“Yes, totally. You don’t know how close you came to beating me. There’s a reason I didn’t socialize.”

Oliver hadn’t had a social life? He was always so jovial and good-looking, always had two or three women clinging to his every word. I was the one who’d had no social life. Of course, since I hadn’t had one, I wouldn’t have known whether he had.

“I don’t think any of us did much socializing in med school, and that was nothing compared to internship and residency.”

“You’re telling me. Those hours were brutal.” He caressed my cheek with his fingers.

I was getting uncomfortable. I cleared my throat. “What are you in the mood for? There are some great restaurants around here. There’s a nice sushi place about a block over and a couple Italian places.”

“Sushi sounds great. Let’s try that.”

“All right. Let me grab my purse out of my desk.”

Warmth came up behind me as I was bending to pick up my purse out of the locked drawer where I kept it. I grabbed the bag and turned around. Oliver was right behind me, and he quickly brushed his lips over mine. I jolted backward, falling into my desk chair, my ass plunking on the leather. I bit my lip.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I just couldn’t get that out of my mind.”

I stood nervously. I wasn’t sure how I felt about the kiss. Granted, Oliver and I had been intimate long ago, but only once, and it was certainly not part of any kind of relationship.

He grabbed my elbow and pulled me toward him. “Let’s try that again,” he said.

And before I could pull away, his lips were on mine once more.

He ran his tongue over the seam of my lips, and although I wasn’t sure, I opened to him. He slipped his tongue into my mouth. I closed my eyes, trying to concentrate on the kiss, trying to melt into him the way I had melted into—

“What the fuck is going on here?”

Chapter Twenty–One

Jonah

My body went rigid, and my hands clenched into fists. Another man had his lips on Melanie.

My Melanie.

But she wasn’t my Melanie. Until that moment, I hadn’t known how much I wanted her to be.

Instincts took over, and my hackles rose. I stepped toward her, feeling feral, primal. I grabbed the man’s suit coat by the back of his neck and pulled him off of her. He landed on the floor on his ass.

“Hey! Who are you?” he said. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

I ignored him. He wasn’t the problem. The woman kissing him was.

Melanie inched backward slightly, rubbing at her lips. They were red from another man’s lips.

Never again.

“Who the hell is he? And what was he doing kissing you?”

“He… He’s a friend of mine from medical school.”

“Is that how you say hello to all of your friends?”

“Look, Jonah, this isn’t any of your—”

“The hell it’s not.”

The other guy had gotten up, and he touched the sleeve of my shirt. “Look, I think we have a big misunderstanding here. It’s like Melanie said. I’m Oliver Nichols, a friend of hers from medical school.”

I shrugged away from him and pushed him down to the floor again.

“For God’s sake, Jonah, would you stop that?” Melanie knelt down to the other guy. “Oliver, are you all right?”

Oliver stood and brushed off his pants. “Yeah, I’m fine. Look, maybe we should have this date another time.”

“You have a date with him?” I spat out.

Melanie stood. “He’s a friend, Jonah.”

“I’m going to excuse myself now,” Oliver said. “Melanie, I’ll call you.”

“Don’t bother,” I said over my shoulder.

He walked out the door.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Melanie demanded. “He and I had dinner plans.”

“Yes, dinner plans with your friend. A friend who had his tongue shoved down your throat.”

She reddened. That beautiful raspberry flush… But no, I was not going to fall prey to her feminine wiles. I was angry—livid, actually—and she was going to answer to me.

“Why was he kissing you?”

“I don’t know. I was as surprised by it as you were.”

“You didn’t look surprised from where I was standing.”

“You came in at the exact wrong time. He had just started to kiss me, and I was about ready to end it.”

“Oh, you were? And I’m supposed to believe that?”

“It doesn’t really matter what you believe, Jonah. You and I are not together.”

“Seems to me we’ve been together a couple of times now.”

“It was sex. Really good sex, but we don’t even know anything about each other.”

Right. She knew all about me from her sessions with my brother. “I’d say you know a hell of a lot about me.”

“Fine.” She sighed. “You don’t know anything about me.”

I pulled her to me, molding her breasts against my chest. “I know more than you think.” I inhaled. “I know you always smell like fresh lavender. I know exactly how your ruby-red lips feel under my own. I know your nipples are almost the same color, and I know you like them sucked. Hard. I know every little crevice of your hot pussy and how it tastes like sweet peaches and earthy musk. I know how many times you come when I suck your hard clit and put my fingers inside you.” I lowered my voice to a whisper and grabbed her ass, not gently. “I know you don’t like your ass slapped during sex. And I also know that will change.”

She gasped against me.

“Yes, that will change. I guarantee it, Melanie. I want to slap that sweet little ass of yours. Slap those peachy breasts of yours. Tie you to a bed and fuck you silly. And in the end, I always get what I want.”

She shuddered, falling into her chair. She bit her lip, trembling all over. “And what do you want right now?”

My dick was so hard I thought it might pop out of my jeans. I had to have her, had to mark her, had to make her mine. Another male was stalking her, and that wasn’t going to happen under my watch.

“You. Here. Now.”