by Drea Stein
Lynn thought for a moment. “Yeah, that’s bad too.”
They were silent for a moment. “So now what?” Tory asked.
Lynn thought. Just what had been Jackson’s words…? I’m going to do a lot more than sleep with you. She shivered at the thought and felt herself tighten at the memory. A threat? A promise? Either way it had been hot. Hot enough that she could almost forget he was probably still in love with a dead woman.
“I guess he wants to go on a real date. He said that while he doesn’t believe in happily ever after, he does like to show a girl a good time…or words to that effect.” Lynn’s insides quaked just a little as she thought about what that might mean.
Tory nodded. “At least that’s a few points in his favor. He has a job, a car, he’s good looking, and he wants to feed you before he sleeps with you. Sounds like a winner to me. Of course, he still has enough baggage to make Paris Hilton look like a light packer, but as long as you know it’s a no-strings-attached deal, you should come out of this just fine.” Tory seemed to be saying it to reassure herself. She looked at Lynn with concern.
“What do you mean, just fine?”
“I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
“You’re the one who told me I should change my expectations, just go for sex. That’s all I’ve been thinking about for weeks now. I don’t think I can turn back now even if I wanted to. What’s so wrong with Jackson?”
Tory shrugged. “It could get messy. I mean, he’s smooth and polished and you won’t feel like he’s just in it for the sex. Not until it’s too late. And he can definitely afford to buy you dinner. But when it ends, you’ll still have to run into each other all the time. Queensbay’s a small town. But he’ll probably send you flowers.”
As if on cue, there was a knock at the door. Lynn got up calling, “Who is it?”
“Delivery,” a disembodied voice called back.
Lynn went to the door and came back with a long, white box.
“Oh man, please don’t tell me!” Tory said.
Lynn opened the card, looked at it, and felt a smile come over her face.
“OK, so who are they from?”
“Jackson.”
“See what I mean? A classy type of guy. You’re right. What could be better for you to reopen your foray into the world of sex? An over-muscled man-boy or someone who is going to treat you like a lady and then rock your socks off?”
Lynn nodded. “If Jackson Sanders is so hot and eligible, then why would he be interested in me?”
Lynn held up a hand when she saw that Tory was about to launch into a tirade. “I’m not throwing a pity party, but don’t you think he’s used to a different kind of woman? I walk around in a uniform that’s basically a pair of pajamas. I’m knee deep in snot and vomit half the time. Unless my mother’s cooking, I eat ramen noodles and drink cheap wine.”
Tory shook her head. “Maybe it’s time you thought of yourself differently.”
“So what are you saying I need to do?”
“Nothing. I’m saying Jackson must like you just the way you are. So don’t sweat it.”
Tory looked at the flowers and looked at Lynn. “Ok maybe sweat it a little bit. When you’re not working, perhaps it’s time we upgraded your wardrobe from scrubs and yoga pants to some tailored pieces and a few more dresses. You know, if he’s going to play the grown up game, maybe you should too. Like the gift wrap that will drive him crazy to get to what’s underneath, if you know what I mean.”
Lynn thought for a moment. “Scrubs really aren’t sexy are they?”
Tory shook her head. “Not in the least.”
“They are comfortable.”
“So are sweatpants, but those aren’t real clothes either.”
Lynn opened up the box. There were a dozen long-stem yellow roses nestled there. She picked one up, smelled the beautiful, delicate fragrance, and put it down. If this was Jackson’s idea of dating, then she was all for it.
Chapter 36
She ran into him just as she was coming out of the hotel gym and almost tried to avoid him. Sweats and scrubs. She couldn’t seem to catch a break in the sartorial department when he was around. She remembered what Tory had said. It mattered what she felt like on the inside. Fine, then time to summon her inner sexpot. She closed her eyes, but before anything came to her, she had been spotted.
“Hello,” he said.
She stood up a little taller and smiled. He smiled back and she took it as a good sign.
“Hi.” There was a pause while she thought about what to say next. He took a step closer to her and she found herself tongue tied. Stay cool, she reminded herself.
“I guess you’re feeling fine if you were at the gym,” he said as his eyes swept over her tank top and shorts.
“Yes, actually I am. I mean I still have a bit of a headache, but thanks to you—and breakfast—I am feeling better.”
He moved closer to her so that they were almost touching. One hand reached up and he took his finger and ran it along her shoulder.
“Lifting weights?” he asked.
She nodded. His light touch sparked the senses all over her body and she told herself it had to be just the leftover adrenaline from her workout.
“Who knew muscles could be so sexy?” he said, his voice pitched so low she almost couldn’t hear it.
“Oh,” she said and then tried to regroup. “Thank you for the flowers. They’re beautiful.”
“I figured you could use something to cheer you up,” he said. His hand moved up and touched the few strands of hair curling loose from her ponytail. Yup, definitely not the adrenaline, she decided. Her heart was pounding so loud it was a wonder he didn’t notice it.
“What are you doing?” she managed to ask.
“I was hoping to get you worked up,” he said simply and looked at her, his eyes dark, intense.
Lynn sucked her breath in sharply.
“Is it working?”
She managed to nod.
He leaned down and whispered, with mock seriousness, “So I assume what we discussed last night is still agreeable to you?”
“Very agreeable,” she murmured. He took a step back, breaking their connection and she acutely felt the absence of it.
A big smile spread over his face and he said, “Then I would like to take you out on a date.”
“Do we have to?” Lynn tipped her head back and managed to make her voice light.
He wagged his finger at her. “No you don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t sell yourself short. I told you drinks at a pub and Taco Tuesdays does not a date make.”
“It does in my book,” she said.
“Well then, you’ve only dated boys.”
“And you’re not?”
He took a step forward again and she almost jumped in surprise. Careful not to touch her, he bent down and whispered so only she could hear, “I am most assuredly not a boy, and what’s more I can take my time to appreciate you.”
“Oh,” came her breathy response.
“We’re going to do this my way. Now, I would like to take you out on a date.”
“Yes,” she answered simply, because really, what more was there to say?
He leaned back, looked at her. “Wonderful. Shall we say Friday night, then? I’ll pick you up at eight?”
“Friday?” Lynn said, “But that’s days from now.”
“You waited this long, surely you can wait just a little longer? I promise it will be worth it.”
“Very well, then.” Lynn smiled and decided that two could play at this game. “I’ll see you on Friday, then.”
“Friday,” he said. “And not that you haven’t upped my appreciation for scrubs and yoga pants, but I was planning on going to a slightly fancier place,” he added.
“I do own other clothes,” she lied, giving him another smile. Then she turned on her sneakered heel and went out the door.
He watched her, telling himself that he was
jumpy for no reason, that it was just a date, and that he had been on dozens of them before, with women who were a lot more demanding, a lot more sophisticated than Lynn Masters. But not one of those had left him with the tight little curl of anticipation and desire quite the way the thought of spending time with her did.
He wasn’t sure just when he decided he couldn’t stay away anymore. He was aware that he had been fighting it, fighting her since he had first seen her, and that every time he had been around her, she had grown harder and harder to resist. And that kissing her was like nothing else, so that all the senses seemed to rush from his head, and that it felt right. Ever since he had woken up in that hotel room, aware that he had been dreaming of coming home, he had been living on instinct. And his instincts about Lynn were pushing him toward her.
Chapter 37
It started before she even knew it, in the days leading up to their date. Her cup of coffee at The Golden Pear was on the house, courtesy of Jackson. A tray of cookies showed up at the clinic, to be shared by everyone. There was even a note slipped under her door, with the words ‘Can’t wait until Friday’ scrawled in heavy black ink. The note itself was written on thick, creamy cardstock, with Jackson’s name engraved on the top.
Lynn’s every nerve thrilled in anticipation as she thought about Jackson and the way his hands had felt against her skin. He hadn’t even kissed her again and yet she couldn’t stop thinking about him. About the way his shoulders had looked, wide and strong the day at the gym. Or the fluid way he moved, whether he was in a business suit or a pair of jeans. Then there was the way he smelled, of clean soap, with the slightest hint of spicy aftershave. Or the way his blue eyes fixed on her and seemed to read all the secrets written inside of her.
To make it worse, she heard from him, with his presents and his notes, but she didn’t see him, or even hear him really. She fought the urge to go to his door and knock, telling herself that she needed to be mature, patient, to allow this game to play out. But she’d barely seen a light on in his place, and try as she might, she hadn’t heard a sound, not even the low hum of the television.
So she threw herself into work, focusing on the clinic and refining her plan for her Healthy Kids Now project. Things were progressing nicely and Caitlyn Randall had even promised to help her throw a fundraiser, catered by Darby at The Golden Pear. Work distracted her, but that calm was shattered whenever Tory texted her with questions like what was she going to wear, how was she going to do her hair.
Finally, Lynn gave in and agreed to go shopping with Tory on Thursday night, which was why she was now stuck in the mall, in a too-small dressing room, under unflattering light.
“How dressed up did he say to get?” Tory asked.
“He just said to ‘wear something nice,’” Lynn called out, after she stared at herself in the mirror again, deciding that the black dress she was trying on made her legs look too short.
“Hmm, well does that mean you even have to wear a dress?”
“I want to. Don’t you think I should? I mean it sort of covers all bases.”
“It means easier access,” Tory said, a shade too loudly. Lynn poked her head from the dressing room.
“Will you keep it down out there?” she hissed.
“What?” Tory shrugged, her eyes wide and innocent looking. “You know that’s what you’re thinking about.”
“Am not,” Lynn said.
“That’s just because you’ve never done it right. If you had, then that’s all you would be thinking about.”
“I’ve done it right,” Lynn said, wondering just how she had gotten into a conversation like this.
“Really, so you’ve had incredible, toe curling, over the top orgasm sex?”
Lynn felt her face starting to flame red. She wasn’t a prude, but still.
“Ah, I can tell by your silence that you haven’t.”
“I had a good experience.”
Tory shook her head. “If that’s all you’ve had, then you weren’t doing it right.”
“If sex was that good, nothing else would ever get done. After all, sex is a biological imperative, survival of the species. It’s not really about pleasure,” Lynn said.
Tory just smiled. “If you think that, then it just proves that you’ve never done it right. So on Saturday morning, when you’re thinking it over, you’ll call me and tell me what you really think. Because you will be calling me, pronto, and giving me all the details. And I mean everything.”
Lynn said nothing but shimmied into the final dress Tory had selected for her. It was short, but not too short, and a deep, scarlet red. It picked up the dark red highlights in her hair and made her brown eyes dance.
She was silent, admiring herself, the way the dress dipped down into a V in the front and then flared slightly over her hips and out, giving the skirt a kicky bounce.
Tory, made curious by the silence, popped her head into the dressing room and Lynn saw her smile in approval, “Oh, now that’s the one.”
“Yeah,” Lynn said. “I think I found it.”
“Great. All we need is to find some underwear,” Tory said.
“I have underwear,” Lynn pointed out.
“Not the kind I’m thinking of.” Tory answered.
“How do you know?”
“A perceptive guess. Come on, let’s pay for that and hit Victoria’s Secret. I think there’s some black lace with your name on it.”
Lynn gulped, wondering what she had gotten herself into. Black lace and scrubs didn’t exactly go together. But she took a deep breath. A grownup wears grownup underwear, she told herself.
Chapter 38
Lynn tried not to pace. But she was nervous. Her hands felt sweaty and her heart was fluttering. Jackson had slipped one more note under her door, a simple ‘see you later,’ but all day she had been thinking of him.
She checked the watch. Almost eight. She had declined Tory’s offer to come over and help her get dressed, but she had called once in a panic about what to do with her hair. Finally, they had decided on half up and half down, with some tendrils framing her face. The curls, which she had pumped up with the help of her curling iron, fell in luxurious waves down around her face, skimming her shoulders, and touching the bare skin of her back.
Checking herself in the mirror one more time, she sighed in relief. She looked good, she decided, better than good. She had followed a video on the Internet about how to give herself sultry, nighttime eyes using makeup, and the woman staring back at her was nothing like the scrub clad med student she was used to. No, finally she looked like a woman, a sophisticated woman. It was something, she decided, that she could get used to.
There was a knock on the door and she nearly jumped out of her skin, then told herself it was just a date. She had been on them before. Ok, so not many, but she knew how they were supposed to go. They would talk, they would flirt, and they would kiss, and perhaps, hopefully, more. Because this time, she was sure that’s what she wanted. Jackson.
Another knock came, and Lynn snapped to attention. “Coming,” she said, shaking herself loose of her thoughts.
#
Jackson fingered the collar of his dress shirt, then stilled himself. He wasn’t the type of man who made nervous gestures. He had carefully schooled himself to stay calm, to never betray any of the nervousness he felt. In business, appearing calm under pressure was half the battle, and he had earned the respect of more than one grizzled business veteran because he never panicked.
Just why then did his heart leap up when the door opened and Lynn stood there? She leaned against the doorjamb, almost tall in high heels, her petite body looking lean and long in a red dress that hugged her in all the right places. It dipped invitingly low over the swell of her breasts and he wrenched his eyes up, looking at her face.
“You look...amazing,” he finished lamely, realizing that she did. There was something slightly different about her, as if she had grown up in the few days he had carefully avoided her. Her dark eyes wer
e smoky with expectancy and her hair curled around her face, begging him to touch it.
She smiled and he was reassured, seeing in it the same girl he had come to know.
“Right on time,” she said. “Would you like to come in or should we just go?”
“We can go. I mean, everything is ready,” wondering why he suddenly felt tongue-tied.
She nodded and turned and he saw that the dress scooped low in the back, revealing that she probably wasn’t wearing a bra, and that her back was toned and muscled. She moved, even in her high heels, with a grace he found compelling. She went over to the breakfast bar, picked up her purse and a jacket.
He came in then and said, “Let me,” holding out his hand for her coat. Wordlessly she handed it to him, and he held it so she could step into it.
He let his hand brushed against her cheek, the skin on skin contact sending a delicious tingle of delight through him. Her breath caught, the only indication that she felt it too. She turned and faced him, her head angled up towards him, and he gently brushed his hands along her cheek again.
“Lynn,” he said.
“What?” she asked.
He allowed himself to bury his head briefly in the waves of her hair, smelling her shampoo which gave off a flowery scent with a hint of citrus.
“If we don’t leave now, we might not ever get out of here,” he said.
“Oh,” she said as she understood what he was saying. “Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad,” she said, her voice low and enticing.
“Oh no you don’t,” he answered, pushing her gently away. “I said I wanted to take you to dinner, so that’s what we’re going to do.”
“What about what I want to do?” She moved closer to him.
“I think that’s your hormones talking, and since we’re both adults here, we’d be silly to listen to just our hormones.”
“As a doctor, I have to tell you that hormones are a powerful force of nature.”
He took her hands looking into her eyes. “Don’t worry. I have every intention of making sure that our hormones are fully satisfied. You’re not getting out of this, Lynn, unless you want to, but we need to make sure we take it slow.”
