Wife by Design
His wrist was dripping with coffee. Steaming hot coffee.
“It’s not okay.” Taking hold of him from the underside of his arm, she led him quickly inside the examination room closest to them. “I’m so sorry,” she said again, grabbing sterile bandages to pat at the burn. “I can’t believe I did that.”
She wasn’t usually a klutz.
“It’s not a big deal.”
Leading him to a chair, she said, “Sit,” swatting his hand away gently when he would have used it to brush at the liquid still dripping from parts of his arm.
She got those last drops, too, and then looked at the damage.
Not as bad as it could have been. But it was going to blister.
“I’ve got some aloe gel,” she said. The Lemonade Stand used natural and holistic remedies whenever possible. Lifting another sterile pad out of the glass jar on the counter beside them, she stretched a little farther to open the cupboard above and get a small, individualized packet of gel.
His nose touched her breast.
Lynn squeezed the packet so tightly some gel oozed out of the closed end. She didn’t move immediately.
“I’ve got extra packets of this,” she said quickly when she did move, as though to make up for lost time. As though she could cover up the fact that she’d just stood there letting her breast touch his face for no other reason than because it felt good.
Hot under the skin and on top, as well, Lynn expertly applied the salve to a sun-bronzed, hair-covered, muscled forearm.
And knew, when he sucked in a rush of breath, that his reaction had nothing whatsoever to do with the burn she was treating.
* * *
WHAT GUY DIDN’T fantasize about doing a nurse on an examining table? It was normal, right?
Except that, until that moment, he’d never so much as entertained the notion.
Lynn’s medical attentions were excellent. His arm barely stung. The rest of him was burning up, though. And he couldn’t flirt.
Or pick her up and have his way with her.
He looked up at her beautiful face, saw that she was concentrating on one spot on his arm and glanced away.
How did one woo a woman who’d been possibly mistreated and was obviously mistrustful of men?
Why would he woo any woman when he didn’t have anything to offer but a few minutes with his body and a late-night phone conversation or two?
Lynn had a small child. There were already too many complications. Kara put the kibosh on the deal that was already a no-deal before she’d even entered the picture.
“I want to kiss you.”
She stepped away. Not just back, but completely across the room. “You’ll need to leave that exposed to the air if you can while you’re working today. That will help it heal much more quickly and with less chance of infection.”
He really didn’t give a damn about a spot on his arm. His hands and fingers had been hammered and had rocks dropped on them and been blistered so many times that sometimes he’d look down and see a mark and try to wipe it off only to find it was a blood blister and he had no idea how he’d gotten it.
He didn’t give a damn about that, either.
She moved to the sink. Washed her hands. Took a long time to dry them with the paper towel she’d pulled out of the metal dispenser above the sink.
The examining room door was open. He wanted to close it. And knew better.
That early in the morning no one was around. And it wasn’t as if they were going to do anything that required privacy.
He wanted the door closed.
“Did you hear me? I said I want to kiss you.”
“Yes.” Her back was to him and she didn’t turn around. “I heard you.”
He knew she had. Now what?
“I’m pretty sure sometimes that you want to kiss me, too.” Or, at least, want him to kiss her, which was basically the same thing.
She didn’t respond. He took that as an affirmative. If he’d been wrong about her, she’d have immediately denied his allegation.
And suddenly he felt better. He wasn’t going to kiss her. She wasn’t going to let him.
But at least now they both knew they wanted to.
“You said you had something to discuss with me.”
Lynn turned, a nurse in control, and a woman, too, when her blue-eyed gaze climbed up to meet his. All the way up. From his groin on… “We have a problem.”