He grinned and dipped down to kiss me, a quick touch of the lips. "As long as you're sure. I wouldn't want you to feel seduced by a man like me."
I rolled my eyes. "I've already said I misjudged you, and I'm sorry."
He shook his head. "You didn't, not entirely. I am a hard-ass, and there was a time I was ready to f**k at a moment's notice. I just got tired of it. It stopped having any meaning, or even any real enjoyment, so I...gave it up for awhile."
"Gave it up? You mean sex?"
He nodded, looking almost sheepish. "Yeah. It's been over a year."
I looked at him again, with even more admiration, and not a little awe. "I can't imagine going a year without it. John and I didn't do it every day, but it was usually at least once a week, sometime longer between. How do you not go crazy?"
He shrugged. "Well, I'm gone a lot, working, and my work doesn't leave a lot of time for messing around."
I picked up his coffee and sipped at it, then asked, "So what do you do?"
"I'm a doctor. My brothers and I run a nonprofit company called Rescue Medic Enterprises. We're like Doctors Without Borders, but it's just my three brothers, me, and a few other guys. All of us are ex-military, grunts and spec ops, medics and field triage experts and such. We go to mostly third world countries and provide medical care in dangerous areas, or places where other nonprofits won't go. I just got back from treating civil war causalities in Africa, and I'll probably be going back soon."
"So you intentionally, willingly go into third world war zones to treat hurt people?"
"Yeah, basically." He poured a new cup of coffee and we stood sipping our drinks.
I wanted him as badly as ever, but I didn't feel rushed. He was fascinating, and I wanted to know him better.
"That's incredible."
He just shrugged again, nonchalant and dismissive. "Well, I spent most of eight years in combat situations. I got used to it. Then, one day near the end of my second four-year stint my unit got ambushed and I nearly died. I decided I'd had enough of that, and took my walking papers. I came back to the States and tried living a normal life. I took a job in a hospital, working ER triage, and that was okay for awhile, but I got restless. Then my brothers all got out too and they didn't even want to try a normal job, so we started Rescue Medic. My parents fronted us the start-up cash, and it turns out we love it. We get the thrill of combat, but it's different."
He tipped his head at me. "What about you? What do you do?"
"I'm an ER nurse."
He grinned. "A like soul, then. Do you like it? Working ER?"
I nodded. "I love it. I love the constant busyness, the rush and the excitement. I love helping people."
He nodded, and he looked like he was considering something, but then it passed and he set his coffee cup down, stalking toward me. I set mine down and stood still, waiting.
He'd never done his pants back up, and as he approached me, my hands moved of their own accord, reaching for him, touching the waistband of his underwear, touching his hips. He pressed me against the counter.
"Last chance," he said. "I'll still take you somewhere else, no questions asked."
I shook my head, slipped my hands around and under the band of his underwear to cup his smooth, tight, ass.
"Don't say I didn't warn you, then," he growled.
He scooped me up once more and carried me to the bedroom, set me down in the center of the bed, kneeling over me. He untucked the towel, one fold at a time. Pulling it free, he drew one side away, then the other, baring me to the cold air, and his hungry eyes.
"God, you're sexy," his voice was low, so deep and rumbling as to be barely audible.
I shook my head. John wasn't one for compliments, and my self-esteem was an up-and-down thing. Shane was the kind of man that could have supermodels, A-list actresses, not girls like me.
"Yes, you are. You're a goddess. You have a perfect body." He ran his hands up my stomach, between my br**sts and back around to cup them, lift them, rubbing his thumbs across the ni**les. "I can't wait to taste you all over."
His hands worked magic on my tits, making me arch and writhe with just his hands on my br**sts. Then he lowered his mouth to my shoulder, kissing with a brush of the tongue, sliding his lips across to my chest and down between my br**sts, kissing the side of one then the other. He lifted one breast, kissed underneath it, then pinched a nipple and kissed the opposite one, all at the same time. I lost myself in his attentions, just lying there with my hands on his back and shoulder, head tilted backward, eyes closed and fluttering.
I felt a thick something probe my clit, and I thought he'd somehow gotten his pants off without me noticing, but it was his finger, tracing circles around my wet, engorged nub, sliding down to push in, slip out and back in, then returning to my clit. I wasn't gasping yet, but close. I forced my back down to the bed and remembered I had hands too, and I wanted to touch him. I pushed at his jeans until they slipped off his hips, and he wiggled out of them, kicking them off without missing a beat.