by Jill Sanders
She took a good look at him now. He had dark circles under his eyes, and he looked even more tired than she felt.
“Nothing happened?” she asked. “Then how come I was half-naked?”
He chuckled and smiled as he slowly crossed his arms over his bare chest. “No sex happened. That I promise you. But I’m not saying you didn’t try to give me a show.”
Just then her phone chimed. “My car is here.” She dashed towards the door, but before she headed out the door, Rafe called out to her.
“It was fun… seeing you.” The tone of his voice had her blushing as she raced out the door. Miami’s summer heat hit her instantly as she stepped outside.
Rafe and Blaine’s apartment was on the top floor of an older building complex. The place looked very old fashioned, with its white stucco walls and basic building structure. There was even the classic swimming pool in the middle of the complex, which she desperately wished she could jump into at the moment.
God, she thought once she had climbed into the back of the sedan, what had she done? She played over her memories of the night as the car drove her across town towards her and Jamie’s apartment. All she could really remember was dancing and having fun.
If Rafe claimed that nothing had happened, she trusted him. After all, he and Blaine were good friends with Jamie. She wasn’t friends with him, but she had known him for over two years and, in all that time, neither of them had ever made a move on her.
Not that she hadn’t wanted Rafe to, but he’d always treated her like a sister or a close friend. Which had frustrated her even further.
She didn’t doubt she would have stripped down naked for him last night after a few drinks. She’d been thinking of doing just that for years.
Walking into her apartment, still holding the lone forgotten shoe under her arm, she stopped dead when she noticed Jamie sprawled out on their sofa. Her roommate was completely naked and wrapped around a very large, very naked man. Rod. Emily closed her eyes. No wonder he’d let us in last night. Man, this day just keeps getting better and better.
Emily held in a groan and tiptoed past the couple. What she needed was a long hot shower and time to recover. Maybe some food would help.
Before she could make it into her bedroom, her cell phone rang in her purse. Loudly. The sleeping couple shifted and moaned on the sofa.
Rushing the rest of the way down the small hallway, she closed herself in her room and dug the phone from the bottom of the small clutch, dropping Jamie’s push-up bra to the floor.
“Hi, Daddy,” she whispered, resting her back against the door and waiting for her heart to settle back in place.
“Hey, sweetie. So, I was thinking I might swing by there and take you out to lunch.”
She sighed, thinking of how normal that was compared to what she’d just been through.
“That sounds wonderful.” Okay, yes, she was a daddy’s girl. After all, she’d never known any other parent. Her mother had died when she was too young to remember, and her father had had to learn how to parent alone. So, naturally, he’d spoiled her rotten and sheltered her. She quickly thought about Jamie in the next room, sprawled on top of Rod, then rolled her eyes when she imagined having to wake them up so her father could come in. Luckily, he usually texted when he arrived. She’d just tell him to wait in the car while she came outside.
Jamie was a piece of work. She went through men like Emily went through jeans. Which was a lot. She loved the look and feel of them in the store, but when she got them home, her love just… fizzled. Maybe that’s how Jamie felt about men, she thought with a chuckle.
“What do you say I pick you up in an hour?”
An hour? Emily glanced down at her watch and realized it was later than she’d thought.
“Sounds good,” she said quickly, then hung up the phone. She pulled off the black dress and tossed the lone Jimmy Choo into the back of her closet. Then she rushed to the bathroom. She downed a couple aspirin, since her head was still buzzing, and took the coldest shower she could stand, making sure to scrub off any remaining makeup.
After dressing in her most comfortable pair of faded shorts and a flowing tank top, she slipped on some comfy flip flops. There were a few new blisters on her feet from wearing the sexy heels last night, and she doubted her feet could handle the heeled sandals she normally wore.
Glancing down at her watch, she realized there was about half an hour before her dad would be there to pick her up, so she pulled out her laptop to check the school’s website.
Summers were, in her mind, long and boring. She tried to fill her time with extra classes. But since she’d just finished the last day of classes for the semester, she wasn’t quite sure what to do with herself yet.
In one short year, she was going to graduate college and become a registered nurse. It had been a long and wonderful journey, but she was actually starting to be thankful it was almost over. No more early morning classes, late nights spent cramming for tests, and giving up her social life for her grades. She looked forward to being allowed in an actual hospital and to start applying for her residency, something else she’d have to worry about in the coming days.
Emily leaned back and sighed when she noticed Professor Giles hadn’t posted the final grades yet.
Okay, so, the question that was burning in her mind now, and the one she knew her father was going to hit her with today was, what comes next, after her last year of school?
She heard the phone buzz and noticed the text from her dad.
“I’m here.”
“Coming down,” she replied.
“I could come up.”
“No,” she texted back. She wanted to laugh. She could just imagine that scene. “I’m coming down.”
She grabbed her purse and left her room, closing the door quietly behind her. Then she noticed that Jamie and Rod were no longer on the sofa. She could hear the shower running in the other room and tried to block the image of them squeezing into Jamie’s small bathroom together.
“Hi, Daddy,” she said, jumping into his car. The year after she’d moved out, her father had traded in his minivan for a convertible. The car suited him better than the van ever had.
“Hi, sweetie.” He leaned over and placed a kiss on her cheek. “How’d your last day go?”
She stopped herself from rolling her eyes. “Better than the first.” She chuckled at their old joke.
“Good. How about celebrating the end of another year by having lunch on the water?”
“Sounds wonderful.” She sighed and leaned back in the seat to enjoy the cool air hitting her face as he drove.
They talked about her last day of school, about his work, and about his upcoming projects.
By the time they pulled into the parking lot of one of their favorite cafés, she was starved.
They waited less than five minutes for a table outside, overlooking the beachfront. After sitting with her back towards the sun, she looked over a menu she probably knew by heart.
She ordered her favorite salad and then sat back and sipped her water and waited for her dad to spill the real reason he wanted to have lunch with her on a day he normally spent playing golf with his friends.
“So,” he finally said, “I’ve been thinking about moving.”
“Moving?” She felt her heart skip at the thought of him halfway around the world from her. “Where?” she asked, not sure if she wanted to know the answer.
“Well, I was thinking about getting a smaller place on the water.”
She felt her heart start to beat again. “Here?” She looked around. “In Miami?”
He chuckled. “Yes, of course. Where else would I live?” He reached over and took her hand. “That is, unless you decide to pack up and move somewhere else.”
“Me?” She frowned over at him. “Why on earth would I leave Miami? It’s been our home forever.”
Her dad smiled and patted her hand. “Well, I know you’re almost out of school, you’ll be looking for a
job. Plus, now that you’re eligible to start your residency…”
“There are lots of hospitals and facilities around here,” she hinted, taking a sip of her water.
“Yes, but…” He sighed and shook his head. “Honey, someday you’ll want to settle down. Raise a family of your own.”
“And I plan on doing that in Miami.”
Her father looked relieved as he leaned back in his chair. Her eyes ran over him as he looked back at her own face. He really was a good-looking man. His thick dark hair only highlighted the fact that he appeared too young to have a twenty-two-year-old daughter. There wasn’t a gray hair on his head. Sure, he had gained a few laugh lines in the past few years, but they only showed that he was a man who enjoyed a good joke.
“Dad.” She leaned forward. “Is there something else you want to tell me?”
When his eyes moved away, she knew there was. But at that moment their waiter stopped at their table to refill their drinks and deliver their food. She started to nibble on her shrimp salad, enjoying the sounds of the water beside them.
“I know we haven’t talked about things like this in the past…” her father started.
“Oh, god!” She set the fork down, feeling her hands shake. “You’re sick, aren’t you?”
Her father laughed and shook his head. “No, I’m not sick. I’m dating someone,” he blurted out, causing her to relax.
“Is that all?” She picked up the fork again. “Thank god,” she said, nibbling on a shrimp.
“Honey, it’s serious.” He took her hand again.
“Good. When do I meet the lucky woman?” She took another sip of the water. Her father had dated women in the past. Some of them she’d liked, others she hadn’t. None of them had stuck around that long after finding out how close the two of them were. Nothing could break the bond between her father and herself.
“How about next weekend?” he asked.
She nodded in agreement as she glanced over and watched a couple being seated across the dining area from them. She started choking on her water when she noticed who it was.
The woman was drop-dead gorgeous, even though she was clearly old enough to be Emily’s mother. Her long blond hair lay smoothly over exposed tanned shoulders. There were so many diamonds on the woman’s fingers and ears that she was sure Tiffany’s was a standard shopping stop. The woman’s low-cut blouse showed off an impressive and obviously purchased cleavage.
But it wasn’t the woman Emily’s eyes were glued to. It was the man with her—Rafe Turner. He was wearing a fresh dress shirt and tan slacks and looking far sexier than any other man in the restaurant. It was nowhere near a level playing field.
When his eyes met Emily’s across the space, he had the gall to wink in her direction. He no longer looked tired from having to “babysit” her last night. He pulled out the chair for the woman and then rounded the table and sat down.
Chapter 2
Stripping for a living may sound glamorous but, as with most things, reality was a far cry from Hollywood’s versions.
Rafe held in a sigh as yet another woman slipped him her phone number as he moved through the club. Three years ago, he would’ve been ecstatic that a hot blond with legs that went on forever was giving him the look that said he didn’t even have to buy her dinner first. But even sex grew tiresome after a while, especially when the women grew so interchangeable that he stopped asking for or caring to get their names.
It was Blaine who had convinced him to take the stripper/dancer job as an after-hours gig to pay for his living expenses, his student loans, and then some. So long as you left your scruples at the door, it wasn’t half bad. Not that he cared much. He’d learned a long time ago that looking out for himself was the only sure way for survival.
Rafe initially went along with Blaine’s scheme because it offered him the best way forward. It was a hell of a lot easier to keep his eyes on the goal of becoming a surgeon when he wasn’t worried about money.
Becoming a surgeon was expensive, especially for a kid from the wrong side of the tracks. The only thing his father had left him was a stack of unpaid bills and a set of blue eyes that had been labeled more than once as bedroom eyes.
His height had come from his mother, who’d been nearly six feet tall. Rafe was six-three with the same color hair as his mother before she’d begun dying it to cover the silver slowly turning the locks to salt and pepper.
What his beautiful mother had seen in his father was a mystery. He was perpetually unemployed and had turned to music, moving from job to job, always sure the next gig would be the one to make them rich. Instead, he’d left them penniless after dying of cirrhosis six years ago.
Rafe had been dry-eyed at the funeral, even as his mother had sobbed on his shoulder. She’d loved him, despite the miserable life he’d given them. Rafe had realized then that love was crippling. It could ruin you, as it had ruined his mother. Once a beauty, worry and care had written lines on her face and rarely a day went by now that she wasn’t clutching a glass of wine in her perfectly manicured hand.
Rafe was tired. He’d been up since four, pulling a shift at the hospital before leaving from there to head to his other job at the Sunset Strip. Still, he’d managed to squeeze a short workout in between the two. Women liked the six-pack and it took time and effort to maintain it. It was now after midnight and he still had two more hours to go before the club closed.
A group of college girls caught his eye. They were partying hard, tottering around the dance floor on their stiletto heels and barely-there cocktail dresses. Since it was the end of the semester, there were more than the usual number at Sunset Strip tonight. The ones who usually stayed home studying on the weekend were cutting loose along with the regulars.
But Rafe knew that most of the younger women flaunting their stuff were just like him. Broke. Which meant that while Blaine was making the rounds, schmoozing and working for small tips the hotter women took too long to tuck into the waistband of his assless chaps, Rafe was free to score the real money.
Blaine was currently wearing a cowboy hat and boots, his muscled chest glistening in the swirling lights of the club. His somewhat longer hair and perfectly trimmed beard gave him a slightly dangerous look. Still, he couldn’t hide his All-American Boy Next Door smile (with dimples), which had the women swooning. It was rare he took home less than a grand on a night like this.
Rafe would make more.
It baffled him, but his cold, aloof demeanor was like catnip to women. At first, he’d acted that way because he’d been disgusted with himself for taking a job like this. It had been uncomfortable, strolling mostly naked through a crowd of grasping female hands. Then those hands had started holding money—money they wanted to give to him. And his disgust had evaporated. But not his demeanor. He’d found out quickly that women liked what they couldn’t have. For him, that worked. Blaine did much better being the friendly cowboy or farmhand. Rafe was the untouchable man in uniform—sometimes a cop, sometimes a fireman, sometimes military. And the old cliché was true—women loved a man in uniform.
Tonight, he was playing army. Dog tags were slung around his bare chest, and he had on a pair of boots with fatigues. He wasn’t in the mood for this, though, which should have meant he made less money. But his stony expression and unsmiling lips only made the women whisper words like “dangerous” and “fucking hot” as he walked by.
Blaine was chatting with one of the newbies. Her black dress was clinging to her ass in a way that drew Rafe’s eye. Add the mouthwatering shape of leg that ended in a designer stiletto in red with glittering rhinestones, and he could see why Blaine had paused in his rounds. Rafe was about to pass on by when the girl threw a glance over her shoulder in his direction, and he froze.
It was her. Emily was in his Patho and Immunology class. Chestnut, shoulder-length hair, figure on the small but still curvy side, perfect attendance, top-of-the-class grades, and an obvious crush. On him.
Rafe had been a grad assist
ant for over a year now. Undergrad crushes weren’t a new thing, and he ignored them ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the time. Emily Stokes was nothing new or so he’d thought. He had a sixth sense for when a woman wanted him—it had been helpful in his current career. But when he’d first met her, he had decided that he had no interest in little rich girls. And to be in the Miller School of Medicine at the University of Miami, you had to have money. But, after getting to know her, to see how hard she worked, he’d changed his mind quickly about her.
Normally, Rafe would’ve passed on by and let Blaine have his fun. Karla—Blaine’s current keeper—was out of town and didn’t care about what he did while she was gone, so long as she never found out about it. Blaine took that to heart, playing hard on the nights he was off the leash.
But then the girl stepped back and stumbled, unsteady on her feet. Rafe could instantly tell that her eyes were too bright and glassy from booze. She was wasted. And she’d seen him. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if she outed his moonlighting career, but gaining and keeping the respect of students only a few years younger than him was a pain in the ass. She could blow that to smithereens, which would really piss him off.
Rafe detoured, heading towards the group. He managed to catch Emily before she landed on her ass, and now she was gripping his arm as if her life depended on his strong hold of her somehow. Her nails weren’t painted, just filed prudently short so as not to get in her way. Her hand was small, just like the rest of her. Rafe had the wayward thought that if he took her to bed, he might inadvertently break her.
“Hey there, Tex,” Rafe said to Blaine, making his lips curve in a smile. “I see you found some fillies.”
Blaine glanced at him, grinning. “Hell yeah, Major,” he said. “This one’s a looker, ain’t she?”
They always adopted the personas of their attire. It helped with tips and gave him and Blaine something to do to make the evening more interesting. Part of the fun of the night was that they never knew what the other one would throw at them. Kind of like playing strip improv.
