by Dara Girard
Lora scrolled her finger down the list then stopped at one suggestion that made her hair rise on the back of her neck. That was it. This was something she’d never usually do, but it would make for a memorable evening. Now all she needed was a man. She searched for Warren’s phone number. He was the perfect distraction—easy to talk to and charming. And she knew he’d be game for a little fun. She had to do something to forget about Justin.
She took a long bath, lathered her body with an almond-milk lotion, then slipped into a new sexy nightdress she had bought for herself after reading Chapter 3: Self Love. She got into bed, then dialed.
“Hello?” a male voice answered, huskier than she expected.
Lora gripped the phone, ready to hang up. Just his voice made her forget herself.
“Hello?” he repeated.
“I know it’s late,” she said in a breathless rush before she lost courage, “but I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”
“Me, too,” he said, and she heard the smile in his voice.
“Where are you right now?”
“In my living room.”
Lora squeezed her eyes shut. It was now or never. “Well, I’m in bed wearing a red silk robe.”
“Is it short or long?”
“Long. It feels really good against my skin. Don’t you wish you could touch it?”
“I’d prefer to touch you.”
She licked her lips. “Where do you want to touch me?”
“How much time do I have?”
“All the time you want.”
“What I want to know is what’s under the robe.”
“Just me.”
“I didn’t think the night could get any better and now it just did.”
“You sound even sexier on the phone. Almost not like yourself.”
“Is that good or bad?”
“It’s wonderful.”
“Do you feel me taking your robe off?”
“How are you doing it?”
“I’m slowly untying your belt, my fingers brushing against your stomach. Do you feel that?”
“Yes.”
“And now I’m sliding your robe back from your shoulders and ever so gently slipping it down the length of you.”
Lora squirmed in bed, her body getting hot and wet. She listened to his voice describing how he would touch her breasts and thighs, kissing her in her most sacred places, and she felt every action as if he was in bed beside her, urging her to touch herself in that special place of ecstasy. She moaned.
“You like that?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Now I’ll—”
“Oh, no, you’re not going to be the only one having fun.”
“I thought you were.”
“I am. But now I’m going to have some more.” She pushed the covers aside. “Now it’s your turn. I’m unbuttoning your shirt.”
“You don’t have to. I’m just wearing a T-shirt.”
“Even better. I’m sliding it over your head. Now do I have to unzip or unbutton your trousers?”
“They’re jeans and you can unzip them.”
“Which is exactly what I’m doing now. Am I going to find boxers or briefs?”
“Boxers.”
“Good. I’m sliding my hand up one of the legs.”
“You’re not going to take them off?”
“Not yet, right now I’m going to do a bit of search and discover. Oh, yes, I like what I feel. Do you like how I’m touching you?”
“Hmm.”
“You feel so good and hard.” She imagined she could feel his manhood, describing to him what she was doing with her hands.
“Are you still there?”
“I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”
“Wasn’t this amazing? I’ve never done something like this before. I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about it.”
“You can call me anytime.”
Lora laughed at his eagerness. “I’m in heaven.”
“You’re lucky, I’m not allowed to go there.”
“Because you’ve been a bad boy?”
“Very bad.”
“Good. Stay that way,” she said.
* * *
Lora dressed with extra care that Monday morning. The book was working, and she still had one more chapter left. She’d definitely made progress with Warren and had taken their relationship to a new level. When she saw him in the hall between labs she winked.
He walked up to her and grinned. “Someone’s in a good mood.”
“I had a great weekend.”
“Really? What did you do?”
She playfully hit him in the stomach.
“Don’t act as if you don’t know why.”
“I don’t.”
She glanced around then lowered her voice. “The phone call.”
“What phone call?”
“From Saturday night.”
“I didn’t get a phone call.”
Lora took out her phone. “But I called you. Isn’t this your number?”
“It looks right. But I never remember because I don’t call myself. Oh, wait.” He swore.
“What?”
“I mixed up three numbers.”
Lora’s heart started to race. “You gave me the wrong number?”
“It was a mistake.”
“How could you do this to me?”
“Do what?”
She couldn’t tell him. She couldn’t tell anyone. She wanted to strangle him and then find a hole to bury herself. “Forget it.”
Oh, God, she’d called some stranger and had phone sex. Okay, fine. He didn’t know who she was. Even if he did call, she could block him. She would survive this.
Strange how he’d sounded so familiar. She knew that voice. That beautiful, deep, sexy voice. She glanced up and saw Justin talking to Carla. She couldn’t have called him. What were the odds? No. No. No. It was some stranger. Justin would have called her a nut and hung up. He wouldn’t have touched her like that or let her touch him. He glanced up and saw her staring. That’s when he did something she’d never seen him do before. He smiled at her.
Chapter 5
Oh, no. Oh, no! What was she going to do? She watched him disappear into Carla’s office.
“Silver looks pleased with himself,” Warren said.
Lora made a noncommittal sound, her mind racing.
“You know why, right?”
She turned to him, startled. “Do you?” she said in a strangled voice. How could he know? Had Justin bragged about the phone call?
“Yes, he’s been busy causing havoc. He transferred me from the project I was working on with Dr. Yung and refused Carla’s funding request.”
“What?”
“Yes, I bet he’s telling her the news now.”
Lora turned when she saw Carla’s door open. She came out with Justin, wiping her eyes in a quick motion. She was not an expressive woman, and it tore at the very heart of Lora to see Justin make her friend so unhappy.
Lora shook her head. “I can’t believe this.”
Warren shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked on his heels. “Believe it. She’s out in the cold. She’ll have to scramble to restructure her team and function on the funding she has now.”
Lora clenched her hands into fists. He’d already decided the fate of one friend’s life. She wouldn’t let him decide another’s.
* * *
Justin walked into Oliver’s office, pleased that his talk with Carla had gone well. He hadn’t been sure how she would take the news, but she had been professional as always. He sat in front of Oliver’s desk. “You wanted to speak to me?”
“Yes, a
former colleague of mine, Dr. Patrick Ruthers, has a special research project in Minnesota. He’s uncovered crucial samples that need to be analyzed.”
“Samples?”
“Yes. He’s a little eccentric but brilliant. He runs his own certified lab in the basement of his house, and he’s dealt with the transplantation of blood-forming stem cells. He’s discovered a unique set of samples taken from individuals living on two small islands in the Pacific, where sickle cell has been found to be endemic. They live long productive lives and suffer only a few crises throughout their lifetime.”
“That’s great,” Justin said, intimately aware of the statistic that here in the United States, up until the past two decades, most people with sickle cell anemia only lived to their early thirties. He considered each birthday after thirty to be a miracle.
“Ruthers wants to keep this study quiet, so he’s asked me to send him two skilled scientists who have knowledge in the area and who also are able to keep their mouths shut. Secrecy and discretion are of the utmost importance. He needs someone for next week, so it’s a quick turnaround. I wanted your suggestions.”
“Send Rice and me.”
“You?”
“Yes.”
Oliver frowned. “The winters there at this time of year are brutal. Let’s send Rappaport, and...”
“He’s far from discreet. He couldn’t keep a secret if it were covered in concrete. Besides he’s not one of our best.”
“Then give me the name of someone else.”
“I just did.”
“Besides you.”
“It’s only a week. I can do this.”
“And Rice is still...young. I saw your evaluation. You criticized some of her methods.”
“But she’s a solid scientist. She wouldn’t be in the running for the fellowship if she wasn’t. She can do this with my guidance.”
“What about your tension with her?”
“We’re professionals,” Justin said with a smug grin. “Plus, that won’t be a problem anymore.”
Oliver’s brows shot up. “Things have changed?”
His grin widened. “More than you know.”
“You don’t need to do this. It’ll only be for a week and when she gets back will you—”
“I’ll be fine. And she’s committed to this disease like no one else.”
“I thought you wanted to focus on winning the fellowship.”
“This matters more.”
Oliver sat back, reluctantly pleased. “You like her that much?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Pack your bags...you’re going to Minnesota.”
* * *
“Rice? I need to talk to you.”
Lora looked up from her desk and glared at Justin. “I’m busy, Dr. Silver. Perhaps—”
“This won’t take long.” He turned and walked to his office.
Lora gritted her teeth and followed him, but she didn’t sit. She folded her arms and waited. She hadn’t had a chance to talk to Carla yet and was still planning her strategy.
He paced behind his desk, then stopped and looked at her. “I know that I should probably wait to tell you this, but I can’t. I spoke to Dr. Rollins and got him to put us on a project together. We’ll be spending a week in Minnesota, and we leave in two days. It’s a great opportunity for us. We’ll be analyzing a group of select samples, part of sickle cell anemia research being conducted in a private lab facility run by a close friend of Dr. Rollins. At first Rollins didn’t want to use you because of your limited background and lack of more extensive experience in the area. I also had some misgivings, but I thought this was too good an opportunity for you to miss. So I convinced him that you would meet the standard.”
“I can’t go,” Lora said in a flat tone. “Please find someone else. Is that all?” she asked, ready to leave.
Justin paused, surprised by her refusal. “Is there a schedule conflict? We’ll be back before the holidays.”
“That’s not it.”
“Then what is it?” he asked, stumbling over his words.
“I’m sorry you went through all this trouble, but I’m not interested.”
“You’re not interested? I don’t understand.”
“I’m sorry I haven’t been clear. The truth is, I don’t want to go with you.”
Justin’s gaze fell. “But the other night—”
“Was a mistake. I called you by accident.”
His gaze flew up, but he remained silent.
“I got the numbers mixed up with Warren’s,” she continued, warming to her subject. “Do you honestly think I’d want to do something like that with you?” Her hands flew to her hips. “A man who takes gifts from little girls? Who gets guys kicked out of school? Who stops funding for talented researchers just because you have the power to?”
Justin rolled his eyes, and his mouth spread into a cynical smile. “Oh, I see that you’ve been talking to Rappaport again. I told you to be careful of him.”
“Because you don’t like him.”
“Because he talks too much.”
“Or because he’s more popular than you?”
“Careful, Lora. I’ve warned you about jumping to conclusions.”
“Did you or did you not buy a gift for your niece that he wanted for his sick cousin?”
“Yes.”
“Did you get him kicked out of school?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, and do you deny that you removed him from the project he was working on with Dr. Yung’s team and refused Carla’s request for extra funding?”
“I have nothing to deny. I don’t regret the decisions I’ve had to make.”
“And that’s all that matters to you. You thought you could impress me like this? By highlighting how you overlooked my shortcoming for this opportunity and that my lack of experience wouldn’t matter?”
“I wasn’t trying to impress you—I was stating fact. Was I supposed to flatter you with pretty words that are untrue? I thought you were above that.”
“The most offensive part is how you’ve come to me with this project, acting as if I should be grateful. You stand there expecting me to be impressed by your degrees and accomplishments as you tell me what you’ve decided for me. Dr. Silver, you may have succeeded as a scientist, but you’ve failed as a man. I’d rather rot in a dungeon than spend five minutes doing fascinating research with you—”
Justin held up his hand. “Okay, you’ve made yourself clear. I’m sorry I bothered you.”
She turned, then halted when she saw Dr. Rollins staring at her. She’d forgotten that she’d left the office door open.
“I don’t believe this. Rice, what is wrong with you?”
She swallowed. “Dr. Rollins, I—”
He looked past her to Justin, who was coming out from behind his desk. “I knew I shouldn’t have listened to you,” Dr. Rollins said, not looking at Lora.
Justin gestured to a seat. “Come in. I can explain.”
“I’m sure you can. You’re always covering for bad behavior, but not this time.” Oliver glared at Lora. “I had my doubts about you, but this is worse than I thought. To see you so disrespectful to your director is atrocious. To say such awful things when you have no idea what this man has done. What he has gone through to get here. Do you think because you’ve gotten here with special recommendations that you’re above everyone else?”
“Oliver, enough,” Justin said. “It’s okay.”
“Okay?” Oliver said, shooting Lora a look of disgust. “If this is how she behaves, then your evaluation was much kinder than it should have been.”
Carla suddenly appeared. “I’m sure it’s all a misunderstanding, Dr. Rollins,” she said, taking Lora’s arm in a firm grip. “Excuse us.
” She dragged Lora to her office.
Once in her office, Carla shut the door and pointed to a seat. “Sit down.”
“I don’t want—”
Carla narrowed her eyes. “I don’t care.”
Lora sat.
“What has gotten into you lately?”
“What do you mean?”
“How can you speak to Dr. Silver that way?”
“I was telling him how I felt.”
“By shouting at him like a fishwife?”
“I wasn’t shouting.”
“You didn’t even have the decency to close the door. You could be heard down the hall. Warren was doubled over in laughter.”
“He was?”
“I, unfortunately, didn’t find it funny.”
Lora sighed. “I guess I let my temper get the better of me. I’m sorry.”
“What you did was outrageous. Silver deserves better from you.”
Lora widened her eyes. “How can you defend him after what he did to you?”
“What did he do to me?”
“He refused your request for extra funding.”
“So?”
Lora straightened. “He also got Warren thrown out of a program and then he tells me, doesn’t even ask, tells me, that I’m going to work on a special project with him in Minnesota and—”
Carla shook her head. “That doesn’t matter. What you did was incredibly reckless.”
“Reckless?” Lora said. “First Dr. Rollins and now you? Doesn’t anyone see my side or even Warren’s side? Will we always need to bow down to Silver’s dictate?”
“And just how solid is Warren’s side of the story? What proof do you have to back it up?”
“Why would he lie?”
“What would any man lie? Have you forgotten how powerful Justin is? The respect he has in the field? The contributions he’s made? You just passed up a prime position, a great opportunity to delve into research close to your heart just because of something the man you have a crush on said?”
“You make it sound juvenile.”
“Because that’s how you behaved. If that’s the kind of advice that book of yours is telling you, I want you to throw it away the second you get home.”
