Emergency Delivery (Love Emergency) (11 page)

Chapter Twelve

“Hunter!” She hurried over to him, but he extended an arm and warned her away.

“Step back, honey.”

Madison looked around to confront the speaker and came face-to-face with Beau. He stood on Hunter’s other side, gripping the back of his sweater. “You don’t have a prayer of keeping a guy this size on his feet, and if he goes down, I don’t want you to be the one who breaks his fall.”

Hunter groaned and wiped a forearm over his forehead. “I’m not going down.” But he lurched a bit as he straightened. Thankfully, Beau kept a secure hold on him.

“You ready to go in?” he asked after a minute and slowly let go of Hunter. Testing to see if he’d stay on his feet.

“Gimme a minute.” Sweat gleamed on his skin. He drew in a deep breath, and then another. Finally, he reached over his head and tugged his light blue V-neck sweater off. His white undershirt rode up a few inches in the process, and Madison couldn’t help appreciating the glimpse of taut back muscles and rippling obliques. But then he wiped his face with his sweater and groaned again, and she gave herself a mental kick for treating him like eye candy while he suffered.

“What happened?”

“He’s all right. Just had a little too much fun,” Beau replied and strapped an arm around Hunter’s waist.

Hunter turned his blurry eyes to her. “Sorry. Joy okay?”

She wrapped her arm around his waist from the other side and helped guide him up the porch steps. “She’s fine. Just went down after her midnight snack.”

“Good.” His eyes wandered over her face, and then one corner of his mouth tipped up in a sloppy smile. “Damn, you’re pretty in the moonlight.”

“Thanks,” Beau deadpanned.

“Not you. Her. Looking at your ugly mug makes me want to hurl again.”

Beau smirked as they led Hunter into the living room. “He says that now, but you watch. In about five minutes he’s going to pledge his undying love to me.”

“Don’t hold your breath.”

They dropped Hunter onto the sofa, and then Beau patted the backpack slung over his shoulder. “Really? I’m about to save you from the worst hangover of your life.”

Hunter’s head fell back against the sofa cushion and his eyelids drooped. “You gonna shoot me?”

Madison finger-combed his sweat-dampened hair away from his forehead and temples. “Why don’t we try a bottle of water and a couple of ibuprofen first?”

Beau unzipped the pack and then reached in. “I’ve got something better.” He pulled out an IV pouch.

Madison’s heart tripped, but Hunter grinned up at his partner. “I love you, man.”

She clutched his arm, and pinned Beau with a stare of her own. “I thought you said he was okay?”

“He is, but he’s going to be even better after I hydrate him.” To Hunter, he added, “You want to take a leak and brush your teeth before we get started?”

Hunter pushed himself off the couch and shuffled to the bathroom, pulling his undershirt over his head as he went.

When the bathroom door closed, she swung her attention back to Beau, who sat on the coffee table and began unpacking and arranging materials beside him—the IV bag, a line, a red plastic box, some white tape, a few packages of alcohol wipes, and a clear package containing what looked like a very long needle attached to a catheter. She swallowed hard. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

He didn’t look up, but his mouth stretched into a smile. “Don’t worry. I have plenty of experience administering the standard paramedic post-party cocktail.” He glanced over at her. “They teach this trick around the first week of paramedic school.”

Oh, God. She couldn’t watch. She stood to go hide in the kitchen, but just then Hunter walked into the living room, stunningly naked except for a pair of black basketball shorts sitting low on his hips, and stretched out on the couch. Chest and arm muscles flexed as he tucked a throw pillow under his head. Maybe she should hang out a little longer. She perched on the arm of the sofa, just above Hunter’s head, and distracted herself with an inventory of all the hard planes and angles of his body.

Beau taped the IV bag onto the wall above the couch. He inserted the tubing with the ease of someone who performed the task all the time, and then he filled and clamped the line.

Hunter turned his arm so the crook of his elbow faced up. His partner leaned close and tapped the puncture site.

“Get the angle right. Don’t move that fucking needle once it’s in my arm.”

Beau didn’t bother looking up. “Calm down. If I miss, I’ll just stab you again.”

“I’m serious.” He raised his head off the pillow and glared at his partner. “Don’t bruise me. I need my arms.”

“I could go for the vein in your dick, but I didn’t bring a small enough needle.”

Madison’s head went numb just listening. She crawled off the arm of the sofa. “I’m outta here. Do you need anything from the kitchen? Maybe some coffee?”

Beau glanced up and gave her an apologetic smile. “I’d love some. Thanks.”

“Anything in it?” You could take the girl out of the coffee shop, but you couldn’t take the coffee shop out of the girl.

“I drink it black.”

“Like his soul,” Hunter added.

She escaped to the kitchen to brew a pot and puttered around, listening with half an ear to the proceedings in the other room.

“Ow! You sadistic fuck, stop moving the needle around.”

“Stop moving your arm around, dickhead, or I swear to God I’m going to…there. It’s in.”

“Thank Christ. Where’s my lollipop?”

“You can suck on this.”

Men. She rolled her eyes and got two mugs down from the cabinet. Their no-doubt heartwarming conversation continued, but the noise from the coffeemaker made it impossible to follow. When the machine spit the last of the coffee into the pot, she poured two cups then walked back to the living room in time to catch the end of Beau’s sentence.

“…she’ll come through with a recommendation letter.”

“I don’t think so,” Hunter replied.

Beau reached out and took the mug she’d handed him. “Thanks.” To Hunter, he said, “I’ll write you a letter. Thankfully, they want a professional recommendation, so I can leave out any mention of what a pathetic lightweight you are.”

She put the other mug on the coffee table next to Hunter and settled on the arm of the sofa again. “I’ll write you a letter, too, if it helps. I know I don’t work with you, but I have firsthand experience with your medical skills, and I think you’ll make an excellent doctor.”

Hunter moved his left arm from behind his head and rested his hand against her thigh. “I sincerely appreciate the offer, but I had to give the school a list of my references. They expect a letter from Ashley Granger. If I substitute someone else at this point, it’s the same as admitting my current supervisor thinks I’ll make a shitty MD.”

Anger fired her blood on Hunter’s behalf. What was wrong with this Ashley woman? “What’s her deal? Why hasn’t she written the letter?”

“Hell, I don’t know. That whole conversation went sideways on me. Something ’bout how I don’t have ‘emotional maturity’”—he lifted his hand off her leg and made air quotes—“for the job.”

None of that told her much, but he sounded so exhausted, and uncharacteristically bleak, she realized now wasn’t the best time to try and make sense of it. Apparently Beau agreed, because he turned and started loading supplies into his backpack.

Hunter had his wrist propped on the arm of the sofa, right next to her hip. His palm faced up, his long fingers lax. Her heart clutched a little at the sight, which looked too much like a gesture of surrender to her newly aroused protective instincts. She ran her fingertips into the cup of his palm and then down his wrist and along his inner arm.

He shivered.

She stopped. “Sorry.”

“Feels good.”

She worked her way back up and repeated the motion in slow, smooth strokes. Her mind filled with all the plans she’d had for tonight before Hunter had texted and told her they were going to be out late. As usual, her timing sucked.

Beau got up, holding his phone. “Savannah called. I’m going to wash up and then step outside and call her back. And I’m going to blame your sorry ass for why I’m so late. Madison’s in charge while I’m gone.”

Hunter flipped his partner the bird, which earned him the same from Beau. Madison couldn’t help being curious about Savannah. She knew some basics thanks to Hunter. Beau and Savannah had been neighbors when they were small but had lost touch when Beau’s family moved away. Decades later, a couple of years after Beau lost his wife and child in a car crash, they ended up neighbors again. According to Hunter, Beau very nearly let Savannah slip through his fingers. Now they were getting married and expecting a baby in the summer.

Hunter tipped his head and looked up at her with bloodshot eyes. “Sorry.”

She shook her head and resumed trailing her nails along his arm. “You don’t owe me any apologies. You went out and had fun with your friends. You’re entitled.”

He turned his face to his shoulder and yawned. Afterwards, he settled his head against the pillow, but his eyelids never made it quite to all the way open. “I don’t want you thinkin’ I do this all the time. I don’t.”

“I know.” She traced the bend in his arm and the smooth, paler skin along the underside of his biceps.

He lowered his arm, ran his hand down his flat stomach, and adjusted the front of his shorts, where a thick ridge formed. How had she missed that?

“Told you it felt good,” he mumbled and lost the battle to keep his eyes open.

“Oh, Hunter…” She fiddled with his hair, because she couldn’t not touch him.

“Don’t worry.” He stretched his sinful mouth into the lopsided smile. “I couldn’t do anything with it right now, even if you could.”

“What I can do with it is a whole ’nother topic of conversation,” she said but pulled the blanket off the back of the sofa and arranged it over him. He automatically pushed it down to his waist and kicked his legs free. Hunter radiated heat no matter what the temperature. She contemplated telling him the
other
important outcome of her doctor’s visit, but decided to wait. He’d stilled, and his breath came slow and even. Another minute and he’d be asleep.

Beau returned, glanced at Hunter, and checked the drip. “Savannah says you’re a saint, and if we’d showed up on her doorstep, she would have left us there.”

Madison smiled. “Well, in actual fact, it’s
his
doorstep, so I’d be a pretty lousy houseguest to lock him out.”

“She disagrees, for the record, but told me to reassure you we don’t pull this shit very often.”

“It’s okay. Honestly. I don’t need any assurances.” She looked down at Hunter. “He needs to blow off some steam. He rarely lets it show, but I’m sure he’s under a lot of stress right now.”

Beau looked at his friend, too, and absently rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah.”

“Because of me and Joy…right?”

He froze, flicked cautious brown eyes up to her, and generally looked like a deer in headlights. “Uh…”

She waved her hand. “Erase the question. You don’t have to betray any confidences.” But clearly he had the confidences, and the fact alone told her plenty, without the need for words. Hunter might put on a calm front for her, but to Beau he’d admitted worries about when the heck he’d get his normal life back.

“I think a good portion of his stress revolves around his applications and, beyond that, the specter of failing again,” Beau offered, obviously looking to downplay her role as a source of anxiety.

A nice effort on his part, but she couldn’t help wonder how much of Hunter’s worries about failing centered around the fact that he was currently living in a frighteningly similar environment as he had been when he’d failed the first time?

I’ll need to minimize distractions.

His words from the other night replayed in her mind. No, he wasn’t rushing them, but the end goal remained the same, and the longer the timeline extended, the more pressure she put on him.

She looked at him crashed across the sofa with his eyes closed, and his wide, superhero chest slowly rising and falling. Her heart contracted. Doing a few loads of laundry and preparing some meals made
her
feel less burdensome, but those deeds didn’t magically lighten the weight of responsibility on Hunter’s shoulders. Spending time in his arms, sharing laughs, and kisses, and amazing orgasms might mean their feelings for each other had grown beyond protective, on his part, and grateful, on hers, but it didn’t change the underlying reality.
You are a burden as long as you’re here. The only way to change that is to get out.

Chapter Thirteen

Hunter woke up in his bed, alone, with sunlight streaming through the slit in the curtains. He vaguely remembered Madison walking him from the sofa to the bedroom after Joy’s three a.m. feeding, and he thought she’d snuggled in next to him, but considering the shape he’d arrived home in last night that might be wishful thinking. At any rate—he lifted his head from the pillow and looked around—she wasn’t there now. He flopped back onto the pillow and stared at the ceiling. He had some groveling to do, to apologize to her for coming home at all hours, puking-his-guts-out wasted, and letting Beau turn the living room into a Hangover Heaven—although he had to admit, the IV had helped.

What time was it? He turned to stare at the clock on his nightstand. Nine twenty. Crap. He hadn’t slept so late since…? Christmas, when he’d helped Beau numb the pain of a colossal fuckup in his relationship with Savannah.

Huh. Heartache and hangovers. He sensed a pattern.

But in his case he couldn’t even legitimately own the heartache. Madison would be back on the job next week. He should be happy, because that had always been the plan. It brought her and Joy one step closer to moving out—also the plan—and the best one for all of them. Madison needed her independence, and so did he.

Something unfamiliar on the nightstand caught his eye. He pushed his clock out of the way and closed his hand around a plastic cylinder. He brought the pump-top container closer and turned the bottle until he could see the labeling.

Liquid Silk.

Where had it come from?

Well, Einstein, either Madison put it there or you had a visit from the lube fairy last night
.

His pulse quickened, and his morning hard-on got serious. A piece of their conversation last night replayed in his mind.

Don’t worry. I couldn’t do anything with it right now, even if you could.

What I can do with it is a whole ’nother topic of conversation.

He sat up and looked at the nightstand. Now he spotted the rectangular box of thirty-six ultra-thin, lubricated condoms. Had he really spent last night drinking himself into oblivion with four sweaty guys when he could have been home, in this bed, doing things to Madison he’d been fantasizing about for weeks?

If that wasn’t a public service message for drinking responsibly, he didn’t know what was. And yeah, he definitely had some groveling to do, considering she’d obviously had plans for them last night, and he’d been a no-show. Hell, she might have decided she’d dodged a bullet, and approaching her first thing this morning with his eager cock tenting his shorts, still stinking of all his poor decisions from the night before, struck him as an unlikely way to change her mind. Nobody was
that
persuasive.

He needed a shower first, followed by a long, drawn-out apology delivered with her legs over his shoulders, and his tongue getting properly acquainted with all the territory from which her doctor had removed the metaphorical yellow “Do Not Cross” tape. Sounded like a plan.

He stood, pulled off the wad of cotton taped to the inside of his arm, and winced at the golf ball-sized bruise Beau had left to remind him he had shit for brains. Nice.

The house sounded quiet, which surprised him, because around this time of the morning, Joy liked to get her groove on and Madison usually turned on the pop-country channel and threw them a little dance party. She sang along to Miranda Lambert, or Florida Georgia Line, or whatever, and two-stepped Joy around the living room. Damn. Something disturbingly close to disappointment settled in his gut. His girls put on a hell of a show, and he liked to catch it on his days off.

Hold up. They’re not your girls
.

Okay, maybe not, he admitted as he pulled a pair of jeans from the stack of clean clothes on his dresser, but they were there for now, and he was honest enough with himself to admit the arrangement had perks—perks that had nothing to do with clean, folded laundry…or the possibilities presented by thirty-six ultra-thin condoms and a jumbo tube of Liquid Silk. How cuddling a grumpy infant at three in the morning had become a perk, he didn’t know, but he liked watching those big blue owl-eyes blink up at him as he talked nonsense in a low voice and lulled her back to sleep. He liked coming home to find Madison puttering in the kitchen or entertaining Joy in the living room, and he sure as hell liked feeling Madison’s sexy little body pressed up against his in the middle of the night. In that regard, the last couple of weeks had been an exercise in creative torture. He hadn’t spent this much time at third base since high school, and he prayed to God he hadn’t blown his chance to take her all the way home.

The short trek to the bathroom confirmed his initial impression—the girls weren’t around. While he pissed away the last of a thousand milliliters of IV medium, he glanced behind him. He remembered leaving his dirty clothes in a pile on the bathmat last night. Of course they were nowhere to be found this morning. He rolled his eyes and turned on the shower. Maid Madison had struck again. That perk he wouldn’t miss. And this morning, particularly, knowing she’d tidied up after him added another weight to his load of guilt. He stepped under the spray, closed his eyes, and let the water beat down on him.

The muffled slam of the front door had him opening his eyes. He washed up, pulled on the jeans, and skipped the shave. He liked the way she squirmed and squealed when he scraped his scruffy jaw over the ticklish spots on her neck and breasts. Maybe she had other ticklish spots he could scratch for her?

He opened the bathroom door and then stepped into the hall to find her standing in the living room, shrugging out of her black hoodie. She wore a pair of broken-in red cowboy boots, a denim skirt that hit mid-thigh, a long, fuzzy red sweater, and a startled expression. She’d expected him to be down for the count.

“How’re you feeling?” Her question contained all sorts of caution. She tipped her head and her dark hair streamed over her shoulder.

“Like a dick.” Literally. The sight of her, the cinnamon-honey scent of her skin, and the husky sound of her voice had him so hard he could barely think. “Where’s Joy?”

“I just dropped her at Nelle’s for a few hours”—her lips twisted into a faint smile and his cock drilled into the top button of his fly—“’cause I figured you could use some peace and quiet.”

He crossed his arms and leaned against the archway leading from the hall to the living room, liking the way her eyes roamed all over him. “How ’bout you, Madison? What could you use?”

She blinked and crossed her arms over her chest, unconsciously mimicking him. “Me? Nothing. I’m good. Do you feel up to some breakfast?”

He pushed away from the wall and walked toward her. “Yeah.”

Her head tipped back as he neared. “Want me to make you something?”

“Uh-uh.” Keeping his eyes locked on hers, he reached under her skirt and palmed her through her panties. Her breath rushed out and her eyelids fluttered. A pretty flush swept into her cheeks. “The only thing I want to sink my teeth into is standing in front of me.”

Her hand landed in the center of his chest, and a little moan filled his ears. “Hunter…”

He wrapped his other arm around her and pulled her closer, working the widest part of his palm into the tight space between her thighs. She hung onto his shoulders and hitched one leg up to his waist. He slid his hand from the small of her back to the curve of her ass, lingered there for a squeeze, and then took hold of her thigh so she didn’t have to strain to keep the position. Because he liked the position. He stroked her again, using the heel of his hand up front while his fingers delved lower, doing more than teasing the final frontier.

She tightened her arms and pressed her forehead to his chest. Her breath puffed over his skin. “I bought some things…yesterday.”

“I saw.” He stroked her more firmly, and her body went hot and damp. He squeezed. She shuddered and rocked against him impatiently. “Does it mean what I think it means?”

“Let’s go to the bedroom.”

“Not so fast. I haven’t had my breakfast yet.”

That’s all the warning he gave her. He picked her up, went to his knees, and put her on the rug. The move startled a little scream out of her, and before it ended, he had her knees over his shoulders, her skirt around her hips, and her tight little ass suspended two feet off the ground.

She scrambled to push her skirt back into place at the same time he hauled her parted thighs closer to his face. “No…noooo…oh my God, Hunter Knox, don’t you dare!”

He held on, lifting her hips higher. She couldn’t put up much of a struggle with most of her body weight pressing into her shoulders. Wide blue eyes skidded around and finally connected with his.

“Madison, I’ve let you put your mouth all over me.” He scratched his chin along her thigh and she shrieked again. “Now it’s my turn.” Then he dipped his head and took his turn.

She bucked, and twisted, and cried out like a woman hurtling down the first drop on a roller coaster. He held on and took his time, letting his tongue roam over her through her panties, deliberately leaning in with every stroke so she’d feel his whiskers against the delicate skin inside her thighs. She shifted her legs to maximize the friction.

When the noises coming out of her graduated to restless moans, and her thighs clamped and released in an impatient flutter around his head, he dragged her panties aside and finally put his mouth on her. Just her. No barriers.

She arched up, gasping. Her fingers dove into his hair and held onto him like he was the only thing anchoring her to the planet. He circled her slick clit with the tip of his tongue while she moaned her appreciation and rocked into his touch. Self-conscious Madison had officially left the building—at least for now. Slowly, he widened and expanded the route into a figure eight, edging closer to her threshold with each pass.

Her breath came in gusts. She bent one knee deeper and braced the sole of her boot on his shoulder. His collarbone became her stirrup, and he really didn’t care if she cracked it clean in half. He knelt there between her legs and slid his tongue right to the quivering rim.

With an edgy, “Yesssss,” she shifted her hips and took him in. He kept still and let her use his tongue as she saw fit—let her control how fast and deep she wanted him. She wanted him slow and tentative, at first, but with each undulation of her hips, she increased the depth and speed. When her moves got jerky and less precise, he took over. Banding his hands around the backs of her thighs, he spread her wide and speared into her until his lips became her backstop. Then he proceeded to fuck her with slow, deep, swirling thrusts. A breathless stream of, “ooh…ooh…ooh,” followed.

Those little noises eventually blended into a long, needful, “Ohhhhhh.” He switched tactics, closed his lips around the tight knot of nerves at the tip of her clit and sucked her in. She braced her other boot heel on his shoulder, bowed and vibrated like a high-tension wire. Her grip on his hair turned punishing, and his scalp burned from the intensity of the sensations barreling down on her. She pulsed in his mouth for one heartbeat…two…and cried out his name in a ragged breath as her orgasm crashed over them.

“
Now
the bedroom,” he said and hauled her still-trembling body into his arms. A few long strides brought them to his bed. He slid his arm out from under her legs and let the toes of her boots touch the floor.

She cuddled against him, warm and boneless, and cupped her palm against his cheek. He felt her smile against his chest, and then she pressed a kiss over his heart. Did she feel it racing like a fucking bullet train? A second later she tipped her head up and sent a lazy grin his way. Her misty eyes didn’t quite focus. “That was the best breakfast I ever had.”

The sly smile was impossible to resist. He leaned down and kissed her pliant, parted lips. When he raised his head they were both breathing heavy. “Baby, we’re nowhere near done with breakfast. That was just the first course. We haven’t even tried the condiments yet.”

Confusion stole over her face. “Condiments?”

He gestured to the lube and latex on his nightstand, and suddenly the lightness of the moment evaporated for him, because he thought about her arriving home yesterday afternoon, excited about her good news and her bag of treats. And he’d stayed out drinking and sulking because she couldn’t wait to not need him anymore.

But apparently she needed him for this, and he could deliver in motherfucking spades. He put a finger to the center of her chest and pushed. She staggered back. Her legs hit the bed and she landed on his mattress. “Be gentle with me.”

“You’re in the driver’s seat, Madison. Be gentle with
me
.” He unbuttoned his jeans, shoved them down, and kicked his feet free. Okay, sure, his engorged cock might have undermined his words, but hopefully she wasn’t too nervous. She’d handled him plenty in the last weeks, and she knew he could take his fair share of punishment.

The punishment started now, because she tugged off a boot and then tossed it over her shoulder. The second boot landed with a thud just seconds behind the first. Then she got to her knees on the bed and unbuttoned her skirt. The scrape of the zipper came next. Finally, she shimmied out of it, and tossed the skirt and her silky white panties to the floor. She knelt there in the center of his bed, facing him, the hem of the sweater reaching the tops of her thighs.

Blood pumped heavy in his veins, flowing like a river of fire into his dick, leaving him lightheaded at the thought of finally seeing her completely naked. No panties, no slouchy, threadbare T-shirt that drove him insane with everything it revealed—and everything it hid. He crawled onto the bed, cock leading the way, and reached for the hem of her sweater. She scrunched her arms across her middle. “My stomach’s still not…normal.”

“You’re beautiful.” He gave the sweater a tug, but she didn’t move her arms.

Her cheeks turned from a post-orgasmic pink to an embarrassed red. “I can’t compete with all this.” Her eyes raked down his stomach and then her fingers followed, stopping just below his navel. The pad of her index finger grazed the head of his cock and sent a current of electricity singing a path straight down his shaft and into his balls.