Chapter 1 #2
‘Look… I’m tired. I’ve worked all night and I’d like to go to sleep now but, in case you haven’t noticed, there’s a blizzard happening out there, and my apartment is freezing, and I have no desire to die of hypothermia in my sleep.’
He grins, flashing those dimples one more time. He actually grins. ‘You doctors.’ He shakes his head and makes a tsking sound. ‘Always with the big words.’
My nipples love that tsking sound. They’re under a billion layers of clothing and bedding, yet still, they perk right on up as if his lips have tsked directly against them.
Traitors.
Annoyed at this development, I cross my arms. Not that Danny can possibly see their reaction to his teasing, but I haven’t entirely ruled out the prospect that the man has been gifted with X-ray vision along with his many other attributes.
Either way, my erect nipples are none of his business.
I smile sweetly. ‘I’ll try to keep my words to one syllable in future.’
Not remotely insulted, the smile hovers on his lips. ‘It’ll probably be an easy fix.’ He pushes off the doorjamb. ‘Come in.’
Ordinarily, I would have stayed on his doorstep. A smart woman like me knows to keep the hell away from temptation, and Danny Colton is temptation wrapped up in glittery paper and tied in a big red bow. But it’s warm in there and the corridor is cold, and I’m too tired to fight biology.
I take a step into his apartment. It’s toasty, but I barely register it, bracing myself instead for the urge to strip off my clothes and demand that Danny do me – which in all honesty is my main concern about crossing his threshold.
When it doesn’t happen, I relax. When I realise he’s disappeared somewhere, I relax a little more.
Of course my nipples are still misbehaving. I tweak them under all those layers in an effort to settle them down. It doesn’t help. If anything, they get stiffer, and things stir high and deep between my legs like I’ve somehow just tweaked my own G spot.
Great – I’m turning myself on. In the lair of a sex god. I must be really tired.
‘You stay here.’
I startle as Danny reappears suddenly and pull my hands off my breasts in case he can see what’s happening beneath the duvet. He’s put on a hoodie, which he’s zipped up, and he’s carrying a large rectangular leather tool bag in one hand, which I know belongs to Bob.
‘I won’t be long,’ he continues, oblivious to my turmoil. Or at least I hope he is.
‘Oh no.’ I shake my head. ‘I’m coming with you.’
‘Doc.’
My breath hitches. He hasn’t called me that before, and man… it does funny things to my equilibrium. It shouldn’t. It’s not like I don’t get called it about a hundred times a shift, but it sounds like a cute nickname on his lips. And that’s all kinds of titillating.
‘I have to go to the basement.’ He says it slowly, like maybe I’m the one out of us that needs small syllables. ‘It’ll be cold as a witch’s tit down there.’
I blink at his profanity. I don’t use those kinds of words myself. Usually. Not that I’m offended when it comes from others. Lord knows, I’ve been sworn at by patients too many times to count. It’s just that my mother always told me cussing was for people who had poor vocabularies.
A shame she never told me what a huge turn-on it could be.
‘I know. Hence…’ I look down my body to indicate the reason I’m dressed as if I’m wearing every article of clothing in my closet is because of the basement.
‘If it’s a quick fix, then you can teach me how to do it.
That way I won’t need to belt on your door every time my heating decides to go hinky. ’
No way do I want to rely on Danny freaking Colton any more than I have to. And why should I bother Bob in future if it’s something simple?
‘You want to get busy with my tools?’
He’s laughing at me, but I refuse to rise to the bait.
I have no doubt he can flummox me with sexual banter, especially given how tired I am, but he can’t if I don’t engage.
‘I’ve operated on people’s brains and hearts with highly complex surgical instruments.
’ I might be in the ER now, but I’ve done my surgical rotation.
‘I’m pretty sure I can handle a screwdriver. ’
He smiles bigger. ‘Well, this I gotta see.’
He indicates for me to precede him, and I sweep out of the room as regally as I can in my floral duvet and pink pompom beanie. The door clicks shut behind me as I turn in the direction of the stairs.
‘We have to take the elevator.’ His voice stops me in my tracks. ‘The damp down there has rotted the wood in the stairs. I put my foot through one last night and nearly fell on my ass all the way down. I’ve cordoned them off. I’ll fix them as soon as the storm stops and I can go get the stuff.’
Turning back in his direction, I try not to think about Danny down in the basement, a tool belt slung low on his hips, getting all covered in sawdust as he repairs the treads.
His back view doesn’t help. His ass in those jeans is like something out of an anatomy textbook – two tight, taut buttocks – and I want to strip him just to admire the musculature.
A great set of glutes is a magnificent thing.
I blink at the direction of my thoughts.
What am I doing? Has my brain completely checked out?
This isn’t the set of a porn film. I must be in the delirious stage of sleep deprivation.
I give myself a mental shake and drag my gaze off his ass, going wide-screen now.
The ease of his swagger as he ambles down the corridor with those perfect glutes is suddenly irritating, and I remember the other thing I find irksome about him.
The man never seems to be in a hurry to get anywhere.
Like he has all the time in the world and the world will just wait for him, anyway. For someone who’s always busy, it’s really freaking annoying.
There are never enough hours in my day to fit everything in.
At work, there’s rarely a moment to recoup before the next thing comes along, even in the middle of the night.
And if there is a weird lull, I fill it with paperwork.
I eat on the run, see patients on the run, take calls on the run.
Hell, I rarely even get to go to the restroom.
So yeah. I really, really resent this guy for his sexy, what’s-your-rush-baby swagger.
He halts at the elevator, and I shuffle past him to stand on the other side of the doors.
The hallway is silent, its usual Monday morning buzz eerily absent.
No one is going to work today. Everyone from the head honcho meteorologist to the police chief to the mayor has urged people to stay indoors until the blizzard blows over.
The elevator dings and the doors slide open to reveal a sparkling, spotless interior. The cleaning service would have done their thing last night and, what with the weather and all, I doubt anybody’s ridden in it since. Danny indicates that I should precede him, so I do.
It’s a large space – registered for twenty people – and warm.
Or maybe that’s just the heat flowing to my cheeks and buzzing through my thighs as I immediately claim the furthest corner right at the back.
Danny smirks as he saunters inside and plants that ass against the wooden railing nearest the buttons, obviously amused by my distance.
Pushing the button that says B, he turns his head to look at me. ‘Going down?’
I cock a sarcastic eyebrow at his suggestive remark. At least, I hope it’s sarcastic and not a come-closer-and-say-that eyebrow my traitorous body has formed without my consent. He just smiles as the doors close, but holy moly… my head is full of images of going down.
Of me going down on him. Him going down on me.
The elevator shrinks suddenly, and he seems to fill it with his sheer physicality. I feel the pull of him from a few feet away and grip the handrail behind me to stop myself from edging closer as the numbers tick down from six.
So freaking slow.
Five. Four. Three. Two—
The elevator suddenly shudders to a stop, and the movement jolts through my knees.
The lights go out and the alarm starts to ring as the emergency lighting flickers on.
It’s subdued, but there’s enough of a glow so we’re not in total darkness.
I press a hand to my chest to still my accelerating heart, but it’s too late; it’s already in my throat.
‘The electricity must have gone out.’
He says it as calm and laid back as the rest of him, and I want to scream. I’m tired, I need my bed, and the bell is blaring like a freaking huge warning. To me, probably. I do not want to be trapped in an elevator with Mr Going Down for an indeterminate period of time.
The man looks like he knows how to pass the time.
He pins me with his gaze, his dimples deepening as his slow, lazy smile grows. ‘Whatever will we do?’