Anyone but You (17 page)

All right then.

She walked into her bedroom, stripped off her clothes and looked at herself naked in the mirror as positively as she could.

Gravity had betrayed her when she wasn't paying attention. Looking closely, she could see the damage.

Cellulite. Fat. Bulge. Droop.

She drew a deep breath. Well, okay, so nothing was the way it used to be. But it wasn't bad. And it was all real, no gelatin molds. So she wasn't Cindy Crawford. Big deal. Without the airbrushing, Cindy Crawford probably wasn't Cindy Crawford, either.

Nina crossed her arms over her breasts and closed her syes. It was irrelevant anyway because if she didn't have Alex, she'd die, and this was the only body she had to take him with. So her choices were either to take her clothes off and let Alex see her naked or never to sleep with him ever. And she had to sleep with him.

Maybe she wouldn't have to take all her clothes off.

"I could wear the Incredibra and keep the lights off," she said to her reflection, and went to paw through her underwear drawer. There at the bottom she found her red lace Incredibra, the one she couldn't return since Fred had dragged it down the fire escape. "This is it," she told Fred, who'd followed her into the bedroom. "I'm really going to wear it this time." She put on the bra and the red lace underpants, cut high enough to at least disguise the fact that her stomach wasn't flat and then squinted at herself in the mirror.

Her breasts had never been this high. Nobody's breasts had ever been this high. Incredibras had so much lift they could get Fred off the ground. Well, that was good. And all that red confused the eye.

She could get away with it.

She went into the living room and dug her black trench coat out of the closet. "You stay here," she told Fred while she put it on. Then she took a deep breath and pulled the screen out of the window and went down the fire escape.

Alex's window was open, and she climbed through into his darkened living room, only to freeze when she heard voices in the lit kitchen.

Oh, great. He had a date, and she'd just crawled into his living room in her underwear. She turned to escape back through the window and knocked over the floor lamp. Hell. She grabbed the lamp and righted it, and then turned to go, but Alex was there in the lit doorway in his T-shirt and pgedduck shorts, looking more desirable than any man she'd ever seen in her life.

"Hello?" he said, and turned on the living-room light, blinking when he saw her.

Nina backed toward the window. "I was just leaving."

"No, you're not," Alex said, and then another Alex, this one black-haired, came out of the kitchen carrying a can of beer. "This is my brother, Max," Alex said, not taking his eyes off her. "He was just leaving."

"No, I wasn't." Max looked at Nina with interest.

Alex glared at him. "This is Nina."

"I was just leaving." Max turned toward the door. "In fact, I'm already gone." He opened the door, looked at Alex and said, "I told you to get rid of those damn shorts," and left.

Alex turned back to Nina. "Hi."

"Hi," Nina said, feeling like a fool.

Seven

Alex seemed hesitant. "I'm glad you're here. I thought maybe you weren't talking to me because I'd, uh, kissed you."

Okay, this was it. If she wanted him, this was it. She was going to have to do it.

Nina took off her coat and dropped it on the floor, and stood there with nothing but red lace between her and Alex.

Alex blinked. "On the other hand, talking isn't everything. Is that the Incredibra Fred brought me?"

Nina nodded.

He exhaled slowly and walked toward her. "It's very nice. Take it off."

Nina felt dizzy as he reached for her, and then she went into his arms, wrapping herself around him, almost crying out because he felt so good and she needed him so much. "I need you to make love to me," she said in his ear, and her voice came out thick with lust. "I need you now. I don't care about anything else. I just—"

His mouth closed over hers, and she moaned into him, tasting him with her tongue as his fingers dug into her back and then her rear end, pulling her tight against him even while she arched into him and bit his lip.

"Bedroom," he gasped when they came up for air. "We move now, or I take you on the floor."

Nina let him pull her toward the bedroom, dazed with wanting him, crazy to feel him inside her, but when they were in his room, and he stripped off his shirt and said, "Really nice bra. Take it off," Nina came crashing back to reality.

"No," she said, crossing her arms over her breasts.

"Nina—" he began, moving toward her.

"Turn off the lights." She took a step back until she was up against the bed.

"Sure." He reached back and flipped the light switch and then reached for her again. "Take it off."

"Alex, you don't understand," she said, and he stopped. She swallowed, trying to explain. "Everything's lower than it used to be."

"Nina, you don't understand," Alex said. "I don't care if it's on the floor. I want you naked now."

"Alex—" But then he was kissing her, hooking his foot around her ankle and tripping her back onto the bed until she fell, bouncing under him as his body moved over hers, his mouth hot on her neck.

"Alex," she tried again, holding on to sanity as his hands made her weak with heat, and then he looked down into her eyes, and she was stunned by the passion she saw there.

"I want you," he said. "I want you and I need you now. Do you want me?" He slid his hand down her side and pulled her hips closer to his, and she clenched her teeth as she felt him hard through his shorts.

"Oh, God, yes." Nina moved under him, crazy at his touch. "I can't stand it anymore. Yes."

"Then you're losing the bra." Alex unhooked the center clasp with one hand and pulled the lace away from her body, and before she could wince, his mouth was hot on her throat and then on her breast, sucking hard, and she arched under him, mindless in the blast of pure pleasure his lips and tongue sent through her, any qualms she had forgotten, any fear gone. She raked her fingers through his hair and moaned as he licked and sucked at her swollen breasts, and then Fred barked at her.

He was sitting beside the bed.

Nina gasped and blinked, pushing halfheartedly at Alex's head while she tried to remember her name.

Alex stopped and looked down at Fred. "Where did you come from?" he asked, and then shook his head. "I don't care. Go back.''

"I left the window open," Nina said around ragged breaths as she struggled to sit up. "I'll put him back. I'll-"

"No, you won't." Alex pressed her back down with his body, and she shuddered under him, loving the slide of her breasts against the fur of his chest and the pressure of his body between her legs as he bore down on her. "You're not getting out of this bed," he told her.

"No." Nina ran her hands down his body and watched him close his eyes in pleasure. "No, I'm not.

I'm not getting out of this bed." She rocked her hips against his and shuddered at how good he felt.

"Do things to me."

Alex looked down at her, and his eyes were black with lust. "I intend to do things to you." He looked at Fred. "Pay attention. You may pick up some pointers here."

Nina moved against the pillow. "He's just a child. He shouldn't be watching."

Alex pressed her hips harder into the mattress, letting his hand trail down her shoulder to cup her breast, his thumb teasing her nipple. Nina moaned, and Fred whined, and Alex frowned down at him, his hand still driving Nina into mindlessness. "Think of this as cable TV," she heard him tell Fred. "Not your mom and dad finally having great sex." Then he leaned down and licked her nipple, and Nina rolled her head to the side, drunk with pleasure, and saw Fred yawn and lick his lips.

"Go away, Fred," she said, but Alex said, "Good idea," and began to kiss his way between Nina's breasts and down the slope of her stomach, tickling her and making her shudder, sliding the red lace of her underpants down as he moved his body across her thighs.

"Oh, God, yes," Nina said through clenched teeth, and then he reached her hips and licked inside her, and Nina lost all power of speech. Her body went liquid under his hands and his mouth and all she knew was flooding heat and pressure and a tightening deep inside her that Alex was making tighter and tighter. She twisted under him and arched, and he held her still, his fingers biting into her hips while he stroked his tongue inside her over and over again, and the combination of his tongue and his hands and the knowledge that she was with Alex, finally with Alex, and that she was going to have all of him pushed her over the edge, and the heat broke inside her, and the spasms shook her body, moving her against his mouth as she came and came. Then he was kissing his way across her stomach, sucking on her breasts, biting at the hollow of her neck while she wrapped herself around him and rocked away the last of her orgasm.

She lay with her head back, trying to breathe, trying to hold on to the glow, vaguely aware that he was reaching across her to open the drawer beside the bed, feeling his hip against hers as he stripped off his shorts, and then hearing foil tear. Thank God; a condom meant he'd be inside her soon. She rolled against him and breathed, "Hurry," in his ear, and he laughed a little, low and lazy, and then pulled her on top of him.

"That's the last thing I'm going to do," he told her, and she put her hands on his chest and pushed up enough so that she could see into his eyes. "This is going to take all night," he promised her. "I'm going to watch you come over and over again. You're going to come seeing the dawn, I swear it."

She shivered, and his hand slid up her neck, and his thumb moved across her lips, and she licked at him and then bit him as he moved underneath her. He eased his hand down her side and between her legs and slid his finger into her, stroking her until she moaned against his chest, and then she felt him move hard against her stomach. She dug her fingernails into his shoulders, crazy with anticipation. He pulled her up to him and she helped, moving against him, wanting him between her thighs, filling the emptiness there, and then he was inside her, hard inside her, and she jerked against him as his fingers pressed into her flesh, pulling her against him. She was slick and hot, and she moaned at the slide and the friction and the pressure and the shudder in her blood as he moved inside her.

"Oh, Nina," he said, and pulled her face back down to his, his mouth on hers, licking into her mouth as he rocked up into her body, and after that, there was nothing for the rest of the night but Alex and Alex's hands and Alex's mouth, and Alex's body over hers, under hers, inside hers, making her mindless with need and speechless with release over and over again.

They stopped once for Oreos—"I've never eaten Oreos naked before," she told him when he brought the package and two mugs of milk back to bed, and he said, "From now on, we eat all our Oreos naked"

—and they showered together at three in the morning, almost too exhausted to stand but too crazed with need for each other to stop. Then they fell asleep, wrapped around each other, but a few hours later Alex stirred against her and said, "I've wanted you too long not to have you again," and his hands pulled her closer, and groggy with sleep and desire she said, "I've wanted you, too, so much."

Then she kissed his shoulder and then his nipple, moving down his body this time, feeling his fingers clutch her shoulders and then wind into hair when she found him and took him hard in her mouth, loving the way he moaned when she did and the way he felt, smooth and hard against her tongue. And when he pulled her back up to him, he kissed her roughly, bruising her mouth and making her crazier for him than ever. He made love to her again then, taking her high and hard this time so that her climax crashed over her and left her shuddering and gasping against him as he came, too.

And the last thing Nina saw, while she was still trembling from the aftershocks of her climax, just before she fell asleep with Alex's arms wrapped around her, was his bedroom window turning light with the dawn.

* * *

"You look like hell," Max said to Alex when he ran into him at the hospital the next day.

"That's funny, I feel great." Alex yawned and shook his head to stay awake. "I just told Dad I'd take the cardiology spot. I am now the number-one son. Sorry about that."

"Be my guest." Max frowned at him. "I don't get this. You want to be a cardiologist about as much as I do. What the hell are you doing?"

"You want to know the truth?" Alex said. "I'm not sure about cardiology, but I'll be an ax murderer if that's what it takes to keep Nina."

"To keep Nina?" Max raised an eyebrow. "Which means you think you have Nina."

Alex thought of Nina, warm and naked and loving in the dark the night before. "I have Nina," he said soberly. "Now I have to make sure I keep her. She was married to Guy Adams. She's used to money and parties and real houses, not apartments in chopped-up old Victorians. She's used to real life."

"Sounds boring," Max said.

"Maybe to us, but not to her." Alex drew a deep breath. "She still thinks I'm a kid, and she's right.

I stay in the ER because I like it, not because it's a good career move. I've never given a thought to the future because I thought the future was going to be like yesterday. I've been acting like a kid, living like a kid, and Nina's not going to want to live that way." He thought of Nina again, but this time it was the old Nina, the one who'd treated him like a younger brother, platonic and loving. Last night, he'd demolished the brother problem. Now all he had to do was prove to her that he was mature, that he could keep her safe, the way Guy had. The memory of Guy in Nina's apartment flashed back to him, Guy sneering and saying, "So this is what an up-and-coming young doctor wears these days, is it?"

Back off, buddy, Alex snarled in his thoughts, but he could see why Nina had married the creep. Big, handsome, rich, successful. He set his jaw. It was time he stopped being up-and-coming and came.

That made him think of Nina again. He couldn't lose her. "It's time I got my act together," he told Max.