by Janice Lynn
A better reality, she reminded herself. She was strong and independent, with a job she loved, a home and dog she loved, and a good life. It was no big deal that she was faking smiles and just about everything else.
Sighing, then realizing she’d done so for real rather than just in her head, Riley jerked her gaze away from Justin, emptied her glass, and took in the partygoers around her.
Most everyone was paired up. Anywhere she went, she was one of the few singles. She’d known the engagement party wouldn’t be any different. What she hadn’t known was that Justin would attend alone.
On the few times she’d seen him outside the hospital he’d always had a beautiful woman on his arm.
Ugh. What good was it to not be looking at him if she was just going to keep thinking about him? She needed to stop.
She didn’t know which was worse: the flashbacks to her almost-wedding or making googly eyes at Justin. One had left her battle-scarred. The other was like stepping into the line of fire, begging to reopen wounds better left alone.
“You okay?”
Riley choked on the champagne that hadn’t gone down yet. She tried to look as if the liquid wasn’t clogging her airway, but quickly gave up when doing so meant not breathing. She coughed repeatedly, attempting to clear the gurgling from her throat.
“I was before you came over here and startled me,” she accused, once she could form a sentence, hoping her watering eyes wouldn’t ruin her mascara. “Why did you sneak up on me that way?”
Watching her closely, no doubt wondering if he needed to do some kind of medical maneuver to clear her throat, he quipped, “You mean in that walking across the terrace in plain sight way?”
She coughed one last time, took a deep breath, and appreciated it when it didn’t trigger further hacking. “Yeah, that would be the way.”
“For the record, my question referred to before your excellent dying from pneumonia impersonation.” His lips twitched. “Glad to see you made a quick recovery.”
Riley rolled her eyes. She might enjoy their banter at the hospital, but at an engagement party, with three glasses of champagne flowing through her, thinning her protective armor, not so much.
“No thanks to you,” she complained, reminding herself to keep her eyes focused on his face and not let them drop to that sexy V revealed by those loosened buttons. “You could have at least slapped my back a few times.”
“And have you accused me of drumming up business by cracking a few ribs?” His grin was infectious, making his eyes twinkle. “I don’t think so.”
Why did the man have to be so good-looking? So—so everything?
“I said slapping my back, not breaking bones.” Although she was fighting against smiling, she gave him a stern look. “Jeez, men and their having to flex muscles every chance they get...”
He was unfazed, and his eyes danced. “You don’t want to see me flex my muscles, Riley?”
Um, yeah, she’d like to see him do that...
“Not that way,” she denied, gulping at her big fat lie and wondering at what she even meant. This party, maybe him, too, had her so flustered she was making no sense.
“Is there some other way you’d like to see my muscles flex?” He pounced on her goof. “I’d be happy to oblige.”
“I’ll pass, since I see all the muscle-flexing from you that I want to see in the operating room, when you’re pulling and tugging on patients.”
“My talents extend beyond surgery.”
Heaven help her, she was about to go into a coughing fit again.
“I’m sure they do,” she managed to say, knowing he was waiting.
“You should let me show you sometime.”
Riley refused to take him seriously. “Ah, poor Justin. Are you upset you don’t have a date tonight?”
Eyes locked with hers, he shook his head. “Quite the opposite. I purposely came alone.”
Surprised, and further flustered by his answer and his look, Riley stared at him. “Why would a muscle-flexing guy like you do something like that?”
“I was hoping you’d be here without a date.”
The South Carolina humidity had just gone into overdrive and was drenching her skin.
Resisting the urge to fan herself, she tilted her chin upward. “What good would that do you?”
“Based on past experience? Not one bit.” Looking way too charming, he gave a self-deprecating laugh. “But a guy can hope you’ll take pity and at least say yes to one dance.”
Dance with Justin?
Riley gulped at the thought of wrapping her arms around his neck, of his arms around her waist. She’d need more than her hands to fan her if she agreed to that. Something along the lines of the jet blast from a Boeing 747.
“Maybe later,” she answered, thinking that if she said no he’d persist, and that if she said yes he’d pull her onto the dance floor with the other couples now.
“I’m going to hold you to that.”
Most likely he’d move on to one of the few other dateless women there, all of whom she’d seen talking to him at different points since arriving.
“Maybe you’d like to see the gardens? There’s a small lake with a fountain just over that rise. I’m told it’s worth the short walk.” He gestured beyond the porch to a lighted walkway.
Getting away from the party appealed more than getting away from Justin.
She set her glass down on a table, then nodded. “Please.”
Seeming surprised she’d agreed, he smiled. “You just made my night.”
His smile was so genuine, so endearing, her breath caught. She fought against saying she’d changed her mind and was leaving the party she hadn’t wanted to attend to begin with. Even though that was what a smart girl would do.
Her IQ was dropping by the second.
“You wish,” she quipped, not waiting for him as she headed toward the path he’d pointed out.
He quickly fell into step beside her as they made their way along the cobblestoned walkway. Trimmed bushes, flowers, and solar-powered lights bordered either side, giving a sense of privacy and filling the air with the scent of sweet gardenia.
“I do, you know.”
“Do what?” She didn’t look at him, just carefully made her way along the path, thinking she should have gone for different shoes as four-inch heels weren’t ideal for garden walkways.
When she’d chosen them she’d been thinking of how the extra height would make her look taller, feel thinner, more in control during what she’d known would be a rough experience.
“Wish you had just made my night,” he clarified.
At his response, Riley stumbled, reaching out to keep herself from falling at the same time as he moved to catch her.
She fell into his arms. Literally.
Embarrassed, she glanced up, both cursing and blessing her heels. They’d caused her to stumble, but they also gave her the vantage point to more easily look into his eyes.
Blessing? She wasn’t supposed to be looking into Justin’s eyes—much less easily. Nor was she supposed to be pressed against his hard body.
Oh, my!
“Well, hello, there,” he teased, not stepping back from where he held her.
Neither did she. Which was a problem. Why was she not removing her body from where it was plastered to his? And why, oh, why did he feel so wonderful? So solid and chiseled to perfection?
Not to mention that his spicy clean scent was pulling a wicked number... She’d gotten whiffs of that clean, all-man smell in the OR, but had never allowed herself to really take it in. Where was an alcohol pad when she needed one to block it out?
Unable to stop herself, Riley breathed in through her nose, filling her nostrils, her lungs, her being, with Justin.
Goodness, the man was intoxicating. His body, his smell. The way he was lookin
g down at her.
His heart pounded hard against her chest as his gaze dropped to her mouth. She parted her lips, planning to apologize for falling, but nothing came out.
His hands trembled slightly where they pressed against her back. His throat worked as he swallowed, and then, surprising her, he closed his eyes.
The walkway lights flickered over his face, allowing Riley to see how the skin was pulled tightly across his cheeks, how he was struggling with something. Not something... With her and how their bodies were responding to one another.
“Justin?”
He opened his eyes.
“I feel as if I should be asking you if you’re okay,” she mused, still not moving out of his arms.
She’d thought it was his heart pounding against her chest. It wasn’t. It was her own, banging so violently against her rib cage that he might be black and blue if he didn’t step away.
He didn’t. Instead, his hands moved from her lower back to caress her face.
“I’m good,” he assured her.
She’d bet he was, and she wanted to know more.
Which scared her.
Terrified her.
Just as she’d worked up the strength to pry her body from his, he bent to touch his lips to hers. A soft brushing of his mouth, slow, gentle, in a show of great restraint because she felt the way his body tensed.
Lord help her for what she felt as his mouth coaxed hers to open, to allow him to explore to his heart’s content.
Riley’s head spun. That was how Justin made her feel. Spinning out of control.
A single moment or an eternity might have passed during their embrace. Riley couldn’t have sworn one way or the other. Just knew that Justin’s kiss took her beyond the realm of time, place, anything...
All that mattered was his kiss, how when she opened her eyes and looked into his what she saw weakened her knees. Mostly because what she saw there was reflected in her own for him to see.
But she didn’t want him seeing behind her carefully guarded walls—didn’t want anyone glimpsing behind her armor, least of all Justin.
What had she done?
She needed to run, to put as much distance between them as her high heels would let her.
But other than to tremble at the gravity of what was happening, her body didn’t move.
Holding her close, he smiled. “That was worth waiting for.”
Stunned at his admission, she blinked. “You were waiting to kiss me?”
Brushing a few loose hairs away from her face, he nodded. “You know I was.”
No, she didn’t know that.
Wrong. She did know.
She knew. And there was no more denying what she’d been denying for months.
What she’d been wanting for months.
Justin.
CHAPTER TWO
RILEY HADN’T INTENDED to go home with Justin.
Ha—even a few hours ago, when they’d been swirling and laughing on the dance floor, she’d still been telling herself their kiss had been a one-off.
So much for good intentions and all that jazz.
Here she was, in his bedroom, in the midst of something straight out of someone else’s life, practically ripping Justin’s shirt off his muscled chest.
He trailed hungry kisses over her throat, slid her spaghetti straps down her shoulders while her every nerve cell strained to be nearer to his talented lips.
She’d lost her purse somewhere. Possibly it was in the Jeep he’d driven them in to his apartment. Or maybe she’d tossed it somewhere between his front door and where they were now wrapped around each other next to his bed.
His big bed.
A big bed he’d probably brought countless women to.
Hesitation hit. Did she really want to be another notch on Justin’s belt?
Abandoning their fumbling at his shirt buttons, her fingers lowered, tracing over the rich, smooth leather encircling his waist. Seriously, what was she doing? Feeling for literal notches on his belt?
She pressed her forehead to his chest, resting against the soft cotton material. Closing her eyes, she breathed in his amazing scent, full of spice and temptation.
It made women crave more.
It made her crave more.
Don’t inhale, Riley. Do not inhale.
Wasn’t that when she’d first lost her mind in the garden? When she’d allowed his scent to intoxicate her? Weaken her to his powerful sensory onslaught?
Swallowing, she clenched his belt and ordered her brain to use logic, not hormones, to calculate how she wanted to proceed.
Or not to proceed.
Unaware of her inner turmoil, he dipped his tongue into the indentation at the base of her throat as his fingers connected with her dress’s zipper.
A moan rose from deep inside her chest.
She was here, in Justin’s bedroom, the sole recipient of his many talents. Was she really going to tell him to stop?
He would. As wrapped up as he was in what was happening, she didn’t question the fact that if she told him she’d changed her mind he’d stop.
Letting go of his belt, her hands went back to working those last few shirt buttons free. The time for stopping had gone. Just like her inhibitions, apparently.
Possibly this was happening because she’d been so emotionally raw at Cheyenne and Paul’s party. And she’d drunk champagne while eating very little, because she was on yet another diet in the hopes of getting rid of the extra fifteen pounds she perpetually carried.
Or maybe she was here because what she’d seen in Justin’s eyes when he’d kissed her, what she’d felt at his touch, had soothed the ever-present rawness Johnny’s cruelty had dealt her.
“You taste good.”
Was that why he was nibbling at her neck that way? As if her skin was nectar and he was starved?
“Sweet as honey,” he continued, his lips miracle-workers at her throat.
“Too sticky,” she murmured, finally freeing him of his shirt.
Wanting to look at what she’d uncovered, she attempted to take a step back. But she was too close to the bed to manage more than bumping against the king-sized monstrosity.
“Sticky sweet,” he practically growled, prickling her more and more sensitized flesh with goosebumps.
His hands made their way beneath her dress, cupped her bottom, and pulled her against him.
Her entire body tingled. As if someone had hooked up a TENS unit and cranked the power full-blast.
Oh, wow.
He pressed against her belly, hard, tempting, promising great pleasure.
Riley wanted great pleasure.
She had heard about it, had dreamed of it a long, long time ago, but experience it? Nada.
Her ex sure hadn’t delivered great pleasure.
Johnny had been okay in bed. Probably as good as Riley. Which should have her reconsidering what was happening now, because the last thing she wanted was Justin thinking her a dud between the sheets. She must be. Johnny wouldn’t have strayed before they’d even made it down the aisle if she was any good, right?
But Justin wasn’t acting as if he thought her a dud. He couldn’t get enough, seemed to want to kiss her all over, touch her all over, as if he found her curves sexy rather than too fleshy. As if he found her irresistible.
Justin was with her, kissing her, grinding his body against hers. He was focused on her and making her feel good. He wanted her.
She’d regret it tomorrow. She knew she would. She knew herself too well to believe otherwise. She had to work with him, for goodness’ sake.
But when his fingers hooked her panties and slid them down she couldn’t lift her feet fast enough to shake free of the skimpy satin and lace material.
Not only was she doing this, but she was going to demand Justin
make it worth every single recrimination she’d feel later.
With that thought, she pulled his belt free from his jeans, tossed it to the floor, then twined her fingers through the loops of his jeans and tugged him to her.
Eyes locked with his, she lifted her chin.“You only get one shot,” she warned, with the bravado of a seasoned siren rather than a woman whose groom had been a no-show at their wedding. “Make it good.”
Not looking the slightest bit worried about his making-it-good abilities, Justin grinned.
“I can do that,” he promised, and then he did.
* * *
Slowly waking, Justin felt his lips curve when he recalled how he’d spent the night.
With Riley. Sexy, curvy Riley. With her long brown hair and big green eyes. Sweet and sassy Riley, who was all business at work, tough and forceful with her patients when they needed to be pushed, kind and gentle when they needed a soft touch, and always professional.
It was her smile that had first hooked him. When she smiled her eyes lit, dimples dug into her cheeks, and a genuine warmth exuded from her that soothed something deep inside him and yet left a raw achiness.
Last night, when he’d gone to her, he’d been thinking along the lines of chatting, going for a walk, strolling near the lake to admire the fountain, then heading back to the party to dance.
Never in his wildest dreams had Justin envisioned them heading to his apartment. To his bed.
Well, maybe in his wildest dreams. He just hadn’t expected it to happen.
He wasn’t complaining. He’d wanted her for months.
She’d been a firecracker and she had put on an impressive show. She’d met him touch for touch, kiss for kiss, demanding more until he’d given all he had to give, and then had still found the strength to give more.
He stretched his arms over his head, surprised his muscles weren’t protesting his vigorous nocturnal activities. Instead he felt glorious—it was like the best runner’s high.
Amazing what a night of phenomenal sex with the right woman did for a man.
And Riley was the right woman.
He’d suspected that from the moment they’d met, and finally she seemed to have quit denying there was something between them.