Maybe too many years.
She had forgotten how good a man’s touch felt.
Maybe she’d never known.
Had it felt that good when Mark had kissed her? Perhaps. She’d blocked the memories of her only lover for so long that she really couldn’t recall how she’d felt the first time he’d touched her, kissed her. There was too much pain tied up in those memories to let them flood in now, so she shoved them back wherever they’d been hidden away.
As far as Grant changing her mind, well, that was what worried her. Based on her reaction to his kiss, he could change her mind all too easily, and then what? She’d be left with the fallout, left to pick up the pieces of her broken life. No, thank you. She was in charge of her destiny, not her libido.
“I probably won’t even see you,” she admitted slowly, not looking at him, not wanting him to see the fear coursing through her veins. Predators sensed fear and used it to their advantage, right? Yet thinking of him as a predator didn’t quite fit. He had told her to tell him to stop if she didn’t want his kiss. She had wanted him to kiss her. That was the problem. “I’m working the cake walk.”
He grinned that smile that said he knew all and liked the power that came with it. She really should censor her thoughts around him—just in case.
“The cake walk? Imagine that. So am I.” His eyes sparkling with mischief, he kissed the tip of her nose. “Who says you can’t have your cake and eat it too?”
“How did you—?”
The elevator door slid open, interrupting her question.
Joni hadn’t even realized he’d removed his finger from the button, hadn’t even realized she was moving downward.
Had his kiss dazed her that much? Apparently.
She let him walk her to her car, let him open the door after she’d punched the unlock button on the key fob, let him close the door and watch her leave. All without another word.
All without admitting to herself that she hadn’t “let” Grant do a darned thing. He was a man who took what he wanted one way or another. For some crazy reason he wanted her.
Holy water, garlic, and crucifixes warded off vampires, but what did one use when needing to ward off the devil himself? Especially when he kissed as sinfully deliciously as Grant?
Joni held her patient’s hand while Grant pulled the tube free from the sixteen-year-old’s chest. Casts on his left arm and leg, both in traction, the young man grunted with his pain. He gritted his teeth, wanting to look tough in front of his parents, doctor, and nurse.
The boy had been in a car accident that had resulted in multiple fractures, crush injuries, and a collapsed lung. A surgeon had repaired a few internal bleeds and removed his spleen. An orthopedic surgeon had pinned his broken bones back together. Grant had been following the young man’s pulmonary status from the point he’d been admitted to the ICU. If his lung didn’t collapse again, he’d be transferred to the medical floor and sent home within a couple of days.
“You did great, Dale,” Grant assured the boy, closing the wound as Joni handed Grant a pair of suture scissors. He ran through listening to the boy’s lungs and assured himself there were breath sounds in all lung fields.
“Yes,” the boy’s mother praised, worry and fatigue from the past week’s events obvious in her expression and body. “You’re so brave.”
“Right.” Dale rolled his eyes, obviously embarrassed by her compliment.
Laughing, Grant patted the boy on the shoulder. “You are the man, Dale. Have your nurse page me if you get short of breath or have any negative change with your breathing.”
He spoke with the boy for a few more minutes, then left the hospital room. The boy’s parents followed him out, no doubt to corner him with questions.
Joni ran through another set of vital checks and made sure all the telemetry was still connected correctly. She reminded him what symptoms to watch for regarding his breathing, fractures, and other injuries, then left the room.
She wasn’t surprised to find Grant in the hallway.
Distracted by the boy’s parents, he seemed oblivious that she’d stepped out of the room. His navy scrubs hung loosely on his frame and he’d obviously raked his fingers through his hair a few times. Although barely seven a.m., he’d already been at the hospital for several hours, having gotten called in to the emergency room when a patient had gone into respiratory distress just prior to daybreak. No doubt he had an office full of patients waiting on him, too. Yet he answered each of the boy’s parents’ questions with admirable patience and a genuine smile.
He was a good doctor, gorgeous, kind, self-assured.
He’d kissed her.
She’d been fighting the thought from the moment she’d arrived at the hospital and learned he was already there.
No, truth was, she’d thought of nothing else the whole night. Even attending AA with her mother hadn’t distracted her. When she’d finally drifted into sleep, she’d dreamed of him. Dreamed of his lips tasting hers, conquering, taking, mastering. When she’d wakened, she hadn’t felt rested at all. She’d only felt restless, on edge, as if she’d been waiting for him, as if his kiss had awakened her and shot her to the precipice of the rest of her life.
Which was crazy.
She was no Sleeping Beauty and Grant was no Prince Charming. He had nothing to do with the rest of her life.
Once upon a time she’d believed in happily-ever-after. She’d been a wide-eyed innocent who’d believed the lies of a powerful man almost twice her age. Lies that had stolen her belief in fairy-tales, her self-respect, and had almost destroyed her life and career.
“Joni?”
She met Grant’s gaze, saw the question in his eyes. She shook her head, sent a quick smile to the boys’ parents, and went to check on another patient. A twenty-two-year-old who’d been in an MVA two nights before and had yet to regain consciousness.
“You okay?”
Not having realized that he’d followed her into the patient’s room, she spun, startled.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” His fingers brushed over her arm, eliciting thousands of goose-bumps.
Why was he always touching her?
“You don’t scare me.”
His lips twisted. “Actually, I think I do.”
“Oh, get over yourself. Not every woman wants you.” Clamping her lips closed, she cast a quick glance at her unconscious patient. She wanted the boy to wake up, to give her a reason to move away from Grant. A reason that he couldn’t mistake as fear.
“True,” he admitted. “But we’re not talking about every woman, are we? We’re talking about you.”
She glared, not liking him.
“Whether you’re willing to admit it or not, you do want me, Joni.” He smiled that smile that was really starting to get on her nerves. “And for reasons I don’t understand yet, I definitely scare you.”
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