Not the Marrying Kind (Destiny Bay Romances - Forever Yours) (6 page)

The reception lobby opened onto the parking lot, and as they walked in Shelley found herself flushing slightly. What was this? Was she embarrassed to bring him here? Or was she embarrassed to have her colleagues see how much she liked him? She wasn't sure what it was and, luckily for her, there was no one in the lobby to test it.

“Maria, our secretary, must be in with Jeff— Doctor Kramer, “she said. “If you want to wait. . .”

“Do I get to see your office?” he asked lightly.
 

“Oh. All right. Sure, why not?” But Shelley knew exactly why not. So far the two of them had played out their encounter in public. She couldn't shake the memory of the electricity that had passed between them the first few times their eyes had met. What would that turn into once they were really alone?

Not a thing, she told herself sternly as she opened the door to her office and escorted him in. Wasn’t this exactly what she’d wanted?
 
After all, she was a woman in charge of her own life. If she wanted to spend some time with Michael, she would do it.
 
Hopefully.
 

He walked in slowly, looking about at her office with a practiced eye, letting his attention shift from her desk to her bookcase, to the couch—one after another, as though cataloging the ingredients of her life.

“Casing the joint?” she asked dryly as she moved toward the large oak desk where her work sat in piles, square, black, and old-fashioned, the way she liked it.

“Getting a feel for it,” he agreed, his voice vaguely absent. She turned to see what had captured his interest and found him staring at a painting on the wall. It was a Mary Cassatt print showing a woman smiling over two playing children, and she watched him take in every line, every shading of color, before he turned his attention away, as though he'd soaked up everything like a sponge and was ready to move on.

“The phone.” She held out the receiver, but he waved it away, pulling out his cell instead.
 

She rummaged in her drawer while he made the call, asking someone to deliver his car. She really didn't need anything there, but she had to do something with her hands while she wondered what she was going to do with him while he waited for his transportation. Her fingers connected with the square tinted glasses she sometimes used when she was reading, and she pulled them out and slid them across her nose.

Good. Just the feel of them on her face would remind her of her professionalism. A small life preserver to cling to, but better than nothing at all.

“Now, then.” He hung up the phone and turned to look at her, his gaze bright with anticipation. “Everything's settled. All I need is something to pass the time while I wait for my car to arrive.”

“I ...” This was ridiculous! She was backing away from him as though he were stalking her—a frightened little furry animal hoping to elude the jungle cat. “Would you like to go over and meet Jeff? I'm sure he'd be—”

“No.” He moved purposefully toward her, stopping just a foot away. “No, I have a better idea.”

She stared up into his eyes, wary of what his “better idea” might be. Suddenly his blue eyes seemed to have limitless depths, as though she'd stepped off reality into a misty world of pure emotion. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Was he going to kiss her? She had a flash of insight—and she knew she wouldn't turn him away.

But he didn't kiss her. Instead, he took her hand and began to lead her over to the overstuffed, leather couch.
 

“I've never been analyzed before,” he told her with what seemed like candid seriousness. “Show me how it's done. Let me know what to expect.” He grinned as he gave her a little push that landed her on the cushion. “After all, you're dressed for the part now. Why not go all the way and play the role?”

He was talking about her glasses. She shoved them back on her nose with a mixture of defiance and desperation. She felt like a fool. Had he guessed that she'd expected a kiss? If so, why hadn't he gone ahead and done it?

Well, he could forget it now! She'd be damned if she'd ever kiss him.

“Why not?” she managed to say almost crisply. “But we can't sit together on the couch to do that. I’ll have to sit in the chair.”

“Are you kidding?” He dropped down beside her. “I can't shout across that gulf. I can get much more intimate right here next to you.”

“I’ll need my notebook,” she said, giving him a look.
 
He reached across to the desk and handed it to her, along with a pen.
 

“I'll be a model subject,” he told her, leaning back and gazing at her. “Bring on your bizarre experiments, your naked encounter groups, your primal scream therapy. I'm ready for anything.”

Smothering a smile, she tried to look severe. “Those are all forms of behavior therapy, meant to deal with symptoms. That's not what we do here. We believe in psychoanalysis—looking into the past, into the subconscious, and into current transactions, for clues to why we act the way we do.”

He groaned. “Naked encounter groups sound like more fun.”

Ignoring that, she tapped her pen against her notebook. “Sit back and relax,” she told him as firmly as possible. Surely she could rely on the structures she was familiar with. “Tell me about yourself, about your background. Where did you grow up?”

“Grow up?” He frowned in mock contemplation, and she knew immediately that she might as well head for the trenches. Professional distance wasn't going to help her now. “Let me think. It's kind of hard to remember. The answer seems to be shrouded in the mists of time.”

She watched skeptically as he moved closer to her on the couch.
 

“Maybe if we tried a little relaxation exercise,” he suggested, his voice low and seductive. “I'm sure it would all come back to me.”

His arm was definitely behind her shoulders now, and he was sitting much too close. And here she was, actually smiling up into his face. Was she out of her mind?

She struggled to come out of the spell, but it was hopeless. The sense of his masculine appeal was wafting about her in a sensual cloud. She felt almost drugged by his closeness.

“Anything to help you regain your memory,” she heard herself saying breathlessly, and a part of her recoiled in horror. But the rest of her was floating on a cloud.

He was so close now, she could close her eyes and feel the imprint of him without sight. The vibrations of his voice tickled her earlobe. Suddenly he had her chin in his fingers, and the other hand resting behind her shoulder rose and sank into her thick hair, holding her head.
 

“I think it's all coming back,” he murmured. “But let's not stop now. We want to make sure we do a thorough job of it.”

He plucked her glasses from her nose and held her still before him while his mouth lowered to take possession of hers.

Later Shelley decided she must have been hypnotized, put into a trance by the sound of his low voice, the rich masculine scent of his body, the nearness of his solid flesh. There was just no other explanation. Why else would she have let him kiss her the way she did, with no resistance, no struggle?

His lips brushed hers softly at first, then came again more firmly. His warm tongue slipped along the line between her lips, working slowly, insistently, to part them, and then he was inside, letting his tongue fill her, explore her, devour her, turning her blood to a river of heat.

The notebook and pen clattered to the floor but she didn’t notice. Her hands moved, but only to curl around the lapels of his suit coat, as though to hold him to her. His long fingers cupped her cheek, sliding back to thread into her hair, then lower, curving about her slender neck, moving down to the collar of her sweater, gliding beneath the fabric to caress the jutting collarbone and touch the throbbing pulse at the base of her throat.

A strange thing was happening to Shelley. It was as though a door had opened in her mind, a light had switched on, revealing something she'd never really known. She'd never really understood the chemical reaction that could suddenly take place between a man and a woman. Secretly she'd rather thought it must be something made up by overactive imaginations. For all her psychological training she had a hard time believing in the sort of sexual attraction that made a man and a woman cling together as though their lives depended upon it; a compulsion beyond reason, beyond will.

But suddenly she understood it only too well.

Her thought processes faded, the room faded, the world faded, and she was nothing but woman, he was nothing but man. Her hands slid in to touch the warmth of his chest beneath the suit coat, and her mouth moved against his with an urgency born of new discovery. A sighing moan escaped from her throat, low as a cat's purr, elemental as hunger. Every place where her body touched his was sizzling with a golden fire that turned her inside out, like an exotic flower opening to capture the unwitting victim. Shelley Carrington was learning more about her own femininity in this one thrilling kiss than she'd learned in a lifetime of living.

She felt him draw back, and she looked blearily up into his face, vaguely realizing he was looking surprised, as though the intensity of her response had caught him unprepared. But his hesitation only lasted an instant, and she sighed contentedly as he came to her again, curling into his embrace as though she'd found a home there.

He kissed her and she kissed him back, caught on the arc of a rainbow of delight. She felt his hand slide beneath the rough material of her sweater to explore the taut flesh over her rib cage, and she stretched beneath it, sighing.

She'd forgotten who she was, who he was. That no longer mattered. She'd stumbled upon a treasure that she didn't want to release. In some dim recess of her mind she must have heard the door to the office opening, but she didn't let the noise sink into her consciousness. It wasn't until she heard the sharp gasp from her secretary that she reluctantly pulled away from Michael's embrace, and then her first impulse was annoyance at the interruption.

She looked at the secretary's face as the poor woman backed out of the room, her mouth slack with surprise, her eyes wide. Suddenly reality began to flow back, and the golden haze she'd moved in for the last few moments evaporated. The closing of the office door jarred her fully awake.
 

What …?

Oh my God.
 
What had she let happen here?

She sprang up from the couch, reaching for her glasses, which Michael had left on the pillow beside him. Jamming them back on her nose as though they would somehow help protect her, she hastily pulled her clothes together and put her hands on her hips, glaring down at the man who still sat casually, a slight smile curving his lips, a mischievous gleam in his blue eyes.

She was trembling and she knew it wasn't with anger, but she had to pretend it was.
 
Without anger she had no defense at all.

“I think you'd better go,” she ordered, voice shaking.

He rose slowly, standing tall compared to her medium height. He moved toward her, and she swung away as though to avoid getting burned.
 

“Does this mean I'm fired as your patient?” His voice was tinged with disappointment, but laughter was curling the edges, and she wondered, sick with embarrassment, if he was laughing at her.

She walked quickly to stand beside her massive oak desk in the far corner of the room. “You weren't my patient in the first place,” she reminded him evenly. How had she let this happen? She, who was always so cool, so composed?
 

Maria must be totally shocked. She cringed, thinking of it.
 
.

How had she let herself fall under the spell of a man who had told her from the first that lack of commitment was part of his business? If she could chalk it up to experience and forget it, maybe she could get her emotions back to normal. She tried hard to maintain a cool exterior.
 

“Thanks for lunch. Stop by at the reception desk and Maria will give you an appointment with Doctor Kramer.”

His eyes caught hers and she had to look away again. He was coming closer, slowly, deliberately. She felt panic rise in her throat.

And then his cell buzzed.

He looked at the phone and took the call immediately, turning away from her so that she only caught bits and pieces of his words.
 
His voice was strained, urgent, and then he closed his phone and turned to look at her, his face hard and cold as ice.
 
She stared back, wondering why it felt as though he wasn’t really seeing her at all.
 

“I’ve got to go.
 
My partner…well, my old partner, seems to be in a bit of trouble.”
 
He shook his head, talking softly to himself as he added, “Grover, you idiot, what have you done?”
 
He looked up.
 
“I’ve got to go,” he said again.
 

She nodded.
 
She could tell she wasn’t even on his radar any longer.
 

“Sure,” she said, feeling a little lost.
 
She had the distinct impression she wasn’t going to be hearing from him again.
 
“Good luck with your life of crime.”

He stared into her face for a long, breathless moment, and then shrugged. “Thanks. And happy analyzing to you, Shelley Carrington.”

He strode to the door and pulled it open. Stepping into the doorway, he turned back to look at her one last time. Then he was gone.

Shelley sat on the edge of her couch, trying to keep her mind on her patient's voice and her eyes off the clock. It was half past three on Thursday and she knew Michael Hudson was in the office across the hall at that very moment, having a session with Jeff Kramer.

It had been two days since the afternoon he'd come into her life and turned it upside down. Two long, soul-searching days during which she'd had plenty of time to go over the scene that had been played out in her office, plenty of time to concoct a whole series of if-only-I'd-said's and why didn't-I's, but not quite enough time to put him out of her mind.