Anna's Secret

her long hair. Delightful. Delicious. Dangerous.
Warning bells rang out, but she willfully stilled their clamor. She was not about to let go.
The heat of his breath tickled her neck as her hair clip dropped to the floor. He buried his face in the thickness of her hair and then cut a path across her neck with his lips. A groan slipped from his throat as she bent her head back enjoying the sensation of warm lips against her skin. That sound triggered long forgotten pleasure, and before she realized what she was doing, her arms slipped around him, and she gave as much as she received.
He came to life in her arms with a vibrancy she had not felt beneath her fingertips in years.
“Anna,” he whispered into her hair.
She pressed closer. A deep sigh of contentment slipped from her lips as she turned into his neck and began to nuzzle closer. The sharp intake of his breath caused excitement to spike.
A trail of kisses from her forehead down brought his lips dangerously close to hers. He pulled back, a question in his eyes.
She wound her hands tightly into his hair and pulled his mouth to meet hers. The sensation of his lips on hers created a hunger that one kiss was not about to satiate. She was lost in the loveliness.
Their breathing roughened. Kiss for kiss, she matched his intensity with a passion and need long since buried. She could feel his taut muscles shiver beneath the splay of her fingers up his spine. The sheer power of his reaction reawakened that which had been denied for way too long. She no longer felt like a mother, nursemaid, or housewife but a desirable woman who ached to be touched.
A tremble skittered down her backbone as his hands became hot, needy, and dangerously out of control. They were edging close to that place of no return. Her need for comfort had ignited into desire, and desire flared into an inferno about to consume.
“I can’t, we can’t—” His breath ran ragged as his mouth tore from hers. “As much as I want to—”
“Matt—”
“God knows I want to Anna … but not now … not yet. I need to go.”
Her words turned the blaze between them into a firestorm. “I need you,” she whispered pressing hard against him. “Don’t go!” she pleaded. “Stay with me.”
He hesitated. Then swung her into his strong arms.
She rained kisses all over his neck and pointed to the bedroom at the end of the hall. They collapsed on the bed in a tangle of urgency. His mouth crushed against hers.
Everything but pleasure faded.

The walk between floors and down sterile whitewashed halls from patient to patient gave Matt plenty of time to think. He was not sorry. The time they had shared had been one of most incredible nights of his entire life. Consumed with thoughts of her in bed next to him, he knew his attraction to her was beyond hope. She had no idea how he had refused to sleep, not wanting to waste a moment. He had pulled her onto his lap and sat up so he could drink in her loveliness as she slept. Their passionate night together was all he could think about.
He whistled a tune, as he pressed the elevator button for the fourth floor.
“Whatever you’re on, I want some too,” a colleague quipped as he hurried on by.
Matt tried to wash the grin off his face as he stepped into the elevator but couldn’t. He loved her. That emotion he had mocked in others now enveloped his heart and left him feeling vulnerable but, oh, so alive. No other woman had come close to evoking the bittersweet torment of Anna. She was under his skin. In his blood. Stamped on his heart.
He stepped into the busy fray and scratched his head. Where was I headed?
The head nurse on the ward lost no time in refreshing him. “Dr. Carmichael, we need you in 303 stat.”
Matt hurried in her direction.
A few hours later, he stepped outside for a break. The biting January air whipped down his coat collar, but he didn’t care. He needed to clear his head. He fumbled in his pockets for his gloves and wrapped his scarf around his neck. Picking up speed, he headed in the direction of the lake. He had just enough time to walk the loop and enjoy a moment at the water’s edge before heading back. He sucked the frigid air deep into his lungs. Clean air. Clear head. That was the way it had always worked. Not anymore.
Thoughts of Anna dominated his mind.
The only thing he regretted was his timing. Logic and reason had disintegrated in the heat of that fateful moment. A hunger for which no word existed had consumed him. For the first time in his life, he experienced what it meant to make love to a woman. It was so different than the mere physical reactions he had experienced in the past.
Though he had planned to give her time to heal, grieve, and nurture their friendship, common sense had failed him. Her reaction had caught him off guard and clouded his thinking. Falling in love had changed everything. He found that control was no longer a wand he could willfully wave.
He smiled into the crisp winter air and chuckled out loud. “Who knew it could be like this?”
Anna groaned. The memory of Matt and their time together brought a hot flush to her cheeks and sorrow to her soul. A contrast of emotions volleyed for attention. Pleasure. Pain.
The pleasure—the thought of warm, loving arms holding her. Sweet caresses. Soft whispers. Stolen kisses, captured long into the night. His attention and passion had been intoxicating after years of loneliness.
The pain—knowing they were incompatible. Her ill-timed fall from grace. The thought of what others would think if they knew. Failure. Shame.
How could she have been so needy, so vulnerable, with no regard for her faith or possible consequence? Yet she