Private Practice (11 page)

He nodded and leaned closer, until she could smell the mint of his toothpaste. “Yeah. Running into you in Lexington was completely unexpected. I’m sure you figured out I wasn’t there buying stuff for a party. We should probably get together and talk. In private. If you’re free tonight I could make dinner for us at my place?”

Holy smokes, Roger wanted to have dinner with her! Things were suddenly progressing.
Too fast
, a voice in her head protested. She wasn’t ready. Especially not after what she’d seen last night of Melody’s talents.

She couldn’t possibly spend an evening alone with Roger until she’d at least mastered chapters 3 and 6 and a wild card—ideally, chapter 13—assuming she could talk Tyler into it. Strangely, while the thought of attempting any or all the lessons with Tyler sent bone-melting heat all the way to her toes, the notion of trying any of the
Wild Woman
tactics on Roger caused her insides to twist painfully. Anxiety, she surmised. Tyler made sex fun and exciting. She didn’t have to pretend to be a talented, worldly woman. Roger, on the other hand, sought an inventive, experienced partner.

“I can’t tonight. How about…”
Buy some time
! “…later this weekend?”

He shook his head. “I leave early Friday for a weekend getaway. A friend and I are headed to Miami. How about dinner Monday after I get back?”

Perfect. Several days to work on her skills and her nerve. “Monday works. Since you’ll be fresh from vacation, I’ll make dinner at my place.” She hoped her smile didn’t look as stiff as it felt.

He smiled back, looking a little stiff, too. “In the meantime, I’d really appreciate it if you wouldn’t discuss…um…you know…what you saw in Lexington.”

“Of course not.” Spotting her drink on the counter, she reached out to retrieve it. “I won’t tell a soul I spotted Bluelick’s newest lawyer at Slap & Tickle if you won’t tell anyone you saw the town doctor there.”

He tapped his to-go cup against hers. “You got yourself a deal, Sparky. I’ll see you Monday.”

My plan is finally coming together
, she thought as she crossed the town square on the way to her office. Neither the caffeine nor the smell of southern magnolias bordering the square accounted for her improved energy. A date with Roger charged her system better than aromatherapy or a double espresso. She was so preoccupied planning what she’d say to him when they were finally alone and able to speak freely, she completely forgot the other reason for her restless night.

Forgot, that is, until she walked through the front door of her office and nearly tripped over Melody, who was arranging the magazines on the waiting room end table closest to the door. The blonde immediately straightened and smoothed her hands down the skirt of her peach-printed sundress.

“Hi, Ellie. Sorry, I know I’m early.” She glanced around the waiting room, as if not sure where to let her gaze rest, then looked at Ellie, swallowed and continued. “I aimed to get here early in case you wanted to…you know”—she looked away again and smiled thinly—“fire me.”

“Oh, God no.” She clamped a hand on Melody’s arm. “I was afraid you were going to quit.”

Melody shook her head. “I love this job. I don’t want to lose it.” She closed her eyes and cringed. “I can’t believe I did something so crazy and unprofessional.”

“Um, wasn’t it you who walked in on Tyler and me kissing in exam room one a few weeks ago? I’d be kind of a hypocrite, calling
you
unprofessional.”

“This was worse. I don’t know what I was thinking. Actually, that’s not true. I was thinking it had been so
damn
long since a gorgeous, sexy, incredibly attentive guy literally wanted to tear my clothes off and have his merry way with me. And then I just completely stopped thinking.”

“Who could blame you?” Ellie quickly reassured her, all the while wondering why Roger didn’t qualify. Pushing the question aside, she added, “Not any healthy, red-blooded woman in the county between the ages of eighteen and eighty, because I hear there’s been a suspicious uptick in small kitchen fires since Chief Bradley landed in Bluelick.”

A smile pulled at the corners of Melody’s mouth before she turned and led the way through the waiting room and into the front office area, stopping at the counter where the day’s charts were already racked. “I really am sorry, and mortified, and I promise, nothing like last night will ever happen again.”

“Hey, for your sake, I hope it happens all the time, just not anyplace where a bonehead like me will bumble along.”

“Oh, you’re not a bonehead. I’m sure you were terrified, and then horrified.”

“Try surprised, and then relieved. Honestly, Melody, don’t give the incident another thought. I know you didn’t plan it.”

“I didn’t. I hadn’t even planned on seeing Josh last night, much less getting naked with the man. But I ran into him at Boone’s Market and it felt so good, talking with him, feeling that zing of attraction when he looked at me, realizing he felt the same chemistry. When he invited me to take a tour of the firehouse, I knew we were both looking for an excuse to spend more time together. But the firehouse is a busy place, full of other firefighters and what have you, so afterward, I offered to take him on a tour of my workplace. As soon as we were alone, things just sort of ignited. I really am sorry. Josh is, too.”

“Don’t worry about it.” She started to turn toward her office, then stopped and looked at Melody. “So…are you going to see Chief Bradley again?”

“You’ve seen him as naked as a newborn, Ellie. I think under the circumstances, you should call him Josh.”

“You’re evading the question, Miss Merritt.”

“Yes,” she said softly. “He asked me to dinner Friday night. I accepted before I could talk myself out of it.”

“Why would you want to talk yourself out of it?”

“Please. I’ve got ‘woman in transition’ written all over me, and I know it. I’m coming off a long-term relationship and a broken engagement. My head’s telling me stuff like, ‘Take things slow. Have fun. Don’t dive into anything serious.’”

“Sounds logical.”

“Yeah. Too bad my heart took one look at Josh and said, ‘Mine, mine, mine!’”

“It’s a little-known medical fact. The heart’s got a mind of its own. I guess yours is over Roger, then?”

The overhead lights bounced off Melody’s shimmering tresses as she nodded. “For a long time. We’d drifted into friendship well before we called our engagement off. It just took us a while to admit as much to each other.”

Ellie weighed her options. She was beginning to think of Melody as a friend, but what did the rules of friendship dictate in this situation? Should she give Melody a heads-up before dating her ex? Ellie’s conscience said yes.

“Okay, well, the thing is…” She took a deep, fortifying breath. “Roger and I are going on a date when he gets back from vacation.”

Her statement hung in the air. Melody’s eyes widened and her eyebrows almost disappeared into her hairline. “Roger asked you out?”

Melody didn’t sound angry so much as shocked. Crap. She shouldn’t have said anything.

“He did. We’re having dinner at my place.” Deciding honesty was the best policy, she went on. “I’ve always liked Roger. In school, I had a big crush on him. Now that we’re both back in Bluelick, I realize my crush never completely faded, but maybe evolved into something new. I think he sees me in a new light, too.”

As Ellie watched, Melody’s peaches-and-cream complexion turned a fierce shade of red. “You’re mad,” Ellie said.

“Not with you, no. But I’m mad as hell at him because—because—” She closed her eyes and took a slow, measured breath before continuing. “I can’t even tell you why I’m upset, because I can’t think of a way to explain without breaking a promise. But it’s not because I’m some crazy, jealous ex.” She rubbed a hand over her forehead and stared hard at the wall, obviously weighing her words. “I don’t want to see somebody else’s time wasted.”

Did Melody assume she’d run for the hills as soon as she found out Roger liked to get kinky?

She cleared her throat and stared her very own hole through the wall. “I…ah…I know what I’m getting into.”

The door to the waiting room opened. Sweet little old Ms. Van Hendler, the first patient of the day, toddled in and approached the window.

Melody gave Ellie a strained look and handed her the chart. “I know you think you do, but you don’t. I know I’m not making any sense. Just remember, I’m here for you.”

“What was that, dear?” Ms. Van Hendler piped in.

Melody smiled, “I said, ‘Ms. Van Hendler, we’re clear for you.’ Come on back.” With that, she got up to show the patient into the exam room.

Ellie released a pent-up breath and fanned her flaming face with the chart.
That went well
.

Chapter Twelve

“Ready, Doc?” Tyler asked, and tossed her onto his bed. He liked the way she looked, lying across his sheets in nothing but a red satin bra and some very small matching panties. When she smiled and nodded, he wrapped a hand around her ankle and started kissing his way to chapter 3. Hopefully they’d get all the way through this time.

He didn’t get far before she tugged her foot away and sat up. “Wait. What are you doing?”

Although he knew damn well what she was getting at, he couldn’t resist teasing. “Doc, if you have to ask, you probably ought to study that guide of yours again.” He made a grab for her ankle. She twisted like an eel and scrambled off the bed.

“You’ve got this backward again. I’m supposed to do you. Tyler, you
promised
you’d let me take the lead.”

He sighed and lowered himself to the mattress. “I said I’d try.”

“Well, try harder.”

“Okay, fine.” He settled back against his sturdy, hand-hewn oak headboard. “It’s your show.”

“Good.”

Lord, she was adorable, standing there in scraps of red satin, hair tousled, looking like she’d just won a wrestling match. But then her victory smile slipped some.

“Problem?”

Her brow knitted, she bit her lip, and it took every ounce of willpower he possessed not to yank her back down of the bed, crush those pouty lips to his, and take charge until they were both begging for mercy.

“Yes. According to the illustration in my book, you’re supposed to sit here.” She pointed to the edge of the bed.

“Where are you going to be?”

“I’ll be down here, on the floor.” She knelt beside the bed.

The button fly of his jeans turned into a torture device at the sight, but he couldn’t help playing with her a little more. “Seems needlessly uncomfortable for you. The bed is plenty big.” Parting his legs, he patted the mattress between them invitingly.

She considered his proposal for a moment, chewing her lip the whole time, and slowly shook her head. “No. I think we should stick to the book.”

“Okay.” He assumed the preferred position and gave her a quick squeeze with his knees. “But for a wild woman, you’re awfully strict on the logistics.” His amusement dried up when she rested her hands on his thighs.

“Wild woman in training,” she corrected, and reached for his fly.

He intercepted her hand. “Just hold on a minute. This book of yours says just sit the guy down, whip it out, and get to work?”

She frowned and he could practically hear the gears in her mind turning while she mentally reviewed everything she’d read. “Um, I guess they didn’t really cover any particular lead-in. Is there something I’m supposed to do first?”

“You could try touching me.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere you want. Gently,” he added when her eyes zoomed in on his crotch.

She nodded and, to his surprise, placed her hands on his knees. Slowly, she ran them up his thighs, following the inseams of his jeans. He held his breath when she reached the top, then expelled it slowly as she trailed her hands down again.

“Wasn’t so tough, was it?”

Her eyes flicked to his. “No. To be honest, I’ve got kind of a thing about your legs.” Her hands started up again, this time her thumbs leading the way. His cock began throb impatiently.

“That so?” The words scraped over his throat like sandpaper.

“Umm-hmm. They’re long and muscular. I’ve been wondering if those muscles felt as good as they look.” Having reached the top of his inseam, she shifted her hands around to the front of his thighs and squeezed. “They do.”

Holy shit, he was going to die.

“Anything else you’ve been wondering about?”

Nodding, she scooted closer, grabbed the hem of his T-shirt, and gave it a little tug. Obligingly, he lifted his arms and she swept it over his head. After tossing the shirt away, her eyes found his. She rested her hands on his pecs and just stared at him for a long moment. Then her eyes dropped and her breath shuddered out in a rush.

“Good lord, Tyler, you’re like a work of art.”

The reverence in her voice sent heat creeping up his neck. “I’ve been called a lot of things, Doc, but never art.”

“Well, it’s true,” she insisted, and slid her palms down his chest and along his stomach. She stopped there, her hands moving restlessly back and forth over his painfully tight abs. “What happened here?” she asked, fingers tracing the pale scar slashed down his side. “Another wild night at Rawley’s?”

The scar was a souvenir from Big Joe, but he wasn’t about to bring his dearly departed daddy into the evening. “No, it’s old…”

His explanation ended in a groan when she lowered her head and ran her lips along the jagged line. He buried his hand in her hair and dragged her head up for a long, hot kiss. When he eased back, she pressed her forehead against the underside of his jaw and inhaled slowly.

“Anything else you want to touch, Doc?”

Her eyes dropped to his lap. “Now?”

“Now would be awesome.”

She slipped one hand into the front of his jeans, nails scraping lightly under the waistband of his shorts on her quest to find him. He surged up to meet those roving fingers and suddenly, circulation became a critical thing. Groaning, he tugged at his fly. Like a homing pigeon, her free hand followed and their fingers tangled in a frantic race to pop the buttons. Finally, they had his jeans open, his shorts shoved down, and her hand banded around his brutally sensitive cock.

He watched, halfway between amused and agonized, as she looked down and sucked in a breath.

“I’d forgotten all about
your
nickname until now.”

He laughed, even though her busy hands were fast eliminating his ability to think straight. “What nickname?”

“Footlong Longfoot.”

“And here I thought people were talking about my feet.”

She laughed, as he’d hoped, and ran her hand slowly, tentatively up his shaft. Figuring a teacher’s job was to teach, he covered her hand with his and showed her how he liked to be touched. His attentive student followed his lead. After a minute of sheer heaven, she spoke up.

“Tyler, I think my experts might have assumed, ah, smaller dimensions when they wrote chapter 3. I’m not sure I can do this exactly as they instructed.”

“What you’re doing right now works fine—”

Before he realized her intent, she ducked her head and kissed the tip of his dick.

“Well, okay, then…that works, too…”

Parting her lips just enough to take him in, keeping the seal tight, she inched lower…and lower.

His eyelids drooped to half-mast and his vision went blurry. “More,” he begged, even though she was probably approaching the most she could take. He swept his thumb lightly along her jaw and, God bless her, she took more. When she hummed deep in her throat and retraced her path, he felt the vibrations all the way to the soles of his feet. It took considerable effort not to whimper.

Maybe he did whimper, because she lifted her head and looked at him. “Was that okay?”

Somehow found his voice. “Ellie, you do that to any man, he’s going to be promising you diamond earrings…a weekend in Paris…whatever you want.”

She smiled and lowered her head again, and it was just as amazing the second time, but now, thanks to his comment, he had the thought of her doing the very same thing to some other guy stuck in his head. Not just stuck there, but
messing
with it. Suddenly, he hated the idea of being her tutor, her guinea pig, her stepping-stone to something bigger and better. With a vague, restless determination to show her he was the biggest and best, he pulled her up and tossed her onto the bed.

She landed on her back and immediately sat up. “Hey! I wasn’t done yet—”

“You’ve got the gist of chapter 3,” he ground out as he kicked off his jeans and shorts. “Consider this a two-fer.”

…

“A two-fer?” Ellie repeated and watched him close in on her. “What does that mean?” She wished she knew why being manhandled by Tyler made her weak in the knees, but Lord help her, it did. It really did. But when he started to drag her panties down, another thought occurred to her.

“Hold on.” She scooted out of his grasp.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. It’s just that plain old missionary style isn’t one of the lessons I bookmarked. I’ve done missionary before.”

He looked at her for a full second, his expression unreadable. “Chapter 10,” he growled, and in a heart-stopping move, flipped her over. With a strong arm under her hips, he hauled her onto her knees and elbows. The suddenness of his actions jostled a squeak from her throat.

“Shh,” he whispered and smoothed his wide palm over her hip, mistaking her reaction for nervousness. “We’ll take it slow.”

At this point, as far as she was concerned, he could take it any way he damn well pleased, so long as he took, but still she couldn’t help mentioning, “You’re going out of order.”

He reached beyond her and snagged a small packet from his nightstand. Her insides trembled.

“News flash, Doc. Order’s overrated. Besides, you’ve spent enough time staring at my ass. Seems past time I returned the favor.”

With that, he tore her panties off. She gasped, but when his tongue took a long, unhurried slide down her spine, all the way to the small of her back, the gasp edged over into a moan. He kissed a line across the top of one bare cheek, then the other. Meanwhile his fingers delved between her legs, stroking, teasing…forcing her breath to come in ragged pants.

“Tyler…please.”

“I
am
here to please,” he whispered against her skin. “Tell me what you want.”

“You. Inside me. Now.”

“At your service,” he said with such playful tenderness she didn’t know whether to laugh or burst into tears. Then she felt the hot, heavy length of him slide down her backside and all she wanted to do was hurry. She couldn’t help arching and lifting to help him along any more than she could bite back a low, needy cry when he insinuated himself between her thighs—a cry that merged with his groan of pleasure when he nudged forward until he just barely penetrated her.

“Oh, God. Hurry,” she managed.

He kissed her shoulder, her neck. His voice rumbled in her ear, “Slow and steady.”

Slow and steady?
She couldn’t afford slow or steady…she’d lose her mind in another thirty seconds if he didn’t do something to assuage the ache building to an unbearably sweet crisis. She pushed backward, trying to take him deeper.

Hands on her hips held her still. “I’m the boss, remember?”

“Tutor,” she panted.

“Whatever.”

She concentrated on breathing while he did his slow and steady thing, using controlled thrusts to ease himself in. Braced on one arm, he swept his hand over her breast, cupping the underside, tormenting her nipple until she moaned. The need building where their bodies joined was so big, so consuming, she couldn’t think beyond it.

“Jesus, you feel good. Hot and tight.” His fingers glided between her thighs. “Wet.”

She couldn’t have held still if her life depended on it. Forehead pressed to the pillow, she moved her hips in a shallow, rocking motion, the best she could do with the backstop of his body pressed so tight to hers.

He wouldn’t be rushed, just wrapped his arm around her waist and continued to move slowly, stretch her slowly, fill her slowly, until she thought she’d die from pleasure. Finally, when he was buried deep and she could feel every hot, pulsing inch of him inside her, he whispered, “You ready, Ellie?”

Her body clenched around him in answer.

With a rough groan, he drove into her, unleashing a series of fast, powerful thrusts that rocketed her right to the gates of heaven. The rhythmic slap of their bodies echoed in her ears while she knelt there, sheets bunched in her fists, face buried in the pillow, control and dignity somewhere far beyond her reach and she didn’t give a damn because ecstasy shimmered so incredibly close. Frantic for release, she bucked and strained, and bit back a sob because try as she might, she couldn’t quite get there.

Tyler made a sympathetic sound and skimmed his fingers down between her legs again. Incoherent with gratitude, she pressed herself into his helping hand. Then he thumbed the unbearably sensitive trigger that shot her headlong into a sweet, sweeping oblivion. She cried out and lost herself in the free fall.

Minutes, or hours, later, she shook herself out of a pleasure-induced stupor and took inventory. She lay naked across blissfully cool sheets in something very close to a boneless puddle. Warm, nimble lips nibbled their way along her shoulder while talented fingertips traced curlicues down her spine. When they moved on to her butt, she forced her eyes open and found herself adrift in Tyler’s clear green gaze.

Why couldn’t all her relationships be this easy? Her situation with Frank was fraught with unresolved, and possibly unresolvable, issues. She hadn’t maintained anything close to a simple employer-employee relationship with Melody. But this thing with Tyler worked perfectly.

Aglow with the foolproof simplicity of their arrangement, she smiled at him.

“Doc, which complete moron from your past convinced you your bedroom skills needed work?”

She blew out a breath and her happy glow dimmed a little because she couldn’t be completely honest with him about her motives. “It’s not like that. I mean, nobody complained. I just felt like I needed to push myself out of my comfort zone, so to speak.” To avoid his inevitable “why,” she rushed on. “Haven’t you ever felt like you needed to change in order to make your dreams come true?”

He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling, forearm resting across his forehead. “Yeah, just lately. I think that was the bank’s message to me, in a nutshell. Want a loan on the Browning place? Start behaving like a responsible, grown-ass man.”

“They’re off base in their assessment.”

One corner of his mouth lifted in a half smile. “Nah, they’ve got some valid points. I tend to please myself, do things my own way, and I don’t worry overly much about the future. These traits make me a reliability risk in the bank’s eyes. They want to see some investment
from
me—in my business and my life—before they make one
in
me.”