With a deep breath he opened the door.
By the light of the fire he made out her shape in the bed, a small form under the blankets. She was asleep, with a journal open under her hands. Her color was high, from scrubbing or the day’s exercise or the breeze from the window she had cracked open. A heart-shaped face with strong dark brows and deep-set eyes and a wide mouth the color of raspberries just coming into full ripeness.
He saw all this and more, but he must keep it to himself. She could simply not tolerate praise and always found a reason to walk away or change the subject.
Jack took a moment to consider. There was a nightshirt at the very bottom of his valise, along with a facecloth and toothbrush. He didn’t want to wake her, not just yet. He made some tactical decisions.
? ? ?
ANNA WOKE WHEN Jack slipped into bed, six feet four inches of naked male radiating heat like a giant and very prickly hot-water bottle. His head propped on one hand, he was leaning over her to study the open journal page.
“You know, I’m sure that clinical observations on tracheal tubes by mouth instead of—”
“Tracheostomy,” she supplied.
“Tracheostomy,” Jack echoed, drawing the journal away and dropping it behind him so it fluttered to the floor. “Exactly that interesting topic can wait—”
“Forever,” she finished, grinning so broadly that her cheeks began to ache. She rolled onto her side to face him. “Where have you been?”
“Did you think I hopped a ferry?”
She pressed her forehead under his chin and against his throat, shaking her head because she knew her voice would wobble. And how could she be expected to put together a single sentence while his fingers hooked into her nightdress and skimmed up her leg. He tugged, and she lifted and turned and shivered as the fabric dragged over her skin inch by inch, until it snagged.
“There’s a button caught in your hair. Hold still.”
His arms came around her head as his fingers threaded through individual strands of hair, pulling gently one by one so that gooseflesh ran up and down her spine. His breath was warm on her scalp, and she shivered and shivered and shivered.
“You’re not cold.” His tone was almost accusatory.
“Not cold,” she agreed.
He pulled the nightdress up and off, and it disappeared behind him to join the medical journal on the floor.
“So now that we’re finally here,” he said, his arms slipping around her waist to pull her close, “what should we do with ourselves?”
? ? ?
THEY LAY FACE-TO-FACE in the shadowy cave of white sheets, damp skinned, swathed in each other’s heat. Quiet but alert, both of them. Anna had the idea that she could hear his heart beating, just as she saw it in the throbbing pulse at his throat and temples. She leaned forward to draw in his scent just there, burrowing into his hair.
She said, “The smell of you puts me in a trance.”
When she pulled away he raised a hand to touch her face. His fingers were long and thick and strong, big knuckled, with blunt, square fingertips, clean nails cut to the quick. She would never have thought that a man’s hands could arouse so much feeling, but nerves fired all along her spine at the simple sight of him holding a newspaper or a fork, lifting a valise. Unbuttoning a shirt.
He cupped her face with one palm, threaded his fingers into her hair, and pulled her close, lingering for a heartbeat, their mouths almost touching. Anna felt him draw in a deeper breath, as if his lungs were suddenly too small. She closed the distance between them, opened her mouth against his, and let herself be drawn down and down into a kiss that rendered her limp, soft and open and welcoming, pressed against him from knee to belly to breast to mouth, where he stroked her tongue with his own and called up her response, small murmurs and gasps.
He took over. She found herself on her back with his weight suspended over her so that she still felt every tensed muscle, the hard planes of his thighs and belly and between them the evidence that he wanted her. He was turgid, arching, weeping, the broad head of his erection seeking blindly, tapping against her belly.
“Come,” she said. “Come to me.”
He made a clucking noise, mock surprise and male satisfaction rolled into one. “So impatient.” And he slipped down to press his face to the curve of her breast. “We have all night,” he mumbled against her skin. “What’s the hurry?”
She shook her head and laughed and gave in, arching up to rub against him, running a heel down his thigh through rough hair and then stopping when he drew her nipple deep into his mouth and suckled.