Luke Read online

  And Luke.

  But neither was going to happen for her.

  When the doorbell rang, her heart jerked. Steeped in bubbles, she went still, but the bell rang again. With water splashing everywhere, and a good amount of bubbles, too, she got out of the tub and wrapped herself in a towel. Dripping her way to the door, she held her towel to her breasts and took a calming breath. Then she flipped on the outside light.

  Luke stood there. At the sight of him, her pulse kicked into overdrive. Surely the people in the next building could hear her heart pumping. Stepping closer to the glass, she put her hand on the wood, as if she could touch him. Wanting snaked through her, wanting, and that terrible ache, all at the same time.

  He was standing close to the door, too, and suddenly she didn’t want that barrier between them, so she pulled it open enough for him to move inside but turned her back to him, head bowed, knowing if she so much as looked at him, he’d see everything she felt, her need, her hope, her confusion—

  From behind her, his fingers brushed the back of her hair, so light she might have imagined it, except he did it again. Then he bent his head, just enough to rub his jaw to hers. “Do you want me to go?”

  So solemn. So quiet. So impossibly sexy.

  “Faith?”

  She closed her eyes, shook her head no. She didn’t want him to go. She just didn’t want him to see what she was thinking, or he’d run like hell.

  He danced a finger down her bare, damp arm, letting out a shaky breath so close to her ear it drew goose bumps to her skin. “I got you out of the bath.”

  Since the air had backed up in her lungs at his touch, at the way his chest spread heat across her back, how the front of his thighs brushed the back of hers, she could only nod.

  “I don’t want to talk you into this,” he whispered, tingling his fingers over her shoulder, playing with the edging of the towel at her shoulder blade.

  Turning to face him, she pressed her hands flat against the door behind her to keep them off him. “It was my idea to begin with.”

  “Yeah.” He smiled, a slightly unsure smile that touched her more than anything else he’d ever done. “So why do I get the feeling you’ve changed your mind?”

  She had changed her mind, she’d deepened it. No longer was wild sex on weekend nights for the time they had left going to be enough for her, but how to admit that to a man who gave commitments only to his patients? She couldn’t explain, it was that simple. It would be her own secret joy…and loss. “I still want you,” she whispered.

  His eyes heated at that, and keeping his eyes on hers, he pulled his pager out of his pocket and tossed it over his shoulder on to her couch.

  She watched it bounce on the cushion, then turned her gaze back to him. He was dangling his cell phone from his fingers. It, too, took a sail across the room, landing next to his pager.

  She took a few steps to where her portable phone sat on its base. She hit the talk button in tune to Luke’s raised brow. Her pager sat next to the phone and she carried both to the couch and slid them beneath the cushion. After a very brief consideration, she slid his pager and cell phone beneath the cushion as well.

  He grinned.

  So did she, grinned as she stepped right into his arms.

  “I’ve never laughed while getting a woman naked before,” he admitted, and nibbled at her throat.

  With a little moan, she tilted her head to give him better access. “You’re not going to have to work very hard to get me naked.”

  He eyed her towel. “No?”

  “No.” She untucked the edge of the towel, and let it fall.

  Luke sucked in a sharp breath, his eyes flaming, his hands shaking slightly as he peeled himself out of his shirt and sent it the way of his pager and phone.

  Wide shoulders, broad chest, ropey arms…did he know how mouth-watering he was? His torso was lightly spattered with dark silky hair, across his tight pectorals, in a line dividing his flat, corded belly, disappearing into the pants that seemed quite strained across an impressive bulge behind his zipper.

  “I’m still ahead of you,” she said softly, standing there completely nude except for the few drops of water left from her bath.

  “Yeah.” His voice sounded strained, rough, and he kicked off his shoes and socks, unfastened his pants, grimacing as he slid them down over his erection.

  “Oh my,” she whispered, unable to tear her gaze away, but she hadn’t seen a man up front and personal in so long, had in fact never seen such a magnificent—

  With a groaning laugh, he surrounded her with his warm, strong arms, lifting her up.

  She licked her lips and studied his mouth. “Are we going to—”

  “Yes.”

  “In my bedroom?”

  “Yes.”

  “All the way to the end this time?”

  “Definitely, yes. Any more questions?”

  “Yes. Could you hurry?”

  “Maybe the first time, but definitely not the second time. Or the third.”

  When her mouth fell open as he walked with her down the hall, he let out another groaning laugh. “I want you in a bed, Faith. Sprawled out so I can touch and kiss and lick every single inch of you.”

  He was going to touch and kiss and lick every inch of her. Thank God. He was going to do that because she’d asked him to, because she’d told him it was what she wanted, and she did want it, so badly she was trembling in anticipation, but she also wanted much, much more—

  Bending, he rubbed his jaw with hers, tenderly, sweetly, and gently laid her down on her bed, making her forget everything but him. With his finger, he leaned over her and smoothed the furrow she got between her eyes when she thought too much. “Uh-oh,” he whispered. “You’re looking tense.” With a knee on the bed and his wide palms on her shins, he ran them up her legs. “Can’t have that.”

  His hands slid over her knees and kept going, and her heart started that heavy drumming again.

  “Cold?” he murmured. He’d reached her thighs. She managed to shake her head.

  “Good.” Sliding his hands around the back of her thighs now, he pulled them open, then looked down at what he’d exposed, and let out a low, rough, serrated breath.

  So did she.

  His hands were on the move again, over her legs, fingers outstretched…until they almost reached…the apex of her thighs. Now it was her turn to suck in a breath, her hips arching toward him, waiting, desperately waiting. Then he touched, and she cried out.

  “You’re so beautiful, so perfect.” Carefully, slowly, he bent his head…

  She felt his warm breath brush over her and went utterly still, suddenly a little unsure. “Um… Luke—”

  “Shh…”

  “But—” At the first touch of his tongue she nearly exploded.

  At the second touch she did.

  Brilliant lights, blood roaring in her ears, skin too tight for her body, heart threatening to burst out of her chest, the whole enchilada as she came wildly, helplessly.

  And came. And came.

  Finally, after what might have been two seconds or two hours, she was flat on her back, blinking at the ceiling, fists in the sheets, legs held open by Luke’s wide shoulders.

  He lifted his head from where he’d been kissing her inner thigh. “You okay?”

  She considered. “I can’t feel my toes.”

  He lifted up a little. “Better?”

  “No.”

  His face fell, and she nearly laughed, but this was not a laughing matter. “Do you want to know what would make it all better?” she whispered.

  He didn’t look sure, and she nearly laughed again because how often did she get to see Dr. Universe look unsure? “What would be better,” she said, “is you inside me.”

  His smile was slow and wide and stopped her heart. Then he gave her what she wanted, he was inside her, and her heart started up again in a slow, heavy beat because nothing, nothing, had ever felt so right.

  “Faith.” He c
upped her face and leaned in to kiss her as he slowly withdrew, his hot, hard length dragging on her hot, wet flesh, and just when she started to whimper in protest, he came back with one long thrust. Then another. And another, and she felt that tight, unbearable, anticipation build back up.

  “Again,” he urged against her mouth. “Come for me again, Faith.” And to ensure she did just that, he slid a hand between them, cupped a breast and stroked her nipple with a slightly rough thumb.

  Gasping, she arched into him.

  “That’s it…” His hand skimmed over her quivering belly now, down, down, until his thumb could help keep up the rhythm in the wet curls between her legs, all while he urged her on with soft, sexy words no man had ever uttered to her before.

  Fingernails embedded in his butt, head tossed back, dark and needy noises being ripped from her throat, she came completely undone for him. Again. Vaguely she heard him lose control, too, with a rough, guttural groan and her name on his lips as he sank over her hot, damp, replete body.

  Dazed, she held him to her, drowning in pleasure, drowning in him.

  Unbelievably, she started to doze…all the way up until she realized they hadn’t given a single thought to birth control.

  Some health professionals they were.

  * * *

  A FEW MINUTES LATER, Luke got the bum’s rush out Faith’s door. On the porch in the cool night air, he turned to her just as she shoved his jacket in his hands and shut the door on him. “Faith—”

  She opened it a crack. “I’ve got to get up early.”

  “Yeah.” But that wasn’t the issue and he knew it. He could tell by her glossy eyes and pale skin she was just as blown away as he was—hell, make that terrified—by what had just happened, by how they’d so completely lost it. “Faith, we didn’t use birth control.”

  She let out a shrill laugh, then covered her mouth.

  “You noticed,” he said, then scrubbed his face with his hands. “I’ve never forgotten before. Christ, I’m so sorry. I swear to you, you won’t catch anything—”

  Another half-hysterical laugh escaped her mouth and with a sigh he pushed the door all the way open and gathered her resisting body close. “If it’s a pregnancy you’re worried about, we’ll deal with it. Together. Okay?”

  She didn’t answer so he pulled back to see her face. “Faith. We face it together.”

  She dropped her hand away from her mouth. “We’re professionals. I see the effects of teens not using birth control every single day—My God, I coach them all the time on the importance of abstinence, and what do I do? I get so completely carried away—”

  “We,” he interrupted. “It was a we thing tonight in the carried away department.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Yeah.” And there was no excuse, none.

  “I mean, we even planned this,” she said, baffled. “I even purchased—” Breaking off, she blushed.

  “I did, too.” He patted his back pocket. “Maybe I should pin them to my shorts next time.”

  She bit her lip. Glanced up at him. “Next time?”

  “Isn’t there going to be a next time?” Please, God, let there be a next time.

  “But we were so stupid about it.”

  “We won’t ever be again,” he vowed, so shockingly close to begging he had to forcibly close his mouth.

  “There’s five weeks left,” she said very softly.

  “I want every one of them.”

  “That’s what I promised you. But…for the rest of tonight I think I’d like to be alone.”

  Suddenly he wished he’d negotiated the sleeping part, too. It’d have been nice to stay with her curled in his arms all night long.

  And while he was at it, he should have negotiated for more everything, since unlike all of his other sexual escapades—of which there hadn’t been as many as he’d liked to think—he wanted more. Lots more.

  “Good night, Luke.”

  He wished he could see her face, but she’d stepped into the shadows. Apparently he was the only one here dwelling over their decision. Not good. Not good at all. “Good night, Faith.”

  * * *

  FAITH DIDN’T KNOW what she expected the next night. She got out of the bath and put on a robe as she thought about it. Would Luke come, even though it was a weeknight?

  Or would he wait until the next weekend, until after they’d worked together all day? Certainly the week end would be more convenient for him, because she imagined his busy schedule wouldn’t permit him much of a personal life on the weekdays, plus certainly he wouldn’t want to see her again so soon—

  Her doorbell rang and she nearly swallowed her tongue.

  Oh God. He’d come.

  No. No, it couldn’t be Luke, he’d just seen her yesterday, surely he wouldn’t want to…

  The surge of hope and joy that whipped through her was nothing short of pathetic.

  But it turned out to be Shelby, dressed to the nines in a little black cocktail dress and heels, her blond hair artfully piled on top of her head. She held a casserole dish. “Here,” she said. “I made extra. High on the protein, no sugar.”

  Faith took the delicious-smelling dish. “You cooked for me in that?”

  “No, I cooked for my date.” She let out a wicked grin. “He’s getting a casserole dish, too, but for him, I also made dessert.”

  “Hey, I want dessert.”

  “His comes in black silk,” she said with a low, throaty laugh. “So you’ll have to make up your own—” Breaking off, she glanced over her shoulder at the sound of someone coming up the stairs. Her smile turned speculative as Luke came into view. “Well, look at that…you might get your own dessert after all.”

  Luke lifted a brow at that comment. He wore black as well, but not silk; black jeans, a black T-shirt, and in the moonlight looked tall, dark and devastatingly handsome.

  “Dr. Walker…” Shelby turned back to Faith and jerked her eyebrows so high they disappeared into her hair. “Just what Faith ordered.” With a laugh at her own inside joke, she leaned close to Faith and kissed her on the cheek. “I’d say have a good evening, sweetie, but I can see that you most definitely will. Nightie, night. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do now…well, on second thought, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do, so have at it.”

  Faith listened to Shelby’s heels clicking as she walked off into the night, her heart starting a heavy beat of anticipation.

  “That smells good,” Luke said into the silence, gesturing to the casserole she held. “You going to share?”

  She eyed him. “You didn’t come over here to eat.”

  “No, but we’re going to.”

  “My blood sugar is fine at the moment.”

  “Good. After we eat, I’m going to remove every stitch of clothing you’re wearing.”

  He said it so conversationally, it took the words a moment to sink in. Once they did, her heart kicked into an even higher gear.

  “And then… I’m going to make you wild.”

  “Awfully cocky,” she managed evenly though her thighs tightened. So did her nipples.

  “Yeah. I’m going to make you scream, too,” He said this softly, silkily, and stepped even closer, still not touching her in any way.

  And still her pulse doubled.

  Tripled.

  “I’m, um, not really much of a screamer,” she said, quite proud of the fact her voice hardly quivered at all, though she was having a huge amount of trouble breathing and her knees had liquefied.

  Holding her gaze prisoner, he took advantage of the fact that her hands were full of the hot casserole dish and tugged on her robe, completely exposing one bare breast.

  Her gasp echoed around them.

  “Mmm,” rumbled from his throat. Then one big warm hand cupped the fullness, plumping it up for his seeking mouth, which was warm and greedy.

  Staggering back a step, she hit the doorway.

  “Hold on to our dinner now,” he said around his mouthful, and using
his teeth, gently plucked at her nipple. “Still got a grip on it, Faith?”

  She whimpered and locked her knees together to keep from falling.

  “Faith?”

  “Y-yes.”

  “That’s a girl.”

  And he locked the door behind them, after which he proceeded to make good on his promise to remove every stitch she wore, make her wild…and make her scream.

  CHAPTER 11

  FOR THE NEXT few weeks Luke raced through his days at the hospital, enjoying his work as much as ever.

  And enjoying his time off more than ever.

  In the physicians’ lounge after a particularly long shift, he gathered his things, shoveling them into his duffel bag, his mind already racing to the night ahead.

  He thought he’d take Faith out for dinner, then planned on a delectable dessert by moonlight—Faith by moonlight.

  “You out of here, Dr. Walker?”

  Luke shouldered his bag and turned to face Dr. Nicole Mann, one of the youngest and most acclaimed new doctors they had. “That I am.”

  She was dark-haired and petite, and incredibly dedicated to her job at the hospital, specifically working for him in the E.R. The day Luke had been “sentenced” to work at the clinic, she’d come by his office—the only one to do so—offering her sympathy. She, more than anyone here on staff, understood his passion, and felt it as her own.

  “You seem…lighter on your feet these days.” She tilted her head, studying him for a moment with a little smile touching her mouth. “And, dare I say it, even happy. You get another promotion I didn’t hear about?”

  “No.”

  “You done working at Healing Waters?”

  “No.”

  “Well, then.” She smiled expectantly. “What’s your secret?”

  Faith, he nearly said, and bit his tongue. She wasn’t what was making him feel like dancing down the hospital hallways. Nope, it was…

  Ah, hell.

  It was Faith.

  “Maybe it’s because you have only three weeks left at the clinic.”

  Three weeks and then no more steaming hot, unbearably erotic rendezvous with Faith?

  And suddenly he wondered why he’d ever agreed to that stupid timeline. Why had he ever imagined it would be enough?