The bottle held high, he drizzled a stream into his open palm. His eyes gleamed as he rubbed his hands together, warming the lotion, warming her with his gaze.
He lifted her foot, cradling it like an antique china cup from her knickknack shelf. Strong fingers worked over her skin. Smooth lotion and callused hands rubbed a dichotomy of sensations along her nerves. Immersed in his touch and the scent of peaches, she could only close her eyes and moan.
Gray worked up her toes, along the top of her foot. "Metatarsal."
Lori's eyes snapped open. "What?"
Someone needed to tell him his language of love was sorely lacking.
He raised her foot to his mouth and kissed along her ankle reverently. "Tarsal. Special. Because it's yours."
She melted, totally and completely. Forget language. His hands spoke sonnets. His mouth kissed poetry.
"Fibula. Slim and perfect." His thumbs worked up her calf with tender reverence. Those doctor hands were so adept in nuances of the human body, and she reaped the full benefit of his training.
His mouth found her knee, working from front to back, tearing a low moan from her throat. An echoing groan rumbled in his throat. "Patella. So sensitive."
She totally agreed.
His fingers massaged a trek of homage up her thigh, higher, closer. "Femur and soft, creamy-white skin."
Lori slid her lazy lids open. "Pelvis?"
She knew that one and was past ready for him to find it.
Gray shook his head and cupped her waist. With slow deliberation, he rolled her to her stomach, her braid whipping to the side. His palm anchored her to the bed. Not that she could have moved her languid limbs.
She saw him reach for the bottle again just before she felt the cool trickle of lotion along her neck. Icy cold on fiery hot skin made her squirm. Tantalizingly the lotion trailed down her spine, pooling in the small of her waist, before continuing lower over her buttocks.
He lowered himself to rest on her back, the breadth of his chest covering her shoulders. His arousal nestled in the lotion at the small of her back. Gray blew against her neck, breathed in her ear. "Vertebrae."
The slow glide of his body against hers worked the lotion into her skin. Silky warmth and Gray against her left Lori writhing beneath him.
"Gray," she moaned.
"Want me to stop?"
"No!"
"What do you want?"
"To finish this damn science lesson."
His laugh breezed over her sensitive neck just before he rolled away.
She flipped to her side and watched him tear open the packet and sheath himself. He flung aside the wrapper and turned back to her. His knuckles grazed across her cheek, before he gathered her to his chest. "I'm sorry, hon, so damned sorry I can't give you that baby you want."
"Shhh." Couldn't they return to another lesson in Gray's Anatomy? At least then she didn't have to think about the outside world. "Don't talk about it now."
His finger fell to her mouth, outlining the tender pad of her bottom lip. "I tried, though, with Magda. I tried to give you the child you always wanted." His lips teased over the top of her head. "And I was right. You're so beautiful with her. You should have a houseful of them."
He stared down at her with eyes full of regret, his words filtering into her muddled brain.
Magda.
He'd wanted her to have a child of her own to love, and in the only way he could, he'd given her one.
Tears burned hot behind her eyes. Heaven help her, she tumbled the rest of the way in love with the beautiful, earnest, gorgeously flawed man over her. Not a very far tumble, after all, since she'd been teetering on the edge of loving him ever since the day she'd seen him plucking shrapnel from his leg, maybe even before that. This final nudge, however, might as well have been miles wide. There was no turning back.