KeyParty (2 page)

And the last time she’d seen him.

Oh God.

“What’s he doing here?” she whispered to Petra. She turned
slightly to the side in an effort to delay him seeing her. If he even
remembered her.

“Who?” Petra looked toward the door. “My friend Alex? I’ve
told you about him. He works with me on the pediatric floor of the hospital.
Also a nurse. He’s a lot of fun to hang out with, but it’s hard to take him out
in public. Women of all ages pretty much soak their panties when he walks into
a room. Delish, isn’t he?”

Rachel slid Petra a look.

“Seriously, it’s like someone turned the air down to arctic
in the room no matter where we are. Every time. Nipples start poking through
shirts, butts start squirming in chairs.” Petra smirked when Rachel narrowed
her eyes.

She knew damn well who Rachel really meant.

“Oh,” Petra breathed, as though it just dawned on her. “You
mean the good Dr. Richards? Did I forget to mention he was coming tonight?” she
asked, still playing coy.

“It must have slipped your little pea brain,” Rachel said
dryly.

Petra didn’t forget anything, ever. She knew all about the
ridiculous crush Rachel had on him back in the day.

“It took Jude forever to talk him into coming around,” she
heard Petra say through the blood rushing through her ears. “He’s only been
here twice, but he’s quite popular, as you can see.”

She could see. One woman had already caught his attention
and two more were heading in his direction, waiting their turn. Although from
the way the first one was moving in close, it didn’t look as if they were going
to get their chance to talk to him any time soon. Who could blame them? Any of
them?

From her vantage point she could see the years had melted
the boyishly cute from his face and left him looking rather exotic. He still
exuded the same easy confidence she remembered him having all those years ago.
And he was mouthwatering delicious in a dark-gray shirt—unbuttoned a couple of
buttons and pulling just the right amount across his gorgeous, muscular
chest—and beautifully cut black dress pants.

She took a long drink and handed her glass to Jude to be
topped off. “A little warning that he was going to be here would have been
nice.”

“Oh, but the element of surprise is so much more fun.” Petra
laughed softly and hooked her arm through Rachel’s. “You ready for a little
mingling, beautiful?”

Ben was very interested in finding out who Petra was talking
to. He couldn’t really see anything but the back of her, but that was quite a
view in and of itself.

As far as he could tell those sexy-as-fuck heels she was
wearing put her pretty close to eye level with his height of six foot three.
Her wild, caramel-colored curls were short in the back, exposing a double
cowlick at her hairline that looked like the point of a heart showing the way
down the long line of her neck. The bare skin of her shoulders and the upper
part of her back he could see was luminescent cream. The simple sleeveless
dress she wore hung loose and shimmering to where it clung to what might be the
finest ass he’d ever seen. And the legs…

He leaned against the fireplace mantle and drank from his
glass of scotch, wondering if it was too late to back out of the game and
convince her, whoever she was, to go home with him. Forget taking the chance
that he or she would draw the other’s keys at the end of the night. He hadn’t
seen her face yet and he already knew those were the ankles he wanted hooked
over his shoulders later.

With
those “fuck me hard, sailor” shoes still on her
feet.

She angled herself toward Alex when he joined her and Petra,
and Ben got a glimpse of her profile. He straightened as the slight upturn of
her nose and the shape of her mouth started to knock on the door of a memory
way back in a dark corner of his mind. The way she tucked a curl behind her ear
and the almost shy smile she gave Alex had Ben’s mind working harder, trying to
recall how he knew her.

Then she looked right at him and her jade-green eyes kicked
the door wide open.

Rachel Marsh.

His fingers tingled as blood rushed from his extremities
straight to his cock.

He’d tutored her for a short time in college. She’d been a
terrible student, but he’d liked her. She was smart despite her shortcomings
when it came to her premed classes, and she was funny with a kind of naïve air
about her. After weeks of harnessing the urge, he’d given in and kissed that
amazing mouth of hers one night after realizing studying was getting them
nowhere.

Electric heat crackled along his spine as he recalled the
way that mouth tasted and how her incredible body felt in those few moments
she’d been wrapped around him on the too-small couch he’d had back in the day.
One moment they’d been all tangled up in each other with all signs reading go,
and in the next she’d been gone.

And there she was, standing across the room at a sex party
of all things.

He pushed off the fireplace and made his way toward her
little group, an inexplicable surge of annoyance setting him on edge in
reaction to the way Alex had dragged her attention back and was flirting his
ass off with her.

“Great party.” He kissed Petra on the cheek before he turned
his attention to Rachel. He reached out and she put her hand in his. “Rachel,”
he said, touching his lips to the back of her fingers. “It’s been a long time.”

“Hi, Ben,” she said quietly, her cheeks turning a sexy shade
of pink. She’d blossomed out of being a gangly early twenty-something into a
golden-era movie starlet of a woman. “It has been a very long time.”

Alex looked from Rachel to him. “You know each other?”

“I tutored Rachel in college.” He held her hand a moment
before sliding his fingers out from under hers.

“Poor thing.” Alex gave Rachel a sympathetic look. “How did
that go?”

“Not very well, I’m afraid.” She cleared her throat quietly
and turned her gaze to Alex. “Not that it was my teacher’s fault. I was a
terrible at chemistry.”

Alex gave her a skeptical headshake. “I wouldn’t take all
the blame. He tried to help me memorize the names of bones when I was in
nursing school, but we always ended up playing videos games and eating
ourselves stupid on pizza instead.”

“No kidding?” Rachel’s eyebrows went up and she turned those
green eyes back to Ben. “Video games I don’t remember so much, but pizza is
ringing some bells.”

“Speaking of ringing bells,” Ben said to Alex.

Which made him sing the chorus to Anita Ward’s disco song
Ring
My Bell
in what was admittedly a pretty good falsetto. Rachel’s eyes went
wide, but Petra played along and sang backup. They both stopped dancing just as
quickly as they’d started.

Without missing a beat, Alex offered Petra his elbow. “Say,
Pete. Why don’t you and I go harass that sexy-ass bartender of yours for a
little while?”

“Why, Lexi, I’d say that’s a swell idea,” Petra answered,
taking his arm.

And then Ben was alone with Rachel. They simply looked at
one another a moment.

He’d forgotten how beautiful she was, only this version of
her was…more. Back in college she’d been the shy, reserved suburban girl who’d
blended into the background by hiding herself under beat-up jeans and loose
shirts, her face free of makeup. The new Rachel had seen the world, and the
world had been very good to her.

“I can honestly say this is the last place I would have ever
expected to see you again,” he told her when it was just the two of them. “My
God, you look good.”

“Thank you.” She fiddled with the little pendant on her
necklace nervously. “You look pretty damn good yourself.”

“You know, I hear Petra talking about her friend Rachel
every so often, but I never would have thought you were the same person.”

Small talk was really the last thing he wanted to be making,
but the things he wanted to ask her weren’t exactly lighthearted party
questions.

“Funny,” she tugged on her long earring, “she never told me
about you at all.”

The way she said it caught him off guard. “Why would she?”

The little brunette he’d ended up with the first time he’d attended
one of Jude and Petra’s parties was suddenly standing beside them. He was
ashamed to admit he couldn’t remember her name off the top of his head.

“Geez,” she said, clearly exasperated, and threw her arms
around Rachel’s neck when Rachel bent for a hug. “I haven’t been able to get
close enough to say hi all night. You’re the belle of the ball, darling.”

“I don’t know about the belle,” she said, deflecting. “I’m
fresh meat at any rate.”

“No one, and I mean no one, can take their eyes off you,
Rach.” She looked at Ben and asked, “Am I right?”

Bree. That was her name. She was an ER nurse at Northwestern
University Hospital where Petra and Alex worked, and she was one of Petra’s
closest friends. Which meant she was probably one of Rachel’s closest friends
as well. She was a sweet girl, bordering on too sweet for his taste, but her
enthusiasm in the bedroom had been a lot of fun.

Still, neither the memory of what was inarguably the best
blowjob of his life nor the hungry way she was looking up at him managed to
subdue the rapidly growing desire to end up with Rachel and only Rachel at the
end of the night.

“I know I can’t look away,” Ben said to Rachel.

In his peripheral vision he could see Bree looking between
the two of them. Then she laid her hand on his arm. “Do you mind if I borrow
Rachel for a few minutes? Now that I have her, there’s someone here I’d like to
introduce her to.”

He minded all right.

“As long as you promise to bring her back.” He looked from
Bree to Rachel. “We have a lot of catching up to do, don’t we?”

She nodded, a quick, nervous little gesture that made her
curls quiver. “Yes we do.”

* * * * *

There was an unspoken etiquette to Jude and Petra’s parties
that you didn’t show favor for one person over another. If you attended and
played, you ended up with whoever’s keys were drawn. He’d attended twice before
and hadn’t been disappointed either time, but this time was different.

Ben moved with the tide the way he was supposed to, going
from group to group and girl to girl, flirting and making small talk, but he’d
been on edge since he realized it was Rachel he’d been admiring across the room
earlier. No matter where he was in the party he felt overly aware of her—where
she was, who she was talking to.

He wanted nothing more than to get her alone again, but once
Bree dragged her away he hadn’t been able to get near her. She really was the
belle of the ball the way Bree had said. Even the women in the group seemed to
have a reverent sort of fascination with her.

By some small stroke of luck he witnessed her slipping out
the back door by herself a couple of hours into the party. Taking advantage of
the opportunity, he followed her.

There were little white lights in the rose of Sharon planted
around the perimeter of the expansive deck. Candles burned at regular intervals
along the wide railing around the deck, filling the late spring air with a
warm, citrus scent. The din of the group inside drifted through the open
kitchen window just below the sound of music being piped outside through hidden
speakers.

She was standing in the far corner with her back to him,
arms braced on the railing and face turned up to the sky. For a moment he was
tempted to go back inside. She clearly wanted to be by herself, but the need to
go to her was too strong. He wanted to sink his teeth into the satiny skin of
her shoulder and slip his hands under the short hem of her dress to find out if
she was pantyless as well as braless.

He wanted to bend her over the railing with her skirt hiked
up around her waist so he could see that beautiful ass of hers quiver every
time he thrust his cock into her.

“Gorgeous night, isn’t it?”

She jumped and turned, hand over her heart. “Ben.”

“I can go back inside if you want to be alone,” he added,
taking a step closer.

“It was getting a little overwhelming in there. If I have to
answer another question about England I think I might lose my mind.”

“Everyone’s just jealous.” He leaned against the railing
near her. “They’ve been here, up to their eyes in long hours filled with sick
and injured people while you’ve been traveling the high seas in style. You’re
an anomaly.”

He caught the little frown that flickered between her
eyebrows.

“Well, it’s not as glamorous a life as you might think.” She
smiled but he could tell he’d stepped on her pride.

“No?”

She snorted softly. “No.” She watched him over the rim of
her wineglass as she sipped and said nothing more.

He wanted to bury his face in her neck to find the source of
the heady, spicy-sweet scent he could only smell when he was standing close to her.
“And why is that?”

She shook her head thoughtfully. “It’s a lot of hours with
few breaks. Most weeks I only had one day off, and I usually spent that
sleeping.”

“It sounds like being an intern without the dingy apartment
and the smelly roommate.”

“Your apartment was dingy on purpose.” She rolled her eyes,
reminding him of the time she’d called him out for trying to pass as a broke
college kid by living in a cramped apartment full of resale shop furniture.
“And you didn’t have a roommate.”

“I have one now. He smells from time to time.”

She arched an eyebrow at him. “And the dingy apartment?”

He shrugged. “What happened to you, Rachel?”

He thought he’d put her out of his mind for good a long time
ago. Turned out he had a lot of questions he still wanted answered. “Where did
you go?”

She looked down at the glass in her hands. “I completely
froze during the chemistry exam I had the day after that last study session. I
had a full-blown panic attack the moment my professor put the test in front of
me. I couldn’t come up with a single answer, so I left the classroom, packed up
my dorm room and quit the next day.”

“Over one bad chem exam?” He rested one hand on the railing
behind her.

“It wasn’t just chemistry, or that one test. I was failing
everything but anatomy. Premed was so much harder than I was expecting. My
parents had just announced they were splitting up.” She drew in a deep breath.
“It was just too much.”

“You could have talked to me about it.”

A small smile touched her lips. “You made me too nervous to
talk to you about anything more than chemistry, Ben.” Even in the dim light
coming from the lights in the trees he could see she was blushing.

“What are you talking about? What about all those late
nights we spent at that diner across the street from my apartment, bullshitting
the night away?”

“Exactly. Talking about music or which professors we liked
or didn’t like was one thing.” She looked up. “Admitting I’d bitten off way
more than I could chew to a dean’s list honor student was entirely another. It
was embarrassing.”

He let her have that one. “Is that why you didn’t answer my
calls?”

She blinked at him several times in rapid succession. “You
called?”

He opened his mouth to tell her he’d left a handful of
messages before her number was disconnected, but Bree stepped out of the back
door.

“There you are,” she said, frowning a little as she looked
from him to Rachel, as though she didn’t understand why they were outside by
themselves. “Petra asked me to come find you. The drawing is about to start.”

“Coming,” Rachel said, pushing off the railing to follow her
friend.

Ben wrapped a hand around her wrist, stopping her.

“We’ll be in shortly,” he said to Bree.

Bree gave Rachel a look and Rachel nodded.

“Okay, then.” Bree smiled and shimmied her shoulders. “Don’t
be too long, though. Some of us are ready to get laid,” she said and went back
in the house.

“See me again.” He pulled her close so they were pressed
together chest to knee, his hands on her waist and mouth just a few short
inches from hers.

She felt so good in his arms—soft in all the right places
and trembling just a little as the pace of her breathing quickened. It took
every bit of self-control he had not to kiss her, claim her, possess her right
then and there. “No matter what happens or who we end up with tonight, tell me
you’ll see me tomorrow.”