Southerin Nights and Secrets (Boys are Back in Town) Read online

  But he was having none of that, his hold on her wrists growing tighter as he leaned in, his lips teasing her own while he maintained eye contact.

  “When you hate me again later, remember that you started this,” he growled.

  And then he kissed her.

  Chapter Eight

  This. Was. Insane.

  Beck knew he should stop. The definition of insanity was to keep doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome. He’d done thistasted Ginger, held herin his head over and over during the last nine years. He knew how this was going to go down.

  She was so hot, the rocking of her hips against his thigh hypnotic and he had no chance of getting out of this alive. Because he had no doubt that he would fuck her, they’d come, she’d regret it, and then kill him with her bare hands.

  If he had any sense of self-fucking-preservation, he would open the door, shove her out into the ER, close and lock it and stay here until she left the hospital, or he found out where the hell he’d left his brain. He jumped out of planes and off bridges, and he knew damn well that continuing to tease her tongue, to press against her with his body, to crave the sound of her coming was far more dangerous.

  But he didn’t stop.

  He deepened the kiss, remembering how she loved kissing. Ginger could do it for hours. Lips on lips, tongues caressing, swallowed sighs. She’d slowly ratchet up the passion between them, and he’d let her indulge in the long mornings, afternoons, and nights spent in her bed. But at this moment he didn’t have the patience or the stamina for that. He could feel the burn low in his belly, the need to slide home inside her hot, wet body and fuck her until he either relieved the ache or broke down the door. Nine years had been a really long time to wait and the fact that he’d had a gun stuck in his face just thirty minutes earlier, made waiting any longer impossible.

  Ginger writhed against him as he touched everywhere he could with his free hand. Her skin was warm and smooth, her breasts full and heavy in his palm. Beck released her mouth, tracing her jaw with his lips, down her neck, until he could graze his teeth against the part pulsing with her rapid heartbeat, pleased when she jumped and moaned at the contact.

  “I want to touch you,” Ginger gasped as she tugged against the grasp he had on her wrists. He let them go, needing her touch as much as he needed to kiss her again but before he could reclaim her mouth and stall her for just few moments longer, her hand touched his skin and he forgot how to breathe.

  Ginger’s long slim fingers traced a path from his shoulder, grazing his collarbone with a whisper-soft touch until they rested against his pectoral, just over his heart. Beck pulled back, just enough to look down into her dark eyes and somehow managed to swallow down the lump of fear and want lodged in his throat. Even if he could have spoken, he had no idea what to say.

  It wasn’t a moment for words anyway. Anything he could say would piss her off and if he pissed Ginger off she’d halt the progress of her hand as she traced a path of fire down the planes of his stomach and abdominals. And that would kill him.

  She broke eye contact, transferring her gaze to where she rested her fingers against the skin just on the edge of his scrub pants and he followed her gaze. The contrast of her dark skin next to his lighter tone was still one of the most gorgeous things he’d ever seen, but the whisper of flesh against him had him holding his breath to the point of pain in his chest. Something had to give or he was going to burn, incinerate from inside out from the wanting.

  And then it did. Ginger lifted her eyes to his own as she boldly untied his pants and slid her hand inside the waistband and past the stretch fabric of his boxer briefs. The smooth glide of her palm against his dick and flick of her thumb across the head was all he could take. She’d always been able to do this to him, and she was the only one he let get away with it.

  But not today. It had been too long with just his memories of her and his hand.

  Beck leaned down and took her mouth with his own, capturing her moan and tasting the sweetness of it on his tongue. Ginger, caught off balance, released her hold on him and clutched his shoulders tightly as he gripped her thighs and lifted her up with a slam against the door. The impact jarred them both, pressing them closer together as he scrabbled with shaking fingers to ruck up her skirt.

  The skin on her thighs was so soft, growing hotter to the touch as he stroked upward, revealing more of her as he pushed away the fabric of her clothes. He found the tiny string holding together her miniscule panties and he smiled against her mouth.

  “Are these the same expensive ones you used to buy?” he asked. Ginger had always spent a ridiculous amount of money on underwear that barely covered the fun parts. Not that he ever complained.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll try not to rip them.” He nipped at her lower lip, his dick getting harder at the soft sigh that drifted across the skin of his cheek. “No promises.”

  Ginger writhed against his body, using the door at her back as leverage as he aligned their bodies. Her thong-covered sex was hot and wet against his erection, his loose scrubs now resting against his thigh and his underwear pushed down. His body was on auto-pilot, his only thought to get them both off as soon as possible and then take her over to his couch and take his damn sweet time the second time around.

  Ginger pulled his face down to hers, taking his mouth this time in a way that mirrored the swivel of her hips and the press of her high heels against his lower back. Beck answered back with his body, grinding into the cleft between her legs, making sure he did hit the sweet spot again when her breath hitched in her throat.

  “I’m close,” she murmured, her head thunking against the door when he pressed against her clit.

  Fuck yeah. It wasn’t the first time he’d made her come like this. The first was in her father’s study the weekend he’d gone home with her. She’d been moody and twitchy the whole time, and they’d been heading for a fight when she pulled him into her father’s study to have it out. Instead he’d fucked her against the door, knowing her father was just down the hall but understanding what she’d needed and why. They’d emerged from the room and he’d known then that he had to leave her alone. He was the absolute wrong person for her and really, nothing had changed.

  But he didn’t care right this minute.

  Shaking off the memory, he focused on the here and now. Her body pliant and warm against his body and completely open to his giving her pleasure. Gone was the woman who hid behind a veil of calm and shielded herself with rules and regulations. This woman was coming apart at the seams, giving him her body and her pleasure.

  His orgasm was barreling down on him like a bullet train and the roar in his ears from his high-as-fuck blood pressure almost blocked out the sound of the knock at his door.

  Almost.

  “Beck.” Alex Rifkin’s voice sounded off on the other side of the door, impatient, like he’d been knocking for a while. “Beck. Virginia. Open up.”

  At the sound of the voice, Ginger stilled against him, her nails digging into the bare skin of his shoulder with enough pressure to make him wince. Her legs, still wrapped around his waist, tightened as well. In fact, in a nanosecond her body went from loose and fluid to strung tighter than a bow. She shoved against his chest, her unspoken request as loud as the gunshot on Oak Street earlier that day.

  Was that just a couple of hours ago? Beck felt like he’d lived a decade in the span of day and the fatigue was quickly catching up with him.

  Ginger settled on her heels and he reached out a hand to steady her when she wobbled enough to alarm him. He leaned down to get at the face she was doing her damnedest to hide from him but the knock at the door halted his progress.

  “Jesus, Beck. Are you dead in there or what?” Alex’s voice was gruffer, his irritation evident event through the door.

  “Beck. Open the goddam door.” Teague’s voice penetrated the wooden barrier. It was his lawyer voice. His pain-in-the-ass voice.

  Be
ck sighed.

  “You okay?” he asked, surprised at the defiance edged with a healthy dose of confusion on her features. She took a moment, smoothed down her skirt and shook her shoulders, as if readying herself for a battle. In that moment he saw all of the usual shutters going down. It was like the last few moments had never happened.

  “I’m fine,” she said, her voice even and not even winded. He could barely catch his breath and she was under complete control. “I’m fine.”

  The second one wasn’t as calm as the first and the slight tremor made him feel better. He wasn’t going crazy alone.

  “Ginger,” he said, taking a step toward her, but she was faster, unlocking the door and scooting past a stunned Alex and a thunderous Teague who both stood with their hands raised to knock one more time. Beck debated following her but the last thing he wanted to do was chase her through the hospital hallway with no shirt on and these two knuckleheads hot on his trail.

  That was not the way a team leader would act.

  A team leader also wouldn’t have almost sex in his office with the Director of Operations, either. You couldn’t have everything.

  “What did you do?” Alex asked from the threshold, his face voice more resigned than curious.

  Beck turned from him, grabbing the scrub shirt off his desk and pulling it on. He wasn’t going to stand here half-naked while the head of hospital security and one of his oldest friends gave him the stink eye.

  “Beck.” Teague walked up to him, leaning down to get a good look at his face. “Tell me that you did not just have sex in here, less than a half hour after being held hostage.”

  That last bit irritated him, not the bit about the sex but the other part. The way Teague said it sounded like he thought Beck wasn’t capable of getting his ass out of the fire when necessary. “I was never really held hostage.”

  “The punk kid pulled a gun on you,” Teague unnecessarily pointed out.

  “He also had a hole in his leg and was losing lots of blood.” Beck shrugged, tamping down the memory of the spike of fear he’d felt at the sight of that gun and the thoughts of Ginger that had quickly followed. “It was a matter of time before he passed out.”

  “Okay, hero, if you say so,” Alex scoffed, jerking a thumb in the direction of the door. “The cops are dying to hear your side of the story. We’ll be in my office.”

  Beck waved him off and stalked over to his office fridge, opening the door and grabbing a Mountain Dew. Popping the top, he sighed at the fizz and sucked down half the can in a couple of swallows. He really wanted a cigarette but that crutch had been laid aside a long time ago. Nothing like almost getting shot to bring back old vices.

  “Your hand is shaking,” Teague said, leaning on the desk with his legs and arms crossed. Great, he was staying a while.

  “Adrenaline.”

  “Uh-huh. What were you doing in that part of town?”

  Beck sucked down the rest of the soda, crumpling the can and shooting it into the wastebasket as he debated lying. Teague was not going to be thrilled with the truth. “I went to see Sandy.”

  “Damn it Beck. Tell me you didn’t tell him to leave town or some other John Wayne bullshit.”

  He just stared, letting the silence speak for itself. Teague stared back, his eyes narrowing with his unhappiness at Beck’s action. He braced for the attorney interrogation, surprised when his best friend broke eye contact, rubbing a hand over his face in frustration.

  “Sissy called me to check on you. She was frantic when she heard what was going down.”

  “They had my name on the radio?”

  “John Cantrell’s police scanner.”

  Beck nodded. John might be the former sheriff but he still knew everything that went down in this town. And since he was married to Sissy’s sister…it was like an express train of information from their house to Sissy’s hair salon.

  “Look,” Teague continued, his voice taking on that even tone he used in court when he was arguing a case. “What’s going on with you?”

  “Nothing. I just helped a kid out who got shot. He pulled a gun and I knocked him out with a full dose of morphine.”

  “Just another day at work for Dr. Sutherland?” Teague asked, fighting back the smile that teased his mouth.

  “You know me: reckless and brash,” he said, quoting the most frequent criticism from Mr. Bent. God only knew what he was going to call him after this latest incident.

  “Save it. Only people who don’t know you buy the whole ‘man-living-on-the-edge’ persona you throw around.”

  “Is that right?” he asked, more than a little uncomfortable with the path this conversation was taking.

  “You never do anything you haven’t thought through. You just have a higher threshold for danger and crazy than the rest of us.”

  “So why the concern?”

  “Because sleeping with the woman who is the swing vote on your promotion is stupid, and you’re not stupid.” Teague’s phone rang and he pulled it out of his pocket and glanced at the screen. “That’s Sissy. I’ll talk her off the ledge so you can go give a statement to the police.” He walked toward the door, pointing at him with authority. “Don’t sleep with your boss.”

  “She’s not my boss,” he argued, relying on semantics because he didn’t like the prickle of unease that settled between his shoulder blades. Technically he fell under the Chief of Staff but she did run the hospital.

  Teague’s parting shot amped up the prickle to a full-fledged skin crawl of warning signals. “If you screw this up, you’re going to wish that kid shot you.”

  Chapter Nine

  Beck knew that he could talk a woman out of her panties and out of her money with equal speed and expertise. It was a gift.

  He was also damn lucky that he could do it when he was distracted by Ginger in a sexy-as-hell short silver cocktail dress across the room at the DRAGON Slayers Foundation fundraiser. Beck mentally slapped himself, focusing his attention and permanent grin on Mrs. Hunter Clarkson Prentiss, III as she pledged half a million dollars to the charity. That money would pay for a lot of medical care, tutoring, clothes, food, and tuition assistance for the kids who struggled to get a chance to get to the world beyond the Blue Ridge Mountains.

  He returned her hug and kissed her on the cheek as he thanked her again and made his way across the room, heading straight for Ginger. They had things to talk about and now was as good a time as any. If she saw him coming, she didn’t let as much as an eyelash flicker give her feelings away. She stood tall and composed, smiling at something someone else was saying.

  He was glad to see that she was hanging out with his friends: Jack and Michaela, Teague and Risa, and Taylor and Lucky.

  “Hey,” he said as he stopped and joined their circle. “Ladies you look gorgeous as usual.” He stopped to focus on Ginger. “Especially you.”

  She locked eyes with him, the slight tilt of her head a quick but silent thank you before she broke eye contact and looked down at the drink in her hand.

  The iron woman façade she had in place tonight was light years away from the molten hot lava lover he’d held in his arms earlier today. He couldn’t forget her. It was like the first touch of their mouths had unlocked a reserve of want that he couldn’t lock back up. But nothing about Ginger indicated that she was burning alive like he was.

  “What about me?” Lucky asked, looking down at his tuxedo with a bewildered expression on his face. “Aren’t I gorgeous?”

  Beck cocked an eyebrow at Teague and Jack. “Is it my turn to stroke his fragile ego? I thought his getting married got me off the hook.”

  “Don’t be an ass, we’ve got company.” Teague motioned to a man standing next to Ginger. He was tall, African-American, and had his hand on Ginger’s waist. Beck didn’t like the twinge of irritation that flared in his chest.

  “Beckett, this is Peter Fox,” Ginger said, her voice cool but her glance warm as she looked at her date. “Peter this is Dr. Beckett Sutherland.”
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br />   “Pete,” he said, extending his hand in greeting. “Nice to meet you.”

  “It’s Peter,” he said with a wry twist to his mouth. “Nice to meet you.”

  Beck wasn’t a dick but the sight of the guy putting his arm around Ginger and pulling her in close flipped his switch. He couldn’t help himself.

  “So, Pete, how do you know Ginger?” To his right, Teague groaned at his childishness. He ignored him.

  The guy’s jaw tightened at the sound of his name abused but then flickered with curiosity as he looked at Ginger. She smiled at him but it was tight, her own irritation just under the surface if you knew what to look for.

  “Virginia and I met up again at a law school alumnae event a few weeks ago.”

  “Well, that was poor timing on your part.” He flashed a smile at Pete’s confused expression. “Starting to date right before she moves here.” He let out a long whistle. “Long distance is tough. I presume you aren’t from around here.”

  “Peter lives and works in DC,” Ginger offered, her eyes flashing a warning just for him. “He’s a lobbyist.”

  “Right.” Beck didn’t have anything against ole Pete. It’s just that he kept touching Ginger. And he had all kinds of problems with that shit. But her old man would love this guy. Admiral Crawford hadn’t said much to him the weekend he’d gone home with Ginger, but he’d referred to him frequently as “that white boy” when talking about him.

  Beck spotted a waiter going by and motioned him over. “Jack Daniels. Neat.” He looked at the full wine glass in Ginger’s hand and he remembered that she didn’t drink. Her mother had been an alcoholic who’d drunk herself into a stroke. “You want a club soda with lime?”

  She paused, her eyes flaring with her surprise. Her voice was less poised as she nodded. “Thank you.”

  Beck took the glass from her and handed it to the waiter, watching her face for any reaction when he deliberately brushed against her fingers with his own. Nothing. Not even a twitch as she kept her gaze mostly on her date. Were they a thing? Was he her boyfriend? He’d never thought to ask and he didn’t like not knowing. Not one little bit.