“Changed your mind about what?” He sat back, surly.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to continue with an affair. It wasn’t right of me to come here like this, while you’re injured and try and take advantage of your vulnerability.” She patted his knee and felt guilty for intentionally arousing him when she now could no longer in good conscience act on those physical feelings.
“You said you wanted one night, and that’s it, and I should have respected that. I was just trying to get more bang for my buck, so to speak, and that wasn’t right. I apologize, Houston.”
He gaped at her. “Excuse me?”
Josie did feel relieved. She wasn’t a seductress who had men on a revolving-door basis. She was just Josie, and she was happy with herself the way she was. A good friend, a caring doctor, and if anything were to come about between them, it had to be because he liked her the way she truly was.
She added, “I can’t believe I acted like that. Geez, I was almost on the verge of getting on my knees and pulling your, you know, into my mouth. I’m so glad I stopped myself.”
His boxers bulged, the vein in his temple pulsed. Josie heard herself babbling and realized she wasn’t making it any better. He looked like he was watching a man being beaten to death with a feather duster. Total disbelief.
“Since you want us to be platonic from now on, I think we should really try to be friends. We’re co-workers, and it’s impractical to think that we can go totally back to the way we were before, but I’d love to be friends.”
Josie stood up and swung his legs back onto the sofa with the practiced ease of a doctor, her touch as impersonal as she could manage. She set the remote control on his lap and smiled, telling herself to think of him as any other patient. The one you would go the extra mile for, but still just a patient nonetheless.
“Friends take care of each other, you know. So is there anything I can do for you to help make you more comfortable?”
Something that didn’t involve dealing with the massive erection that was straining in his boxers.
Celibacy wasn’t what she’d had in mind when she’d shown up at his condo, but a couple of weeks of squirming would be worth it if in the end she could convince Houston to give an actual relationship a try. A relationship based on more than the powerful sexual attraction that raged between them.
He stared at her, an ugly scowl marring his good looks. He shook his head, his words slow. “No, there’s nothing you can do.”
“Okay.” Determined not to make a mistake, to be supportive of Houston’s recovery and resist any further urges to lift her skirt in his presence, she settled herself back on the left-hand side of the couch. Tucked in next to his feet, she started to chatter about her day, the cases she’d seen, and the weather, while he stared at her—frowning, brooding, silent— until his mother returned twenty minutes later.
Then Josie went into the kitchen to help Francesca unload the bags, more than aware of Houston’s eyes on her backside as she went. She wondered if she was the only one thinking about the twin bull’s-eyes on her panties and what he could be using for target practice.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Houston watched Josie saunter off into his kitchen like she owned the place, her curvy backside twitching beneath that too-short skirt, reminding him of the view he’d had earlier.
What was thisjust friendscrap all about? One minute she was suggesting they have a no-holds-barred affair, and the next she was delivering a bad breakup line. He didn’t want to be friends with her. He didn’t even want to work with her. He wanted her for one thing, and one thing only, and he’d gotten that and it was enough.
And he was a lousy liar, even to himself.
He wanted something else, he just couldn’t figure out what to call it. But it sure as hell wasn’t a platonic, nurse-him-back-to-health friendship. Yet Josie wasn’t coddling him, fussing over his wounds, or making weird gasping noises of horror like his sister had done.
It was the doctor in her. She was matter-of-fact about the injury, thoughtful of his comfort, but not hovering. No, she had just kept him company, just like his mother had suggested, talking about a staggering array of subjects with lightning speed and acting like she’d never once thought of him in any way other than a casual acquaintance and fellow doctor.
Despite her little bombshell statement about going down on him, she was now being about as sexually suggestive as a nun. He could see her in the kitchen, talking to his mother and putting away coffee in his pantry. No woman had ever entered his pantry before. He felt violated, naked as she witnessed his cereal, canned corn, and fast food ketchup packs scattered around.
Left out and not liking it, he called, “Mom, can you get me a water or something?”
His petty plan to break up their female gabfest backfired when it was Josie who brought him an ice-filled glass, perspiration running down its side, a smile on her lips. Plump lips that so recently had been on his.
He took the water from her. “Thank you.”
“Sure.” She ran her hands through her hair and stood there, feet crossed at the ankles.
Not sure why she was still hanging around, he took a sip of water, catching a square ice cube between his front teeth as he ignored her.
Suddenly her fingers were in his hair and her breasts scraping across his face, a soft, warm cotton T-shirt pushing into his eye and nose. Houston jerked sideways, spilling some water in his lap and losing the ice cube down the front of his shirt. “What the hell are you doing?”
“There was a bug in your hair.” She showed him a beetle squeezed between her thumb and index finger.
Christ. He brushed at his shirt and boxer shorts, which were sporting a nice wet spot front and center. “You made me spill my water.”