Yours to Keep (24 page)

He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Jesus, Ana.”

“It’s actually kind of Ricky’s. The money. He’s starting a house-cleaning business as soon as Marco—that’s my oldest nephew—can drive, and I promised the money to him.”

“All of it?”

“All of it,” she affirmed.

Of course she had. And he liked her even more for it, even as he resented the situation that made it necessary. Her generosity seemed that much more heroic when you considered
everything working against her.

“I have three-sixteenths of a bachelor’s degree. Can’t apply for financial aid. I can’t fly, because I won’t risk getting caught with a fake ID—”

So there would be no destination wedding. He turned onto his street, dimming his brights to avoid sweeping them through the neighbors’ windows.

“—I’ve never left this country since I came here when I was seven. I’ve never voted or driven. I do order alcoholic beverages in bars, but I didn’t when I was younger, because I knew I’d be carded, and it wasn’t worth it.”

He was struck, anew, by the contrast between their lives. They were in the same country, but only barely.

“I’ve never been in love,” she said.

He noted that she hadn’t said, “I’ve never been in love before.” So she didn’t think she was in love with him. That bothered him, even though he didn’t think he was in love with her.

He wasn’t, was he? Could you be in love with someone you’d met thirty days ago?

“There was this guy I went out with a few times. I really liked him, but he found out I was illegal and I never heard from him again. The other night—” Her voice got tight. Broke. “I figured I’d never hear from you again. Nothing could have surprised me more than seeing you this afternoon. Nothing.”

His chest hurt as he made sense of what she was saying. Between Friday night and Monday afternoon, when he’d been moving slowly toward the idea of proposing marriage, she’d been slowly cutting him out of her thoughts.

“I thought about quitting, to be honest.”

He pulled into the driveway, pressed the garage-door opener. He was lucky she hadn’t quit. It would have taken twice as much testicular fortitude to chase her to Hawthorne with his proposal.

He cut the engine, and the lights inside the car came on. The lights inside the garage were on, too. He could really see her for the first time since they’d left his kitchen four hours ago. She was so beautiful in profile that it hurt him to look at her. Her nose was straight and a tiny bit sharp, her hair a waterfall of jet, her mouth soft and mobile. “I made myself sick, I cried so hard.” Her voice shook.

He ached, hearing it. “I’m not that other guy. I’m me. And here we are.”

She turned toward him, tears glistening on her lashes, and he reached for her, drawing her in until her mouth was under his. He had to hold himself in check—he was afraid he’d hurt her, grinding his mouth against hers, biting at her, insinuating his tongue into her mouth. She whimpered, and for a moment he thought he
had
hurt her. He drew back, and she grabbed his head and forced his mouth back to hers. This time, the low groan came from him.

He felt her hand slip up his thigh, travel higher until her fingertips found him. His hips rose to her touch, and their kissing became more frenzied, hotter. Then she broke it off. “Seat belt.”

“Time to move this upstairs?”

“We do our best work in the car.” She unbuckled herself and reached for the door handle. She got out and hurried around the car so that when he stood up his body slid up the length of hers, her breasts against his chest, her thighs against his, his erection uncomfortably bound in his jeans and straining toward her.

“You haven’t seen my best work yet.” His voice was rough.

“Mmm,” she groaned, licking her lips. He wasn’t sure whether it was unconscious pleasure or deliberate provocation, and he didn’t care; his mouth was on hers again before she’d finished, and the heat built even faster this time, surging through him in pulses, thrumming in his veins.

They raced up the stairs. He’d barely closed the bedroom door behind them when she began to tear at his clothes, yanking his sweater up over his head, then his T-shirt. She got him free of his upper garments and stood on tiptoes to press her open mouth to his again. Her wool sweater was itchy against his bare chest, so he yanked that up over her head, and she pulled off her turtleneck. He unclasped her bra and it dropped to the floor; he felt the tight, hard peaks of her nipples against his bare skin and almost lost it. Behind that first startling sensation there was the crazy heat of her whole bare torso against his, and he closed his eyes and felt even more blood swell his cock.

“Ohhh,” she moaned. She struggled with his button fly, her fingers clumsy, made clumsier because she kept trying to kiss him at the same time, straining up to him, rubbing her denim-clothed crotch against him anywhere she could get purchase.
Ohhh indeed,
he thought, rubbing back, friction like nothing he’d experienced since dry-humping in high school, threatening to cut short their revels—he drew back slightly, but she grabbed his ass and
rubbed again, crying, mewling. “I could come like this,” she said, almost defiantly. He threw her hands off his fly and undid the buttons himself, and afterward he had no memory of what happened to the rest of their clothes.

They were on the bed now. She was on all fours over him, and he reached up for a nipple, then the other, drawing moans and cries. It briefly crossed his mind that they should be quiet. Then it fled with the rest of his thoughts, as she reached down and parted herself, matched her clit to the tip of his cock, and slid along his length, her head thrown back, her hair flying out around her, hot and primitive and totally in charge.

“Wait,” he demanded, reaching for the bedside-table drawer. She lifted off him a fraction. The expression on her face was almost a glare.

He slid the condom on, and almost before he unrolled it she impaled herself on him and sank down until he was seated in her to the hilt. He lifted his hips, but his control wavered and he knew his best bet was to hold as still as possible, so he grabbed her waist and watched as she closed her eyes and began a lazy up, down, and around movement. Her back was slightly arched and her breasts were high, the nipples upturned, almost black in the low light. Her tongue peeked out of her mouth, began a slow, luxuriant trip over her upper lip that almost made him lose it. He held on, held on to her, watched helplessly as she ground against him and began to come, the spasms gripping him and milking him and yanking him out of himself into mindless release.

She collapsed, and they clung to each other. He sank his fingers into her hair and held on for dear life.

After a while he said, “Are you sure you only had sex one time before me?”

“It was one other guy. But ten or fifteen times.”

That made more sense. “Because you seem like you know what you’re doing.”

“You make it easy. We fit. Your body makes sense to my body.”

He liked that.

He got up and went into the bathroom. When he came back, she was lying on her back, looking dazed and pleased with herself. He lay down beside her, and she draped her upper body over his. “Your turn.”

For a moment, he thought she meant something sexual and almost laughed at the idea that he might still have a turn left in him. Then she said, “To tell me what I don’t know about
you yet.”

He stroked her hair, which felt like silk, and thought. “There’s not much. You know the important stuff. Until you, only two things mattered to me—Theo and my job, in that order.”

She moved her lips lightly over his chest, breathing through the swirls of hair there. “It doesn’t have to be big stuff. You don’t put the toilet seat down. Or whatever.”

He laughed. “Funny you should mention that. My one point of pride from a housekeeping perspective is that we’ve never gone bachelor. We always put the seat down, even though we’re the only ones using the toilet ninety-five percent of the time.” He mused for a moment. “I don’t cook much, though. Pancakes, eggs, bacon, spaghetti. You’ve seen pretty much the extent of what I do.”

“The cream-of-broccoli soup was amazing.”

“It was takeout,” he admitted. “There’s a place—Bryant’s, do you know it?”

She shook her head.

“They cater. I get most of our dinners there. Including the soup. It’s not that I don’t know how to cook, and it’s not that I don’t like to, it’s that I don’t have it in me. I go grocery shopping once a week—oh, that’s something you should know about me. I’m a creature of routines. I go grocery shopping every Saturday morning around nine. Pretty much without fail.”

“I’m not usually awake at nine on Saturday.” She moved her fingers through the hair on his chest, lingering on his nipples. If she kept that up, he
would
be looking for another turn soon.

“Theo’s not up that early, either. You guys can sleep in while I do the grocery shopping.”

She looked up, startled. He realized that he’d made a big leap. “Not that you have to sleep here every night,” he said quickly. “Totally up to you.”

Her eyes were deer-in-headlights wide.

“Seriously, Ana. I know this is a lot all at once. No pressure.”

“It hadn’t crossed my mind. I was just imagining I’d still live at home with Ricky and Cara and the kids.”

“Which you could.” He said it to reassure, but he wanted her to wave it off, deny the
possibility.

“Well, I could until we actually got married. And then to be convincing we’d have to live together, right? At least until my green card came through. So it’s just a question of in the meantime. What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to do whatever’s most comfortable for you.” He wished he hadn’t said anything. He hadn’t thought any of this through.

She rolled off him and stared up at the ceiling. Her stomach was so flat that he could see her hip bones protruding. He wanted to sweep a hand over her nipples, soft now, down the slope of her belly to cup her curls—but he stopped himself.

“Okay, here’s something.” He wanted to change the subject, to recapture the spirit of fun, of discovery. “I already told you how much I like football, but did you know that I almost never miss a Sunday-night or Monday-night football game? Some women I’ve dated have been horrified by my devotion.”

She laughed. “My family’s become pretty football crazy, too. I’m not a huge fan of pro football, but since Marco plays we go to a lot of high-school games. And Angel plays junior high. So I’m not horrified. It takes a lot to horrify me.”

“I’m going to take that as a challenge.” He thought hard for a moment. “Oh, here’s something. I’m so ashamed of this that no one other than Theo knows about it. Oh, and James. But he shares the shame, so that’s okay.”

“Spill it.”

“My mother still buys some of my clothes.”

She looked suitably horrified, but also as if she might be trying to suppress laughter. She scooted closer to him again, and he felt restored. He’d watch himself more carefully going forward, make sure he didn’t spook her. The last thing he wanted was for her to bolt.

“It was always a family tradition for her to buy new underwear and T-shirts and socks and pj’s for me for Christmas, and for my birthday she’d give me two pairs of khakis, two pairs of jeans, five dress shirts, and several sweaters. It started when I was about eight years old and never stopped. I think if Trish and I had been married longer she’d have put a stop to it, because it really pissed her off. It petered out for a while when we were together, but then Trish got sick and it stepped up again, and then I was grieving and helpless and eventually it was more convenient to let her do it. My only consolation is that she buys
all
of James’s.”

Now Ana did laugh. “I can see why you don’t tell people that.”

“James is such a player. If it got out that he doesn’t dress himself? The women would flee in droves.”

“What about work? Are you a good doctor?”

He nodded. “I always have a full patient load and a waiting list, and my reputation in town is good. I’m very conservative—I always err on the side of testing for things if I’m worried they might be an issue. Kids like me. I haven’t killed anyone yet.”

“High standards you’ve got for yourself.”

He laughed.

“And we know you’re very comforting with the moms, too.” She grinned.

“Maybe too comforting,” he said, thinking of Nicole Freyer.

“I told you—” She sat up. Her hair fell over her shoulders and her mouth was still red and swollen from their kisses earlier.

He felt himself getting hard again.

She leaned over him, brushing her nipples against the length of his cock, which only made him harder. “You’re hot. Who wouldn’t have a crush on you?”

He dragged her down on top of him. “You’re the hot one.” He licked her lips, teased her tongue with the tip of his.

“I’ve been thinking about the house analogy.” She wrenched her mouth away, her eyes dark.

“Yeah?” His hands took the measure of her breasts. Just more than a handful. He teased around the outside edges and the sensitive undersides, and she flinched, sighed gustily.

“Yeah. So tomorrow morning when I’m teaching, and all day when I can’t be with you, I don’t want you to start thinking I’m not the house you want. So I think you should do another walk-through. Kind of seal things in your memory. Up the total time you’ve spent inside.”

Heat surged in him. He rolled her under him and positioned himself. He could feel her wetness, hot and slippery, on the head of his cock, and it was all he could do to pull away and reach for a condom. Especially seeing the look on her face, need almost to the level of pain. “There is absolutely no danger I’m going to start thinking you’re not the house I want. But if you insist—”

“I insist.”

That put an end to the conversation for a while.

Chapter 22

Ethan shook his head. He had Mary Freyer’s lab report in front of him on his laptop screen, and he didn’t like it one bit. Her white counts and sed rates, measures of infection, were both through the roof.

He hoped to God they figured this out soon. And he hoped like hell it turned out to be an infection. Because if telling a mother that her child might have a spectrum disorder was unpleasant business, telling a mother that her child might have leukemia was something you prayed you’d never have to do again.