by Julie Kenner
He met her eyes, serious, intent. “So you believe the curse is true?”
It was a discussion they’d had every year and every year, she was just as uncomfortable. However, she knew enough to keep her impassive-doctor face in place. “It doesn’t matter whether it exists or not. Even without a curse, you’d still end up in my E.R. on April One because you have to be all Mr. Stupid-Head. It’d be flattering to think this is all an elaborate and painful ruse to get my attention, but I don’t think it is.”
Damn it.
“If I wanted to get your attention, you’d know,” he told her, flashing her a smile that indicated he had some ideas. Possibly involving the loss of clothing. Instantly her blood pressure spiked, and Jenna worked to remember who she was. A doctor. Professional. Detached. Capable of coherent speech no matter what sort of debauched images were rolling around in her head.
“Cam, next year, stay home.”
“I’m not going to let it beat me,” he said, the smile disappearing from his face.
Jenna stared pointedly at the sling on his arm. “It’s already beat you.”
Before he could argue more, her pager beeped, and she shot him a long, frustrated look, because all of her brilliant advice was passing straight through that stubborn head.
Some of her concern must have seeped through, because then Cam leaned over to kiss her cheek, a patronizing yet still sweet gesture. However, Jenna was no fool.
She twisted and found herself mouth to mouth—exactly as she intended. His lips moved over hers, warm, persuasive, instantly morphing from surprise to seduction with an ease that spoke of an ego-shattering amount of practice. His fingers lifted to her throat, an oddly intimate touch that stoked her more than most of her sexual experiences.
When he pulled away, she was pleased to see the dilated pupils, the shallow breathing. Exactly as she intended.
Now, she told herself, say something provocative and sexy. However, Doctor McSlutty was nowhere in the building.
Her pager beeped again, and he waved his good hand. “See you next year.”
They were the cocky and dismissive words of a fool, and Jenna fisted her hands in her coat before she hit something—or someone.
“No,” she snapped, ignoring the curious looks of the staff. It wasn’t often she lost it with a patient, but so what? She was human. Mostly.
“I don’t want to see you next year,” she lectured in her best I-Am-God voice. “Be a stranger.”
At first she thought her words were falling on deaf ears, and she turned to walk away. However, she could feel the heat of his eyes on her, thinking, considering. It probably wouldn’t make a bit of difference, but at least she’d tried.
Tried? That wasn’t trying. If she really wanted to make a difference, she needed to do something more. Something risky. Something daring. Something she’d always wanted to do.
Then, while her stomach was still convulsing with the aftereffects of sexual palpitations, Dr. Jenna Ferrar got a bold and slightly idiotic idea.
She’d have to wait three hundred and sixty-four days before implementation, but some things were worth waiting for.
Her fingers brushed over her lips, still feeling the heat. Yes. It was definitely idiotic, but even worse, three hundred and sixty-four-days was a long, long time away…
2
March 31: 364 days later
IT WAS ABOUT TIME. Cam watched as the steel girders were hoisted into the blue skies and smiled with satisfaction as he always did at the start of a new site.
Sure, the building wasn’t going to be a New York City landmark, but it would be a perfect low-rent apartment complex that was sorely needed. Time to call it a day, because there was lots to do before tomorrow. After he checked in with the foreman, he packed up the plans and was headed toward the subway when one of the crew called after him.“Hey, Cam. Try and come back in one piece this time.”
Cam grinned, holding up his middle finger, a symbol of so many things in his life. He never came back in one piece, but he always came back. All of the other Franklins feared the curse, but not Cam. Nope, he embraced it. He taunted it. Did anybody think that some ancient hoodoo was going to alter his lifestyle? No way in hell. Sure, his partners thought he was a bit light in the head, but Cam didn’t mind. He’d rather be stupid than whipped. This way, by taunting the gods, he took the day on his terms.
Tomorrow was powerboat racing. Forty knots, the slap of the ocean spray on your face, and plumes of water that rose like a geyser. Cam looked up at the skyline, at the towering line of structures that didn’t take shit from anyone or anything.
It was why he’d chosen civil engineering. Building things, defying gravity, man over anything that got in his way.
The way it was meant it to be.
In short order, the crowded and ever-efficient New York subway system had him back at his apartment, washing the day’s grime from his skin.
The boat race was out on Long Island, far away from the city, and he was going to miss the annual walk of shame into the St. Catherine’s E.R. Actually, he was going to miss Dr. Jenna Ferrar, with that long, dark hair, those sexy Dr. Dominatrix eyes, and the lean, tight curves that even a lab coat couldn’t hide.
Just the memory of her—actually, it was more the memory of a naked her—made him painfully hard, and because he conveniently happened to be in the shower, he took matters into his own hand, capping off the day, and exorcising her memory all in one fell swoop.
A thousand times he’d nearly trekked in on his own, merely to see if she was there, see if she wanted to get a cup of coffee, see if she wanted to come home with him, but he always left it alone.
There were women he dated, women he slept with, women he took to a club, but they all ended up three dates and out. In his heart, Cam knew that one day he wasn’t going to come home in one piece. You could only cross fate so often, but damn it, he wasn’t going to play a victim, either. Hiding out like his sister Devon? Letting the tension eat at him like a disease. Not in this lifetime.
Cam was clean, packed and ready to sit down with a cold beer when the buzzer rang. Immediately he glanced at his watch, but 8:00 p.m. was too early for the really crap stuff to start. It was four hours to midnight, four hours before hell night began.
The bell ringer was probably some lost salesman, or a package for a neighbor. Curious, he punched the call button.
“Got a visitor, Mr. Franklin. She says to tell you it’s Jenna. Personally, I would advise you to let her up, sir, even if you don’t know her, if you know what I mean.”
Jenna? He only knew one Jenna. The doc. Here?
Whoa.
His eyes scanned the apartment for female unsuitables. Finding none, he snagged a shirt from the closet and shrugged into it, buttoning it up to something approaching nonslob.
He pressed the call button. “Send her up, Carlton.”
“Good luck, Mr. Franklin. You should know I’m a very jealous man.”
March 31, 8:00 p.m.
JENNA’S HEART was beating somewhere that was anatomically impossible when Cam opened the door. It was strange to see him without a cast, or brace, or pale from loss of blood.
Tonight, he looked hale, hearty, able to fulfill her every fantasy, which for Jenna was quite extensive. The demands of the medical profession didn’t allow much in the way of a satisfactory sex life. A date here, a quickie there (usually regretted) and long nights alone with her romance novels and other electronic accoutrements to aid in keeping her de-stressed.Her stress levels began to rise, mainly due to the way he stared at her. His dark eyes tracing over her with an X-ray vision that could see through her Burberry trench coat, see through her attractive and cleavage-augmenting red dress, see through the brand-new black demi-bra and matching panty, see straight through to her nipples, which were currently jutting out like twin torpedoes. It was a perfectly natural reaction, she reminded herself—a scientific justification that did absolutely no good in easing her awkwardness.
He looked a
t her, curiously, appreciatively. “I rate house calls?”
“It’s not a house call,” she answered. It was almost the truth. “I knew you’d be in tomorrow and I thought I’d get all the paperwork out of the way first. You know, avoid any problems that might arise.”
At the feeble, somewhat porno-sounding premise, his eyes gleamed, seeming to say, “I know why you’re here.” It was not a comfortable moment for a woman who had won the Mayers-Andrews Fellowship, not that she expected anything different. In fact, she reminded herself, it was exactly the animalistic reaction she had planned on, which soothed her ego but did nothing to ease the nipple-peak.
Down, girls.
“Come on in,” he invited, like the spider to the fly. Of course, that would mean that he was the fly, because this was her plan, so why didn’t she feel like the spider? No, she definitely felt like the fly.
Yeesh, she was rambling. In a completely fly-like move, she wrapped her arms across her chest, above the nips, above the bra, above the dress, above the trench coat.
It didn’t help.
Quickly she scurried into his apartment. “I can’t stay very long,” she told him with a nervous smile, flicking her hair back, wondering if he’d noticed that she had the ends trimmed.
Don’t think about the hair, she thought. Don’t think about the man. Instead she focused on the array of sporting equipment that lined the wall. There were baseball bats, an assortment of balls, a tennis racket and bag of golf clubs, but no pads or helmets. In fact, there were no safety devices at all.
“Quite the athlete.”
“I have some excess energy. It helps.” He moistened his lips, and she caught the movement, her eyes drawn, glued, until she blinked her vision free.
“Would you like a drink?” he offered politely, walking into the small kitchen that was off the main room, leaving her alone.
“Water, please,” she called, thinking that sobriety might be a good thing.
“I have wine,” he said, poking his head back into the room. “A few years ago, I went ballooning in Napa. The vineyards felt bad after the accident, so they sent me a few cases. It’s really good stuff.”
“I’ll take it.”
“You can take off your coat,” he yelled from the kitchen. A perfectly courteous remark that did not mean strip. Still, Jenna hesitated, then told herself she was being way too prudish for someone who had prepared a whole year for this grand seduction.
Quickly she slid the trench coat off, adjusted her boobs, straightened her dress, sat on the couch and crossed her legs in her most attractive pose.
When Cam reentered the room, he paused, taking in the legs, the dress, the boobs. The pause grew longer, and Jenna noted the pronounced swelling beneath his jeans, indicating growing sexual arousal. A small sound emerged from her throat. In layman’s terms, they called it a moan.
Okay, the plan was working.
In his hands were two glasses and a bottle of cabernet. An entire bottle was good. It said, Linger, kick back, let me climb underneath your clothes.
“Wow, you look very nice without a lab coat. Your dress, I mean. Very attractive.”
“It’s just something I—” picked out four months ago “—threw on.” She lifted the glass to her lips, gulped, feeling the warmth of the alcohol being absorbed in her blood. Actually, it was medically impossible for the lightheadedness and fever to be caused by alcohol, not this fast. But she blamed it on the drink anyway.
“You have the paperwork?” he asked, seemingly not affected by the alcohol at all.
Jenna licked her lips and he noticed. She leaned over to get the forms from her purse, and her neckline gaped, possibly exposing a hint of black lace that she hadn’t planned on exposing this early, but he noticed, and she noticed that he noticed.
She fumbled in her purse, digging past the condoms, lotions and handcuffs, until her fingers clasped the papers. Hands trembling, she pushed them toward him.
“You seem nervous,” he stated, a completely obvious statement that didn’t need to be put out there for public consumption. Jenna had been a National Merit Scholar, scored 10.3 on the MAC and won a prestigious (somewhat) prize for medical service. In light of her other accomplishments, did she have to be a genius at seduction, as well? No.
“I think I have the beginnings of a cold. Chills. Fever.” She sniffed. “Congestion.”
“Sorry.”
“It’ll pass.”
“Do you want me to fill these out?” he asked her, glancing at the papers.
“I think it would be more efficient, don’t you?”
“Actually, you made the trip for nothing. I’m not going to be in the city tomorrow. The boat race is way out, the tip of Long Island. It’s about four hours from here.”
Completely oblivious to how easily he had decimated her plans, Cam handed the papers back to her, an artless smile playing on his lips.
Bastard.
So now what, genius?
“Have you checked out the hospitals in the area? Southampton has a good trauma unit. Most boat injuries are head injuries or drownings. Have you considered that you might get chopped up in a propeller?”
Undaunted, he clicked her glass. “To not getting chopped up in a propeller.”
Normally, her patients nodded and wrote down her instructions, word for word. People did not argue with their doctors. They did not disagree with them, or doubt their ability to know all. Except for Cam.
It was time for a more direct approach. Pleading, in fact.
“Cam, don’t go.”
He pushed a hand through the thick thatch of hair, exposing a tense jaw, and angry eyes. Obviously he took his life risks seriously.
“That’s why you’re here? To talk me out of this?”
Jenna thought about denying it, but that would involve confessing deeper, darker secrets involving sexual motivations. No, copping to the easier answer seemed best.
“That was my first approach, yes.”
“It won’t work.”
Yes, she was beginning to get that.
Boldly, she gulped down the last of the wine and conquered her nerves. She was thirty-one, not thirteen. He found her attractive—dare she say it, highly attractive. Gathering her courage, she inhaled deeply, breasts rubbing against cool silk and lace. It was erotic. It was liberating. Doctor Sugarpants was in.
“Then I’m on to Plan B,” she said in a silky voice. Emboldened, she pulled the band from her hair, shaking it loose, and she noticed the way his hands bit into his thighs. Hard.
It was about time the patient respected the doc.
“What’s Plan B?” he asked.
She shot him a half smile and coughed discreetly.
“Sex.”
3
TAKING ADVANTAGE OF her momentary adrenaline rush, Jenna stripped her dress over her head and flung it on the other side of the couch. When she was finished, she braced her arm across the back of his couch and gave him a smoldering look, a Penthouse siren in black lace bra, panties and sheer black hose. There was no man alive who could resist her.
Across from her, Cam sat. Frozen. Resisting her.Keep the adrenaline moving. Flowing. Ignore the icy chill. You’re a siren. Be the siren. You play God on a daily basis. How hard can this be?
Still he sat.
In her highly overworked mind, this whole evening had gone much differently. For instance, in her version of how everything would play out, he would have ripped her clothes off immediately.
Where was the ripping?
“Don’t you have anything to say?” she asked, and yes, there might be been a quiver in her voice.
“I think I swallowed my tongue.”
“Then it’s very convenient that I’m a trained professional,” she answered. Some of her nerves were starting to ease. Now they were talking. Now he was falling into line.
“Dr. Ferrar…” he started, and she held up a hand.
“Excuse me, but when a woman is in your living room in her underwear, it’s
best to drop the formalities.”
“Jenna.”
It pleased her to hear him say it. The way his voice got deep and rumbled in his throat.
“Yes?”
“I don’t think this is a good idea.”
“I know it’s not a good idea, but it’s the best one I have.”
There was an odd look on his face, uncomfortable and annoyed. Finally, he spit it out. “I don’t like being a mercy fuck.”
Mercy fuck? Jenna could only stare. He had no idea how long she had worked with a personal trainer. The lengths she had gone to to find the exact perfect lingerie. Yes, she might be a doctor, committed to the caring and compassion, but compassion only went so far. As far as Jenna was concerned, there was compassion and then there was sex, and never the twain shall meet.
“There is no mercy involved.” Except perhaps for that moment when he was pounding inside of her, and she was begging and pleading for mercy….
“I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to keep me here. It’s flattering and really bighearted, but seriously, I’m not your personal mission.”
Did he truly believe that, or was this some devious, underhanded way of subverting her authority and going about his own merry way, terrorizing emergency rooms everywhere?
Jenna studied the innocent gleam in his eye, and decided that yes, this man was devious, underhanded and stubborn.
She chose her words carefully.
“Don’t be so stupid. You are a man. A sexual being. If you sit there rejecting my advances, then I’ll have no choice but to assume that either I’m repulsive or you’re gay.”
The innocent little twinkle faded, and he cupped his burgeoning crotch. “Not gay.” She glared and he backtracked even further. “And you’re not repulsive. Not even close.”
“Glad to get that out of the way, but I’m a little out of my depth here. Yes, I’m willing to strip and portray myself as a woman of loose morals and yogalike flexibility. But for the record, it won’t be pretty. It won’t be graceful, but it would be heartfelt.”
“I think it’d be real pretty,” he murmured, a flattering bit of awe in his voice. It was about time he showed some appreciation for a naked, not repulsive woman in his living room.