Jill Shalvis - Then Came You

Wyatt just spread his legs for better balance and wrapped his arms around her, stroking her face, murmuring something low that Emily couldn’t hear, while the other men pulled the rest of the wire as far from them as they could get it.

Wyatt gestured Emily in. “She’s good now,” he said, eyes locked on to Aurora’s. “Aren’t you, sweetheart?” He stroked her, loving her up, and the horse tossed her head. “I know,” he murmured softly. “You’re still beautiful.”

The horse, bleeding from a dozen deep cuts, snorted her agreement and gave Wyatt a not-so-gentle head butt to the chest that once again knocked him back a step.

He just grinned at her. “Still feisty. I can understand that. You’ve had a rough morning. Emily, you ready?”

She was ready, and side by side they began treating her wounds.

“Stay sharp,” Wyatt told Emily quietly as they worked. “She’s still looking for someone’s ass to kick after her ordeal.”

And indeed, when Emily shifted too suddenly, Aurora whipped her head around, teeth bared.

She might have taken a nice bite right out of Emily’s shoulder if Wyatt hadn’t given Emily a shove, a move that sent her flying back.

To her ass in the mud.

Aurora bit Wyatt instead, getting him on the forearm. Emily scrambled up to her feet and reached for him.

“I’m fine,” he said.

Great. He was fine and her ass was covered in mud and smarting from the fall. But this was the job. She knew this. She accepted this. So she pushed her own discomfort aside and dove into the work.

Wyatt showed her some quick bandaging techniques for temperamental, still pissed-off and frightened horses so that she didn’t get almost bit again.

It was the sort of experience she never would have gotten in the Beverly Hills vet office, and she knew it. By the time they all got back on the helicopter an hour later, she was exhilarated, but aching everywhere and starving.

Brady was there ahead of them, ready and waiting with—God bless him—food. Hot pastrami sandwiches loaded with cheese and spicy mustard. The exact perfect food. She stuffed in her first bite and moaned. “I could kiss you,” she told Brady.

Brady smiled. “That’s what all the women say.”

Adam gestured to her leg. “What’s wrong?”

He’d seen her limping. “Nothing,” she said quickly. Too quickly because Wyatt’s gaze narrowed in on her. “I’m fine,” she told them both. Sure, her butt hurt from the fall, but she’d probably just hit a rock or something. “I slipped in the mud—”

“You didn’t slip,” Wyatt said. “I pushed you.”

“Yes, well, I was trying to be polite.”

“You pushed her into the mud?” Adam asked him, voice low but a whisper of disbelief in the tone.

“To keep me from getting bit,” Emily said. “That, or for the whole mud effect.”

“I did it for the save-Emily’s-arm effect,” Wyatt said. “But checking out your bruise later might make it worthwhile.”

She choked on the bite she’d just taken. He was checking out her bruise never.

The light of intent in his gaze said otherwise, and her inner slut sighed in pleasure.

She shut it up with the rest of her sandwich.

They made it back to Sunshine in one piece. Emily exited the helicopter and walked across the street toward Belle Haven ahead of Wyatt and Adam, who’d stayed behind to talk to Brady for a moment.

She was glad. She’d joked about the mud incident, but sitting in the chopper had made her muscles tighten up. The back of her leg, between her butt cheek and upper thigh¸ hurt like hell.

Intending to go straight to the bathroom to take a peek, she started to walk into the front door of Belle Haven, but a hand clamped on her wrist.

Wyatt.

Without a word, he pulled her around the side of the building, through the back, and then nudged her into his office.

“Um,” she said, when he shut and locked the door behind him.

Leaning against it, his crossed his arms. “Strip.”

She choked out a laugh. “Excuse me?”

“I want to see your leg,” he said.

“What leg?”

“The one you’re rubbing.”

Dammit. She dropped her hand from the back of her thigh, which she’d indeed been unconsciously rubbing. “I’m fine.”

“No doubt of that,” he said and reached for the button on her pants.

She squeaked and danced back, right into his desk. She winced at the contact.

“Okay, that’s it.” His big hands settled at her hips and her belly quivered.

The good kind of quiver.

Before she could give that any thought, he turned her away from him, sandwiching her, her back to his front, between his body and the desk. Again, he reached around her for the button on her pants.

She sputtered. “You can’t just—”

He could, and did. Before she could finish her statement, he had her pants down to her thighs.

She tried to turn, but he put a hand between her shoulder blades and pushed her flat to his desk.

“Hold still,” he said.

She opened her mouth to tell him she’d hold still when he was good and dead, which would be as soon as she managed to get her hands around his neck, but then he stroked his fingers very gently, very lightly high up on the back of her thigh.

“Wyatt—”

“Shh,” he said, and then his fingers spread a little, and she was thinking she couldn’t be as hurt as she thought because those fingers felt shockingly good.

His thumb slid beneath her panties and scooped the material aside, giving her a first-class wedgie. Once again she started to squirm but then he set his whole palm on her butt.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice low and gruff.

“For bending me over your desk?” She tried to inject a pissed-off tone into the words, and a sense that his life was on borrowed time, but she sounded annoyingly breathless.

“You’re bruised,” he said. He pressed between her shoulder blades again. “Stay right there.”

“Like hell—”

“Stay.”

Wyatt grabbed an ice pack from the staff kitchen freezer, and then headed straight back to his office. In the thirty seconds he’d been gone, Emily had straightened up from his desk. Her pants were still at her thighs, and her hot pink panties covered all the essentials—barely.

The view was heart-stopping.

She stood there, craning around, trying to see her own ass. And if he hadn’t caused the huge blooming bruise from her sweet ass cheek to the top of her thigh, he’d really be enjoying the sight.

He moved to her and placed the ice pack against her leg.

She squeaked and jerked.

“Shh,” he said.

“I am not a dog or a cat or a damn horse,” she said through gritted teeth. “You can’t animal-whisper me into a blissful, do-whatever-you-want-to-me coma simply because of your sexy voice!”

He adjusted the ice pack, smiling when she sucked in a breath. “Do-whatever-you-want-to-me coma?” he repeated.

“Yes,” she said. “That’s what happens when you talk to your patients. They melt.”

“And you?”

She turned away to face his desk, profile stony.

He smiled at the back of her head. “You want me again.”

“You’re a pain in my ass,” she said. “Literally.”

He stroked a finger over the pink silk. “I like these.”

“If you were a gentleman, you wouldn’t notice.”

“Emily, I’ve seen it all before.”

“Not bent over your desk, you haven’t!” she said

“True,” he said. “You were bent over the bathroom counter last time.”

She whipped around, still holding the ice pack to herself. “You’re enjoying this!”

He scrubbed a hand over his jaw to hide his smile, but nothing could stop it from creeping into his voice. “Yeah,” he admitted. “You’re the prettiest patient I’ll see today.”

She stared at him, and then rolled her eyes. “You can’t sweet talk me like you can an animal, Wyatt.”

Yes, he could. He’d done it. But he wasn’t stupid, so he didn’t point it out or respond. “Keep the ice on it for a few minutes. I’m going to start seeing our patients.”

“I’m supposed to shadow you.”

“Keep the ice for a few,” he repeated, and then in spite of wanting to strip her out of the rest of her clothes and bend her back over his desk, he left his office.

It was the usual afternoon insanity. For the last few hours, Wyatt had completely forgotten that, with Jade gone and her replacement a no-show, Dell had been left to face the chaos on his own.

He expected Mike to be behind the front desk. Or anyone other than who was sitting there.

Darcy.

The phones were ringing wildly, and she was using her walker to stand and face off with Colonel McVey.

Colonel was an old-timer. He’d been army way back, Special Forces, and he’d lost none of his fierce intensity or the ability to slay anyone in eye-contact range. He lived alone on his ranch with his cattle and his twenty-year-old cat, Betty.

Betty was blind but other than that, she was still spry and kicking. In fact, she was in better shape than Colonel.

“She hasn’t had a BM in two days,” Colonel was saying to Darcy.

“A BM?” Darcy asked.

“Bowel movement.”

“Oh.” Darcy laughed. “She’s plugged. Hey, it happens to the best of us.”

“Plugged,” Peanut yelled from his perch on the printer. “Plugged.”

Darcy grinned at the parrot. “What else do you know?”

“Boner,” Peanut said proudly.

Colonel wasn’t amused. “I want to see Dell,” he said, not cracking a smile. “And I want to see him now, young lady.”