Hero by Nature (Reed Sisters: Holding out for a Hero 3) - Page 43

Jeff groaned and closed his eyes. “I sure hope you know what you’re doing, honey.”

“I know exactly what I’m doing, honey,” she murmured wickedly, and leaned forward to kiss him, her hand escaping his to continue its exploration under the sheet.

“That you do, Autumn,” Jeff muttered with a sharp inhalation, willingly abandoning himself to her hungry caresses. And when she’d pushed him past the point of control, he returned the favor, always careful of her injury but driving her without mercy to the boundaries of sanity. At some point they crossed that line together, and the shared madness was glorious.

“I wasn’t going to do that,” Jeff accused her when he’d recovered. “You made me lose my chance to show you how strong and considerate and self-sacrificing I can be.”

Autumn chuckled weakly, still a bit dazed. “You keep forgetting that I like you best when you’re not perfect.”

Something flickered across his face at the word “like,” but it was carefully disguised. “Want some breakfast?” he asked.

“Don’t you have to work today?”

He shook his head. “It’s Thursday, remember? My day off. I’ve got my beeper with me, if they need me.”

“You don’t have to spend your day off waiting on me, Jeff. Really, I’m fine. As you should know by now.”

“Yes, I know you’re fine. But I’m still staying. I’m going to spoil you so thoroughly that you’ll never want me to leave,” he informed her smugly, climbing out of the bed and padding toward the bathroom.

Autumn watched him with a slight frown. That, she thought nervously, was exactly what she was afraid of. That she would never want him to leave.

Much later she was to realize how strange it was that she could so thoroughly enjoy a day at home with a sore, bruised forehead and a throbbing, stitched-up arm. She’d always hated being at all incapacitated, rarely took a sick day from work unless she was simply too ill to crawl out of bed. But then she’d never had Jeff to entertain her on a sick day before. If she wasn’t careful, she thought sometime during the afternoon, she was in danger of becoming a hypochondriac. As Jeff had promised, he’d thoroughly spoiled her.

He pampered her, he teased her, he kissed her repeatedly. He lost two games of chess to her, then soundly defeated her at Scrabble.

“A-n-t-i-c. Antic. Write down my points, Jeff.”

“Great! I can finally use this X. X-e-r-a-n-t-i-c. Xerantic. That gives me—”

“Xerantic! There’s no such word!”

“Of course there is,” Jeff answered, looking insulted. “It means causing dryness.”

She frowned skeptically at him, but he seemed completely serious. “Okay. I guess I’ll believe you.”

A moment later she protested again. “Now, come on, Jeff. Surely you’re not going to try to convince me that ‘xanthosis’ is a real word.”

Again the wounded look. “But it is.”

“Oh, yeah? What does it mean?”

“Well, actually, it’s a yellowish discoloration seen in some malignant tumors and degenerating tissues. “Xanthous,’ of course, meaning yellow and—”

“Never mind,” Autumn sighed, staring glumly down at her own letters—she’d planned to spell “table” next. “I should have known better than to play Scrabble with a doctor.”

Jeff gave her one of the wicked, piratical grins that always took her by surprise coming from him. “We could put this up and just play ‘doctor.'”

Autumn glanced up through her lashes and dumped her tiles into the box. “I do like the way your mind works, Dr. Bradford.”

“JEFF?” AUTUMN POKED at the man resting at her side as a sudden thought occurred to her.

“Mmm?” he mumbled without opening his eyes.

Clutching the sheet to her bare breasts, she struggled upright, wincing when her movements jarred her arm. “Wake up. I want to ask you something.”

He sighed and rolled onto his back, one arm behind his head, his eyes finally open. “What?”

“What’s the E for?”

Tags: Gina Wilkins Reed Sisters: Holding out for a Hero Romance
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