Page 149 of Wicked Fantasies

At least you kicked the bum out on his ass.

Wasn’t much of a kick. He wanted her, so he left. Catching them in the act just saved him the trouble of telling me.

After she’d divorced her husband, Rachel had pursued her own dreams, going back to school to work toward her physical therapy degree. For nearly six years, she’d managed to work herself into oblivion in hopes of avoiding the concept of “getting out there”. During the stressful time after her divorce, she’d turned to erotic romance as a means of escape. Curling up in bed with a hunky fictional character was a hell of a lot easier than dealing with a real flesh-and-blood man.

Christ, Rachel. Don’t you miss hot, sweaty, set-the-sheets-on-fire sex?

She rolled her eyes. The only man she’d ever had sex with—her ex-husband—had made reading the changes in tax laws seem exciting in comparison.

Hard to miss what you never had.

All the more reason to get out there.

Yeah. I guess you’re right. Thanks for the pep talk.

Is that what this was? Because, sweetie, you don’t seem much peppier. Guess it’s a good thing I never went out for cheerleading in high school. Of course, with my lack of hips, I’d have spent the entire time cheering with that little skirt around my ankles. Nothing to hold it up.

Rachel grinned. Even through texting, Autumn always managed to make her laugh.

Talking to you always helps. Give Mitch a kiss for me.

I will. Bye, sweetie.

She turned off her phone and closed her laptop rather than go back to the cougar group. Tonight, listening to all her friends chatter about their fun lives just deepened her depression. Hearing them talk about overcoming their problems and finding their dreams left her to wonder if there was something seriously wrong with her. She’d been dragged along with the cougar challenge and now they were expecting her to go out and have a fling with not just a man, but a younger man.

Shit.

She’d never be able to do that. She was too sensible to go around flirting with younger men who in all likelihood wouldn’t even notice her pathetic efforts. She was more the gal-pal type than the “pick up a stranger in a bar” sort of woman.

She pulled out the tatty notebook she always carried with her and flipped through the pages until she found the list she was looking for. She’d started keeping lists back in high school and the habit had never gone away. Once she filled a notebook, she bought a new one, loading the pages with list after list on every subject under the sun. In the beginning they were a way to stay organized. As she got older, they’d begun to also serve the purpose of reminding her of various things as she tended to be more forgetful.

She found the page she was looking for and scanned her pitiful list of potential younger men once again. She’d been keeping a running list since the night Monica issued the challenge, adding and marking out names for months. Unfortunately, the list was as pitiful now as it had been when she’d started it. There were currently seven names on the page, but four of those had been scratched out for various reasons. The three remaining prospects weren’t exactly thrilling. She leaned her head against her desk chair and fought back a groan. Apparently, she wasn’t cougar material after all.

She glanced at the clock, closed her eyes and sighed. Ethan was late again. Officer Russell was her most disgruntled patient. As a physical therapist, she was used to treating people who preferred to ignore their injuries, who chose instead to carry on with their normal activities without regard for the fact they were doing themselves more harm. Ethan took the award for stubbornness.

For the past eight weeks, she’d worked with him as he recovered from a gunshot wound to his upper leg. If not for the police department’s strict policy on the treatment of work-related injuries, she was certain Ethan would never have darkened her door, and it had taken more than a little bit of convincing on her part to get him to take the exercises and recovery strategy seriously.

If she had any feminine wiles at all, she’d be using the handsome twenty-eight-year-old officer to practice her seduction skills. But her work ethic prohibited her from becoming involved with a patient and her damn practicality prohibited basically everything else in regards to Ethan Russell.

“Whatcha doin’, Doc? Sleeping?”

“Oh shit!” She jumped out of her chair, her heart racing at the sudden sound in the room. She hadn’t heard Ethan walk in. There he stood, six feet four inches of mouth-watering perfection, with wavy dark brown hair and a smile that reduced her insides to utter mush. His hot-chocolate-colored gaze should be registered as lethal as his work-issued gun.

His grin at her alarm was remorseless. “Tsk, tsk, tsk. Napping on the clock,” he teased.

She shook her head and ignored his comment. “You’re late. Again.”

He shrugged, unconcerned. “Caught a bad guy right at the end of shift. Lousy paperwork took awhile.”

“You couldn’t call?” she asked, aware her voice was snippy, but he’d truly frightened the hell out of her.

He looked at the clock that hung on the wall. “I’m only five minutes late, Rachel.”

She gave him a crooked smile and acknowledged the truth of his words. “Sorry,” she muttered. “Bad day.”

“Lose a list or something?” he asked, gesturing toward her notebook. He’d teased her relentlessly about her list fetish ever since asking about the book one night. She’d foolishly shown him the thing and for some reason, he’d found her fervent list-keeping hysterical.

“Ha ha. No, Mr. Smart Ass, I didn’t lose a list. I just don’t happen to like the one I’m working on.”

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