It was all those pesky things like walking and carrying that seemed to be a struggle for her.
He stood up, taking a step forward, towering over her, his manner coaxing. “Sometimes we don’t mean for those things to interfere. But something…someone distracts us, and we find our concentration broken.”
Crap, she wascaught.He knew she wanted him to throw her down on the nearest gurney and have his way with her. This was horrible. This was like body odor. Embarrassing, and difficult to cover once it’s been discovered.
“I...” she said in a breathless little voice that sounded like she’d been hitting the helium on her lunch hour. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Don’t you?” Another step and he was right in front of her, close enough to touch, in smelling distance. He wore no cologne, and his scent was a mix of antiseptic soap and musky man.
Which made her wonder what she smelled like to him. Probably like sweaty fear, or maybe sexually aroused, which she was. Geez, she didn’t even know which would be worse. Under thecircumstances, both were mortifying. Lifting her arm subtly for a little armpit air circulation, she cleared her throat as she touched her neck.
How could he have figured out she was attracted to him? How the hell could he know?
And what exactly was he going to do about it? Force her to confess she wanted him? She’d rather undergo a hysterectomy without anesthetic.
Unless, just maybe she was right about The Look and hewasinterested in her. Then she’d be an idiot not to tell him he made her ache with want, and despite her recent embarrassing track record, Josie was no idiot.
The trick was figuring out whether he was or he wasn’t.
Chapter Four
Houston knew he needed to stop. Put an end to this conversation and walk out with his rules intact.
But he couldn’t. Josie was too appealing. She was ripe and round and breathing a little hard in the hushed small room, her eyes wide.
“I don’t know what you mean, I really, really don’t, I swear, nothing is bothering me.”
Ignoring the way her words were tumbling over each other, he reached out and ran his thumb across her bottom lip, enjoying the soft full flesh under his touch. The gesture startled her, if the two-foot leap she made was any indication. But he didn’t care.
“Dr. Hayes?”
“Call me Houston.” He didn’t want to be a doctor right this minute. He wanted to be a man. A man who was going to kiss the sexy woman in front of him.
He’d told himself he wouldn’t kiss her until she showed interest, and so maybe alarm couldn’t be classified as such, but she wasn’t smacking his hand away either.
“Houston...” She licked her lips. “We have a problem.”
His fingers stopped sliding across her cheekbone as Josie realized what she had said and giggled.
“I guess you’ve heard that one before, huh?”
There was a bright sparkle in her eyes, so adorable that he couldn’t bring himself to be annoyed the way he usually was when someone made an Apollo 13 reference. “Once or twice.” Or a thousand times. He’d lost count.
Leaning forward, he kissed the corner of her mouth, then the other. A little gasp left her, but she didn’t move away. Her lips were soft and moist from wetting them with her tongue, and they fell open as he brushed over her a third time. Right in the center, flush on her mouth with his.
Josie sighed, her mouth receptive to him, relaxed.
She tasted like apple juice, sweet and ripe, willing, and he fought to keep his eyes open and his hands off her body as he pulled back.
This wasn’t what he had intended to do with her in here. He had meant to clear the air, make sure she didn’t have a more serious problem than chronic klutziness. But he couldn’t be sorry that he’d kissed her.
Nor did he feel sorry for what he was about to propose.
“The problem, Josie, is that you’re driving me crazy.”
“I am?” She shook her head, flustered, eyes unfocused. “Oh, right, with all the dropping and the tripping. I don’t mean to, you know, it just happens.”
“That’s not what I meant.” He buried his nose in the hair by her ear and breathed in deeply. Strawberries. Damn. She was practically a fruit farm.