Kitabı oku: «Indecent», sayfa 2

“Hello, Dr. McKenna,” she said with that sexy, throaty voice of hers. “Or may I call you Colin now that we’re no longer in the office?”

Will raised a brow at him. “Friends, are we? And here I thought you’d avoid a place like this like the plague.”

Colin dropped his hand from his tie. “Actually, we met elsewhere. Will, this is Lucky Clayborn.”

Will briefly offered his hand to Lucky. “Such an auspicious name. Nice. Very nice.”

Lucky stared at Will’s hand for a long moment then finally put her own into it and gave a brief shake, apparently not used to the greeting. “Nice to meet you,” she said, her gaze immediately re turning to Colin.

He tried not to notice the way her T-shirt hugged her just as tightly as her tank had earlier, the green fabric making her eyes look huge in her pale face.

“Can I bring you a draft?” she asked. “Harry brews his own.”

Colin swallowed hard and forced his gaze to his menu. “I’ll have bottled water.”

Will winked at her good-naturedly. “I’ll take a draft. Unlike the stuffed shirt here, I’m just knocking off work.”

Another waitress neared the table and stopped next to Lucky. Her whisper was none too subtle. “What are you doing? This is my table.”

Lucky shrugged her away. “Would you guys like to order now or would you like a few more minutes to go over the menu?”

Colin got the definite impression that if he so wanted, he could order her up with no problem.

His tie wasn’t the only item of clothing that suddenly felt tight.

The other waitress strode away toward the back of the restaurant. Colin looked around Lucky to watch the other woman strike up a conversation with a man he guessed was the manager or the owner.

“We’ll order now,” he said, thinking the less interaction with Lucky the better.

“Are you in some sort of trouble?” he asked after he and Will had made their choices.

Lucky glanced back to where the manager was staring at her while the waitress pointed in her direction.

She smiled as she accepted their menus. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

She walked away. As soon as she was out of earshot, Will pulled at his own collar. “Did the temperature just get a little hotter in here or is it my imagination?”

Colin grimaced as he straightened his silverware. “It’s your imagination.”

“Well, I certainly hope so because I’m guessing she’s a patient of yours. And you don’t want to be taking any chances right now. Not with everything that’s hanging in the balance.” His gaze trailed back to Lucky. “That’s one hot number, though. I don’t know what I would do if a patient of her caliber came on to me the way she’s coming on to you. A package like that has a way of making you forget about medical degrees. Pass her on to one of your colleagues quick, mate.”

Colin had considered and discarded the option earlier. To pass her on to one of his partners wouldn’t look good. And right now he couldn’t afford even a hint of impropriety. “So why did you pass Miss Clayborn onto your partner?” he could hear himself being asked during a legal deposition. What would he say? “I wanted to screw her so bad my balls ached, that’s why.”

The sound of raised voices caught his attention. He looked over to where Lucky was facing off with the manager, the other waitress standing nearby with her arms crossed under her impressive chest. Colin couldn’t make out what was being said, but given the man’s stern expression he didn’t think it was good.

And when Lucky took off her apron and then peeled off her T-shirt and draped both over the manager’s head, he knew he’d guessed correctly.

There were hoots and hollers as Lucky strode, as casual as you please, toward the kitchen where she disappeared behind the doors.

“Whoa,” Will said, his eyes wide. “Something tells me I won’t be getting that ale any time soon.”

Colin watched as Lucky came back out of the kitchen wearing the same tank she’d had on earlier. She ignored the manager as she walked through the place then out the front door.

He started to push from the table.

Will caught his arm, his expression stern. “I wouldn’t if I were you, Col.”

Colin considered him. “I know. But you’re not me.”

And then he went out after Lucky.

3

IT WAS raining.

Figured. Lucky kept her chin high and her shoulders back. It was raining in her professional life, so why shouldn’t it be in reality?

She squelched a groan. She’d really needed that job. Aside from the good tips, the flexibility had allowed her to work around her morning job at the pancake house within walking distance of the bar. And considering that the pancake house didn’t have an item on the menu that cost more than five dollars and ninety cents, her tips were minimal, by no means enough to live on.

And she’d thrown the job away for a man….

She tripped over her own feet, missing a puddle by millimeters. Had she ever done something so spontaneously irresponsible before? Not when it came to the opposite sex. Sure, she might like to shake things up a bit wherever she was, and she didn’t take well to leering bosses, but a few unwanted stares at her breasts had never been enough for her to walk away from a well-paying job. And in this case, she had not only walked away from it, she’d gone to Colin’s table knowing full well she’d be fired.

Of course, at the time it had seemed more than worth the unguarded expression on his face when he’d looked up to see her.

Now? Well, now she wondered which errant hormones had made her act so impulsively and how she might go about getting them back under control.

Sure, the shrink was thigh-quiveringly sexy. But no man was sexier than a good night’s worth of tips. Not when she had bills to pay.

She opened the door of her twenty-five-year-old Chevy and slid onto the well-maintained leather driver’s seat, breathing in the scent of old car and raspberry air freshener as she fished her keys from her purse. The ping of rain against the roof was the only sound…even after she turned the ignition key.

Not even a sputter, a whine or a crank from the old vehicle. Nothing.

Lucky tried starting the car again with the same results.

She rested her forehead against the cracked leather steering wheel and closed her eyes. Great. Just what she needed considering she’d just lost her main source of income.

There was a light tap on her window. She leaned back to stare at the blurry image through the rain-spattered glass. Was that…

Colin.

“Are you all right?” she read his lips rather than heard the muffled words.

Lucky blinked at him. Was the doc really standing out in the rain with no protection, his hands tucked into his slacks pockets as he bent to look inside her car? Yes, he was. And in that one moment everything that had transpired in the past ten minutes had been worth it.

She yanked open the door and climbed out of the car to stand in front of him. He straightened, seeming to squint at her in the gloomy light.

“What was that you said?” she asked.

“I asked if you were all right.”

Lucky twisted her lips, giving his tall, lean body a full once-over before returning her gaze to his eyes. “Considering I just got fired five minutes ago, my car won’t start, and the lack of an umbrella has made my tank top transparent? I’m just peachy.”

His gaze dropped down to her breasts. Lucky didn’t have to look. It didn’t take a physics professor to know that white cotton and steady rain made her look like a wet T-shirt contestant.

Only she was unprepared for the warm shiver that slaked through her at Colin’s slow perusal.

She rounded him to stand at the front of her car. After sliding her fingers in between the grill slats, she tugged on the release then braced herself as she hauled open the old car’s hood.

“You wouldn’t happen to know anything about cars, would you, Dr. McKenna?” she asked.

He came to stand next to her, staring at the grease-covered engine. “I know enough.”

“And would any of that knowledge help me out with what’s happening now?”

He looked at her, his mind appearing to be on everything but the status of her car. “It’s my guess your battery’s dead.”

He walked to the driver’s door, opened it, then pushed in the button that turned off the headlights. When she’d gotten into her car, Lucky hadn’t even been aware they were on. Then again, why would she? If the headlights had drained her sorry excuse for a battery, then there wouldn’t be any juice left to illuminate them now, would there?

Great.

Colin closed the door then reached to close the hood.

Lucky turned to face him. The fact that they stood without a raincoat or an umbrella in the pouring rain didn’t matter to her. Nor did it appear to matter to him as they stood just staring at each other.

“Well,” she said slowly, feeling oddly turned on by the attention. Attention she had wanted only a few hours earlier in his office but that now seemed somehow…very intimate to her. “I guess you won’t have to worry about running into me again here.”

He nodded. “Fired?”

“Very.”

His mouth turned up into a small smile. “How do you feel about that?”

Lucky narrowed her eyes. “Dr. McKenna, are you trying to psychoanalyze me in a parking lot in the middle of a thunderstorm?”

He looked up. “It would have to be thundering in order for it to be a thunderstorm.”

Lucky could have sworn she’d heard a few cracks and felt the ground shake, but she wasn’t going to say anything in case the sensations had nothing to do with the weather and everything to do with Colin McKenna.

“And you’re avoiding my question,” she said just as he had in his office earlier.

The very handsome Colin McKenna looked even more delectable mussed up and wet. “Sorry. Hazard of the trade, I guess.”

“What is? That you always end up sounding like a doctor?”

He nodded. “Especially when talking to a patient.”

That’s right. They still were doctor and patient, weren’t they? Despite all that had happened in her own life in the past half hour, their connection remained the same. A connection that prevented the more sexual one she wanted more in that minute than she had at any other point during the day.

“Mmm.”

His smile widened. “Can I give you a lift?”

“What would your lunch companion have to say about your disappearance?”

He glanced back toward the sports bar.

Lucky reached into her car, took her keys from the ignition, and grabbed her purse. “That’s all right, Dr. McKenna. I wouldn’t want to ask you to do something that might appear inappropriate.”

Actually, she wanted to ask him to do something very inappropriate. She wanted to ask him to kiss her. To brand her skin with his hands. To show her what she’d only felt earlier in the office when she’d provocatively brushed up against him.

“How will you get home?”

She took a card out of her purse and waved it at him. “It’s called the bus.”

Lucky began to round Colin to start toward Secor Road and the bus stop across the street, then stopped parallel to him. Despite the weather, she made out the warm scent of his cologne. Or was it aftershave? Whichever it was, the smell made her want to press her tongue to his skin to see if he tasted as good as he smelled.

And before she knew it, she turned to do exactly that.

COLIN HAD KNOWN a moment of disappointed relief when Lucky turned down his offer of a ride. He wasn’t sure what he was thinking when he’d made the offer, but he knew it was linked to what ever had compelled him to come outside to see if she was all right.

And he needed to get a handle on it before he and the sexy waitress…patient crossed paths again.

He was pretty sure he exhaled when she began walking toward the road.

After a few steps, she stopped and turned. “Actually, there’s one thing you can do for me real quick, Doc,” Lucky said lightly grasping his arm. “You can kiss me.”

Colin opened his mouth to protest. The problem was the movement allowed her better access as she took his bottom lip between her teeth, then kissed him like a woman who could teach classes on the subject.

He felt a groan grumble up from his chest. It had been a long, long time since he’d so thoroughly enjoyed a kiss. More than three months, though he’d gone without sex that long.

He stood still, reveling in the soft, uneven texture of her lips. The rasp of her tongue as she took full advantage and slid it past his teeth.

“Mmm.”

Lucky made that sound again that tugged on something within him. Something deep and elemental and undeniable.

He reached out to pull her closer when she pulled away.

Raindrops clung to her lashes, making them look longer and thicker and giving her cat-green eyes an even more vivid appearance. Whatever makeup she may have had on had long since been washed away by the rain, revealing a light smattering of freckles over her pale skin. And her red hair shone almost black with wetness.

“That was even better than I imagined,” she said softly. “And I have quite an imagination.”

Then she was walking away from him, her hips swaying, seeming completely oblivious to the rain and to him as she made her way toward the road some hundred yards away.

Colin absently rubbed his chin, then held out his hand, absently watching the rain pelt his skin then run off to accumulate in a puddle at his feet. He was soaked and somehow couldn’t remember how he’d gotten that way. He glanced up toward the battle-gray sky then back to the street, only Lucky was long gone.

FOR AN ENTIRE WEEK Colin both dreaded and anticipated the moment when Lucky would walk through the door to his office and either prove or disprove his attraction toward her. A case of raging hormones, he’d tried telling himself over and over again. An instance of temporary insanity. But no matter how many times he tried to apply reason to the erotic kiss he’d shared with Lucky in that parking lot seven days ago, he fell well short of the mark.

Then the moment he’d been waiting seven long days for never came.

Colin sat back in his chair, tapping his pencil against the incoming mail and files the practice secretary had placed on his desk after the group he’d finished with had vacated the room. The group that should have included Lucky.

He leaned forward, browsing through the files, looking for hers. Normal procedure dictated he contact the court, let them know the terms of their orders were being violated. But he was reluctant to do that. Maybe she’d got caught up at work. Perhaps she hadn’t repaired her car.

He couldn’t find her file.

Grimacing, he went through the pile again with the same results. A pink envelope fluttered from the files in his hands and landed squarely in the middle of his lap.

That’s odd. It looked like expensive personal stationary. Definitely not the type of thing he would think of Lucky possessing. He slit open the side with his opener and took out the single sheet of pink paper.

She’s pretty. I could have been pretty for you.

Colin’s blood ran cold.

While the handwriting wasn’t familiar, the words—or rather the taunt in them—was.

Jamie Polson.

He pushed from his chair and didn’t stop moving until he stood in front of his secretary’s desk.

Having been out with the flu the week before, Annette looked the worse for wear.

“Where did this come from?” he asked, flashing her the envelope that simply said Colin across it.

Annette blinked at him. “I don’t know. I don’t remember seeing it when I sorted through your things a little while ago.” She took the envelope and turned it over. “This I definitely would have remembered.” She smiled as she handed it back. “Love letter?”

Far from it, he wanted to say.

“Hi,” the breathless greeting sounded behind him.

Colin turned to find Lucky Clayborn smiling at him sexily. He nearly crumpled the letter and envelope in his grip. Someone had gained access to his office to put Jamie’s card there. And the card itself bore an unspoken threat of sorts that upped the level of tension. He’d hoped time would allow Jamie the space to move on. To drop the case.

Instead Jamie appeared even more determined to keep him on the run, both in court and out. And he couldn’t help wondering at the coincidence of Lucky’s presence at the same time he’d discovered the card.

Colin discovered he was staring at Lucky’s full mouth and allowed his gaze to linger there before lifting it to her eyes. “You’re late,” he told her. “The session’s over.” He stared at his secretary. “Where’s Miss Clayborn’s file?”

Annette appeared puzzled as she answered the phone then put someone on hold. “In with Dr. Szymanski’s files, of course. Miss Clayborn called and asked to be transferred last week.”

Lucky had moved to Morgan Szymanski, one of his partners?

Colin’s pulse rate leapt at the knowledge that Lucky was no longer his patient.

“Do you have a few minutes?”

Lucky had asked the question from behind him, but Colin didn’t trust himself to look at her. Without the doctor-patient wall standing between them, there was no longer any reason to resist her. He stared at the note in his hands then glanced at her.

“Why don’t we talk in my office?” he suggested.

4

BEING INSIDE Colin’s office with him, alone, was exactly what Lucky had had in mind.

She followed the handsome doc through the door to the right of the secretary’s desk, waiting until he closed the thick wood before she did what she’d been yearning to do all week.

She stepped within breathing distance and kissed him fully on the mouth.

Incredible…

Lucky had just spent the past hour getting to know her new therapist and her three new group mates. She’d volunteered more than during last week’s session, though Dr. Szymanski had been even less impressed with her participation than Colin had. But, with the simple touch of her lips against Colin’s, she forgot all about the fact that she was to begin keeping a daily journal. Gone was her agitation at her inability to find a job. A distant memory was the dent to her savings made by the money she’d had to pay to replace her car battery.

And long forgotten was her fear that Colin would refuse to see her even though she was no longer his patient.

Instead she just…well, she merely allowed herself to feel.

As she lifted her hands to thread her sensitized fingers through his velvet hair and intensify the kiss, sizzling heat spread across her skin, then went deeper, igniting her nerve endings in a flash fire. Want pooled in her belly, tension coiling even though her muscles relaxed.

There was something about this one moment in time that made the world look different to her somehow, the instant when she gave herself over to attraction and allowed her body to lead instead of her mind. There was something primal in the action, something freeing.

Something that freed her from her past, if only for a short while.

Kissing Dr. Colin McKenna did all that and much, much more.

By now Lucky should have dived for the waist of his pants, seeking even greater release. Strangely she seemed to be satisfied merely kissing the handsome doc. She couldn’t remember feeling that way before—happy simply feeling the firmness of a man’s lips against hers. Usually her mind had already moved ahead a step and her hands and body quickly followed. Now it seemed to take every ounce of concentration to kiss him.

Colin groaned and backed her toward the leather couch positioned against the wall under a print of downtown Toledo. The same couch Lucky had fantasized about taking him on a week ago. Regaining some control over her actions, she turned him around so she could push him down against the rich, fragrant leather. The instant he was prone she climbed on top of him, mindless of the way her miniskirt hiked up her thighs, focused only on the red-hot sensations flowing through her.

It felt so good, so right, so natural to be doing what she was. Colin cupped her breasts and she gasped, surprised by the shock of his touch. He broke the kiss and gazed down at her chest as he stroked her through her cotton top. But she could do him one better. She reached for the hem and hauled the material up and over her head, leaving only her red lace demi-cup bra behind.

She hungrily licked her lips as she watched the brown of Colin’s eyes nearly disappear under his dilating pupils. She began to bend to kiss him again, but the feel of his fingertip burrowing into the top of her bra then rasping against her distended nipple stopped her. She watched, trembling, as he peeled the lace back from her breast then lifted his head to suckle her deep into his mouth.

Lucky stiffened, her womanhood pulsing between her thighs, her heart thudding against the wall of her chest. She’d rarely experienced such a burning need to have sex with someone before. Oh, she’d always loved sex. But the hungry heat accumulating low in her belly took her breath away.

She wriggled her hips, happy when the thick ridge of his hard-on fell between the sides of her fleshy valley. She stretched her neck, riding out the waves of sheer pleasure at the meeting, despite the obstacle of their clothes.

Colin took advantage of the momentary lowering of her barriers to reverse their positions so that her back was against the soft leather and he pressed against her front. Lucky stared up at him in part surprise, part wonder, but most of all need.

When he leaned to kiss her, he did so with animal abandon. He bit and sucked and plucked, his breathing ragged, his hips cradled hard between her thighs. Lucky blindly pulled at his shirt, tugging it from his pants, then flattened her hands against the solid plane of his abdomen. He was rock-hard and lean and so hot she nearly singed her palms. She pinched his flat nipples, listening to the low growl in his chest, then dove for his pants, the sound of his zipper opening loud in the otherwise quiet room. She knew such an urgency to have him inside her that when she felt his finger edge inside the elastic of her panties and flutter against her clit, she nearly came on the spot.

Finally Colin’s throbbing erection filled her hand. Lucky pulled back from their kiss so she could see the thick width and length of him. Her doing so seemed to turn him on even further, his hips bucking involuntarily. She gently squeezed, then moved her hand up the shaft without releasing her grip, watching moisture gather on the tip.

Colin shuddered against her at the same time he thrust two fingers deep inside her dripping wet ness. The move was so unexpected that Lucky reached orgasm, bearing down on his hand and gyrating as sensation after sensation crashed over her.

Then the hand was gone from between her legs and was instead clutching her jaw. She blinked open her eyes. But rather than see the man who had given her the best orgasm she’d had in a very long time, she saw Colin’s angry face.

“Did Jamie put you up to this?” he ground out.

ONE MOMENT Colin had been on the verge of spilling his seed all over Lucky’s hand, the next he was seeing her as the enemy, a modern-day Mata Hari bent on destroying him.

He glimpsed the fear in Lucky’s eyes before she quickly blinked it away.

Colin cursed loudly and rolled off her luscious body to stand. He slipped his painfully erect penis into his pants, then tucked his shirt in and did up his pants.

“How much did Jamie pay you?” he said after long moments.

Lucky was right where he’d left her, her fingers gingerly tracing the line of her jaw where he’d gripped her, perhaps a little too hard.

She swung her legs over the side of the couch, and tucked her breasts back into her bra. Her golden-red hair was sexily tousled, her color high. And Colin had no idea how he’d found the strength to deny his need to have sex with her.

“What in the hell are you talking about?” she finally asked, pulling her top back over her head then removing her long hair from the back. “And who in the hell is Jamie?”

Colin rounded his desk. A good fifteen feet separated him from the woman he’d nearly ravished mere minutes ago, but it might as well have been nothing. His nose was still filled with her musky scent. His body still ached with the desire to claim her. “Come off it. A guy doesn’t get this lucky unless he’s going to pay for it later.”

She flicked him a fiery smile. “Yes, well, this Lucky doesn’t do it for money.”

She got up from the couch and straightened her short skirt.

Colin crossed his arms. “The timing of your being assigned to me…your coming on to me so hard…switching doctors then showing up here…it has to be more than coincidence.”

She stepped toward his desk, making his pulse leap. “Whoever this Jamie is, she really screwed you up, huh?”

Colin found it more than a bit odd that he was standing in his office with a patient—ex-patient—and she was the one doing the analyzing.

“I consider myself a little on the suspicious side, but you,” she was standing in front of him now and poked her finger into his chest, “you really take the cake, Dr. McKenna.”

Colin stared into her flushed face for long moments. Could he be wrong? Could everything that had happened between him and Lucky have been just a natural progression of events?

Even as he asked himself the question, he knew there was nothing natural about his wanting to claim her in a way he’d never claimed another woman before. Or perhaps it was purely natural, some kind of primal instinct to overpower his enemy.

She tsked as she ran her fingertip down over his buttons. “It’s a shame.”

She turned around and walked toward the exit door.

“What is?” Colin couldn’t resist asking.

“That I won’t be seeing you again.” She opened the door, then stood leaning against it.

“You see, I make it a habit not to get involved with anyone more screwed up than I am. And you, Colin, have demons not even I can compete with.”

He squinted at her as she gave him a once-over.

“It really is a shame. I have the feeling you’re very good in the sack. And I definitely was interested in finding out how good.”

Colin winced at the quiet click of the door closing.

FIVE DAYS LATER Colin was no closer to finding out the truth behind what had happened than he had been when he’d been cushioned between Lucky’s sweet thighs, literally an inch away from having sex with her.

“Come on, Mac, get your game on!”

Colin absently twirled the tennis racket in his hand and stared across the tennis court at Will who had just taken the first set and was two points into winning the next game.

The ball hit the center line then whizzed right by his left ear.

He’d agreed to meet his friend at his condo complex for tennis hoping some exercise and Will’s company would help him forget about what had transpired in his office. Instead all he could think about was that it was Saturday morning and he had two whole days to fill before he could go back to work on Monday morning. Two yawning spring days that he usually looked forward to but now dreaded.

Twenty minutes later Will called the second set and tossed him a clean towel as they left the courts.

Will grinned at him. “Well, that was certainly a nice change of events. You usually beat the crap out of me at tennis.”

Colin used the towel to wipe his face, though he didn’t need it, then draped the terry cloth around his neck. “Yeah, well, I took pity on you this morning.”

Will nudged him in the arm with his covered racket. “No, mate, you’re distracted. And I don’t think it’s one of your whackos behind this one.”

Colin grimaced at his friend. “For a doctor you can be very insensitive.”

“Me? What would make you say that?”

“Whackos?”

“I’d never call them that to their faces.”

“Your referring to them that way at all makes you insensitive.”

Will chuckled. “I’ll let you have that one. If only because I’m concerned about your mental welfare after this morning’s match.”

They walked in silence, winding around the three buildings that separated the tennis courts from the Victorian block that held Will’s condo.

Will made some comments about the quality of the women sunbathing at the pool then turned his attention back to Colin.

“So, are you going to share who she is or not?”

“Who?”

“The wily female who’s stolen your brain straight out of your head.”

“There’s no one in my life right now. You know that.”

“I know that’s what your attorney advised.”

Colin slanted him a wary look.

“Good, then. You wouldn’t mind doubling with me and Janet then tonight.”

“What?”

“You heard me.” Will feigned a couple of tennis moves then continued walking next to him again. “The pretty resident has finally agreed to go out with me, but only on the condition that I bring someone along for her girlfriend.”

“No way. If you’ll remember correctly, my attorney advised me not to date anyone.”

“This won’t be a date. This will be two pals getting together and running into a couple of girls while they’re out.”

“Mmm.”

“You wouldn’t deny a guy a chance to take the pretty pink ribbon out of Janet’s hair now, would you?”

That’s how Will always referred to the women he dated. And quite accurately at that. While it was highly unlikely Janet wore an actual pink ribbon, she was the type that would have done so in high school. While she was the head varsity cheerleader.

“I would and I am.”

Will took his keys out of his pocket as they neared his building. “Why? Has something happened on the Jamie front I don’t know about?”

Colin ran his hand over his face, not really up to talking about it just then. “Yeah, a couple things. But nothing to be worried about.”

Will held open the door for him, but when Colin would have entered, two young women bounded out, looking as if the only thing they would do with pink ribbons was tie them around their body piercings. Short, tight T-shirts and even shorter denim cutoffs revealed bodies buff enough for the cover of Playboy without the need for air-brushing.