Sizzling Nights with Dr. Off-Limits (12 page)

“Perhaps, but I'd never intentionally hurt you. Despite what you may believe, I always wanted to make you happy.”

But he hadn't been able to make her happy, had hurt her, and the truth of that hung in the air between them.

* * *

How had Lucas convinced Emily to go for drinks at the top of a hotel with a revolving restaurant so they could view the New York City night skyline?

It wasn't as if she hadn't lived here her whole life. She knew what the city looked like. She'd guess most everyone in the restaurant were tourists except them.

“You guys need anything?” their waitress asked. There was a one drink minimum, but they'd both ordered bottles of water rather than anything alcoholic.

Just being with Lucas made her feel drunk.

Or maybe it was the slowly turning restaurant.

But she doubted it. The room turned at a pace where you didn't realize you were even moving until you started watching the buildings around you.

“Admit it, this was a good idea.”

She fought to keep her gaze from going to his no doubt smug expression. “I suppose.”

“What would you have rather done?”

He sounded as if there was nothing she could say that would top what they currently did. She had to admit, the evening had been nice, talking with him had been nice even, but she wasn't admitting those things.

“Gone back to my place?” she suggested.

“My bad. You win.” He stood, pulled a money clip from his front pocket and tossed a bill onto their table.

“Lucas.” She laughed, tugging on his arm. “Sit down.”

“But you said...” Grinning, his eyes full of mischief, he sat back down.

“We're here now. I want to see if I can see the Statue of Liberty from up here.”

“I was told that you once could, but new buildings have gone up since this one was built and have blocked the view.”

Disappointment filled her. “Oh.”

“I'd take you there if you want to see Lady Liberty.”

“I've been before.” On an elementary school field trip, they'd taken the ferry out to the island and toured the statue. She'd been in total awe of the size and magnificence of such a gift symbolizing freedom. She'd often wondered if any country had given another such a glorious present.

“Sometimes things are better the second time around.”

She hesitated only a moment before agreeing. “I guess we could go. It has been quite a few years since I visited.”

“I've never been.”

She looked at him in disbelief. “What?”

He shrugged. “It's not that big of a deal. I've just never been out on the island.”

“Which means you've never gone up in the statue, either?”

“No.”

“Well, that's just sad.”

A wry smile played on his lips. “There goes my image of a childhood full of privilege.”

“Oh, that image is still there,” she didn't hesitate to point out. “Now, I just wonder how many educational gaps were there, too.”

“Educational gaps?”

“Things like trips to the Statue of Liberty. Poor, poor Lucas.”

“I've been to the Eiffel Tower, does that count? It's French, too.”

The Eiffel Tower because he truly did come from a background of privilege. He'd once told her that the year after he'd graduated from high school he'd “backpacked” Europe with some friends, whatever that had meant.

The farthest from home she'd ever been was New Jersey.

She'd never really had a reason to leave New York. Everything she'd needed was here.

Maybe someday she'd travel and see some of the world's more exotic cities. She loved the night lights, the excitement of big cities with lots of people from every walk of life within close distance. She loved the access to so many different cultures and restaurants and shops and...

“Maybe I could take you there someday.”

“To the Eiffel Tower?” Her eyes widened. “Why would you do that?”

“Don't sound so shocked, Emily. Why wouldn't I want to take you to Paris? You'd love the city, the food, the people.”

Good grief. Had he been reading her mind or what?

“Paris is a long way from New York.”

“Not that far.”

“Just a hop, skip and jump over the ocean,” she mused.

“I was serious when I offered to take you.”

“Thank you, but I'll pass.”

“Why?”

“Because women don't go to Paris with their ex-husbands.”

“Perhaps they should.”

“Why?”

“To sit by the Seine, drink a cup of coffee and watch the sun rise. To visit the Louvre and so many other fascinating places. To eat a superbly cooked meal with a view of the Eiffel Tower while the sun sets.”

“As if I'd want to get out of bed that early in the morning while on vacation.” Anything to throw her focus anywhere but on what he was saying because he made her want to do all the things he said. With him. The harsh reality was that, despite their little sexual interlude, if she ever did see Paris, it wouldn't be with Lucas. And now if she ever did, she'd be battling the images he'd just put in her mind.

She bit the inside of her lip.

“Yet again, you do make a valid point,” he agreed. “Perhaps we'd skip the early-morning sitting by the Seine and just watch the sun come up from our hotel-room bed.”

She took a drink from her water.

“I should have brought you to Paris for our honeymoon.”

“I couldn't have enjoyed our honeymoon any more if you'd brought me to Paris, or London, or any other exotic locale you can think of.”

“Because Atlantic City is the most romantic city in the world?” he teased.

“That weekend, it was perfect,” she answered in all honesty.

His gaze searched hers, but for what she wasn't sure. She didn't say anything and for the longest time neither did he. When he did, his words were poignant.

“I believe you may be right about that, Emily. That weekend was the best of my life.”

“Cheap hotel, cheap food, playing on a crowded public New Jersey boardwalk and beach...I doubt that, but we did have a good time.”

His brows veed. “Why you can't believe me, I don't understand, but, yes, we did have a good time.”

Memories of that weekend shook her, and when she looked at him, she knew he was flooded with similar ones. Did he also wonder how something that had been so perfect had gone so wrong?

“I'd like to take you back to your place and make love to you now, Emily Stewart.”

She wasn't going to argue. She wanted that, too.

Perhaps, if she was honest, she'd admit she'd never stopped wanting him to do that.

Then his words hit her. He hadn't said he wanted to go have sex with her.

He'd said he wanted to make love to her.

No. She shouldn't read anything into his words. That was all they'd been. Words.

They'd be having sex. Not making love.

At least, Lucas would.

More and more, Emily questioned exactly what it was she was doing with Lucas.

CHAPTER TWELVE

W
HEN
THEY
GOT
to her apartment, Lucas undressed her slowly, kissing and caressing each newly uncovered area of her body.

By the time she stood in only her panties, she ached for him, but he wasn't finished with his sweet torture.

“How come I'm the only one with my clothes off?” she demanded, tugging at his shirt.

“Because you're the one who's exquisite.”

“You're good with the lines, Lucas. Keep them coming and you're liable to get lucky.”

“I'm definitely getting lucky. Actually, I already have. I'm here with you.”

“See, that's what I mean with the lines. Good job,” she praised as she undid his shirt buttons and pushed the material aside to reveal his chest. She groaned at the masterpiece she unveiled. “It should be illegal to cover that up.”

He laughed. “Good thing it's not. I'd freeze during winter.”

“A frozen Lucas. I'd have a lick of that.”

“I'd let you and imagine I'd thaw pretty fast with your hot mouth anywhere near me.”

She bent, kissed his belly, felt him suck in his breath, saw the goosebumps that covered his skin. She'd done that. Her touch. Her kiss. Sure, maybe he reacted to lots of women, but right now, at this moment, he was with her and it was her touch he craved.

She craved to touch. To kiss. To lick. To taste every inch of him.

So she did.

When neither of them could stand more, he positioned himself above her, paused, stared at her with so much emotion in his eyes that she felt overwhelmed. What was he waiting for?

“I've missed you, Emily. So much.” Rather than giving her what she ached for, he kissed her mouth. A kiss way too sweet for the heat of the moment.

A kiss way too sweet for her peace of mind.

His gaze locked with hers, he moved his hips, giving her what she needed, what they needed.

Rather than the frenzy of their previous matings, he kept his pace slow. When she'd try to increase it, he'd resist. When she gripped his buttocks, urging him faster, deeper, he took her hands into his and held them above her head, locking them into place by his hand over her wrists. She didn't really try to escape. Why should she when the heat was rising inside her thighs, when warmth swirled in her belly, building?

His gaze still locked with hers, he built her higher until she went so high there was nowhere to go but over the edge.

So she fell.

Further and further, she floated downward.

He let her float, but not all the way down. Instead, he moved and took her up, up, up again.

And again.

* * *

Chest heaving, Lucas collapsed onto the mattress next to Emily. Her chest rose and fell. Her lips were swollen from his kisses. Her body flushed from his loving. Her hair fanned out around her in messy, just-had-wild-sex disarray.

He'd never seen anything more erotic. He'd never seen anything more beautiful.

“You need to get dressed,” she told him, her voice breathy. “So you can go home before it gets any later. I have to work tomorrow.”

Then there was that.

“I don't want to go, Emily.”

“I don't want you to stay.”

Which was a hard pill to swallow.

“Why not?”

“We aren't dating, Lucas. We aren't moving toward a relationship with each other. We're using each other for sex. Nothing more. For you to stay in my bed, to actually sleep beside me, implies an intimacy we don't have.”

“What if I want that intimacy with you?”

“This isn't just about what you want.”

“I realize that, but—”

“No buts, Lucas.” She climbed out of the bed and grabbed his underwear off the floor and tossed it at him. “Here.”

“What are you afraid of, Emily?”

Rather than climb back into bed, she opened a dresser drawer and pulled out an oversize New York Knicks T-shirt and put it on. “With you? Everything.”

That had him pausing with his boxer briefs halfway up his thighs. “After what we just shared, how could you possibly be afraid of me?”

“That was sex.”

He shook his head. “You keep telling yourself that, Emily, but we both know that wasn't just sex. Never was. Never will be.”

Panic filled her eyes. “That's all it can be.”

“Why? I want a relationship with you, Emily. I want to be the man in your life. The man you fall asleep next to and wake up beside.”

The thought of her sinking back into depression, of him stealing her happiness, terrified him, but maybe they could have a relationship that built upon the good between them.

She stood beside the bed watching him, but she looked ready to run if he so much as moved toward her. “I won't ever marry you again.”

“Nor would I ask you to. Marriage is where we messed up.”

“Marriage is where we messed up?” She shook her head as if trying to process what he meant. “How did marriage mess anything up?”

“You were so sad after we got married, Emily.” He didn't know how else to answer her question, but obviously marriage had ruined their relationship.

“We are what messed up our relationship, Lucas. Me and you. We would have fallen apart whether we had been married or not. We may have phenomenal sex, but we were never destined to be together.”

“You're wrong.”

“You think we were destined to be together?” she scoffed.

Did he?

“I think there's something between you and me that we don't share with anyone else.”

“It's called sexual chemistry.”

“It's more than sex.”

She rolled her eyes. “How's this for irony? The woman is trying to keep sex as just sex and the guy is trying to attach feelings to the physical.”

He shrugged. “The truth doesn't change regardless of how we label it.”

“The truth? The truth is that you shouldn't be here, that we are divorced and should start acting like it.”

What she was saying sank in.

“You don't want to see me anymore?”

“I never wanted to see you to begin with, Lucas. I was fine, just fine, until you came back into my life with all your potent sex appeal and fancy orgasms.”

That had him stopping, grinning a little despite their conversation. “I gave you fancy orgasms?”

She threw her hands into the air.

“Sorry, but a man likes to hear that he gave his woman orgasms, and when she calls them fancy, he definitely wants to hear more.”

Her hands went to her hips. “I'm not your woman.”

There was that.

“You used to be.”

“In the past. Doesn't matter anymore. The past is gone.”

“The past is never really gone. It's the culmination of all the past that makes up the present.”

That one earned him another eye roll. “Oh, don't go spouting your Harvard Philosophy 101 at me.”

“Are you purposely trying to fight with me, Emily? Because I refuse to fight with you. If you want me to go, I'll go. But not without you knowing that it's not because I want to go. What I want is to be with you and to sleep with you in my arms.”

She sank onto the edge of the bed and stared at him. “You're crazy.”

Yeah, he was.

“About you.” With that, he leaned over and kissed her forehead. “Good night, Emily. Sweet dreams.”

* * *

A couple of weeks later, Emily was on duty when Kevin Rogers was admitted. He was a four-year-old pedestrian who'd been a hit-and-run victim. According to eyewitnesses, a taxi driver had driven up on a sidewalk while glancing down at his cell phone, hit the boy, then disappeared quickly.

The boy had been admitted with multiple fractures and traumatic brain injury. The emergency-room physician had given him poor odds of surviving.

The CT of his head had shown active brain bleeds. If he wasn't taken to surgery to relieve the pressure and stop the bleeds, he'd be dead before midnight. If he did manage to survive, he'd likely have permanent damage from the increased pressure on delicate brain tissue.

Probably because Emily had volunteered when Cassie Bellows had needed emergency surgery, Emily's charge nurse had informed her she was being shifted over to the operating room to assist Dr. Cain along with the rest of the assembled surgical team.

“But I have patients,” she reminded her, not wanting to go back into the operating room with Lucas.

“Meghan and Amy are down to one patient. I was going to have to send one of them home. I'm going to reassign Jenny and Cassie to them and send you to the OR rather than someone having to be called in.”

What the nurse manager said made perfect sense. But Emily fought the urge to beg the woman not to make her.

Although she opened her apartment door to Lucas night after night, she tried to avoid him as much as possible at the hospital. She didn't want others to see how he affected her. She didn't want others to associate them together.

She didn't want to deal with the aftermath at work when things fell apart.

Been there, done that, had ended up leaving the job.

Whereas during Cassie's surgery Emily had been assigned care of Cassie, this time she was assigned to directly assist Lucas.

Which meant she'd be right beside him.

Which meant there was no avoiding him.

Which meant she'd have to touch him, albeit through sterile gloves and under harsh lights and circumstances.

She was still mentally bemoaning having to assist Lucas while she scrubbed up. It wasn't that she didn't enjoy being in the surgical suite. She'd enjoyed the time she'd worked there, but she'd missed direct patient care.

She entered the surgical suite, made sure she had everything Lucas would need on her tray and winced a little on the inside at how tiny the boy looked on the hospital bed when he was wheeled in.

A sterile decked-out Lucas followed him into the suite and the surgical team jumped in to try to save the little boy.

An hour into the procedure, Emily was dabbing sweat from Lucas's forehead and studying the exhaustion showing on his face.

* * *

An hour later, he still meticulously worked, doing all he could to stop the tiny bleeds in the boy's brain.

By the time Lucas finished, Emily's heart hurt for him, but because of the others in the room, she didn't say anything, didn't offer comfort.

The surgery had gone past the end of her shift, so she performed the rest of her duties, cleaning her area, changing back into her own scrubs from the hospital-issue surgical scrubs, then clocked out.

Prior to heading home, she went by to check on Jenny and Cassie and was pleased to find them stable.

She swung by a take-out shop and picked up enough food for two. Who knew if Lucas would have eaten when he came by later that night?

Only, as the clock minutes ticked by, Lucas still hadn't shown at close to 1:00 a.m. Unable to stand it anymore, worried about where he was, but not wanting to wake him if he had just gone home to sleep, she texted him.

Where are you?

Within seconds her phone sounded with a texted reply and relief spread through her body.

Outside your door.

What?
She got out of bed and practically ran to her living-room door, peeped through the viewer and undid the chain and dead bolt.

“Why didn't you knock?”

“I left the hospital and had just gotten off the elevator when your text came through.”

“Oh.”

“Did you miss me?”

She could lie. She could tell him she hadn't. But he looked so exhausted, so much as if he needed her to tell the truth, that she did.

“Yes.”

“Good.” That was all he said. Good. Then he stepped inside her apartment, waited while she relocked the door and safety chain, then took her in his arms.

“What took you so long?”

“Kevin Rogers died.”

Emily's breath caught. The little boy had died?

“Oh, Lucas!” She winced, then wrapped her arms around him. “I'm sorry. You did all you could.”

“Did I?”

His question caught her off guard. “Of course you did. I was next to you all those hours you searched for bleeds, making sure you stopped each one.”

“Obviously, it wasn't enough.”

She hugged him. “You aren't God, Lucas. You can't heal what's too broken to mend.”

“I know that, but that little boy shouldn't have died. He was too young to die.”

“Age has nothing to do with injuries. You know that.”

He swiped his hands through his hair. “Is it okay if I take a quick shower? I headed straight here and I'm a mess.”

She nodded. “Have you eaten?”

He shook his head.

“Lucas, you've got to take better care of yourself. You don't sleep. You don't eat. What am I going to do with you?”

“Let me shower, then I'll show you exactly what you can do with me.”

“I'm going to heat you up something to eat while you shower. After you've eaten, we can discuss whatever you want to show me.”

“Deal.”

* * *

The shower had turned off long ago, but Lucas still hadn't joined her in the kitchen, where she'd heated up the leftover takeout she'd brought home.

She'd put on hot tea and sipped on a cup while she waited.

Bless him that he'd taken the boy's death so hard. That, she understood. Didn't she feel a similar responsibility for each person she took care of?

She'd had patients die over the years. When you took care of the seriously ill, death happened.

No doubt Lucas had lost patients in the past, too, but something about Kevin Rogers had clearly gotten to him.

She glanced at her cellular phone, noting the time. He'd been in her bathroom for a long time. Was he okay?

Intent on knocking on the bathroom door to see if he needed anything, she went to her bedroom and stopped just inside the room. Lucas lay on her bed, his hair damp, nothing on but a towel about his waist, and he was out cold.