by Lisa G Riley
Trying to act normal, she made her way from the nurses’ locker room to the small kitchen located in the back of the Living Well Health Clinic where she worked as a nurse and nursing supervisor. Dr. Nicholas Pantino stood at the sink with his back to her. Oh, come on, not him. Not now, she thought with an inward sigh, and slumped against the doorjamb. Not now when I’m feeling like I’ve just gone a round with The Rock and lost. She studied him from her position in the doorway. He was just too sexy for her own damned good.
He was the first man she’d been even remotely attracted to since before she’d gotten married, and she’d been divorced for three years. Almost from the moment he’d started working at the clinic four months before, she’d known that things were going to change at Living Well and for her. For one thing, all the nurses and practically all the female patients between the ages of nineteen and ninety drooled over him like he was a giant ice cream cone in the middle of the desert. She was convinced that she was the only woman within ten miles who didn’t lust after the man.
Okay, so maybe she did, she forced herself to admit with another inward sigh, but at least he didn’t know it. And she didn’t plan that he ever would. Okay, so maybe he suspected it—again she forced herself to be honest—but she’d be damned if she’d ever confirm it for him. He had enough women swooning over him; she wasn’t about to be added to the greedy, ferocious pack.
Dr. Pantino—everyone except Mel called him Dr. Nick—was, to put it simply, one of the finest men she’d ever laid eyes on. He was at least six feet tall, had gorgeous olive skin, thick, luscious black hair, and eyes that were just as dark. His body, geez, his body was just a work of art. Looking at it made her go hot and achy almost every time. And then there was the hair on his face. She itched to bury her fingers in that thick, rich, neatly trimmed beard, and she imagined his mustache would be all soft and tickly against her lips.
“Good morning, Melinda.”
Mel came out of her daydream at the sound of his voice. She prayed he hadn’t caught her staring. She straightened from against the doorjamb and walked into the kitchen. “Hi, Dr. Pantino,” she said, and went to the refrigerator for a bottle of Gatorade. Maybe the electrolytes would help send the bitch of a headache on its way. She carefully closed the refrigerator and walked over to a small table to sit down. Feeling his eyes follow her every move, she tried to act like she wasn’t hungover. She was a spectacular failure.
“Hung over, huh?” Nicholas asked her, his voice tinged with amusement. He chuckled when she sent him a dirty look without answering his question. He deliberately sat right next to her at the table. “Well, I hope you feel better soon. The water should knock it out of you. Has the lemon helped to settle your stomach at all yet?”
Mel tried to ignore his nearness. It was like heat radiated off his body, and her body was acting like it was a freaking heat-seeking missile. “A little bit,” she said, deciding to stop trying to deny the hangover. She opened the Gatorade and took a long swallow, the cold, tangy liquid tasting like manna from heaven as it slid down her parched throat.
Nicholas watched her drink the beverage. It was an unintentionally sexy move and he fully enjoyed the show. Her head was thrown back and her light brown twisted hair brushed her shoulders. Her eyes were closed. The look on her face could only be described as one of pure pleasure. He watched the muscles underneath the skin of her neck contract with each swallow of the drink and felt his heart rate speed up right before his stomach muscles tightened and his penis lengthened to push against the zipper of his pants. Christ, she could make him hard without even trying.
He resisted leaning in to take a bite from the sleek skin of her neck. Instead, he took hold of her arm and waited for her to stop drinking and look at him. “After that enticing little performance, you know I just have to ask you, don’t you? For the love of God, Lindy, when the hell are you going to put both of us out of our misery and go out with me?” He used his own personal nickname for her.
She frowned at him. “Okay, stop right there, Dr. Pantino. I can’t play with you today. And like I told you before, we are not going to go out. It wouldn’t be a good idea, so just stop asking me.”
He studied her quietly while he let his thumb caress the soft skin of her arm. “I’ll stop asking when I’m convinced that you really don’t want to go out with me.” He enjoyed working with her, and he wanted to be with her outside of work. It was as simple as that. She was making things difficult and, liking the challenge, he went along with it, but pretty soon he’d rein in all the game-playing. She was a sexy, caring, witty, intelligent woman, and besides wanting to make love to her until she couldn’t walk, he also wanted to get to know her better. Seeing her for a few hours a week just wasn’t cutting it.
Mel sighed and closed her eyes to avoid his stare. The determination in that stare was a threat to her sense of balance. She sensed, knew, that what she was willing to give of herself would never be enough for him. He’d be one of those men who demanded that a woman hold nothing back. She kept her eyes closed, praying for strength as she tried not to let the soft sweep of his thumb across her skin distract her. He would have to pick today to mess with her—today when she was just too darned tired and sick to really play with him. He asked her at least once every other week to go out with him. Her answer was no every single time, but that didn’t stop him.
It had become a verbal game with them, one she fully admitted to herself that she enjoyed. But she couldn’t do it today. Today, she was almost weak enough to give in to his gentle persuasion. “Well, I don’t know what to tell you, then,” she said in answer to what had almost seemed like an accusation. She winced at the pathetic line. How sorry could she be? As comebacks went, that one fell flat on its face. She gave a mental shrug. Whatever. It was the best she could do.
Nicholas hid his satisfaction. She hadn’t denied wanting to go out with him. That was a first and would have to do for now. “Aw, poor baby. You really are hungover. Can I get you anything?” It was obvious that she wasn’t up to their little game, and he decided to forgo his usual pleasure of teasing her. She was usually more creative and gave him a verbal comeuppance every time.
He wanted her and had wanted her since he’d seen her all those months ago when he’d first caught a glimpse of her. She was sexy as hell with those long legs; high, firm ass; and smooth, brown skin. Yes, he wanted her, but she was more than a little skittish. He’d heard enough of the clinic gossip to know she hadn’t had a happy marriage and hadn’t dated anyone since the divorce. He wanted to know what kind of marriage she’d had, and he’d wait for her to tell him, but he wasn’t going to let that be an obstacle. She was going to belong to him. “Would you like something to eat?” he asked her.
Mel sighed in relief—relief that he was going to give her a reprieve. She didn’t care that he heard it. “I’m fine, thanks.”
“So what did you do last night anyway?”
“I went out with Lilly and Simone,” she said cautiously. There was no way in hell she’d tell him about the BSA ad. She’d just be asking for trouble. He’d take it and run with it.
“It appears you had a good time,” he said.
She winced as she thought about all the alcohol she’d consumed the night before. “Let’s just say it was a memorable one.”
“Well, you just keep drinking the water, and you should feel better. I’ve got some paperwork to go over,” he said as he stood. “Our first scheduled appointment is in twenty minutes. It just sounds like a bad cold, so I may not need you. You can rest that sensitive head of yours, all right?”
“Yes, thanks, but I’m fine. I just need to sit for a few more minutes. There were no walk-ins when I came in, but Jacinta is on the desk. She’ll call back if she needs help.” As nursing supervisor, Mel set the schedules for the other three full-time nurses and herself. They took turns working with the three doctors who each worked at the clinic two days a week. This week she was on the schedule to work with Nicholas.
“
All right, then. I’ll see you later in exam room one.”
He stood to leave and she allowed herself to begin to relax. When he stopped behind her chair and she felt the heat of his body against her back she realized she’d relaxed too soon. Well, damn. “Do you know how much I want to taste you?” she heard him whisper in her ear and shivered in sudden desire.
“Pretty soon I’m going to stop asking and waiting,” Nicholas continued after he’d felt the shiver. He softly scraped his nail across the back of her neck.
Mel caught her breath and did her best not to shiver again as the muscles in her stomach tightened. She swallowed hard before saying, “How do I know you’ve been waiting?” She felt the vibration from his chuckle flow against her skin.
“Oh, baby, you can be sure that that’s all I’ve been doing since I met you. But that’s okay, because when you finally let me catch you, you won’t want me to let you go.” He straightened and left.
Mel let her body slump in the chair and rested her hot forehead on the coolness of the table. Aw, hell. Good Lord, she was in trouble. A kind of trouble she’d never experienced before. Ever. Until she’d met Nicholas, she hadn’t really known what it felt like to be so hot and bothered, regardless of the fact that she’d been married for two years. Sexually, her marriage had been a joke. For the most part, sex between her and her ex-husband had involved her lying on the bed with her nightgown rudely shoved up around her waist while he pushed his dick into her over and over again.
She’d just lie there not making a sound except for the automatic groans that came in response to her body being invaded. She hadn’t felt anything either. She’d keep her body as still as she could and her mind as blank as possible while he’d root around inside of her like he was digging for gold. When Edmund was finished, he’d get up, adjust his dick and leave—probably on his way to another woman’s bed.
Which was why until recently, she hadn’t understood what the appeal of sex was, at least not for women. Sure, she’d heard all the stories about multiple orgasms and the mythical G-spot, but they had never really resonated. She’d even felt some lust when reading romance novels, but it had never gone any further than that. Reading about the positions some of the more risqué novels described had made her hot, but it still wasn’t enough to make her a true believer.
She sighed. She’d always believed that either Edmund hadn’t been doing his job or she was as frigid as a Popsicle. She hadn’t enjoyed sex with her boyfriend in college and she hadn’t enjoyed it with Edmund, who’d cheated on her almost from the first day of their marriage. She’d actually believed that she just wasn’t meant to have sex. Until Nicholas. After meeting Nicholas, who could make her shiver and moan with just the right look, she could say with dead certainty that she wasn’t a Popsicle. And, hell, now sex was higher on her agenda than it had ever been.
“Hey, Mel!”
The voice was way too perky for Melinda and she looked up with a scowl. “Not so loud. Can’t you see some of us are trying to die in peace?” she said to friend and clinic psychologist, Dr. Cally Winston, and put her head back down on the table.
“Uh-oh. Are you really ill, or did you enjoy yourself a little too much last night with your friends?” Cally asked as she went to the counter for coffee. She was a small, shapely woman with dark, intelligent eyes that shone out of a pretty, honey-brown face. Despite the fact that she’d lived in Chicago for most of her life, her Southern accent was sometimes still very evident.
Sure now that she wasn’t going to get any peace and quiet, Melinda sat up again. “The last one.”
“Well, I don’t feel sorry for you, then,” Cally said as she sat down across from her. “I just saw Nick, and he looked pretty happy. Did you agree to go out with him?”
Melinda had shared her feelings about Nicholas with Cally a couple of weeks before. The two had become fast friends when the psychologist had started working at the clinic a year earlier. Like Nicholas, she offered her services twice a week, while keeping her own practice on the other side of the city. “No, I didn’t, but I tell you, I was really close to doing so. Thank God he didn’t push it.”
“Well, you already know what I think. You should go for it. I know you don’t trust gorgeous men like Nick who seem to have harems all their own, but he isn’t asking you for marriage. He’s just asking for a date, and besides, I know Nick. He’s not the type to date more than one woman at a time.”
“That is a part of it, yes, but he also scares me,” Melinda admitted candidly. “I told you that for the longest time, I thought I was frigid, right? Well, Nicholas has totally disproved that theory, and, well, it feels like my body is waking up from a long, deep sleep. The feelings are so unfamiliar to me that I’m not entirely comfortable with them. I always feel like I’m about to lose control around him, and I don’t like it.” She’d already told the other woman that her ex-husband had not only cheated on her, but had also been demanding, arrogant, and controlling and had not taken the time for foreplay.
“I get it,” Cally said with a nod and an understanding smile. “You’ve felt safe, so to speak, all these years thinking that you couldn’t be sexually excited.”
“Well, I didn’t necessarily like it, but I got used to it—”
“And then Nick came along and blew that theory all to hell and back and you’re left with all these pent-up, hot, sexy feelings that need alleviating, but you’re too much of a lily-livered coward to let that happen. That about cover it?”
“Well, I wouldn’t have put it exactly in those terms,” Melinda said sarcastically, “but if you, as a highly qualified, board-certified psychologist feel that you have to, then who am I to argue?”
Cally just laughed at her. “I’m not speaking as a psychologist. I’m speaking as your friend, and you know I’m right.”
“Yes, yes, I know you’re right, but that still doesn’t make it any easier.”
“I’m sure it doesn’t, but look at it this way—if you and Nick ever do hit the sheets, you definitely won’t be faking orgasms anymore.”
Mel looked around to make sure they were still alone. She leaned in, “Be quiet, Cally! I don’t want everyone within the sound of your voice to know my business. Don’t make me regret telling you my secrets,” she warned in a whisper.
“I’m sorry, but it just amazes me how you were able to fake orgasms all those times during a two-year marriage, while your husband thought he was screwing your brains out. One, I don’t know how you did it and stayed sane. And two, I don’t know how your husband didn’t catch on to it. You must be some actress.”
Melinda frowned. “I don’t know how I did it either, but I did. It’s not really something I’m proud of, but it’s over now. I didn’t fake it the whole two years. We’d stopped having sex by the time the second year rolled around. I realize now that faking it during the marriage was my way of getting back at him for being so damned arrogant and controlling. And as for Edmund not catching on to what I was doing, I think a part of him knew. At one point, when I wasn’t responding the way he figured I should be, he got insulted and said that if I thought there were other more interesting things I could be doing, then he’d like to know what the hell they were. I could have given him a full list—reading a book, grocery shopping, watching television, hell, watching paint dry! Anything but having sex. But of course I didn’t. When I took too long to answer him, though, he actually bragged that from there on out, he wouldn’t finish with me until his ‘male prowess’ had made me scream and had made my eyes roll to the back of my head.”
“No, he didn’t!”
“Yes, he did. And that’s when I knew that it had become some kind of competition for him or something. And not because he wanted me to have pleasure either, but because he wanted to prove that he could make the ice queen come. Well, what I wanted was him off me, so I started faking it. I could fake the screams all right, but I never could manage to fake that eyes-rolling-to-the-back-of-my-head thing, so I just closed them so he couldn’t s
ee what they were doing.”
Cally just looked at her. “The woman that I am wants to crack up laughing that you tricked him, but the therapist in me wants to analyze both of you.”
“Okay, well, listen to this and see which one of you wins out. Once, when Edmund was sweating and grunting all over me like an animal, in my head I figured out this really difficult equation that had been bugging me since college. It was the first time during sex that I had ever said anything besides my usual ‘yes…yes…yes, you’re the man,’” she said in a bored voice.
Cally loudly guffawed. “I know you didn’t sound like that when you were in the midst of it.”
“I don’t know, but I doubt it. I didn’t want him to know that what the words really meant was, ‘finish what you’re doing, pull the hell out, and get to steppin’, you knock-kneed, slick son of a bitch!’”
Full-blown laughter escaped Cally’s throat again.
“Anyway, after I’d figured out the equation, I made the mistake of excitedly yelling out, ‘Oh, my God, that’s it! Yes, that’s it!’”
“Oh, Lord. What did your ex do?”
“What do you think? He went ape-shit crazy! He started pumping his hips faster and faster like it was his last chance to fuck before he died. Then he gave me his usual arrogant smirk and said between these hard, panting breaths, ‘Uh-huh, that’s right. I know that’s it. You don’t have to tell me. Shit, I’m the man. You hear me, girl? I am the man! I know what I’m doing!’ Little did he know that it had been numbers that had gotten me excited, while his so-called male prowess had left me all but bone dry.”
“Good Lord,” Cally repeated with a shake of her head. “What did you do?”
“I said, ‘You certainly are,’ and just waited for him to finish. When he left, I wrote the equation down.”
