CHAPTER TEN
Meeting up with Kit for lunch every single day was awesome. Dillon barely remembered what he’d done for lunch before he’d started dating her—and it had been only two weeks.
Dating her. Man, he loved that. They should have absolutely done this a long time ago.
His turkey sandwiches tasted better, he felt more energized when he went back to work, his bedside manner had improved—and they’d only had sex about half of those lunch breaks. He just fucking liked being with her.
But going down on her in her office while she was on the phone was, quite frankly, a fantasy come true.
He knew Helen. He even liked Helen, mostly. But he didn’t feel one bit of guilt as he slowly slid Kit’s skirt up her legs and parted her knees.
It was this red pencil skirt. That was part of it. He loved this skirt and had imagined this, and so much more, numerous times when she’d worn it in the past. He was now in heaven.
She was wearing silky red panties to match, and as he kissed up the inside of her thigh, he pulled them to one side, loving the way her breath hitched and she completely forgot what she was saying to Helen.
“Yes, I can do that,” she said, definitely breathless.
Dillon ran a finger over her clit and kissed the inner thigh muscle that tensed as he did it.
“Of course,” she said into the phone.
But when he looked up, her head was tipped back, her eyes were shut, and her fingers were digging into the arms of her chair.
He grinned. So much fun.
He licked a path from her thigh to her center, pausing ever so briefly on that sweet spot that made her gasp. She’d pulled the phone away from her mouth and was watching him, her cheeks pink.
“Dillon,” she whispered.
“Finish your phone call,” he told her, his voice low. “So I can finish you.”
“Helen, I’m sorry, something just came up; I need to go.” She didn’t even pause for an answer before she slammed her phone down on the receiver. “I can’t believe—”
But he put his mouth back on her, and she stopped talking. And started moaning.
He licked and sucked, added a finger, then a second, until she was desperately gasping his name, trying to stay quiet, as she went up and over the edge of her orgasm.
Dillon let her come down from the clouds before sliding his fingers free. He made sure she was watching him as he lifted them to his mouth and sucked her sweetness from each one. Slowly. Thoroughly.
“I can’t believe you just did that,” she said.
He leaned in and put his mouth to hers. “Kiss me,” he commanded softly.
She did, sliding forward in the chair, bracketing him with her knees, pressing her body against his.
Everything was lips and tongues and sighs for the next several moments. As Kit clung to him, Dillon undid the tie at the front of his pants, eased down his scrubs, rolled on a condom, and then grasped her hips and pulled her forward, sliding home.
“Yes,” she moaned against his mouth.
She rubbed and rotated, moving against him as if she couldn’t get close enough and he couldn’t get deep enough. He quickly found a rhythm and, cupping her ass in his hands, pounded into her. There was just something so damned hot about taking Kit apart in her office. This was the place where she was the most put together, the most in charge. But now she was making delicious sounds that wound him tight and made him want to pound his chest. That Dr. Derby could be reduced to nothing but hot need by his hands and mouth in the leather chair in her polished, perfectly neat office gave him a shot of cocky confidence that he couldn’t replicate any other way.
He felt the climax tightening deep in his gut, then the electricity racing up his spine as her inner muscles clamped down on him, and he let go with a shout he muffled against her lips.
Holy shit. He wanted to stay right here, forever.
Dillon dragged in a huge gulp of air and leaned back to look into Kit’s eyes. “Happy lunchtime,” he said, brushing her hair back from her face.
“This is a hell of a diet plan you’ve got me on, Dr. Alexander,” she said with a laugh.
He kissed her and pulled back, taking care of the condom in the trash can under her desk while she straightened her clothes. He hoped the cleaning lady didn’t inspect the contents of Kit’s wastebasket. But then he grinned. He didn’t care. Everyone knew he and Kit were sleeping together, and more. And no one was a bit surprised.
“You need to eat,” he said. “I shouldn’t take up your entire break.”
She grabbed the front of his shirt as he started to stand, pulling herself up with him. “I’m fine, Dillon. You don’t have to worry about me or take care of me. I’m eating just fine. In fact, I’ve discovered a new love of cheeseburgers, and I had dessert last night with Bree and Avery.”
“You girls went to Bree’s after dinner?”
Kit nodded.
“Well, gee, let me guess,” he said. “Ice cream?”
Kit laughed. “We did. She has, like, six varieties.”
“I’ve never met a person who eats so much ice cream,” Dillon said. With Kit pressed up against him, he could hardly stay on the topic of Bree’s dessert preferences, though. He palmed her butt, grinding into her. “Tell me we can be alone tonight,” he said.
“We were alone . . .” She scrunched her nose as she thought about it. “Three nights ago.”
He sighed. “This thing where we’re both from here and have friends in common and stuff?” he said. “It’s putting a crimp in my getting-you-naked time.”
“You’ve had me naked every night,” she said, rubbing against him like a cat. “And most noontimes, too.”
“I didn’t have you naked just now,” he protested. “I had parts of you naked, but not everything. And I love nothing more than to spread you out, totally bare, where I can get at every inch, and go from head to toe and back again.”
She shivered in his arms. “Yeah, I know.”
“So tonight, just us.”
“I told Bree we’d meet them for a drink.”
Dillon groaned.
“I know,” she said. “But after, I’m all yours, and you can spread me out wherever you want.”
He groaned again, but for an entirely different reason. “Really?”
“Really.”
“Well, let’s see . . . we’ve done the bed, of course, the kitchen table, the coffee table, the living-room floor . . . oh, washing machine.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Washing machine?”
“Oh yeah. And we’ll turn it on. All that rumbling and vibrating?” He waggled his eyebrows, and she laughed. God, he loved her laugh. More, he loved causing it.
“So you’re all mine after drinks?”
“Yes.” She kissed him. “And I’ll even be the one to cut things off at A Bar. I was late for my first appointment yesterday because you kept me up too late the night before.”
He kissed her again and let her go. “Yeah, I heard.”
“You were there,” she said.
“But I heard about it once I got here, too,” he said. He made sure everything was tucked in where it was supposed to be and then took one of the chairs facing her desk. He started to rummage in his lunch bag.
“Wait, you heard that I was late for an appointment?” she asked, sitting and spinning to face him.
“Yeah. They were talking about it in the break room on the second floor.” He grinned. “And then Janice looked right at me and said, ‘Gee, I wonder why.’”
“Oh my God.”
He looked up. Kit was definitely not smiling. “What?”
“The whole hospital knows that I was late? Because we were having sex all night?”
“You weren’t late because we were having sex all night,” he said, biting into his sandwich. “You were late because we had sex that morning.”
“Because I woke up late and didn’t really have time for sex that morning because I overslept because we’d been having sex all night,” Kit said.
Dillon took another bite.
She just watched him chew. When he’d swallowed, he asked, “What?”
“People know I was late for a patient because of sex with you,” she said slowly, as if he were learning a new language.
“Kit,” he said, setting his sandwich down, “everyone knows we’re together. Everyone. Every single person in this town. And they know what we’re doing at night. And in the morning.”
“That’s not the point! They know I was late because we’re together. I’m never late! And certainly not because of something like sex!”
Dillon knew that he shouldn’t feel a little smug about that. He definitely knew that he shouldn’t show that he was feeling smug about that. “Was the patient upset?” he asked.
“It was only ten minutes, and I let our time go over by fifteen.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“That you are a very bad influence.” She sat back in her chair and crossed her arms.
Dillon picked up his sandwich again. “You’re letting loose a little,” he reasoned. “No one’s perfect, and I would guess most of the town will be relieved that applies to you as well.”
“Dillon,” Kit said firmly, “it is not okay for me to be late to appointments. Maybe I need to start going home after we . . . you know.”
He grinned at that. “Considering where my mouth just was, I think it’s okay for you to say the word.”
She actually blushed at that, and Dillon laughed. He really did love her. He was careful not to say it again. They weren’t quite there yet. But he had to bite it back on a daily basis. And he loved waking up with her. So there was no way in hell she was going home after they you-knowed.
“Maybe I need to be paying more attention to things,” she said as she pulled her salad from her lunch bag.
“What things?” he asked.
“Well, for instance, Helen has me signed up to do something for Founder’s Day, and I have no idea what it is,” she said drily.
He finished off his sandwich with a grin. “The best thing about that,” he told her, “is that you’ve already done everything on that committee at one time or another, so it doesn’t really matter where she signed you up.”
“But I’ll have to admit that I don’t remember what I agreed to. And I never forget things.”
Yeah, she never forgot things or was late to things or blew things off. But damn if he didn’t love being the one to throw her off her game a little.
“I’ll find out for you,” he said. “I’ll see Helen at the diabetes education class tomorrow. I’ll ask her then.”
“You’ll just go up to her and ask her what I signed up for?” Kit asked.
“I’ll tell her I want to sign up for the same thing so we can work together.”
“You’ve never worked on Founder’s Day before.”
“If you’re working on it, I’ll work on it. It’ll be great.”
She frowned and stabbed some lettuce. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I know. I want to.”
“No, really, it’s okay,” she said. “I’ll just do it on my own.”
“Let’s do it together.” He was frowning now, too. What was the big deal here? He wanted to be with her, and he didn’t mind helping out with something so important to the town.
“I’d rather do it on my own,” she said, stabbing more lettuce with excessive force.
He opened his mouth, but just then his phone beeped. Dammit. He pulled it out and glanced down. “ER. I’ve got to go.”
She nodded. “I know.”
He rose but kept his eyes on her as he wadded up his paper bag. “I’ll see you later.”
She looked up. “Okay.”
“And you’re spending the night tonight,” he felt compelled to say.
“Fine.”
Fuck. Something was up, but he had to go. And he couldn’t be distracted once he hit the ER.
He plucked the card out of the roses that sat on the corner of her desk. I meant what I said. He flipped it onto her desk planner, right in front of her.
Her eyes landed on the card, and she took in a deep breath.
That was going to have to be enough for today.
But not for much longer.
Kit barely tasted her lunch as she ate, thinking about Dillon and trying to pinpoint why she felt restless suddenly. Or why she didn’t want him on the Founder’s Day committee with her.
But she wasn’t even done eating by the time she had the answer—she wanted to do it by herself.
That didn’t seem like a huge revelation, of course, but considering how the last two weeks had gone and the fact that she had definitely fallen for him, it bothered her.
But you haven’t said you love him back yet.
No, she hadn’t.
And why not?
He seemed all-in here, had confessed how he felt, had made it clear to the whole town that they were together. Why hadn’t she returned the I love you? And why did she not want him on the Founder’s Day stuff? They’d been working on the free clinic and the resource center together. They’d done everything together for the past two weeks. They’d eaten almost every meal together, slept in the same bed, come into work and gone out with their friends.
And that was it, right there.
Kit wasn’t used to sharing everything in her life with someone. Particularly with Dillon. She hadn’t been giving committee work and meetings 100 percent of her attention lately, she could admit, but she’d chalked it up to the honeymoon phase of her relationship and figured it would pass.
But this was Dillon. He gave all he had to the things he cared about. And he cared about most of the same things she did. And now, he cared about her. He was always going to want to be a part of everything.
Kit slumped down in her chair as a cold knot of reality settled in her gut. His commitment and passion toward causes was one of the things she liked best about him. But it was what she liked best about herself, too. So why did it feel like she was losing some of that?
With her thoughts spinning, Kit almost didn’t hear the knock on her door. She frowned at the wooden frame. “Yes?” she called. She didn’t have an appointment for another hour.
She couldn’t have been more surprised by who poked her head into her office a moment later. Kit sat up straight, nearly dropping her salad bowl, as Shelby Harvey stepped through the door.
Shelby was the mayor’s wife. The mayor’s bubbly, optimistic, blonde, twenty-eight-year-old wife. Shelby had grown up in Chance and had never been more than fifty miles away from it, that Kit knew of. She was Dillon, Jake, and Max’s cousin, part of one of the most beloved and influential families in town, and loved the town with an unmatched passion. She was a force to be reckoned with and nearly impossible not to like.
Kit braced herself.
Shelby had never, ever come to Kit’s office for any reason. And Kit didn’t think Shelby was here for therapy.
“Shelby, hi. What a surprise.” Kit set her lunch to the side and quickly ran her tongue over her teeth, hoping she didn’t have anything in them.
“Hi, Kit,” Shelby said with a big smile. “I don’t mean to interrupt, but I really need to talk to you.”
Okay, maybe she was here for therapy. Or at least for advice. Kit straightened further and smiled. “Of course.”
“I’m so happy about you and Dillon,” Shelby said, dropping into the chair her cousin had recently vacated.
Kit hid her sigh. This wasn’t about Shelby. And they were going to just dive right in. “Thank you,” she said. Because what else was she going to say? She was happy about her and Dillon, too. Mostly.
Kit frowned as that last word flashed through her head.
“But I’m concerned.”
Kit made herself focus on Shelby. “You’re concerned? About Dillon and me?”
Shelby set her purse on the floor next to the chair, crossed one trim leg over the other, and gave Kit a sweet smile. “Of course, like everyone, I knew it was inevitable that something was going to happen between you two.”
Inevitable. Well, there was a big word. Kit couldn’t deny that a lot of what was happening felt inevitable, but she didn’t love how that made her feel a little out of control. “Dillon is . . .” Kit trailed off, not sure what word to put in there exactly.
“He is,” Shelby said with a light laugh. “And I love that there is finally someone who has him wrapped around her little finger.”
Kit shifted on her chair. A month ago, she would have liked thinking that she might have some power over Dillon. Not that it was a particularly adult way to feel, but Dillon had always had the ability to make her feel and act crazy, and she liked knowing she could affect him, too. But now, the way Shelby said it, it made Kit uncomfortable. She didn’t want his feelings for her to change how he acted or reacted.
And that’s when it hit her—she didn’t want her feelings for him to change how she acted or reacted, either.
“I would never use our relationship to influence him,” Kit said carefully.
“But it will,” Shelby said matter-of-factly. “Important relationships in our lives do influence us. You can’t be in love with someone and share your life with him and not expect to be affected by him.”
Kit couldn’t argue that. Besides, Shelby had more experience in relationships than Kit did. She and Frank had been married for nearly four years, and they were definitely Chance’s version of a power couple. They’d done a multitude of amazing things for the town, were involved in several initiatives on a state level and, in spite of their age difference, had a strong, loving relationship. And it was clear that their shared passions for community service and betterment were a big part of their bond.
“Which is why I’m here,” Shelby said.
Kit was not going to try to talk Dillon into whatever Shelby had in mind. Dillon was his own person. He could make his own decisions, and while she might share her opinion with him, she would never expect him to change to do things her way. “Shelby, Dillon can—”
“I’m concerned about you.”
Kit stopped and blinked at her. “I’m sorry?”
“I’m concerned about you,” Shelby repeated.
“Yes, I heard you. But I don’t know what you mean.”
“You can’t give in to Dillon all the time just because you’re in love with him,” Shelby said.
One thing Kit had always appreciated about Shelby was how straightforward the other woman was. “I don’t intend to give in to Dillon all the time,” Kit said.
But she felt a strange niggle in the back of her mind.
“Good,” Shelby said. “Because Frank told me about the meeting a couple weeks ago, where you went along with Dillon’s idea rather than fighting him, and it concerned me.”
The thing about shifting funds from the follow-up checks to equipment. Kit remembered it well. It had been the morning after the farm. She certainly hadn’t been her usual self that day.
Have you been your usual self since then?
She ignored that nagging voice and focused on Shelby. “Dillon and I argue and disagree,” she said. “A lot,” she added. “But we do listen to each other and respect the other’s opinions. I want what’s best for the clinic, but so does Dillon. I believe that. So there’s a point where I have to just trust that. And him.”
Shelby nodded. “Okay.” Then she leaned in, resting an elbow on her knee. “We need you, Kit. Chance needs you. You’ve always been one of our leaders. You get stuff done. You make sure it’s right. You love this town. I’m thrilled to death that you and Dillon are finally admitting how you really feel about each other, and I want you to be happy, but we can’t lose you.”
Kit felt her throat tighten slightly. She wanted to be important to this town. Yes, she liked to be number one and be regarded as successful, but more, deeper, she loved this town and wanted to be a part of making it great.
“Dillon is important to me,” Kit said. “But nothing will change all of that.”
Except that the past two weeks had been full of changes.
“Helen Litner told me that you’ve decided to head up the rooster races,” Shelby said. She tipped her head to the side. “Rooster. Races. Where last year you were in charge of the entire Founder’s Day celebration.”
The rooster races? Seriously? Kit took a deep breath. “Helen caught me at a bad time. I’ll talk to her. I can do more than that.”
Well, at least she didn’t need Dillon to find out what she’d been assigned to now.
Shelby nodded. “Thank you. Helen and Donna absolutely cannot handle Founder’s Day on their own. Or, at least, we can’t handle the results of them handling it on their own.”
“It’s not a problem,” Kit assured her. “I’ll be at the next meeting, and I’ll be sure everything is on track.”
Shelby nodded, then stood, pulling her purse strap up on her shoulder. “I have no worries if you’re in charge,” she said.
That made Kit feel good, if slightly embarrassed that she’d needed to be encouraged to be more involved.
Shelby made it to the door before she turned back. “And some advice from someone who’s known Dillon forever and loves him dearly but can be a little more objective, since he’s not making me late for things with hot morning sex,” Shelby said.
Kit fought the urge to groan. Everyone knew about that. Dammit.
“Yeah?” she asked, knowing there was no reason to give excuses.
“Dillon is used to charging into things and doing what’s most important, what’s right in front of him at the moment. But he’s not as good at thinking about consequences down the road. That’s usually someone else’s issue.”
“What are you saying?” Kit asked.
“In the Guard, in Africa, in the ER—he has to make quick decisions based on his gut. What comes later, the long-term effects, are less of an issue,” Shelby said. “Being in love with you and wrapped up in all of that is what’s right in front of him, and he just acted on it. But I don’t know that he’s aware of the consequences.”
“Like softening me up to the point that I don’t do all of the things I should be doing?” Kit asked, feeling a weariness start to settle on her shoulders.
“And the way that you being softer will affect him,” Shelby said.
“What do you mean? He’ll probably love that.”
Shelby shook her head. “You and Dillon balance each other,” she said. “Like the scales where you have to put equal weights on each side to keep it level. Dillon is used to being the one everyone looks to for decisions and opinions and advice and action. Everywhere else. But not here. Here, he has to share that with you. In Chance, you keep him from taking everything over, and you’re the one who ensures the times he does take over are because he’s really the best one to do it.”
Frustration seeped into her. She’d given in on one decision about the free clinic. Just one. But she hadn’t so much as asked a question about it. She rubbed her forehead. “So I need to keep fighting with him?”
“Not necessarily. Just do what you’ve always done.”
“Hold him back? Bitch at him?” she asked.
“Make him work at it. He needs that. And he knows it. Why do you think he finally came home to settle down? He knows, on some level at least, that this is where he’s best. In large part because of you. But if you go over to his side of the scale, it will tip.”
Kit took a deep breath. Which was harder than it should have been with the band of emotion around her chest. “I hear what you’re saying.”
“Good.” Shelby nodded. “And I have a couple ideas about the rooster races, so call me when you’re ready to work on that.”
Then she swept out of the office in a twirl of blonde hair and perfume.