Lori Wilde - Lethal Exposure

All my love,

Roger

The rat bastard wanted a booty call.

She inhaled sharply. His letter held not a single mention of the reason they’d broken up. Julie had discovered that he’d neglected to tell her one crucial little detail about his life.

Roger had a wife. And he had a daughter just eight years younger than she.

It’s what you get for dating older men.

The familiar guilt that had haunted her from the day she’d discovered Roger was a married man—the same day she’d broken things off with him—clamped down on her.

She felt like such a stupid romantic fool. Roger had been only her second lover. Her first lover had been her college biology professor, who’d broken up with her once the semester was over and gone on to another student.

She was a walking cliché. Burned twice by older men and her sexual naïveté. Her lack of in-depth, hands-on sexual experience was the main reason she’d asked to be assigned to the sexual dysfunction unit and it was the motivation for her decision to get certified as a sex therapist. She thought the knowledge could help her learn how to differentiate sex from love.

It was something she clearly had trouble doing.

Julie thought about Roger’s letter and how much he’d hurt her. She’d been so ashamed she hadn’t told anyone about her mistake except her two best friends, Elle and Vanessa.

Her stomach knotted. Until Roger, she’d believed in fairy-tale romances and she’d always thought of herself as a “good” girl. Now she felt tainted, dirty.

Shaking her head, Julie sidled up to the resplendent green granite counter of the nurses’ station. “What’s the new admit’s diagnosis?”

Maxine was a thin, feisty woman who loved Confidential Rejuvenations so much she ignored the fact that she was past retirement age and just kept working. She dyed her hair flame-red and had a penchant for turquoise jewelry. Today she wore a pair of dangly phoenix earrings.

“Priapism.” Maxine winked.

This time Julie did sigh. “Priapism” was the medical term for an erection that wouldn’t abate even with repeated sexual activity. The cause was usually drug-induced. “Viagra?”

“Some herbal thing.”

“Guest’s age?”

Confidential Rejuvenations’ new policy was to call the patients “guests” as part of the hospital’s attempts to revamp their image damaged by recent scandals. In Julie’s estimation it was a silly idea, but no one had asked her opinion.

“He’s thirty-one.”

“So this was a recreational thing, not a home remedy for impotence?”

“Apparently.”

Julie frowned. “Boys and their toys.”

Maxine glanced over her right shoulder, and then over her left. Finally she leaned forward and lowered her voice. “The patient is a Hollywood director who’s been shooting a film here in Austin. He’s being admitted under a generic alias to the Corona Suite.”

It wasn’t uncommon for celebrities to dodge the paparazzi by signing in with bland monikers like Smith or Jones or Black.

“But before you escort him to his suite,” Maxine continued, “Dr. Carpenter wants you to put him in exam room one, do a physical assessment and then call him when you’re done.”

“Gotcha.” Julie grabbed her laptop computer that was docked on a rolling cart, and headed off down the tiled corridor to check on the rest of her “guests” before the hotshot Hollywood director showed up on the floor.

She’d just completed her rounds when a man in a beige London Fog raincoat got off the elevator and came toward her. He smelled of musky autumn rain and dark truffles.

Stunned, she stood there staring.

He was movie-star gorgeous, causing her to wonder why he’d chosen a career behind the camera instead of in front of it. Tall and lean, but muscular as an athlete. His thick black hair was brushed back off his forehead, giving him a powerful appearance, which was complemented by his perfectly tailored navy blue suit, cream-colored shirt and maroon silk tie. His eyes were enigmatic, his cheekbones high and chiseled, his mouth wide and inviting. His eyes, fringed by lush lashes, looked black as ink and full of mystery.

He was the kind of man who made even a die-hard romantic like Julie surrender her happily-ever-after daydreams for the promise of one unforgettable night in his bed.

Definitely a Hollywood type. This had to be her guy.

The air between them weighed heavy with expectation. He looked as if he owned the entire hospital and everyone in it. He looked as if he wanted to own her as well.

Feeling ambushed by this totally unexpected and wholly inappropriate sexual attraction, Julie’s stomach pitched as a dozen wayward fantasies flipped through her mind.

She pictured herself rolling around on a bearskin rug in a woodsy Alaskan cabin with the guy. She imagined their sweat-drenched bodies pressed together as they made love on the white sand beach in the Canary Islands. She envisioned them writhing against each other on the dance floor of a trendy salsa club as they danced the Lambada.

He was an Artic explorer and she was a native woman offering him the comfort of her igloo…and her body. She was a high-class call girl and he was her frisky sugar daddy and they were joining the mile-high club on a first-class trip to Paris. He was a virile cowboy and she was a sassy saloon gal.

In her wildly imaginative mind, she could taste the briny flavor of his skin as she licked his bare nipple. She inhaled the intrinsic scent of lusty man. She could hear his deep-throated groan as he called out her name in pleasure.

Whoa!

What was wrong with her? He was a patient. She was a nurse. It was inappropriate, unprofessional and wrong on about ten different levels. She should not be feeling these sensations.

And yet, she was.

Stop this now.

She tried to make her mind blank. Tried to tamp down the erotic vision of what his hot male body would look like stripped of his London Fog raincoat and designer suit. She tried to slam the brakes on her taboo fantasies.

But she could not.

Oh, this was bad, bad, bad. She was supposed to be the sex expert, but she was the one who needed therapy.

Shocked by the intensity of her emotions, her gaze dropped helplessly to his crotch.

SEBASTIAN, who didn’t miss a trick, noticed where the nurse’s gaze went and he suppressed a smile. “Hi, I’m Mr. Black.”

“I’ve been waiting for you,” she murmured.

Oh, no, whispered his impudent ego, where have you been all my life? A sexually confident woman bold enough to overtly check out his package in public? He gave her the once-over and the first thing he noticed was that she wasn’t wear a wedding band.

Hmm.

Her tongue flicked out and she ran it across her full, strawberry-colored lips.

Spellbound, he simply stared. He liked her. He liked her a lot.

She stood at the end of the corridor in front of a floor-to-ceiling stained glass window. The late-afternoon sun filtering in through the myriad of colors cast a radiant rainbow over her smooth, creamy skin. The center of the stained glass art was an unfurling red rose. The sunlight shimmered, bathing her honey-blond hair, which was pulled back so appealingly in a long ponytail, in a blushing pink glow.

Like zinfandel. Sweet, light, innocent.

The sight was evocative enough to cause instant sweat to bead on his brow in spite of the temperate climate inside the hospital.

Sebastian had an almost irresistible urge to pull the clasp from her hair and run his fingers through those silky locks. He couldn’t pry his eyes off her and he had no idea why. He normally went for leggy redheads with big boobs, not diminutive waifs with vulnerable eyes. His heart literally skipped a beat and the unexpected reaction disturbed him. Usually the only time his pulse skittered was when he successfully steered a client’s reputation out of the skids.