Tina Beckett - New York City Docs

He was asking. Not demanding. Not assuming, as he might have when they’d been together before.

Relief washed through her. “Yes. If you’re sure.”

“Honey, I’d like nothing better than to be pinned down by you in circumstances other than standing in a roomful of men watching our every move.”

Capoeira.

She grinned, her eyes holding his as her fears over Marcos began to fade. “You just don’t like to lose in front of a bunch of people.”

“I don’t like to lose at all. But what I have in mind has two winners and zero losers. And no one around to see the outcome except for us.”

He drew her a little closer and then bent down to give her a light kiss.

Unfortunately, he didn’t move to deepen the contact, and considering they were standing outside the hospital, that was a good thing. For both of them.

He didn’t release his hold on her, however. So his next words were whispered inches away from her lips, giving them an intimacy she was dying to explore.

“My place. My bed.” The promise from a week ago flowed over her skin, making her shiver.

“Your car?” She didn’t have a vehicle at the moment, preferring to zip around the huge city on public transport or her own two feet.

“I think we can make it to the apartment.”

Only after he’d said it did she realize he’d taken her question about how they were going to get to his place and expanded it to include whether or not they would even make it that far. Or whether they’d have to park his car and consummate things inside. As they’d done before.

An ambulance pulled into the circular drive in a blare of sirens and Clay finally lifted his head and backed up a pace. But he didn’t leave her totally without contact. Reaching down, he grabbed her hand, tugging her to his side. “Ready?”

She made a sound of affirmation that found her being towed behind him, his long steps requiring two of hers for every one of his. She didn’t care. All she knew was that she was going to feel him around her in a way that she hadn’t in four long years.

And she couldn’t wait.

Maybe they wouldn’t make it back to his apartment after all.

She managed to climb into his car with shaky legs and settle into place. She even managed to keep her hands to herself, although she couldn’t say the same of Clay. Because once they got out of the parking lot and onto the street, they were immediately caught up in a snarl of traffic that slowed to a crawl.

“Damn,” he muttered.

Double damn, she echoed in her head. Balling her hands together in her lap, she tried not to squirm on the leather upholstery beneath her thighs. Or dwell on the warm ache between those very same thighs.

Clay let go of the gearshift and dropped his palm onto her left leg, just above her knee. “This wasn’t quite what I had in mind, but…”

Her breath caught in her throat when his thumb brushed over the loose, gauzy fabric of her long skirt. The ache grew a little stronger.

The car in front of them crept forward a couple of inches, and Clay followed it, the slow pace evidently not requiring him to shift, since his hand stayed right where it was. In fact, his fingers ran in little waves of motion along her inner thigh in a way that caused the hem of her skirt to rise almost to her knee, where he caught it with his index finger and lifted it higher.

“Clay?” His name came out a bit strangled.

“Shh…” This time when his fingertips came back in contact with her it was against bare skin. “Who knows how long this ride is going to last? Just keeping you interested.”

Interested? She didn’t need him to do anything to hold her enthralled. And the only ride she wanted right now was one where she was straddling his hips and moaning.

His windows were darkly tinted, and between the streetlights and headlights she doubted anyone could see inside the vehicle. Still, when his hand changed legs and bunched the fabric up until it was halfway between her knees and her hips, her stomach tightened in anticipation, along with everything else.

He dragged his palm with painful slowness up her skin, raising goose bumps in its wake, his eyes never leaving the road. And yet, even without glancing at her once, he seemed to know the havoc he was wreaking on her mind… and her body.

Traffic moved forward another couple of feet, and suddenly Tessa wasn’t in such a hurry to arrive at their destination.

He continued to tease with light strokes up… down… across, never quite reaching his destination. Eventually, she couldn’t take it any longer and her eyelids slammed shut, unable to concentrate on anything other than what Clay was doing, how he made her feel.

And it was incredible. She trusted him not to go so far that he would get them both arrested, even as she turned her body over to him, allowing him to do things she never would have let anyone else do.

Because she did trust him.

Wanted him.

Despite their past.

And when he got them home she was going to show him exactly how much.

His fingers slid between her thighs and urged them a few inches apart with a gentle pressure that she immediately responded to, although she did have enough common sense to reach down and flip the fabric of her skirt down over his hand and her knees.

“No fair, Tessa.” He ventured higher, wringing an unwilling moan from her throat, her head lolling back against the seat. “I’m beginning to think I should have chosen the car option.”

She felt the vehicle move forward again. Each time it did, Clay seemed to grow a little bolder.

When he withdrew his hand completely, though, her eyes jerked open in disappointment.

“Truck,” he murmured, as a big vehicle rumbled forward and moved twenty yards ahead of them.

Thinking she’d give him a taste of his own medicine, she twisted on her seat and moved her hand to the gearshift, sliding her fingers over the top of it and then down its stem, watching him. He wasn’t looking but she knew he was aware of exactly what she was doing—of the game she was playing.

“Dangerous.”

“No more dangerous than what you were doing,” she whispered.

“I’m driving.”

Yeah, driving me insane. She didn’t say it out loud, though, because it sounded stupid, even to her own ears. But it was true. And Clay knew it was. He always did somehow, even when she’d tried to hide how devastating his touch was to her. And when he’d shown up at her dorm room she’d kept the door between them, knowing that if he touched her it was all over.

It always would be for her.

That fact should make her wary, should make her back away from him emotionally, even now. That’s what she was trying to do, actually. Accept that they’d always been more than compatible physically, even if they weren’t good as life partners.

She needed to be self-sufficient. He’d tended to smother… trying to take care of her, even when she’d longed to do things herself.

Traffic opened up suddenly, and Clay spent the next few minutes threading his vehicle through the congestion, making several turns before finally veering into the parking garage of what looked like an exclusive apartment building.

Of course it would be.

Even as the thought ran through her mind, she banished it. The brownstone she lived in wasn’t exactly a pauper’s abode, thanks to Holly’s family. Besides, tonight wasn’t about houses or money or anything else. It was about her needs and Clay’s needs and how they could come together to find a mutually satisfying solution.

The second he pulled his car into a space and shut off the engine he threaded his fingers through her hair and turned her face up for his kiss. And as soon as his lips met hers she knew there was no turning back. She and Clay were destined to reignite the fires of the past. She just hoped that when it was all over she’d have the strength and courage to put them out again.