“Stop spooning me,” Kate said, rolling over to face him. “This is a public park.”
“How is this any more appropriate?” Ian asked, pulling her closer so they were pressed up against each other.
“It really isn’t,” Kate admitted.
“Kiss me.”
Kate obliged willingly and then tucked her head against his neck. “You sure seem to enjoy kissing.”
“What’s not to like?”
“Nothing. I love kissing. I’m just not used to it. Stuart wasn’t really a kisser. It was mostly a means to an end for him.”
“Stuart is nuts.”
Kate looked into his eyes. “Are you ever going to tell me your last name?”
“No,” he said. His tone was quite serious. Then he kissed her again.
Around four o’clock, when the temperature had started to drop a little and the sun went behind the clouds and stayed there, Kate started to shiver. Her hands were getting cold, and they decided to call it a day.
“Ready?” Ian said.
He held out his arm and Kate took it.
When Ian pulled up in front of Kate’s building, he turned off the car, and she waited for him to come around and open her door.
“Would you like to come in?” Kate asked.
“I have to. It’s our second date. You can give me the grand tour since you barely let me inside last time. And don’t worry, I won’t overstay my welcome. A project I’m working on for one of my clients has monopolized my entire weekend, and I’m still not done.”
Once they were inside, Kate showed Ian around. Her one-bedroom apartment was tiny in comparison to the pricier, two-bedroom apartment she’d lived in for three years with Stuart, but she loved it. She’d picked out the furniture by herself, purchasing a couch that had an attached chaise, a soft oversized chair, and a plush, brightly colored fake-fur rug that gave her living room a funky, comfortable feel.
“Very nice,” Ian said.
They sat down on the couch.
“You know, this refusal to tell me your last name is making things awkward for me,” Kate said. “At brunch I had to refer to you as Ian Smith.”
“Smith?” he said with mock indignation. “Is that the best you could come up with? Why not just call me Ian Doe?”
“You were almost Ian Spoon because that’s what I happened to be holding in my hand when the question came up. The girls probably think I’ve resorted to inventing imaginary suitors to help me get past my breakup with Stuart.”
“Could an imaginary suitor do this?” Ian asked, giving Kate what she decided to dub the number six, which was deep, openmouthed kissing with tongue while cradling her face after he’d pulled her onto his lap.
“Good God, your eyes are crossed,” Ian said when it was over.
She held her finger to his lips. “Shhhh… no one likes a braggart.”
He smiled and bit it gently. Kate liked being held on Ian’s lap, so she stayed where she was. Ian, no slouch in the proximity-awareness department, leaned in again. This time he brushed aside the tendrils of hair that had escaped her French twist and gave her a series of soft kisses that started below her ear and continued down her neck. Kate leaned her head back against the couch to give him better access, which he took full advantage of by turning the kissing into the most erotic nibbling. If she wasn’t careful, Ian might try to kiss her right into bed, and she wasn’t ready for that yet. Reluctantly, she climbed off his lap.
“Where are you going?”
“No one likes a braggart, but no one likes a tease either.”
Ian grudgingly announced that he needed to go. “I would rather stay and kiss you some more and then take you to dinner, but I really must get back to my project.”
“That’s okay. I’m still stuffed full of strawberries.” She walked him to the door.
“Are you free Friday night? Around six thirty? I’d like for us to go on our third date. And you know what that means.”
“I do happen to be available, and I’m well aware of what sometimes happens on the third date. But for your information, we’re not quite there yet.”
“We’re not?”
“No.”
“Are you sure? Because I feel like we could be.”
Kate pretended to think about it. “Positive.”
“That’s okay. I’ll be happy as long as I can still kiss you. I’m really very patient, Katie.” He kissed her again—deep, lingering—as if to show her just how much he enjoyed it.
Before he turned to go he said, “So are you?”
“Am I what?”
“Past your breakup with Stuart?”
Kate knew she was more than likely just something for Ian to play with. A girl to rile up, an interesting diversion at best. By his own admission, he didn’t stick around in any city for very long. But she was glad he’d asked, because it was the first indication he’d given her that he possessed any vulnerability at all. Very few men wanted to get involved with a woman only to watch her return to her old boyfriend because she still harbored feelings for him.
“Yes, Ian Smith. I can assure you that I am.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Someone was banging on the door. Kate buried her head under the pile of blankets on the couch and prayed they’d go away. She’d started feeling sick after she got home from the food pantry on Thursday and had spent the rest of the afternoon and evening on the couch coughing. Things had taken a decidedly worse turn overnight, and she’d been awake—and miserable—since around three that morning. In an attempt to ease the tightness in her lungs, she’d taken a long, steamy shower at four, but it hadn’t helped much.
The knocking became banging. Slowly she made her way toward the door, zigzagging dizzily across the room. “What?” she croaked.
“It’s Ian. Open up.”
She managed to get the door open but felt light-headed and reached for the doorjamb to steady herself. She missed it completely and pitched forward into the hallway. Ian caught her with a soft oomph, swung her up in his arms, and kicked the door shut with his foot. She laid her cheek against his chest.
“You’re sizzling, sweetness. I can feel the heat through my shirt. When’s the last time you took something for that fever?” He laid her down gently on the couch.
“What time is it?”
“A little after nine.”
“Five maybe? I’ve been counting the minutes until I could take more Motrin. I think I can have another dose now.”
She started to sit up, but Ian gently eased her back down. “I’ll get it. You stay here.”
That sounded like a fabulous idea to Kate. Horizontal felt marginally less wretched than vertical. “It’s on the kitchen counter.”
Ian returned with a tall glass of ice water and some Motrin. Kate was suddenly thirstier than she could remember being in a very long time. Ian put his arm behind her shoulders and helped her rise to a sitting position. After she swallowed the pills, she drained the glass and said, “I’m a level-five biohazard. You should get out now while you still can.”
“That’s ridiculous,” he said. “I’m impervious to germs. I rarely get sick.”
“No kissing,” she said as she fired off three giant sneezes that made her eyes water and her nose run. “I’m a mess, and I do not feel pretty.”
He plucked a Kleenex from the box on the coffee table and handed it to her. “Fair enough.”
“Why are you here? Our date wasn’t until this evening.” Because she had no way to get ahold of him, she’d planned on canceling when he showed up at her door and witnessed for himself the condition she was in.
“I went to the food pantry to make sure we were still on for tonight, and Helena told me you called in sick.”
“If we communicated by phone like normal people, you could have saved yourself a trip,” she said and then became engulfed by a coughing attack so violent it sent daggers of pain shooting through her chest and head.
“This is not a wasted trip. Tell me what you need.”<
br />
In addition to the pile of blankets she’d wrapped herself in, Kate was wearing the flannel pajamas Ian had bought her and a pair of slippers, but she still couldn’t get warm. “I’m freezing. Can you get the comforter from my bed?”
Ian retrieved the comforter and tucked it around her shoulders and under her legs. Then he sat down next to her. “Lay your head in my lap.”
Kate did as he said. She didn’t care that she wasn’t wearing makeup or that her hair was still damp from her shower and drying in a mess of tangles. She was more miserable than she could remember being in a long time.
She closed her eyes as Ian lightly stroked her head. “That feels good.”
When the Motrin kicked in, her shivering subsided, but she felt weary clear down to her bones.
“Sleep, Katie,” Ian said, and there was nothing Kate wanted to do more.
When she woke up three hours later, he was still there. There was a fire burning in the fireplace, and he was sitting on the chaise end of the couch, typing on a laptop. She poked him with her foot.
He stopped typing, looked over, and smiled. “How’s my patient?”
Kate still felt awful, but she said, “Okay.”
“You don’t sound okay,” he said. “You sound miserable.”
“I feel a little better than when you arrived. I think the nap helped.” Kate’s voice was so raspy Ian had to lean in to hear her. “Did you leave?”
“Only for a short while. I ran home to get my laptop. I figured I could work and keep an eye on you at the same time.”
“Do you live far from here?”
“I live downtown. I also dropped by the pharmacy because you were almost out of Motrin and the only other medicine I found in your kitchen was a half-empty bottle of NyQuil that expired two years ago. I wasn’t exactly sure what you needed. Usually I turn to the Internet for answers, but in this case I decided a pharmacist would be my best bet.”
“You spoke to a pharmacist?”
“Yes. He said you’re more than likely suffering from a viral upper respiratory illness but warned me that I should take you to the doctor if your condition worsens or you have trouble breathing. Are you having trouble breathing?”
“Not at the moment.”
“Good. He also hooked me up with everything you could possibly need. It looks like a Walgreens exploded in your kitchen.”
Ian was wearing a sweatshirt and well-worn jeans, and he’d kicked off his shoes. She liked the way he looked stretched out on the chaise: comfortable, like he planned on staying a while.
“You’re really great, you know,” she said.
“Are you just now noticing? I’m hurt, Katie. Really.” But he smiled when he said it, and Kate had to admit that for all Ian’s faults—faults he made no excuses for and that Kate realized he had no intention of ever working on—he was more than willing to compensate in other ways.
She told herself she could do a lot worse.
Ian ordered a pizza for lunch and tried to get Kate to eat some off his plate, but the thought of food repulsed her. “If you’re not going to eat, then you need to drink,” he said. “And don’t get excited, because wine is not one of the options.”
He went into the kitchen and returned with two glasses, one filled with orange juice and one with ice water. He set them down on the coffee table next to an assortment of medicine, a new box of Kleenex, and an ear thermometer.
“You seriously bought an ear thermometer?”
“Yes, and I’ve been dying to try it out. Come closer.”
Kate leaned over and Ian stuck the thermometer in her ear until it beeped.
“Just under a hundred. Could be better, but I’ll take it.”
Kate picked up the orange juice and took a sip. “You play doctor very well.”
“For the record, I play doctor a lot differently than this. If you let me rub Vicks VapoRub on your chest or give you a sponge bath, I could show you what I mean. It would be win-win, Katie.”
“Thanks, but I’ll hold off on both for now.”
“I’ll be sure to ask again later.”
Kate glanced over at his laptop. All she could see were lines of code, which made no sense to her at all. “What are you working on?”
“World domination, obviously.” He looked over at Kate and grinned. “When I’m done with that, maybe I’ll swing by Victoria’s Secret and buy you another pair of pajamas.”
Kate took another drink of her orange juice, set the glass on the coffee table, and curled up next to Ian with the blankets wrapped tightly around her. “I probably wouldn’t hate that.”
They spent the rest of the afternoon and evening that way, with Ian working and Kate not feeling well enough to do much of anything but watch daytime TV. He checked Kate’s temperature around dinnertime and discovered it had risen to one hundred and three. He gave her more Motrin, and she snuggled on the couch next to him while his fingers tapped on the keyboard. He was wearing his glasses, and Kate decided it was definitely a look she preferred. A while later someone knocked on the door.
“I ordered Thai online,” Ian said, setting his laptop on the coffee table. “Do you think you can eat something?”
She shook her head and then burrowed back into the blankets. Around ten, Ian convinced Kate to go to bed. He picked up the box of Kleenex and followed her to the bedroom, setting it down on the nightstand while she crawled underneath the covers. She ached, her head was throbbing, her chest hurt from coughing, and she could hardly hold her eyes open.
“I’ll be right back,” he said.
When he returned, he had Kate’s comforter and he covered her and made sure it was tucked in tight. The last thing she thought of was hoping Ian would turn everything off on his way out.
She slept until almost nine the next morning and awakened feeling a little better than when Ian had put her to bed, which meant she probably wasn’t going to get any worse. He’d left a glass of water and two pills on her nightstand with a note that said “Take these as soon as you wake up.” She swallowed them, aware that the ache in her body was still present but that it had lessened considerably. A hot bath would do wonders for alleviating some of the remaining pain.
In the bathroom, she poured in a generous amount of bubble bath and brushed her teeth while the tub filled. I don’t look too horrible, she thought as she pulled her hair into a high ponytail. Her face wasn’t quite as pale, and the hot water would pink up her cheeks a little more.
She undressed and lowered herself into a cloud of bubbles. After she soaped herself, she leaned back and sighed. Ian crept into her thoughts and she smiled. It had been a long time since a man had taken care of her like that. Stuart had hated being sick, so Kate usually quarantined herself in their spare bedroom until she got over the worst of whatever illness she’d come down with. The way Ian had swept into her apartment and taken charge, and the genuine concern he’d shown, made Kate pine for him in a way she knew was dangerous. He wasn’t the kind of man who stayed in one place too long, and she doubted any woman would ever be enough to make him want to settle down.
Kate closed her eyes and allowed herself a daydream in which she and Ian were a couple. He would walk in the door at the end of the day and kiss her senseless. Then he’d undress her right in the kitchen and carry her off to the bedroom for a round of hot, steamy sex. Afterward he’d pour them a drink and they’d eat dinner in front of the fireplace. They would cuddle and have round two on the living room floor. She felt certain Ian would be an excellent lover: Confident but not selfish. Tender but not boring. As she pictured his large, capable hands stroking her breasts, her fingers drifted toward her chest. She was still awfully worn out, but she wondered if she might possibly find the energy to touch herself while pretending it was him pleasuring her.
Ian shattered her reverie when he walked through the door of the bathroom. “Your couch is incredibly comfortable. I was sleeping so deeply I didn’t even hear you run the bath. You took the pills, I see. That’s good. You need
to stay one step ahead of the fever.”
Speechless, her mouth hung open. I am naked, and Ian is in my bathroom. I was contemplating touching my own breasts.
“I know you’ve alluded to my boundary issues,” he said, sitting down on the edge of the tub. “And this is probably a shining example, but I wanted to make sure you were okay. Passing out in the bathtub or shower is one of the leading causes of death while bathing. And I can’t see anything because of all the bubbles. Actually, that’s a blatant lie because I can pretty much make out your entire left nipple. The suds are a little disparate in that area.”
Frantically, Kate raked the biggest mound of bubbles—which were down by her feet and doing her no good at all—toward her chest. “Get out! Get out, get out, get out!”
He smiled and said, “I’m going. Now that I know you’re okay, I’ll just start the coffee. Please do carry on with whatever it was you were about to do.”
Once Kate had dried off and dressed in her comfiest sweats, she stomped into the living room and stood in front of Ian, who was sitting on the couch drinking coffee and typing on his laptop.
“Repeat after me: I, Ian.”
“I, Ian.”
“Will never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever walk in on Kate in the bathroom again unless specifically invited to do so.”
“Will never ever, ever—how many evers was that?”
“Ever, infinity.”
“Ever, infinity, walk in on Katie in the bathroom again unless specifically invited to do so.” Ian took a drink of his coffee. “I feel like that last part means the possibility of a future invitation exists, which is encouraging.”
He handed Kate a mug of steaming dark roast, and she sat down beside him.
When he started to speak, she held up her hand. “I have not had enough coffee to deal with you yet.”
Ian turned his attention back to his laptop and waited until Kate took the last drink from her mug.
“You know that saying, ‘Act now, apologize later?’ I’m pretty much the poster boy.”