Page 21 of We Were Something
There’s a pause. A long one. Then Paige pulls a chair out and sits down gracefully across from me, our eyes never disconnecting.
“I think men usually assume they have to be fully in control for a woman to find them attractive,” she says, her voice quiet as she watches me. “They think they have to be the instigator, the aggressor, the unrepentant alpha, always in control.”
Then she leans forward, her smile stretching wide as her hand reaches out toward where mine are resting on the table between us. With one delicate finger, she traces along the edge of my right hand, sending a ripple of goose bumps up my arm.
“But there is something sublimely sexy about a man who isn’t exactly sure what to do with me,” she says, slowly turning my hand over and continuing with her sensual tracing on my now upturned palm. “Knowing the things I say make you feel a little out of control. A little…ruffled.”
My heart, which has been thumping in what I can only assume is some erratic, unusual pattern since the moment her skin first lightly caressed mine, feels like it comes to a stop as she pulls her hand away.
She leans back in her chair, her eyes never looking away from me as I sit feeling like I’ve been hit over the head with something large and made entirely of concrete.
How does she manage to do that? Twist me all up inside like I’m made of an easily tangled cord or twine rather than skin and muscle and tendon and bone?
“I’m gonna use the ladies, freshen up my lipstick,” she tells me. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
And then, acting as if she hasn’t just destroyed me with only a few sentences, she slips a pair of sunglasses onto her face and walks off toward the entrance to the hospital, her hips swaying in a way that is supremely tantalizing.
I sit for a long moment, simply staring at the empty seat across from me feeling as though some sort of rug has been pulled out from beneath me and now I’m splayed on the ground in a mess.
What the hell was that?
I clear my throat and shift in my seat, thankful for a semi-private moment so I can adjust where my pants have grown snug at the nearly shocking way the simple stroke of her finger against my hand shot through me in a wave of desire and want.
Where does she come up with the things she says? And why the hell does she want to say those things tome?
I mean, realistically, I understand that I’m not anunattractiveman. I work hard at keeping my body physically fit, but that’s mostly because of the health benefits and the fact that I’m a doctor who needs to maintain a healthy image if I’m going to preach healthy practices to my patients. It isn’t because I’m trying to garner the attraction of anyone, let alone someone so much younger than me.
Surely someone her age should be more interested in…well, someone else her age. Someone whodoesn’tcome with my kind of baggage. Someone from her own neck of the woods.
When I see Paige emerge from between the hospital’s sliding front doors a few moments later, her petite figure silhouetted in the shadows for a brief moment before she steps into the sun, I know I should just thank her again for the shoes and send her on her way. I have a lot of work to get done today, a number of appointments with children and their parents that I need to get to, along with all the paperwork on my desk. I don’t have time to sit around and flirt.
But instead, I find myself watching her approach, the way her hips sway from side to side, the way her short mess of almost white blonde hair blows in the breeze, the way her lips are curved with that same semi-devious look from before, and I feel…entranced.
Enthralled by her in a way that is unexpected and inescapable.
It can’t hurt to chat a bit, right?
Because even though those dirty little things she says to me throw me completely off guard, I can’t help but want to hear whatever else might be said by those lips. No matter how shocking.
I stand as she nears the table, beginning to collect the remnants of my half-eaten lunch.
“Did I scare you off?” she asks, her voice teasing.
Shaking my head, I step a few feet away and chuck the to-go box into a nearby trash can.
“Are you planning to visit Ivy while you’re here?” I ask, hoping for a few moments more with her, even though I shouldn’t.
There’s a pause before she responds.
“I’m definitely going to visit her. I can’t be here and not go poke my nose into her business,” she says, an affectionate smile stretching across her face.
Not for the first time, I wonder how she knows my patient.
Ivy has been in my care ever since her collapse last month, when her brother Ben requested that I take over instead of continuing to have her treated at USC. I know Ivy has another brother, Wyatt, and a sister, Hannah, the blonde who came to visit with Paige and the other brunette last night. There’s a third brother too, Lucas, if I remember correctly.
I can’t imagine what it’s like to have such a large family, everyone worrying about you all the time. Growing up, it was just me and my mom. If I had been stuck in the hospital like Ivy, I would have been alone all day. There are several kids currently in rooms upstairs who are in similar situations.
Ivy’s a lucky girl to be surrounded by so much love.
