In the Doctor's Bed Page 7

  “I’ll be seeing you, then,” she said, and made a move to open the door.

  “Yes, I’ll be seeing you.”

  He turned to leave and had even taken a few steps. But something made him turn back toward her. All it took was a look in her eyes and he was a goner. Without any thought he retraced his steps to her and pulled her into his arms. She parted her lips invitingly.

  The moment his tongue touched hers, like before, passion ripped through him and he deepened the kiss as hunger took control. For all he knew her roommate could have been standing at the window staring at them, but for the moment he didn’t care. The only thing he cared about was kissing her, tasting her, claiming her mouth this way once again.

  Never had he found kissing a woman so deep-in-the-gut pleasurable. Never had he been so caught up in a kiss. Her lips were soft and pliable; her tongue was just as aggressive and greedy as his. He detected a need within her that was just as great as his own. So he deepened the kiss, continued a thorough sweep around the insides of her mouth like he had all the time in the world. He was taking it whether he had it or not.

  She was the one who pulled away from the kiss to gasp for air. And as he watched her battle short breaths, a tiny voice inside his head scolded that he should not have kissed her again. But he knew there was no way he could have left without doing so.

  He slowly ran his tongue around the upper part of his lips, enjoying the taste of her still lingering there. He reached out and gently rubbed the pad of his thumb across her chin wondering what he could say to free himself from a moment that would forever be trapped in his mind. And he knew there was nothing he would say. “I’ll be seeing you.”

  She nodded. “All right.”

  Forcing distance between them he turned and jogged back to his car. One thought rang in his mind: What had he gotten himself into?

  Chapter 6

  Jaclyn took a shower and fell into bed. The moment her head touched the pillow she should have been fast asleep. But that was not the case. Her lips were still tingling and her body was still keyed up from the kiss she had shared with Lucien.

  They hadn’t kissed just once but twice, not counting the nibbles in between as well as the encore at her door. She could definitely say her mouth had gotten quite a workout. She had never been kissed so soundly by a man in her life. He hadn’t just kissed her, he had literally consumed her.

  The one thing she had been grateful for was that Isabelle had slept through it all. That meant her friend and roommate knew nothing about the sensuous exchange on their doorstep. She was also relieved that as far as she knew, no other employee of the hospital lived in their neighborhood.

  She had two days off and hopefully by the time she returned to work she would be on solid ground, ready to put the time she’d spent with Lucien behind her.

  Fat chance!

  She changed positions on the bed wondering if counting sheep would help and quickly figured that it wouldn’t. So she flipped on her back and stared at the ceiling to think. How was she supposed to act when she saw him again? How could she manage to look at him, gaze at his mouth and not remember how that same mouth had wiped all her senses clean with a smooth stroke of his tongue?

  And they had been the smoothest strokes, with such thorough possession that she got butterflies in her stomach at the mere memory. Just like the interns referred to Ms. Tsang as “Miss Thang” behind her back, a few of the interns had taken to calling Dr. De Winter “De Man” behind his back. Well, he had shown her today that he was definitely the man.

  She was about to close her eyes when her cell phone went off and she quickly recognized the ring tone. It was one or both of her parents. She quickly picked it up. The last time one of them called was to tell her that her grandmother had taken a fall. “Hello?”

  “Hi, precious. How’s my favorite girl?”

  Jaclyn smiled. She and her father always had a close relationship. She wasn’t ashamed to admit she was a daddy’s girl. “I’m fine, Dad. How’re you, Mom and Gramma doing?”

  Jaclyn’s grandfather had died the year she had started medical school. Childhood sweethearts, her grandparents had been married over sixty years. After he died, everyone had wondered how her grandmother would handle the loneliness. But Gloria Campbell had surprised everyone by joining a senior citizens’ club where the over-seventy group did a number of activities each day.

  “Everyone is fine. We heard about that multicar pileup on CNN. A reporter said all the injured people were taken to the hospital where you work.”

  “Yes, that’s right. I had to pull a double.”

  She and her father talked a little while longer before he passed the phone to her mother. Hearing the exhaustion in her voice, her mother gave her instructions to get rest, told her that her grandmother was at the senior citizens’ center playing bingo and then ended the call.

  They were great parents, Jaclyn thought as she hung up the phone. She couldn’t imagine growing up without them, and her brother.

  Kevin had always been a clean-cut kid until he went away to college. It was there when he began experimenting with drugs and eventually got addicted. He had returned home in his junior year of college with a drug habit. A year later her parents had to Baker Act him when his illegal drug use had gotten out of control. It had taken some time, but with the family’s support he had pulled himself together, gone back to finish college and met and married a wonderful woman. Trish was just the person her brother had needed in his life.

  She wouldn’t be surprised if Kevin called her as well to check up on her. Although she would love hearing from him she needed to sleep and hoped her parents passed the word that she was fine and just needed to rest.

  Kevin would be the first to tell anyone that upon admitting he’d had a drug problem the best thing he’d gotten was support from his family.

  That was why she found the Matthewses’ lawsuit so confusing. Terrence had a drug problem and the worst thing his parents could do was stick their heads in the sand and pretend that he didn’t. He needed help, and with the right type of counseling there was no doubt in her mind that Terrence would one day become the gifted physician she believed he could be. But the route his parents were taking was one of denial. They were going after the hospital for revenge. It didn’t make any sense.

  Jaclyn shifted positions in bed and her thoughts moved from Terrence back to Lucien. She didn’t want to face the fact that today she had gotten her first and last kisses from him. As she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep she still had the taste of Lucien on her tongue. And she liked it. She liked it too much.

  Lucien left his bedroom in his bare feet and walked to the kitchen to grab a beer out of the refrigerator. He popped the bottle cap and took a huge pleasurable gulp. What a day, he thought. What a woman. What a kiss.

  Before coming home he had gone back to the hospital to check on the patients who had been brought in through E.R. yesterday. He hadn’t run into Dr. Dudley, but he had seen Nurse Tsang, who had locked her gaze on him like she’d known he was hiding something. He couldn’t help but smile. If only she knew… And he was so damn grateful that she didn’t. It was bad enough that he did.

  He rubbed his hand down his face thinking of the predicament he was in. But instead of trying to come up with a way out of it, his mind was conjuring a plan to get further into forbidden territory. It made no sense. First and foremost he was Jaclyn’s boss, which meant he had no right dating her even if the hospital didn’t have a policy against it.

  He dropped down in a chair at the kitchen table remembering the last time he’d gotten involved in a workplace relationship and how badly it had ended. What he’d told Jaclyn was true. He wasn’t involved with anyone and hadn’t been seriously in quite a while. He’d also been honest when he’d said he’d never been involved with an intern under his supervision.

  But what he hadn’t told her was that years ago when he had been a intern himself he’d dated another med student by the name of Nikki Stins
on. Both he and Nikki were very competitive and when he earned a better intern placement than she did, the affair ended badly. That was when he’d decided never to mix business with pleasure again. So why was he so into Jaclyn? Not only was he breaking the hospital rule, but he was also breaking his own rule.

  Granted, Jaclyn was nothing like Nikki. Nikki had grown up in the Bronx and was tough as nails. There were times he thought there wasn’t a compassionate bone in her body, which made him question her choice of profession. More than once Nikki’s bedside demeanor with patients had been so atrocious that she had gotten written up by their superiors. Jaclyn, on the other hand, had a gentle, calm nature, a kindness that gave him the impression she was emotionally fragile. Not weak but vulnerable. She had a way of bringing out the very essence of his protective instincts.

  A short while later, even though it was still daylight outside, Lucien was in his bed lying flat on his back and staring up at the ceiling. He had truly enjoyed spending the day with Jaclyn. When he’d mentioned the boat race, she hadn’t given him a funny look or made a wisecrack about a grown man who would like doing such a thing. Instead, she had smiled and joined in an activity that he enjoyed, one that always relaxed him.

  Being around her had relaxed him as well. She was the type of woman a man could open up to, the kind of woman a man could get attached to if he wasn’t careful. He drew in a deep breath. Who was he kidding? He was already a goner. If he was smart he would put Jaclyn and the kisses they’d shared not only to the back of his mind but out of his mind completely. But for some reason he couldn’t do that.

  When he’d kissed her he had been caught off guard by how delicious she tasted. Intense heat had circulated in his stomach and moved lower to his groin. It had filled him with desire so thick and potent that he’d succumbed to the very power of it by deepening the kiss. He hadn’t experienced anything so erotic in his entire life.

  Lucien knew he had felt every luscious curve of her body when he had held her close to him. It had been a beautiful day and he had been lucky enough to hold a beautiful woman in his arms. But he had done more than just hold her. He had kissed her with a possession that he’d felt all through his body. And the strange thing about it was that he still felt it.

  And when she had shivered in his arms, he had felt each and every vibration in a way that made his gut rumble with need that has been so urgent and vital that his pulse rate had raced out of control. His mind had suddenly filled with possibilities of just how far that kiss could take him, and he’d known it would be beyond anything in his wildest dreams. In other words, each kiss had shaken him to the very core of his being.

  Even now his pulse was accelerating just remembering their day together. A day he hadn’t wanted to end. He was surprised he had won the race those four times because he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her. The sun had been shining bright in the sky and the rays had hit her at an angle that had made her look gorgeous from the top of her head to the soles of her feet.

  He couldn’t help wondering what she would be doing with her free time over the next two days. He hadn’t mentioned it to her but he had the next two days off work as well. Imagine that. He drew in a deep breath, not wanting to imagine it. If they had been free to date he would call her in a heartbeat and suggest they spend their days off together.

  But they weren’t free to date and that was the crux of his problem. He knew the limitations, the boundaries and the risks, yet today he had outright ignored all three and today he had done just what he’d wanted to do where Jaclyn was concerned. And a part of him knew tomorrow wasn’t going to be any better. Already he was contemplating calling her and asking that they spend their two days off together. Now if that wasn’t asking for trouble, what was?

  Doing something like that would be the most irrational thing he’d ever done. However, at the moment he wasn’t strong enough to resist her. He wanted to see her again, spend time with her and taste her once more.

  Before he could talk himself out of doing it, he reached for his cell phone on the nightstand. He had every intern’s number in his phone and the moment he punched in her name he could hear the ringing sound.

  What if he was waking her up from a sound sleep? She had mentioned she planned on going straight to bed after taking a shower. Just because he was too wired to sleep didn’t mean she was, too. On the third ring he’d made up his mind to hang up when she answered the call.

  “Hello?”

  His heart slammed in his chest at the sexy, husky and sluggish sound of her voice. He had awakened her, but damn, she sounded so good. That same pulse that had been giving him fits all day began to thud almost mercilessly in his chest. He was so caught up in how she sounded that it was only when she said hello a second time that he realized he needed to say something. His reaction to her wasn’t normal, but for him normalcy had gotten tossed to the wind the moment he’d laid his eyes on Jaclyn that day at Hopewell.

  He closed his eyes and then reopened them, knowing what he was about to ask would change the course of their relationship forever. “This is Lucien. Sorry if I woke you, but I need to ask you something.”

  “What?”

  He decided to jump right in. The worst she could do was tell him no. “I’m off work the next two days as well. I plan to get away and go sailing on the Chesapeake and wanted to know if you’ll go with me.”

  And just so she understood the depth of what he was asking, he quickly added, “And I’d like to make it an overnight trip, so we won’t be returning until sometime Thursday.”

  Jaclyn jolted wide awake. Had she dreamed what Lucien had just said? What he’d suggested? “Sorry, could you repeat that? I think I misunderstood you.”

  His soft chuckle sent heat flowing through her body and her lips suddenly felt dry, so she licked them. “I’m asking you to spend two days with me. I’d like for us to take a drive over to Annapolis, then spend the day sailing on the Chesapeake. I know the perfect place where we can stay for the night.”

  She swallowed thickly. After two kisses did he just assume she would sleep with him? She sat up at the edge of the bed. Don’t jump to any conclusions, she told herself. All he’d said was that he wanted her to spend the day with him tomorrow. He hadn’t come right out and said they would be sharing a bed. He would expect them to get separate rooms, wouldn’t he?

  “Jaclyn?”

  “Yes?”

  “We can get separate rooms, if you’d like.”

  She wondered if he had read her thoughts. She hadn’t missed the way he’d made the suggestion. He would leave it up to her to decide whether there would be one room or two.

  “Will you spend your off days with me?” he asked when moments slipped by and she hadn’t said anything.

  She began nibbling on her bottom lip. He sounded as if he was in his right mind, which meant he was well aware of the risks if they were seen together, regardless of the sleeping arrangements. “Lucien…”

  “I know what you’re thinking and yes, I know the risks. I knew them today as well. But that didn’t keep me from wanting you, wanting to hold you in my arms and kiss you. And knowing the risks isn’t keeping me from wanting to spend the next two days with you. I know it’s crazy, but I want to be with you.”

  Jaclyn inhaled slowly. If it was crazy, then he wasn’t the only one affected by this madness because she wanted to spend time with him as well. For the past eighteen months they had shared an intense attraction but had resorted to pretending the other hadn’t existed. At least they had tried to pretend. But for the next two days he was giving her a chance not to pretend and by golly she would take it. “What time will you pick me up?”

  He didn’t say anything for a second, as if surprised by her decision. Then he asked, “Will ten o’clock be okay?”

  “Make it eleven. Isabelle would have left for work by then.”

  “All right. I’ll see you tomorrow around eleven. Goodbye, Jaclyn.”

  “Goodbye.”

  She held th
e phone in her hand long after the call had disconnected. She sat there a moment and recalled everything that had transpired between her and Lucien beginning yesterday in his office. Then she thought about their morning at breakfast and the day they’d spent at the park. When she’d closed her eyes to get some rest earlier, she had convinced herself the relationship building between her and Lucien was more her imagination than anything else. But now that phone call from him proved otherwise. He wanted to be with her just like she wanted to be with him.

  She stood and strolled in bare feet over to the window. It was close to seven yet it hadn’t gotten dark yet. Should she have turned down his invitation? She knew deep down there was no way she could have done that. Wanting to be with Lucien and his wanting to be with her was a fantasy she refused to deny, no matter the risks. And as ludicrous as it sounded, she intended to enjoy the fantasy as long as it lasted.

  But she had to be careful that Isabelle didn’t find out. She didn’t want to place her roommate and best friend in a comprising position by covering up for her. So the less Isabelle knew, the better off she was.

  Just like Jaclyn had felt it was her duty to report Terrence’s drug use to her superiors because he was breaking a hospital policy, she didn’t want to place Isabelle in a position of having to do the same. The nonfraternization policy was in place whether she liked it or not. And for her and Lucien to see each other in spite of it meant they were clearly breaking hospital rules and regulations.

  She told herself they would have these two days and no more. But as she walked back to the bed and slid under the covers she had a feeling those two days were just the beginning.

  Chapter 7

  “Okay, Jac-O, what’s the reason for that silly grin on your face?”

  Jaclyn resisted the temptation to burst out laughing. She had been trying so hard not to let her excitement show but couldn’t help it. The last thing she needed was for Isabelle to start asking questions…like she was doing now. Her best friend was known to weasel anything out of her she wanted to know. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”