Just Fooling Around(5)

Tomorrow was powerboat racing. Forty knots, the slap of the ocean spray on your face, and plumes of water that rose like a geyser. Cam looked up at the skyline, at the towering line of structures that didn’t take shit from anyone or anything.

It was why he’d chosen civil engineering. Building things, defying gravity, man over anything that got in his way.

The way it was meant it to be.

In short order, the crowded and ever-efficient New York subway system had him back at his apartment, washing the day’s grime from his skin.

The boat race was out on Long Island, far away from the city, and he was going to miss the annual walk of shame into the St. Catherine’s E.R. Actually, he was going to miss Dr. Jenna Ferrar, with that long, dark hair, those sexy Dr. Dominatrix eyes, and the lean, tight curves that even a lab coat couldn’t hide.

Just the memory of her—actually, it was more the memory of a naked her—made him painfully hard, and because he conveniently happened to be in the shower, he took matters into his own hand, capping off the day, and exorcising her memory all in one fell swoop.

A thousand times he’d nearly trekked in on his own, merely to see if she was there, see if she wanted to get a cup of coffee, see if she wanted to come home with him, but he always left it alone.

There were women he dated, women he slept with, women he took to a club, but they all ended up three dates and out. In his heart, Cam knew that one day he wasn’t going to come home in one piece. You could only cross fate so often, but damn it, he wasn’t going to play a victim, either. Hiding out like his sister Devon? Letting the tension eat at him like a disease. Not in this lifetime.

Cam was clean, packed and ready to sit down with a cold beer when the buzzer rang. Immediately he glanced at his watch, but 8:00 p.m. was too early for the really crap stuff to start. It was four hours to midnight, four hours before hell night began.

The bell ringer was probably some lost salesman, or a package for a neighbor. Curious, he punched the call button.

“Got a visitor, Mr. Franklin. She says to tell you it’s Jenna. Personally, I would advise you to let her up, sir, even if you don’t know her, if you know what I mean.”

Jenna? He only knew one Jenna. The doc. Here?

Whoa.

His eyes scanned the apartment for female unsuitables. Finding none, he snagged a shirt from the closet and shrugged into it, buttoning it up to something approaching nonslob.

He pressed the call button. “Send her up, Carlton.”

“Good luck, Mr. Franklin. You should know I’m a very jealous man.”

March 31, 8:00 p.m.

JENNA’S HEART was beating somewhere that was anatomically impossible when Cam opened the door. It was strange to see him without a cast, or brace, or pale from loss of blood.

Tonight, he looked hale, hearty, able to fulfill her every fantasy, which for Jenna was quite extensive. The demands of the medical profession didn’t allow much in the way of a satisfactory sex life. A date here, a quickie there (usually regretted) and long nights alone with her romance novels and other electronic accoutrements to aid in keeping her de-stressed.

Her stress levels began to rise, mainly due to the way he stared at her. His dark eyes tracing over her with an X-ray vision that could see through her Burberry trench coat, see through her attractive and cleavage-augmenting red dress, see through the brand-new black demi-bra and matching panty, see straight through to her nipples, which were currently jutting out like twin torpedoes. It was a perfectly natural reaction, she reminded herself—a scientific justification that did absolutely no good in easing her awkwardness.

He looked at her, curiously, appreciatively. “I rate house calls?”

“It’s not a house call,” she answered. It was almost the truth. “I knew you’d be in tomorrow and I thought I’d get all the paperwork out of the way first. You know, avoid any problems that might arise.”

At the feeble, somewhat porno-sounding premise, his eyes gleamed, seeming to say, “I know why you’re here.” It was not a comfortable moment for a woman who had won the Mayers-Andrews Fellowship, not that she expected anything different. In fact, she reminded herself, it was exactly the animalistic reaction she had planned on, which soothed her ego but did nothing to ease the nipple-peak.

Down, girls.

“Come on in,” he invited, like the spider to the fly. Of course, that would mean that he was the fly, because this was her plan, so why didn’t she feel like the spider? No, she definitely felt like the fly.

Yeesh, she was rambling. In a completely fly-like move, she wrapped her arms across her chest, above the nips, above the bra, above the dress, above the trench coat.