He willed himself to focus on Jenna, only Jenna. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten what I said earlier—about the going down on you, making you scream.”
She ran her hand over his upper thigh. “You promised.”
Derek’s blood went hot, his mind shifting to a much more enjoyable train of thought. “Oh, angel, you just wait.”
They parked, kissed on the way up in the elevator, Jenna arching against him. He punched in the entry code for his condo, getting it wrong the first time, lust making it damned hard to think.
They made it as far as the kitchen table.
He sat her on it, pushed her back, and tore off her pretty lace panties, tossing the tattered lace aside. Then he dropped to his knees, rested her feet on his shoulders, and got to work, sucking her clit, stroking her inside, making her scream.
But Derek wasn’t done with her. When her climax had passed, he dragged her off the table, turned her around, and pounded into her from behind, reaching around to stroke her clit, carrying her over the edge once more before letting himself go.
“Jenna.” Her name felt like something sacred as he poured his soul into her.
They lay together in the darkness of his room after that, the turmoil inside Derek pushed aside in the afterglow. “Remind me to give Carolyn a fat tip.”
Jenna snuggled against him. “I’ll say this for you, Derek Tower. You are a man who keeps his promises.”
* * *
It wasearly January before Jenna got serious about the job search. She made excuses for herself along the way. It was the holiday season. She was still dealing with the emotional fallout of what had happened in Afghanistan. She wasn’t sure where she wanted to live. Blah. Blah.
It was all baloney.
She just didn’t want to face saying goodbye to Derek.
“Do you mind if I stay through the end of January?” she’d asked. “The jobs I’m applying for don’t close their searches until then, and I still need to find a place.”
“Stay as long as you like,” he’d said. But there had been something in his voice and the way he didn’t meet her gaze.
Was he tired of her?
The thought put a knot in her chest, but she brushed it aside.
If hewastired of her, he was doing a good job of hiding it. He held her at night, made love to her like a sex god, did little thoughtful things, like picking up her dirty clothes from his bedroom floor without grumbling about the mess and making sure she had coffee when she woke up in the morning. The man had surprised her with a bulletproof BMW X5 Security Plus as a Christmas gift, for goodness sake.
No, it wasn’t “I love you,” but those werenotthe actions of a man who wanted her to go away.
Still, she could tell something was troubling him. Though he’d never said a cross word to her, he seemed preoccupied. More than once, she’d found him lost in thought as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders.
Then again, he’d been tortured—stripped naked, threatened with castration, abused. If she was still haunted by what had happened that day, he must be hurting, too.
“Why don’t you have nightmares?” she’d asked him one night when he’d woken her during a terrifying dream.
He’d kissed her temple. “I do sometimes, but I’ve been through this before. I’m trained for it. That wasn’t the first time some asshole roughed me up.”
The thought had sickened Jenna.
She pulled herself together and applied for two jobs in Denver—one with a large practice that included OB-GYNs and certified nurse midwives and one with a smaller practice that focused on reproductive healthcare for low-income women, migrants, and incarcerated women. To her surprise, both offered her a position before their job application deadlines.
Jenna gave Derek the news after dinner on a snowy evening in mid-January.
“Congratulations. What are the pros and cons of each?”
“The one at the bigger practice pays much better and would involve fewer nights on call. The one with Women’s Health—the smaller practice—would mean a lot more nights and more deliveries, and I would have to learn Spanish.”
“Anyone who can learn to speak Dari as well as you do can master Spanish.” He drank the last of his red wine. “Which one appeals to you more?”