February Lover (3 page)

“Next week, son. The day after you leave.”

“Oh really?” Aidan tapped his foot on the ground. He’d learned, over the years, to watch for his physical indicators showing emotional distress. Thanks to his father, he had virtually no knowledge of his own feelings until they hit him over the head. Except when he’d been with Stacey.

“Who do you have to take care of you, Mom?” Which one of her so-called friends would put themselves out to help her after such an ordeal?

“I’ve hired a nighttime nurse. I like her very much, but I can’t find anyone I like for the daytime. I’ll have to make do.”

“You’ll have to make do?” he hollered and the crowd around them stopped talking.

“Come visit for a week in February,” she’d said.

Biting down on his tongue, he knew the queen herself had just manipulated him.

So help me, I am not going to get stuck here for the rest of my life.

***

How could a whole week have passed since the party? He sipped his ginger ale and looked out the window. So this was what patients’ families felt like waiting for word from him. Of course, his patients’ families usually had no idea their loved ones had been injured until after he’d finished with them.

He pressed his head against the window. The walkway that led from the hospital to the medical offices so patrons didn’t have to go out onto the street, glittered with the light drops of rain hitting the sides. It matched his mood perfectly. Looking down, he checked his watch. Five minutes had passed. Seven more hours to go.

When had he gotten so nervous about this?

“I brought you some food.” He jumped, turning around to regard the person talking. It took him less than a second to realize it was Stacey in front of him. His heart flipped.

“What are you doing here?”

She shrugged. “Did you think I’d leave you here by yourself?”

“I didn’t expect you.”

Stacey held up a box. “Doughnuts.”

He laughed, covering his mouth due to the shock of hearing the sound come out of him. “Stacey, my mother is in there having double-bypass open-heart surgery because she eats like crap.”

“Right, and your father died because he smoked two packs a day.” She moved forward until she reached the seats. They were alone in the waiting room for the moment. “But if you had one cigarette today, it wouldn’t give you lung cancer, and since I suspect you never eat these things and neither do I, since they go right on my ass, one of these doughnuts won’t kill either of us.”

He turned until he could get a really good view of that part of her anatomy. His cock twitched in response. She had a heart-shaped rear end. Whatever she did or did not eat, it worked for her.

“You checked out my ass.” She put the doughnuts down on the chair adjacent to her.

Aidan grinned. “I did.”

“And?” She sighed loudly. “Never mind. Don’t tell me. I can’t hear what you think of my ass.”

He walked toward her and sat down next to her. “Hand me one of those puppies.” She opened the box and rather than giving him a doughnut, let him pick from the variety. Jelly had always been his favorite. Before he took a bite, he stared at her. “How many did you think we would have each? Six?”

“No.” She took her own doughnut and slammed the box shut with a whack. “I thought you could give the rest to the nurses on your mother’s floor. Bribe them into treating her with extra love and care.”

“Do people often bring food to the nurses?”

Stacey leaned back in her chair. “Yes, Red, they do.”

“Huh.” He chewed, closing his eyes at the sensation of the jelly sliding down his throat. When he’d finished his bite, he eyed Stacey eating hers. She seemed to be having the same kind of experience with her powdered-sugar endeavor. Before he could think about it too much, he rubbed a bit of the white remnants off her chin.

“How do you know I don’t eat these regularly?”

“Because you’re built like a god.” She groaned. “I did not say that out loud.”

“Ah, but you did.” She thought he was built like a god? He shifted in his seat as an announcement came over the speaker for a cleanup crew needed on the third floor. What was he doing flirting with her in the hospital while his mother might be dying on a table?

His mother, whom he had all but ignored for fifteen years except for a monthly letter, and eventually, e-mail. And here he sat with Stacey, who had the misfortune of being the only woman he’d ever treated worse than he did his own mother.

“You went into your own head, where I don’t think you found happy things awaiting you.”

“Yeah.” He wanted her. Desired her with an urgency he couldn’t deny. His mother might be dead on a table. Yet all he could focus on involved getting Stacey Castle naked.

“Is it Afghanistan? Does it haunt you?”

He grabbed a second doughnut from the box. If only she knew the true direction of his thoughts. She thought he remembered the war when in fact he wondered if she still made a high-pitched sigh after she came. “Are you asking me if I have PTSD?”

“I was trying to see if I could help. I don’t want to intrude.”

He patted her on the knee for no other reason than he got to touch her. “You’re fine. No, I’m not suffering. The things I went through, they were mostly medical. Other than the incident with the children where I found myself in very odd circumstances, I didn’t do much work outside the hospitals. The type of injury was horrific, and I felt terrible for my patient. I’m not a hero.”

“Yes, you did.” She took the doughnut box from him and moved it away. “When you said you wouldn’t do my photo.”

“I’m not a hero.”

“I think all of those children would disagree with you.”

The way she moved, did she know each time she so much as breathed he couldn’t stop staring at the sleekness of her long limbs? And her breasts….

“Stacey.” She’d probably hate him after this. She should already, and he really didn’t know why she didn’t. “I can’t stop thinking about you. It’s like I’m obsessed.”

“Okay.” She laughed. “Thinking about what?”

“You and me, in bed. Taking you, over and over. Making you come until you can’t remember any men you’ve ever been with except me.”

She stayed silent, but she didn’t turn from him. Her silence let him keep going. “I’m not going to be here past February. Mom should be okay to have a nurse by then. If she can’t decide on one, I’ll pick for her. This would have to be temporary in every way. But if you wanted it, we could be together for February. I can promise you it would be so hot you wouldn’t regret it. Ever.”

***

Stacey knew she should be horribly offended. He’d propositioned her to have sex for the rest of the month and then go their separate ways. But the truth was, the second he’d started talking she’d become so hot inside she could barely breathe.

There was no way to go back in time and fix things between them. No way she would ever find out exactly why he’d left, if there was something she could have done to make him happier. She wasn’t exactly certain she wanted to. When she’d told him his leaving had prompted her to go make her own career, her own life, she’d meant it.

But today he offered passion. They’d been kids together. She’d given him his first kiss. For all intents and purposes, it might as well have been hers. A sloppy kiss-and-run at twelve years old shouldn’t get to count. They’d lost their virginity together, and all of her early sexual education had been found in his arms.

What would they be like now?

She sucked in her breath. “You’re a hard man to say no to.”

“You didn’t say yes.” He took her hands in his. “I need a yes. I can’t leave here with you upset again. I won’t hurt you again. So, you have to tell me you understand what I’m offering and what I’m not, that you grasp completely I’m not going to be here in March.”

“I’m not a moron, thank you.” She stood up. “And I’m not the head-over-heels-in-love-with-you twenty-year-old with dreams of marriage and Sunday crawfish boils wrecking my brain. I have my own life here. I’m trying to decide if it’s worth disrupting it for you for an entire month of my life.”

She felt him when he moved behind her, his warmth filling her from the outside in. With a quick tug, he pulled her flush against his body. “I can promise you. It’ll be worth it.”

She sucked in her breath. Holy God, the man could make her excited with only his words. She shivered in his arms.

The sound of heels clicking in the hall echoed in the room. Stacey separated from him. She walked to the chairs and picked up her bag. Clearing her throat, she tried to regain her composure. They were in a hospital. His mother had probably been hooked up to a bypass machine somewhere down the hall. Behind every closed door, sick people fought for their lives.

All serving to remind her how precious and short life could really be. However, that didn’t mean she had to be completely disrespectful and grope her ex-boyfriend in public.

“Come to me when things settle down. I’ll give you February.” She smiled, hoping she feigned more confidence than she actually felt. “Assuming you can prove to me you aren’t all talk.”

He choked out a laugh. “Oh yes, ma’am.”

She pointed at the doughnuts. “Don’t forget. They’re for the nurses. Don’t make me regret bringing them to you.”

“I won’t eat all twelve myself.”

She pointed at the box. “Ten. You ate one more yourself.”

“Counting?” Why did he have to be so sexy when he was being so obtuse?

“You’re the one who brought up the fact they were heart-attack makers.” She moved toward the door and stopped. Turning around, she looked at him. “Valentine’s Day is next week. Assuming your mom is okay with the nurse, you have to take me out to eat and maybe get some drinks. I won’t get the wrong idea. It’s part of the deal.”

He nodded, his expression hooded. She had no idea what he thought of her demand. “Sounds nice.”

“Right.” Stacey knew she’d have to do better if she wanted to keep up her cool and in control facade. “Hand me your cell phone. I’ll put my number in it and also where I live.”

He pulled it out of his pocket and offered it to her. “Where you live?”

“I don’t reside with my parents or in a dorm room anymore. If you want this so-called fling of hotness, you’re going to have to know where to find me.”

She took her time entering her number and address before handing the phone back to him. “Text me and let me know how your mom is.”

“I will.”

She smiled because she didn’t know what else to do. How should she treat her ex, who she’d arranged to have sex with for the remainder of the month of February? Did she give him a hug before she left? Reaching out, she squeezed his arm. “Everything will be okay. She’ll come through fine.”

“Right.”

***

Stacey washed her hands. Her nighttime routine tended to be the same, at least when she slept alone. Next she would clean her face and then be done with the day. After leaving the hospital—leaving Aidan—her work day had sucked. She hadn’t been able to get him out of her head, both because she worried about his mom and also due to his proposition. Had she made a mistake in saying yes to spending February in his bed?

A brief text saying Miss Linda had made it through the operation with flying colors. That had been all she had heard. She hadn’t expected him to be more effusive, particularly via text. He could be the most closed-mouthed person she’d ever encountered.

A knock on her door caught her attention. Her street, right on the edge of Uptown and Mid-City, sat on a safe enough street. But nowhere in New Orleans could be called entirely secure.

She stood back from the door in case whoever banged on it wanted to shoot it in. A girl living alone could never be too careful. “Who’s there?”

“Its Aidan.”

“Oh.” She let out the breath she held and marched to the door. Opening it, she saw him leaning against the frame, his arms crossed, looking at her. “You scared me to death.”

He sauntered into the room in the way only Aidan could. “Do criminals usually knock?”

She put her hands on her hips. “No, but friends usually call.”

“You’re right.” He held up his hands. “It’s been a long day. I’m not thinking clearly.”

Stacey regretted her words. Of course he wouldn’t be in his right mind. “How is your mom?”

“Sleeping. Drugged up so she has no idea how much pain she’s in, and out of it for the rest of the night.” He held up his phone. “They’re going to call me if anything changes.”

“Okay.”

“I want you, Stacey. Right-frickin-now.”

Her pulse quickened. She held out her hand. “Come on, then.”

He pulled her against him, bringing her outstretched arm to grasp his waist. The hours at his mother’s bedside, watching her suffer, fled the moment he touched her. Stacey had always held power. She was a woman who brought lightness and sweet thoughts with her wherever she went.

Their mouths fused. He could taste strawberry on her lips and peppermint toothpaste on her tongue, an addicting combination added to Stacey’s own sweet taste. She moaned softly, rubbing her body against his.

His cock immediately hardened to the point of aching. “You are going to undo me.”

“Only if I’m lucky.” She pulled him into the bedroom. Her walls were a mixture of colors and photographs. Later, he’d examine them all. Right then, it was the woman herself, not the location, interesting him.

Her bedroom smelled of vanilla, and he quickly pinpointed three lit candles by her bed causing the scent.

“Were you expecting someone else?” The idea made him want to pound the walls with his fist. She belonged to him for February. Or maybe he hadn’t been explicit about it. He wasn’t going to share her during that time.

“No.” She tilted her head to the side in question. “Why would you think I would?”

“The candles.”

“Oh.” She waved her hand, a smile on her face. “I always light them when I’m getting ready for bed. They help me unwind. I blow them out before I go to sleep. What? You thought I had a man coming. Ha. What gave me away? My hot pajamas?”