Luke Read online

  He laughed. “Half the time you drive me out of my living mind, you know that? I mean we think so differently, we work differently, we do everything differently.”

  “And…the other half of the time?”

  Shaking his head, he lifted a hand and traced her jaw. “The other half of the time you still drive me out of my living mind, but…not necessarily with irritation.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s that other half we need to be careful of.” She stepped back so that his hand fell away from her soft skin. “And that’s the half we need to get over.”

  “Right.”

  She reached behind her for the door handle. With no little amount of wariness, she met his gaze. “I know why I need to get over it, but I was wondering…about you. Is it because I’m not an M.D.?”

  “No! Of course not.”

  “Is it because I moved past conventional medicine?”

  “No.” He looked into her beautiful eyes, into the still wary expression and wondered why this was so hard. Being honest had never been hard before. Hurting people’s feelings had never been hard before. But the truth, that he had his life just the way he wanted it, that if he dallied with a woman these days, it was just that, a dalliance, and she wasn’t the type of woman to be happy with that, seemed…lame. “It’s complicated.”

  “Yeah.” Her face fell and she turned to walk out the door.

  “Faith—”

  “It’s best if I go.”

  He watched her hightail it out of his place, and struggled to remember how right she was. They needed to get over whatever this…this thing was, because it had no place in his life. She had no place in his life.

  If only he could remember why that was exactly.

  * * *

  SATURDAY MORNING DAWNED BRIGHT and early. Faith felt rested and ready to work. She told herself she’d had such a good night’s sleep because this was a Dr. Universe-free weekend. He was out of her life. She had no worries, no worries at all.

  But then Guy called in sick. So did her receptionist. And Cat, too.

  All three struck down with the flu. Faith talked to them each on the telephone, assuring them she’d be fine, that they needed to worry only about getting better. She reminded them to drink their echinacea tea and get lots of rest.

  Then she got off the phone and looked at Shelby. “We’re screwed.”

  “Maybe I should start calling the scheduled patients, cancel them.”

  That would go over great, just when they were starting to garner a steady clientele, just when—

  The back door opened and, as if he’d been sent from heaven, in walked Luke.

  “Morning,” he said to their startled faces.

  When they continued to just stare at him, he lifted his covered coffee mug, still steaming, and looked at it. “I know it’s not any fancy tea, and that it’s store-bought, but a guy’s gotta have his vices.”

  “Are you…here to work?” Shelby asked. “Because if you are, I’ll kiss you, right here, right now.”

  “I’m here to work, yeah, if you don’t mind. No kiss required.”

  “Mind?” Shelby laughed. “Do we mind, Faith?”

  Did she? Ha! Luke was watching her, waiting, and the silence stretched out.

  “Okay, she’s not going to admit this because she’s stubborn as hell,” Shelby confided. “But I’ll tell you. We’re short-staffed and overbooked today.”

  Luke never took his eyes off Faith. “Really.”

  “Yeah, and another thing she won’t tell you, if you hadn’t shown up, we’d have had to turn away patients.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Ouch,” Shelby agreed, then caught Faith’s glaring expression. “Oops, would you look at the time? Better get moving.”

  Faith watched Shelby leave, then turned on Luke. “Okay, why are you really here?”

  “Last I checked I was a doctor, willing and able to work.”

  “Yes, but you’re not required to work here anymore, remember?”

  “I remember.” He slid his hands into his pockets, rocking back on his heels. “I also remember I like to repay my debts.”

  “There’s no debt.”

  “Yes, there is.” He let out a slow breath and his shoulders dropped slightly. “Look, even though the newspapers exaggerated what I said, I spoke without the facts when I talked about this place. And if you think that’s easy to admit, think again. I still believe in scientific and conventional medicine, I still believe that what I do, what the hospital does, can’t be replaced by alternative methods of medicine. But I can admit…”

  “Yes?”

  “That what you’re doing here has a place. That it’s important to the people you see.” He turned in a slow, frustrated circle, one hundred and eighty pounds of tightly coiled male. “And I did you a great disservice by so carelessly shrugging it off. People listen to us, they listen to me. So in light of that, I want to keep working here, for the rest of the two months, or whatever it is.”

  “Two months, one week.”

  “Two months, one week,” he repeated slowly. “For that long, people can see I believe in what you’re doing.”

  “Even if you don’t believe?”

  He winced. “Why can’t you just be happy to see me?”

  “Maybe I am,” she whispered, and had the satisfaction of rendering him speechless.

  * * *

  IT WASN’T LIKE BEFORE, working with Luke. Before, they’d not talked, not really. They certainly hadn’t touched.

  Or kissed.

  But now, every time they passed in the hallway, brushed shoulders or hands, no matter how accidentally, it brought it all back.

  The tension grew between them, tighter and tighter, until it became this tangible thing she could have reached out and touched.

  Throughout the day, it only got worse. Going in to see a woman with severe arthritis, they’d accidentally bumped shoulders in the doorway. It had taken her breath. He’d taken her breath, so much she nearly forgot how to treat the woman’s arthritis.

  They saw a nine-months pregnant woman suffering false labor pangs thanks to the can of olives she’d consumed, and leaving the room together, they’d brushed hands…

  Faith’s legs had tightened. So had her nipples.

  Had he noticed?

  Hard to tell, but she would have sworn on her life that his breathing changed every time he caught her staring at him.

  Probably nothing more than regret that he’d come back. Yeah, that had to be it, because surely he didn’t feel as she did, as if she were a firecracker with a lit fuse. She could hardly look into his eyes, afraid he’d see it. She certainly couldn’t talk to him. In fact, she’d avoided being anywhere near him for over an hour now, thinking that would help.

  It hadn’t.

  A little off balance, she entered the storage closet, planning on restocking, catching her breath—

  But suddenly, Luke was in there with her, crowding into her space, looking at her in a way that made all the thoughts scatter right out of her head.

  He took the stack of fresh towels out of her unresisting hands, then with mouth grim and tense, slid his hands to her shoulders and backed her to a wall.

  “Wh—what are you doing?”

  “What I should have done long before now,” he growled, and crushed his mouth down on hers.

  CHAPTER 6

  THE INTENSE, SIZZLING heat had been building between them all day. So much so, that having Luke’s mouth on hers now, after thinking about it, dreaming about it, made her come just a little undone, just enough that she didn’t care that they stood in an open closet, hands grappling for purchase on each other’s bodies, the passion growing between them by leaps and bounds.

  Then Luke pulled back and stared at her. “What the hell is this?”

  “I have no idea…”

  Swearing reverently, he came at her again, as if he meant to inhale her.

  She let him. Wanted him. “More.”

  “Yeah.” Luke slid his han
ds down her sides, gripped her hips, pushed her back to a shelving unit, pressing his body along the length of hers. “More.”

  Again, when they needed air, they pulled back, gasping, staring, then unable to keep apart, lunged at each other yet again. A stack of paper gowns rained over them, then some other supplies, but nothing mattered save this. It was delicious, brain-cell destroying, and she needed more, still more. Shoving him around so she could press him against the shelving unit as he had done to her, she raced her hands up his chest, around his neck…fisted them in his hair.

  More supplies fell. She didn’t care. She’d have crawled up his body if she could, and given the low, rough growl that came from deep in his throat, he felt the same way.

  Arching into him, she lifted a leg, tried to wrap it around his hip. He whipped them around again, pressed her hard to the wall. “Yeah. God.” Gripping her thigh, he held her open to his slow, purposeful thrust.

  Her head thunked back, hit the wall.

  He ate at her neck; hot, wet, openmouthed bites that had her whimpering, gasping for more but neither of them spoke, words weren’t necessary. Nothing was necessary except this, not even air.

  Obeying the vicious need, she simply melted into him as he continued to ravage, a long, deep, wet, devouring kiss that cloaked them in intimacy, in desperate, hungry desire. She kissed him back the same way, giving everything she had, her mouth open to meet his in a mindless beat out of time, slipping her hands beneath his shirt and over his smooth, sleek back, rippled with tension.

  His fingers opened the white lab coat she wore and danced beneath her blouse, over the quivering muscles of her belly, then higher, to just the bottom curves of her breasts.

  Her toes curled. Her nipples had long ago hardened into two aching buds. And what was happening between her thighs required the same attention as a five-alarm fire. Arching up into him as much as she could, irresistibly drawn by the slow, sexy forays of his tongue into her mouth, she moaned.

  Slow and deliberate, he continued to kiss her, spreading the aching heat in her belly, in her breasts, between her thighs.

  But then he drew back, just a fraction of an inch, and chest heaving, stared at her as if he’d never seen her before.

  She felt the same way. “I… I’m not sure where that came from.”

  “Yeah.” He was breathing too hard, so was she, she could hear the air chopping in and out of both their lungs. His hands slid down to curl into her hips, holding her against his rock-hard body.

  Her hands were still tangled in his dark, silky hair.

  Not an inch separated chest or belly or thighs, as she stood there weaving slightly, flushed with passion and quivering with need.

  He looked as shell-shocked as she felt. “I should tell you,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about that for a while now.” His voice was rough and scratchy. And so damned sexy she could close her eyes and listen to him for the rest of the day.

  Instead, she stared into his light blue eyes and saw more questions than answers. “I thought we figured this for a bad idea.”

  “Oh, it is. A really, really bad idea.” Too bad Luke wasn’t thinking with his heart at the moment.

  Or even his brain.

  It made no sense, no sense at all, why just looking at her made him ache all the time, why the feel of her beneath his hands nearly drove him wild.

  Maybe it’d been too long since he’d had sex, but that was just an excuse. It was her, Faith, and horrifying or not, he’d have to face that.

  Later. Much, much later.

  “Luke…” She licked her lips and made him groan. Stared at his mouth and made his knees weak.

  “I know.” But he didn’t, not really. He didn’t have a clue, and he badly needed one.

  “Are we going to do that again?”

  “No.” But he captured her mouth again anyway, because not getting another taste of her, when the first was still driving him out of his living mind, wasn’t an option.

  Her lips parted with a soft moan, and then her hands moved on his bare, heated flesh. Having her hands on him, hearing her pant softly, helplessly, drove him straight to the edge. He opened his mouth wider, pressing himself into her, letting out a low, rough groan when her fingers dug into his skin as if she needed the grip on her faltering reality. She was so unexpectedly irresistible, so damned fascinating, he couldn’t let her go.

  It was shocking, how much he needed this, shocking and delicious, and carried the pack of a one-two punch. He hadn’t come for this, damn it, he’d come just to do his time. He didn’t fully understand this clinic, or the sense of hope it gave to patients he still felt could be better served by conventional medicine, and yet here he was, his mouth and hands fully occupied—

  “The door,” she said into his mouth. “Luke, the door—”

  Unbelievably, it was still open. More unbelievably, no one had caught them. Without breaking their connection, he kicked it closed and backed Faith to it, cradling her face and kissing her until the world receded again, until there was nothing, no one, except this, her.

  She pulled her hands out from his shirt. He nearly moaned at the loss but, then she unbuttoned it, spread it open.

  He shoved the lab coat off her shoulders, then her blouse.

  She bit his bare shoulder.

  He cupped her breasts in his hands.

  And the world tilted.

  “Lust,” she gasped, when they next came up for air.

  He might as well have just run a marathon for all his ability to breathe. He had a mouthful of her throat, a handful of her perfect breasts and his leg thrust high between hers. “Huh?”

  “Lust.” She licked her lips, that gesture he found so sexy, and like a helpless slave to the hunger, he thrust his hips against hers.

  “It’s…just lust,” she repeated.

  “Are you sure?” Because, shockingly enough, suddenly he wasn’t.

  “Extremely.” She didn’t look it though. “We’ve already decided we’re just too different, right? Too busy with our own lives.”

  He slowly blinked. That’s right. Too busy.

  “I mean, obviously we have a thing for each other. A chemical thing. I can’t seem to take my hands off you, and vice versa—”

  At the reminder of where his hands were, cupped over her breasts, his thumbs rasping her nipples, he nearly groaned again. Instead, he slid them down, squeezing her hips now, and when she thrust against him one more time, he dropped his hands even further, to cup her perfectly rounded bottom.

  Her eyes were opaque with desire, her voice a little shaky. “I’m thinking we can handle this.” She wet her lips. “Lust is just a bodily function, right? Like drinking or going to the bathroom. So…we just deal with it. Then go on our merry way.”

  “Deal with it.” Thinking on his feet had never been more difficult. “So you’re saying we should…”

  “Well, not here.”

  He looked around. Right. They were in a storage closet. At the clinic. With patients just down the hall.

  Good God.

  “But after work…”

  He stared down into her still-flushed face. Her hair had rioted. Her blouse was opened and her nipples pressed enticingly against the material of her bra, seriously hampering his ability to put words together. “Are you trying to say we should have sex?”

  “Just on Saturdays. For the two months you’re so honor bound to give me.”

  He blinked again. “I thought we were going to ignore this.”

  “Are we ignoring it now?”

  No. No they weren’t. Of their own accord, his fingers again tightened on her very delectable ass. Ignore her? He had maybe a snowball’s chance in hell. “What about after the two months?”

  She bit her full lower lip again. “Well…you’d just have to let me go. I’m sorry, Luke, but like we said, we’re just too different.”

  Too different? Right. They were too different.

  Any red-blooded man would be laughing in triumph at this unexpe
cted offer, any single man he knew. Hell, any man in the entire free universe.

  Did he have this correct? Could he possibly? This gorgeous, sexy, unbelievably hot woman wanted to have sex with him, then after two months of great—and it would be great—sex, just walk away, all without a diamond ring, a white dress, white cake or white picket fence.

  Oh yeah, he should be doing the happy dance. But he didn’t feel like dancing. “Faith…you deserve more than that.”

  “It’s what I want.” She arched, very slightly, letting her extremely tight, hot nipples rub against his chest. “Are you going to turn me down, Luke? Are we going to have to try to work together, all worked up, without any relief?”

  The thought made him want to cry. “No. God, no.”

  She smiled, backed away. “We probably have patients.”

  “Patients.”

  “I’ll go first. I’ll—”

  A pounding at the door had them both jumping.

  “Faith? Is that you in there?” Shelby called. “We have a patient we want to consult on, room four. You in there?”

  “Uh…” Faith’s eyes widened on Luke. “Yes. Yes, I’m in here.”

  “Well, open up.” The knob turned, but before it could open, Luke wedged his foot against it.

  “Faith? Are you stuck in there?”

  Faith let out a slow, careful breath, and so did Luke. “Uh…not exactly.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Well…” Faith grinned at Luke, and right then and there, with his foot blocking the door so that they wouldn’t get caught, with his shirt ripped open and hers half off her body as well, he fell a little bit in love.

  “Faith?”

  “I’ll…be out in a minute!”

  “Okay…” Shelby’s voice went to a low, conspirator’s whisper. “Do you have Dr. Walker in there with you?”

  Wide-eyed, she stared at Luke. “Uh…”

  “Oh my God. You do…okay, you know what? Never mind, I’ll figure out the patient situation in room four. You two just…carry on.”

  Her footsteps moved away and Luke realized Faith was still staring at him, a little hopefully now, and he let out a rough groaning laugh. “No,” he whispered. “We’re not carrying on, not in this closet.”