Being so close to her after a week of strained celibacy filled his body with a fine tension. He rose to his feet. “You still haven’t eaten lunch. I hate to beat a dead horse, but I’m not willing to see you back in the shape you were in before.” He reached out a hand to help her to her feet.
“I’ll eat, I swear. But Hutch...” She looked up at him, her eyes sparkling.
“What?”
“I’m feeling lots better.”
The look on her face spelled trouble for him. Especially because he hadn’t decided what he wanted from her or what Simone needed from him. “I’m glad,” he said, pretending to misunderstand her artless invitation.
“Are you going to make me beg?” She wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her cheek right over his heart—or what was left of it.
He’d spent hours wondering why this woman still had the power to move him. It was more than the past they shared, though that was part of it. It was also more than the fact that he felt protective of her as a mother-to-be in the midst of a high-risk pregnancy.
Even now, he was afraid to name the emotion that made him hold her close. He wouldn’t cheapen it by calling it lust. But he couldn’t say it was love. He’d loved two women in his life, and both relationships had ended badly. Maybe he was using Simone. Maybe she was using him. In the end, what did it matter? They were emotionally and physically entangled, for better or for worse.
“I assume you’re talking about sex?”
She leaned back and scowled at him. “Don’t be so stuffy, Doctor.”
“You still haven’t eaten your lunch.” Though he tried to stave off the inevitable, he was hard and ready. And he was pretty sure Simone knew it.
“Bring me the damned sandwich,” she said.
“And the soup.”
“Oh. My. Gosh. You’re going to drive me insane.”
He scooped her up in his arms and dumped her on the bed. “I’d say that’s a two-way street.” He liked carrying her. Some people thought doctors had a God complex. Hutch didn’t. At least, he didn’t think so. However, he would cop to being an inveterate caretaker. It was in his blood.
When he grabbed the food and turned back around, he stumbled. Simone had stripped off her top and bra and was starting in on the rest of her clothes. “You said you would eat,” he pointed out. It was hard to speak because his throat was so dry.
She crooked a finger. “I didn’t say when.”
Even a highly trained medical professional had his limits. He abandoned the meal tray so quickly it was a wonder he didn’t spill tomato soup all over Simone’s beautiful carpet. “Damn it, woman. Move over.”
* * *
Simone was giddy. For the first time in days she felt almost like herself. Even more important, she saw tangible proof of her pregnancy. The change in her belly was infinitesimal, but it was real. Without Hutch’s careful attention, she might have become so ill that she miscarried. Instead, he had watched over her day and night, despite the fact that she was pregnant under the worst of circumstances.
Her heart overflowed. Everything that had drawn her to him six years ago was still there: his patience, his sense of humor, his deep commitment to his calling. In some ways, she was the one who was different. And in the midst of that fresh perspective, she found herself falling more deeply in love with him than ever before.
In the years Hutch had been gone, Simone had grown and matured. Even in her misguided attempt to become a mother, she had found new meaning in her life. The babies she carried were a sacred responsibility.
If she could have her way, she would kneel beside the bed and propose to Hutch. Marry me. Make a family with me. But that would be so unfair. So she did the next best thing. She gave herself to him and demanded nothing in return.
She hadn’t truly understood what it cost him to stay out of her bed the past few days. Not until now. He was flushed and desperate, his body pinning hers to the bed as his teeth raked the curve of her neck. His intensity didn’t frighten her. She understood it in the marrow of her bones.
No force on earth could have kept them apart.
He handl
ed her roughly, with little foreplay. They kissed wildly. She wrestled with him and taunted him, for nothing more than the pleasure of being subdued. He manacled her wrists in one big hand and tried to mount her. She eluded him but didn’t get far. They rolled from one side of the mattress to the other, kicking the sheets aside in their frenzy. Hutch muttered her name along with a few choice expletives.
Laughing out loud, she bit his earlobe. “I love you this way,” she whispered. “Take what you want. Make me submit. Do it, Hutch.”
When he moved between her thighs and thrust all the way in with one deep push, she cried out. “Don’t stop. Don’t stop.”
He took her at her word. She had waved a red flag in front of the bull, and now he was crazed. He rode her hard. Never had she seen him so greedy, so dangerously male. Maybe she had wanted to make him snap. Maybe she reveled in his physical need for her.