He averted his eyes, but a moment later he was looking again. He couldn’t seem to help it.
“You took the first chance you could get to bolt out of that Thanksgiving shindig at your brother’s place,” he said carefully. “Why is that, Doc?”
“Why do you keep calling me ‘Doc’?” She was nervous, then. Maybe she sensed that Tanner wanted to kiss her senseless and then take her upstairs to his bed.
“Because you’re a doctor?”
“I have a name.”
“A very beautiful name.”
She grinned, and some of the tension eased, which might or might not have been a good thing. “Get a shovel,” she said. “It’s getting deep in here.”
He laughed, pushed away his pie.
“I should go now,” she said, but she looked and sounded uncertain.
Hallelujah, Tanner thought. She was tempted, at least.
“Or you could stay,” he suggested casually.
She gnawed at her lower lip. “Is it just me?” she asked bluntly. “Or are there sexual vibes bouncing off the walls?”
“There are definitely vibes,” he confirmed.
“We haven’t even kissed.”
“That would be easy to remedy.”
“And we’ve only known each other a few days.”
“We’re both adults, Olivia.”
“I can’t just—just go to bed with you, just because I—”
“Just because you want to?”
Challenge flared in her eyes, and she straightened her shoulders. “Who says I want to?”
“Do you?”
“Yes,” she said, after a very long time. Then, quickly, “But that doesn’t mean I will.”
“Of course it doesn’t.”
“People ought to say no to themselves once in a while,” she went on, apparently grasping at moral straws. “This society is way too into instant gratification.”
“I promise you,” Tanner said drily, “it won’t be instant.”
Color flooded her face, and he could see her pulse beating hard at the base of her throat.
“When was the last time you made love?” he asked when she didn’t say anything. Nor, to his satisfaction, did she jump to her feet and bolt for the door.
Tanner’s hopes were rising, and so was something else.
“That’s a pretty personal question,” she said, sounding miffed. She even went so far as to glance over at the dog, sleeping the sleep of the innocent on the rug in front of the stove.
“I’ll tell if you will.”
“It’s been a while,” she admitted loftily. “And maybe I don’t want to know who you’ve had sex with and how recently. Did that ever occur to you?”
“A while as in six months to a year, or never?”
“I’m not a virgin, if that’s what you’re trying to find out.”
“Good,” he said.
“I’m leaving,” she said. But she didn’t get up from her chair. She didn’t call the dog, or even put down her fork, though she wasn’t taking in much pie.
“You’re free to do that.”
“Of course I am.”
“Or we could go upstairs, right now.”
She swallowed visibly, and her wonderful eyes widened.
Hot damn, she was actually considering it.
Letting herself go. Doing something totally irresponsible, just for the hell of it. Tanner went hard, and he was glad she couldn’t see through the tabletop.
“No strings attached?” she asked.
“No strings,” Tanner promised, though he felt a little catch inside, saying the words. He wondered at his reaction, but not for long.
He was a man, after all, sitting across a table from one of the loveliest, most confusing women he’d ever met.
“I suppose we’re just going to obsess until we do it,” Olivia said. Damn, but she was full of surprises. He’d expected her to be talking herself out of going to bed with him, not into it.
“Probably,” Tanner said, very seriously.
“Get it out of the way.”
“Out of our systems,” Tanner agreed, wanting to keep the ball rolling. Watching for the right time to make his move and all the time asking himself what the hell he was doing.
He stood up.
She stood up. And probably noticed his erection.
Would she run for it after all?
Tanner waited.
She waited.
“Can I kiss you?” he asked finally. “We could decide after that.”
“Good idea,” Olivia said, but her pulse was still fluttering visibly, at her temple now as well as her throat, and her breathing was quick and shallow, raising and lowering her breasts under that soft blue sweater.
She didn’t move, so it fell to Tanner to step in close, take her face in his hands and kiss her, very gently at first, then with tongue.
WHATWASSHEDOING? Olivia fretted, even as she stood on tiptoe so Tanner could kiss her more deeply. Sure, it had been a while since she’d had sex—ten months, to be exact, with the last man she’d dated—but it wasn’t as if she were hot to trot or anything like that.
This…this was like storm chasing—venturing too close to a tornado and getting sucked in by the whirlwind. She felt both helpless and all-powerful, standing there in Tanner Quinn’s dreary kitchen—helpless because she’d known even before they left Stone Creek Ranch that this would happen, and all-powerful because damn it, she wanted it, too.
She wanted hot, sticky, wet sex. And she knew Tanner could give it to her.
They kissed until her knees felt weak, and she sagged against Tanner.
Then he lifted her into his arms. “You’re sure about this, Doc?”
She swallowed, nodded. “I’m sure.”
Ginger raised her head, lowered it again and went back to sleep.
His room was spacious and relatively clean, though he probably hadn’t made the bed since he’d moved in. Olivia noted these things with a detached part of her brain, but her elemental, primitive side wanted to rip off her clothes as if they were on fire.
Tanner undressed her slowly, kissing her bare shoulder when he unveiled it, then her upper breast. When he tongued her right nipple, then her left, she gasped and arched her back, wanting more.
He stopped long enough to shed his suit coat and toss aside his tie.
Olivia handled the buttons and buckle and finally the zipper.
And they were both naked.
He kissed her again, eased her down on the side of the bed, knelt on the floor to kiss her belly and her thighs. “Where’s the whipped cream when you need it?” he teased, his voice a low rumble against her flesh.
“Oh, God,” Olivia said, because she knew what he was going to do, and because she wanted so much for him to do it.