by Cara Colter
Swallowing audibly, he nodded, lay down with her on the blanket, pushing her back and staring down at her in the firelight. Wordlessly, his lips brushed her temples, her cheeks, her eyes, her throat. Slowly, his mouth worked over her skin.
She shifted, grasping at the buttons of his shirt, fumbling to undo them. She ran her hands inside the parted material of his crisp white shirt, loving the feel of his smooth chest against her fingertips, loving the rapid pounding of his heart beneath her palm.
She’d done that to him, made his heart beat wildly.
Like a snowman caught in a hothouse, Abby melted.
Dirk groaned, and gave up whatever hope he had of going slowly. He’d wanted to kiss every inch of her, to take things slowly, to do things right, instead of the desperate coupling they’d had last time. Twice. But where Abby was concerned he obviously could only go one speed. Head-on.
He shucked out of his shirt, groaned again at the feel of her hands rubbing over skin, over his shoulders, down his back. The pleasure Abby found in his body thrilled him, had him aching for more. She craned her neck to kiss his throat, his shoulders, his chest. Frantic, quick kisses that seared his flesh.
“So beautiful,” he repeated, breathing in the spicy scent of her skin.
“If anyone in this room is beautiful, it’s you,” she whispered, pressing a kiss to his clavicle and reaching for his belt at the same time. “Hurry, Dirk.”
If he hurried, everything would be over. Fast. She was driving him crazy. Each and every cell in his body had caught fire and burned with need.
Letting her pull his belt free, Dirk slid over her, pinning her beneath him, loving how she wrapped her arms around him, clinging to him.
“Hurry,” she urged. “I need you.”
Dirk kissed her until he thought he might explode, until their hands locked on to each other’s rather than continue the frenzied exploration of each other’s bodies.
“I need you, too, Abby.” More than he’d ever imagined possible. Rolling slightly to his side, he reached for his waistband, planning to strip off his pants.
That’s when he heard the sound of cold reality.
His cellphone.
“Don’t answer it,” she moaned, taking over where he’d stopped undoing his zipper. Her fingers brushed against him, and he inhaled sharply.
He wanted to ignore the phone, but he wouldn’t.
“I’m on call.” How he wished he wasn’t. “No one would call me this late unless there was an emergency.”
Abby’s face paled in the glow of the firelight. “Oh, God. I forgot.”
He understood all too well. She made him forget, too.
Going into the foyer, he grabbed his jacket from the floor and removed his phone from the inside pocket. He listened to the caller for about thirty seconds then raked his fingers through his hair. “No problem. I’ll be right there.”
He hung up the phone and met Abby’s soft, concerned gaze. She’d followed him into the foyer, stood next to him, her arms crossed protectively over her gorgeous body.
“It’s okay. I understand,” she said before he spoke. “My phone will likely ring at any moment.”
“Probably.” He went back to the living room, got his shirt, buttoned it with a lot less enthusiasm than he’d removed it, although with just as much haste. “There’s been a gas leak in an apartment high-rise. One death. Dozens suffering inhalation injuries and respiratory distress. Patients are being diverted to several hospitals.”
Stooping down and providing him with a delectable view of her backside that tempted him to say to hell with everything, Abby plucked up the blanket from the floor. She wrapped it round her shoulders, as if she didn’t want him to see her almost naked body now that they’d been interrupted. “I’ll get changed.”
He started to speak, to tell her to get some rest while she could, that perhaps they’d already called in enough nurses without her. But her phone started ringing from inside her purse.
She gave a shaky laugh. “Wonder who that is?”
While she took the call, Dirk finished dressing, got his coat. A gentleman would wait until she finished her call, but he didn’t. He left.
She already knew he wasn’t a gentleman. Hell, he’d slept with her the day they met and had been about to take advantage of her yet again.
Still wanted to take advantage so badly every cell in his body protested against the interruption.
She’d be wise to stay far, far away.
Perhaps that’s why they’d been interrupted.
To give them both time to think about what they were doing. For Dirk to recall that Abby deserved better than what he’d give. For Abby to recall that she was young and beautiful and not bitter at the world, that she saw the goodness in life, the positive.
Things Dirk had quit doing long ago even if Abby had made him forget that for a short while.
Abby had put in eight hours of nonstop running from one patient to the next. Every bay had been full, with a rapid rate of turnover as patients were triaged into admission or treated and released.
The day shift would be arriving soon. Thank goodness. Her lower back ached and she felt more tired than she recalled feeling in a long, long time.
Surprised to find there wasn’t another patient waiting, she took advantage of the unexpected reprieve. Just a couple of minutes to disappear into the break room, lean against the wall and close her eyes, then she’d recheck the pneumonia patient in bay five.
“Things are starting to slow down. You should go home and get some rest. You look tired.”
“Dirk.” Abby’s eyes shot open, surprised to see that he’d followed her. Not that she’d really expected otherwise, but he’d been the consummate professional all night. Not once had he let on that there was anything between them other than a doctor-nurse relationship, not once had he let on that had they not been interrupted they’d have made love most of the night.
Not once had he mentioned that when she’d come out of her bedroom, he’d left, breaking her heart into a thousand tiny shards that he’d left her without so much as a word.
“The others can handle the remainder of the shift.” His tone was brusque, paternalistic. “Go home and get some rest, Abby. You look tired.”
“I am tired, but I’ll be fine until the end of shift.” She would. Already, just looking at him, she could feel her energy level rising. Or maybe that was her hurt and anger coming to a head. “Are you coming back to my place?”
He sighed, raked his fingers through his dark hair, and glanced around the otherwise empty break room. “We need to talk.”
Trying to read his expression, Abby searched his face. “I understand if you’re too tired. It’s just, well, I wanted you to know that if you want to come back, that’s good by me. I could cook us something.”
At least, she could cook him something. The thought of food made her stomach recoil. Or maybe it was the thought that he’d left her and she knew she wasn’t going to like what he had to say.
His jaw worked back and forth. “I’ve been thinking about last night.”
“Me, too,” she admitted unsteadily. She couldn’t quit thinking about last night, how they’d touched.
He grimaced. “Not like that, Abby. I’ve been thinking about what you said at the party about me needing to be sure before we went any further.”
A feeling of impending doom crawled up her spine. Doom that made her stomach pitch so high it could have capsized a tanker.
“And?” she asked, not really wanting to hear his answer. Why was he backpedaling? She’d thought they’d come so far last night. Had everything only been physical? Was she really so naive as to have misread his looks, his touches so drastically?
“You were right to say that.” He didn’t meet her eyes, stared somewhere to her right at the wall. “If we continue on that path, I will hurt you and that’s not what I want. I think we should just be friends.”
“You’re kidding, right?” She could tell by the look on hi
s taut face that he wasn’t. Friends? “If your phone hadn’t rung, what we’d have been doing was a lot more than what just friends do,” she pointed out, not willing to let him backtrack so easily.
“Which means we shouldn’t have been doing what we were about to do. Fate stepped in.”
Chin lifting, Abby’s hands went to her hips. How could he be so dense? “Fate had nothing to do with that gas leak.”
“But fate did rescue you from making a mistake, Abby. I have nothing to offer you beyond friendship. Nothing.”
Did he really believe that? Looking at him, she realized he did, but not because he didn’t want to offer her more, just that he didn’t believe himself capable. What had happened to make him so cynical? To make him see the glass as half-empty? How could she look at him and see so plainly that he had so much more to give? So much more life in him than he saw in himself?
Why was it that when she looked at him she saw a world full of good and amazing things? A world full of Christmas every single day just because he was a part of her life?
She closed her eyes and counted to ten. “Okay, if you want to just be friends, we’ll just be friends.”
She couldn’t make him love her. Couldn’t make him want to take a chance on loving her. She’d spent years living with her great-aunt, doing everything she could to earn the woman’s love. In the end, she’d realized you can’t make someone love you. Either they did or they didn’t.
“I’m glad you understand.” He let out a slow breath, looked relieved that she wasn’t going to make a scene.
Had he expected her to stomp her feet and throw a fit? Wrong. But neither would she pretend everything was fine, when it wasn’t.
“No.” She shook her head. “I can’t say that I understand, because I don’t. Obviously I misread your feelings for me.”
“Abs—”
“Don’t,” she interrupted, holding up her hand. “Don’t say things you don’t mean in the hope of making this easier. I like you, a lot. You obviously don’t feel the same so, fine, end of story. We’ll be friends.”
So why didn’t she believe he didn’t feel the same? Why did she believe that something else had prompted him to back away? Something that ran so deeply through him he believed he had nothing to offer her but heartache? Something that had to do with his dislike of the holidays?
“You deserve better.”
She nodded. “You’re right. I do.”
This time she was the one who left.
By the time she got home, she was throwing up. No doubt from the stress of the night and the sickening feeling that had crept in during their conversation.
Friends. He wanted to be friends. Liar. Who did he think he was kidding? He didn’t look at her the way her friends looked at her.
Neither did she have sex with friends.
Or even almost have sex with her friends.
Really, she’d just like to know how it was possible for a man to look at her with fire in his eyes and ice on his tongue? Because his words had bit into her bitterly coldly. Frigidly. Friends.
Fine, if that’s what he wanted, she’d be his friend.
She told herself all these things and more right up until that night, when she was scheduled to work with him.
Then she admitted the truth.
She couldn’t be Dirk’s friend. Not when she felt the way she did about him. If she didn’t protect her heart, she’d end up wearing battle scars from their friendship. Scars that ran so deep she wouldn’t ever recover.
No, she couldn’t be his friend, but somehow she had to be his colleague, his nurse. She had to work with him and be the professional she was. Somehow.
Almost, she called in sick, but her illness had passed, had just been from a morning spent longing for what might have been. So she’d go to work and come face-to-face with a man who seemed determined to be friendly.
Seriously, it was enough to send her stomach into Churnville all over again.
Chapter Six
DIRK hadn’t slept much between ending his emergency call the morning following the Christmas party and reporting back in for a half-shift that evening. How could he when he couldn’t stop thinking about Abby?
She’d agreed to his friend proposal, but he’d seen the hurt in her eyes. The confusion. She didn’t understand.
Why had he let things get so out of control the evening before? Not that Abby had given him much choice. He’d looked into her eyes, heard the truth in her voice when she’d told him she wanted to make love, and he’d ignored all the reasons why they shouldn’t.
Just as he’d ignored the reasons why he shouldn’t have asked her to the Christmas party to begin with. Not that he’d meant to. The invitation had just slipped out of his mouth and she’d looked so happy when she’d said yes, he hadn’t taken the words back.
Just as he hadn’t taken them back when he’d agreed to be her Santa.
Seeing Abby happy did something to him, made him do things he ordinarily wouldn’t do. Made him want things he shouldn’t want.
When he had slept, he’d been haunted by treacherous nightmares. Had they been triggered by attending the Christmas party? Or just by the season he could never escape? Or from walking away from Abby when she was the best thing to enter his life in years?
Regardless, he’d welcomed the evening and the start of his abbreviated—due to the holiday party—shift. Right or wrong, he’d also welcomed seeing Abby again, welcomed everything about her, including the tray of goodies she’d left on the break-room table.
Mostly he just wanted to make sure she was okay. During the night, as they’d worked on patients, he’d felt her gaze on him, felt her studying him, trying to see beneath his surface. If she only knew what darkness lay beneath, in the depths of his soul, she’d have turned away, never wanting to look again.
If he wasn’t careful, he was going to hurt Abby.
That and that alone should accomplish what he hadn’t previously had the willpower to do.
He would ignore the attraction between them before he hurt her. Otherwise he’d end up taking every drop of sweetness from her and leaving her with nothing more than a barren tree with a few empty hangers where shiny ornaments had once glistened.
Abby deserved fullness of life, color and brightness, glittery packages, and tinsel, and twinkling lights. All the things he wasn’t.
Having finished with the patient he had been tending, he stepped into the next bay, pausing in mid-step. Abby was cleaning the room, preparing for the next patient. She had to know he stood there, but she didn’t look up to acknowledge him.
He turned to go, but the fact she ignored him irked.
She’d been polite all evening, courteous when discussing a patient. But other than regarding a patient, she hadn’t spoken a word to him.
He didn’t like it. They were friends, right?
“I saw you’d brought more goodies.” He’d snagged a couple from the rapidly disappearing tray. “Those haystack things were great.”
She nodded, not looking up from where she spread out a clean sheet. “I always bring lots of goodies this time of year. It’s tradition.”
She kept her tone even, but she was upset. She’d invited him to stay the day with her and he’d left her high and dry, told her he just wanted to be friends.
Idiot.
Dirk grabbed the corner of the sheet closest to where he stood and spread the material out, eliciting a surprised look from her. “You have a lot of Christmas traditions, don’t you, Abby?”
“Yes.” Taking a deep breath, she tucked the clean sheet in around the hospital bed. “Christmas traditions are important to me.” She straightened, held his gaze then sighed. “Before you give me a lecture on all the woes of the holidays, let me just warn you that I’m a little cranky so you might not want to do that. Not tonight.”
Dirk took a step back. Abby was cranky? Because of him. Because he’d refused to go with her. Because he’d said he just wanted to be friends.
“I
’m sorry, Abby.”
She snorted, rolling her eyes. “It’s not that.”
“Then what? Is Macy’s all sold out of that gift you just have to buy still?” He tried to keep his tone light, to make a joke in the hope some of the usual sparkle would return to her eyes, but when he spoke of anything to do with Christmas a brittle edge always seemed to be present.
“Ha-ha. Too funny.” Rather than sparkle, she rolled her eyes again. “For the record, I finished my shopping weeks ago.”
She was probably one of those women who started next year’s shopping the day after Christmas. That seemed like the kind of thing Abby would do.
“If you must know,” she continued, smoothing out an imaginary wrinkle on the expertly made bed, “I haven’t felt well.”
Her hand popped over her mouth as if she hadn’t meant to say that out loud, as if she regretted that she had.
“What’s wrong?” All desire to keep the conversation light vanishing, Dirk studied her. She didn’t look ill. She looked…beautiful, almost ethereal, like the delicate angel on top of a Christmas tree.
“Don’t look at me like that. I shouldn’t have said anything,” she huffed, but when he only stared, waiting for her to elaborate, she continued. “I’m fine. Really. Just a virus.”
But she didn’t meet his eyes and he placed his hand on her forehead.
“I don’t have a temperature.” She gave an exasperated sigh.
“Tell me what’s going on. I’m a doctor, remember?” Again, he strove to keep his tone light, but her evasiveness worried him. The thought of her being sick worried him. “Maybe I can help.”
He wanted to help. As a doctor to a patient, he told himself, even as he acknowledged his concern went beyond that of doctor-patient. As a friend to another friend, he corrected, but even that didn’t cover the protective feelings the idea of Abby being ill spurred within him.