Читать книгу When One Night Isn't Enough - Wendy S. Marcus - Страница 8

JARED was on the computer behind the front desk of the E.R., checking a patient’s lab results, when Ali cried out for help. Without hesitation, he closed down the confidential screen, jumped to his feet, his chair rolling into the file cabinet behind him with a loud bang and ran in the direction of her scream.

The door to Exam Room One, where Ali had gone to admit a new patient, was closed. Jared slammed it open. A tall man, the back of his hospital gown flapping open, exposing his red and blue plaid boxer shorts, had Ali pinned to the wall, one arm clamped around her waist, holding her, while his hips jabbed in her direction and a hand behind her head crushing her lips to his while she fought to turn her head and push away.

“Get your hands off my nurse,” Jared said, keeping his voice deadly calm, trying not to escalate the situation.

“Easy, Doc,” the assaulter said with a minimal slur. “Ali and I go way back. We were just getting reacquainted.”

Ali struggled in his hold. “We were not. Let go of me, Bobby.”

“I’d listen to the lady,” Jared said, walking into the room, one careful step at a time, letting the door close behind him. “Or you’re going to find yourself flat on your back on that stretcher, in four-point restraints, with a garbage bag full of ice on your groin.” He walked up next to Bobby, close enough to smell the booze on his breath and see the lust in his bloodshot eyes. “Here in the emergency room, that’s the only treatment we offer for swollen genitalia.”

“Come on. Give me a break,” Bobby said, still holding on to Ali. “I’m getting married in a few hours.”

“Lucky girl to score a winner like you,” Jared said, hoping the patient would come after him, provide justification for him to fight.

It worked. Sort of. The patient turned to Jared, must have loosened his hold because Ali broke free, stumbled toward him, into his waiting arms. Eyes locked with the sexual predator, he held her and murmured, “You’re okay.”

She nodded against his chest and inhaled a shaky breath.

The second she moved to step away from him, Jared released her, not wanting her to feel at all restricted. And as if she hadn’t just been attacked, she gave him her report. “Twenty-five-year-old intoxicated male involved in an altercation with a bouncer at a strip club. Suffering from facial trauma, abdominal and rib pain. Vital signs within normal limits, documented in his chart.”

“I’ll take it from here, Ali. Go take a break.” Jared didn’t want any witnesses when he “helped” his patient onto the stretcher.

“I’m fine,” Ali said. But her voice trembled.

Jared wanted to take her back into his arms, to hold her, comfort her, let her know she was safe, that he wouldn’t let anyone hurt her. But he needed to deal with the deviate first. “Can you climb on to the stretcher alone, or do you require my assistance?” Jared asked, more than willing to “assist.”

In what was probably his first good decision of the early morning hours, the man climbed on to the stretcher.

Jared walked over to Ali, keeping the man in his sight. “Your lip is bleeding,” he whispered, lifting her chin to get a better look, hating that a remnant from her altercation marred her beautiful face. “Go clean it. You don’t know where his foul mouth has been.”

With a surprised look, Ali reached up to touch her swollen lower lip.

“I’m guessing in your condition …” he looked at the man’s tented hospital gown “… you’ll have a hard time giving me a urine specimen, which means I’m going to have to insert a catheter into your bladder to obtain a urine toxicology screen.”

Nah. He winked at Ali. Let the idiot sweat for a few minutes.

“Like hell you will,” Bobby said. “Where are my clothes? I’m getting out of here.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” Jared said, channeling composure. “Not until the police get here. You see, I have zero tolerance for men who mistreat women.”

“Let’s not make this into a big deal,” Ali said.

“I’ve treated too many sexual assault victims to let his behavior slide.”

“Sexual-assault victim?” Bobby piped up. “Are you nuts? It’s only Ali. She was playing hard to get. No harm.”

“He’s right, Dr. P.” Ali looked defiant, but he’d seen the flash of hurt at Bobby’s cruel words, the glitter of tears in her eyes as she turned to leave. “It’s only me. No harm.”

“You …” Jared pointed to the drunk “… stay put. Do not leave that stretcher.” Then he followed Ali. “Ali, wait.” Halfway to the staff lounge she stopped, but didn’t turn to look at him.

When he caught up to her she said, “We knew each other in high school. Leave it alone, it’s over.”

“You need to teach that man a lesson. He needs to know the way he treated you is not okay.”

“What I need,” she said wearily, “is to clean my lip, shake this off and get back to work. And what Bobby needs is to be examined, treated and discharged so he can go get married.”

Like Jared would let him off that easy. “You don’t want to stand up for yourself, fine. I’ll do it for you. I’m calling the police.”

Fire blazed in her eyes. Good. With all of her negative energy directed at him, she wouldn’t focus on how vulnerable she’d been, on how that punk had disrespected and degraded her.

“Tomorrow you’ll be gone, Dr. Padget. I, on the other hand, live in this town. If you call the police, I’ll be stuck dealing with the fallout, the questions, the rumors and people dredging up Bobby’s role in a past I’m not all that proud of.”

“Your past has nothing to do with what happened tonight. A man tried to force you.” His voice cracked. He couldn’t say the words, wouldn’t consider what might have happened if he hadn’t heard her scream. “If you don’t want to press charges, fine. But I can’t overlook this. I have to report the incident. I’m sorry.”

“Yes, you are.” She looked up at him, not a tear to be found in her angry blue eyes. “A sorry excuse for a man I thought wanted to be my friend.” And she stormed down the hall into the lounge.

He’d made her mad. Nothing new there. But deep down it bothered him. He didn’t want her to hate him, didn’t want to leave on bad terms. Huh. Never bothered him before. Why did she matter when no one else did? “No. More. Tequila,” Ali insisted that evening when their waitress walked over with her second, no, third tray of the Sunday night special: Watermelon Margaritas. “I have a nice buzz going. Next stop sloppy drunk.”

“Says the woman who rarely orders anything stronger than seltzer with lime. What’s going on with you?” asked Victoria, Ali’s best friend since eleventh grade and the head nurse on 5E. Short dark hair and makeup flawless, her taste in clothes impeccable, she looked more ready for dinner at the country club than a night out with the girls.

The waitress set each of the four drinks she carried on the table then cleared off the empty glasses.

“Come on, Ali,” her friend Polly, a fellow E.R. nurse, slurred. “We’re shelebrating.”

“Soon you’re going to be puking if you don’t slow down,” said Roxie, a nurse from 5E, a medical surgical floor, as she wiped up the spillage when Polly wobbled her glass on the way up to her mouth. Roxie was tan, tall and thin to Polly’s pale, short and chubby. Roxie was loud and outgoing to Polly’s quiet and shy. Roxie was the bad girl to Polly’s good girl. The two couldn’t be more opposite, yet they’d been best friends since Ali, who floated between the two units, had introduced them last year.

“We didn’t order these,” Victoria said, always the pragmatic one.

“Maybe we did and we don’t remember,” Roxie rationalized. “I say we drink ‘em.”

“They’re from him.” The waitress pointed to a man at the far side of the bar.

O’Halloran’s Tavern, a favorite hangout for Madrin Memorial Hospital personnel, served delicious food and trendy drinks in a casual atmosphere that offered something for everyone. Small groups of onlookers crowded around both pool tables in the back, where a mini-tournament was in progress. A few guys she recognized from work guzzled beers while throwing darts in the corner, thankfully in the opposite direction from where Ali and her friends sat listening to the jukebox. A football game played on a large television screen beside the bar.

From their spot along the side wall, all four women scanned the bar, glasses raised in homage to their mysterious benefactor.

Dr. Jared Padget. Who, with a cunning grin, raised his beer mug in their direction.

Ali almost broke the stem of her glass in two. He picked a bad night to make his final move. She sipped her cocktail as she watched him, doing nothing to hide her blatant perusal. His black leather jacket gave him an air of bad-boy toughness that attracted her even more than the tight-fitting scrub pants he wore at work.

The hairs on her arms lifted, her body softened, remembered how it felt to be wrapped in his arms, to feel the solid wall of his chest against hers.

As the ten-year anniversary of her mother’s death, the other reason for girls’ night out fast approached, she could barely control the tumultuous feelings churning inside her. Prior to her second drink, she’d actually considered a screaming run through the streets to release the building pressure.

Sadness that her self-absorbed mother had been so consumed by trying to find a man she could love as much as Ali’s father, she had spent little time tending to the unplanned result of their dysfunctional union. It hurt that she had never been able to earn her mother’s love, and now it was too late.

Anger at her playboy father for getting her mother pregnant and, despite claiming he’d loved her, refusing to marry her. Rage that he flitted in and out of their lives when it had suited him, giving her mother false hope that each time he’d returned he’d been there to stay.

Thanks to Dr. P.'s arrival she added lust, frustration and disappointment to the unstable concoction. Lust for his body, frustration she couldn’t knock that cocky grin from his face and disappointment, in herself, for wanting him even though he was the worst sort of man.

She felt on edge, needed an outlet, a way to vent.

“Ignore him,” Victoria said.

“And he brought you these.” The waitress returned to their table and placed a white bakery box in the center.

Roxie pulled open the top. “Cannolis! I love cannolis!” She picked one up and took a bite of a chocolate dipped end.

I want to fill your cannoli …

Damn him. Ali gulped down the rest of her drink in an attempt to stop the smoldering desire she’d been battling for weeks from engulfing her in flames.

“Try one. They’re delicious.” Roxie passed around the box.

Ali locked eyes on Jared. He gave her a wicked smile, ran his fingers through the condensation accumulated on his mug and brought the tips to his lips. His full, sexy, perfectly puckered lips.

And Ali lost it. An uncontrollable lust like she hadn’t felt in years surged inside her. He’d pushed and pushed, pursued her with a relentless focus, wore her down until she craved the release he offered. She hated him for it. Hated herself for not being strong enough to resist him.

“I know that look.” Victoria leaned close to her ear. “Don’t do this, Ali. You’re going to hate yourself in the morning.”

“She’s right, Ali,” Polly said. “Don’t let him get to you. Tomorrow he’ll be gone and you’ll never think of him again.”

Wrong. He’d invaded her thoughts and dreams. She needed to exorcize him from her brain and knew only one way to do it. Take sex between them from abstract to reality. Take control, take what she wanted and be done with him.

She called out to the bartender. “A parting shot. Tequila for my friends.” She narrowed her eyes and pointed to Dr. Padget, whose surprised expression indicated he sensed a change in the dynamic between them. “And him.” Ali turned and smiled at the irony. A parting shot. That’s what she was about to give him.

The waitress delivered their shots.

Ali tossed hers back, swallowing it in one gulp, not wasting time with salt or lemon. She slammed her empty glass on the table and stood. “I’ll see you all tomorrow. There’s something I need to do.”

“Ali, please,” Victoria said.

She forced a fake smile. “Don’t worry about me, Vic. I always come out on top.” Again she smiled at the irony, because on top was where she planned to be in a few short minutes.

Her body throbbed, part tension, part arousal, as she started to cross the bar. Posture erect, shoulders back, she feigned a confidence she didn’t feel. With each click of her heels on the hardwood floor, each step closer to her destination, Ali’s nervousness doubled. She’d never propositioned a man before. In her youth, they’d always come looking for her. Palms sweaty, she stuck them, one at a time, into her jacket pockets to wipe them off.

About ten feet away from him, she hesitated, considered ordering a drink from the bar instead of continuing. Was Victoria right? Would she hate herself in the morning? She glanced in his direction. Their eyes met. Locked. She drew power from his stare, gave in to the pull of attraction between them, taking the final steps toward him without a second thought.

Ali slid in next to his stool, making sure her breasts rubbed against his arm as she did, and dropped a cannoli on the bar in front of him. A few crumbs scattered. It would have been more impressive to drop the entire box, but Roxie had refused to relinquish it. “This is about sex, right?” she asked, maybe a little louder than she should have. “Okay.

Let’s go.”

Jared didn’t move, actually looked a touch shocked by her boldness. Good!

“Come on, Doc. Time’s running out. You said so yourself. You want to have sex or not?”

Someone tapped Ali on the shoulder. A deep male voice behind her said, “If he doesn’t, I do.”

“Thanks for the offer,” Ali answered, without looking at who spoke, refusing to be mortified despite a full-body heated flush of embarrassment. “But I’ve got my sights set on this one.” The first man in years to rattle her self-control, to make her want to say yes to anything. Everything. She leaned in close and said, “Come now or don’t come at all.” Pun intended. She swallowed a laugh. “This one-time offer is about to expire.”

For a few seconds, after the front door closed behind her, she thought he hadn’t followed. Her bravado wavered. Maybe he wasn’t interested in her after all. Maybe it had all been an act, a game. When the door opened again, she glanced back and smiled. After making sure he saw her, she darted down the alley to the small parking lot behind the bar.

“You are in no condition to drive,” he yelled from behind her.

No. She wasn’t. But adrenaline pumped through her system, making her feel capable of anything. It felt so good. She sidestepped the shadow of a garbage can and pushed off the brick wall on her right to avoid crashing into it. “Come on, Dr. P. There’s something I want to show you.” A good time. She giggled to herself, running past the cars into the dark, down the grassy incline to the bench tucked in behind a bunch of trees. Moonlight guided her way. Her limbs feeling loose and floppy, how she didn’t trip and fall was a mystery.

Out of breath, she plopped onto the old wooden bench, lost herself in the moonlight swirling on the slow moving river while she waited.

“Ali,” Jared said as he burst through the trees, his shadowed form looming above her. “Let me take you home. It’s late. It’s cold.”

If it was cold, she didn’t feel it. “Sit,” she said.

He hesitated but did.

“This is where I bring the guys I pick up at the bar.” Actually, it’s where she and her gramps liked to feed the ducks. Gramps, who’d taken her in when her father hadn’t, who’d nurtured and encouraged her, taught her about respect, for herself and others. Gramps, the person she loved most in this world, his heart attack the reason she’d returned to town after college. Gramps who would be so disappointed if he knew what she was about to do.

Ali pushed Gramps from her mind.

She needed this. Had to have it. Now.

In a quick move she’d perfected long ago, Ali lifted her skirt to her hips and straddled Jared’s lap, the sensitive skin of her inner thighs brushing his jeans, effectively pinning him in place. Of course he could move if he wanted to, but in her experience no man wanted to escape their present position. “You were right about me, Dr. Padget,” she said, whispering in his ear, forcing her breath out hot and steamy as she rocked her hips, moving rhythmically over the denim covering his growing erection. “I’m a tramp who doesn’t deserve a good man.”

He stiffened beneath her. “Ali, I never said that.”

She ignored his statement. He may not have said the words, but his actions had implied them. “If you’re cold, I’ll warm you up.” She kissed down the side of his neck. “I’m real hot inside.” She opened the sides of her jacket and rubbed her body against his. “You want to feel me on the inside, Doc?”

“Call me Jared.” He reached under her skirt, beneath her panties, and gripped the bare skin of her butt with his large hands, pushing her down while lifting his hips, grinding his erection where she needed him most. God, it felt good.

He rocked against her again and again. She reveled in his strength, the intensity of his desire. In his masculine scent, the feel of his firm body beneath her, around her.

“Please, Ali. Call me by my name.”

Nope. Too personal. She sucked on his neck, tasting a mixture of salt and soap. The thing about controlling a situation was not to get too personal. “Not in a truck or in the muck or for a buck.” She giggled.

“You’re drunk.”

Buzzed—definitely. Giddy—oh, yeah. She was on the verge of acting out a fantasy. But drunk? No. “How did you expect I’d be after a girls’ night out? Isn’t that why you came looking for me?” She reached between them to unbutton his jeans, lowered his zipper and released him, took his hard length into her hand. Even though her back blocked the moonlight, making it too dark to see, he looked down, tried to watch.

She cupped her hand around his thick, hard shaft and began a leisurely slide along his hot, silky skin. “Didn’t you figure you’d have more luck getting some skin-on-skin action after I’d had a few drinks?”

He let out a frustrated breath. “I can’t do this.” He palmed her ribs like he planned to lift her off of him. Didn’t make any attempt to remove her hands, she noticed. “Let me take you home.”

So she would have to live with the memory of them together in her bed? Absolutely not. Right here. Right now. Or not at all. “Don’t worry about me.” Her knees resting on the bench at either side of his hips, she lifted up, slid her panties to the side, and lowered onto his impressive length. They were not leaving this bench until she got what she came for. “We experienced girls can get off anywhere.”

He sucked in a deep breath.

Slowly Ali sank down, moved up a bit then down, again and again, as her body stretched to make room for him, until she took him all. Aaaahhhh. Exactly what she needed.

Jared sat perfectly still, his head back, moonlight illuminating his handsome face, a face she wouldn’t mind waking up to, morning after morning, year after year, if he were anyone else. His eyes closed, his features relaxed, there was no sign of the dimples that seemed to wink at her every time he smiled. His hands dropped to her waist, held her loosely.

Physically, he was everything that attracted her in the opposite sex. Tall. Firm. A commanding presence. And he filled her like no man had before, touched something so deep, so unexpected and thrilling she didn’t want to move for fear she’d never feel such a perfect union again. Like he’d been made for her and her alone. Sublime.

She’d waited her entire life to feel this connection with a man. Why did she have to find it with him?

She started to move.

He groaned. “This is so wrong. You’re Michael’s …”

Suddenly he’d developed a conscience? “Not anymore.” Thanks to him. “Right now I’m yours. Now show me what you’ve got.”

With a growl he did just that, holding her tight, plunging into her like a man who had gone too long without intimate contact. “I knew you’d feel this good.” One hand found her breast, teased her nipple. A flare of arousal exploded inside her, her jaw went tingly, her eyes fluttered closed.

His words echoed in her thoughts. I knew you’d feel this good. Pleasure. The letters floated through her brain, the sensation traveled to every part of her body. Jared Padget, a strong, confident, uninhibited man; a caring, competent doctor who made her body sing like a soloist belting out a sustained high C.

She flopped onto his chest, matched each of his thrusts, moved her hips harder, faster, driving painful memories of her mother’s suicide from her brain, seeking release, sweet oblivion. Salvation.

“I’ve dreamed about this. About us,” Jared said between panting breaths, his hands roaming the bare skin of her back.

Me, too.

“It’s so much better than I ever imagined.” Oh, yeah.

“You’re so beautiful.”

So are you.

“But I have to stop.”

What? Ali sat up. “Oh, no, you don’t,” she insisted, leaning back to place her hands on his knees, swiveling her hips, driving him into her. “You have tormented me for weeks, teased me, flirted with me. We are not stopping. Not yet.” She was so close. “I don’t have a condom.”

Usually those words would have ground the action to a halt. Ali didn’t take chances. Yet here she was, already at risk, so intent on keeping Jared close, on taking the sexual and emotional release she so desperately needed, she hadn’t even considered birth control. The higher her blood alcohol concentration climbed, the lower her capacity for rational decision-making plunged into the abyss of irrationality.

“I don’t care.” She arched her back, took him deep, then relaxed. “You said you’re a real man. Don’t real men have control?” Arch. Relax.

He expelled a huge breath as if trying to muster some of that “real man” control.

She leaned forward, rubbed her lips over his. “Please,” she whispered then kissed him, thrust her tongue into the warm confines of his mouth.

He turned his head. “Ali, I’m … We shouldn’t …” He tried to push her away.

“No,” Ali cried out, throwing both arms around his neck, holding him tight. “Don’t leave me,” she begged, willing to do anything to keep him there, to not be alone. She squeezed her inner muscles, trying to hold him inside her. “Stay with me,” she whispered in his ear, slowly tipping her pelvis forward then back. “Love me. Make me forget.”

Jared moaned in surrender and began to move beneath her, gradually increased his pace until he rocked into her with a power that matched her own.

Ali’s head started to spin, scattering her thoughts as effectively as a centrifuge. All but one. Perfection. The ultimate satisfaction was within reach. “Do. Not. Stop.”

“I won’t, Ali. I want to make you feel so good.” His hand slipped between her legs.

“I do. Oh …” With a few flicks of his talented fingers a surge of ecstasy flooded her system. It was different, intense, freeing. It wiped her mind clear, and a blissful contentment spread through her. A dark, satiated calm engulfed her, until the chime of the big clock at the top of the town hall echoed through the thick haze of her mind.

Ali counted. Twelve.

Approximate time of death—midnight, November 23rd.

Her tequila-soaked defenses failed, allowing the memory of that fateful day to seep into cognition.

Sophomore year of high school.

Ali’s mother and her married high-school principal caught doing the nasty on his desk, the act broadcast on the wall-sized movie screen in the auditorium during a full school assembly. In surround sound.

Girls looked at her with more disdain than usual that day. The boys kept their distance. Even her teachers turned away rather than look her in the eye.

Storming into the house after school, Ali had one purpose—to find her mother and make her feel as bad as she was feeling. How much was a fifteen-year-old girl expected to take? This time her mom had gone too far.

Ali pounded up the stairs, down the hallways, craving confrontation, in desperate need of an outlet for the anger and frustration raging inside her. She found her mom in the last place she looked, on the back porch. She must have heard Ali calling out, slamming doors, yet she hadn’t moved from her sprawl on the cushioned wicker couch. She just stared off into the backyard, seeming oblivious to Ali’s arrival.

“Mom,” Ali yelled.

With awkward, sluggish movements, her mom repositioned herself, slowly turning toward Ali, getting tangled in the multicolored afghan covering her. An empty wine bottle slid off her lap, crashed onto the wood decking and rolled under the coffee table. In hindsight, Ali should have taken pity on her mom, drunk in the afternoon, her eyes droopy, her face devoid of makeup and emotion, her hair an unwashed, blond, scraggly mess in need of a dye touch-up.

But Ali’s anger had overtaken rational thought, her adolescent angst-ridden brain focused solely on her pain and anger, and how her mother’s actions had caused both. “You have ruined my life,” she screamed at her mother. “I hate you.”

Ali had been poised for battle. She’d needed it.

But her mother seemed unaffected by her outburst. Calm as could be, she said, “Right back atcha, kiddo.”

Ali stood immobile, her urge to fight replaced by a cold, empty feeling.

“If I had to do it all again,” her mother went on, staring off into the distance, her slurred speech doing nothing to conceal the malice in her tone, “I would have given you up instead of giving up my dreams to keep you.”

Her mother’s last words to the daughter she’d blamed for every bad thing that had happened in her life, the daughter she had never wanted or loved.

Jared’s lungs were heaving, his skin tingling, his mind clogged by post-orgasmic fluff, following the best, albeit the only, sexual encounter he’d allowed himself in years, as he fought to make sense of what he’d just done.

He’d had sex with Ali. Without removing a single piece of clothing. Without a condom. He felt sick. He’d pulled out just in case she wasn’t on birth control but still … He’d driven into her like an animal. On a park bench, for God’s sake. According to Bobby, who had refused to shut up about his history with Ali, Jared had treated her no better than the jerks from her high school.

He felt like the lowest form of life, a maggot living on a rotting corpse at the bottom of a filthy dumpster.

Jared thought about Bobby and couldn’t help but wonder how often Ali had to fend off the unwanted sexual advances of men she’d known as a teenager. If last night had been the first time one of them had used force? If the reason she’d been willing to settle for a man like Michael was for the protection being married might offer?

Something balled up at the back of his throat, making it difficult to swallow.

Bobby had taken pleasure in sharing his high-school nickname for Ali. And in explaining why. But Jared didn’t care about her past. Ten years ago he’d been a different person, too. Present-day Ali, the smart, sassy, thoughtful woman, the kind, compassionate, skilled practitioner, was all that mattered. And she deserved so much more than the man he’d become. Jaded. Distrustful. Unwilling to love.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered into her hair.

She didn’t respond.

Back before he’d gotten married, before Typhoon Cici had blown through, nearly destroying his life, when Jared had dated, he’d enjoyed making women feel special. Flowers. Candy. Dinner at fancy restaurants. He’d complimented their outfits and hair, acted the perfect gentleman, waited for them to invite him in. He’d never, ever, had unprotected sex in the middle of the woods. Never, ever felt guilty after a sexual encounter. Until now.

And yet he couldn’t bring himself to regret one minute of it.

Ali lay slumped against his chest, her head wedged in the nook between his neck and shoulder, the only indication she was alive the puffs of warm air on his skin when she exhaled. She’d fallen asleep. He appreciated the quiet disturbed only by the movement of water from the stream, the rustle of dried leaves, an occasional car pulling into or out of the bar parking lot.

He had no desire to talk, or move. So he sat, with her still straddling his lap, in no hurry to leave, enjoying the feel of her in his arms, which he tightened around her, slipping his hands under the bottom of her sweater to warm them. They fit together like two distinct halves purposely manufactured to become one seamless whole, a feeling he wouldn’t soon forget.

What a mess. He hadn’t intended to take things this far, hence the lack of condoms. He never should have shown up at the bar where he’d known Ali and her friends would be.

But he’d been at odds with himself. After a few hours of sleep, he’d packed his life into his rolling duffel then prowled around his apartment with nothing to do but think. Of Ali, and how he wanted to see her one last time. A smiling Ali, not the angry one who’d scowled at him when the police officer had shown up at the E.R. Or the one who, when her shift ended, had left the hospital without so much as a glance in his direction.

Break them up before Michael proposed. That had been the plan. One glimpse of the fire in Ali’s eyes the first time they’d touched, of her temper when she’d joined a young mother’s fight against Child Protective Services, and Jared had known she’d never achieve Stepford wife status, no matter how hard she tried. Yet, in Michael’s presence, she’d transformed herself into the soft-spoken, malleable woman Michael wanted in a bride.

The ultimate deception, a relationship based on pretense.

Having suffered through one, Jared had every intention of sparing his friend the heartache, and legal problems, he’d experienced.

Jared’s plan:

Stage One: flirt. Reveal what he sensed was Ali’s true nature. Evoke her passion, a passion Michael wasn’t man enough to satisfy. A passion she’d tamped down with rigid control. Until tonight.

Stage Two: tease, taunt and prod. Point out Michael’s shortcomings. Joke about them. Give Ali a chance to vent her frustration with Michael’s routine tendencies, to realize what a mistake it would be to marry him. Instead she had praised and defended Michael, never saying an unkind word. Deep down, Jared longed for the day a woman spoke with such conviction in support of him.

When Ali had proved too strong to manipulate, Jared had implemented Stage Three, turning his energy to Michael. A few carefully chosen words, a “chance” encounter at a bar with a woman Michael thought highly of, and the deed was done with remarkable ease. It turned out Michael had harbored a growing concern about Ali’s malleable nature when she’d tried to change up their bedroom routine.

Now Michael, one of the few friends who’d stood by him during the DEA investigation, was genuinely happy with his equally boring new girlfriend. While Ali, a woman he barely knew, a woman who had tried to con his friend, was anything but happy. It shouldn’t have mattered, but it did.

So he had amended the plan, adding a Stage Four: make Ali forget about Michael by turning her focus onto him. Who’d have known he’d enjoy her so much? Their banter over the past month the most fun he’d had in years.

Since the day he’d said, “I do.”

Jared stretched out his legs. His feet were cold. He reached down to touch Ali’s bare thighs. He couldn’t believe she wasn’t shivering. He shifted her weight. “Come on, honey. It’s time to go.”

She didn’t budge.

“Ali.” He kissed the top of her head, her soft hair tickling his chin. Nothing.

He took her by the shoulders and pushed her off his chest. Her head hung down between them. Great. Now what the heck was he supposed to do?