“Oh! Sorry. Here, I’ll walk you to your bedroom and help you get changed.”
It was a suggestive comment, no question about it. His brain knew it and his dick knew it, but Josie blinked at him in innocence. She was either messing with his head or he was still feeling the aftereffects of drugs in his system. That was a come-on.
“I can change myself.”
“Are you sure? Down one hand and one leg it will be awkward.” She put her hand on his elbow to assist him up. “It’s not like I haven’t seen you naked before. I can handle it.”
Still no sign that she was teasing him. Josie just looked clinical. Efficient, friendly, helpful, and completely unconcerned that just days before he had been inside her making her moan. That nonchalance over what they had shared, added to that bossy nurse attitude, was starting to piss him off.
“I bet you could handle it,” he murmured, hoping to rock her a little.
Instead, she just laughed and patted his shoulder. “Come on. Up you go.”
Like a senior citizen. The hell with that. Waving her off, he stood up, ignoring the burning in his leg as he started off down the hallway with a slow gait, a step-hop kind of walk that felt like it took forever since her eyes were on him.
Houston wanted Josie to go away. He wanted her to leave him alone to feel sorry for himself and to take her perky bedside manner with her.
Or go down on her knees and give him that non-platonic treatment she had mentioned.
Twice daily. For an indefinite amount of time.
Limping into his room, he decided that in the matter of one week, Josie and a hungry shark had managed to turn his life upside down and leave him feeling like he’d taken a conk on the head, not a bite to the leg.
Josie went into the kitchen feeling satisfied with her behavior, It was working. She was able to control her lusty panty-melting feelings for Houston by treating him like a patient—any other old and ornery patient.
“Do you need any help, Mrs. Hayes?” Josie reached for the empty plastic grocery bags and started balling them up.
“Oh, call me Fran. And thank you, but I’ve got it all put away now. Is Houston all right? I heard him go down the hall.”
“He spilled his water and went to change.” Which she would have gladly helped him with, in an efficient and asexual manner if he had let her, because she was in control of herself. Sort of.
The image of raising his shirt over that rippling broad chest had her questioning her powers of restraint. Given that kind of temptation she might not have been able to resist a little touch. Or two. Or sex.
“That had to go over big, spilling his water.” Fran shook her head, a smile sliding across her face.
Josie leaned against the counter, still gripping the plastic bags and smiled back, shoving all thoughts of naked Houston out of her pheromone-flooded mind. “No, it didn’t. He doesn’t like it when he can’t control things, does he?”
“You’ve hit the nail on the head, Josie. He’s always been like that. I had a bad marriage, you know, and it wasn’t good for Houston. He holds himself back, doesn’t show affection. But he’s very loyal to those he loves.” Fran studied her in a way that made Josie uncomfortable. “Are you dating my son?”
It was so direct and sudden that Josie blushed. God, she hated that she blushed so easily.
She dropped the bags on the counter and ran her finger across her bottom lip. “Oh...me? And Houston? No, not at all. We work together, that’s it. I’m in my second year of my residency, and he’s sort of like a mentor to me.”
Oh, that sounded wrong somehow. Josie went beyond blush to a five-alarm face fire.
“I see,” Fran said, with a look that clearly said she saw a lot of things, none of which Josie wanted to discuss with Houston’s mother.
But the comment about her marriage brought to mind what Houston had said when Josie was stitching him up. He’d mentioned his father when he had told her he couldn’t get close to people. Clearly, there was more to the story there, a bad relationship with his father that had caused the boy to grow into a man who stayed distant from people.
At first, Josie had thought Houston was aloof, unconcerned with others, professional in the extreme, maybe even a little self-centered. She was now starting to see that Houston held back on purpose, that he stayed distant from other hospital employees so things stayed neat and tidy and he never risked the chance of losing control of the situation.
“Houston, he doesn’t have a lot of friends,” Fran said.
Josie heard a noise and turned around, afraid Houston had caught her gossiping about him with his mother. The hall was empty, but Fran picked up on her discomfort and lowered her voice.
“He has a couple of boys he’s known forever. He has his sister. He has me. That’s it.” Fran was a hand talker, and she emphasized now by slicing her palms through the air.
While really nervous that Houston would appear any second like he’d been beamed into the room, Josie still found herself nodding. “I thought that was probably the case.”