Authors: Brenda Jackson
Kalina glanced over at the doctor who was checking out the bruise on her arm. “What?”
“Having to treat another doctor.”
Kalina laughed. “Hey, I wasn’t
that
bad, Dr. Parker.”
“No.” The older doctor nodded while grinning. “I understand you were worse. According to the paramedics, you wouldn’t let them work on you until they’d checked out the person who was driving the other car. The one who ran the red light and caused the accident.”
“Only because I knew I was fine. She’s the one whose air bag deployed,” Kalina said.
“Yes, but still, you deserved to be checked out as much as she did.”
Kalina didn’t say anything as she remembered the accident. She hadn’t seen it coming. She had picked up all the things she needed from the store and was on her way back to Micah’s Manor when out of nowhere, a car plowed into her from the side. She could only be thankful that she’d been driving Micah’s heavy-duty truck and not a small car. Otherwise, her injuries would have been more severe.
“I don’t like the look of this knot on your head. I should keep you overnight for observation.”
Kalina shook her head. “Don’t waste a bed. I’ll be fine.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t have to tell you about head injuries, do I, Dr. Daniels?”
She rolled her eyes. “No, sir, you don’t.”
“Are you living alone?”
“No, I’m visiting someone in this area. I think your nurse has already called Micah.”
The doctor looked at her. “Micah? Micah Westmoreland?”
Kalina smiled. “Yes. You know him?”
The doctor nodded. “Yes, I went to high school with his father. I know those Westmorelands well. It was tragic how they lost their parents, aunt and uncle in that plane crash.”
“Yes, it was.”
“The folks around here can’t help admiring how they all stuck together in light of that devastation, and now all of them have made something of themselves, even Bane. God knows we’d almost given up on him, but now I understand that he’s—”
Suddenly the privacy curtain was snatched aside, and Micah stood there with a terrified look on his face. “Kalina!”
And before she could draw her next breath, he had crossed the floor and pulled her into his arms.
Ten
B
ack at Micah’s Manor, Kalina, who was sitting comfortably on the sofa, rolled her eyes. “If you ask me one more time if I’m okay, I’m going to scream. Read my lips, Micah. I’m fine.”
Micah drew in a deep breath. He knew he was being anal, but he couldn’t help it. When he’d received a call from that nurse about Kalina’s accident, he’d lost it. It was a good thing Derringer had been there. There was probably no way he could have driven to the hospital without causing his own accident. He’d been that much of a basket case.
“Don’t fall asleep, Kalina. If you do, I’m only going to wake you up,” he warned.
She shook her head. “Micah, have you forgotten I’m a doctor, as well. I’m familiar with the dos and don’ts following a head injury. But, like I told Dr. Parker at the hospital, I’m fine.”
“And I intend to make sure you stay that way.” Micah crossed the room to her, leaned down and placed a kiss on her lips.
He straightened and glanced down at her. “I don’t think you know how I felt when I received that call, Kal. It reminded me so much of the call I got that day from Dillon, telling me about Mom, Dad, Uncle Thomas and Aunt Susan. I was at the university, in between classes, and it seemed that everything went black.”
She nodded slowly, hearing the pain in his voice. “I can imagine.”
He shook his head. “No, honestly, you can’t.” He sat down beside her. “It was the kind of emotional pain and fear I’d hoped never to experience again. But I did today, when I got that call about you.”
She stared at him for a few moments and then reached over and took his hand in hers. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to do that to you.”
He sighed deeply. “It wasn’t your fault. Accidents happen. But if I didn’t know before, I know now.”
She lifted a brow. “You know what?”
“How much I care for you.” He gently pulled her onto his lap. “I know you’ve been thinking that I’ve been acting moody and out of sorts for the past couple of days, but I wanted so much for you to believe I’m not the person you think I am.”
She wrapped her arms around him, as well. “I know. And I also know that’s why you didn’t want to make love to me.”
She twisted around in his arms to face him. “You were wasting both our time by doing that, you know. I realized even before leaving India that you hadn’t lied to me about our affair in Sydney.”
He pulled back, surprised. “You had?”
“Yes. I had accepted what you said as the truth before I agreed to come here to Denver with you.”
She smiled. “I figured that you
had
to be telling the truth, otherwise, you were taking a big risk in bringing me here to meet your family. But then I knew for a fact that you had been telling the truth once you got me here and wanted to put a hold on our lovemaking. You were willing to do without something I knew you really wanted just to prove yourself to me. You really didn’t have to.”
He covered her hand with his. “I felt that I did have to do it. Someone once told me that sacrifices today will result in dividends tomorrow, and I wanted you for my dividend. I love you, Kalina.”
“And I love you, too. I realized that before coming here, as well. That night you took me dancing and I felt something in the way you held me, in the way you were talking to me. That night, I knew the truth in what you had been trying to tell me. And I knew the truth about what my feelings were for you.”
She quieted for a moment and then said, “Although there’s not an excuse for my father’s actions, I believe I know why he did what he did. He’s always been controlling, but I never thought he would go that far. I was wrong. And I was wrong for not believing you in the first place.”
He shook his head. “No, like I said, you didn’t know me. We had an affair that was purely sexual. The only commitment we’d made was to share a bed. It didn’t take me long to figure out that I wanted more from you. That night you ended things was the night I had planned on telling you how I felt. Afterward, I was angry that you didn’t believe in me, that you actually thought I didn’t care, that I would go along with your father about something like that.”
He paused. “When I came home, I told Dillon everything and he suggested that I straighten things out. But my pride wouldn’t let me. I wasted two years being angry, but the night I saw you again I knew that no matter what, I would make you mine.”
“No worries then,” Kalina said, reaching up and cupping his chin. “I am yours.”
He inhaled sharply when her fingers slid beneath his T-shirt to touch his naked skin over his heart. It seemed the moment she touched him that heat consumed him and spread to every part of his body. Although he tried playing it down, his desire for her was magnified to a level he hadn’t thought possible.
All he could think about was that he’d almost lost her and the fear that had lodged in his throat had made it difficult to breathe. And now she was here, back at his manor, where she belonged. He knew then that he would always protect her. Not control her like her old man tended to do, but to protect her.
“Make love to me, Micah.”
Her whispered request swept across his lips. “I need you inside me.”
Micah studied her thoughtfully. He saw the heat in her eyes and felt the feverishness of her skin. Other than that one time on the sofa, he hadn’t touched her since coming to Denver, wanting her to get to know the real him. Well, at that moment, the real him wanted her with a passion that he felt even in the tips of his fingers. She knew him, and she loved him, just as he loved her.
“What about your head?” he whispered, standing, sweeping her into his arms and moving toward the stairs.
She wrapped her arms around him and chuckled against his neck. “My head is fine, but there is another ache that’s bothering me. To be quite honest with you, it was bothering me a long time before the accident. It’s the way my body is aching to be touched by you. Loved by you. Needed by you.”
Just how he made it up the stairs to his bedroom, he wasn’t sure. All he knew was that he had placed her in the middle of his bed, stripped off her clothes and taken off his own clothes in no time at all. He stood at the foot of the bed, gazing at her. He let his eyes roam all over her and knew there was nothing subtle about how he was doing it.
This was the first time she had been in his bed, but he had fantasized about her being here plenty of times. Even during the last five days, when he’d known she was sleeping in the bedroom above his, he had wanted her here, with him. More than once, he had been tempted to get up during the night and go to her, to forget about the promise of not touching her until she had gotten to know him. It had been hard wanting her and vowing not to touch her.
And she hadn’t made it easy. At times she had deliberately tried tempting him again. She would go shopping with his cousins and then parade around in some of the sexiest outfits a store could sell. But he had resisted temptation.
But not now. He didn’t plan on resisting anything, especially not the naked woman stretched out in the middle of his huge bed looking as if she belonged there. He intended to keep her there.
“I love you,” he said in a low, gravelly voice filled with so much emotion he had to fight from getting choked. “I knew I did, but I didn’t know just how much until I got that phone call, Kalina. You are my heart. My soul. My very reason for existing.”
He slowly moved toward the bed. “I never knew how much I cherished this part of our relationship until it was gone. I can’t go back and see it as ‘just sex’ anymore. Not when I can distinctively hear, in the back of my mind, all your moans of pleasure, the way you groan to let me know how much you want me. Not when I remember that little smile that lets me know just how much you are satisfied. No, we never had sex. We’ve always made love.”
Kalina breathed in Micah’s scent as he moved closer to her. Not wanting to wait any longer, she rose up in the bed and met him. When he placed his knee on the bed, they tumbled back into the bedcovers together. At that moment, everything ceased to exist except them.
As if she needed to make sure this moment was real, she reached out and touched his face, using her fingertips to caress the strong lines of his features. But she didn’t stop there, she trailed her fingers down to his chest, feeling the hard muscles of his stomach. Her hands moved even lower, to the hardest part of him, cupping him. She thought, for someone to be so hard, there were certain parts of him that were smooth as a baby’s behind.
“What are you doing to me?” he asked in a tortured groan when she continued to stroke him.
She met his gaze. “Staking my claim.”
He chuckled softly. “Baby, trust me. You staked your claim two years ago. I haven’t been able to make love to another woman since.”
Micah knew the moment she realized the truth of what he’d said. The smile that touched her features warmed him all over, made him appreciate that he was a man, the man who had
this
woman.
Not being able to wait any longer, he leaned over and brushed a kiss against her lips. Then he moved his mouth lower to capture a nipple in his mouth and suck on it.
She arched against him, and he appreciated her doing so. He increased the suction of his mouth, relishing the taste of her while thinking of all the hours he’d lain in this bed awake and aroused, knowing she’d been only one floor away.
“Micah.”
The tone of her voice alerted him that she needed him inside that part of her that was aching. Releasing her nipple, he eased her down in the bed. Before he moved in place between her legs, he had to taste her. He shifted his body to bury his head between her legs.
* * *
Kalina screamed the moment Micah’s tongue swept inside her. The tip of it was hot and determined. And the way it swirled inside her had her senses swirling in unison. She was convinced that no other man could do things with their tongue the way he could. He was devouring her senseless, and she couldn’t do anything but lie there and moan.
And then she felt it, an early sign that a quake was about to happen. The way her toes began tingling while her head crested with sensations that moved through every part of her.
She sucked in a deep breath, and it was then that she saw he had sensed what was about to happen and had moved in place over her. The hardness of him slid through her wetness, filling her and going beyond.
She was well aware of the moment when their bodies locked. He gazed down at her, and their eyes connected. He was about to give her the ride of her life, and she needed it. She wanted it.
He began moving, thrusting in and out of her while holding her gaze. She felt it. She felt him. There was nothing like the feeling of being made love to by the one man who had your heart. Your soul.
He kept moving, thrusting, pounding into her as if making up for lost time, for misunderstandings and disagreements. She wouldn’t delude herself into thinking those things wouldn’t happen again, but now they would have love to cushion the blows.
At that moment, he deliberately curved his body to hit her at an angle that made her G-spot weep. It triggered her scream, and she exploded at the same time as he did. They clung to each other, limbs entwined, bodies united. She sucked up air along with his scent. And moments later, when the last remnants of the blast flittered away from her, she collapsed against Micah, moaning his name and knowing she had finally christened his bed.
Their bed.
* * *
The next two weeks flowed smoothly, although they were busy ones for the Westmoreland family. Gemma and Callum were returning to christen their firstborn. Ramsey and Chloe had consented to be godparents.
All the out-of-towners were scheduled to arrive by Thursday. Most had made plans to stay at nearby hotels, but others were staying with family members. Jason and his wife, Bella, had turned what had been the home she’d inherited from her grandfather into a private inn just for family when they came to visit.