When it was time for the charity auction to begin, Isabella found a seat next to Jordan. They watched as doctors outbid one another to win extravagant prizes. They auctioned off everything from tickets to the opera, to a gift basket with luxury bath items, to a night with a private chef. There was a massive bidding war for five nights at a five-star resort in Mexico. Isabella turned to see who had spent way too much money on a short vacation.
It was James.
He looked fantastic. His Armani suit coat fit perfectly, and his pants fit tight in all the right places. Isabella involuntarily licked her lips.
“He’s alone,” Jordan pointed out. “Damn, he looks fine.”
Date or not, Isabella wanted him to see what he was missing. She got up and strutted to the bar to get another glass of champagne. She posed by the bar, sipping from the flute like a socialite waiting for the paparazzi to take photos.
Jordan joined her a minute later. If James had noticed her, he was doing his best not to pay her any attention. She observed as he talked to their colleagues.
When Jordan left to speak with Dr. Jensen, Isabella was left alone at the bar. This time, she ordered a vodka tonic. She sulked as she gulped the drink.
“Have you ever been to Cabo?” a voice behind her asked.
She whipped around. It was James, waving the tickets in the air. “As a matter of fact, I have.”
“Do you want to go again?”
“Have you been drinking?” she asked suspiciously.
“Maybe,” he slurred. “I see you have been too.”
“I’m not great at social events. You know this.”
“Only the ones where you find out that your boyfriend is your brother.”
“Why are you even talking to me? I thought we were done with that.”
“The truth is, Isabella, I can’t get you out of my head. I see you at work and I want you. I want you in my home with me, curled up on the couch. I want you to come on trips with me. I want you in my bed.”
“Shh,” she hissed. “I don’t care who hears. I’ve been craving your body. I lie awake at night, dreaming of your smooth skin, your tight ass, your perfect, perky—”
“Quiet,” she warned.
“I need you, Isabella. So bad.”
She gave a sharp exhale. Oh, the things he did to her.
“I want you too,” she said, looking him straight in the eye.
Without another word, James grabbed Isabella by the wrist and pulled her out of the room. They hurried along the corridor until he found what he was looking for. He peeked in the empty coat closet. There was hardly enough room for the both of them.
He slid his hand up her thigh and yanked at her panties before loosening his belt and letting his pants fall past his knees. She slid her hand past the waistband of his underwear. He was ready to go.
He ran his lips along her neck, and she savored the sensation of his skin on hers. She gently nibbled on his ear. The hot breath in his ear always drove him wild. He forcefully hiked her skirt up, and she guided him inside her.
Isabella wrapped one leg around his waist, holding him closer to her. He grasped her ass for leverage, going deeper inside her. He touched her with his free hand, making her moan with pleasure. The sounds of her gratification sent him over the edge, and he stroked her, harder, faster. Weeks of tension between them released as they stood in the cramped closet, holding on tight to each other.
“What now?” James asked once he was dressed again. He leaned into Isabella and rested his forehead on hers.
“I don’t know.”
“I’ve been miserable without you, Isabella. I can’t stop thinking about you. I hate fighting with you.”
“Me too, but what can we do? We know that it’s going to be too difficult to stay together. You even said it yourself.”
“Is it worth working this out? I’m willing to put in the effort if you agree to put in some work, too.”
“I’m in.”
He wrapped his arms around her, picking her up so their lips met. They kissed, both not wanting to break away first.
“Come home with me tonight,” he said. “We can open a bottle of wine and talk.”
“I came here with Jordan. I can’t just ditch her.”
“I think she’ll understand.”
“Okay, let me find her. I’ll meet you at coat check.”
Isabella quickly fixed her smudged makeup and raked her fingers through her hair. She rushed back to the ballroom.
“Jordan,” she said, out of breath. “I’m going home with James. It’s a long story, and I’ll tell you all about it later. Is that okay?”
“Yes, go!” Jordan shouted with a broad smile on her face.
With her friend’s approval, she nearly ran to the entrance, where James was waiting with her coat. They got in his car and sped off. The whole ride there, her hand rested gently on the inseam of his pants.
At his house, James unbuttoned the top two buttons on his shirt, removed his tie, and rolled up his sleeves. He found a long sleeved t-shirt for Isabella.
James poured two glasses of wine and lit the fireplace. Isabella curled up next to him on the couch so that they faced each other.
“I think we need to be honest in what we want from a relationship,” James said. “I’ve said it before, but I don’t want to be dating well into my forties. I want some stability, a life partner.”
“I just don’t know how I feel about marriage. You know that.”
“What don’t you like about it?” he asked.
“I don’t hate the idea of being with the right person for a long time. I just hate the expectations that come along with it. I don’t want a big, fancy ceremony. I don’t want to have a huge legal battle if we decide it isn’t working anymore. I don’t want to quit my job and stay at home while you’re out there living the dream.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way,” he said.
“But so often, it is anyway.”
“We have such great chemistry together,” he pointed out. “I would hate for that to go to waste.”
“Yeah, I’ve never had a lover who’s as good as you. Not even close.”
They thought for a moment, both silently mulling over possible solutions.
“What if we just take things slowly?” Isabella asked. “We can be friendly, and maybe even hook up on occasion, but we don’t need to be serious or spend all of our time together. I think that things moved way too quickly the first time.”
“I want to say yes, but I can’t wait around forever, Isabella.”
“How about six months? We can re-evaluate things then.”
“Four months.”
“Five months.”
“Deal.”
“And if we haven’t reached a conclusion by then, we’ll cut our losses.”
“I can work with that.”
“Also, in that time, we will ban all talk about being stepsiblings, and we will certainly not talk about marriage or children.”
“Fine,” he said. “Now it’s time to seal the deal.”
He pulled Isabella into his arms, and for the second time that night, they made love. In the morning, James found a more suitable outfit for her to wear and drove her home.
From that point forward, Isabella promised herself that the days of sleeping over and lounging at his place all morning were put on hold.
Isabella felt a little more at ease in terms of the way things were going with James. She had him right where she wanted him. They were more than friends with benefits, but less than girlfriend and boyfriend. They could be friendly and professional at work and be deviants in the spare closets of the hospital.
Eventually, they would have to make a decision about the future of their relationship, but that was five whole months away. For now, they could just have some fun.
Chapter Seventeen
“Are you two officially back together?” Jordan asked before Isabella even had a chance to say hello.
“Keep it down,” she re
minded her friend. The other interns were too close to be speaking loudly.
“Sorry. Tell me what happened after you left,” she said, slightly quieter.
“We’re not back together per se,” Isabella said. “We decided to take things slowly.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means there are no strings, no commitments, and no drama.”
Jordan snorted. “Good luck with that.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t mean to be condescending, but in how many instances has that sort of arrangement worked out for you?”
“Okay, I don’t have a lot of experience in this department, but I think it will work this time. We were clear with our intentions, and in another five months, we’ll re-evaluate.”
“This isn’t a post-op checkup. You’re saying that you’ve scheduled an appointment to see how your relationship is doing?”
Isabella blushed. “I think it’s a good idea. Why not bring rationality into something that’s usually dominated by feelings?”
Jordan waved her off. “You do what’s best for you. I’m just warning you that it’s not going to be as simple as you think it is.”
I’ll show you, Isabella thought to herself.
James was in charge of the interns that day, and he seemed like he was back to his usual, happy self. He could look Isabella in the eye again, but he still managed to hold off on the winking and smirking. They addressed each other by their last names and were perfectly professional. He even assigned her to a good surgery. Everything was back to normal.
With things this good, Isabella wondered why they even had to complicate things in the first place. Just because their parents were together, it didn’t mean that they couldn’t have a good professional friendship with bonus unprofessional moments.
That first work day since their reconciliation was great. Isabella had an extra spring in her step, and she didn’t feel distracted by James. James was in a better mood and was more patient around the interns. When they made mistakes, he calmly corrected them instead of blowing up at them.
“Whatever you’re doing to him,” Jordan said to Isabella at lunch, “keep it up. I accidentally spilled half of a urine sample on him, and he was completely chill about it. Last week, he yelled at me because I dropped his chart on the ground. This is a big improvement.”
“What can I say? I guess I just have that power over men.”
“That man in particular,” Jordan noted.
For next two weeks, Isabella and James only communicated when it was within the confines of work. They smiled at each other when they passed in the halls, and Isabella was back to taking the elevator and changing in the doctor’s lounge.
One night, James and Isabella happened to be working the same on-call shift. Isabella was sitting around the quiet ER when James approached her.
“Hey, come with me,” he said softly. “I have something to show you.”
Isabella rolled her eyes. “Don’t tell me, that something is your penis?”
He smiled, shaking his head. “No, just come with me.”
She sighed, dropping her book on the counter. “What happens if we’re needed?”
“Then they’ll page us. Come on.”
She followed him up several flights of stairs and walked through empty wings of the hospital. She wondered where they were going. They passed up many of their usual closets.
Eventually, the final staircase took them up to the roof of the hospital. It was dark except for the soft glow of a few streetlights.
He lay down on the roof, staring straight into the sky. Hesitantly, Isabella followed suit.
“What are we doing?” she whispered. It was unusual that they were both horizontal but he wasn’t trying to touch her.
“There’s a meteor shower tonight. I didn’t want you to miss it.”
They stared at the sky in silence. After a few long moments, faint streaks of light appeared in the black night.
“Did you see that?” Isabella asked, full of wonder.
James laughed at her enthusiastic reaction. “I had a feeling you’d enjoy this.”
She enjoyed spending time with James because she didn’t need to fill every moment of silence with chatter. They could just be friends if they wanted to. Friends who didn’t let their emotions get in the way of their working relationship.
“Well, we should probably go back inside,” he said once the sky was black again.
Isabella got up and dusted the back of her scrubs. “Thanks for bringing me up here. That was really cool. I’m glad we can do stuff like this again.”
“Me too. I really missed you, Isabella. I hope that this time, things can be different.”
In that moment, she had an urge to grab him by the shoulders and kiss him. She wanted to be with him under the moonlight and feel his body on hers.
Isabella bit her lip. After all, she was the one who wanted to take things slowly. It would be hypocritical to jump him when she was the one who laid out some very specific rules.
She was just amazed that he could resist her too.
They walked together through the dark and quiet hospital, back toward the ER. When they got back, he left her to go check on a patient, and she swore she felt his hand brush against hers.
Focus, Isabella told herself. Now was not the time to go back on their agreement.
She wanted to move slowly with James, but her body was sending her signals that she could not ignore. Even if sex was out of the picture for the time being, she still craved human touch. She got a shiver down her spine every time he lightly traced a finger along her body. When he embraced her with his strong arms, she felt loved.
For as long as she could remember, Isabella was not the type to enjoy a physical relationship with anyone. She shrank away whenever her mother tried to hug her as a child. She wasn’t the type of girl to give nor accept hugs from friends, and she especially didn’t cuddle with her romantic pursuits. When the deed was done, she’d get dressed, grab her things, and go.
She couldn’t help but think that James had broken something inside her. When they slept, she curled up in his arms. No one else had ever made her feel the comfort she had when she was with him.
The rest of her overnight shift went without incident. A few patients came in, but nothing that she couldn’t handle by herself. She sutured drunk college kids and checked out infants with a slight cough and reassured their paranoid parents. At times, the work could be repetitive, but she loved the fact that everyone who left her care was in better shape than when they arrived.
With a little less than an hour before rounds, Isabella went back to the doctor’s lounge to shower and get ready for the new day of work. Over the rush of the shower, she heard a familiar voice speaking to her.
“Do you have a few extra minutes to spare for a quick nap?” James asked.
“With you?” she asked back.
“I hope you aren’t napping with anyone else around here.”
She wanted to say yes so badly. Isabella loved crawling on top of him in that tiny bed. Plus, she was pretty tired and wouldn’t mind actually sleeping in there.
“Don’t tempt me,” Isabella said, shutting off the water and tightly wrapping her towel around her body.
James took a good look at her when she stepped out of the shower. “I should ask the same of you.”
She stared at him, not knowing what to say. Part of her wanted him to leave the room, and the other part wanted to drop her towel and get on top of him.
“You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?”
“Doing what?” he said innocently.
“You’re trying so hard to seduce me, to make me break first. I won’t. We agreed to take things slow, and that means no touching.”
“What difference does it make? Does it really matter who makes the first move as long as we both end up getting what we want?”
“Of course it matters,” Isabella said. “It matters because this was all my
idea in the first place. What does that say about me if I can’t stay off you for more than a few days?”
“I don’t know what it says about you, but I like what it says about me,” he joked, wiggling his eyebrows at her.
She giggled. “Is this the first time someone has ever said no to you?”
“That’s not true at all,” he said. “It’s the first time someone has said no to me after a few nights in my bed, though.”
“So that’s why you’re not handling this well.”
“You don’t think I’m handling this well? You’re in a towel, and I’m standing over here, on my best behavior.”
“If you say so.”
He took a couple of steps toward her, approaching her slowly. Their faces slowly gravitated toward each other. At the last minute, he turned his head so his mouth was inches away from her ear.
“But if we’re going to play games,” he whispered, “I will be the one to break you, not the other way around.”
He turned on his heel and left without another word. She stood in the locker room, covered in goosebumps.
If he wanted to play this game, Isabella was more than happy to participate. She loved a good challenge and lived for competition. She would make him crack first.
James, too, liked to play games, and the next few weeks were filled with shameless flirting and seduction. They saw more of each other now than they ever did, because they kept trying to appear when the other was least expecting it.
Nearly every day, there was some partial display of nudity happening in the locker room. James liked to strut his stuff in a towel slung low around his hips. He knew that Isabella lusted after the muscle definition where his hips met his pubis, and he used it to his advantage.
She ditched her usual cotton briefs and sports bras in exchange for more seductive thongs and lacy bras. She made sure to wait until she knew James was watching before changing clothes.
To say that things escalated would be an understatement. Subtle flirtations became full-on pornographic. Now armed with his cellphone number, she would take photos of herself in various stages of undress and send them along to him late at night. A few times, he even sent pictures back in response.
There were a few close calls when they found themselves alone. In the past, they would have used the opportunity to hook up when they were in the vicinity of an empty room. Now, they used the privacy to speak to each other, closer than work acquaintances should. They stood so close to one another that Isabella could smell his toothpaste and James could catch whiffs of her shampoo. They never kissed, but another few inches closer, and their lips would have touched.
Forbidden Prescription: A Stepbrother Romance Page 11
