No Regrets

“You certainly don’t have to change on my account. I love you just the way you are.”

“I know. And I thank God for that every day. And I’m not changing for you. I’m doing it for me.” Lena smiled, pleased with the plan she’d come up with while drinking far too many cups of that toxic waste the hospital cafeteria tried to pass off as coffee. “Although I think you’ll find some side benefits.”

There was something in her voice. Something lush and sensual, an impression that was heightened by the way she’d begun trailing her fingernail up his thigh.

“Why, Mrs. Longworth,” he murmured, “are you trying to seduce me?”

She laughed at that. A silky, womanly laugh designed to get beneath a man’s skin. “I am going to seduce you, Dr. Longworth.” Her fingers trailed higher. “And you’re going to love it.”

The sound of his zipper lowering was the sexiest thing Reece had ever heard. Or felt. When she freed his erection from his jeans, blood rushed from his head straight into his groin.

“Jesus, Lena.” The words clogged in his throat, his breath was trapped in his lungs. “If you’re not careful, you’re going to make me run off the road.”

“Don’t worry, darling.” She bent her head and pressed her lips against the tip of his penis. “I promise to be very, very careful.”

Her breath was like the Santa Ana winds that blew in from the desert, fanning flames he’d banked for too long. From the first night of their honeymoon, wanting to prove himself different from all the users she’d gotten involved with before him, Reece had gone out of his way to treat his bride with consideration and respect. Their lovemaking, while enjoyable, had remained restrained.

After she’d become obsessed with having a child, the only times they made love were on those days when she was most likely to conceive. And although he adored her to pieces, lately he’d begun to feel more like a stud bull than a husband.

“Lord, Lena,” he groaned as she took him fully into her ripe wet mouth. “You’re going to get us both killed.... Let me…” He managed, just barely, to turn into the half-moon driveway and cut the engine.

On the verge of exploding, Reece grabbed hold of a fistful of thick silky hair and yanked her head up.

“Let’s go in the house.” His voice was harsh and guttural. “I want to take my time. And do this right.”

The silvery moonlight streaming through the windshield illuminated her face, letting him see the sexual fever burning in Lena’s eyes.

“You can take all the time you want.” She unfastened her seat belt and straddled him. “Later.”

“What the hell did you do with your panties?” he gasped as she teased the tip of his throbbing cock with hot female flesh.

“I tucked them away in my purse before we left the hospital.” She put her hands on his shoulders, her mouth on his.

That she’d planned this seduction made it even more exciting. Reece’s fingers delved beneath her sweater, digging deeply into the bare skin of her waist as he forced her down on him at the same time he slammed up to meet her.

Their teeth clashed as their mouths ate into one another’s, their tongues tangled. The ride was hard and fast, their slick damp bodies slapping against each other in a ruthless need for release. When she cried out his name, then shuddered violently, Reece gave in to his own white-hot, explosive climax.

He stayed deep inside her as they enjoyed the aftermath of passion. “I can feel you,” he murmured against her throat as the rhythmic tightening of her inner muscles continued to caress him like silken gloves.

“Mmm.” She tilted her head and outlined his mouth with the tip of her tongue. “I can feel you, too. And you feel so good inside me, I don’t think I’ll ever move.”

“We’d get arrested for indecent exposure.”

“I’m willing to risk it if you are. Besides, we have friends on the police force who’ll vouch for us.”

Reece felt his body beginning to warm again, but became aware of the chill of the December night. “I want you again.” Shoving her sweater up, he took her breast in his mouth, suckling deeply in a way that made her body involuntarily clutch at his. “But this time I want to do it with all our clothes off. Inside, where no one can hear you scream.”

As she felt him growing hard again inside her, Lena shivered with anticipation. And just a touch of erotic fear. “Are you really going to make me scream?”

He bit her nipple, not harshly, but with a dark sensual intent that caused excitement to curl in her belly. “You bet.” His tongue soothed the tingling flesh. “And you’re going to love it.”

Reece proved to be a man of his word. He did wonderful, wicked things to her. And then, when she was positive there couldn’t be more, he’d proven her wrong.

But this time it was different, Lena mused as she lay wrapped in her husband’s arms, luxuriating in the feel of him still buried deep inside her. Because for the first time since they’d been married, she’d given him more than her body. She’d given him her heart.

And that, she thought with a soft smile as she drifted off on gentle wavelets of sleep, made all the difference.

Chapter Five

Molly had always suspected she wouldn’t make a very good patient; she was too restless to lie in bed all day. Daytime television was a revelation, filled with programs about women who loved men who murdered, mothers who slept with their daughter’s boyfriends, husbands who got their wives’ best friends pregnant. Since her work had given her an up-close and personal look at society’s ills, none of the subjects shocked her. What was surprising was that viewers would be interested in watching all these depressingly dysfunctional relationships.

She tried to read, but every time an ambulance cut its siren outside the ER doors, or a code came over the loudspeakers, she wanted to jump up and return to the battle. If her days were boring, her nights were anything but. Her sleep was interrupted at regular intervals by horrifying nightmares in which she was forced to suffer the rape, which she now remembered, over and over again.

From her talks with the psych resident, Alan Bernstein, Molly understood the night terrors were her subconscious mind’s way of struggling to deal with the trauma she’d suffered. She also became convinced that as soon as she was allowed to return to the routine of normal daily life, the nightmares would stop.

Yolanda remained sympathetic, but refused to do anything to help Molly escape what she’d come to view as her imprisonment.

“Reece says if you’re a good girl he may sign you out tomorrow.”

“I’ve already been here five days.”

“So, you’ll be here six.”

Molly muttered something that while not exactly a curse, wasn’t exactly nunlike, either. “At least tell me what’s happening down in The Pit. I never thought I’d miss that place, but I do.”

“Taking religious vows doesn’t prevent you from becoming hooked on the adrenaline rush, just like the rest of us.”

Molly couldn’t argue with that. She’d be the first to admit that the impatient streak that had once resulted in her being disciplined as a child with depressing regularity, now made her a natural ER nurse.

“Oh, there is some news,” Yolanda said. “About Benny.”

Molly’s own petty frustration was instantly forgotten. Benny Johnson was a five-year-old boy who’d suffered more than any child should have to. He’d been born a crack baby on Molly’s first day in the ER. His near-fatal withdrawal had been excruciatingly painful, making more than one battle-hardened ER nurse cry.

Social Services had taken Benny from his mother. Unfortunately, they’d turned him over to his grandmother, who was no model of maternal expertise, either. By the time he was six months old, Benny had suffered a broken arm and possible head injuries from being shaken.

He’d been put in a crisis nursery, only to be released to his mother again when she was released from a drug-abuse treatment program. Two days later, Benny was back with mysterious burns.

The cycle had continued for five years. And each time Benny showed up in The Pit for treatment after another one of his accidents, Molly was more tempted just to take the poor little boy and run away.

“What now?”

“He came in this morning all bruised, with cracked ribs. The court’s toughened up. He’s going to be released for adoption over his mother’s consent.”

That should have been good news, but unfortunately, Molly knew better.

“Older children are difficult to place,” she murmured. She also recalled, with vivid clarity, that long ago day when she’d eavesdropped on a conversation between the Mother Superior who ran the orphanage and prospective parents.

The well-dressed couple who thought Lena “sweet” and were prepared to overlook the fact that Molly could be “a bit of a handful,” had been reluctant to adopt the sisters because of their background.