into the bedroom. Just what in the hell could Hudo be up— The question faded from Rob’s head, the sight of something pale blue tucked inside the parcel making him stumble to a halt. You’ve got to be kidding me? Shaking his head, he withdrew the item from the packaging, unfolding two sheets of tissue paper to reveal a tuxedo jacket. A decidedly powder-blue tuxedo jacket. He held it up by its shoulders, a low chuckle building deep in his chest as he read the three words written in Joseph’s relaxed hand on the small square of white paper pinned to the jacket’s ruffled lapel. Three words. Eight letters. I dare you. From the bed, Emily burst out laughing. “I so can’t wait to see you in that.” He grinned…a second before throwing the jacket on top of Roofus and leaping on top of her, his lips silencing her squealed giggle, his hard-on getting harder and harder. And harder. Yeah, getting married turned him on. Big time. Even if he was going to wear a bloody powder-blue tuxedo.
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About the Author
Lexxie’s not a deviant. She just has a deviant’s imagination and a desire to entertain readers with her words. Add the two together and you get wickedly fun erotic romances with a twist of comedy, sci-fi or the paranormal. When she’s not submerged in the worlds she creates, Lexxie’s life revolves around her family, a husband who thinks she’s insane, a cat determined to rule the house, two yabbies hell-bent on destroying their tank and her daughters, who both utterly captured her heart and changed her life forever. Contact
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www.twitter.com/lexxie_couper or visit her at www.lexxiecouper.com where she occasionally makes a fool of herself on her blog.
Look for these titles by Lexxie Couper
Now Available: Death, The Vamp and his Brother The Sun Sword Triple Dare Tropical Sin Suck and Blow Savage Australia Savage Retribution Savage Transformation
Coming Soon: Love’s Rhythm Twister Suspicious Ways Dark Embrace
Two men, one woman, one momentous dare
Triple Dare
© 2011 Lexxie Couper A Red Hot Winter Story Serious and determined, Joseph Hudson isn’t Australia’s businessman of the year for nothing. So now he’s asking himself, how did he get himself lost on the side of a mountain in the Colorado Rockies—in the middle of winter—with night fast approaching? Three simple words. I dare you. Fear isn't in Rob Thorton's vocabulary. Life is for the taking, and Rob uses both hands. Challenging his best mate to take an impromptu snowboarding trip to the U.S. is just the latest in a lifetime of dares. Besides, he has an ulterior motive for the trip. And a plan… Park Ranger Anna McCarthy knows what trouble looks like, and it’s written all over the two Aussies she first encounters in the ski lodge. Instinct has her following them onto the mountain, and sure enough, they end up needing her winter survival expertise. But not even her skills can stop her body from responding to the sexy muscles she finds beneath their ski suits. Stuck in a remote cabin until the storm passes, the temperatures rise until all bets are off. And a double dare turns into a triple threat—to their hearts. Warning: Contains lots of scorching boy-on-girl-on-boy action, a heroine who knows what she wants and two sexy-arsed Australian heroes to really work up a sweat over. Oh, and a soul-deep love story with a revelation that may make you cry. Enjoy the following excerpt for Triple Dare: “So, you’re the one with the money.”
Her question, delivered in the form of a statement, sent a rush of warmth to his face. He hated talking about his money. True, he had a lot of it, a bloody lot of it, but it didn’t define him. “And Rob is the one without the sense,” she finished, the smile on her lips curling wider. She titled her head to the side, crossing her ankles in front of her. “Yeah, I can see that.” Despite himself, Joseph grinned. His cock lurched again in his trousers, enjoying their tête-à-tête almost as much as he was. He liked her dry wit. And her accent. A drawling caress of vowels and consonants that made him wish she’d say his name. “I guess I should ask your name,” he said, removing his own gloves and shoving them into his back pocket. “I should at least know who to address the thank you card to.” She laughed again, and Joseph decided there and then he could seriously become addicted to the soft, throaty sound. “Anna McCarthy. Your local saver of lost Australian lunatics, yeah, that’s me.” He cocked an eyebrow. “All Australian lunatics? Do you get many here?” Her direct grey gaze leveled on his face, a small smile playing with her lips. Lips he wanted to kiss. Soon. Real soon. “No, you’re my first. But depending how it goes tonight, I might have to find some more to save.” A low growl rumbled in Joseph’s chest at the idea of Anna McCarthy saving any other Australians but himself. “Hmm,” he said, “I think you’ll find saving Aussies is an exhausting, sweaty business.” She cocked her own eyebrow, the finely arched line of dark blonde hair moving up her forehead with smooth ease. “Is it now? Then perhaps I should take it slow to start with? Saving too hard and too quickly at this altitude could be hazardous to my health, is that what you’re saying?”
Pulse pounding in his ear, dick so hard he thought it was about to explode, he held her gaze with his own. “Too hard and too fast definitely not the way to begin. Slowly, steadily. An exploration of the terrain, followed by a wellexecuted penetration of the area, that’s the way to begin when saving an Aussie.” Her lips parted and Joseph could see the ragged way she drew breath into her body. “Then after the beginning it gets hard?” He unzipped his jacket and shucked it off, placing it on the seat beside him as he took a step closer to her. “It’s already hard. Very hard.” She swallowed. “Hard is good. I’m always up for a challenge. It’s why I like saving Aussies so much.” “Glad to hear that,” Rob said, stepping into the cabin and swinging the door shut behind him. He looked at them both over the armful of broken branches and twigs he held against his chest. “Wait. We’re talking about sex, aren’t we?” Anna held her breath, trying—in vain, she realized—to slow her heart rate down to something close to normal. Her pussy throbbed and pulsed and generally carried on in the most disturbing of ways, telling her in no uncertain terms she was horny. Damn horny. She swallowed again, her mouth dry, her throat thick. The sexual tension mounting between her and Joseph Hudson hadn’t abated a bit with Rob’s unexpected arrival. No, to the contrary, the moment he’d entered the cabin and made his presence known, she’d almost come there and then. She studied both of them, knowing one of them was going to make the first move. Joseph. Her gaze slid to the taller man, her pulse quickening when she looked at him. Damn, he was stunning. He made Brad Pitt look ugly. Not just tall and lean,
but broad shouldered and slightly scruffy, the bristles on his jaw and chin adding to the overall charm, the messy tumble of sandy-blond hair falling over his forehead heightening that charm until the crotch of her panties were sodden. Oh boy, Anna. You got it bad already. The loud thud of branches hitting the floor made her start, and she blinked, her gaze snapping to Rob just in time to see him remove his gloves and step over the pile of dead wood at his feet to close the distance between them. “Let me begin to show our appreciation for saving us,” he said, his fingers skimming her cheek as he cupped her jaw in his hand. A flutter of disappointment danced in her belly for a brief moment, like a hundred butterflies had suddenly taken flight, but she forgot it as soon as Rob’s lips brushed hers. The kiss was gentle and yet, at the same time electric. His breath mingled with hers, the tip of his tongue touching the inner edge of her bottom lip, a slow caress charting a path deeper into her mouth. She parted her lips, meeting his tongue with hers, her nipples growing hard, her pulse racing away from her. Oh… She’d been kissed before. Many times, in fact. As far as looks go, she knew she’d been generously smiled upon. But there was something about the Australian’s kiss…a delicate passion she hadn’t expected. Almost sad. The notion made her heart quicken. She moaned, the sound vibrating softly in her throat only to be swallowed by Rob’s kiss. He slid his hands up into her hair, his fingers tangling in the strands, her ponytail preventing him from doing anything more than hold her head. It didn’t matter. At this point, the feel of his lips on hers, his tongue on hers, was enough to make her pussy weep.
“Ah, fuck.” The growled curse scraped at the heated desire rolling through her. She pulled away from Rob’s kiss, her gaze moving to Joseph where he still stood at the chair. He stared at them both, his nostrils flaring, his jaw clenched tight. “Think we need to get some heat happening quickly,” Rob murmured, his hands slipping from her face as he turned back to his friend. Anna nodded, unable to find anything to say. Her body ached for more, set alight by Rob’s simple, tender kiss.
Dirty desires, dark secrets…deepest love
Hidden Fire © 2012 Jess Dee
A Red Hot Weekend Story Well, this is an unexpected twist. Jenna Brooks is all set to spend the weekend wallowing in misery, repairing the cracks in the façade she’s maintained for twelve years. Instead she’s…tied to a chair. Kidnapped by her own twin brother and her so-called best friend. It’s for her own good, they say. She’ll thank them later, they say. But when they reveal her partner in captivity, she shores up her emotional barriers. It’s Garreth Halt. The one man for whom she let her guard down. What a fool she was. For one electrifying moment, Garreth had Jenna naked in his arms, on the edge of losing her legendary control. Could have kept her there forever, too, if he hadn’t felt honor-bound to tell her the truth. Before she’d heard the whole truth, though, she’d retreated behind the fortress around her heart. Now they’re knee to knee, with no escape. While he’s irritated he let his alleged best friend get the drop on him, a small part of him is thrilled. With one final chance to show her his love is real, Garreth methodically, wickedly, sets out to dismantle her defenses. One dirty word at a time. Warning: Garreth may have charmed you in Winter Fire, but this time around, his blatantly sexy demands, even sexier actions and heart warming love for his heroine are gonna make you fall head over heels
