“I know.” Recalling herself, Josie scooted forward and sat up, still on her knees.
Houston was pulling on his underwear and reaching for his jeans. “I’ll get your clothes.”
Josie watched him retrieve first her shorts, then hershirt from the front stoop. She clutched her knees awkwardly, wishing there was a way to cover her naked self. She didn’t want to distract Houston any further.
Well, she did, but it wasn’t ethical. His patient was in pain and needed his surgeon, and Josie couldn’t justify making him wait so that she could take a shot in the ass.
Houston handed her the bundle of wrinkled clothes and cleared his throat. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Giving up hope of modesty, she wiggled into the shorts, trying not to think about her panties still tucked in his pocket. She zipped gingerly. “It’s part of the job, as I well know.”
She smiled up at him. “And at least we both, well, got there. You know. Were finished, sort of. Twice, too.” She blushed as her thoughts shredded into incoherent babblings as she realized she couldn’t bring herself to say orgasm or come out loud. Which was ridiculous.
“In your case three times,” he said with smug satisfaction.
The faint blush tinting her face turned into a rushing river of red heat. He’d just had to point that out. “You were counting?”
“Yes,” he said. “I would be giving you a fourth right now if I wasn’t called in.”
The words were on her tongue, to ask if he was offering a rain check, but she didn’t say it. She just smiled at him as an acknowledgment of his stellar work and buttoned her shorts. Picking up her tank top, she stared mournfully at the large neck. “You stretched out my shirt.”
“And I’d do it again.”
She’d let him. Lifting her arms up to pull on her shirt, Josie had the pleasure of hearing Houston suck in his breath.
“You would?”
“Oh, yeah. Anytime.”
Josie quickly donned her tank top without her bra, not wanting to wiggle into it in front of Houston. Any movement like that and the bra would likely wind up back onthe floor.
But his words made her pause. Anytime? Here it was. The awkwardness. When she second-guessed every word out of his mouth, probing for hints of a future, a relationship, or at least another orgasm between them.
This was what she had feared in the supply room, and it was just as uncomfortable as she’d imagined.
“We’ll have to walk back and get my Jeep from the restaurant, then I’ll drop you off on the way to the hospital.” Houston stepped into his jeans and zipped his fly.
“Great.” Not great. Rushed, and a little awkward, with a feigned casualness that fooled neither of them given they both still smelled of sex. Great? Not at all.
“Here are your shoes.”
“Great.” Their fingers touched as he handed over her flip-flops, and Josie pulled back quickly.
“I’m going to grab a bottled water on the way out. Do you want one?”
“Great,” she said for the third time, realizing there were four-year-olds with a better command of language than she was currently displaying.
Then his hands were on his hips and Josie saw that his cool mask of indifference had slipped back into place. Dr. Hayes was standing in front of her, not Houston.
“So, we have an understanding about tonight, correct? This won’t affect our working relationship.”
“Not at all.” Because she was never going to go to work again. God, what the hell had she been thinking? She couldn’t stand next to this man in the OR and pretend he hadn’t been inside her playing a naughty game of doctor and wet and willing patient.
She wanted to run outside and bury her head in the sand, except that would leave her ass sticking up in the air.
Standing there, rumpled and pantyless, shattered and sex- satisfied, Josie had to ask. Before they went back tobeing Dr. Hayes and Dr. Adkins, who avoided and never made eye contact and practiced polite nods in place of actually having to speak.
“Why won’t you let me do a case on my own? I have experience, you know, and you refusing to let me take the lead looks bad for me. I need to know your plans for the remainder of my residency.”