Jill Shalvis - Luke

The next day Luke was still thinking about it. He'd come to care for Faith, more than he expected, and damn it, he worried. He worried the same as he worried about any patient.

Well, maybe not exactly the same.

She came to the lab at the hospital to get full blood work done. She was classified as borderline diabetic, which she could control by diet if she chose. She did.

He knew how Faith felt about natural healing, knew she'd follow proper diet, etc., get the proper exercise and that she would keep it all under control. Logically, he really did know this. She was smart, she was healthy, she knew what to do.

Which made the intense fear he felt for her way over the top. The urge to beat his chest and act all Neanderthal, insisting she let him help her, was horrifyingly strong.

Somehow he managed to rein it in, though when he went to her house the next night, she didn't answer the door. Fine. A clear message. He could deal with that.

On his next Saturday at the clinic, she played it cool.

So did he. He'd been e-mailing her all sorts of info regarding diabetes, which she'd been politely thanking him for. She wrote that she and Shelby had figured out a dietary plan to properly control her blood sugar and that she was fine, thank-you very much, and that she'd see him next Saturday.

No mention of hot sex, damn it.

Burying himself in his own hospital work helped. After one particularly brutal shift, he just happened to walk by the nurses' station, as he did a thousand times a day. Since he worked regularly with several of the women standing there, he nodded and smiled.

All talking abruptly stopped and they just stared at him.

He looked down to make sure he hadn't violated any social niceties, but his zipper was up and every button was in its place. "Uh… problem?"

One of the nurses let out a startled laugh. "No, you're… fine. I think."

"It's just that we've never seen you smile at us," said a dark-haired nurse whose name he was ashamed to admit he couldn't remember.

Had he truly never smiled at a nurse? Not once? "Are you sure?"

"Quite," said the third nurse, a tall, thin blond woman who didn't look so eager to forgive as the first two.

He shook his head. "I must have-"

"Never," she said, and when he still was unconvinced, she lifted a challenging brow. "Okay, then… what's my name?"

He hated that he didn't know, hated even worse that smug see-told-ya smile she sent him. Damn, he really was a jerk.

The first nurse seemed to feel a little sorry for him. "I've been wanting to tell you, I think that clinic is really working for you. You seem to be… softening."

Softening? Luke started to frown but she leaned over the counter and patted his arm. "No, that's a good thing! Keep it up."

"And the smiling, too," the dark-haired one added. "That's a nice touch."

Then they waved at him, and duly dismissed, he started walking again.

This time as he went, he kept his gaze up, instead of on the files in his hands. The oddest thing happened-people made eye contact back. Most even smiled.

But it was the smile of one certain sexy redhead he couldn't stop thinking about as he walked outside toward his car. He'd been giving a lot of thought to her offer, the one that involved both of them being naked and panting, and wondered how it was they'd never actually gotten there. Women in labor and blood sugar problems and life in general kept getting in their way.

He wanted to rectify that. He was so intent on figuring out how to do just that, he figured he was dreaming when he saw her in the parking lot of the hospital, standing next to her car, kicking her back tire.

Her flat tire.

"Take that!" She kicked it again, then swore and hopped up and down in a circle, holding her toe.

Moving in, he reached for her arm to help balance her. "Did you break it?"

At the sight of him she let out a squeal, lost the rest of her balance, and fell against him.

Which really worked out in his favor, because once again he ended up with a curvy, warm armful of woman. Taking full advantage of that, he ran his hands down her slim spine, buried his face in her wild hair and closed his eyes, pretending she meant to be against him like this.

"Sorry," she murmured.

Because he couldn't help himself-she smelled so good, felt so good-he danced his mouth along the column of her throat. "Why?"

"Because-" This ended in a little whimper when he opened his mouth and took a little bite out of her. Her hands fisted in the front of his shirt and she arched a little closer, letting out a soft, muffled groan when he did it again. "Luke-"

"You taste so good," he murmured. "So damn good. I've been thinking about this for weeks." And he let his mouth slide up, over her jaw to the very corner of her lips.

"Oh my," said a female voice behind them. "Excuse us…"

Luke looked up at the women, the nurses he'd just spoken to inside. They stood there, jaws open. "Good evening," he said.

"Evening," they said together, still staring. Then, as if they suddenly realized they were doing so, they jumped, looked at each other, and hurried off.

"My God, he's got a girlfriend," came back in an amazed whisper on the night air. "Maybe he is a nice guy."

Luke laughed softly and shook his head. "I really did have a PR problem."

"Did?"

He looked down into Faith's eyes. "Before you."

She wore a lacy, cream-colored tank top and a long, flowing, colorful gauzy skirt that flew around her ankles when she moved. He wanted to gobble her up whole. "Never mind," he said, hugging her. "How did you know what time I'd get off?"

"I didn't. I… came to see a patient."

Oh. Oh, yeah. Her universe didn't revolve around him. He laughed at himself-what else could he do?-and backed up a step, letting his hands fall to his sides. "Of course."

She bit her lower lip, looking so pretty by moonlight he had to put his hands in his pockets so they'd behave. "But seeing you is a bonus," she said.

"Right."

Her mouth curved, her eyes lit with teasing, which normally he'd enjoy since there wasn't a single person in his life who ever teased him-except for his brother Matt, but that was closer to torture than teasing.

"It is," she insisted. "The best bonus of the night, right after that sugar-free brownie I consumed for lunch."

"You've been avoiding me like the plague since I made you check your blood sugar, so don't talk to me of bonuses. And you'd better have made sure it was really sugar-free-sometimes those labels-"

"It was," she insisted. "And maybe I've been avoiding you because of embarrassment."

"Embarrassment? Why?"

With the teasing light out of her eyes now, she lifted her hands and let out a disparaging sound. "I'm supposedly a health professional. How does it look that I missed keeping track of my own health? I'm borderline diabetic for God's sake, and brushed it off as the flu."

"You've been busy."

"And stupid. Stupid," she repeated when he opened his mouth to deny it. "And at the very least I owe you a thank-you."

"That, I'll take," he decided, his body quivering to hopeful attention when she stepped close and slid her hands up his chest. When she leaned in for a kiss, he wrapped her in his arms and prepared to be transported to heaven.

But after a short, sweet peck she pulled back.

"That's it?" he asked.

She let out a laugh at his disappointment. "I thought that was a very nice thank-you."

"Truthfully? I was hoping for nicer." He once again slipped his hands into his pockets. It was that or trace them over every inch of her. "So what happened to your tire?"

"I have no idea. I'll have to call AAA since I don't have a spare."

He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and handed it to her, listening as she argued with the dispatcher over the wait time.