Officer, Surgeon...Gentleman!

by Janice Lynn

  Cole’s gaze met Amelia’s. She saw longing to say no in his eyes, saw that he really did want to push her back into her hotel room and watch a repeat striptease, that the last thing he wanted was their colleagues as an audience to the emotions bouncing back and forth between them tonight because too much was happening between them for there to be witnesses.

  But he said, “Sounds like fun. Are we walking or taking a cab?”

  At the bar, Amelia limited herself to one drink, sipping slowly. Tonight, she wanted to be sober, to stay awake, to remember every detail of what happened between her and Cole. She laughed at all the right times, spoke at all the right times, but her mind danced ahead, to what the night would bring, to what making love with Cole would be like.

  Heaven, she decided. Making love with him would be out of this world. Had to be since just thinking about making love with him had her on the brink of orgasm.

  “You’re not getting sleepy, are you?” Cole leaned in near her ear. His breath tickled, sending shivers over her flesh.

  Lifting her glass and taking a small sip, she shook her head. “No way. I have plans for tonight.”

  “Oh?” He sounded intrigued, his breath warm, moist against her ear. “What kind of plans?”

  “Ones involving being captured by a pirate and staying awake long into the night.”

  He glanced down at his shirt and frowned. “I’m no pirate, Amelia, and I won’t capture you. Either you’ll come to me of your own free will or nothing will happen. Not tonight. Not ever. That’s how it has to be between us. No games. No lies. Just you and me together because it’s what we both want.”

  Amelia blinked.

  He’d pursued her. She’d just told him a fantasy. And he’d changed tactics? He wanted her to come to him? Did he want her to beg again, too? But knowing how she held a grudge for past actions, maybe he was right to insist on her being the one to initiate their physical relationship.

  Actually, she knew he was.

  She didn’t like him for doing so, but she understood.

  He was giving her no wiggle room to blame him for seducing her or to say that she hadn’t wanted whatever happened between them.

  No room for guilt afterwards. Either she made the conscious decision to make love with him or they didn’t make love. The choice was hers.

  Whether he meant to or not, he was seducing her, though.

  With his eyes, his smiles, his little “accidental” touches. And then there was his leg rubbing against hers.

  Unlike the night before, he hadn’t attempted to push up her dress and touch her thigh, hadn’t stroked her flesh into a tortured mass of nerves that cried for release. No, all he was doing was pressing his leg next to hers. That was enough to fry her brain cells.

  “I will come to you, Cole. Tonight.” Admitting as much wasn’t easy, but with so many other issues between them, communication was of paramount importance. “But I’m not going to beg, do you hear?”

  “I hear.” Oblivious to the others at the table, he brushed a lock of hair off her cheek, tucking the strand behind her ear. “I’ll be the one begging tonight, Amelia.”

  His husky promise caught her off guard, melted her to her seat.

  “I want you, Cole.” Heat flushed her cheeks. “I’m not going to make you beg.”

  “But I will,” he whispered. “I’ll beg for mercy, because you wield power over who I am and I want you that much. More.”

  His words sank in and she tried them on for size.

  Maybe there was a reason they couldn’t stay away from each other despite all the reasons they should. Maybe he’d fallen for her just as she’d fallen for him.

  Even as she thought it, she knew she could never trust Cole, that at some point he’d walk away from her just as he’d done two years ago. But for the moment it was nice to bask in the glow of the magic of the promise in his eyes, in the fact that for now she was who he wanted, and they were together.

  “I want to go back to the hotel,” she admitted, not willing to wait another second. Afraid that if she did, reality would sink in and rob her of the warm feelings rushing through her.

  His brow shot up. “Now?”

  She nodded. “Let’s go.”

  They said their goodbyes to their colleagues, most of whom were enthralled in a tale Richard was telling with great animation. Amelia didn’t have a clue what he was talking about, didn’t care. All that mattered was the burning desire in Cole’s eyes.

  Desire for her.

  His palm pressed against her low back possessively, he led her across the dance floor toward the front of the bar so they could make their exit.

  Unfortunately they were only halfway across the crowded room when a fight broke out.

  Cole cursed, shaking his head in frustration. “What’s Peyton done this time?”

  Amelia’s head whipped around to see the nurse anesthetist’s fist smash into a man’s face. She winced at the impact, at the way the man’s head snapped back. Peyton reared back to hit him again. Others joined the fight, some in an attempt to break up the argument, others to get in hits of their own.

  Amelia sighed. Fights weren’t uncommon at port call. Actually, they were quite the norm. Several thousand soldiers barely out of their teens, some still in their teens, let loose with money in their pockets, too much pent-up testosterone and too much booze wasn’t a good thing under the best of circumstances.

  But Peyton wasn’t a kid. He was a highly trained anesthetist and one of their own. Cole wouldn’t leave him. Neither could she without making sure he was okay and not in need of medical attention once the fight ended. Plus, several of the men involved in the fight were USS Benjamin Franklin crewmen.

  Warning her to step back, Cole bustled his way toward where a cluster of men scuffled. Knowing she could hold her own in any fight, she followed him. By the time they reached the group, the fight had broken up. A corpsman’s face was bleeding from a cut on his cheek. Another’s nose bled profusely. Peyton rubbed his knuckles. A few others would sport bruises of various shapes and sizes come morning, but no one seemed to have suffered any critical injuries. Getting a couple of towels and ice from a bartender, Amelia went to the bleeding soldiers.

  “Here.” She handed the towel to the one with the bleeding nose. “Pinch your nostrils tightly together.”

  Using her fingers and nose, she demonstrated the proper technique. When he looked as if he might lose his balance, she shoved a bar stool toward him. “Sit down, pinch your nose like I showed you and don’t attempt to move until I tell you it’s okay.”

  He did as ordered.

  Cole was checking Peyton’s hand so Amelia turned to the soldier with the cut on his face. The slash wasn’t so deep or jagged that it required an emergency room visit, not really, but he would need a few stitches for the area to properly heal with minimal scarring.

  Which meant she or Cole, probably both, would be heading back to the ship to attend to the injured crew’s needs.

  So much for their night of sexual excess.

  A bus carried the somber group back to the ship. Although Cole’s gaze met hers a time or two, they’d not talked more than to give a rundown of casualties.

  On the bus, he sat with the soldier needing stitches and Amelia had ended up in a seat with Peyton, a plastic bag filled with melting ice plopped over his swollen hand.

  “That’s going to smart in the morning. Why did you hit that man, anyway?”

  Peyton shrugged, not saying more. He didn’t need to. The blonde she’d seen coming out of his room earlier now sat with the soldier whose nose had been broken by Peyton’s punch. She oohed and aahed over the soldier like a mother hen. Had they had a lovers’ spat and the woman had used Peyton? Or had Peyton taken advantage? Who knew?

  “You should reset his nose without any painkillers.”

  Amelia frowned at her friend. “You’re just saying that because he got the girl.”

  “He can have the girl,” Peyton scoffed. “I got the only thing I
wanted from her this afternoon.”

  Amelia winced at his crudeness. “Men are so gross.”

  “Yeah? That wasn’t the impression I got when you were looking at my boy earlier.”

  “Your boy?”

  “You know who I’m talking about.”

  “You really should be quiet before you end up in another brawl, Peyton,” she warned.

  He laughed. “Talking about Cole get you hot and bothered?”

  Half grinning, she narrowed her eyes. “Makes me fighting mad. Be quiet before it’s your nose having to be reset without painkillers.”

  Amelia set the nasal bone back into place as best she could, and left the corpsman in a bay with the blonde watching over him.

  A radiology technician had shot a few films of Peyton’s hand and he had a non-displaced fracture of his middle metacarpal. He wouldn’t need surgery, but he’d be sore for several days.

  Cole was in bay two with the soldier with the cut face. He set up a suture tray.

  “Here we are again,” she teased when she scrubbed her hands and took over the task for him. “I’ll finish setting this up. You scrub and get gloved.”

  Sending her a wry smile, he did as she asked, explaining to the man sitting on the table what he planned to do in step-by-step detail.

  “I’m going to disinfect the cut and surrounding skin first. Then I’ll numb the area with anesthetic. Once you’re numb, I’m going to use skin glue to close the laceration.”

  “Glue?” the man questioned.

  “It’s special glue made for closing certain types of cuts. When used appropriately there’s less scarring. Plus, there won’t be a need for you to return to have sutures removed.”

  The soldier shrugged. “Ain’t never had to return to no doctor to have stitches took out. Been doing it myself since I was a kid.”

  “Had a lot of accidents over the years?”

  “A few,” the man admitted, grinning. “A few fights, too.”

  When he was ready, Amelia held the edges of the wound perfectly closed while Cole ran the glue applicator over the area, creating a purplish clear coat over the cut and sealing the wound.

  When they were finished, it was too late to return to the hotel.

  “Not exactly the way we envisioned spending the night together,” she mused when they stood outside her bunk-room door.

  “We’re starting a pattern here that I can’t say I like,” he teased, bringing her hand to his mouth and kissing each of her fingers.

  “Agreed.” She laughed, feeling like a kid on her first date.

  “I wish I could stay with you tonight, Amelia.” He squeezed her hand, held on tightly. “I would if I could.”

  “Maybe next time.” But even as she said it, she wanted him to tell her to hell with rules, to hell with everything but them. Which was crazy. She didn’t really want him to tell her that. They had too much to lose to risk if they were caught.

  “Maybe.”

  She looked up into his eyes, wondering if he’d at least sneak a good-night kiss. But he straightened to his full height, gave a shake of his head.

  “Good night, Amelia.”

  “Good night, Cole.” Reluctantly, she watched him turn and go, disappointed and hoping they hadn’t missed their window of opportunity forever.

  Okay, so maybe covertly blowing a kiss at Cole when no one was looking wasn’t exactly playing fair, or even mature, but Amelia couldn’t resist it.

  Since Singapore they’d walked a fine line between flirting and keeping enough distance to not end both their careers. With every day that passed it was getting a little more difficult to recall the reasons why her career mattered so much more than being with Cole.

  Giving a wry shake of his head, he slyly winked back from across the sick ward. The flash of desire she’d seen in his eyes, the possessiveness, caused happiness to blossom inside her. Pure, deep-down happiness.

  The only blight on her happiness was the fact that, despite the looks, the stolen touches, the fact they both wanted each other desperately, they’d played by the rules and hadn’t slept together yet. Somehow.

  Which was good, because if they had done there would be hell to pay. They couldn’t, she knew they couldn’t, but, oh, how she wanted to.

  God, she wanted him, wasn’t sure how much more she could stand.

  “Dr Stanley,” she said in her most professional voice, flashing her most innocent expression, “could I see you in the medical office for a few moments, please? I need your advice on the last patient I saw.”

  Another spark shone in those blue eyes. This one caused her stomach to somersault.

  “I’ll be right there, Dr Stockton.”

  He was, closing the door behind him because he’d known. Known she needed to touch him.

  “We can’t do this,” he told her even as he pulled her to him.

  “I know.” She smiled against his mouth, flattening her palms against his chest, relishing the strength she found there. “I just needed to touch you.”

  “Amelia,” he groaned. “You’re killing me.”

  “I’m sorry.” But she wasn’t, and they both knew it. “I just look at you and have…” she stared at his mouth, bunched the material of his shirt beneath her fingers “…needs.”

  His lips twitched. “What kind of needs?”

  “This kind.” She tilted her pelvis against him, circled her arms around his neck. “The kind that makes me not be able to think about anything but how much I want you, Cole Stanley. How I ache with wanting you.”

  Another groan escaped him just as his mouth covered hers.

  Amelia kissed him back, loving how he felt, how he tasted, how he poured every ounce of his being into kissing her.

  “I want you so badly, Amelia.”

  She knew he did. She could feel just how badly digging into her belly.

  “This is torture,” he continued. “Being so close, wanting you, knowing you want me, too, and yet not being able to make love to you.”

  She knew just what he meant and nodded. “Sweet torture.”

  “There’s nothing sweet about how I feel about you.”

  “How do you feel about me?” She hadn’t meant her question to be a serious one, just a teasing one meant to elicit more comments about his sexual frustration and desire for her. Cole’s answer was serious, though.

  “Haven’t you figured that out by now, Amelia?” He cupped her face. “You’re all I think about, all I want. You are my everything.”

  “You’re my everything, too, Cole.” Unable to look away from the truth in his eyes, Amelia stroked her fingers across his precious face, worrying that she was so head over heels for Cole she’d never resurface if the ship tipped. “Now shut up and kiss me again before I go see my next patient.”

  He burst out laughing, hugged her tightly to him. “God, I love you.”

  When he kissed her, Amelia almost believed that he really meant it.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  HAVING decided she wasn’t going to sleep no matter how long she lay in bed, Amelia snuck out of her room, careful not to wake Suzie.

  She’d go to the medical office, catch up on reports, check her e-mails, anything other than just lie in bed longing to be with Cole.

  The weeks had passed by much more quickly than she would have liked. Weeks she spent every possible moment with Cole. Talking, laughing, stealing kisses, touches, sharing long looks, sharing longing for much more. By sheer determination, they’d held on to enough willpower to not go beyond kissing and hot touches.

  Very quickly their deployment was coming to an end and they’d return to the naval base in San Diego. She’d likely go to work at a mainland hospital or perhaps even at a combat support hospital overseas. Who knew where Cole would end up?

  Odds weren’t that they’d be anywhere near each other. Possibly not even on the same continent.

  Then what? Would their romance come to an end? Would they be able to steal a few days together at the base and finally make lov
e before being reassigned?

  Make love.

  Because whether she’d wanted to or not, she’d fallen for Cole.

  Okay, so if she was honest with herself, she’d admit she’d never stopped wanting him. He listened to her, took her needs into consideration, sometimes knowing what she needed more than she’d known herself.

  Amelia paused in the medical office doorway, startled to see Cole at the desk. What was he doing?

  Glancing past him to the lit computer screen, she could see his e-mail account opened. Ah, checking e-mails. The same as what she’d come to do.

  Instead, she’d found the man she wanted. For all time.

  Which scared her. How could she want Cole when he’d eventually leave her? But what if he didn’t? What if he really did love her? He’d said he did that one night. Okay, so it had only been that once and it had come out on a laugh, but that hadn’t stopped her heart from going thumpity-thump-thump.

  Just as it was going thumpity-thump-thump right now. She hadn’t counted on seeing him again tonight, hadn’t counted on getting to steal more kisses.

  God, she wanted more than just stolen kisses. She wanted hours and hours of Cole all to herself, no rules, no recriminations, no fear of dishonorable discharge.

  But stolen kisses would do. For now. She smiled, planning to walk up behind him and cover his eyes with her hands and have him guess who. Maybe she’d just lean over and kiss his nape.

  She noted the tension emanating off him.

  He studied the screen, his shoulders a bit slumped, the angle of his head low.

  Had he gotten bad news? His mother was the only family he’d ever talked about and she’d died when he’d been a teen. Suddenly worried that something was wrong and wanting to comfort him if needed, she stepped into the room.

  “Hey, stranger,” she said, smiling to hide the nervous flutters in her belly. “What’s up?”

  He straightened in his chair, taking on a stiff appearance, as if guilty of some dastardly deed. “Everything’s fine.”