Take Me (4 page)

“God, Anna,” he breathed as he took her in. “You’re beautiful.”

He returned his lips to her mouth, kissing her again, sliding his fingers over her breasts, her nipples, feeling them harden under his touch. His tongue slid against hers, the heat of her mouth overpowering his body.

His cock was rock hard, and he pushed up against her. He slid his hands up to her face, stroking her cheek, his mouth never leaving hers.

He pulled back for a moment to look at her, pushed a strand of her silky golden hair back behind her ear, then slid his fingers down over her neck. He stroked her breasts, his thumbs moving back over her nipples, then slid his hands down her sides and over the curve of her hips.

They gazed at each other, the want and heat between them building into a frenzied hurricane of desire and attraction.

“Anna,” he whispered again. “God, Anna, I want you.”

She moaned softly, and he kissed her again, harder this time. He had wanted to go slow, to take his time, but he couldn’t stop himself, his body was taking over. If he didn’t have her soon, he would explode.

He slid his hands down further, over the soft contour of her waist until he reached the bottom of her skirt. He tugged the material up, his fingers stroking her legs.

Their tongues danced against each other as he moved her skirt up and Anna slid one leg up over Jaxon’s hip.

“Careful, Princess,” he growled.

She opened her mouth to talk, but he kissed her again, silencing her, letting her know who was in charge. Her skirt was pushed up to her hips now, and his fingers moved to the inside of her thighs, moving higher and higher as their kiss became more passionate.

When Jaxon finally brushed his fingertips over her panties, Anna whimpered.

“Oh my God,” she moaned.

She was wet, even through the fabric, and Jaxon moved his finger over her panties, feeling her slit. His cock was rock hard now, and in another couple of minutes, he wasn’t going to be able to stop himself. He was going to have to take her right here in the elevator.

He tugged her skirt up even more, giving him better access, then slid his finger inside her panties, moving slowly, feeling the smooth wetness of her mound.

“Jaxon,” Anna moaned. Her arms were wrapped around him, and she pulled him close, clinging to him.

He took her hand and placed it on the outside of his jeans, and she started to undo the button, letting him know that she wanted him just as much as he wanted her.

But suddenly, the elevator dropped. Anna shrieked and then tightened her grip on Jaxon’s shoulders.

“Shit.” He reached out and pushed the button, but it was too late. The elevator was stopping to pick someone up on another floor. “It must have a time limit on how long it can stay stuck.”

Anna quickly pulled her shirt up and smoothed down her skirt. A second later, the elevator slowed and a young couple stepped on.

Jaxon tried to slow his breathing. He looked at Anna out of the corner of his eye.

Her cheeks were flushed, her hair tousled and sexy around her shoulders. He could still smell her perfume mixed with the scent of her arousal.

The elevator resumed its ascent and Jaxon shook his head.

He wouldn’t be able to take much more of this.

When they got to Katie’s hospital room, Katie was sitting up in bed, watching an episode of the Golden Girls and holding a flimsy paper cup filled with ice chips.

“Hey!” she said when she saw Anna. Her pretty face broke into a smile.

“Hi,” Anna said, leaning down and kissing Katie on both cheeks.

“Thanks for coming.” Katie readjusted the blue and white checked blanket that was draped over her legs. “You didn’t have to, you know.”

“I know,” Anna said, “but I wanted to.”
And I needed a reason to get away from
your brother before I ended up doing something I’d regret.

“Jaxon,” Katie said in surprise, her eyes falling on her brother as he walked into the room.

“Hey, sis,” he said nonchalantly.

“What are you doing here?” Katie’s voice was suspicious.

“I heard you were in labor. You didn’t think I was going to miss the birth of my first nephew, did you?”

“No, that’s great, I’m glad you’re here, but how did you…I mean, I thought you were in… ” Understanding dawned on Katie’s face as she realized Jaxon and Anna must have been together.

Anna looked down at the floor and fiddled with her fingers. “Where’s Adam?”

she asked finally, in an effort to move the conversation onto safer ground.

“He went to sign some papers at the nurses’ station.” Katie narrowed her eyes, then moved her finger back and forth between Jaxon and Anna. “What’s going on here?”

“What do you mean?” Anna asked. Her face felt hot, and she reached up and smoothed her hair. She wondered how disheveled she looked after her tryst in the elevator.

“I
mean
, why are you two together?” She turned to Jaxon. “I thought you were sleeping in the guestroom. I thought I was being so nice, staying quiet so I wouldn’t wake you.”

“Oh, stop,” Jaxon said, rolling his eyes at his sister. He flopped down in one of the brown corduroy chairs that lined the far wall of Katie’s hospital room. “Anna and I ran into each other at the gas station. She asked me if I wanted to grab a bite, and then we got to reminiscing. We were still out when she got your text. It was nothing nefarious, so you can wipe that look off your face.”

Katie cocked her head, her frown deepening. Anna could tell she didn’t believe a word of Jaxon’s flimsy excuse, but what could Katie really say?

“How are you feeling?” Anna asked quickly, perching on the edge of Katie’s bed and trying to ignore Jaxon’s presence. She could almost feel his mouth on hers, his hands pushing her skirt up. If that elevator hadn’t moved when it did, she would have let him take her right there. Her face flushed hot, and she shifted on the bed.

“Not bad,” Katie said. She started describing how the contractions had started, how she’d only been sleeping for about an hour when they’d woken her up. Anna tried to listen, nodding politely as Katie talked, but her mind was a million miles away.

She couldn’t stop thinking about kissing Jaxon, about how it had felt when he’d been touching her in the elevator. Why had he told his sister that they’d run into each other at the gas station? Was it because he felt it was none of Katie’s business? Or was it because he didn’t think anything else was going to happen between them?

A young nurse walked into the room. She was wearing hot pink scrubs, and her dark curly hair was pulled back in a ponytail.

“Well,” she said, looking around and breaking into a smile. There was a slight gap between her top front teeth. “It looks like you have your support team all ready.”

“Yes,” Katie said. Her voice was cheerful, but Anna saw her grip the blanket in her hands and twist it tightly.

“I’m going to check you right now,” the nurse said, sensing Katie’s unease.

“Hopefully you’ll have a quick and easy labor, and get to meet your son before too long.”

Her tone was upbeat and cheerful, like having a baby was no big deal and that everything was going to go smoothly. Anna liked her immediately.

“Do your friends want to step out for a few minutes?” the nurse asked. “It won’t take long.”

“Yes, of course,” Anna said. She gave Katie’s hand a squeeze. “I’ll run down to the cafeteria. Do you want me to bring you anything?”

Katie shook her head. “I’m not allowed to have anything but these stupid ice chips.” She squeezed Anna’s hand back, and Anna saw the look in Katie’s eyes --excitement mixed with fear mixed with wonder at the fact that she was about to bring a new life into the world.

“Okay, I’ll be right back.” Anna flashed one more reassuring smile, and then walked out of the room.

Almost immediately she heard footsteps behind her. Jaxon was loping down the hall, his boots making heavy noises on the linoleum. Her heart sped up.

“Wait for me,” he commanded.

“Shh!” Anna said as she arrived at the elevator bank. “There are people here having babies, you know.” She hesitated, her hand poised over the button. She didn’t trust herself to get back into an elevator with Jaxon.

“What are you waiting for, Princess?” He was behind her, so close she could feel his body heat on the back of her neck.

Excitement raced up her spine, and her arms broke out in goose bumps.

She pushed the button.

The doors dinged open, and Anna got on the elevator, doing her best to ignore the butterflies that were having a party in her stomach.

Jaxon pushed the button for the first floor, reaching across her body to do so. His arm brushed against hers, and she shivered. He stood close to her for a second, then stepped back and leaned against the side of the elevator, watching her but not moving.

The elevator began its descent, and still, Jaxon didn’t move. Anna thought she might go crazy wondering if he was going to do anything, wishing he would, hoping he wouldn’t, being disappointed when he didn’t.

When the elevator spit them out on the ground floor, he let her walk out first, and they followed the signs to the cafeteria silently. The hospital was still extremely quiet, the cafeteria nearly deserted except for a few residents scattered here and there, the doctors who were low enough on the totem pole to get stuck working the night shift.

Anna picked out a bottle of orange juice and a cookie.

“You sure that’s all you want?” Jaxon asked. “It could be a long night.”

She swallowed, wondering if he was talking about Katie, or something else. “I can always come back down later.”

Jaxon grabbed a chicken sandwich, then took a bottle of water out of the floor-to-ceiling cooler. When the cashier was done ringing them up, he had his cash out before Anna could even open her purse.

“Thanks,” she said.

“No problem.”

He led her to a table in the middle of the room. As they walked, he put his hand on the small of her back, guiding her. The touch of his fingers sent an electric buzz through her body.

He pulled her chair out for her, and Anna sat down.

Don’t fall for it.

This was typical Jaxon. He was confusing and sexy and charming and completely unreliable. It was one thing to be taken in by him when you were eighteen and didn’t know any better. It was another thing altogether when you were a grown woman. She needed to keep a safe distance from him.

“So,” he said, opening his water and giving her that devastating grin of his.

“What’s been going on with you, Princess?”

“I live in London,” Anna said. Surely had had to know that? But it was probably only because Katie had told him. Anna had been keeping tabs on Jaxon for all these years, and he probably hadn’t even bothered to Google her.

As she gave him the quick rundown of what she’d been doing since college – how she got her job, where exactly in London she lived, etc., she thought about that night when they were kids, the night he’d left her waiting for him, leaving her with nothing but a broken heart.

She remembered how it had felt, standing by her front door for hours, her eyes glued to the window. When he was twenty minutes late, she’d called his house, but it just rang and rang. No one had cell phones in those days, and so she had no way to know where he was, what he was doing, why he wasn’t there. And so she’d stayed by the window, her nose pressed to the glass, waiting for Jaxon to come.

When an hour had gone by, she’d moved to the dining room. It was the most uncomfortable room in the house – her mother had insisted on buying a heavy oak dining set with chairs that forced you to sit ramrod straight -- but its windows looked out onto the street.

She’d been wearing a new summer dress, one she’d bought especially for that night. It had cost her a week’s worth of pay from her summer job bagging groceries at the Shop ‘n Save, and she knew she wouldn’t be wearing it again anytime soon, since the warm weather would be over in another couple of weeks.

But she had wanted to look pretty for her last night with Jaxon, wanted to make sure he went off to college with a picture of her looking amazing burned into his mind, ensuring that those pretty blonde California girls wouldn’t tempt him away. She’d pulled at the skirt, a soft blue gauzy material, and reapplied her lipstick.

It was eleven o’clock before she’d finally given up. And even then it was only because she wanted to be in bed before her parents got home from the fireworks, wanted them to believe she was still out with Jaxon so she wouldn’t have to deal with any of their prying questions.

She’d brushed her teeth but kept her makeup and her new dress on, slid under the covers and left her window open, sure he would come for her that night, sure there was some kind of explanation. She could still remember how it had felt to lie there, the warm summer breeze tickling her skin, the soft cotton blanket pulled up over her fully-clothed body. The tears had started at around two in the morning, so quiet that she didn’t even realize she was crying until she felt the wetness on her pillow and the saltiness in her mouth.

“Do you like it?” Jaxon was asking now.

Anna shook herself out of the memory. “Do I like living in London? Yes, I love it.” It was a half-truth. She loved the city, loved her job, loved her cute little flat that was in the middle of everything.

But the dreary weather sometimes got her down, and she worked such long hours that she’d never built up the kind of social circle she would have liked. Yes, she had friends, but they weren’t the kind of friends you could call up on the spur of the moment, asking them to come over for a cup of tea or meet you on the high street for some spontaneous shopping.

“That’s good.” Jaxon leaned back in his chair and polished off the rest of his sandwich. He’d always been a fast eater. Anna hated that she remembered that about him, hated that she remembered
anything
about him.

“And you?” she asked. “Are you happy living in L.A.?”

He nodded. “I love it,” he said. “I love the fast pace, and I love my job.”