Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Houston knew he needed to stop. Put an end to this conversation and walk out with his rules intact.
But he couldn’t. Josie was too appealing. She was ripe and round and breathing a little hard in the hushed small room, her eyes wide.
“I don’t know what you mean, I really, really don’t, I swear, nothing is bothering me.”
Ignoring the way her words were tumbling over each other, he reached out and ran his thumb across her bottom lip, enjoying the soft full flesh under his touch. The gesture startled her, if the two-foot leap she made was any indication. But he didn’t care.
“Dr. Hayes?”
“Call me Houston.” He didn’t want to be a doctor right this minute. He wanted to be a man. A man who was going to kiss the sexy woman in front of him.
He’d told himself he wouldn’t kiss her until she showed interest, and so maybe alarm couldn’t be classified as such, but she wasn’t smacking his hand away either.
“Houston...” She licked her lips. “We have a problem.”
His fingers stopped sliding across her cheekbone as Josie realized what she had said and giggled.
“I guess you’ve heard that one before, huh?”
There was a bright sparkle in her eyes, so adorable that he couldn’t bring himself to be annoyed the way he usually was when someone made an Apollo 13 reference. “Once or twice.” Or a thousand times. He’d lost count.
Leaning forward, he kissed the corner of her mouth, then the other. A little gasp left her, but she didn’t move away. Her lips were soft and moist from wetting them with her tongue, and they fell open as he brushed over her a third time. Right in the center, flush on her mouth with his.
Josie sighed, her mouth receptive to him, relaxed.
She tasted like apple juice, sweet and ripe, willing, and he fought to keep his eyes open and his hands off her body as he pulled back.
This wasn’t what he had intended to do with her in here. He had meant to clear the air, make sure she didn’t have a more serious problem than chronic klutziness. But he couldn’t be sorry that he’d kissed her.
Nor did he feel sorry for what he was about to propose.
“The problem, Josie, is that you’re driving me crazy.”
“I am?” She shook her head, flustered, eyes unfocused. “Oh, right, with all the dropping and the tripping. I don’t mean to, you know, it just happens.”
“That’s not what I meant.” He buried his nose in the hair by her ear and breathed in deeply. Strawberries. Damn. She was practically a fruit farm.
“I meant you’re driving me crazy because I want you.”
“Want me?” Her breath hitched, and he felt goose bumps rising on her jaw and neck, but she still didn’t pull away. “Want me for what?”
That she could even say that, so innocently, made him hard.
“I want you for this.” He plunged his hand into her short hair, drew her flush up against him, and gave her a real kiss. A lip-sliding, mouth-open, tongue-tasting kiss that had them both panting and wide-eyed.
“Oh,” she said, looking up at him before darting her eyes over to the closed door to the hallway.
He could hear the standard hustle-and-bustle, voices carrying down the hall as business went on as usual in the hospital. This was risky, inappropriate, and he was still new on staff. He should care that someone could walk in at any second, but he didn’t.
“Are you serious?” she asked.
Seriously out of his mind with lust. “Very. I’m attracted to you, Josie, and we need to discuss what we’re going to do about it.”
Josie gave an awkward laugh. “I thought you couldn’t stand me.”
Had she just missed the kiss he’d given her? “Hardly. Now tell me that you’re attracted to me, too.” So he could lean her against that door to prevent a possible interruption and kiss her again.
Josie worried her bottom lip with her teeth then gave another heartfelt sigh. “Okay, here’s the thing. I am something of a klutz, but I’ve never been this bad before and it’s all your fault.”
Her fingers gripped his shirt and pushed him lightly to emphasize her point. “I feel like you’re always watching, waiting for me to screw up, and I’ve had this sort of ridiculous crush on you.”
Her cheeks were pink, eyes wide, and Houston kept quiet, liking the sound of this, wanting to hear where this could go. Desire punched him in the gut at her admission that she was attracted to him.
“Silly, really, because you’re...” She waved her hand around in front of him. “And I’m ...” Gesturing to herself, she blew a loud breath out of the corner of her mouth.
He had no idea what that was supposed to mean, and he was about to ask her when she glanced toward the door again.
“But anyway, I don’t think this is the place to discuss this.”
Josie stepped back out of his reach. He took her hand, pulling her to a stop, not about to let her escape now that he’d gotten a teasing taste of her. She had admitted she was attracted to him as well, and that was just the green light he’d been looking for.
He knew he should let her go. He should forget he had started this and walk out of here with his sanity intact. Except that he would go crazy if he couldn’t have Josie. The ache was too strong, too burning, deep inside where it plagued him and distracted him every minute in her presence.
He had to have her.
“Have dinner with me tonight. Then spend the night.”
“What?” She stopped trying to tug her arm out of his hand and gaped at him.
So it wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t charming, it wasn’t skilled or poetic or coaxing.
It was the truth.
Put baldly before her.
He didn’t want any misunderstandings. This was sex and nothing more. This was about fucking her out of his system so he could get back to more important things like his patients.
Josie knew she should be big-time insulted.
Houston was standing there, calm as you could be, offering her dinner and an adult sleepover.
She was too confused to know how to act, having no experience with men proposing hot, passionate one night stands.
At least she assumed he meant a one night stand.
It seemed she had been right about The Look. But The Look didn’t come with anything else. She was still convinced he didn’t particularly like her, and it was even possible his attraction to her angered him.
All of which were serious red flags to grab her dignity and run out of this room.
Yet here she still was.
Turned on and seriously considering his offer. After all, how many times in her life was she going to have a gorgeous, dark-haired surgeon claiming he had to have her? She was betting this was the one and only.
Josie studied his face, looking for signs of dishonesty or entrapment. Maybe this was an ethics test. Surgeon boss offers sex-drenched one night together, possibly jeopardizing your career. Do you take him up on it?
“You don’t mince words, do you?”
“I want you. You want me. I don’t see any reason to wait.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “It’s getting damned awkward between us here at the hospital, don’t you think?”
“And how would sleeping together fix that?” she asked in amazement, picturing herself slinking into the hospital after a night of carnal passion with Houston Hayes. If she was nervous now, she’d be an absolute marshmallow then.
He smiled. Oh, no. He’d never smiled at her before, and it was a sexy, caressing little lift of the corner of his mouth. A smile that would have her pressed against the wall dropping her panties if she wasn’t careful. She gave another futile tug on her arm. He held her tightly.
“The sexual tension will be gone. We go out tonight, we enjoy each other, we come back and everything can return to normal.”
That was rationalization at its worst.
His thumb rubbed the back of her wrist, and she swallowed hard. That kiss he’d given her had stolen every last vestige of common sense, his hot tongue sweeping reserve away and making her feel sexy, desired.
Josie had the overwhelming urge to give in, to take what he was offering and have a night of good, not-so-clean fun. But this was her career at stake. Her brain understood that even if her inner thighs didn’t.
“I’m not convinced that would rid us of the awkwardness.”
“It can’t be any worse than it is now.”
He had a point. “This is my career. Dr. Hayes.” If she called him Houston, she just might lose it and fling herself back into his arms. “I can’t let it get out that there’s something between us. You’re my boss.”
Houston stiffened. “No, I’m not. Dr. Sheinberg is your boss, he’s the resident chief. I’m just a co-worker who has more experience than you do. There is a huge difference, and I have no power over your position.”
Oh, great, he thought she was suggesting sex for surgical opportunities. “That’s not what I meant! It’s just that I’m new here, and I don’t want staff to think I just sleep around. That could taint my career.”
“This will protect both of our careers. One night. We’re both adults.
We can handle coming back next week, and then all this tension will be gone between us.
” His expression was wry. “That way no one will know. Otherwise I think there’s a high probability one day we’ll get caught here in the supply room. ”
And to put truth to his words, he tugged lightly on her hand, and her feet, shod in sensible white sneakers, moved forward without instructions from her, until she was right against his chest. His hands roamed over her back, down to her behind, and squeezed her cheeks with light pressure.
Josie shuddered, wanting to bump forward against him, wanting his hands in her pants, touching deep inside her.
It was wrong to feel so aroused. She knew that.
He wasn’t even being all that nice, but she was shivering with excitement.
Men who were used to getting their way weren’t her usual style, but nothing was usual about her reaction to Houston.
Since the day she had met him, she had been off balance, and despite the uneasiness of her feelings, she was like oven-roasted chicken. Hot and moist.
The look on his face, the set of his jaw, excited her, thrilled her that he could want her so much that he’d risk being caught.
Her nipples pushed through the thin cotton of her scrubs as he lightly ran his finger across her breast. She drew her breath in hard, and felt her head dropping back. There had to be a reason she should say no, but she couldn’t seem to remember what it was right then.
“I love the way you smell.” He trailed his lips along her neck. “And the way you taste.”
A sudden unpleasant thought popped into her head. Maybe he had wanted a lot of other women in the hospital and she’d just never known about it. That was a lowering thought. “Have you done this before with any of the previous residents?”
His lips stilled on her skin. “No. You’re the only one to even tempt me.”
Then he laughed, soft and low, just under her ear. “But until now, all of the orthopedic residents I’ve run across have been men. Not a lot of women choose to be bone crackers. But no—no nurse, no doctor, no surgical assistant, has ever made me want to make out in a supply closet.”
Josie was reeling. She was confused, overwhelmed, attracted to Houston beyond the rational, and she needed breathing room. She had to get away from him.
“I need time to think about it.”
“Think about this, Josie.”
Another crushing kiss fell on her lips, bruising in its intensity, shocking her with the possessive violence of it, and more so, her reaction to it. She felt telltale moisture between her thighs and a gnawing ache in the pit of her belly.
Both of his thumbs were moving back and forth across her nipples, flicking at the tight painful nubs until she was dizzy. It served to make her even less sure that they could spend the night together and return to work the better for it.
This desire was different, deeper than any she’d ever known, and one night might make her desperate for more. Not the other way around.
“How do you know one night will be the end of it?” she whispered when he broke off the kiss.
He shrugged. “I never want more than one night.”
She should be appalled, disgusted by the thoughtless casualness of his remark.
Instead she found herself intrigued. That was a decisive remark to make when she could feel his erection resting against her thigh.
Curiosity gave way to determination to prove the arrogant Houston Hayes wrong.
With her, one night wouldn’t be enough.
He would want more.
And he wasn’t the only one who liked to be successful, especially when the odds were against her.
Josie usually got what she wanted, too, no matter how hard she had to work at it or how long.