Pregnant by the Playboy Surgeon

by Lucy Ryder

  “You have no idea what I want, Dani,” he said deeply, pressing a kiss to her naked shoulder. “But I think we can safely say that I’d be an idiot if I didn’t want more of what just happened.”

  She jerked her shoulder irritably. “That’s just sex, Dylan,” she scoffed, and he fought not to feel offended by her quick dismissal of what had been the best sex of his life.

  “Pretty spectacular sex,” he reminded her with a trace of humor, smug satisfaction rising in him when she gave a helpless little shiver at the reminder.

  Damn, he wanted her again, he admitted silently. She was soft and warm and, despite the driving need to toss her back onto that bed and remind her just how spectacular it had been, more than anything he wanted her trust. He wanted her to relax, to laugh. He wanted her to open herself to him, to turn to him when demons kept her awake at night.

  Discovering a yearning inside him for all that left him reeling. They’d only just met, he told himself. It would be insane to think this was anything more than what it was: two sexually compatible people having spectacular sex.

  Dylan tightened his arms and inhaled the scent of warm, sexy woman. If this was all she would take from him, he decided, then he’d focus on giving it to her. For now.

  He continued to nuzzle her neck until his patience was rewarded. Her body slowly relaxed against him, although she didn’t turn and she didn’t try to touch him. Relieved, he brushed a kiss against the tender curve between her neck and shoulder.

  Beneath the scent of his soap he could smell both of them. He could smell a unique fragrance that was all her, and the discovery made him want to imprint his scent on her as much as he feared hers was imprinted on him.

  Hungry for more, he licked her skin, enjoying the taste of warm freshness overlaid with the faint saltiness of exertion.

  A shiver moved through her. She tilted her head to one side to give him more room to run his mouth up to nibble on the tender skin beneath her ear. Mouth curving against her skin, he buried his face in the soft cloud of dark curls, tenderly running his hands up and down her arms, warming her chilled skin.

  Finally she gave a ragged sigh and turned to him, her hands leaving a line of fire across his pecs and down his abdomen. She brushed her mouth across his nipple, small white teeth emerging to nip at the tight bud.

  He shuddered. The feel of her mouth on him ratcheted up his hunger until he felt as if he hadn’t recently experienced that explosive, bone-melting orgasm. And, with his legs threatening to buckle, he swung her into his arms, determined this time to taste the long elegant line of her spine down to those sexy little dimples. He would taste her secret places and watch her face as he thrust into her body.

  He wanted to be staring into her soul when she shattered.

  * * *

  It was just sex, Dani told herself for the hundredth time. Incredible, mind-blowing sex it was true but just sex. And now it was over. She could go back to being on the wagon and enjoy being alone.

  And maybe if she repeated that to herself enough she might begin to believe it. She might feel amazingly alive for the first time in her life—alive, consumed and possessed—but that didn’t mean he wanted anything more than she did.

  He lived in his world; she lived in hers.

  But if it was difficult to forget the incredible sex—an amazing first for her—what had come after was even harder. He’d teased and cajoled her to spend the day with him, and before she knew it, it was two on Monday morning and she was limp as a rag doll from yet another mind-blowing orgasm.

  She’d lost track of how many she’d had—a miracle in itself, considering she’d believed herself incapable. As she’d lain there, boneless and mindless, it had dawned on her that anything that came after would be anti-climactic.

  He’d been wonderful, so sexy and romantic, and he’d made her laugh. It was the first time anyone had made her laugh as well as sigh while he was buried deep inside her body.

  Nothing had ever come close to this intense feeling of rightness, and she was afraid that if she stayed she would start thinking that it was more than just sex. Because, despite her determination to keep it simple, she’d found herself sharing stuff about her family, about growing up geeky and nerdy and largely ignored by boys because she was shy and smart.

  When he’d said he wouldn’t have ignored her, she’d scoffed. “Girls like me are invisible to boys like you.”

  “Boys like me are idiots,” he’d said, and when she’d rolled her eyes he’d gone on to tell her about why he’d needed to get away after losing his grandfather and a close childhood friend so close together. Working aboard the Mercy Ship, he’d admitted, had opened his eyes to the plight of children in war-torn countries and he was determined to do something to help.

  How could she not be swept away when he was so darn likeable? Not just wickedly funny but dry and insightful. And then there was that incredibly sweet streak.

  He’d likely be horrified that she thought him sweet but what else could she think when a man made time for a lonely neighbor on the houseboat moored at the next berth? Or answered the endless questions Hilda Frauenbach peppered him with about poisons found in Africa and whether the African pygmy was hostile?

  She’d found herself watching, waiting for the mask to crack and the impatience to show but it hadn’t. Either he was better at hiding his emotions than most people, or he really was what he seemed.

  How did a woman resist a man who was amazingly patient and affectionate outside of bed and so thrillingly impatient in it? A man who spoke of his family in a way that told her of the deep love and respect he had for them. A man who didn’t ridicule her opinions or force his on her. A man who respected her reticence even as he tempted her to throw caution to the wind.

  He’d told her about the woman he’d met on the Mercy Ship and how she’d tried to pass off another man’s baby as his, laughing when Dani expressed her outrage.

  “I’m lucky,” he’d said, smiling sleepily down at her. “If I hadn’t overheard Simone bragging to that nurse I might not have been there to rescue you from that killer puddle.”

  She’d rolled her eyes but her belly had jittered nervously at the implication that he was glad he’d been there that night when she didn’t know how she felt. She’d told him how she’d met Richard and hinted at bits of her marriage but she couldn’t—wouldn’t ever—tell him about the bad stuff because it was her shameful secret.

  And if something inside her had trembled in envy when he’d talked about wanting the kind of relationship his parents and grandparents had, Dani ignored it and allowed him to sweep her up into a fantasy of shared laughter, hot glances and mind-blowing sex.

  With him wrapped around her, his deep, even breathing disturbing tendrils of damp hair at her temple, she tried to ignore the panic that had crept up on her until she couldn’t breathe.

  Old insecurities came flooding back, until it was all she could do not to run screaming into the night. She waited until his hold loosened and then she slid quietly away. Like a memory.

  Because that was all their weekend could ever be: a time out of time. She was back on the wagon and they were back to being just neighbors and colleagues.

  Yep. Neighbors and colleagues. Exactly as it was supposed to be.

  Now all she had to do was convince herself that was what she wanted. She was back on the wagon and... Well, memories—the kind they’d made these past two days—were better than regrets.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  DYLAN HADN’T BEEN surprised when he’d awakened on Monday morning to find himself alone and the bed beside him cold.

  For just a moment he’d thought he’d imagined the whole weekend. Then he told himself he’d go and find her in the kitchen, brewing coffee and burning eggs. She’d be dressed in nothing but his T-shirt, looking adorably rumpled as she frowned down at the scrambled mess she’d made of breakfast.

&nbs
p; He’d pull her back against his chest and slide his hands beneath the baggy shirt where he’d find warm, supple curves and soft, slender woman. Then he’d kiss her neck and inhale the fragrance of heated feminine skin. At his touch she’d give a delicious shiver, before turning to lift her mouth to his. Then he’d kiss her, lift her onto the counter and press his morning erection between her open thighs.

  But even as the image appeared he knew without being told that the houseboat was empty of her. Empty and quiet. And the prospect of long, languid kisses and lazy morning sex became nothing but a fantasy.

  He’d think their whole weekend nothing but a fantasy if not for the scent of her on his sheets—and on his skin, he thought, sniffing his arm. She’d burrowed beneath it, dug sharp claws into his gut and chest and left without a thought.

  Anger moved through him as it dawned on him just how empty his life was when he’d thought himself content. He had an amazing family who loved him and a career on the fast track. His professional life was busy and fulfilling and—he cursed and shoved a shaky hand through his hair—his personal life sucked.

  Damn. He should have known yesterday, when she’d become more and more distant, that she’d been subtly pulling away even as he’d tried to bind her more tightly to him—to seduce her with pieces of his life, with laughter over his fumbled ten-year-old attempts at being a cool man about town and shared intimacies.

  Perhaps that had been what had spooked her. Dani was afraid of being truly intimate.

  With him? Or with any man?

  Not the intimacy of sex, he mused, stomping around his houseboat in a rare flash of masculine pique. Once she’d overcome her initial fear of disappointing him she’d been generous and wildly passionate. But she’d shared very little of her emotions or the real reason her marriage had failed. And it was there he knew he would find the answers to the mystery that was Danielle Stevens.

  Her ex had certainly done a number on her, he thought with growing anger. He’d made her believe she wasn’t good enough, that she had little to offer a man. He’d all but stripped a vibrant, generous woman of her confidence in her own femininity and convinced her that she was better off alone.

  Dylan had grown up in a house full of women. He didn’t consider himself a particularly sensitive man—he had too much testosterone for that—but he couldn’t understand the need some men had to break a woman down. Strip her of everything that made her such a delightful bundle of contradictions.

  He wasn’t stupid. He knew such men existed. But he’d never understood them. Never understood their need to belittle, to grind away at someone’s confidence in themselves.

  And Dani...? He recalled the sound of her laughter and the way it had made him feel the first time it had bubbled from her throat. That irrepressible gurgle of mirth had made him feel ten feet tall, because he’d been the one to draw it out of her.

  Then she’d slipped away without a word, and left him feeling as though she’d taken all the sunshine, all the warmth with her. It made him angry. More with himself because he’d slipped under her spell as easily as she’d burrowed beneath his skin.

  In one weekend, damn it.

  But Dylan wasn’t a St. James for nothing. He wasn’t about to give up and he’d be damned if he’d allow anyone to come between him and the woman he wanted. Even the woman herself. And if he wanted Danielle Stevens, in his bed and in his life, more than he’d ever wanted anything—any woman—before, all he had to do was convince her to fall off the wagon with him again.

  Piece of cake.

  If only he could get her to answer her phone or return his damn messages.

  * * *

  Dani had taken to hiding in the ER supply room. She knew it was a cowardly thing to do but she couldn’t face Dylan until she had her feelings firmly locked down or people would take one look at her and know that she’d had wild, uninhibited sex with the hot-shot surgeon.

  Heat swept through her body and burned in her cheeks. Oh boy. If just the memory had her sweating in indecent places, she could imagine what would happen if she found herself face to face with him in company.

  She’d never met a man who could so easily make her forget that she had good reason to avoid relationships. Or one who refused to acknowledge their very temporary arrangement.

  Besides, he had dozens of women calling him, “accidentally” bumping into him wherever he went—even when she’d been with him, for heck’s sake. Granted, he hadn’t seemed to notice or care, she recalled with a secret thrill. Instead he’d focused all his attention on her, which made him either very well brought up or very, very sneaky. What woman wouldn’t find all that attention flattering and just a little bit intoxicating?

  She certainly had.

  But it would be really stupid to think it meant anything more—that he wanted anything more. And Dani had already used up her quota of stupid for one lifetime. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—let herself forget that it hadn’t meant anything more than a weekend of fun.

  So she’d ignored his calls and texts, hoping he’d get the message, give up and spare her the humiliation when he eventually moved on. Because that was what guys like him did. They moved on.

  Unfortunately her heart and her body didn’t get the message, and kept insisting that she answer his calls. Fortunately she’d been swamped with work whenever he came around and when she hadn’t been she’d managed quite neatly to avoid him.

  Even as she’d congratulated herself for handling the weekend with such modern sophistication she’d struggled with the emotional fall-out. She was, she discovered, entirely unsuited for one-night stands—one-weekend stands. What she was suited for, however, didn’t matter, because she’d been the one to insist on a one-time thing and she always tried to keep her word.

  Besides, she reminded herself, she had very little to offer a man like Dylan, and thinking that she might be falling for him was dangerous and stupid.

  So stupid that she was hiding out in the supply room, trying to convince herself that everything was back to normal. She rolled her eyes. If you could call sneaking in and out of her own home the past ten days normal. Or letting his calls go to voicemail. She couldn’t even think how his number had got onto her phone.

  She was back on the wagon, she told herself firmly, back to living like a nun and loving every minute of it. Really. She could do whatever she liked, whenever she liked, and there was no one to distract her from doing it. Things like her laundry. Things like cleaning out the refrigerator, giving herself a homemade facial or scrubbing her bathroom to within an inch of its life...for the third time in less than two weeks.

  And she’d spent a delightful, if unplanned weekend with her parents on Vancouver Island, telling herself that she wasn’t running away. She wasn’t falling for him and she wasn’t avoiding him.

  The only reason she hadn’t deleted his voice messages was because she’d been too busy. And if she listened again to the sound of his voice, especially late at night, it wasn’t because she was reliving the weekend like a giddy adolescent with her first crush.

  It certainly wasn’t because she was crushing on Dylan St. James just like every other woman at St. Mary’s. That would be beyond embarrassing. Not to mention really stupid. She was a mature, professional physician who could have a brief, steamy affair with a hot guy without getting her emotions or her heart involved.

  That particular organ had been killed off by her marriage and it wasn’t likely ever to be resuscitated. And certainly not for a pair of wicked green eyes, a deep bedroom voice that slid into her secret places and a mouth that could tempt an angel to fall from grace.

  Nope. Nuh-uh. Not likely.

  Besides, how could an intelligent woman possibly fall for a man she’d known less than two months? It was impossible—not to mention ridiculous. Despite all signs to the contrary and despite her friends’ and colleagues’ concern at her distraction.

&nb
sp; An ER doctor couldn’t afford to be distracted, even during the graveyard shift on a night so slow that she’d checked her phone no less than forty-six times—apparently Amy had counted—for new messages, before escaping to the storeroom.

  But, then again, Dylan hadn’t called or texted her for three days.

  Fine, she admitted, frowning at the packages of wet dressings on the shelf. Three days, seventeen hours and fifty-two minutes. Clearly he’d moved on. The jerk.

  Pressing a hand to her queasy stomach, she rearranged the packages and counted them—for the third or was it the fourth time? She was muttering to herself when she heard the door open and close. Thinking that Amy—the woman gave determined and obstinate a bad name—had resorted to cornering her there, Dani sighed.

  “Amy, I’m fine,” she growled with extreme exasperation, glad she was hidden amongst the rows of shelving. “For the ten millionth time, I am fine. I’m a little under the weather but I do not have any dreadful disease that requires a visit to a physician.” She sucked in an irritated breath. “I don’t have a brain tumor and I am not pining away for any Y-chromosome with hot green eyes and a sexy butt!”

  She paused in her rant to scowl at the tablet she was checking against the supplies. She ground her teeth together when she caught movement out the corner of her eye.

  “You need to get laid,” she said irascibly, turning to face Amy. “Focus on your own sex life and not—Dylan!”

  To say she was surprised to see him propped up against the end of the row of shelves in his scrubs was an understatement.

  She gave a shocked shriek and tumbled backward, her scrabbling fingers missing the wooden shelving completely and sweeping several boxes of syringes and surgical gloves onto the floor, along with half the neatly arranged wet dressing packages.