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“Rory said you loved that trip.” He quirked a brow. “He also said you had the hots for a guy you met there.”
She rolled her eyes. “Tsintah. He helped with the mission construction projects. Gorgeous, feathery black hair, dark eyes, great facial bones and lots of muscles. Which we saw plenty of, since he was usually shirtless and wearing a toolbelt. All of us girls were eye-balling him. In hindsight, he was entirely too aware of that. Rory has big ears. I told Daralyn and Julie about him at Christmas that year.”
“You have to watch out for those Wilder kids. They like to listen outside of doors.”
She made a face at him. “I did love that trip. So much of first year is studying. Second year is where you finally get the chance to apply what you’re learning. Doing it for people who really need it makes it more of a charge. Mission trips are an in-your-face reminder of how much value preventive care provides, particularly to people who don’t have easy or routine access to doctors and hospital facilities.”
She glanced at the photo. “Who gives a shit about being a rockstar when you can give simple nutritional advice to a mother, and keep her kid from becoming a Type II diabetic before he turns eight?”
Brick came to sit on the edge of her bed, on the other side of the suitcase. He picked up a pair of her socks, which she liked to fold over into a ball to keep them together. He passed it from one hand to the other. “No disagreement there. I do school talks to teach kids about fire safety. Plus how to get themselves and their families clear of the house if it catches on fire. They really like that part.”
“Of course they do. It’s like an action movie or video game challenge. What age?”
“We try to hit them in elementary school and do a revisit at the higher grades. A few months ago, there was an apartment fire. The kid, a fifth grader, couldn’t get out of the master bedroom, but he remembered to stay low, and he got into the bathtub with his little sister. He’d covered both their faces and bodies with wet towels. His mom plays handbells for the local church, so he’d snagged a couple of those and was ringing the bejesus out of them. Led the search and rescue guys right to them.”
“Those tips came from your talks.”
“Well, me and the others who do it. That info saved his life and his sister’s, even though that kid’s guts, keeping calm and remembering it, made him the real hero.”
“But it feels good, to know you helped.”
“Sure does. Especially when we deal with the other crap. Like a mom and two kids burned up before there’s a damn thing we can do.”
Or a toddler dead because of what she hadn’t caught. Couldn’t anticipate.
She stared down at the suitcase. He put the folded socks back on top of her other clothes, then reached over them to clasp her hand and draw her around the edge of the mattress. As he brought her between his knees, her hands fell onto his shoulders to curl in the fabric of his shirt.
He touched his mouth to her breastbone, below the cross and charm. As he did, he ran his hands down her back, resting them on her hips and smoothing his palms over her backside in the skirt.
“Time to deal with what you’re feeling, doc. I want you to unbuckle my belt, pull it free. Offer it to me.”
Her heart did a somersault. In a slow blink, his eyes had gone from casual warmth to stern Dom, a look that licked heat between her thighs. The air between their two bodies seemed warmer, more compressed. The ache in her throat and stomach expanded, yet her heart reached for what he was offering, knowing it would help. She knew it would help.
“What are you going to do with it?”
“You don’t get to know that yet. But the end result is I’m going to have you here, plow you deep enough to leave a valley in the mattress I’m sitting on. When you come back, you’ll remember I was in this bed with you.”
If she came back. But she didn’t say that. Her voice wasn’t working right now, so she didn’t have to express that dampening thought. She thought he saw it anyway, because his jaw tightened. “Want to safeword?” he asked.
She shook her head. She reached for his waist, grazing the hard muscle there. Hooking her fingers in the buckle, she found the tongue of the belt and worked it free. When she tugged it loose, it came smoothly, because of how straight and tall he sat.
“Offer it to me,” he reminded her.
His steady expression told her to think about that, what it meant. She took a step back, dropped to her knees, and lifted it.
“Good.” He threaded it through his fingers and doubled it over. “Where’s your vibrator, Les?”
“What?” When his gaze became more piercing, she fumbled out the answer. “In the nightstand.”
“Put it in the suitcase.”
“Right now?”
“Yes. I want it within reach, and I don’t want you forgetting it. Do that, and then come stand in front of me.”
She rose and moved to the nightstand drawer. She had a Hitachi wand, what Beulah called the workhorse champion of all vibrators. “I don’t need a vibrator shaped like a boy part,” she’d told Les when they were in the adult store. “If I want a boy part, I’ll go find one attached to the real thing. This is what gets the job done when I don’t have time for more.”
For Les, that had been the rule rather than the exception. Until Brick.
