The Doctor's Damsel in Distress

His jaw flexed back and forth slowly, as if he were having trouble tamping down his anger. “You know you’re different.”

He was going back to that line? Sure, she was different, but, then, different didn’t necessarily mean good, did it?

“What I know is that I had unprotected sex with the hospital’s biggest playboy.” She turned away from him, hesitated a moment, then spun back. “Quite stupid of me really to become involved with you, but I te

nd to make the same mistakes over and over. Silly me.”

“We weren’t a mistake.”

She ignored his denial for the simple reason she wanted to believe so badly it would be too easy to buy his lines, but to what purpose? He didn’t love her, didn’t want the same things she did, and to continue this, whatever this was, would only be begging for bigger heartache.

“Fortunately I’ve finally caught on and am through with encore performances.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Leave me alone, Levi.”

“I can’t leave you alone.”

Even as Levi said the words, he acknowledged their validity. He couldn’t. For four weeks now he’d been doing everything he could to stay away and each day the tension had mounted higher and higher until he’d been ready to explode.

Four weeks in which he’d been miserable, wondering about her, wanting to tell her what a fool he was, to beg her to forgive him for not taking things slowly, like he’d intended, to give them a chance at a real relationship.

“Right,” she bit out, her chin jutting upwards in defiance of his claim. “I’ve noticed how you just can’t get enough of me since you got the only thing you really wanted from me.”

“You know better than to believe sex was all I wanted.” Her words stung and he lashed out. “Isn’t it a bit hypocritical for you to accuse me of being the hospital’s biggest playboy when that’s exactly why you set your sights on me?”

She had the audacity to look confused. “What do you mean?”

“You know exactly what I mean.” He shifted in the seat, turning more fully toward her. “You planned to use me for a one-night stand all along. Guess you really did get what you wanted.”

He watched her digest his words, felt sick when she didn’t deny them. Tell me you wanted more from me than just sex, Madison. My gut instinct says you did. Tell me you still do.

“No.” She shook her head, her eyes reflecting the light from the interior of the limousine, “I didn’t get what I wanted. I wanted you and you did a disappearing act from my life.”

She’d wanted him.

“So don’t you sit there,” she continued, “and tell me how you can’t leave me alone when there’s only been brief looks passing between us this past month to let me know that I didn’t imagine everything.”

Despite the fact she hadn’t denied his claim that she’d used him, despite the fact he’d never laid his heart out before, Levi couldn’t hold back a moment longer. “I wanted to be a better man for you, a man who wasn’t like his father. After what happened, I was disgusted with myself for not being that better man.” He sighed. “When I look at you, I want you, Madison. I can’t look without wanting. It’s that simple.”

She laughed out loud, almost on the verge of hysterics. “Oh, that’s rich. So right now you’re thinking about how much you’d like to push me back on this seat…” she patted the leather next to her thigh, almost daring him to touch her “…and have your way with me, but you won’t because you’re being a better man?”

Levi raked his fingers through his hair to keep from reaching out and doing exactly that. He did want to have his way with her. On the seat. On the floor. On the hood.

“Among other things,” he admitted.

“Puh-leeze.” She snorted, shifting away from him. “Save your lies for someone else, Levi. I don’t want to hear any of this. Do you hear? Stop lying to me.”

Is that what she thought?

“I don’t lie, Madison.”

“Whether by word or deed, everyone lies.”

He considered her soft words, what she was really saying. “You’re implying that I lied to you by deed?”

The look in her eyes said that he’d hit the nail on the head.

“You tell me.” That stubborn little chin rose so high she’d drown if they were standing in the rain.

“I made love to you, Madison. That wasn’t a lie.”