Boning Up Read online

  Brock shook his head and sat down beside her. “Dammit, are we quite through focusing on the professor’s defective textbook? So far everything I showed you in the past four hours was not in the textbook. How long is it going to take you to figure out that the textbook is a piece of shit?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? Are you saying I can’t learn this? I was just pointing out the problems I’ve been having so far.”

  “Yeah, well, it doesn’t matter what problems you had so far. What matters is tomorrow, and you’re not paying attention. I don’t want to hear one more mention of that guy’s name or his stupid book, you got me? From now on, it’s bones. Now, largest bone in the human body?”

  She stood up and stretched her arms far over her head. “We’ve been at this for hours. Can’t we take a break?”

  He pulled another book in front of him and flipped toward the back of it. “Hell, no, we can’t take a break. Don’t tell me you’re tired.”

  “I didn’t say I was tired, but it’s getting late. We’ve already worked through lunch and dinner.” She glanced around. “This place is deserted and has been for hours. What time is it, anyway?”

  He gritted his teeth. “It’s after one a.m., and we ate out of the vending machine an hour ago. You can’t be hungry, and you don’t need anybody but me and these textbooks. You don’t have the morphology or any of the basic definitions memorized, and you probably can’t identify the mandible even though you’ve been working it incessantly since we sat down. Before you leave here, you’re going to recite every damn bone and tell me the skeletal differences between the genders.” He ran his hands over his face. “You’re not focusing!”

  “One a.m.? Are you kidding me? The place closes at midnight!”

  “Which explains why we’re alone. Will you sit back down so we can do this?”

  She groaned. “It’s so hot in here, it’s hard to concentrate. When are they going to fix the damn air conditioning in this building? Let’s find a fire exit and take these books to my apartment. I’ve got cold drinks and the air conditioning works. I can put my feet up, be much more comfortable, and focus on whatever morphology you want.”

  “Yeah, and then you’ll fall asleep on the couch. You are full of excuses. The place is closed, so we’ve got it to ourselves. Now, focus! We are staying here until you get this right.”

  “Fine. We’d need a truck to carry all these books anyway.” She started towards the staircase. “I’m going to find a soda machine.”

  He leaped out of the chair and seized her hand. “No! Dammit, this is not about hot or cold, hungry or tired. It’s about bones.” He held her hand up in front of her face. “Identify the bones in the human hand.”

  “Let go of me.”

  She tilted her chin until her hair fell away from her narrowed eyes, a gesture that looked like she’d practiced until it became intensely provocative. Beautiful women always thought they could get whatever they wanted by trading on their looks. Well, honey, not this time.

  He tightened his grip on her slender wrist, trying hard not to breathe in the scent that had become overpoweringly erotic at this distance. Good thing they weren’t reviewing skin. Hers was too hot and exciting to discuss with words. Unwanted images of her rubbing that skin against him stirred his groin until he blinked the visions away.

  He lowered his voice. “You’re not going anywhere until you identify the damn bones.”

  “I’m looking at some bones I’m going to crack open if you don’t take your hands off me.”

  Her cheeks flushed as her gaze bored into his. She was no match for his strength, and she’d never be able to wrench her hand away. But she didn’t try. In fact, the tension in her hand had evaporated. She no longer struggled against his grip.

  “You can name the bones in my head and your hand, then. Do it.”

  Something akin to fear flashed in her eyes. “Mandible….”

  Her voice trailed off until her gaze dropped to her hand, staring at it as if it were something foreign she’d never seen before. “Fingers… dammit, what’s that word?”

  “Let’s start at the top. Head.” He pulled her closer, placed his hand at the base of her neck, and wound his fingers through her hair. Then he touched each part of her skull. “Cranium consisting of the frontal, two parietal, occipital, two temporal, sphenoid, ethmoid, six bones in the inner ears—the ossicles—and the hyoid which is located in your neck and serves as the point of attachment for that tongue.”

  Her full lips parted. He’d meant to say ‘the’ tongue, not ‘that’ tongue, and the difference heated up the room another three degrees. She was right. It was hot in here.

  Loosening his fingers from her hair and sliding them around to her face, he touched each area as he continued. “Fourteen bones in your face: two zygomatic, two maxillary, two palentine, two nasal, two lacrimal, vomer, two inferior conchae.” He rubbed his thumb over her jawline. “And the mandible.”

  “There are really that many bones in my head?” Her voice was oddly breathless.

  “Well, as a fetus develops, the facial bones form into pairs and then fuse together. As the cranium fuses, sutures are formed that resemble stitching between bone plates.” Shit, now he was rambling. His breathing quickened, and as he stared into her liquid green eyes, he realized he hadn’t covered the bones in her hand, which he still held between them. He ought to release his hold on her face, and yet he didn’t. “You got all that?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And the hand.” He tightened his grip on her wrist once more. Stop looking at the color of her eyes. She’s hypnotizing you with that voice, you moron. Pay attention. You’ve been sitting with her for hours. What is your problem now?

  He might have been with her before, but somehow he hadn’t really seen her until now. How had he missed it? She was amazingly beautiful. A royal pain in the ass, but damn. She was gorgeous.

  “My hand?”

  He shook his head to clear away the thoughts. “Yes, the bones in your damn hand. How many are there?”

  “Twenty-seven.”

  She had been paying attention to the lesson, which was more than he could say for himself. The smooth texture of her skin held his attention much more than the bones in her body, although he had a few thoughts about those as well, none of them relevant to her test tomorrow. “And they are?”

  She blinked. “You want me to name all twenty seven?”

  Boning Up: Chapter 3

  Carly looked down at her hand, clasped in both of his. He was moving his fingertips lightly over her skin, and she could not take her eyes off the movement.

  “The carpus or wrist has eight.” He stroked his finger lightly over the pulse at her wrist. “The metacarpus or palm has five.” Sliding his fingers up to the palm of her hand, he pressed down on her skin with all four of his fingers. “One to each of the five digits, and the metacarpuls have a head and a shaft.”

  As he said the word shaft, a hot flush tingled her skin.

  “The other fourteen are in the fingers or phalanges.” His voice sounded angry, but his eyes spoke something different altogether. The room had grown much warmer since they’d gotten here. Was it the temperature of the air, or the increase in her blood pressure? Her heart pounded in her chest as his fingers caressed her hand, those crystal blue eyes sending a searing heat through her.

  “That’s right. That’s what the fingers are. Phalanges.” She pulled her hand out of his grasp and took a step backward. A sudden wild impulse flashed through her. She tried to quell it by turning her back to him so that she couldn’t look at his lovely body anymore. She could feel his gaze still on her as he stood like a marble statue. He was watching and waiting for her—to do what?

  “Maybe we should get that drink now.” She walked toward the elevator doors, but his quick-moving footsteps echoed on the tile floor behind her. Grabbing her wrist once more, he spun her around so quickly she fell against his chest, but immediately pushed herself upright.

  �
�Do you want to pass this test tomorrow or not?” His lips barely moved as he spoke, and his eyes glittered like a thousand campfires in the dark.

  “Of course I do. Why else would I be here?” Why else, indeed? Certainly not to do all the things she now imagined doing, like pressing against him once more, touching his lips with her phalanges and moving her frontal, two parietal, occipital, two temporal, sphenoid, ethmoid, ossicles, hyoid and mandible closer to his?

  “Holy crap.” Her voice came out as a whisper, her shock complete.

  His eyebrows rose, and she noted how his breathing had grown more rapid. “What is it?”

  “I’ve got it. I can name them all.”

  He closed the distance between them. “Tell me.”

  She repeated each word softly, slowly, in exactly the same order he’d spoken them. It was so simple.

  “That’s right.” Still holding her hand in his, he lifted it slowly to his chest. “And the hand.”

  Again, the names of the bones came to her like breathing, which she was doing very well and quickly now. Perhaps this was what she’d been missing all along. Bones and skin and muscles. They weren’t medical names in a textbook. They were part of the living, the breathing man in front of her. So real, so simple.

  Sliding her hand up his arm, she touched his shoulder. “And this is…?”

  “Clavicle.” He placed his hand over hers and moved it farther down his back, effectively pulling her body even closer to his. “And the scapula.”

  “Clavicle, scapula.” She released his hand, settled her palms on his shoulders, and slid them down his arms. “What about these?”

  “Humerus, ulna, and radius.”

  He took her arm and held it between them, tenderly running his hand along the back side. “This is the ulna, and this the radius.”

  The words, so foreign and forgettable before, took on a poetic resonance on his lips. The complexity yet utter simplicity of it all sank into her core, as if she’d swallowed up the lesson and digested it. The names of the parts of his body, with epiphanous clarity, became a part of her.

  He placed his hands on her hips and moved them slowly over her shorts and down her bare thighs as he continued to recite the names of the bones.

  The touch of his fingers on her skin sent another hot flush of blood through her, settling in a raging heat between her legs. As he recited the leg and foot bones, she closed her eyes. “You forgot sacrum, coccyx and pelvic girdle.”

  He rose from the floor and rested his hands on what she now remembered with such clarity and ease—illiac crest, the upper part of the hip bone, blissfully covered in skin with millions of nerve endings that were afire as his thumbs slid under the hem of her shirt to rub her skin.

  “How perfectly made is the human body,” he whispered, more as a statement than a question. “How many ribs do human beings have?”

  She slid her hands under his shirt, her thumbs caressing his chest. “Twenty-four ribs and the sternum supported by the lumbar vertebrae.”

  “Do my legs.”

  The words didn’t shock her, and although he could have said “name the bones in the leg,” she didn’t know if she would have found that any less erotic. Avoiding his hips, she knelt and let her fingers slide over the fabric of his jeans. “Femur, patella, tibia….” The words rolled across her tongue like sweet syrup. How much simpler this was than she’d ever realized. “How about your foot?”

  Lowering himself to the floor, he stared into her eyes. “Take off your sandals.”

  She sat on the floor and removed them both, never taking her eyes off him. “I’m getting this now, aren’t I?”

  His sideways grin returned as he took her foot into his hand. “Name them.”

  “More phalanges and metatarsals,” she said as he moved his fingers over her toes. The words appeared in her mind like memories long forgotten, like words to songs she’d sung years before.

  After she’d named all the major bones, he continued with the details of each. Perspiration beaded on his forehead, as if the effort were taking every bit of his concentration.

  The movement of his lips as he spoke in that low baritone called to her as much as his words. She leaned toward him, resting her hands over his as they held both of her feet. “I’m so happy right now I could kiss you.”

  He looked up from her feet, his eyes blazing into hers. “You haven’t passed the test yet. No need to thank me.”

  “It’s not to thank you. It’s your lips. I want them.”

  She gasped as he took her face in his hands and captured her lips with his. Sweltering, burning and sumptuous, the kiss solidified every word inside her mind, every bone she’d studied, into a complete whole. His arms slid around her waist and pulled her onto his lap. She wrapped her legs around him, the bones and muscles in her arms responding to the power and sweet urgency of her need.

  “Your body,” he mumbled against her lips, “is too tempting.”

  The groan emerging from her throat was all the encouragement he needed. He unbuttoned her blouse and making short work of it and her bra, tossed them onto the floor at her feet.

  His quick intake of breath spoke volumes. Dropping to his knees, he traced his fingers over her skin, carefully moving his thumbs in swirls and staccato touches, spelling out anatomical terminology as he whispered the words against her flesh, sending her senses into waves of flaming need. She closed her eyes and soaked in the heat of the book-scented air, the possessive caress of his palms and fingers, and then his soft lips on her belly.

  She rested her hands on his head, pressing him against her as she let her head fall back, the hot air enveloping them both in a gentle caress and holding them together like warm arms surrounding her in a cocoon of safety and heat. Slowly, almost reverently, his palms glided over her flesh, up her ribcage around to the small of her back as he urged her closer.

  His tongue traced a moist, hot line as he licked upward along the underside of her breast, slowly along the curve to the beaded tip. As he closed his lips around her nipple, a jolt like an electric shock sent a surge of raging heat through her limbs. The thrill settled in her pussy, which began to throb with the need to be filled, to stop the empty clutching hold her desire had taken.

  Another soft groan escaped her lips. She threaded her fingers into his soft hair, clutching him to her breast as he feasted upon it. Such pooling burning urges surged through her, she could no longer endure the torturous temptation of his mouth and dropped to her knees, pressing her mouth to his.

  She lost herself in the touch of his hands all along her flesh, now aflame with each tender caress of his palms. Then she gave into his imploring kiss and tentatively parted her lips. Gently and slowly, he touched his tongue to hers, and the sweet taste of soda and man overcame her senses.

  Deepening the kiss, she pressed against his t-shirt, the bristly cotton fabric abrading her hardened nipples and sparking additional vibrant tingling through her veins. His hand slid down her back to her buttocks, pulling her hard against the erection she felt through both their sets of clothing.

  Slipping her hands to his waist, she unfastened his jeans.

  “Are you sure this is what you want?” he mumbled again, his voice vibrating against her lips. “I won’t want to stop if you—”

  “I don’t want you to stop.”

  “The exam. I’m supposed to teach you.”

  “Teach me like this.”

  The statement was spoken clear and low, but the words hummed through her. Hours ago, they’d met, and now she knew his bones, but wanted to learn of his flesh, his very being through to the core of him. Somehow, in the space of hours, she’d discovered something. Not about him, but about herself. The human body, with all its bones and sinew and muscle, with its organs and blood and life, was meant for this.

  With the certain knowledge of the truth of this came conviction: Nothing could stop her from having him, least of all a self-important blowhard’s testing schedule.

  She pressed her finge
r against his hips, rubbing her thumbs gently over the bones below his waist. “And these are the ilium—”

  “Iliac crest,” he said, taking her hands into his and sliding them lower. “Acetabulum, ischium, and pubis.” His breath caught on the last word, for her hands were now cupping his groin, her fingers pressing upward against the low bone on his pelvis.

  “I need to see,” she murmured.

  He lowered his zipper and slid the jeans and briefs down his thighs and wriggled out of them. He placed her hands on his erection and squeezed them. “Touch me, Carly.”

  She did touch him, every part of him, the rough texture of the hair around his groin, the rigid length of smooth skin along his shaft, the velvety softness of the head of his penis. Her eyes locked with his as her fingers slid along his length, taking the girth of him into her grip, feeling the power of her touch to arouse him.

  She slid to the floor and touched the tip of him with her tongue, circling slowly, feeling the heat burning between her legs as she gazed at the beauty of his body. He stroked her hair lightly, then tilted her face up to his. Bending at the waist, he kissed her, lifted her into his arms, and carried her back to the sofa behind the desk where stacks of textbooks lay spread across the surface.

  “I want to be inside you,” he said as he unfastened her jeans and let them fall to the floor. “If you kept doing that, I was going to take you right on the table.”

  “But you don’t want to do that.” She slid her hands over his shoulders and pressed her pelvis into his. “What do you want?”

  He lay back on the sofa and pulled her on top of him. “I want to see you take me inside you.”

  His erection pressed against her belly, the heat from it stirring her even more than his fingers now flicking across the tips of her nipples. Smiling at him sweetly, she lifted her hips. “Watch me, then.”

  Feeling the head of him against her opening, she sat down hard, taking his full length in one long stroke, the entirety of him filling her to the point of sudden shock and pain. She cried out with the sweet agony of it, then rose and repeated the motion, the incredible filling of her emptiness complete with each powerful stroke.