Part 16 (1/2)
She didn't want him to leave. She wanted him to give her his heart. She wanted him to let her love him for the rest of their lives. She wanted them both to have what they needed and wanted most in the world. But neither of them would have anything if she did or said something that made him think she'd become part of his biggest problem.
Thirteen.
Getting to work the next day took Kate a little longer than usual. She discovered Sam was hungry in the mornings. Ravenous, actually. And brazen about it, too.
”Katie, you have the most incredible b.r.e.a.s.t.s.”
”And you have the most . . . incredible mouth.”
”You like my mouth on you?”
”Oh, yes, it's-”
”Lift up a little . . . that's it . . . so I can . . .”
”Mmm. Oh, Sam, that's good. It's . . . What are you doing?”
”Giving you more of what you like.”
”But you- Oh . . . oh, my . . .”
”Open up these pretty thighs for me, Katie.”
”Sam, I . . . Oh, Lord, that's . . . But, Sam, you can't-”
”I sure as h.e.l.l can. Honey, you're so soft. Soft and . . . hot.”
”But it's not . . . I'm not . . .”
”And you taste . . . mmm, like us.”
She groaned as her will to argue and her inhibitions about such intimacy were deftly shattered; her fingers clutched at his hair, holding him to her, and in what she thought must be a disgracefully short time, he showed her how silly her objections were. It was more than sensual pleasure, though, that he gave her. It was her womanhood-or rather, the right to enjoy the full measure of it, a right she'd never truly understood and that no other man had been man enough to allow her to claim.
She hadn't stopped shaking from that first shattering climax when he plunged into her with a breathtaking volley of hard, deep thrusts that quickly sent her soaring again. But when she opened her eyes from that second time to see him gazing down at her, she knew by the look in his glittering crystal eyes- and by the undiminished vigor of his erection still filling her- that they weren't finished yet.
With a moan of surrender, she begged, ”Oh, Sam, I can't-”
”I think you will.”
”But I should get . . . up and-”
”Honey, you come so easy.”
And he was having a wonderful time proving it.
”Sam, you're- How can you . . . Oh, Lord . . .”
”Watching you is amazing, you know that? You just don't hold back anything. Do it one more time for me, Katie. Just once more. Then we'll take a shower. I promise.”
It wasn't until they were in the shower, though, after he'd made a torrid production out of was.h.i.+ng her hair, that he found his own release. With her back against the tiled wall, her legs wrapped around his waist, and his pulsing s.e.x buried deep inside her, Kate felt the shudders ripple through him as he growled against her throat. His low, rumbling sound of profound satisfaction made her own body as fluid as the water sluicing over them, and she instantly spiraled off with him a final time.
Yet again, the physical pleasure was only part of it. This was the man she'd wanted so badly to know -the one who wanted to fulfill her until her bones turned to water and she could do little more than moan. The one who, last night had wanted to ”make love”-and whose lovemaking had moved her to tears. And Kate knew that nothing, nothing on the face of the earth, could have given her more pleasure than seeing him this way. The way he'd been this morning: confident, bold. A little arrogant. Relaxed. And so obviously happy.
She intended to do everything in her power to keep him that way. And, after all, making him happy was making her happier than she'd ever been in her life.
At ten, Kate sent Sam home with a promise to stop at the cabin after she saw Lynn Nielsen that afternoon. Then she went to the office, where she met Doc for their regular post-weekend conference.
”So, except for a trip out to see the Nielsen girl, I spent the weekend putting in spinach and broccoli and watching the ballgame.” Doc sat back in the squeaky leather desk chair to lace his fingers together over his belly. ”I did get some phone calls, though, that I want to talk to you about.”
Sitting in the chair next to his cluttered desk, Kate was looking over his notes on Lynn. ”Who were they from?” she asked.
”Well, there was one Sat.u.r.day morning from Evan Resnick, the audiologist who saw that nephew of yours last week.”
”Oh?”
”Said he'd never seen anything like it. Not so much as a decibel of hearing loss evident, and no trace of nerve damage.”
”It certainly is amazing, isn't it?” With her attention still directed on the medical chart, Kate smiled to herself.
”Resnick thought it was more than that. He called it a miracle.” Pausing, Doc added, ”Which is the same word the vascular surgeon at Marquette used to explain why that man c.o.o.ney is still alive.”
Her gaze flashed to his briefly, held for a second, then dropped once more to the chart. ”Straun called?”
”About an hour after I'd hung up with Resnick,” Doc confirmed, his tone far too intent for her comfort. ”Said he was sorry it'd taken him so long to get to me-he was off on vacation last week. But he had to call, he said, to tell me what a fine a.s.sociate I have. He can't figure out how you kept that man alive on a piddling 250 cc of Ringer's. Given the amount of time before you got to him, and the number of arteries and veins that had chunks out of them, and the fact that he was in severe shock”-Doc shook his head-”it does seem miraculous.”
Kate closed Lynn's chart and laid it on the desk. She wasn't a good liar, and she loathed the idea of lying to Doc, or even of keeping something from him that was clearly his concern. Yet as she rose and walked over to open her knapsack, lying on the table beside the supply cabinet, she knew that was what she had to do.
”I think 'miraculous' is putting it too strongly,” she said.
”I don't know. There seems to be a lot of it going around.”
”A lot of what?”
”Miracles. Ray c.o.o.ney, Francis . . .” Doc's chair creaked, and she knew he'd swiveled around to watch her. ”And you.”
She stopped with the supply cabinet door half open. ”Me?”
”Your ankle. I admit, I didn't think much about it. It looked normal to me. I just figured you'd made a mistake. But that was foolishness on my part because you don't make mistakes very often. And I've never once heard you exaggerate about anything, least of all your own problems. So if your ankle was as bad as you said it was, well, then, doesn't it seem like a miracle that it got better overnight?”
Tossing a laugh over her shoulder, Kate pulled the cabinet door open and reached for a pack of surgical gloves. ”Of course, I was wrong about my ankle. Heavens, everything that day seemed ten times worse than it probably was. I mean, I was scared to death, sitting there in that storm, and I was soaking wet by the time Sam found me, and”-she shook her head, sticking the gloves into her knapsack-”well, it was just an awful day.”
Several long moments pa.s.sed in silence as she continued to stock her traveling medical kit. Through the open window of the office came the sound of Laura Graff calling her three-year-old to come put her shoes on. A truck, loaded with lumber from the mill, drove by on its way out of town. Finally, Doc broke the silence.
”Kate, is there something you ought to be telling me?”
His simple question made her hands tremble as she buckled the knapsack closed. ”About what?” she asked. When he didn't answer, she glanced to see him studying her.