Читать книгу Hot Single Docs Collection - Lynne Marshall - Страница 107
ОглавлениеON THURSDAY MORNING Scarlet fought the urge to fling her arms out to the side and twirl. She tamped down the desire to skip through the halls of the hospital shouting, “I did it!” A manager needed to maintain some degree of decorum. But nothing could wipe the grin from her face as she walked toward the employee changing rooms to wash up and change into a pair of hospital scrubs—her standard work attire.
After months of ups and downs riding the ‘I want a baby’ ‘I don’t have time for a baby’ teeter-totter, compounded by hours spent obsessing over her finances, living situation, and work schedule, Scarlet had done it. She’d taken action, the first step. True, frequent sex until she got pregnant would have been significantly more enjoyable than page after page of paperwork, but hopefully her early morning meeting with Joey’s social worker would lead to the same outcome. Motherhood.
Granted her chances of becoming a foster parent and later adopting Joey would be better if she were part of a married couple, but Joey needed a mom and Scarlet wanted a daughter, and if she didn’t try she’d have no chance at all.
Scarlet reached up to push on the door to the changing area at the same time someone from inside must have yanked it open because her hands met air. Forward momentum sent her stumbling into a hard male chest.
How embarrassing. She’d been so preoccupied she’d tried to enter the men’s changing area.
Wait a minute. She glanced at the sign on the door: Women Only.
Whew.
“I’m sorry,” a male voice said. She looked up to see a man she now recognized as Dr. Alex Rodriguez. “I shouldn’t have...” he mumbled, releasing her without looking at her. “I didn’t plan to... Damn it.” He hurried off.
Scarlet entered cautiously, not sure what she’d find. A beautiful blonde woman, her fashionable attire covered by a white lab coat, sat on a bench, staring at a locker, looking dazed, running two fingers back and forth across her lips.
This was none of Scarlet’s business. She walked to her locker and worked the combination lock, already running late.
The woman sniffled and Scarlet couldn’t ignore her. “Are you okay?” she asked, walking over to where the woman sat.
The woman must not have noticed Scarlet’s presence because she jumped.
“I’m sorry,” Scarlet said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“I shouldn’t be in here,” the woman said with a sweet southern twang, looking sad.
“It’s not like your presence is disturbing anyone.” Scarlet scanned the otherwise empty room. “I’m Scarlet Miller.” She held out her hand. “I work in the NICU.”
The woman looked up and with a small smile she shook Scarlet’s hand. “I’m Layla Woods, new head of pediatrics.”
“I’ve heard about you,” Scarlet said.
Layla gasped and brought her hand to her heart. “Already?” She looked about to cry.
“Good things. All good things,” Scarlet hurried to add. “From Dr. Donaldson, a neonatologist who works on my unit. He said he was on your interview committee.”
Layla seemed to relax.
“He thinks you’re perfect for the position.”
“I wanted it so badly.” Layla’s blue eyes locked on hers. “It was supposed to be my chance for a new start. But I had no idea...” She stopped.
“This is about Dr. Rodriguez.”
Layla let out a breath. “It’s already spread around the hospital. I can’t do this.” She stood and reached for her purse. “Not again. I have to—”
“Wait.” Scarlet stepped in front of her. “I mentioned Dr. Rodriguez because he nearly knocked me to the ground in his hurry to leave the locker room. The women’s locker room, might I add.”
“We had an argument,” Layla said quietly, sitting back down. “He followed me in.” She touched her lips again. “Five years,” she whispered. “And nothing has changed.”
This was like piecing together a puzzle on a game show. Scarlet sat down beside Layla. “I’ve got a few minutes if you want to talk about it,” she lied. Because she didn’t have a few minutes, she needed to get up to her unit to evaluate two new overnight admissions, a critically ill newborn with congenital diaphragmatic hernia and a struggling little boy born at twenty-nine weeks to a heroine addicted mother, now suffering from neonatal abstinence syndrome.
Luckily her staff, comprised of some of the highest skilled clinicians in the country, functioned competently and independently. And they knew how to reach her if they needed her. “Maybe it’d help me to understand if you started from the beginning.”
Layla nodded. “Alex and I used to work together. We had a....thing.” She looked away as if embarrassed.
“It happens,” Scarlet said. Not to her, but to plenty of her co-workers, working long hours in stressful situations, experiencing instances of wretched loss and sorrow interspersed with jubilant miracles of recovery, men and woman needing to share solace and unadulterated joy in the arms of others who understood the constant demands of the medical profession.
“A little boy died,” Layla said. “He was our patient. His parents sued the hospital and Alex.” She looked down at the ground. “My name got dragged into the case since I was the one who requested Alex as consult. Our relationship got called into question and now people at this hospital have found out. I can’t escape it.”
“I’m guessing you both were cleared of any wrongdoing if you and Dr. Rodriguez both made it through the rigorous hiring process here at Angels’.”
“Innocence doesn’t matter to the gossips,” Layla insisted. “Being found guilty in the court of public opinion can be just as damaging to one’s professional reputation as an actual ‘guilty of malpractice’ verdict in the courts.”
“Not here,” Scarlet told her. “The residents of New York City and the surrounding areas trust this hospital and its administration to employ top quality medical personnel. Hundreds of physicians apply for jobs here every year. Only a very small percentage of them make it past the first stage of the interview process.”
“But—”
Scarlet didn’t let her finish. “People are going to talk. Don’t let a bunch of gossipers determine your future. Administration would not have chosen you if you weren’t the best person available to head up Pediatrics. If this is your fresh start, if this is the job you want, don’t be so quick to give it up.”
Layla reached out to take her hand. “Thank you.”
They sat there in silence until Layla said, “He kissed me.” She ran her fingers over her bottom lip, again, mindlessly. “We had a bad break.” She looked at Scarlet. “How is it possible that one kiss can erase five years apart like they never happened? How can one kiss make me want a man who is totally wrong for me?”
Scarlet had spent the night pondering the exact same thing. “You still care for him.”
“I don’t want to,” Layla said quietly.
Scarlet’s cell phone rang. She stood, “I’ve got to get back to work,” and held out her hand. “It was nice to meet you, Dr. Layla Woods.” When Layla shook her hand Scarlet added. “On behalf of the NICU staff, welcome to Angel’s. We’re happy to have you here.”
Layla smiled. “Thank you.”
* * *
Finally up on the NICU Scarlet retrieved her stack of messages and found her charge nurse, Deb, at the rear nurses’ station. “I’m here,” she said, pulling out a chair to sit beside her. “What can I do?”
“Our transport team is en route to St. Vincent’s Hospital to pick up a twenty-six weeker. Estimated return at ten o’clock. Labor and delivery reported a mom at thirty-three weeks with severe pre-eclampsia is on her way to the OR for an emergency C-section. And we have another pre-term multiple birth scheduled for eleven o’clock. That’s five new admissions and we only have three incubators available.”
“Contact discharge planning and find out where they’re at with the coordination of home care nursing visits and durable medical equipment for Simms in twenty-two and Berg in twelve,” Scarlet said. “We have two more scheduled for discharge today. I’ll see what I can do to move things along. Anything else I need to know?”
Deb smiled. “I took care of baby Joey’s morning feeding, like you asked, and she took a few sucks on the nipple. She’s getting there.”
Scarlet’s day brightened considerably.
Deb looked around then leaned in and whispered, “Did you do it?”
Scarlet nodded. So far, Deb and the social worker assigned to Joey’s case were the only people to know about Scarlet’s application to become a foster/adoptive parent.
“She’s a lucky little girl,” Deb said.
“If things work out, I’ll be the lucky one.” To finally have a daughter to take care of and love, after all these years of wanting, a chance to be a mom, and she’d help an abandoned infant in the process. God willing, someone had done the same for her daughter.
“What are your chances?” Deb asked.
“They’d be better if there was a Mr. Miller and I didn’t work such long hours,” Scarlet scanned through her messages to see if any were urgent. “But Joey will likely go home requiring some level of specialized care that I am more than qualified to provide. I put down I’d take a six week maternity leave, like any new mom would get, to stay at home to care for her. So if nothing else, they may give her to me for the six weeks during which time I will figure out a doable work schedule to convince the decision-makers that permanent placement with me is what’s in Joey’s best interest.” Exactly what Holly would have wanted. What Scarlet wanted.
Deb shook her head.
“What?”
“Six weeks,” she said quietly. “I don’t know how we’ll survive without you.”
“I’ve budgeted for an assistant head nurse but never filled the position because up until now I haven’t needed to.” She looked at Deb pointedly, hoping to relay the message she was the only person Scarlet would accept for the job. “Maybe it’s time I started taking applications.”
Deb, quick on the uptake as usual, asked, “You think I’m ready?”
More than ready. “Yes. Let’s see how things work out with Joey. Promise me you’ll think about it.”
“Oh I will,” Deb said.
With a “Thanks for holding things together until I got here,” Scarlet left to say a quick good morning to her precious baby girl, before she got to work.
Hours passed like minutes, but Scarlet found the time to feed and cuddle Joey once and rush down to the cafeteria to meet Jessie for their standing three o’clock cafeteria date.
“Hey,” Scarlet said, placing her orange tray down on the table opposite Jessie’s. “You all ready for your trip?” She pulled out a chair and sat down.
Jessie picked up her apple and wiped it with a napkin. “Yup.”
“You feeling better about the lake and the swimming and boating?” Scarlet felt terrible that she’d missed meeting up with Jess on Tuesday so they hadn’t done much girl-talking since their Saturday outing.
Jessie chewed her bite of apple. “Grandpa Richard said everyone on the boat has to wear a life jacket—they keep you afloat if you should wind up in the water—even him and grandma.” She took a sip of milk. “And Grandma’s going to take the girls to the craft store so he can teach me to swim without interruption.”
Scarlet loved how Jessie now spoke excitedly about the trip she’d been dreading for months.
“Grandpa thinks I’m big and strong and smart enough that I should be swimming by myself by the end of the trip.”
“That’s great.”
“Then I won’t ever have to be scared of the water again.”
Scarlet hoped Grandpa Richard came through as promised.
After another bite of apple Jess turned serious. “Will you do something for me?”
Scarlet swallowed down a spoonful of yogurt. “Of course.”
“I’m worried about my dad.”
Who Scarlet hadn’t seen or heard from since their kiss.
“He’s been real quiet. And he hasn’t been eating much. I think maybe he’s getting sick.” She slid a key and a piece of paper across the table. “I’m going to call him every day. But if he doesn’t answer I’ll need someone to make sure he’s okay.”
“Jess.” Scarlet reached out to touch her hand. “I’m sure your dad will be fine. Maybe he’s sad about you leaving.”
“He’s all I have now,” she said. “What if something happens to him while I’m gone?”
Jessie didn’t say it but Scarlet heard, “What will happen to me?”
“I promise, if you need me to check on your dad, I will,” Scarlet said.
“I wrote down his telephone number so you could call him, too.” She shrugged. “If you want. And our address.” She pointed to the piece of paper under the key. “I told the man at the desk in our building that you have permission to go right up because you’re my friend.”
Scarlet smiled. “I’m glad we’re friends.”
Jessie smiled back. “Me, too.”
“I don’t want you to worry about your dad. Go on your trip and have fun. I’ll call him every day, so if you get busy and forget it’s no big deal.”
Jessie lunged out of her seat, around the table, and into Scarlet’s arms. “Thank you,” she said, squeezing Scarlet tight. “I’m going to miss you.”
“You’re most welcome,” Scarlet said, squeezing her back. “You’ll only be gone for four days, but I’m going to miss you, too.”
* * *
In the slightly more than twenty-four hours since Jessie had given her the key to Lewis’s condo, Scarlet hadn’t spent one second thinking she’d actually have to use it. Well...except for the dream where she’d snuck into his home late at night...under cover of darkness...into his bedroom...into his bed...naked.
Whoa. She shifted her bags and fanned herself, the motion futile in the stuffy elevator taking her up to the twenty-first floor of Lewis’s posh upper-east-side building. That’d been a hot one.
But since it had nothing to do with a well-being check, it didn’t count.
The elevator pinged its arrival and the doors opened to a décor of opulent elegance that mimicked the lobby. Two antique chairs upholstered in a floral maroon fabric with magnificently carved, dark-stained wooden arms and legs sat at an angle on either side of a small matching table and below a large ornate gold-trimmed mirror. Quiet and the smell of wealth greeted her.
It reminded Scarlet of her youth. The memories were not pleasant ones.
Each door she passed looked the same. Pristine. Just like the bland textured walls that surrounded them.
The hallway, the lobby, the entire building, while lovely, lacked personality. Where were the signs of life, the feeling of warmth and welcome? Scarlet loved her New Jersey apartment, for her crazy boisterous neighbors and the smells of their varied meal menus, as much as its proximity to New York City.
She found Lewis’s door and stopped. What if he was in there with someone? What if the reason she and Jessie couldn’t reach him was he’d turned off his phone so as not to be disturbed during his four days of debauchery.
“Please, Scarlet. You have to go. What if he’s lying on the floor dying and there’s no one to help him?” Boy Jessie had a vivid imagination.
She lifted her hand to knock. Stopped.
What if he answered the door partially dressed and reeking of sex? She swallowed down a lump of regret-coated disappointment—which made no sense since they’d only known each other for two weeks and could barely even qualify as friends.
But that kiss.
She shook her head to dislodge the memory. Not that it’d worked any of the other five dozen or so times she’d tried.
Best to just get it done and be gone. With a fortifying breath she knocked.
And waited.
She knocked harder.
Nothing.
She slid her hand into the front pocket of her jeans, closed her fingers around his key, and prayed she didn’t have to use it.
“Lewis,” she yelled, knocking even harder. “It’s Scarlet. Open up.” She pressed her ear to the door to listen for any sounds coming from inside.
Nothing.
Scarlet removed the key from her pocket, and trying to ignore an overwhelming feeling of dread, inserted it into the lock.
* * *
Lewis stood under the spray of hot water hoping to wash away his funk. He missed his old life, but it turned out, not as much as he missed Jessie. Talk about a totally unexpected twist. And since he’d dropped her off at his parents’ house the night before, he’d spent a large chunk of his ‘I’m finally free to do whatever I want’ time thinking of her, wondering what she was doing, regretting not going to Lake George, wishing he could be the one to teach his daughter to swim, to help her overcome her fear of the water, bemoaning the missed opportunity to reinforce the tenuous bond that’d formed between them over the past week.
But if he suddenly barged in on her vacation Jessie would know he’d lied about having to work, to get rid of her, exactly as she’d suspected.
Tenuous bond severed.
Served him right for lying in the first place.
More than once he’d picked up the phone to call Scarlet, to fill the quiet. To cheer him up and make him smile. But at some point in their conversation she’d undoubtedly bring up his request that she help him with Jessie’s room and look to make arrangements to get together. And even though it’d been three days since he’d changed his mind about having her over, he had yet to tell her. He wasn’t ready to put an end to the possibility. And she’d no doubt want to know why—women always wanted to know why, and he had no idea how to answer.
“I want to have sex with you so bad I don’t trust myself to be alone with you without a thirteen-year-old chaperone?”
What if the stars aligned and she admitted, “I want you, too.” Because after their kiss, he could tell she did.
What then?
They’d pack a lifetime’s worth of sex into the next seventy-two hours and it’d be great—Lewis would make sure of it. But she’d want more. They always wanted more, more of his time, his attention, his lifestyle, and money.
Things Lewis was not prepared to give.
And he couldn’t risk hurting Scarlet’s feelings or making her angry. Not with her close relationship to Jessie which she could easily use to turn his daughter against him. A woman scorned and all.
So what if Scarlet didn’t seem the type?
You never could tell. His mother had managed to hide her true self from teachers and neighbors. Lewis wouldn’t risk it.
But that didn’t stop him from thinking about spending time with her. Doing...anything. He smiled. She could probably make a root canal enjoyable. Pleasurable. He pictured her sitting beside the exam chair, her hand on his bare leg—because he’d chosen to wear shorts that day—caressing him, moving up the sensitive skin of his inner thigh, sliding higher, the feel of her sensual touch obliterating the oral surgeon and the drill.
His body reacted the way it always did when images of him and Scarlet alone together popped into his head.
All the confirmation he needed that calling her to cancel their shopping/decorating date had to be done, and out of fairness to her and her weekend plans, soon.
Lewis turned off the shower, grabbed his towel from the hook and dried himself.
No more putting it off. He set his towel on the counter. He’d call Scarlet now. After the weekend he’d hire a professional decorator. Or he and Jessie could work on the room together, their first father-daughter project.
He opened the door leading to his bedroom, and along with a rush of cool air came a voice that sounded alarmingly similar to Scarlet’s. “Please tell me you’re alone.”
Great. He’d progressed from conjuring up images to actually hearing her. Lunatic.
“And that you’re appropriately covered up,” she added.
What? He grabbed his towel, wrapped it around his waist and stepped out of the bathroom. Sure enough, Scarlet Miller, star of his nighttime/daytime/all the time fantasies, sat perched on the corner of his bed, fully dressed with her hand covering her eyes.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“Are you decent?” she responded.
He stared at her enticing lips as she spoke, noting a hint of shine. Residual lip gloss? Or had she run her plump tongue over those luscious lips while visualizing him in the shower?
“Why are you so quiet?” she asked.
He smiled, crossed his arms over his bare chest, and leaning his shoulder against the doorframe, stared at her. The ponytail she always wore, in the basic hairband she used for work, expensively distressed skintight jeans, open-toed trendy, strappy sandals, enticingly manicured peach-colored toenails, and a sleeveless, silky, peach-colored button-down blouse.
She created a tiny V-opening between her fingers and looked at him. Then she let out an annoyed breath, moved her hand to point toward the bathroom and whispered, “Is there someone else in there?”
Lately she was the only one he wanted in there. “What are you doing here?” he asked again. “In my bedroom? On my bed?” His body liked seeing her there for real and the part of him already hardened with interest from the mere thought of her, got even harder and started to rise up to check things out.
Scarlet eyed his crotch and jumped up like she’d seen a cobra. “Sorry.” She backed toward the door to the hallway.
Lewis demonstrated a level of restraint he didn’t know he possessed when he stood his ground rather than give in to the powerful urge to stop her.
“Jessie’s been trying to call you,” she said.
“Dammit.” Lewis strode over to his nightstand and flicked on his cellphone. “I turned it off so no one from the hospital would bother me.” He scrolled through his messages counting thirteen from Jessie and five from Scarlet. “What’s wrong? Did something happen?”
“Newsflash, papa bear,” Scarlet said, her calm confidence returned. “Fathers of scared little girls are not allowed the luxury of turning off their cell phones.”
He dialed Jessie. She answered on the first ring, like she’d been sitting there waiting for his call, and immediately started to cry.
“Don’t cry, honey,” he said, feeling like the worst parent ever. “I’m sorry. My phone was off. I thought you’d be so busy having fun you’d forget all about me.” And he’d completely failed to consider that maybe she’d want to talk to him about her day or her progress with swimming. Or that maybe she’d need reassurance or praise or an encouraging word from her father, him, the worst parent ever.
“If something...happens to...you,” she said between hiccupping breaths, “where do I go next?”
Next? “Jessie, nothing is going to happen to me.”
“That’s what my mom thought, too,” she cried.
His chest burned in response to her sobs.
“I want to have a say where I go,” Jessie said.
Because she was so unhappy with where she’d wound up, so unhappy with him?
“I want to go to Scarlet.”
At her mention, he remembered the current topic of their conversation was standing in his bedroom doorway, listening.
Only when he turned to see if Scarlet had overheard Jessie’s demand, he saw no sign of her. Relieved, he walked over to close the door. “As much as you like Scarlet,” he said quietly. “She’s not family.” And according to his revised will, on the off chance something did happen to him, Jessie would go to live with his sister.
“She feels like family to me,” Jessie insisted. “Please ask her, Dad. Promise me you’ll ask her.”
Lewis sat down on the bed. “Okay,” he agreed. What else could he say to his hysterical daughter who was hours away? “I promise.”
After a few moments of silence, in a voice barely louder than a whisper, Jessie shared, “I went out on the boat.”
“I’m so proud of you,’ Lewis said. Slowly Jessie calmed down and they had a nice conversation. At the end he had to promise to keep his cell phone charged, turned on, and with him at all times, before she’d hang up.
With Jessie taken care of Lewis pulled on a pair of briefs and jeans and left the room to find Scarlet.
“Stop with the guilt trip,” she said into her cell phone, her back and shapely butt to him. “I had to do a favor for a friend uptown. It’ll take me forever to get down to the South Street Seaport now. You all eat without me. I’ll see you next time.”
She’d changed her Friday night plans for him and Jessie.
“Right,” she said sarcastically. “You have me all figured out. I’m ditching you for a night of wild sex with a hot guy, because it is so like me to do something like that. As a matter of fact he’s naked and waiting for me in his bedroom as we speak.”
He wasn’t, but he could be in two seconds.
She listened to the person on the other end of the call then said, “It hasn’t been that long.”
How long?
“Well,” she said. “I’ll finally have something to talk about the next time we get together for girls night out, then. That is if he hasn’t fallen asleep while I’m wasting quality sex time talking to you.”
Quality sex time. Lewis wanted some quality sex time. He needed quality sex time. And this conversation was seriously weakening his resolve to stay away from Scarlet.
She paused then laughed. “In a closet.”
A closet? Okay with him.
“Only if he asks real nice,” she said.
Lewis could do real nice.
“I’m always good,” she said.
Of that Lewis had no doubt.
She laughed again. The sound filled him with joy.
“Okay.” He heard the smile in her voice. “Tonight I’ll be bad.”
Oh yeah. He liked the sound of that.
She stiffened.
Idiot. Had he actually said the ‘oh yeah’ out loud?
Scarlet turned her head slowly. Their eyes met. “Gotta go,” she said into the phone and ended the call. “So much for giving me a little privacy like I gave you when you were on the phone,” she said to him.
Without conscious thought his feet walked toward her, taking the rest of him with them.
“Whoa.” She held up both hands. “Apparently you are under the mistaken impression I am here for more than a wellness check.”
“I did hear mention of wild sex with a hot guy,” he pointed out. “Thank you for the compliment, by the way.”
She stepped back. “Well you obviously didn’t listen close enough to the inflection in my tone to detect my sarcasm.”
“Let’s not waste anymore quality sex time with talking,” he half-teased, reaching for her.
“Touch me and lose a finger,” she threatened.
He stopped with his hands mid-air, mere inches from her shoulders, and waited.
She looked up at him with those beautiful eyes. “I’m serious.”
He smiled. “I know. But I think I need a stronger deterrent because even though you are the absolute last woman I should be lusting after, I want to put my hands on you so bad right now I’m willing to sacrifice my phalanges to do it.” Actually, he was prepared to sacrifice a lot more.
Scarlet, obviously the smarter of the two of them, turned and walked away. And he let her. “The absolute last woman you should be lusting after?” She moved a used glass from the counter to the sink. “As in you’d rather lust after Hilda from the endoscopy department before you’d lust after me?”
Lewis shivered, and not in a good way. Hilda was big and mean and she had kinky gray hairs sprouting on her chin.
“Or Morgan in Administration?” she went on.
That woman was the skinniest, coldest, stiffest female he had ever met.
“Or Gretchen from Food Service?”
Renowned for her hairnet and tan stretch pants that clung to every single pouch of cellulite as much as for her shiny gold tooth.
Scarlet looked at him from the corners of her eyes. “I’m not sure if I’m relieved or insulted.”
Lewis pulled out a stool, sat down and set his elbows on the island counter in the center of his kitchen. “The absolute last woman as in your friendship with my daughter makes things...complicated.”
“Yeah,” Scarlet agreed. “That it does.” She walked to the side of the island directly opposite him and asked, “What if I wasn’t friends with Jess? If you saw me in a bar, would you try to get me to go home with you?”
In a heartbeat. To clarify, “I wouldn’t try to get you to go home with me. I would get you to go home with me.”
“Oh you think so?” She laughed. “Rather confident, aren’t you?”
When it came to women that would be a capital Y*E*S. To both.
“How would you go about it?” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Give me your best line.”
He stood. She looked up at him warily. “It’s not so much what I say as how I say it,” he explained as he walked toward her. “It’d be loud and crowded in the bar, so I’d have to lean in close like this.” He turned her to face him, stepped forward, and leaned in, putting his mouth inches from her ear. She smelled so good. “I’d start off quiet, knowing you can’t hear me.” He whispered some gibberish.
“What?”
“Exactly.” He uncrossed her arms. “So I’d move in closer.” He did, brushing the front of his thigh against the front of hers, setting his lips close enough to touch the inner rim of her ear and, making sure to expel a hot rush of breath, as he said, “I forgot my phone number, could I borrow yours?”
She didn’t laugh or criticize his corny line. Instead she closed her eyes and tilted her head to the side, ever so slightly, giving him better access.
Success.
He slid his hand up the nape of her neck and, keeping his voice soft and deep, said, “Or maybe I’d say something like, ‘I love that blouse.’” He ran a gentle finger down the inside of an arm hole, caressing her delicate skin as he did. “‘It’d look perfect draped over the back of the chair in my bedroom.’” Just to introduce the idea of her getting naked in his condo. He made sure his lower lip grazed along her earlobe as he moved away.
“Wow,” she said on an exhaled breath. “You’re good.” She opened her eyes and blinked as if trying to get them back into focus. “On that admission I think I’d better be going.” Without further hesitation she turned and moved away.
“No,” he said, taking her hand, desperate to keep her close. “Please. Don’t go.” Because he didn’t want to be alone, because he liked spending time with her, because, Lord help him, he craved her with a ferocity capable of significant damage to his manly assets if he didn’t do something about it.
“I don’t know,” she said in that teasing tone of hers. “You promised to be a perfect gentleman around me.” She looked down at his hand squeezing hers. “Yet the vibe I’m getting is anything but gentlemanly.”
Perceptive.
“I promised not to kiss you again,” he clarified, pulling her back to him. “And I won’t.” He nuzzled in close to her ear and whispered, “Unless you ask me real nice.” He’d get her to make the first move, to beg him to touch her for real. Then she’d have no basis to be angry with him afterwards.
“Suppose I stay,” she asked. “What did you have in mind for us to do that doesn’t involve kissing?”
Caressing. Licking. Exploring. “Anything you want.”
