Doctor Seduction. Beverly Bird

said I was rigid, too,” she said suddenly. “You didn’t just call me a sparrow. You said I was rigid.”

      He looked back at her. The conversation was supposed to be finished. He’d done what he’d meant to do. He’d gotten her out of his blood. But now something in his gut hitched all over again.

      “You were rigid,” he said, “right up until you started taunting Hines like some kind of madwoman.” And that had blown his mind away.

      She gave a quick little nod. “Okay, then. I just wanted to get that straight for the record.”

      “Consider it straight. You have unplumbed depths, Nurse. Duly noted.” Damn it! She looked bewildered and pleased by the compliment, and he felt something go hinky in him again. He felt himself wanting to kiss her one more time.

      “Let’s go,” he said quickly. “Are you done communing with the laundry chute?”

      She stepped through the door after him and shut it smartly behind her. “In my own fashion. I might mention that at least I didn’t destroy my knuckles in the process.”

      Sam looked down at his right hand. She was right. He was bleeding. He felt marginally like an idiot until they took four or five strides down the hall. Then he was distracted by the nervous shift of her shoulders. She hesitated and looked back the way they’d come.

      “What?” he asked.

      She shook her head. “Nothing.”

      He walked with her to the employees’ parking area. He wasn’t surprised when she stopped beside a car that was small, practical and ugly. It was exactly what he would have expected her to drive—a week ago. That comforted him a little until he got to his Maserati and looked back.

      Then he watched her through her windshield. She started playing with that damned zipper again, the one on the front of her scrubs top. She tugged it down a little. He got a peek of skin—he knew it was as smooth and pale as alabaster—then she fanned herself from the heat with her hand. She reached to the passenger seat and a second later she pushed dark, wraparound sunglasses onto her face. When she turned out of the lot, the wind tickled her hair through the open windows.

      It was over, damn it. Over. A one-time thing. But suddenly Sam had to inhale hard just to breathe.

      The woman tailed them as far as the lobby, her anger pushing hot and steady at the inside of her skull.

      It had been a bit of luck, finding them together. Otherwise, she would never have known that they were still cozy. Up until now, she’d just been keeping an eye on him. He was her answer, her way out, the clever doctor who collected women like trophies, then tossed them aside.

      He was the one who would give her everything she’d ever wanted. Except now…now he’d come out of that storage room with the breathless little blonde. It was a wrinkle and it infuriated the woman. It caught her off guard and was going to force her to adjust her plans.

      She waited until they turned out of the corridor, then she hurried after them. She’d had a bad moment when the bitch looked back over her shoulder as though knowing she was being watched, and that made her more cautious. She finally landed in the lobby at the same time they pushed through the outside doors.

      She hurried to the glass and watched him standing there, staring after the sweet, wimpy nurse.

      She’d have to fix this, she thought. This time she wasn’t going to lose.