Thomas (Erotic Romance) Book 2 (The MacKenzie Brothers Quartet) (4 page)

He lifted her in his arms with what little strength he had left and tucked her under the covers. He settled in beside her and pulled her close.

“I think we need to try something again,” he said.

“If we try anything else, I don’t think I’ll survive.”

“No,” he said, laughing. “Get your mind out of the gutter. I think we need to try the introduction portion of the day again, Matilda. What do you say?”

She stiffened in his arms, but he pressed on. “I want to be able to call out your name when I finally get inside of you. Let me in. Please.”

She erupted in a fit of giggles and buried her face in his neck. Her naked body was pressed flush against him, her breasts ripe and soft. Even after an orgasm like he’d never experienced, he wanted her again.

Her fingers trailed over him, discovering his body just as he was discovering hers. He was already hard, wanting nothing more than to slip inside her and make their mating complete. Thomas tilted her head up and looked into her eyes. They were shadowed with fatigue, and he could tell by her trembling body that the day was beginning to catch up with her.

He tilted her face up to his and took her lips with a thoroughness that had them both shaking with desire by the time it was finished. Tongues met and tangled and he explored every inch of her mouth. Her moan and cry of discomfort had him pulling back in alarm. She’d tried to lift her thigh over his, searching for completion with his body.

“Stay still, sweetheart. Let me get you something for the pain, and then we’ll go to sleep. I think you’ve had enough for the day.”

“No shots,” she called out as he walked naked into his office.

He chuckled at her demand, and came back with a glass of water and a couple of pills. “You’re going to feel like hell tomorrow, but by the next day the worst of the pain should be gone. How’s your head?”

“When the pain is bearable in two days time, I’m not going to care about tempting your self control. I just wanted to give you fair warning.”

His body stiffened and his cock throbbed at her threat. The next two days were going to be pure hell. But it wouldn’t go wasted. He still had a lot to learn about Cat Randolph. And she was going to tell him everything. Because there wasn’t a chance he was ever letting her go.

He felt her even breathing against his chest and finally gave in to his own need for sleep.

***

“Son of a bitch!”

Thomas shot straight up in bed. Sunlight streamed though the French doors and glared into his eyes. He threw a hand up to shield them and looked at the offending presence of his brother in the doorway. Correction: the offending presence of all
three
of his brothers.

Cooper headed the pack, and Thomas assumed it was his booming voice that had woken him out of a sound sleep. He looked down at Cat, but she was still dead to the world. The pain meds he’d given her would make her sleep. She’d probably be out awhile still.

“Get the hell out of here,” Thomas said. “Aren’t you the one who’s so damned picky about his privacy? Maybe you should think of returning the favor.”

“I came to question your mystery patient. Not find you fucking her. What the hell is wrong with you, Thomas?”

“Well, I personally don’t think anything is wrong with Thomas,” Riley said. His grin said he was enjoying his brother’s predicament immensely. “Just look at her, Coop. You can’t ask him to pass something that sexy up just because of some stupid doctor to patient ethics.”

Thomas got out of bed, making sure that every inch of Cat stayed completely covered, and grabbed his jeans from the floor. He pulled them on and then started for his brother, blood in his eye and his fists clinched.

“Layoff, Riley,” Dane said. “I swear to God you have no protective instincts at all. Can’t you see he’s all but gone over her? You don’t insult the woman a man loves and not have to pay the consequences.”

Dane’s own smile grated on Thomas’s nerves. His older brother hadn’t been able to stop smiling ever since he found himself happily married. It was sickening.

“That’s my fucking point,” Cooper said, pushing Dane aside so he could glare at Thomas. “He’s known her a day. He knows nothing about her. She could be anyone—a murderer, a kidnapper, a drug addict. You never stop to fucking think when your dick is involved, Thomas.”

“Out. Everybody get the fuck out of this room. I’ll not have you waking her up. And as far as I’m concerned you can stay out of the house until you can butt out of my life. You’re not my father or a priest. My choices don’t concern you.”

“This house belongs to all of us,” Cooper said. “And I’ll be damned if I just sit by and watch you make stupid choices without trying to warn you of what could happen.”

Thomas was so angry that tremors shook his body. He wanted to pound something. Mostly Cooper, but at this point he’d take on a fight with any of his brothers. He closed the door of the bedroom behind him and led the way to the kitchen. He started preparing coffee and glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall. A grimace crossed his face when he realized how late it was. He had patients coming in less than an hour, and his receptionist would arrive even sooner. He waited until he had a cup of coffee in his hands and the first sip swallowed before he addressed his brothers.

“Fine,” he said. “If you can’t respect my wishes or my choices and stop treating me like a child then you can have the damned house. I can live anywhere.”

His brothers all went completely still, varying emotions crossing their faces. Riley was shocked. Dane looked thoughtful. And Cooper looked like a thunder cloud.

His oldest brother had taken on the roll of parent after their dad had died. Cooper had only been fifteen at the time, but he’d taken the roll seriously. Cooper was a natural caretaker, but what he needed was his own family to ride herd over. Thomas could admit he’d gotten in his share of trouble, and it had usually been worthy of Cooper’s anger. But he wasn’t a child any longer. He knew his own mind and his own heart. It was time his brother did too.

He watched Cooped physically get control of his temper. Coop closed his eyes and breathed in deeply several times before staring at him out of glacial eyes.

“Do what you want to, Thomas. But I won’t stop investigating her. And I’m still going to question her. If I find one ounce of information that leads me to think she’s someone who could be a danger to this town, then I will make it my life’s work to make sure she’s gone.”

Cooper turned on his heel and left out the kitchen door. He shut it softly behind him, which was even more damning than if he’d slammed it.

Riley put his hand on his arm as if to stop him as he passed by, but he dropped it quickly when he saw the look in Thomas’s eye.

“Do you love her, Thomas? Is that something you can really know for sure after a day?”

He gave his brother a level look. “Yes.”

“Then it doesn’t matter what Cooper thinks. If you love her he’ll come around. But he has a point too. You’ll end up with nothing but a broken heart if she turns out to be something you’re not quite expecting.”

Thomas nodded and headed to his own bedroom to get dressed. The hell of it was, he knew his brothers were right. Which made it even more important for him to find out about Cat, so he could prove she was a woman he could be proud to call MacKenzie.”

Chapter Four

Cat stretched luxuriously against the soft sheets and opened her eyes to a misty morning fogged in shades of grey. Rain fell softly on the deck and splattered against the windows. It took her a minute to orient herself and remember where she was. And who’s bed she was in.

The pounding in her head had disappeared and her thigh was only a little sore. It looked to be early dawn, but she felt refreshed as if she hadn’t only had a few hours of sleep.

“I was beginning to wonder if you were ever going to wake up. Maybe Sleeping Beauty is a more appropriate name than Matilda.”

Cat turned her head and couldn’t help but smile with satisfaction at the sight Thomas made. He was lounged back in the bedside chair, his t-shirt taut over his muscles and his jeans worn and comfortable looking. His hair was still mussed from sleep and his chocolate eyes weren’t giving any of his thoughts away.

Insecurity began to eat away at the edges of her confidence. She wasn’t used to the relationship dance. She’d never actually had a relationship before. Her only experience with sex had been when she was eighteen, but that was before her life changed completely. The FBI had put a damper on that relationship real fast.

So she did what she always did when faced with an uncomfortable situation. She pasted a smile on her face and brazened her way through. “How long have you been up? You should have woken me.”

“I’ve been trying to since yesterday morning. Your body obviously needed the sleep.”

Now that he mentioned it, she did have a pressing urge to make her way to the bathroom. She threw her legs over the edge of the bed and realized she still didn’t have clothes on. She glanced at Thomas beneath her lashes and saw he wasn’t unaffected by the sight of her body. His eyes darkened and his gaze was intense before he shook his head as if to wake himself from a trance.

“No. Go ahead. Try not to get your stitches too wet. I’ll take another look at them once you get out and get you a fresh bandage. One of my brothers brought by the duffle bag of clothes you had in the trunk. I’ll set it inside the door for you.”

“Thanks.”

The shower went a long way towards improving her mood. Her muscles relaxed under the hot spray, and it felt good to wash her hair and get clean. When she stepped out of the shower, the duffle bag that held her clothes was just inside the door. She pulled out a pair of loose boxer shorts and a grey t-shirt, deciding to forego a bra for now. She brushed out her hair and rubbed cream into her skin. The sight that greeted her in the mirror didn’t exactly shout seduction. She still looked like a kid, though she’d turned twenty-four the month before.

Thomas was waiting for her when she came out of the bathroom. A tray of toast and eggs sat on the nightstand, and he hand fresh bandages laid out on the bed.

“Go ahead and get comfortable. You can eat while I check your stitches.”

“You got it, Doc. So…did I miss anything important yesterday?”

“Well, Cooper was pretty upset you weren’t available to talk to him. And I had plenty of patients curious to know about the woman who tried to run over the O’Neil’s cow. But other than that it was a pretty uneventful day.”

Cat sputtered around her toast. “I did not try to run over that cow. It just walked right into the middle of the street. If I ever see the O’Neil’s they’re going to get a piece of my mind. They can’t have their livestock roaming all over town.”

Thomas grinned as he put a small bandage over her stitches. She sighed in disgust. There would be a hell of a scar once the stitches came out.

“Can I ask you a question?” Thomas said, throwing away the old bandages and pulling his chair closer to the bed. He didn’t meet her eyes when he asked, and the food in her stomach was beginning to feel like led.

“I just met you. And while you seem like a nice guy and I’ll admit to a definite attraction, I’m not in the habit of unloading my life story on strangers. No matter how trustworthy.”

“Do you understand that my brother is digging into your background? He’s been determined to peel back the layers ever since he found out that the identity belonging to your car was a fake. And I promise you, Cooper is a tenacious son of a bitch. If there’s something to be found, he’ll find it.”