Heart Trouble (9 page)

Sweet Christ.

Erin released him, lightly kissing the crown of his spent prick while coasting her palms up and down his thighs.

When his vision returned to normal, he lifted his head to see her taking a sip of the bourbon-flavored water in her glass. She smiled. “Enjoy that, Detective?”

“You…” He shook his head to clear the lingering effects. “You have no idea. That was a nice trick, Doc.”

She shrugged one bare shoulder, then leaned forward and planted another soft kiss on his stomach. “Something I’ve always wondered about. Guess it does work like they say.”

Sean laughed. “I’ll be your guinea pig any day if it’ll make me come that hard. I swear I visited some ancestors.”

She laughed and climbed onto his lap, pressing the soft, full globes of her breasts against his chest. He placed tender kisses to her collarbone, her throat, wherever he could reach.

“Untie me so I can touch you.”

Erin slipped her hands behind his back to unwind the belt from his wrists. She dropped it to the floor near his feet. It looked as though the small measure of control she’d had over him for that brief period was all she’d needed. The change in her was marked. It was almost as if she’d been the one to have the mind-blowing orgasm instead of him. The lines of tension in her face had softened to nothing, and her eyes were languid pools of pastel blue.

Her sexy, swollen lips were too much for Sean to resist. He wound his hand through her hair, holding her still for his thankful kiss. He took his time, savoring her mouth, showing her how much he enjoyed the simple act of having her lips under his.

She pulled back, drawing her fingertips across his shoulders. Avoiding his eyes. “You don’t think I’m weird for…” She scrunched her face up, moved her head from side to side. “Asking to tie you up.”

He caught her head between his palms and forced her to look at him. “No! God, no. I would never think that about you. Look, we all have our way of dealing with stressful situations. It just manifests itself differently from person to person.”

“But
needing
to restrain someone?”

“Tell me how you felt before you bound my hands.”

She turned her head to stare out the slider for a moment. Sean watched the image of the rain on the glass play across her beautiful features while she thought. He resisted the urge to touch her, difficult as it was.

“Afraid,” she said. “Unsettled. Maybe even a little angry.”

“And now?”

A smile spread across her lips as she got his point. “Calm. Safe.” She kissed him, slow and sweet. “Unbelievably turned on by you.”

He put his hands on her waist, easing her forward to cradle his reawakening cock in the warm, wet juncture of her thighs. Erin let go a tiny moan that he drank down like a man parched.

“That makes two of us.”

Her arms slid around his shoulders, and he buried his face in her neck, then trailed his tongue down her throat until he reached the swell of her left breast. He suckled the puckered tip, nipped at her with his teeth, pleased by the shudder that vibrated her body beneath his hands and mouth.

He loved the slow pace they’d set tonight, as if they had all the time in the world to discover each other’s secrets. Not that he had any.

His life was fairly normal and drama-free. He had the job he’d wanted since childhood, a supportive, loving, tight-knit family, and a great group of friends. All that was left was finding the right person to share that life with. Until he’d met Erin, that missing part hadn’t seemed so significant. Inexplicably she’d changed that. A crazy thing that was, given the short time they’d known each other.

He’d missed her today after she’d left, worried about her the entire time she was gone, even though he trusted Pete to keep her safe, and found himself looking forward to the moment when she walked back through the door.

Another deep sigh rewarded him as he brushed the stubble on his chin across the smooth, tender flesh of her throat. The sound made his dick throb. He tipped her sideways and onto her back. The halo of her hair fanned out on the couch cushions, poured over the edge in a waterfall of molten gold.

Sean plucked the condom from its hiding place and tore it open. He rolled it over his cock, then rose to his knees between her thighs. He lifted her leg to rest along the back of the couch. She reached for him and he went, sinking into her snug, satiny heat in one push that made them both groan.

“You feel so good, Sean. Make it last. Please.”

And he did. He took his time, slowly retreating and pressing forward, ignoring the urgent demands from his body to speed up while he mapped the flesh of her neck and shoulders and chest with his lips and fingers. It wasn’t a hard task. Erin had a body made for sin—toned and tight in some places, soft and curvy in others. Perfection. He could spend a lifetime exploring her and never tire of it.

Outside the storm ebbed while inside one built, until Erin’s blunt nails dug into his shoulder blades, and she bit her lip so hard he was surprised she didn’t bring blood. She made an impatient noise in her throat—half whimper, half sigh—and he knew she’d reached her breaking point.

Sean flexed his hips faster, pushing her toward that peak, watching bliss overtake her face as she broke apart. He committed that sight to memory as well. Her pussy clenched around his cock, and she cried out, taking him with her as she went.

Coming back to himself for a second time that night, Sean knew he’d never enjoyed a woman more. He was starting to hope he’d never have to give this woman up.

Chapter Eight

There was blood everywhere.

Erin looked down at her hands, covered in crimson—red, sticky, and thick. She could smell it, taste its coppery tang in her mouth. She wiped her palms on her shirt, but they wouldn’t come clean. And the screams, loud and so desperate it made her heart ache. Human screams mixing with the shrill wail of sirens. She covered her ears, but it didn’t make a difference.

“Erin, help us,” her mother pleaded. “You have to do something! He’s dying!”

Panicking, Erin pressed her hands to her father’s chest to try to stop the flow of blood, but it was a hopeless effort. She was useless to do anything. Nothing worked; it only grew worse. Blood gushed through her fingers unchecked from a huge, gaping hole where his heart should’ve been.

“I can’t stop it,” she cried. “Please, somebody help me!”

She looked over at her mother in the car seat next to her father—her head twisted at an odd angle, eyes open yet sightless in death. How had that happened? She had just spoken to her.

“No! Mom, you have to wake up! I can’t lose you both!” Erin frantically shook her mother’s shoulders. “Please, don’t leave me!”

“Erin, wake up,” another voice said, except soothing and calm this time, close. “Shh, baby, it’s okay.” A tender hand stroked her cheek, warm and dry. A familiar smell permeated her psyche—not the unpleasant stench of blood, but that of Sean’s skin. Erin forced her eyelids open to see him leaning over her, concern etched deep into his features.

Disoriented, she turned her head toward the window. The faint, reassuring light of dawn spilled through a crack in the curtains. When she lifted her hands, they were clean. Slowly reality overtook anguish.

Then it hit—the unstoppable wave of nausea that seemed to always follow the nightmare. Erin flew from the bed, barely making it to the toilet before she emptied her stomach. When the retching subsided, she flushed, rinsed her mouth out with handfuls of water from the tap, and slid to the floor, letting the cold tile wall cool her feverish skin. Her tank top was damp with sweat and clung to her body. Strands of her hair stuck to her clammy skin.

Sean wet a washcloth and sat down on the floor next to her. He gently bathed her skin, wiping away the layer of perspiration and tears.

Embarrassment swamped her, making her turn her face away and draw her knees to her chest. She wanted to curl in on herself and disappear. God, she’d cried, had the awful nightmare, and now vomited in front of him. There wasn’t much left of her dignity.

“Hey, don’t do that,” Sean said, tipping her face toward him. He slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her across his lap. “There’s no need for you to hide anything from me.”

Erin pushed her face against the base of his neck, hiding still but comforted too. He was so big and strong compared to her, and these last few days had made her feel weak, dependent. Those were foreign emotions for her. She wished she could soak up some of Sean’s strength through mere contact.

How had she been so lucky to have met such a special man? And was it possible to fall in love after knowing him for only two days?

“Want to talk about it?” he asked.

She pressed her hand to Sean’s chest, just over his heart to absorb its steady, reassuring beat into her fingertips. The aftermath of the nightmare was almost as bad as the nightmare itself. It left her shaken to the very marrow of her bones, for days afterward sometimes. Always unbearably sad until she could shake it loose.

She drew a deep, broken breath, let it out slow, let the words roll out of her mouth even slower. “When I was thirteen, my parents were killed in a car accident.”

Sean’s hand faltered in its soothing stroke down her back, but he didn’t say anything, simply waited until she found the strength to continue.

“It was their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, and they were going to St. Simons Island for the weekend. My brother Will was eighteen at the time. He was staying with a buddy. They’d just dropped me off at my friend Molly’s house. We hadn’t even made it inside when we heard the crash at the end of her street. This truck…ran a Stop sign and hit them broadside.”

Sean pressed his lips to her forehead. “Jesus. I’m so sorry.”

She took a moment to get her emotions in check. The lump in her throat felt as big as a baseball, solid and wedged tight. There were fresh tears too, streaking down her cheeks to drip onto Sean’s chest. It’d been so long since she’d talked about this, the painful memories locked deeply away. Even Will and Tess, the people closest to her, never brought up the subject.

“I shouldn’t have gone. It would’ve been better if I hadn’t. But I just knew it was them in the crash. My mom was killed on impact. Dad was still alive when I got there, the steering wheel crushing his chest. There was so much blood everywhere and no way to get him out in time. I wanted to do something to help them, but Molly’s parents wouldn’t let me get close. He didn’t make it to the hospital.”

“Do you think that’s what made you want to become a doctor?”

“Dad was a doctor, a general physician in a small private practice. He loved what he did, and I always admired him for that. I never considered any other profession. I didn’t decide to go the emergency medicine route until I started medical school.”

“So what happened to you and Will after your parents’ deaths? Did you have any other family here?”

“We didn’t live in Jacksonville then. I grew up in Valdosta. Will had already been accepted to Embry-Riddle in Daytona Beach. It was a big mess afterward. My maternal grandparents wanted me to come live with them in Orlando, and an aunt in Valdosta wanted me to stay with her. In the end though, Will and I didn’t want to be separated, so he got an apartment in Ormond Beach and started college. I finished high school there. It was hard at first, not knowing anyone, but then I made a few friends. Will was great, even though it wasn’t very fair that he had to become a surrogate parent, work, and go to school at the same time.”

“Sounds like you’re close to your brother,” Sean said.

“We are, or we were. Since he moved to New Orleans, we don’t see each other as much as we’d like to. He’s a private corporate pilot, so he stays busy, and with my schedule at the hospital, it’s hard for us to get together. He flies in occasionally for business, and we’ll manage to grab dinner and a few hours of catching up, if we’re lucky.”

“How long have you had the nightmares?”

“
Nightmare
. It’s just one, and it rarely ever varies.” Erin shivered when the images flashed through her brain again, and she knew she didn’t have the strength to recount the vivid details. Sean’s arm tightened around her waist. “It started a few months after the accident. Back then, it would happen pretty often, at least once a month, sometimes more. Now it’s random, usually when I’m under a lot of stress. I suppose now would qualify as one of those times.”

Sean sighed against her temple while his fingers kneaded the tense muscles in the back of her neck. “This is my fault. I should’ve never asked you to do this. I want you to leave town.”

She sat up, shaking her head. “No. I said I would help, and I’m going through with it. I’m not afraid, at least not when you’re here. And I can deal with the side effects.” She paused, trying to read his troubled expression. “Unless…I’m driving you crazy. I am, aren’t I? You’re probably sick—”

His fingers covered her mouth. “Stop it. You’re not doing any such a thing. You think it’s been a chore for me to stay here with you? Not even for a second. Do I wish the circumstances were different? Hell yes. But I can’t do anything about that now. So I won’t say another word about you leaving town if you accept that I’m here because I
want
to be, not because I have to be. Okay?”

“Okay.” Erin buried her face in Sean’s neck again, breathing in the scent of his warm skin. Her stomach gave an embarrassing rumble. “Wow, more sexy stuff, huh?” she asked with a giggle.

A laugh vibrated through Sean’s chest. “Sweetheart, you make breathing sexy. Just don’t breathe on me right
now
’cause you really need to brush your teeth.”

Erin shoved against his chest. “Smartass. I’ll remember that the next time you want a kiss.”

He ignored her taunt, and his teasing comment about her breath, and gave her a smacking kiss, then helped her to her feet. “I’ll fix breakfast while you shower.”

Oh man, she was such a goner.

* * * *

As Erin approached the kitchen after her bath, she heard Sean talking on his phone. From his warm tone, she figured it wasn’t a work call.