* * *
Janica felt Luke shift beside her as he worked to slide his arm out from beneath her frame.
Her heart started pounding. Hard.
In the real world where things made sense and she stayed on one side of the playground while Luke stayed on the other, she knew he was right to leave. That whatever had happened between them was al wrong.
But, God, it had felt so right.
Better than right.
Perfect.
And in the dark, in the aftermath of those moments when he'd cal ed her sweetheart and looked into her eyes as if he real y and truly cared about her, al she knew was that she would die inside if he left.
“Stay.”
He stil ed, like a thief caught in the act. And maybe he was a thief, she thought. Because somehow, when she wasn't looking, he'd snuck in and stolen her heart.
Damn him.
Seductively, instinctively, she rubbed herself against him so that his rock-hard shaft slid between her already slick labia, the soft curve of her butt cheeks. Reaching around for one of his hands, she placed it over one of her breasts.
Her nipple beaded against his large hand and she could feel him pulsing against the flesh between her thighs, stil tender from his wonderful y rough lovemaking.
A few more seconds and, oh please, his incredible cock would be sliding back into her pussy and she could experience pure ecstasy for a second time. Only, the next thing she knew she was alone in her bed. And the worst part of it was that he didn't say anything. He simply pul ed away from her and walked naked out of her bedroom.
Stunned, she lay there for a moment, cold without his arms around her, empty without his thick heat driving into her.
Fortunately, anger came fast on the heels of her shock. Jumping off the bed, she rushed into her living room to see that Luke was almost ful y dressed already.
“You're leaving.”
His face was an impenetrable mask. “Yes.”
So that was the way it was going to be?
Fine. She didn't want any apologies from him. And she definitely didn't want his thanks for a kil er fuck. He hadn't taken anything from her that she hadn't wanted to give.
Except,
a smal voice in her head whispered,
quite
possibly, her heart.
Sixty seconds later, he was gone.
* * *
Luke went home, showered, then headed straight back to the hospital.
One of his col eagues had to need a break, had to have a shift he could fil . As long as he stayed busy he could keep himself from going there, back to Janica's apartment, back to the moment when she'd glared at him and said,
You're leaving.
What she'd real y meant was,
Fuck you.
Even after his shower, he swore he could scent her, as if her beautiful essence had slipped past his skin, al the way into his cel s. His cock thickened beneath his scrubs and he worked like hel to douse his growing hard-on, which was completely inappropriate for a doctor to be sporting. But he had to work even harder to crush that twinge in his gut that told him he'd been a complete asshole.
And that she'd deserved a hel of a lot better of a goodbye than he'd given her.
Especial y since he hadn't said goodbye at al . He'd just left like a fucking coward.
Trying to focus his vision on the staffing board, he was about to cal Bonnie to tel her not to bother coming in, when Eileen Jones, the hospital’s head psychiatrist said, “Good morning, Luke. You're just the person I wanted to see. Would you mind coming into my office for a quick chat?”
He was barely in her door when she hit him with,
“You’re too tired. You need to take some time off.”
“I'm fine,” he shot back. Quickly realizing he needed to back off the defensive or she'd definitely think something was up, he sat down in an open chair and put his hands behind his head.
She didn't look at al convinced. “When’s the last time you slept?”
“I spent last night in bed.”
Which was true. He just hadn't been sleeping.
And, sweet Lord, Janica had been hot. Better than
anything he could have ever imagined.
She'd been giving, too. Selfless in her passion. And so damn sweet, he hadn't ever wanted to let her go.
Eileen sighed loudly. “That may wel be the case, and I hate having to do this, Luke, but someone has to unplug you from the operating table, because you’re clearly not going to do it yourself.”
Luke stood up to argue his case, but Eileen waved him back down. “I know you’re going to say that they need you—”
“They do.”
“—and that you feel fine—”
“I do. I’m fine, Eileen.” He held out his hands. “They’re not shaking. I’m not seeing double. Or hal ucinating. I don’t have any signs of sleep deprivation. I’ve been working this way for years, and I’m responsible for saving more lives than anyone in this hospital, so I appreciate your concern but—”
She cut him off. “I know what happened last night, that Robert had to take over for you. And before you start beating yourself up over it, I want you to know I've seen it happen to al of the best doctors. So I'm not at al concerned about your patients, Luke. I’m concerned about you. You need some time off. To rejuvenate. To have some fun.” Looking down at the papers on her desk she said, “You’l be taking the next four weeks off.
”
Four weeks? Fuck, no. How was he supposed to make it through the next twenty-four hours without his job to fal back on? Between what had happened in the ER and what had happened with Janica, he was as screwed in the head – and the heart - as he'd ever been.
“One week,” he countered.
“We don’t want you to set foot in the hospital for four weeks, Luke,” she said firmly, the handed him his walking papers.
The words swam before him.
Mental health break.
They thought he was going nuts.
And given that he'd spent the night trying to fuck his sister-in-law's brains out, but making love to her instead, maybe he had.
“The Big Sur cabin is open this time of year. It's yours. A few weeks on the ocean is going to work wonders for you. I'm sure of it.”
Thirty minutes later, Luke was stil fuming.
There’s
nothing wrong with my mental health
, he thought as he burned up the road beneath his tires, driving Highway 1 south too fast considering his lack of sleep. And yet, he was completely off kilter, utterly unprepared for the weeks that stretched before him.
With every mile he covered, Eileen's parting words came at him: “
You don’t have to save everyone, Luke.
Nobody can. And that’s okay.”
But she was wrong.
He did.
Because he hadn't been able to save the one person he'd loved the most.
Janica rang Lily's doorbel , but knowing the neighborhood was so safe they rarely locked the front door, she didn't wait for anyone to let her in. Violet, Lily's four year-old daughter, came barreling around the corner. “Auntie Jan!” She tackled Janica in a bear hug around her legs, then yel ed, “You're it,” and ran away as fast as her smal legs could take her. Janica grinned. Damn, she loved that kid. A perfect cross between Lily's soft beauty and Travis's ridiculously masculine good looks, Violet was a stunner. Better stil , she was funny. And bright as the sun.
Lily was kneeling in the kitchen with ful grocery bags al around her feet as she consoled her crying son. Sam was almost two-and-a-half and about a hundred times more sensitive than his big sister. He was also crazy cute. Cover-of-a-kid's-magazine cute. Hoping to distract him from whatever was the matter, Janica cal ed out, “Sammy!”
His eyes stil wet, he looked up from his mother's shoulder and in an instant his wobbling cheeks shifted into a wide smile.
“Hey, baby boy,” she said as Lily grateful y moved aside to let her pick him up.
Happily going into her arms, he made a stern face. “I'm not a baby.”
“I know,” she said. “You're a big boy.” She pretended she was going to drop under his weight. “A huge boy. Have you been eating bricks again?”
“That would make my teeth break, sil y!” he crowed, happy to let her know just how wrong she was, just like his father—and his uncle—were so happy to do al the time.
Carson men. They were al alike.
Too damn cute to stay away from, but completely and utterly ful of themselves.
“You're it! You're it!” Violet yel ed as she ran by.
“Okay. I'm just going to tel Sammy a secret first,”
Janica said.
Violet's eyes got real y big. Forgetting al about her game of tag, she ran over. “What is it?”
“I need to talk to your mommy for a few minutes and then when we're done I'm taking everyone for cupcakes.”
Lily's little boy al but jumped out of her arms to do a happy cupcake dance with his sister.
“I want to go right now!” he demanded.
Carson boys and their demands.
Come here.
I want you naked.
Get on your knees.
Use your mouth.
She shivered at the stil -potent memories of the previous night and Lily looked at her with concern.
“Jan, honey, are you okay?”
Working to push Luke out of her head for five seconds, Janica smiled at the kids and pointed to the clock on the kitchen wal . “When the little arm is pointing at the 6, we'l go. Violet, you know how to tel time, don't you?”
Violet puffed up her chest. “Of course I do.” And then she grabbed her brother's arm and said, “Let's go play bakery in my room until it's time to go. You can make me cupcakes and I can eat them.”
Stepping over grocery bags, Lily hugged her quickly, then pul ed her over to one of the bar stools tucked under the granite-topped island.
“What's wrong?”
Oh crap. Why had she come here? What was she thinking? Lily was going to kil her. Or Luke. Either way, her big sister was going to be worried sick over the whole situation.
But the thing was, even though Janica knew al those things, she had to talk to someone about what had happened. She needed her best friend. Who just so happened to be Luke's best friend too.
“Something happened last night.”
Lily's worried look morphed into pure fear. “Are you okay?”
Janica wanted to nod, tried to say yes, but the truth was she wasn't sure she actual y was okay. Luke had rocked her world so hard she hadn't just seen stars, she'd actual y felt like a human kaleidoscope shifting form again and again, from formations of pinks to purples and reds, yel ows and oranges, blues and greens. Her orgasm had gone on and on as if it would never end, one easily turning to two beneath his beautiful y out-of-control onslaught. And for a moment she'd felt special. Cherished.
But then he'd left, at least as cold as he'd ever been to her.
Colder, even.
“Oh my God, Jan, if someone hurt you we need to go to the pol—”
Janica quickly cut her off. “No, it's nothing like that.”
She paused, took a deep breath, knew she needed to spit it out already before Lily had the chief of police on the line.
“Luke came over.”
Lily frowned. “Luke came over?”
Janica nodded.
Lily cocked her head to the side, stil clearly confused by what Luke had to do with anything. And then, suddenly, her eyes went big.
“Luke came over,” Lily said again, more slowly this time, as if her brain was too busy working out the ramifications of everything to be able to change the words into anything else.
Jumping straight over the inevitable question—
did you
sleep with him?
—Janica gave her sister the answer with another nod.
At which point Lily's eyes grew even huger and her cheeks flushed, her mouth opening and shutting a couple of times without any words coming out. Janica was glad for her sister's loss for words because it meant that she could spit out the rest of it as quickly as possible.
“The thing is, apart from the obvious, I did something real y stupid.”
Shaking herself out of her shock, Lily put her warm hands over Janica's cold ones. “Okay, so you slept with Luke. I know it's a big deal. A huge deal. But that doesn't mean it was stupid, Jan.”
If only sex was al there was to it.
I love you, Luke. I love you so much.
How could she have said those things to him?
How could she have even thought them?
Or dared to feel them in the first place?
“It was beyond stupid,” Janica insisted.
“I'm sure he's safe,” Lily said softly, total y misunderstanding her comment.
“No, we used protection,” Janica told her. “That's not the problem.”
“Then what is it?”
She took a very shaky breath, before saying, “I told him I loved him.”
The silence between the sisters was heavy. Final y, Lily whispered, “Oh, Janica,” then hugged her close. Her sister's pity made her feel a hundred times worse. As if it was starkly obvious to every last person on earth that there was no point in Janica loving Luke because they could never end up together.
“What did he say?”
Janica shook her head. He hadn't said anything. But she remembered the way his eyes had looked right after she'd said it.
Like he couldn't take it in. Not just because he hadn't been expecting her to say it.
But because he didn't want her to.
Lily's voice was gentle as she asked, “How long have you felt that way?”
Janica shrugged, not wanting to have to admit to either Lily or herself that her feelings were real. “It was real y great sex.”
But Lily wasn't buying it. “How many other times have you declared your love to someone you've slept with?”
Janica hated to say it. “Never.”
“Do you want me to talk to him?”
“No! Absolutely not!” Janica shook her head hard. “Al I want to do is forget it ever happened.”
A lightning bolt coming through the roof to strike her dead just then wouldn't have surprised her in the least. Not when she'd just told the world's hugest lie. Because she never wanted to forget her night with Luke. Lying beneath him, his hard heat fil ing her body and soul, his mouth on hers. It had been the most perfect night of her life. So perfect that she hadn't been able to stop three horrible words from spil ing out of her lips. More than once.