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“It’s New Year’s Eve,” he reminded her.

“Was,” she corrected.

He scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “What?”

“It’s after midnight now.” Afterward, she would wonder what caused her to throw caution and common sense to the wind. But in the moment, it seemed perfectly natural to lift herself onto her toes and touch her lips to his cheek. “Happy New Year.”

She could tell he was as startled by the impulsive gesture as she was, but when he looked at her, she saw something more than surprise in his eyes. Something that made her heart pound harder and faster, that made her weary body ache and yearn. Something that warned her she’d taken the first step down an intriguing—and potentially dangerous—path.

He took the next step, pulling open the nearest door—to a housekeeping supply closet—and tugging her inside. She didn’t balk or protest. For more than three years, they’d danced around the attraction between them. They weren’t dancing anymore.

“Happy New Year,” he echoed, then crushed his mouth down on hers.

Chapter Two

H
is kiss was hot and hungry and demanding. She kissed him back, just as hotly and hungrily, responding to his every demand and meeting them with her own. If she’d been able to think clearly—if she’d been able to think
at all
—she might have drawn back. But the moment his lips touched hers, all rational thought slipped from her mind. In fact, her brain seemed to have shut down completely, letting the hormones that flooded through her veins lead the way.

And they were leading her to a very happy place. A place where his hands were all over her, touching and teasing, giving her so much pleasure and still making her want so much more.

He eased his lips away from hers. “I like the sparkly things in your hair, Wallace—they really dress up your scrubs.”

“What?” She frowned as she reached up, startled to realize that her hair was in a fancy twist instead of her usual ponytail. So much had happened since she’d left home, she’d almost forgotten about the party and the decorative pins she’d impulsively added to her updo for the occasion. “Oh.”

“You were out celebrating the New Year,” Justin guessed.

“I never actually made it that far,” she told him.

“I’m sure your date was disappointed.”

“It wasn’t a date,” she said. “Not really.”

“Good.” He slid his hands up her back, drawing her closer, and lowered his head to nip playfully at her bottom lip.

This was dangerous. He was hardly touching her and her resistance was melting. He wasn’t her type. Not at all. He was a player and a doctor and everything she didn’t want in a man.

But right now, she didn’t care about any of that. Right now, she
did
want him. Or at least her body wanted to feel the way she knew he could make her feel, the way he
was
making her feel.

“But I am sorry your plans were ruined,” he said.

“They were actually Amy’s plans—and I was kind of relieved to escape another blind date.”

“Then you weren’t planning to ring in the New Year with wild, sweaty sex?”

“The thought never crossed my mind.” His hands grazed her breasts as they skimmed up her sides, making her breath hitch. “Until now.”

“Really?” He smiled against her lips. “You’re thinking about it now?”

She slid her hands beneath his scrub top, over the smooth, taut skin of his abdomen. “Yeah, I’m thinking about it now.”

“If you want to hold that thought, I’m off shift in a couple of hours.”

She scraped her teeth lightly over his jaw. “I’ll change my mind in a couple of hours.”

“I definitely don’t want you to change your mind.” He whisked her scrub top up over her head, unveiling her pink lace bra, and his brows lifted. “You sure you didn’t put this on for your date?”

“Forget about my date,” she suggested. “And focus on me.”

“I’m focused,” he promised, his thumbs stroking over her rigid nipples through the delicate fabric. “Very focused.”

Her head fell back against the door as arrows of sensation shot straight to her core. Her body was on fire. She was burning with want, with need. Desperate, aching need. She was so tightly wound up she was practically vibrating.

Then he dipped his head and found her breast with his mouth, suckling her through the lace. She slid her fingers into his hair, holding him against her as waves of exquisite sensation washed over her.

His mouth moved to her other breast as his hand slid down the front of her pants, his fingertips brushing over the aching nub at her center. The light touch made her gasp and shudder. He parted the soft folds of skin, groaning his appreciation when he found that she was already wet.

“You do something to me, Wallace,” he admitted gruffly.

“Do something to me,” she suggested, reaching a hand into his pants to wrap around the hard length of him, making him groan again. “Do me.”

“I will,” he promised.

But for now, he continued to touch and tease her. She bit hard on her lip to keep from crying out, her palms flat against the door to hold herself upright as her knees quivered and her body shuddered.

She was gasping and panting and on the verge of melting into a puddle at his feet when he pushed her panties down to her ankles with her pants, then shoved his own pants and boxers out of the way. Finally he covered her mouth with his and thrust into her, kissing her hard and deep as he took her body the same way.

She was ready for him. More than ready. But it had been a long time, and she’d almost forgotten how good it could feel. How exquisitely and blissfully good.

It was pretty much a consensus among the female contingent of the hospital nursing staff that Dr. Garrett could satisfy a woman’s every want and need, and he lived up to that reputation now. He used his hands and his lips and his body to drive her to the ultimate pinnacle of pleasure and far beyond, soaring into the abyss with her.

When she finally floated back to earth, her body was still pinned against the door, still intimately joined with his. She took a minute to catch her breath as he did the same.

“I think I might need the paddles to restart my heart, Wallace.”

She forced herself to match his casual tone. “Then it’s a good thing you’re a doctor.”

But even while her body continued to hum with the aftereffects of pleasure, her mind was beginning to remember the hundred and one reasons that giving in to the attraction she felt for Justin was a bad idea. The number one reason was the
MD
that followed his name; the hundred other reasons were the hundred names of other women he’d undoubtedly pleasured in a similar manner.

He brushed his lips against hers—the kiss surprisingly tender and sweet on the heels of their passionate and almost desperate coupling.

“Do you ever wonder how we didn’t end up here before now?” he asked her.

Her brows lifted. “Mostly naked in a housekeeping supply closet?”

“I was focused on the mostly naked part,” he said. “And thinking that I’d like to take you back to my place and progress from mostly to completely naked.”

She shook her head and pushed him away so she could pull up her pants and gather the rest of her discarded clothing. “Not a good idea.”

“Why would you say that?”

“Because we have to work together.”

“We’ve always worked well together,” he noted. “And now we know that we play well together, too, and—”

She touched a hand to his lips, silencing his words as she shook her head. “No.”

He frowned. “You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she insisted, refastening her bra.

“You’re just going to walk away?”

She tugged her shirt over her head. “Well, someone is eventually going to need something from this closet, so it’s probably not a good idea to stay here.”

“You know I’m not referring to the closet but what happened between us,” he chided.

“It was an impulse, Garrett. Nothing more than that.”

“An impulse,” he echoed.

He sounded oddly hurt by her characterization of their actions—but she was probably just imagining it. After all, Justin Garrett didn’t do emotions or involvement. He moved in and then moved on, and she thought he would appreciate that she didn’t want anything more than that.

“It was an intense situation in the ER tonight and we both worked hard to ensure a young couple had reason to celebrate rather than mourn the start of the New Year.”

“You think that what just happened between us only happened because of
adrenaline
?” he asked incredulously.

“And proximity,” she allowed.

“So this is normal postoperative procedure for you?”

“No!”

“Then it was out-of-character behavior?” he pressed.

“Very,” she admitted.

“And probably an inevitable result of the fact that you’ve been denying the attraction between us for more than three years.”

Probably. Although she had no intention of admitting it. To Avery’s mind, it was bad enough that she’d succumbed to the attraction she’d tried so hard to ignore without giving him the additional satisfaction of knowing that she’d harbored those feelings for so long.

But he was right—she’d been attracted to him from the beginning. The day she interviewed with the chief of staff at Mercy Hospital, the first time she’d met Justin, he’d smiled at her and her pulse had skyrocketed.

She wasn’t unfamiliar with attraction, but she couldn’t remember ever having it hit her so immediately and intensely. On her first day of work, he’d flirted with her a little, and she’d flirted back.

And then, later that same day, she’d seen him flirting with someone else. The day after that, it was someone different again. It had only taken three more days—three more shifts at the hospital—for her to realize that Justin Garrett, aka Dr. Romeo, was not her type. He’d continued to flirt with her—or try to—when their paths crossed, but she’d given him no encouragement.

Not until she’d kissed him.

“I have to go.”

He slapped his hand against the door to prevent her from opening it. “And you’re still denying it,” he noted.

“Let me go, Garrett.”

“I’m not holding you hostage. I’m just trying to have a conversation.”

“There’s nothing to talk about. You got another notch to add to your bedpost—isn’t that enough for you?”

“I don’t have bedposts,” he said. “Which I’d be happy to prove to you if you come home with me when I get off shift.”

“No,” she said firmly.

He brushed a loose hair off her cheek and tucked it behind her ear, the light touch of his fingertips on her skin making her shiver and want him all over again.
Damn him
.

“What did I do wrong?” he asked her. “Aside from taking you against the closet door with all the finesse of a horny teenager, I mean.”

She wished she could blame him for that, but she’d initiated everything. She wished she could dismiss the experience as unsatisfactory, but the truth was, despite the setting and the pace of the event, her body had been very thoroughly satisfied.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” she said.

“Then why are you pulling away?” Justin asked, sincerely baffled by her reaction.

Before she could respond, his pager started beeping.

Mentally cursing the untimely interruption, he scooped it up from the floor, where it had fallen when he’d dropped his pants. He glanced at the display and sighed. “Two ambulances are on their way from another MVA.”

But there was no response.

Avery was already gone.

With a sigh, Justin tucked the pager back in his pocket and headed to the ER.

He wouldn’t be a good doctor if he couldn’t set aside personal distractions and do his job. But after he’d finished stitching up another head wound, helped cast the broken arm of a screaming, squirming four-year-old, checked on the college student with alcohol poisoning and confirmed that Tanner Northrop was in the temporary custody of Family Services, it was almost two hours past the end of his shift.

He went to the locker room, physically and mentally exhausted, and let the water of the shower pound down on him. When he finally came out of the shower, he wanted nothing more than his bed.

Then he thought about Avery in that bed, warm and willing and naked, and his body miraculously stirred to life again.

The pretty baby doctor could believe whatever she wanted and make whatever excuses she wanted, but he knew that what was between them wasn’t even close to being done.

* * *

Avery’s apartment was dark and empty when she got home from the hospital, the quiet space echoing the hollow feeling inside her. The physical pleasure she’d experienced in those stolen moments with Justin Garrett had already faded away, leaving her aching and ashamed.

She should never have kissed him. She certainly should never have let him drag her into the closet. And she most definitely should never have succumbed to the lustful desires that stirred deep inside whenever she was near him.

Dropping onto the edge of the sofa, she buried her face in her hands, thoroughly mortified by her own behavior. She had a reputation for being cool and untouchable, but she’d been so hot and desperate for Justin that she’d let him screw her in a housekeeping supply closet.

What if someone found out?

Her cheeks burned with humiliation at the possibility. No doubt the hospital grapevine would love to know that the charismatic Dr. Romeo had succeeded in melting the frosty Dr. Wall-ice.

Of course, the more than two years that had passed since she’d last had sex might have been a factor, too. She missed physical intimacy. She missed the sharing of close personal contact with another person, the rising tension, the exhilarating release. But she’d never been good at sex outside of a relationship, which explained why it had been such a long time since she’d had sex.

Prior to the scheduled setup with Nolan tonight, she couldn’t even remember the name of the last guy she’d dated. Was it Simon? Or Mike? Simon was the real estate agent who lived on the ninth floor of her building. Dark hair, darker eyes, sexy smile—but a sloppy kisser. Mike was one of the cameramen on
Ryder to the Rescue
,
her brother’s TV show. Shaggy blond hair, hazel eyes, great laugh and—she was informed by her brother after she’d agreed to meet Mike for coffee—engaged to one of the show’s producers.