Sizzling Nights with Dr. Off-Limits

She understood.

So when he took her in his arms and kissed her, she kissed him right back. Why not? It was just sex. Really, really good, hot sex. Or so she kept telling herself because no way would she let herself consider for even the remotest possibility that she could be falling back under Lucas’s spell.

He kissed her, held her, breathed her in as if he was starved for everything about her. She understood. She felt the same.

They made it to her bed, remembering the condom this time, and reached just as high heights as they had the night before. When they’d climaxed and Emily lay there trying to catch her breath, Lucas stroked his fingers over her lower back, tracing the dip right above her buttocks.

He was so good, such a perfect lover. Only, he wasn’t her lover. Not really. He was a man she was having sex with whom, if she wasn’t careful, she would end up being destroyed by again. She couldn’t let herself fall into the trap of thinking they had a second chance. To do that would be foolish and asking for trouble.

Within minutes, his breathing evened out and she realized he’d dozed off. Panic hit her. She rolled over onto her side to face him and shook his shoulders. “You can’t go to sleep. You have to leave.”

“I know.” But he didn’t open his eyes.

He’d looked so tired when he’d arrived that she felt guilty. It was long after midnight.

But she couldn’t sleep with Lucas. She couldn’t snuggle up next to him and close her eyes and drift off into sleep, expecting to wake next to him. For one, what if he was gone when she woke? How devastating would that be? But even more important, what kind of expectations would her heart attach to waking next to Lucas? To sleep next to the man she’d once thought she’d spend the rest of her life sleeping next to, to wake next to the man she’d once given all her love to, was just too intimate. She couldn’t do it.

With more gusto, she shook him again. “Lucas, you need to get out of my bed. You can’t stay here.”

His eyes opened and he frowned.

“Why not? What does it matter?” Lucas asked, yawning as he stretched in her bed and looked way too perfect as the covers slipped low on his waist.

Fighting to keep her gaze trained on his face, she assured him, “It matters.”

“Why?”

Why? Such an innocent question, but the answers ran much deeper than she could ever elaborate.

“I don’t want you here,” she answered as simply as she could. Perhaps a grand oversimplification, but she didn’t want him there.

“You wanted me here a few minutes ago,” he reminded her, rolling onto his side and grinning sleepily at her.

“That was just sex.”

Lord, she hoped what they’d shared was just sex on her part. She couldn’t go through another round of heartbreak. She’d barely survived the first time.

* * *

Just sex. The words rankled Lucas. Just sex. He didn’t want anything permanent. So just sex should be fine. So why did her claim irritate him?

What he did want was her friendship back. He’d always been able to talk to her, to share his thoughts, to tell her things that had happened throughout the day. Right up until they’d gotten married, that was. Then their communication skills had gone missing. Eventually, they’d been leading completely separate lives.

How had that happened between him and the woman he’d been so crazy about?

He reached out and ran his fingertip over her bare hip. She was beautiful. Ethereal even. “You’re sure you don’t want me to stay?”

“Positive.” She climbed out of the bed and handed him his underwear to prove her point.

“Have you eaten?”

She nodded. “I heated up something when I got home.”

He saw the hesitation on her face, the battle that took place prior to her asking, “Did you?”

He shook his head. “I’m starved.”

Her shoulders stiffened and again war waged within her. “There’s a twenty-four-hour Chinese takeout that’s pretty good on the corner.”