Sizzling Nights with Dr. Off-Limits

“Definitely.” This came from Meghan. “And so should that delicious guy who keeps smiling at me from the bar. You two have fun. I’m going to go see how nervous I can make him by asking him to buy me a drink.”

Emily and Lucas watched Meghan sidle up to the bar and indeed ask the guy who’d been staring at their table to buy her a drink.

“He looks happy to oblige.”

The guy did, ecstatic even.

“Do you want something else to drink?” Lucas offered.

“No. I’m good. Haven’t finished this one yet.” She held up her glass that was about a third full still. “I imagine I always will be a lightweight, so much so that this is soda.”

He’d figured that.

“You still go out and party with the crew every chance you get?”

He thought about her question. He did go out on occasion to hang with his friends. Those times were further and further apart and not at all since he’d joined the staff at Children’s. Not that the gang didn’t still get together routinely, but that he just had other things he preferred doing.

“I still see them,” he admitted, not bothering to explain further.

“I imagined so.”

Something in her tone had him studying her a little closer. “Did you not like my friends, Emily?”

Her cheeks pinkened. “I never said that.”

She didn’t have to. The truth was written all over her lovely face. “You rarely wanted to go with me. It never occurred to me that it was because you didn’t like my friends.”

“Drinking and partying was never my thing.”

True. She hadn’t ever seemed to enjoy attending parties or hanging with his friends. He’d hoped she’d eventually relax around them. She never had.

“What was your thing?”

She hesitated a moment, then whispered so low he read her lips more than heard her. “You.”

Her answer humbled him. He’d been such a fool. How could he have had her in his life, had her love and affection, and lost it? Of all the things he’d ever failed at, losing Emily topped the list.

He shouldn’t have married her to begin with, and he sure shouldn’t have divorced her once he had.

“I made a lot of mistakes, didn’t I?”

Glancing away, she shrugged. “We both did.”

“I didn’t appreciate what I had, Emily.”

She stared into her almost empty glass, then took one last sip. “Most people don’t until they lose something.”

“True.” He didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t appreciated it that he’d gotten to wake up next to her each morning, that he’d gotten to go to sleep next to her at night. That at any point in between he could call her and hear her lovely voice tell him she loved him.

“Let’s dance,” she suggested, placing her now empty glass on the tabletop.

“Okay.” Any excuse to have her in his arms would do.

He held her close, loving the way she fit next to his body, loving the way when he breathed in her sweet vanilla scent filled his nostrils.

They danced the slow song, then several upbeat ones that put a sexy sheen to Emily’s skin. One that he wished he’d caused from other movements of their bodies together.

“Hey, guys, I’m outta here.” Meghan interrupted their dancing. “I’ve got to be at work bright and early in the morning.”