Sizzling Nights with Dr. Off-Limits

by Janice Lynn

  And not just for sex.

  Are you home? he texted, leaning back against her apartment door frame and wondering at his current state of sanity, or lack thereof.

  Nope, came her almost instant reply.

  She wasn’t home. At least she hadn’t been ignoring him.

  Where are you?

  On a date.

  On a date? His stomach knotted.

  With the pharmacy guy?

  Nope. We broke up. This date is a lot hotter.

  You’re on a date with yourself?

  He was trying to tease her into telling him who she was with, trying to curb the jealousy surging through his veins.

  Not hardly.

  Lucas gripped his phone in his hands a lot tighter than he should. Emily was on a date and was being vague about who she was with. How could she be on a date after having sex with him the night before? The night before that, too?

  Then again, he had no claims on her. Just a strong desire to be with her and the inability to stay away.

  My date says you should join us.

  Lucas blinked at his phone.

  Your date wants your ex-husband to join you?

  Doesn’t know about you. No one does, remember?

  How could he forget? She’d completely erased all traces of him from her life. Which he supposed was what he’d done with her, too. Yet he didn’t like that their time together had been completely obliterated.

  You should tell him, he suggested, trying to squelch his jealousy.

  Not a him.

  Not a... Why did relief flood him that she wasn’t with another man just hours after being with him? Because he wanted her.

  All of her.

  Just for him.

  I’m with Meghan.

  The pretty brunette nurse who worked on the pediatric neuro floor who’d been with Emily the night of the fund-raiser. He’d seen her around the hospital and always made a point to say hi.

  Where are you?

  She told him the name of a club a couple blocks away.

  I’ll be right there.

  * * *

  “He’s on his way,” Emily stage-whispered to Meghan, leaning across the bar table to give her friend a pleading look. “Now what?”

  “Now you get to have some fun with Dr. Yummy Tummy.”

  “How do you know his tummy is yummy?”

  Meghan giggled. “Well, isn’t it?”

  Yes, Lucas’s stomach was pretty yummy. Pretty cut. Pretty six-packed.

  She sighed. “I shouldn’t have invited him here.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s our night.”

  “Emily, I love you, hun, but you’ve not been with me since we got here.”

  “Huh?”

  “Don’t think I haven’t noticed that you’ve checked your phone every two minutes, and when he finally texted, you almost passed out with relief.”

  Her shoulders sagging, she squished up her nose. “I did, didn’t I?”

  Her friend nodded. “So tell me about him. Besides the obvious.”

  “The obvious?”

  “That he’s hot and has the hots for you.”

  “Obviously, I have the hots for him, too,” she admitted, wondering at how much she should tell Meghan. She and the woman had instantly hit it off when Emily had started at Children’s and their friendship had grown over the years. She loved Meghan, but telling her, telling anyone, about Lucas made her nervous. Still, she needed an objective opinion and there was no one she trusted more than Meghan.

  “Obviously.” Her friend laughed, taking a sip of her drink.

  Emily followed suit, taking a small sip of her diet soda and a huge leap of faith. “I used to be married to him.”

  “What?” The loud music and dim lights did nothing to hide Meghan’s shock.

  Emily swirled the contents of her glass. “He’s my ex-husband.”

  Meghan looked floored. “Dr. Cain is your ex-husband? The one you were devastated by when you started at Children’s? The one who it took you years to get past and start dating again? That ex-husband?”

  Toying with the tiny straw in her drink, Emily nodded. “Yep, he used to be all mine.”

  Which sounded an awful lot like she wanted him to be all hers again, because, seriously, she could have just said “yes, that ex-husband,” right?

  She didn’t want him to be all hers again. Did she?

  She couldn’t. To want that would be begging for heartache and tears.

  Only...

  Meghan let the implications sink in. “Did he know you worked at Children’s when he accepted the position?”

  “He knew. He said my being there was his only hesitation with accepting.”

  Meghan’s forehead wrinkled. “I don’t understand. Why would he buy your date at the auction if you were what made him hesitate on accepting the position?”

  “Because he’s here to torture me.” Okay, so that was an exaggeration, but being near Lucas, kissing him, having sex with him, all of it was torture because she knew it was temporary.

  Meghan’s brow arched. “Seriously?”

  Emily took another sip of her soda. “Actually, I don’t really understand why he bought my date. He says he wants for us to get along and not be awkward at work, but he didn’t have to win my bid if that’s what he wanted. I’ve never been able to resist him long.”

  “Maybe he didn’t think you’d ever let him close enough without the forced time together.”

  “Maybe. Regardless, he’s close enough now. Too close.” What had she done? “Meghan, what am I going to do when we quit having sex?” Quit having sex because, really, she couldn’t call it dating. They’d gone out to eat at Stluka’s, she’d cooked for him, and they’d had sex twice. That didn’t exactly qualify as boyfriend/girlfriend. She didn’t want Lucas to be her boyfriend. She’d been there, done that and had the divorce papers to prove it. “The last time he and I got involved, I ended up leaving my job. I love my job at Children’s. I’d prefer not to change jobs every time he shows up in my life.”

  Meghan shrugged. “Then don’t change jobs.”

  If only it were that simple.

  “You don’t understand what it was like after we split and I had to go to work knowing I’d see glimpses of him there...” Her voice trailed off. She’d dreaded each and every day. Had wondered how he could see her and not know the great loss within her. The grief and suffering she felt every moment of every day and seeing him going on about his life had only added to her pain and loss. She’d quickly known she couldn’t continue working there and had turned in her notice. Starting work at Children’s had been a godsend.

  “I knew you had been married before, but you never wanted to talk about it, so I never asked.” Meghan winced, then took a sip of her drink. “I remember how sad you looked when you first started. The first time I ever saw you, I wanted to hug you and beat the crap out of whoever had hurt you.”

  “Our friendship was formed on pity?”

  Meghan shook her head. “Our friendship was formed based upon the person you are being someone I came to love. You’re a great friend, Emily.”

  “Even though I never told you about Lucas?”

  “I wish you’d felt you could tell me, but I understand why you didn’t, why you wouldn’t want to talk about him at all. He hurt you a lot, didn’t he?”

  Lucas had hurt her a lot, but what had come later had hurt so much more. Still hurt so much. One never got over that kind of hurt, she supposed.

  “I guess in some ways we hurt each other.”

  “Are you sure getting involved with him again is a good idea? I mean, he’s superhot and all, but aren’t you afraid you’ll end up getting hurt again?” Meghan reached
across the bar table and touched Emily’s hand. “Maybe we should leave before he gets here. I don’t want to see you hurt.”

  She shook her head. “I’m not going to let him hurt me again.”

  Her friend didn’t look convinced. “How are you going to stop him?”

  Emily lifted her chin a notch. “Because this time I’m the one in control. I’m the one telling him to leave instead of the other way around.”

  Meghan blinked. “He told you to leave?”

  Unable to give voice to that particular memory, Emily nodded.

  Meghan stared at her as if she’d lost her mind.

  Possibly, she had. But when her gaze collided with that of the man who was making his way toward their table, she admitted that rational thought didn’t matter because she wanted him too much to stop this craziness.

  From the moment he’d bought her bachelorette date, her fate had been sealed. Maybe from the moment she’d first met him, her fate had been sealed. Lord knew that even though she’d convinced herself she could be happy and content with a man like Richard, deep down she wondered if she would have been. Would anyone other than the man intently making his way toward her table do?

  “He’s here.”

  “You want me to leave?” Meghan offered, suddenly looking nervous.

  Emily grabbed her friend’s hand. “Please don’t. Make me show some restraint, because when I look at that man, I just want to rip his clothes off with my teeth.”

  Meghan looked toward him and groaned. “Emily, a lot of women want to rip that man’s clothes off with their teeth when they look at him. No offense, but he’s easy on the eyes to say the least.”

  He was easy on the eyes. Clothed and unclothed.

  She sighed. “What am I going to do?”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “I’ve already told you what I want to do. That’s the problem.”

  Meghan grinned, then made a chomping motion.

  Emily rolled her eyes but smiled at her friend.

  “Why not? Obviously, he’s good at what he does. Just so long as you stay in control and remember that he’s bad for you regarding anything but physical gratification, why not use him for good sex?”

  Why not indeed?

  Other than that she’d never been the kind of girl to have sex just for the sake of sex.

  Well, not until now.

  Now that was exactly what she had been doing, right? No matter what lay in the recesses of her heart, she knew she and Lucas had no future. Yet she’d had sex with him the past two nights. She’d have a torrid affair with her ex-husband, let him rock her world, then she’d send his butt home night after night because to allow him to stay would change the dynamics of their relationship. She’d keep everything neatly within the physical rather than the emotional.

  “Hello, Dr. Cain,” Meghan greeted as he joined their table. She motioned to one of the tall bar chairs next to the table. “Have a seat.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  LUCAS PULLED UP a chair to Emily and Meghan’s table. Both women stared at him in a way that made him wonder if he had something stuck between his teeth or had developed a huge zit on the end of his nose.

  First running his hand across his face, just in case, he motioned to the bartender and ordered a cold one.

  When he turned back, both women were still staring.

  “Am I missing something?”

  “What makes you ask that?” Emily asked, taking a drink from the glass she held.

  “You two are making me nervous.”

  “Who—us?” Meghan hooked her arm with Emily’s, then laughed. “Then again, we get that a lot.” She winked at Emily. “That we make men nervous.”

  Emily snorted. “Yep. All the time. Every time we come here, in fact.”

  He took in the two friends. Meghan was a pretty woman, but Emily was beautiful. So much so that just looking at her made his heart hiccup.

  “Two beautiful women, I’d say you do make men nervous,” he agreed.

  “But not you?” Emily asked, watching him over the rim of her glass.

  She made him nervous as hell. He knew the devastation this woman could cause in his life. The devastation of wanting so desperately to make her happy and not being able to.

  “Should I be nervous?”

  “Definitely.” This came from Meghan. “And so should that delicious guy who keeps smiling at me from the bar. You two have fun. I’m going to go see how nervous I can make him by asking him to buy me a drink.”

  Emily and Lucas watched Meghan sidle up to the bar and indeed ask the guy who’d been staring at their table to buy her a drink.

  “He looks happy to oblige.”

  The guy did, ecstatic even.

  “Do you want something else to drink?” Lucas offered.

  “No. I’m good. Haven’t finished this one yet.” She held up her glass that was about a third full still. “I imagine I always will be a lightweight, so much so that this is soda.”

  He’d figured that.

  “You still go out and party with the crew every chance you get?”

  He thought about her question. He did go out on occasion to hang with his friends. Those times were further and further apart and not at all since he’d joined the staff at Children’s. Not that the gang didn’t still get together routinely, but that he just had other things he preferred doing.

  “I still see them,” he admitted, not bothering to explain further.

  “I imagined so.”

  Something in her tone had him studying her a little closer. “Did you not like my friends, Emily?”

  Her cheeks pinkened. “I never said that.”

  She didn’t have to. The truth was written all over her lovely face. “You rarely wanted to go with me. It never occurred to me that it was because you didn’t like my friends.”

  “Drinking and partying was never my thing.”

  True. She hadn’t ever seemed to enjoy attending parties or hanging with his friends. He’d hoped she’d eventually relax around them. She never had.

  “What was your thing?”

  She hesitated a moment, then whispered so low he read her lips more than heard her. “You.”

  Her answer humbled him. He’d been such a fool. How could he have had her in his life, had her love and affection, and lost it? Of all the things he’d ever failed at, losing Emily topped the list.

  He shouldn’t have married her to begin with, and he sure shouldn’t have divorced her once he had.

  “I made a lot of mistakes, didn’t I?”

  Glancing away, she shrugged. “We both did.”

  “I didn’t appreciate what I had, Emily.”

  She stared into her almost empty glass, then took one last sip. “Most people don’t until they lose something.”

  “True.” He didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t appreciated it that he’d gotten to wake up next to her each morning, that he’d gotten to go to sleep next to her at night. That at any point in between he could call her and hear her lovely voice tell him she loved him.

  “Let’s dance,” she suggested, placing her now empty glass on the tabletop.

  “Okay.” Any excuse to have her in his arms would do.

  He held her close, loving the way she fit next to his body, loving the way when he breathed in her sweet vanilla scent filled his nostrils.

  They danced the slow song, then several upbeat ones that put a sexy sheen to Emily’s skin. One that he wished he’d caused from other movements of their bodies together.

  “Hey, guys, I’m outta here.” Meghan interrupted their dancing. “I’ve got to be at work bright and early in the morning.”

  Emily hugged her friend goodbye. “You want me to walk with you to your apartment?�
�

  Meghan shook her head. “I’m fine. You stay and have fun.”

  “What about you?” Lucas asked. “You want to stay here for a while or are you ready to go to your apartment?”

  “I’m not on schedule tomorrow.”

  “Does that mean you want to stay?”

  She met his gaze, her lips slightly parted. “What do you want, Lucas?”

  For her to say his name until they were both satiated. To hold her in his arms and wake up beside her and do it all over again. Day after day. Night after night.

  Where the thought came from, Lucas didn’t question. Just that his whole mind filled with the overpowering response.

  “Whatever you want is fine, Emily. Just so long as I get to be with you.”

  * * *

  Emily frowned at Lucas’s answer. Why, she wasn’t sure. Just that it was sweet and she didn’t want sweet from him.

  She wanted to keep him neatly compartmentalized.

  “Let’s go back to my apartment.”

  “If that’s what you want.”

  “That would be why I suggested it,” she snapped, then instantly felt bad. He hadn’t done anything wrong. She knew that. “Sorry.”

  “Are you okay, Emily?”

  “Fine.” But she was lying. To herself. To Meghan. To him. She might want to stay in control of her feelings for Lucas, but to think that was what she was doing was just downright hilarious.

  She laughed. Then again.

  “How many of those did you have?”

  Not realizing what he meant at first, she thought of the empty soda glass she’d left on the table. “One.”

  “Lightweight,” he accused, one corner of his mouth tugging upward.

  “I’m not drunk. I told you, it was soda.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I wouldn’t have sex with a drunk woman.”

  “Not ever?”

  “Never. Where’s the pleasure in that?”

  “Is that what sex is about to you?” she asked. “Pleasure?”