NYC Angels: Flirting with Danger (5 page)

“I
WANT YOU
to be careful around Dr. Coleman.”

Reclining on a blanket in the park, half-asleep in the warmth of the sun, Chloe wasn’t sure she’d heard Brad correctly. She half sat up, resting her weight on her elbows. “I beg your pardon?”

“You talked about learning how to … flirt.” It seemed like he’d had to push that word out between clenched teeth. “He’s not the man to try that with.”

A quick flutter of something went through her, similar to the one she’d felt on the trip over. Brad had been right. Riding through the countryside on his motorcycle had been nothing like riding in city traffic. It had been exhilarating.

“And why is that?”

He lifted his wineglass to his lips and observed her for a second. “I don’t want to see you get hurt again. And I think he’s capable of doing just that.”

Chloe disagreed, but didn’t say anything. “So who would be a safer choice? You?”

“No.”

The abrupt word took her aback. “Really? Why not?” The words were out before she could stop them. Did she really want to know the answer?

“I don’t flirt.”

Wow. “Ever?”

“Not the harmless stuff you’re talking about. When I’m interested in a woman, she knows it. And she knows exactly where I want it to lead.”

A shiver went over her as she pictured those mirrors in his room. She assumed he wasn’t talking about marriage.

What would it be like to have a man like Brad put the moves on her? The closest she’d ever gotten had been at her wedding. And she’d just about convinced herself that those events had been fabricated by an overactive imagination. “So you can’t be friendly with a woman unless you plan on sleeping with her?”

“‘Can’t’ is not the word I’d choose.” Brad set his empty wineglass next to the box of food. “Let’s just say I’m not interested in wasting time playing games.”

Playing games? Stung, she snapped, “Forget I said anything. I think I’ll take my chances with Cade.”

He dragged a hand through his hair. “Dammit, Chloe. Haven’t you heard a thing I’ve said?”

“Yes. I heard you say you don’t flirt, so I’m back to where I started.”

His eyes narrowed. “You want to play games? Fine. Tell me what you have in mind.”

In all honesty, she wanted to know why she wasn’t worth his time. Did she want to wind up in bed with him—which was what he’d implied would happen if he showed his interest? No. But just for once she wanted to know what it would be like to have someone as dangerous as Brad pursue her with the intention of capturing her.

She shrugged. “I just don’t want to make a fool out of myself, that’s all.”

“With Coleman?”

“With anyone.”

“Okay, you’ve got a captive audience. So give it your best shot.”

“Right now?”

A slow smile curved his lips, and he leaned forward and drew his thumb along her cheekbone. “Right here, Chloe. Right now.”

Liquid heat ignited along the trail he’d left on her skin, and she could scarcely believe what she was hearing. Was he serious? She kept perfectly still as his touch continued to assault her senses, afraid that if she reacted she’d scare him off. She didn’t know exactly why he was willing to make an exception, but she was going to grab it with both hands. Because if she didn’t, she’d be back where she’d been when this had started: alone, with no hope of that ever changing.

“So where do you want to start?” What the hell had possessed him to agree to be her flirt buddy? Oh, he knew exactly what it was. Her veiled threat to involve Coleman. And the idea that Coleman would want her to be an altogether different kind of buddy.

His thoughts darkened. He’d told her the truth. He wasn’t into the light-hearted back-and-forth quips that seemed to go on for weeks while he waited for some vague green light that allowed him to move to the next stage. No, when he wanted sex, he chose a woman who was just as interested in getting to the point as he was. He had no desire to climb on the emotional roller-coaster that went along with relationships. Or to be trapped in a box with no way out.

Sex was sex and nothing more.

He instinctively knew the act meant much more to Chloe, though. It was the reason she’d saved that part
of herself for marriage. And look what she’d gotten in exchange. Heartache and a man who’d had no qualms about taking what she’d offered and then tossing it aside when he was done.

Isn’t that what you do with women?

No. It was the reason he didn’t play around with innocents like Chloe. And why he didn’t want Coleman to either. She wasn’t a love ’em and leave ’em type of woman.

She’d stuck with Travis for six years, even though Jason said things had been bad for quite a while. For crying out loud, she hadn’t even been willing to get on the back of his motorcycle after he’d passed the last of his medical exams because she’d been afraid Travis might get the wrong idea. Oh, she hadn’t said it, but he’d seen the truth in her face. In the way the glow had faded from those beautiful baby blues.

So why was he allowing her to push him into doing this? He was not the right person for this particular job. He wasn’t accustomed to holding back when he wanted something.

And if he decided he wanted Chloe?

Not a chance. He was a big boy. He could do this with his eyes closed.

He propped himself on an elbow next to her and raised his brows. “So, let’s say we’re out on a date, and you wanted to let me know you’re interested. What would you do?” The image of her in that negligee passed briefly behind his eyelids. He chased it away with a muttered oath. She shrugged, staring down at the blanket.

He tilted her chin, forcing her to look at him. “This was your idea. Having second thoughts?”

“I don’t want you to make fun of me.”

“I’ve never felt less like laughing in my life.” On the contrary, a sick sense of anticipation was building inside him that he couldn’t will away as easily as he would have liked.

This girl was his best friend’s sister, for God’s sake.

“How will I know if I’m even doing it right?”

“I think I’ll be able to tell.” If the way his body had responded to having her behind him on the motorcycle was any indication, he wasn’t totally immune to her, despite his assertions to the contrary.

She moistened her lips, the soft bottom one glistening. “I think I’d rather just ask you questions and have you answer them.”

Even easier. “Okay. Fire away.”

“So …” Her voice dropped almost to a whisper and she hesitated for a second or two. “If you were here on a picnic with one of your dates, what would she do to hold your interest?”

One of his dates? He’d probably be sliding her panties down her thighs right about now.

Why did this game suddenly seem a little too dangerous?

And why was he all too eager to keep playing?

“Well …” He thought for a moment, trying to come up with something halfway chaste. “She might turn towards me so we were facing each other.”

There. See? Easy
. He’d give her a couple of quick tips and they’d be on their way home.

Instead of nodding her head and continuing with her questions, Chloe shifted to the side until she was resting on one elbow just like he was. The position made the dip of her waist and the curve of her hip stand out in sharp relief. He couldn’t stop his eyes from following the line.

“Kind of like this?” she asked.

“Exactly like that.”

“Okay. What else?”

His body quickened. Hell, she’d wanted to know if it was working. A little too well, and she wasn’t even trying. And if she did?

Things could get out of hand. He should put a stop to this now, before she realized what she was doing to him. He was curious, though, to see how far she was willing to carry this little charade. He decided to push her. Maybe he could even scare her back into her shell.

“Well, she might sweep the hair off my forehead as she listens to me talk.” His voice seemed to be affected by the tightening of his throat, coming out a little rougher than he intended. That could work to his benefit, though.

Chloe seemed totally oblivious, however. She reached out and did as he suggested, sliding her fingers deep into his hair, lingering when she should have withdrawn. “You used to tug my hair all the time when I was a kid, remember?” At his nod, she ran her fingers through it again. “Yours is softer than I thought it would be.”

“Is it?” The tight sensation in his throat began to spread, reaching his chest, crawling along his abdomen and beyond. And she seemed to have no idea. Not good.

“This is really helping,” she murmured. “Thank you for agreeing.”

Yes. Thank you
. His mind wasn’t nearly as happy as the rest of him was. It was currently kicking his ass from here to across the sea.

“Tell me what else I would do.”

As if he were a puppet—and he knew exactly what was pulling the strings, and it wasn’t his head—he
kept digging a deeper hole. “Well,
I
might move a little closer.” He proceeded to do exactly that, sliding to within a few inches of where she lay. “Then I might stroke the side of her face, down her neck until I reached her shoulder.” His hand followed the route in time with his words.

As he touched her shoulder—he wasn’t even sure he’d applied any pressure to it at all—she lay back on the blanket, her eyes staring up at him. Waiting to see what was next on the agenda.

God help him, the words just seemed to keep coming. “Then … I might kiss her. Like this.”

With that, his head began its fatal descent, until his lips touched hers.

A
BUTTERFLY’S WINGS.

That’s what Brad’s lips felt like as they brushed across hers once, twice, three times. The sensation was intoxicatingly gentle, barely there at all. She’d never been kissed like this in her life.

She wanted to open her mouth, to drag him closer and really feel his mouth against hers, but she was too busy reveling in this luscious new world—one she’d never known existed.

Until this very moment.

A strange sound came up from her throat, a cross between a whimper and a groan. A quiet plea for more? Whatever it was, it changed the dynamic between them. His whole body came to a complete standstill for several seconds before coming back to life. He went down on his forearms, her breasts flattening as he settled over her. Warm hands moved to either side of her face and held it still.

That was when she realized that not only had she moaned against his mouth, she was straining upwards as well, hoping to increase the pressure. Brad seemed determined to keep to the original pace, his weight physically keeping her from speeding things up.

And that torturous, traitorous kiss …

Not plundering. Not invading. Just a sweet, steady touch designed to drive her insane.

His name wound around in her brain, seeking an exit that didn’t exist.

Brad left her mouth, his lips brushing along her jaw in a long, slow journey that made her shiver with longing, made her insides coil tight in anticipation.

Oh, Lord, what was happening to her? The world was moving too fast and too slow, she was too hot … too cold.

Nothing was the way she’d expected it to be. The way it had always been.

“This is what I’d do.” Warm breath slid along her ear carrying words she strained to catch. “I’d kiss her. Until she couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.”

She was already there. So there.

But before she had a chance to respond he was gone, cranking his body upright and dragging a hand through his hair, while she lay stunned, her breath coming in short, desperate spurts.

He gave a hard laugh, his eyes staring down into hers, pupils as black as she’d ever seen them. “See? That’s why I don’t do flirting. It doesn’t take much.”

Her sluggish brain struggled to process the words.

It didn’t take much to what? Turn her into a churning cauldron of need?

Oh, God. Was that what that was? He’d sensed what was happening with her—had been forced to back off before she reached for him with greedy hands? Before the light flirting she’d asked for suddenly turned to something much more serious?

He’d done exactly what
she’d
set out to do to Travis in that hotel room in New York City: seduce her.

And, unlike her failure with her ex, Brad had succeeded far too well. All it had taken had been one small touch.

Armed with a fresh cup of coffee, Chloe made her way across the street. She needed to get away for a little while and the tall shade trees of Central Park had beckoned her from the fourth-floor hospital windows all morning long. It was already warm but temperatures hadn’t yet rocketed enough to cause the horse-drawn carriages to stop operating, though they might later on.

She sat on one of the benches that lined the street and gave a sigh of relief. Maybe the constant drone of city sounds would help drown out the cacophony in her head. Her fingers went to her lips as the events of this past weekend swept over her again. Unlike her thoughts, no amount of noise was going to erase the sensation of Brad’s mouth on hers. Something that had followed her into her dreams, disrupting her sleep and making her feel edgy and irritable.

She hadn’t seen Brad since their arrival at the hospital that morning, and for that she was glad. So much for not letting things get awkward. That kiss had shot that plan to hell.

Not only was there no more flirting going on, there wasn’t much talking either. Well, except for shop talk. They could chat about patients and treatments until the wee hours of the morning and never hit on anything more personal than the glucose counts of such and such a patient.

Cade Coleman, on the other hand, had drifted in and out of the nurses’ station today without a care in the world, giving her a friendly wink from time to time. Hopefully Brad wouldn’t catch him and think she was practicing on the surgeon again. There was already some kind of growing tension between the men, and she didn’t want to do anything to make the situation worse.

Taking a sip of coffee, she leaned back against the bench, taking in the constant flow of cars. This world was so different from the one she’d left behind in Connecticut. Everything was bigger. The buildings. The traffic jams and construction. Even Central Park itself had seemed to stretch on for ever when she’d looked down on it from the upper floors of the hospital.

Instead of making her long for the familiarity of her county hospital, the movement and activity here seemed to energize her, making her feel alive in a way she hadn’t felt for a very long time. Maybe some of that was due to being free of Travis. But she wondered if it wasn’t the city itself.

Her cellphone went off. Glancing at the readout, she saw it was the hospital.

“Chloe Jenkins here.”

“Where are you?”

Brad’s voice. Impersonal. Brusque. Just like it had been ever since they’d come back from the picnic.

“Central Park. Why?”

“We’ve got a TTTS. Can you get back here?”

TTTS … Her brain flashed through the acronym. Twin to twin transfusion syndrome.

“Stage?” she asked.

“Three.”

Not good.

Although fairly rare, TTTS was restricted to identical twins who shared a placenta. One fetus’s blood was shunted to the other, endangering not only the donor twin but also the recipient, if it progressed past a certain point. “On my way.”

Dumping her empty paper cup into a nearby trash can, she stayed on the phone as she hurried to the corner to wait for the light to change. A million questions
came into her mind. “Did her OB/GYN do an amnio reduction on the recipient twin?”

Brad’s voice came back through. “Yes, but the problem is still progressing. Coleman wants to do a laser ablation.”

Wow. If Cade wanted to destroy the blood vessels linking the two babies, things had to be serious. “When?”

“They’re trying to schedule it immediately, which is why I need you back here. The nurses’ station will be short-staffed otherwise.”

She would have liked the opportunity to watch the procedure—as Angel’s was one of the few hospitals in the U.S. that offered it—but she was here to help however she could.

The light changed, and she jogged across the crosswalk. “I should be there in about five minutes.”

“Okay. See you when you get here.”

Had she imagined the relief in Brad’s voice? Of course she had.

As the doors of the hospital swished open a couple of minutes later, and the rush of cool air from the interior hit her, she smiled at the ordered chaos that met her eyes. A pink-haired clown—whose eight-foot height could only be the result of stilts—was busy swaying to some kind of rap music, his real smile almost as wide as the one painted on his face. His reflection gleamed in the mirrors and the polished floors. About ten delighted children had gathered around him, clapping in time to the beat.

It was easy to forget she worked in a children’s hospital as the tiny patients on the fourth floor were still cocooned in their mothers, dependent on skilled doctors
for their very lives. But here on the ground floor everyone was equal, doctors and patients alike.

A wave from across the foyer caught her attention. Layla, holding the hand of a young cancer patient, who, despite the patchy hair and pale delicate skin, was laughing. Layla put an arm protectively around her small charge as she smiled at Chloe, making an imaginary phone with her free hand and holding it up to her ear.
“Call me,”
she mouthed.

Chloe smiled back and gave her a thumbs-up. It was good to have a friend. Especially now.

The elevator gave a soft ping as it arrived on the fourth floor, but as soon as she stepped out she saw Ginny at the nurses’ station, along with two other nurses. Where was the shortage Brad had talked about?

Maybe they hadn’t gone to prepare yet. Although they didn’t normally pull nurses from the floor to assist. That job fell to the surgical nurses.

Brad appeared round the corner with Cade, the two of them in deep conversation.

Well, at least they were being civil to one another. They both spotted her at the same time, Brad frowning while Cade called out a greeting. “I understand you’re going to observe the procedure.”

She was? Her eyes went to Brad for confirmation as they drew near. “We don’t get very many of these and I thought you might be interested.” His voice had softened a bit.

How on earth had he guessed something like that? And why lie about his reason for wanting her to come back? Had he thought she wouldn’t show if he told her?

Cade said his goodbyes, saying he needed to go scrub for the upcoming surgery.

Brad glanced down at her with a raised brow. “When
I couldn’t find you, I thought something might have happened.” Before she could ask what he meant, he continued, “Something like Travis showing up.”

Ah, that explained it. Even so, she couldn’t stop the little jump in her stomach that he’d cared enough to keep track of where she was—had been afraid she might need to be rescued.

She did. But only from herself, evidently.

“Are you really going to let me observe?”

“If you want to.” He nodded in the direction Cade had gone. “I had to give him a reason for calling you out of the blue.”

The jump in her stomach turned into a pogo stick, bouncing between happiness with Brad and irritation with herself.

“I’d love to watch.”

“Okay. I’d planned on observing as well, so I’ll take you up. We can grab some coffee on the way.” He started toward the elevators. “I hope I didn’t disturb anything by calling you.”

“Nope. Just sitting across the street on a bench.”

He nodded. “I’ve been known to do that myself from time to time.”

He had? Something in her wondered if he might have sat on the same bench she had. The thought caused that crazy pogo stick to land squarely on the happiness side of the equation.

“I’ve already had coffee,” she said. “I probably shouldn’t have another cup.”

“We’ll go straight up, then.”

The ride in the elevator seemed to take for ever this time. Chloe strained to find something to talk about. “How’s the mother handling the news?”

He scrubbed a hand along his jaw. “She’d already
armed herself with information, so she knew this was a possibility.”

“No, I mean how’s she
handling
it?”

His hand fell to his side and he smiled. “You always were a softie.”

“Yeah? Well, someone has to be.”

“Mom is hanging in there. I think her husband is more scared than she is.” He tweaked her hair. “And I always knew your soft outer layer hid a will of iron.”

If only he knew. That iron core she’d once possessed was now pitted with rust and corrosion. One more hard kick and it would fall apart completely. Which was why she had to be careful with Brad. That kiss had taken its toll on her.

Was still taking its toll.

Brad would never knowingly hurt her, though. Not if he could help it.

But what if he couldn’t? What if she, despite all her best efforts, turned out to be her own worst enemy?