She chuckled and finished her dinner while he sipped his beer. When she was done, Erik moved his chair next to hers and slung an arm around her shoulders, angling his body close. She kept her eyes on the boats in the harbor, pretending she couldn’t sense his intense gaze. He’d look away in a moment or so and then she’d be able to breathe normally again.
Several moments passed with no luck. If she didn’t want to turn blue, she had to be the one to break the tension. “You’re staring at me, Lieutenant.”
He ignored her statement with one of his own. “Tell me about yourself.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything.”
Olivia almost laughed until she spared a glance at him and realized he hadn’t meant it as a joke at all. “That’s a bit much right out of the gate. How about I stick with the basics?”
Erik gave her a clipped nod. “That’ll work. For now.”
A shudder of anticipation ran through her. This was a man used to having his orders followed without question. It was clear in the tone of his voice that he considered this a concession on his part. That if he wanted to, he could easily get her to spill a verbal memoir from her earliest memory to the night they met. She couldn’t help but wonder what sort of methods he’d use.
“Livvie,” he prodded.
Right. She’d just ignore the tingling heat swirling deep in her center. No problem. “I grew up in Cambridge and had a great childhood. My dad was a financial advisor and my mom stayed home with my older brother and me. When my dad retired, he had their finances set up so well that now they spend most of the year traveling all over the world. Their goal is to see every habitable country at least once. Seeing their pictures and talking to them always makes me jealous. I’d like to do that someday, too. Maybe not quite as extensively, but you know, travel to different countries and experience their culture.”
The muscles in his neck and shoulders visibly tensed as he stared into the distance. “There are some places I don’t ever want to see again.” Erik’s eyes were haunted, no doubt from the nightmares he survived while serving overseas in war-torn lands. Nightmares she hoped Uncle Eddie could help Erik banish enough that they no longer debilitated him.
“Hey,” she said softly. She placed a hand on his cheek and he let her guide his face back to hers. When his eyes refocused, she brushed her thumb over the smooth skin of his cheekbone, right above his stubble. “Where’d you go just now?”
His attempt at a grin was little more than a stiff quirk of his mouth, and the single word he uttered sounded forced through gravel. “Nowhere.” Erik covered her hand with his as he turned in to her, kissing her palm then the sensitive skin on the underside of her wrist, before lowering it to rest on his leg. “Did you always want to be a psychologist?”
Olivia let the subject change stand and continued to appease his curiosity. “No, but I’ve always had an affinity for helping people. When I was in high school, I volunteered at the children’s hospital and loved it, so I chose Boston U to stay close to my family and continue working at the hospital when I could. Originally, I planned on becoming a middle school teacher, but I ended up changing my major to psychology my junior year.”
“What made you change it?”
My boyfriend at the time, who later became my husband, said it would be a better financial career choice for our ten-year plan. Giving him a smile she hoped wasn’t as tight as it felt, she waved a hand and tried for flippant. “I couldn’t pass up the sixty-hour work weeks, working through my summers, and most of my colleagues being men who grow hair from their ears and keep Old Spice in business.”
The deep rumble of his laugh warmed her from the inside. She loved the sound and the way it made her feel, knowing that he found levity in something, even if only for a short while. It struck her then that, more than anything, she wanted Erik to find inner peace and genuine happiness. She hadn’t been exaggerating when she told him that at her core she wanted to help people, and though she originally planned on being a teacher, she’d found that helping individuals like him to take back control over their lives after traumatic experiences was a special calling all its own.
“And when you made the switch to psychology, did you always intend on specializing in PTSD with vets? Or did the idea of working with egotistical, pigheaded megalomaniacs struggling with reentry into society among the boring civilians sound like too much fun to pass up?”
“Come on, you’re being too hard on yourself,” she said with a sly grin. “You’re not always pigheaded.” He feigned affront, which made her laugh with an embarrassing snort, but it made him smile and chuckle in kind, so in the end, it was worth it. But she decided it would be best to move on before he said something to make her do it again. “To answer your question, though, after I received my Masters in clinical psych, I did my internship at the VA hospital. I have a lot of service members in my family, so I’ve always been passionate about the military and helping those who’ve sacrificed so much for us and our country.”
Like you. Her concern and desire to help Erik had started the same as it did with everyone else who came to see her. But even though he wasn’t one of her clients, over the days and weeks—and especially the past several hours—that basic concern had grown exponentially, to the point where part of her happiness hinged on his. Add in the three-hundred-pound-gorilla-awkward-first-night and more sexual tension than Amish teens on Rumspringa, and that about summed up her current relationship with one Lieutenant Erik Grady.
“After my internship was almost over, Uncle Eddie invited me to do my supervised clinic work with him, and whether he thinks I’m an asset to his clinic or he’s obligated as my godfather to keep me on, I’ve been there ever since.”
“I’m very impressed, Dr. Jones. That’s one hell of a résumé you have. I could never have gone to school all those years. Learning in a classroom setting never appealed to me. And by that, I mean I spent more of my time trying to figure out ways to play pranks on my teachers than I did taking notes. Luckily, I never had to study much to do well, so my parents wrote most of it off as ‘boys being boys.’”
“Evil boy genius, huh? Interesting. Okay, your turn,” she said, desperate to get herself out of the hot seat. “Hit me with the abridged version of how Little Erik became Big Erik.”
One side of his mouth curled up and his eyes sparked with the boyish mischief she was beginning to recognize as his default setting. “Biologically speaking, it’s a simple matter of my blood rushing to the center of my body. It’s like when Little Mario eats the red and white mushroom and grows into Big Mario…”
Olivia laughed at his blatant misunderstanding, complete with Super Mario Bros. analogy. She loved that he laughed at his own jokes and that she never knew what would come out of his mouth next. He was predictably unpredictable.
“However, in my early years, my ‘growth’ was brought on by a multitude of things, by which of course I mean anything that even remotely made me think of sex. Or women. Or having sex with women.” Erik narrowed his eyes at the sky and canted his head slightly as though considering his thoughts. “Or women having sex with other wo—”
“Okay!” She chuckled as she clapped her hand over his mouth. “I get the picture. You’re a horny bastard who gets hard in the produce aisle because you see tits and cocks instead of melons and cucumbers.”
“It’s true; it never took much to get my flag to fly until about a month ago. Now the only time it happens is when I think of you, which wouldn’t be all that bad—” Reaching up, he used a single finger to trace a light path from her temple, down and along her jawline. “Except everything makes me think of you.”
Damn, this man was good. What was she supposed to say to that? It made her ridiculously giddy, but she wasn’t about to unleash her inner cheerleader and giggle while twirling her hair and pushing out her chest to test his claim. The fact that she suddenly had an inner cheerleader because of him was disturbing enough without actually humiliating herself.
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“That’s, um…” Olivia searched her brain. Words, words, where were her words? “Wow.” Nice. Her IQ was now lower than the number of people who thought the Marriott’s antiquated appearance wasn’t an eyesore.
“Yeah, that about sums it up. At first, I thought it was a pretty cool party trick, but it turns out that having a live-in erection as a roommate made things a little uncomfortable, a little tight, you know? So I went to the doctor, but he said that the over-four-hour-erection warning was only if you took a Viagra. Personally, I never touch the stuff; I’m a purist. Anyway, he said the only way to end my suffering is to fuck whatever’s causing it out of my system.”
“Oh, he did, did he?”
Somehow, he managed to keep his expression totally somber. “He did.”
“It’s strange, now that you mention it, because I went in for my yearly female visit the other day, and do you know what my doctor said?”
“Tell me.”
“She said that I needed to close up shop for a while.”
“Close up shop?”
“Yep, you know, just—” She clapped her hands together once. “Close it up. Something about a new study and living longer; I don’t really remember all the specifics. But what I do know is that I signed a bunch of documents stating that I would indeed close up shop for a minimum of six months.”
“Six months?”
Damn, the man was cute when pretending incredulity. “I know, it’s terrible. But I have to go through with it because the documents state that I can be sued for breach of contract and other nasty stuff. Darn, right? If it weren’t for those signed pieces of paper, I’d be jumping your bones, right here, right now.”
Erik took out his cell phone, pushed a button, and held it to his ear.
“What are you doing?”
“Baby, I was special forces. I know at least a dozen people who can make those documents go away. Hold on, this’ll only take a sec.”
Olivia laughed and squealed, trying to grab his phone, but he easily evaded her. “Erik Grady, you better be joking. I swear if you tell one of your buddies that I signed contracts to close my vagina shop, I will murder you in your sleep.”
A bark of laughter escaped the man she wouldn’t have guessed possible of such levity. What a wonderful surprise. “Sorry, but anything you said was completely erased in my mind the second you said ‘vagina shop.’”
He probably wasn’t the only one if the side glances they’d gotten from at least half a dozen people around them were any indication. Normally, she’d be ten shades of embarrassed, but she was having too much fun to care if she scandalized any strangers.
She continued trying to swipe his phone (which never really had a call going through, thank God) while citing all sorts of absurd reasons for needing it. Then he started fighting fire with fire and made moves to confiscate hers. Considering everyone with a pulse kept their entire lives on their phones, it was a valid reason for playing a serious game of Keep Away, even if they were only joking around.
After they wore themselves out and called a phone truce, Erik checked the time on his large and very manly watch. Even the way he wore a watch was sexy. How was that possible? “Time to go, gorgeous.”
“Go where?”
“To my portion of the date.”
“I thought this was your portion.”
“Then you need higher expectations,” he said, linking his fingers with hers once again. “Come on. We have a boat to catch.”
Chapter Nine
“Can I rub your head?”
Erik almost choked on his beer but managed to keep his composure and swallow without mishap. “Come again?” Jesus, if the double-meaning phrases didn’t stop, he’d be harder than the ship’s anchor.
For his portion of their date, he’d brought her on one of the sunset cruises run by Boston Harbor Cruises. Another thing that locals like her usually had on their perpetual to-do lists but never actually got around to experiencing because they figured they could always do it another time. Aboard the triple-decker Fort Independence, it was a fully narrated (not that he was paying attention to a damn word unless it came out of Olivia’s mouth), ninety-minute tour around the harbor with dozens of tourists enjoying drinks, snacks, and a stunning view of the sun setting over the Boston skyline.
But for as amazing as it was, Erik couldn’t care less about any of it. All he could think about was the woman in front of him and how desperately he wanted her.
Olivia blushed but didn’t point out the play on words. Her gaze lifted to his hairline. “Your hair,” she said. “I felt it a little bit, um…before, but not much because I was—”
He leaned in and spoke at her ear. “Highly distracted?” His cock twitched, remembering where his hair would have touched her that night. Like the inside of her thighs, for sure, as he kissed and licked and fucked her with his tongue.
She cleared her throat and sipped her drink. “Sorry, that was a stupid thing to ask. Must be the Long Island iced teas talking. Forget I said—”
Erik grabbed her free hand and pulled her in closer. “Two things,” he said. “One, nothing you ask me is ever stupid, and two, you never have to ask permission to touch me. The answer will always be yes. Got it?”
One corner of her sensual mouth curved up the tiniest bit. “Got it.”
Slowly, she raised her eyes to where her hand hovered. He felt the pads of her delicate fingers skim his hairline then glide lightly over his scalp and down the back. His head dipped forward of its own volition, leaning into her like a feral dog reveling in its first experience with a gentle touch. Erik locked down the rumble of pleasure in his chest and focused on keeping his breaths even as she sent tingles vibrating through his spine that settled heavily into his balls.
He couldn’t look away from her. He’d spent all day—weeks, really—chipping away at the wall she kept between them. Now, as he studied her face and the emotions that skittered across, it looked as though he’d finally tumbled the damn thing down.
“It’s so soft,” she said with a sense of wonderment. “You’d think a buzz cut would feel prickly, but it doesn’t. It feels…really good, actually.”
Erik’s voice came out thick and rough. “So damn good.”
She, of course, caught on that he wasn’t reiterating her statement as much as he was making one of his own. Lowering her eyes as a blush crept into her cheeks, she took her hand away. Erik missed her touch instantly. He could now relate to the Husky he had growing up who always nosed her way under his palm every time he stopped petting her.
If he had any supernatural powers, he would have made it so they were in her bed in the next moment. Then he’d nose his way between her thighs and revel in the double pleasure of eating her until she came on his tongue while she grabbed and clawed at his head and shoulders.
Olivia cleared her throat and offered a friendly smile, most likely in a futile attempt to make things less…intense. “Well, at any rate, I like your hair.”
He liked her, and if he didn’t get the subject onto something that had nothing to do with sex, or the innuendos thereof, they’d be shocking a lot of people when he bent her over the nearest flat surface and had his wicked way with her.
“I’m surprised you haven’t asked me how my sessions are going with Dr. Marion.”
She shrugged but didn’t meet his eyes. “You aren’t my client, so it’s not my business.”
“In the last few weeks, did you ever want to make it your business?”
Finally, she turned her face up to his and gave him a no-bullshit stare. “What I do or don’t want is irrelevant, Erik; you know that.”
“I disagree. I think what you want is extremely relevant. I want to know your every desire, from your favorite guilty pleasure to every sexual fantasy that’s ever floated through that beautiful brain of yours.”
Way to stick to the plan, asshole.
Screw the plan. Ask about her fantasies.
Olivia swallowed hard, yearning and uncertain
ty swirling in her hazel eyes. Erik tucked her hair behind her left ear, then his lips followed to ensure no one but her could hear the erotic musings ghosting over her skin. “There’s nothing you can tell me that’ll change the way I feel about you, Livvie.” A tiny, helpless sound escaped her throat as his tongue traced a languorous path along the delicate shell of her ear. “All you have to do is tell me. If it’s within my power, I’ll give you whatever you want.”
“Have you always been such a generous lover, Lieutenant Grady?”
“I haven’t been for a long time, no. But there’s something about you, Dr. Jones. From the first moment our eyes met, I craved you like a new addiction I couldn’t shake.”
“Oh.”
She looked so incredible, the orange-and-pink-streaked sky behind her and the lanterns lining the ship reflecting in her eyes.
He couldn’t put off tasting her any longer. Angling his body to block them from other passengers, he slipped his fingers into the hair at her nape, rested his thumbs along her jaw, and lowered his mouth to hers.
Instinct told him to take, to plunder, to conquer and claim, but he reined it in and locked it down. There’d be time to unleash all that later when they didn’t have an audience. For now, he’d go slow and explore her in the ways he didn’t get to that first night together, ways he’d fantasized of doing ever since.
Gently, he brushed his mouth over hers, their breaths mingling as he teased them both, never committing to the kiss they wanted. He nipped the pouty center of her lower lip and reveled in her quiet gasp. He felt her sharp intake of breath, felt her fingernails graze his sides through his shirt when she fisted the material tight enough that it pulled across his lower back. Erik wondered if she did it out of frustration from being teased, or shock from the pleasure-pain of the bite, but the cause wasn’t as important as the outcome.
Right now, the only thing that mattered was her reaction. That she responded to him in ways that showed he wasn’t crazy. That she wanted him every bit as much as he wanted her, despite the cat-and-mouse game they’d played over the last several weeks. And that’s exactly what she was showing him as he continued to manipulate the non-kiss, using his hands to angle her head this way and that, letting his tongue dart out for quick tastes of her sweet lips.