Page 21 of Dr. Off Limits

Jacob

I’d been acting impulsively and irrationally and I didn’t like it. I don’t know what I’d been thinking going up to Sutton in front of her new colleagues. We were supposed to be strangers. She’d been furious and rightly so. But that didn’t change the fact that we needed to have a conversation—a rational conversation—about our situation.

I leaned against her front door frame and knocked. No answer. Then I knocked again. There was a rustling of keys followed by the door creaking open a crack. The chain was across the door and I could see Sutton’s one eye peeping into the hallway like a hot, pint-sized Cyclops.

“We need to talk,” I said.

“We absolutely do not need to talk,” she replied. “That’s exactly what I was trying to explain earlier when you made a scene in front of every new foundation doctor at the hospital.”

“A scene? Really? I just wanted to talk to you. Seeing you was a shock.” Saturday night had been so good. So completely unexpected and so much fun. She’d been so relaxed and funny and herself. It was like she’d turned into a different person. I hated myself for causing it.

She closed the door and I waited as she unchained the lock and we came face-to-face. “You better come in.”

“Thanks.” I followed her into her living room. I hadn’t remembered it being laid out like this on Saturday. We’d probably headed straight to her bedroom.

“You want a drink?”

I shook my head.

“Sit over there on that chair.” She pointed to one of those Ikea chairs that looked like an adult baby bouncer. I grinned at the thought that she was being so assertive. Was she scared she wouldn’t be able to keep her hands off me or something?

I took a seat and realized we were actually in her bedroom. And her living room. She was sitting on her bed.

“Why didn’t you tell me you worked at the Free?” I asked, trying to put a cork in all the memories from Saturday threatening to fly out into the small room. God, I’d had a good time. The dinner had been so great. I’d been weirdly open with her and told her things I’d never told anyone, let alone a near stranger. And then back here, after dinner? It had been fun and so fucking sexy. It had been the kind of sex that sobered you up—not because it was bad but because it was so fucking good and your body understood on a molecular level that you needed to remember it. It was sex that was to be put in the archives, kept and pulled up at various times for the rest of your life. It was the kind of sex that made you feel like a fucking god.

“Me?” she said, incredulous. “Why didn’t you say anything? I hadn’t even started my job. You were meant to be going to Africa next week doing Medicine Sans Frontier. And your name was supposed to be Beau.”

I pushed my hand over my head and tried to fight back the memories of her fingers smoothing over my scalp. How she’d cried out about how it felt between her legs. Fuck, I could feel the stirrings of an erection.

This wasn’t the time. The mood she was in, she’d probably cut it off.

“I filled in for my brother,” I said. The thought of Beau helped negate my growing lust.

“You filled in?” she asked. “You weren’t renting a car.”

“I know, but he broke his nose, and he didn’t want to let down your friend...”

“Parker,” she added.

“Parker. He was doing her a favor—”

“Listen, I don’t need someone to go on a date with me as a favor.”

Of course she didn’t. Why was everything I was saying coming out wrong? “I didn’t mean it like that. I just—look, if I’d known you were about to start at the Free, there was no way I would have said yes to the date.”

“Yeah, well if I hadn’t thought you were going to be thousands of miles away in a few days, there was no way I would have slept with you,” she said.

Her words were like an icy wind, chasing a chill up my spine. I winced. I hated the idea that Saturday night wouldn’t have happened if she’d known who I was. I mean, if I’d known who she was, I would have had to walk away, but that would have been my choice.

“I don’t want a boyfriend,” she continued. “And I sure as hell don’t want the added hassle of wondering whether people are looking at me differently or treating me differently because I slept with one of the consultants.” She buried her face in her hands. “And not just one of the consultants. A Cove.”

“Fuck,” I shouted.

“Exactly my thoughts.”

I took in a deep breath and tried to steady my breathing. I was so pissed off at Beau. I was so pissed off at myself. And I was really pissed off that despite all that and despite my hard and fast rules about not messing about in the workplace pond, I really, really wanted to kiss her. Right now. I wanted to stalk over to her, push her to her back, strip off those leggings, and plunge straight into her and listen as she begged me to make her come.

But I had to shake that fantasy right out of my head. It wasn’t going to happen. I wouldn’t let it.

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