Page 66 of After You

“Well, then this is good,” she said, meaning it about eighty percent. Or maybe fifty percent. “He’ll definitely be over me afterthis.”

“This?”

“If I can be here, involved with my family, and reminded of all the things I love about this town, and I also have a fling with him and still leave, then he’ll really hate me and will get over me. He knows I’m leaving. I promised.”

“And you have to keep a promise to him this time,” Kadesaid.

He knew her well. She nodded. “Absolutely.”

“So you are planning on sleeping withhim.”

She sighed. Okay, fine. “Kind of.” And yeah, she felt a little pulse of pleasure between her legs at even the thought.

But mostly she had to help Kyle break free of the idea that everything had to be planned and forecast. He needed some spontaneity in his life. He needed to go with the flow and see that it could turn out. Or maybe even more; if things veered off course, he was perfectly capable of adapting.

“So what are you going to do exactly? I guess just taking your clothes off would be spontaneous and fun and would result insex.”

“Sex isn’t the goal,” she insisted. But Kade wasn’t wrong about the fun part. “I need to show him that having fun is important and that being spontaneous can be fun. That not always having a plan can still be a good thing.” She’d been thinking about this since Kyle had told her his plan to publicly seduce her. She had some ideas for what was going to happen in private.

And ironically, reminding Kyle how to be spontaneous was going to require a solidplan.

* * *

Holyshit.

Kyle drew up short in the doorway of Alice’s kitchen. Alice was sitting out on the porch and had asked him to get her a glass of lemonade. She hadn’t mentioned that Hannah was in the kitchen. He’d hoped to run into her, of course, but she’d been so good at avoiding him that he wasn’t sure he’d see her. Of course, she hadn’t known he was coming over here today. Exactly why he’d stopped by without warning.

But even if he managed to catch her by surprise, he really wasn’t sure how she was going to react after their little kitchen tryst three nights ago. He knew how he was reacting to it. A mix of smugness, burning desire that had kept him up a lot of the night, and confusion. She’d been so hot. There had been some tentativeness there too, like she wasn’t sure what she was doing—or couldn’t believe she was doing it. But she’d kissed him back, she’d pressed close, she’d unbuttoned when he told her to. And damn, that had been the hottest thing he’d everseen.

Until, of course, she’d slipped her hand into her panties.

He’d been with other women in the past three years. Admittedly, for the first few months after his breakup had actually sunk in, he’d fucked his way around the county in a quest to banish Hannah from his thoughts. Then after that first year, he’d actually given some effort to finding someone he could be serious about. He wanted to move on. He wanted the whole marriage-and-family thing. But he hadn’t found anyone who made him think that forever was possible. Then sex had turned into nothing more than a fun, sometimes necessary way to blow off steam. But those hook-ups had been a lot less frequent. Still, he’d seen plenty of women wearing denim shorts and unbuttoning blouses for him and touching themselves.

It had never made him as hot and hard as watching Hannah. Hell, she’d barely been undressed. And he’d only seen her hand in her panties. He hadn’t seen the really good stuff. And he’d never felt the wave of got-to-have-her that he’d felt withher.

Because he’d pushed her. He’d gotten her hot enough that she was doing things she never would have done before. Other women wanting him had always felt good, of course. But pushing Hannah to that point had been the next level.

She was now up on the counter in Alice’s kitchen, scrubbing the high shelves in Alice’s cabinets. She was wearing another pair of short-shorts and a pink spaghetti-strap tank top that reminded him of the color of her bra she’d had on at the Come Again. These shorts weren’t denim, though. They were a soft gray color and looked like sweatpants that had been cut off. But they rode high on her legs, gaped around her thighs, giving peeks at tantalizing shadows, and hugged her ass. And she was cleaning cupboards. Which shouldn’t have been erotic at all, but it shot him back to the past when they’d worked together to take care of their parents and grandparents, their school, and theirtown.

His body tightened at the entire picture, and he stopped to take a deep breath so he didn’t stalk right over there, yank her down into his arms, and repeat that kitchen scene on her grandmother’s white Formica countertop. Without any panties in theway.

As he watched, Hannah lowered her arms, rolling her shoulders and neck as if they were stiff. She reached up and kneaded her right shoulder, then ran her hand up to the side of her neck, squeezing the muscles.

His gut tightened, and it wasn’t about how delicious her ass looked in the shortsnow.

She’d told him that she still had neck issues from the car accident she’d been in at the end of her last internship in Seattle. He remembered the phone call. She’d been hit by a car in a crosswalk and had been taken to the hospital. She’d had all the tests done and she was starting physical therapy the next day. That had been the report. He’d been worried, of course, but she’d assured him she was fine. She’d sounded normal. And her parents and grandmother knew nothing about it. And she’d begged him not to tell them. She’d told him there was nothing to worry about.

So he hadn’t. He’d been buried in his residency and was relieved, honestly, not to have one more thing demanding attention and energy. But if she was still having issues three years later, it hadn’t been quite a no-big-deal event.

And suddenly he felt a surge of concern and protectiveness that made him nervous. She wasn’t his problem. She’d taken herself away from being his problem.

He still didn’t like knowing that she was in pain of anykind.

But this was physical pain. That he could help her with. He was a freaking doctor. All she had to do was say the word and he’d do whatever he could to make her better.

Hell, maybe she didn’t need to say a word. Maybe he needed to insist. Like telling her to unbutton the other night. Maybe she just needed to know what he wanted from her—for her to let him take care ofher.

Yeah, that was definitely concerning.

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