“Like commuting between New York and Orlando a couple of times a week? How do you do that and do your rich-doctor thing as well?”
“It’s only for a few months.” He speared a chunk of lamb and smiled at her. “And once you get to be good enough to be a rich doctor, there’s a certain amount of flexibility in your schedule.”
“I would have thought it just meant that you were more in demand than ever, if you’re really good,” Sara said.
“Yes, but I can control my workload to some extent.” He frowned, and she got the feeling that he wasn’t as blasé about doing just that as he was making out. She remembered how insistent he’d been on getting back to Manhattan to do his surgery on the figure skater. And how they’d cut the trip short this time. He was juggling things, that much was plain.
Did she want to be one more ball in the air for him?
One more ball that was probably the easiest to drop if push came to shove? It was clear he was a guy who was devoted to his work—both medicine and the Saints. Which didn’t leave much room for romance.
And here she was jumping the gun again. Maybe he just wanted another night or two of sex. Maybe he thought they could burn each other out of their systems or something.
Though he could’ve just knocked on her hotel door back in Orlando if that was the case. But no. He’d waited. Asked her out for dinner. In a helicopter, true, and that made it clear he wasn’t exactly your run-of-the-mill date. Of course, she’d already known that. But rich guys didn’t have to play by normal rules. So maybe it really was just about scratching an itch.
“You’re thinking very hard over there,” Lucas said. He looked down at her plate. “And not eating. Is something wrong?”
“No.” She forked up some lamb hastily, chewed, and swallowed. “It’s great. I’m just…”
“Just wondering what my intentions are?” Lucas asked.
She nodded. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not expecting you to get down on one knee or anything, but this is complicated. So I want to know just how complicated it might be.”
“You like to be in control, don’t you?” He leaned back in his chair a little, lifted his wineglass, and sipped.
“I have a lot on my plate. Things are easier to deal with if I have all the facts.”
“I’m not sure what facts come into play when you’re talking about attraction. Other than the chemistry. I think we’ve already dealt with that part back in Sag Harbor. Our chemistry works just fine.”
“Chemistry is the easy part.” She and Kane had had chemistry. But once the initial heat had died down, there’d been nothing left other than that they were both pilots in the army. No commonality. And Kane had been someone a lot more like her than Lucas Angelo was.
“Why does there have to be a hard part?”
She frowned at him. “Because, like I said. This is complicated. You’re technically my boss. You’re rich. And I’m me. Not rich. Very far from rich.” Their worlds were, well, worlds apart. It was like an Austen novel. Only she was the poor chauffeur and Lucas was the out-of-reach titled object of her affections.
“I don’t care about that,” he said.
“That’s because you don’t have to.”
“No, I don’t. So problem solved. Money isn’t an issue.” Lucas said. He took another mouthful of wine, and she found herself fascinated by the play of muscles in his neck as he swallowed.
Good grief. She was losing it.
“Okay,” Lucas said. “Here are some facts. One. I don’t cheat. If I want to sleep with someone else, then I’d tell you. Two. I don’t want to be complicated. You don’t need complicated. You need easy. You need some fun in your life.”
“My life is fine,” she said.
He shook his head and put down his glass. “I have a mother, a sister-in-law, and about twenty female cousins. Not to mention many aunts and about half a hundred female colleagues. Not one of them has ever used the word fine in that tone and actually been fine.”
She scowled at him.
He laughed. “And that expression just proves it. People who are having fun do not scowl like that.”
“I hardly see how your life leaves much time for fun, ether,” Sara said.
“Ah, but you see, I love baseball. Sure, the travel is killer, and turning the Saints around isn’t easy. That doesn’t change the fact that it makes me smile every time I think about owning a baseball team. It’s one of my childhood dreams come true. So it’s fun. And surgery is fun, too.”
“Cutting people up is fun?”
“Fixing people is. Seeing someone walk again or compete again because of me, that’s better than fun. So here’s what I’m proposing. You need some fun. You need something that makes you happy. I can help you with that.”
“Oh, so you’ll sleep with me to make me happy?”
“Well, based on past experience it will make me pretty happy, too. It’s a win–win situation. But I’m not just talking about sex. You’re so busy running around trying to fix everything for everyone and keep control. You need someone who wants to make your life easier for a change.”
“You think you make things easier?”
“I think I can. And we can see what happens from there. So what do you say? Want to give it a whirl? Let me be your … guardian angel.”
“Guardian angel?” Her eyebrows rose. “Trying to earn your wings, Dr. Angelo?”
“You’re the one with wings,” he said. “I just want to … make you smile. Give you some time out.”
Make her smile. Make things easier. Damn. He certainly knew which buttons to push. “I don’t think guardian angels sleep with their … um, what do you call it? Charges?”
“I’m a modern angel,” he said with another smile. “Whatever it takes to make my girl happy.”
“I didn’t think guardian angels were quite so cocky,” she shot back. And she didn’t think they were hot, either. He was much more your basic fallen-angel model, tempting her onto the wrong path. Only it didn’t feel wrong. It felt very, very tempting.
“I’m not cocky, I’m optimistic. After all, you haven’t said yes, yet.”
“And what happens if this all goes wrong?”
“Then I’d hope that I’d behave like any good angel and do the honorable thing. Bow out gracefully.”
Which would be easy for him to do, because if things went wrong between them, it was likely that she’d be the one doing the one-way ticket to hell. She chewed her lip. “I like you, Lucas. You know that, but I can’t lose this job.”
“I will not fire you if you break up with me, Sara. And if you don’t want anyone else at the Saints to know, I’ll be the very soul of discretion. Angels are good at that. Trust me. I don’t want to screw up your life.”
“If you really meant that, then you’d walk away.”
“I really don’t want to do that,” he said.
“Why not?” she asked.
He reached across and curled his fingers around hers. Her pulse skittered as the warmth of his skin spread across hers. When she met his gaze, his eyes had gone dark and hot.
“Because of that,” he said. “And the thing is, Sara Charles, I don’t think you want to walk away from that, either.”
Chapter Twelve
When the whine of the rotors finally died, the silence in the helo was far too intimate for her liking. It wrapped around them, drawing them together like the candlelight had back in the restaurant. Making her think foolish, foolish thoughts. Making her wish she could be the girl that Lucas saw when he flirted with her.
But she wasn’t. And this was a helicopter that Lucas was paying for and she needed to climb out of it and remember what her life was really like. No matter how seductive Lucas’s argument had been back in the restaurant. Where she hadn’t said yes. And she hadn’t said no, either.
“Give me your home number,” Lucas said softly.
Five little words. Six whole syllables. How much trouble could four little words cause?
A lot, p
art of her knew. You just had to listen to his voice in the darkness to know he was a lot of trouble waiting to happen. To her.
Oh but such good trouble, the rest of her retorted. C’mon, you know you want to.
Lucas leaned a little closer. Just a little. Just enough to make her want to lean in closer, too. She tried to remember why it was she hadn’t just said yes already. “I—”
“Just your number,” he said. “That’s all. After all, a guardian angel needs to be able to get in touch with his charge.”
She smiled then, against her will. “You already know my work cell. And I already told you, I don’t need an angel.”
“Maybe the angel needs you.”
His voice was so low and delicious in the dim light that she really wanted to believe this could be true.
Her good sense cracked, just a little. She wrote the number down on the notepad she kept stashed near her pilot’s seat and handed it to him.
“Just a number,” she said. “It’s not an invitation.”
He smiled as he took it. “Whatever you say.”
She was relieved when he climbed out of the helicopter and strolled off toward the car park.
Leaving without her.
He’d stop if she asked him to. He’d stay. He’d come home with her and demonstrate that expert anatomical knowledge again.
She went hot just thinking about it and shut down the thought as she finished shutting down the helicopter. The mechanics would have all gone home hours ago; they’d check it and prep it in the morning. Still, she lingered a little, walking a circle around the helo, running her hand over the metal skin, not quite ready to let go of the flight and the few stolen hours with Lucas.
Was it too much to hope that Lucas would have the good sense to leave quickly so she wouldn’t be tempted to follow him into the night?
She reached her car, stowed the flight bag in the back, rolled her shoulders once to ease the slight stiffness caused by the flight, and then climbed into the driver’s seat. The engine coughed to life as she turned the key and she headed out of the lot, trying not to feel like she was a complete idiot for letting Lucas leave.
She was halfway home when her phone rang. She hit the button for the speakerphone. “Hello?”
“It’s me.”
Lucas. Her stomach tightened, but she couldn’t stop the smile that immediately stole across her face.
“Did you forget something?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
He was doing that low and wicked thing with his voice again, and her mouth went dry. She had to take a breath before she could speak. “What?”
“I forgot to ask you to give me your address.”
Her hard-won breath left her in a rush. He wanted her address.
Oh yes.
Every particle in her body shrieked it.
“We agreed the phone number wasn’t an invitation,” she said, managing to ignore them.
“I know,” he said. “But you never said I couldn’t use it to ask for an invitation.”
“Lucas—”
“Sara,” he said, mimicking her tone. “I’m driving in the dark and I swear I’m going to run off the road because all I can think about is you. Tell me you’re not driving home in the dark thinking about me, too. Tell me that and I’ll leave you alone.”
“I…” She wanted to say it. The sensible part of her knew that she should say it. One little white lie and he’d leave her alone and she’d be safely back on solid ground. No Lucas Angelo disturbing and disrupting her.
Oh, but she wanted him to disrupt her. Wanted him to turn her world upside down and into something different. Wanted it enough that she knew it was a very bad idea to give in to that desire. “I—” she started again and then it happened. Instead of being sensible Sara Charles and telling him to keep driving, to leave her alone in the dark, she gave him her address in a rush of words that spilled out of her before she could think.
“I’ll see you there,” Lucas said and hung up before she could say anything else.
She realized that she’d stopped at a stop sign. She had no idea how long she’d been there. She peered through the darkness at the nearest street sign, suddenly unsure where she was exactly.
Hell, she was unsure who she was exactly. She’d just invited Lucas Angelo over to her apartment.
About the only thing she was sure of was that right now she wanted very badly to be home.
* * *
When she reached the drive of the little apartment block, her heart was pounding madly. But she couldn’t see any strange cars and the pounding was joined by a sudden rapid swoop of disappointment.
She parked and sat for a moment. Had he not arrived yet? She had no idea where he’d been when he’d called her, of course. Or had he changed his mind?
Maybe he’d had a sudden fit of sanity and driven away. That would make everything infinitely simpler. But leave her here with her racing pulse and tingling skin and the heat traveling her body that had been growing fiercer and fiercer with every mile closer to home.
He had to be here. If he was a guardian angel, he was here to make sure she got what she wanted, wasn’t he? And what she wanted right this minute was Lucas Angelo’s hands on her body.
She gathered her things and walked toward the entrance to the block. A small faux porch surrounded the door to the lobby, and as she reached the first step Lucas stepped out of the shadow beside the door. She dropped her bags and flew up the steps and then his arms were around her and his lips touched hers and she would have sworn the world just melted around her as her blood went volcanic and every inch of her shrieked More.
She opened her mouth to him and pulled him closer. They kissed frantically, like they needed each other for oxygen, and he backed her up against the door. His hands went to work, unzipping her jacket and pulling her shirt free of her trousers, and then his fingers were sliding over the skin of her waist, which made her moan and arch toward him like a cat seeking the sun.
He muttered something against her mouth that might have been her name or might have been God but then his hand dipped lower and pressed between her legs and she moaned louder, moving into him, thinking, There, there, there and Oh God, yes, as colors exploded behind her eyes and pleasure streaked through her body.
He reached for her zipper and slid it down and even though she knew she was standing at the front door and any minute any of her six neighbors might see them, she couldn’t care about anything but the feel of his fingers against her. She widened her legs and his fingers slid into her panties and curled into her precisely where she needed to feel him. She felt the world narrow to just that spot. Just the feel of him, and the taste of his mouth and the smell of him curling around her as she rocked against him, desperate for him and letting him do this completely crazy thing as the heat built and then surged and pulsed through her like the scream of a jet engine, and her mind went completely blank as she struggled not to cry out through the sheer perfection of it.
* * *
When she came back to herself, Lucas had eased away from her, his hands at her waist again, holding her steady while she tried to make her brain work. His fingers stroked her skin where they touched.
She lifted her head and smiled, drunk with pleasure.
“Hello,” she said.
“Hello,” he said, sounding only a little more together than she was. “Nice place you have here.”
The pleased rumble of his voice made her smile grow wider. “You haven’t seen it yet.”
“I don’t care,” he said. “I like it.” His head dipped and he kissed her and she felt everything start to go hot and blurry again. “Ask me in, Sara.”
“Do you want to come up and see my etchings?” she said, giggling.
“Do you have etchings?”
“I’m not sure I even know what etchings are.” She laughed again. “Want to come up and take my clothes off?”
“Hell, yes.” He straightened then, suddenly all business. “Where ar
e your keys?”
It took her a moment to remember what keys were, let alone what she might have done with hers. “Keys. Bag. Stairs.” She gestured back down the stairs to where her things were sitting on the damp path—thank God it hadn’t been snowing or she might have just done dire things to her laptop. Lucas turned on his heel, descended the stairs with three quick steps, and then rejoined her. He handed her her purse and kept hold of her flight bag.
“Keys,” he said. “Now.”
She grinned. “Bossy, are we?”
“Yes,” he said. “Whatever it takes to get you naked.”
* * *
It didn’t take too much, as it turned out. They made it up the flight of stairs to her apartment and inside the door before the bags hit the floor again and then he was kissing her again with those fierce wild kisses that scrambled her brain. She tugged off his coat and he dispensed with her jacket and she toed off her shoes while he unbuttoned her shirt.
“Christ, that’s pretty,” he said, one hand tracing the edge of the lace of her bra before it moved down to cup her breast, long clever fingers dragging across her nipple.
“You’re prettier,” she managed to say before she lost her breath again. More clothes tumbled to the floor between kisses and hands discovering skin and then she was on the floor, the wool of her rug soft against her back and Lucas hard against the rest of her as she pulled him down and wrapped herself around him and almost sobbed as he moved into her with one sure and solid thrust that felt better than anything she could ever remember feeling.
Apparently the interlude on the porch hadn’t done much to satisfy her need for him, either. The feel of him on top of her, inside her, moving with her sent her crazy and she nipped at his mouth and locked her legs higher around his body. “Harder,” she said.
She didn’t have to ask twice. Lucas growled in her ear and then did something that changed the angle between them, tilting her hips up before he moved again. Moved hard.
“Like that?”
“Yes.” It was half a gasp as he did it again, the slide and shock of him making her skin even hotter even as she rose to meet him.
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