“Your past has nothing to do with what happened tonight. A man tried to force you.” His voice cracked. He couldn’t say the words, wouldn’t consider what might have happened if he hadn’t heard her scream. “If you don’t want to press charges, fine. But I can’t overlook this. I have to report the incident. I’m sorry.”
“Yes, you are.” She looked up at him, not a tear to be found in her angry blue eyes. “A sorry excuse for a man I thought wanted to be my friend.” And she stormed down the hall into the lounge.
He’d made her mad. Nothing new there. But deep down it bothered him. He didn’t want her to hate him, didn’t want to leave on bad terms. Huh. Never bothered him before. Why did she matter when no one else did? “No. More. Tequila,” Ali insisted that evening when their waitress walked over with her second, no, third tray of the Sunday night special: Watermelon Margaritas. “I have a nice buzz going. Next stop sloppy drunk.”
“Says the woman who rarely orders anything stronger than seltzer with lime. What’s going on with you?” asked Victoria, Ali’s best friend since eleventh grade and the head nurse on 5E. Short dark hair and makeup flawless, her taste in clothes impeccable, she looked more ready for dinner at the country club than a night out with the girls.
The waitress set each of the four drinks she carried on the table then cleared off the empty glasses.
“Come on, Ali,” her friend Polly, a fellow E.R. nurse, slurred. “We’re shelebrating.”
“Soon you’re going to be puking if you don’t slow down,” said Roxie, a nurse from 5E, a medical surgical floor, as she wiped up the spillage when Polly wobbled her glass on the way up to her mouth. Roxie was tan, tall and thin to Polly’s pale, short and chubby. Roxie was loud and outgoing to Polly’s quiet and shy. Roxie was the bad girl to Polly’s good girl. The two couldn’t be more opposite, yet they’d been best friends since Ali, who floated between the two units, had introduced them last year.
“We didn’t order these,” Victoria said, always the pragmatic one.
“Maybe we did and we don’t remember,” Roxie rationalized. “I say we drink ‘em.”
“They’re from him.” The waitress pointed to a man at the far side of the bar.
O’Halloran’s Tavern, a favorite hangout for Madrin Memorial Hospital personnel, served delicious food and trendy drinks in a casual atmosphere that offered something for everyone. Small groups of onlookers crowded around both pool tables in the back, where a mini-tournament was in progress. A few guys she recognized from work guzzled beers while throwing darts in the corner, thankfully in the opposite direction from where Ali and her friends sat listening to the jukebox. A football game played on a large television screen beside the bar.
From their spot along the side wall, all four women scanned the bar, glasses raised in homage to their mysterious benefactor.
Dr. Jared Padget. Who, with a cunning grin, raised his beer mug in their direction.
Ali almost broke the stem of her glass in two. He picked a bad night to make his final move. She sipped her cocktail as she watched him, doing nothing to hide her blatant perusal. His black leather jacket gave him an air of bad-boy toughness that attracted her even more than the tight-fitting scrub pants he wore at work.
The hairs on her arms lifted, her body softened, remembered how it felt to be wrapped in his arms, to feel the solid wall of his chest against hers.
As the ten-year anniversary of her mother’s death, the other reason for girls’ night out fast approached, she could barely control the tumultuous feelings churning inside her. Prior to her second drink, she’d actually considered a screaming run through the streets to release the building pressure.
Sadness that her self-absorbed mother had been so consumed by trying to find a man she could love as much as Ali’s father, she had spent little time tending to the unplanned result of their dysfunctional union. It hurt that she had never been able to earn her mother’s love, and now it was too late.
Anger at her playboy father for getting her mother pregnant and, despite claiming he’d loved her, refusing to marry her. Rage that he flitted in and out of their lives when it had suited him, giving her mother false hope that each time he’d returned he’d been there to stay.
Thanks to Dr. P.'s arrival she added lust, frustration and disappointment to the unstable concoction. Lust for his body, frustration she couldn’t knock that cocky grin from his face and disappointment, in herself, for wanting him even though he was the worst sort of man.
She felt on edge, needed an outlet, a way to vent.
“Ignore him,” Victoria said.
“And he brought you these.” The waitress returned to their table and placed a white bakery box in the center.
Roxie pulled open the top. “Cannolis! I love cannolis!” She picked one up and took a bite of a chocolate dipped end.
I want to fill your cannoli …
Damn him. Ali gulped down the rest of her drink in an attempt to stop the smoldering desire she’d been battling for weeks from engulfing her in flames.
“Try one. They’re delicious.” Roxie passed around the box.
Ali locked eyes on Jared. He gave her a wicked smile, ran his fingers through the condensation accumulated on his mug and brought the tips to his lips. His full, sexy, perfectly puckered lips.
And Ali lost it. An uncontrollable lust like she hadn’t felt in years surged inside her. He’d pushed and pushed, pursued her with a relentless focus, wore her down until she craved the release he offered. She hated him for it. Hated herself for not being strong enough to resist him.
“I know that look.” Victoria leaned close to her ear. “Don’t do this, Ali. You’re going to hate yourself in the morning.”
“She’s right, Ali,” Polly said. “Don’t let him get to you. Tomorrow he’ll be gone and you’ll never think of him again.”
Wrong. He’d invaded her thoughts and dreams. She needed to exorcize him from her brain and knew only one way to do it. Take sex between them from abstract to reality. Take control, take what she wanted and be done with him.
She called out to the bartender. “A parting shot. Tequila for my friends.” She narrowed her eyes and pointed to Dr. Padget, whose surprised expression indicated he sensed a change in the dynamic between them. “And him.” Ali turned and smiled at the irony. A parting shot. That’s what she was about to give him.
The waitress delivered their shots.
Ali tossed hers back, swallowing it in one gulp, not wasting time with salt or lemon. She slammed her empty glass on the table and stood. “I’ll see you all tomorrow. There’s something I need to do.”
“Ali, please,” Victoria said.
She forced a fake smile. “Don’t worry about me, Vic. I always come out on top.” Again she smiled at the irony, because on top was where she planned to be in a few short minutes.
Her body throbbed, part tension, part arousal, as she started to cross the bar. Posture erect, shoulders back, she feigned a confidence she didn’t feel. With each click of her heels on the hardwood floor, each step closer to her destination, Ali’s nervousness doubled. She’d never propositioned a man before. In her youth, they’d always come looking for her. Palms sweaty, she stuck them, one at a time, into her jacket pockets to wipe them off.
About ten feet away from him, she hesitated, considered ordering a drink from the bar instead of continuing. Was Victoria right? Would she hate herself in the morning? She glanced in his direction. Their eyes met. Locked. She drew power from his stare, gave in to the pull of attraction between them, taking the final steps toward him without a