Either of which seemed too subtle for Josie. She laughed from under the desk, like he was simply teasing her; then gave a little cough.
“Yuck. I think I inhaled a dust bunny.”
Her head reemerged long enough to smile at him in reassurance. “Just give me a sec. I’ll get it.”
“Really, we can do this later.” Since he had learned just about nothing could hurry her up.
Of course he could brush her aside and get the damn thing himself. But he didn’t want to hurt her feelings. Josie always tried so hard to gloss over her gaffes. Plus he was a total masochist who didn’t want to deny himself the glorious view of her backside,even though he knew he couldn’t, shouldn’t—wouldn’tact on his lust.
So Houston resented the distraction and cursed himself, but still couldn’t tear his eyes away from her, not even long enough to pick up the X-ray himself.
“Almost got it.” She gave him another blinding smile, head cocked to the right as she stretched her hand a little farther.
He put his hands on his hips and reminded himself, again, that getting involved with a resident would be a complete nightmare, no matter how freaking adorable she was.
“I need one of those rubber arms, like Stretch Armstrong, that really weird doll my cousin had when we were kids. Remember that?” she asked him.
He shook his head. Rubber dolls were the least of his problems right now.
“Well, it was kind of cool, in a bizarre sort of way, kind of like molded Silly Putty. What did you play with?”
Houston fought the urge to moan. Josie managed to mix innocence with that lush body, all tossed alongside her brains and her quirky personality. It was an unusual combination he was finding damn hard to resist.
Especially in this room that wasn’t really a room, but a very small, very crowded alcove cut out of a corner in the hallway. Where Josie was just inches away from him.
“When you were a kid, I mean, what did you play with?” She kept feeling around on the floor. “Risk? World domination seems like your thing.”
Should he be offended? “No.”
“So what then? Nerf football? Video games? Chess club?”
He folded his arms and rubbed his chin. He’d forgotten to shave that morning and the stubble was irritating and itchy. He was well aware that if another co-worker had engaged in this irrelevant-to-the-day conversation with him he would have walked away.
“I played doctor.” Let her figure out what exactly he meant by that. Except that Josie seemed immune to sexual innuendos. “Here it is!” She pulled the film out and handed it to him. Josie sat back on her heels and blew her hair out of her eyes. “Oh, well, that makes sense. Like Operation? That game that buzzed at you if you dropped the body part?”
Houston just stared at her as she brushed her knees off. He had read Josie’s personnel file. On paper, she was only a few IQ points short of a genius. In person, she was a chatty, clumsy, sex nymph. Who had his nuts in a knot without even trying.
“Thank you, Dr. Adkins.” He took the X-ray, shaking a dust ball off it, and wondered just when her residency would be over.
With a little luck she would leave Acadia Inlet Hospital for another resident rotation at least fifty miles away, taking her sweet ass with her. Of course, she had just started her second year of residency so it could be a year or more before she left.
Until then, he was going to have to work overtime at pretending she didn’t make him go hard just by entering the room. He’d had two rules since he had broken things off with his last semi-serious girlfriend four years earlier. No long-term relationships. No anything with another hospital employee.
It had worked so far. He dated casually, and when it was mutually agreed upon, had some no-strings-attached sex. Neither of which were done with someone he had to see every day in a professional capacity.
But when he joined the staff at Acadia Inlet three months ago, he had met Josie. And suddenly his dick seemed to think rules were meant to be broken.
Taking this position had seemed like a good career move, allowing him to focus on reconstructive orthopedics, and he liked the other doctors in the orthopedic group. It was an intelligent decision and he wasn’t going to let one sexy little resident interfere with that.
Holding the film up to the light, Houston focusedhis thoughts squarely back on his job and was pleased to see evidence of his original diagnosis.
“Okay, exactly what I thought. Schedule surgery while I talk to Amber’s parents.”
Surgery for the second time on a fifteen-year-old girl didn’t thrill him, but Amber had suffered multiple fractures in a gymnastics injury six months prior, and surgery on her ankle had been done in Atlanta.
The injury had healed and Amber had returned home to Acadia Beach to recover, but she was left with increasing pain and swelling. Houston knew a second surgery to release scar tissue and remove any bone fragments was the only way to curb a lifetime of debilitating arthritis.
“How soon?” Josie asked.