Dirty: The Complete Series (Secret Baby Romance Love Story) (147 page)

I’d
hope you could keep me warm,
I wrote back.
It’s supposed to stay pretty cold the next
few days.
I put my phone in my lap and turned my attention onto my computer
as the office manager came through, looking to make sure that everyone was
working. Even if we were slow, I knew she would point out that there was always
the backlog of patient files to attend to. Harriet walked past and I breathed a
sigh of relief. I almost yelped when I felt the phone vibrate in my lap,
startling me in spite of the fact that I’d been expecting some kind of answer.

Oh,
I could do a great job of keeping you warm,
Patrick had texted
back. My phone vibrated again and I saw he’d sent me a winking emoji.

Really?
How would you do that?
I licked my lips, feeling my face
warming up a little bit at the hint of something sexual. I typed out a few
comments on one of the files up on my screen while I waited for the response.

Well
they do say that the best way to stay warm is to share body heat…I think you’re
pretty good at generating heat yourself.
I bit back a giggle.

Sharing
body heat? Doesn’t that normally work better with skin contact?
My
heart beat faster in my chest, and I felt warm and tingly all over. I had
never—ever—done anything like this while I was at work. Even when I’d been
dating in college, I’d kept my phone turned off during my work hours, and I
never would have even considered drifting into sexy territory while I was on
the clock.

Skin
contact! Mm. Well, if I remember right, you are really warm on the
inside…almost too hot. I could definitely share that body heat.
I felt my cheeks getting hotter, my whole body starting to warm up with a
mixture of how turned on I was at the sensual words and how worried I suddenly
was that someone would catch on to what I was doing. I knew that some of my
coworkers texted with their boyfriends and girlfriends—and that some of them
even sexted their partners on a regular basis. But I’d always stuck with being
professional; I didn’t want to screw up that reputation.

You’re
pretty hot too,
I wrote back.
Maybe with the right place and the right situation, we’d be able to
melt some snow.
I licked my lips, picturing it in my mind. It would be
horrifically impractical…no amount of shared body heat would keep us from
getting frostbite if we got naked in the snow together. But in my mind I
pictured us having sex out in a field somewhere, far away from everyone,
touching each other everywhere. The snow would be cold against us—even with a
blanket it would be freezing—but maybe if we had a few blankets, some of them
wrapped around us and a couple underneath us, it would be fun. I shook my head;
that was a crazy idea.

That’s
a great picture!
I grinned to myself at Patrick’s message.
As long as we could keep moving, I think
we’d be okay. Sweaty, even.
My throat was dry, my mouth was watering—for a
second I wanted nothing more than a thermos of soup, a bunch of blankets, and
some fun in the snow with Patrick without having to worry about him needing to
pick up Landon. I pressed my lips together and squirmed in my seat; just
thinking about having sex with Patrick again—in my apartment, his place, or
even out in the snow somewhere—was enough to turn me on so much I couldn’t
quite get comfortable.

I
don’t know if it would work out in real life,
I pointed out.
But I do want to see you again. I’ve been
missing you and Landon this afternoon.
I took a deep breath and exhaled
slowly.

Well
maybe if we can’t make it out to a nice, secluded field somewhere, we could
just spend the whole day inside,
Patrick sent back to me.
I swallowed against the tight feeling in my throat, looking up in time to see
Harriet coming back through the office to check on something at the front desk.
I put my phone aside, suppressing the urge to grab it when I felt it vibrate in
my lap again, pretending to be oh-so focused on the file up on my computer. As
soon as Harriet was through, I checked my phone again.

It’d
be much easier to keep you warm if I could keep you in bed. Get a fire going in
the fireplace, maybe make some hot chocolate for you…and keep our skin pressed
together as much as possible.
That picture was even
better than the first one; I could imagine just how nice it would be to spend a
whole day in bed with Patrick. But a nagging voice in my head pointed out that
we hadn’t really been dating long enough for that yet—exciting as it sounded to
me.

“Ooh, look at this girl blushing,” Blair
said, coming to a stop at my desk. Her patient and the little girl’s parent
went on into the waiting room to leave the office. I rolled my eyes at Blair,
putting the phone aside face down. “You chatting up your boyfriend?”

I shrugged, moving my phone away from
where Blair could grab for it. “Yes, I’m texting Patrick,” I said, glancing to
make sure that Harriet wasn’t about to come down on us for hanging out and
socializing instead of working. “He’s not my boyfriend though. Not really.”

“Are you sure about that?” Blair threw
herself into the chair next to my desk with her long legs out in front of her.
“I mean, how many dates have you gone on?”

“Just three,” I said, shrugging again. “We
got coffee, went to dinner and a movie, and went ice-skating. It’s nothing
serious.”

“Well, if you went on three dates with the
guy, it’s not like it’s not serious,” Blair countered. “At three dates you at
least know that you get along together a little bit. You’re maybe two dates at
most from actually being boyfriend and girlfriend.” I rolled my eyes, shaking
my head.

“He’s a single father,” I pointed out.
“Things go a lot slower with someone who’s got a kid. He’s got to make sure
that he feels comfortable with me as an influence on Landon before we can
really be serious.”

“He seems like a decent dad,” Blair
agreed. “I’ve seen him in the office a few times. He’s pretty hot.”

“He’s even hotter outside of the office,”
I said quietly, giving her a little grin.

“I’ll just bet he is!” Blair looked around
to make sure we weren’t being eavesdropped on. “Isn’t it weird to see him in
the office after you’ve had a date with him, though?” I shook my head slowly.

“Not really,” I said, thinking. “I mean,
he’s always professional when he comes in here. He did ask me out on the second
date after a session, but he wasn’t like, leering at me or anything.”

“How long is the kid in treatment for?” I
shrugged.

“He’s making good progress—another good
sign: Patrick works with Landon in between sessions to make sure he’s getting
up to speed.” Blair nodded her approval. I missed Amie—and no one in the office
could replace her—but if I were going to confide in anyone else while Amie was
away on medical leave, it would be Blair. At least with her I could count on a
little privacy.

“A good parent is a decent date,” Blair
agreed. “Do you think it’s going anywhere?” I shrugged.

“I don’t really know,” I admitted. “I like
spending time with him, he likes spending time with me…but everything is still pretty
up in the air.” I thought about it for a moment or two longer and smiled to
myself slowly. “I don’t know if he’s serious about me, but I think—if things
keep going the way that they have been—that it could get more serious. I think
I’d like it if it did.”

“That’s all you need to know,” Blair said,
nodding. “If it tips the scales at all, I think you two look absolutely
adorable together.”

I laughed.

“That’s all I’m interested in,” I said
jokingly. I might not have been interested in how cute I looked with Patrick,
but it definitely helped to have someone in the office tell me she liked the
idea of me dating Patrick.

Chapter Ten - Patrick

I had hated to cancel Landon’s PT
appointment , but it had given me an even bigger urge to see Mackenzie again. I
hadn’t even been able to stay away long enough to wait for another date; I’d
stopped by at her apartment after Landon’s school award ceremony ended, with
some takeout and a bottle of wine, and we’d spent a few hours together just
talking and cuddling on the couch, watching a movie while my sister took Landon
Christmas shopping. But even with that little bit of heaven for a few hours, I
wanted more.
 
I’d racked my mind for
different date options that would be fun and interesting and not cliché. We’d
settled on a make-your-own pottery date at a little shop at the outskirts of
the city that served beer and wine.

I’d picked her up from her apartment and
we’d talked about Amie’s recovery and Landon’s progress. I could tell that the
attack had shaken her up a lot more than Mack wanted to admit. “Something like
this should at least be fun,” I’d said when we walked up to the shop entrance
from the parking spot I finally managed to find after circling the block a few
times. “But I have to warn you, I am terrible at pottery.”

“I’m not that much better,” Mackenzie had
admitted with a laugh. “So let’s focus on enjoying some decent wine and having
fun.”

The pottery had gone better than I would
have expected. I made a silly little pot while Mackenzie worked on a vase. “You
know what we could do sometime? I mean—if this keeps going as well as it has
been?” I had almost bent the rim on my pot when I looked up to meet Mackenzie’s
gaze.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“We could go to a concert, maybe,”
Mackenzie suggested. “I haven’t gone to one in a while.”

“Who would you want to see?” She shrugged
in answer to my question.

“Anyone, really. I like a lot of different
kinds of music. And anyway, going to a concert—a good concert—is a good time
even if you’ve never heard of the band onstage before.”

We finished off our wine and our pottery
and turned it into one of the clerks that ran the shop to fire it in the kiln.
I told Mackenzie that I’d come back the next day—the shop was closer to my
place than it was to hers—to pick up our pieces, assuming they didn’t crack or
break in the kiln.

Afterward, we grabbed some hot sandwiches
and some coffee and wandered towards a park, lit up for the holidays with
different symbols of the season. It was cold enough out that there weren’t very
many other people using the paths through the park, and even while we ate our
sandwiches, Mackenzie stuck close to me. I remembered what we’d joked about
having sex in the snow; I knew as well as she did that it wasn’t a very good
idea, but it had been a hot mental image to think about, and it had stuck with
me ever since.

“Do you think we could make sex in the
snow work?”

Mackenzie laughed. “You’re really hooked
on that idea, aren’t you?”

I grinned at her in the gloomy light.
“Well it seems so awesome,” I explained. “I’m sure someone’s been able to do it
successfully, right?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.” Mackenzie
thought for a moment. “You know, if you had enough blankets, maybe one or two
of those heating pad things, you could probably make it work.”

“But we’d be risking getting frostbite in
interesting places, probably.”

Mackenzie nodded. “And we’d also be
risking arrest for indecent exposure.”

I laughed. “There is that, too,” I agreed.
“So I guess we’ll be keeping all our sex indoors for now.”

“If we’re still dating in the summer, I
wouldn’t mind finding a place to try it out,” she said, blushing a bright
pink-red.

“Oooh, we haven’t really had the
conversation about sex, have we?” I wrapped my arm around Mackenzie’s waist and
pulled her closer to me.

“We haven’t, that’s a good point,” she
said. “What do you like?” I chuckled.

“Well, I mean… I’m probably kind of
boring,” I told her. “I like things…kind of straightforward.” It had been years
since I’d done any sexual experimenting—and at that, Joanne had always been
interested in pretty straightforward things. For a second I worried that maybe
Mackenzie wanted something a little more exciting. “I’m not against trying
things, though,” I added.

“Me either,” Mackenzie said. “It’s
just…it’s been a while since I’ve been with anyone at all, and even before
that—when I was dating—I never really had much chance to…explore.” She blushed
an even deeper red as we made our way through the park slowly. “But I wouldn’t
mind trying like…sex in the outdoors, as long as it wasn’t somewhere people
would definitely see us. Or something like that.”

“Maybe sex in the shower?” I remembered
the bathroom in Mackenzie’s apartment; it would be just big enough in the
shower stall to hold her up against the wall, to get in a little fun. The bathtub
at my place was bigger. Looking at Mackenzie, I thought that we could probably
both fit in the tub pretty easily. “I have a really nice, big bath at my place.
That could be fun.”

“Sort of like hot tub sex?” Mackenzie
grinned up at me. “You’re right, that does sound nice.” She licked her lips and
took a sip of her coffee. “Have—have you ever used like…whipped cream in bed?”
I raised an eyebrow.