Indecent Page 4

  She flicked him a fiery smile. “Yes, well, this Lucky doesn’t do it for money.”

  She got up from the couch and straightened her short skirt.

  Colin crossed his arms. “The timing of your being assigned to me…your coming on to me so hard…switching doctors then showing up here…it has to be more than coincidence.”

  She stepped toward his desk, making his pulse leap. “Whoever this Jamie is, she really screwed you up, huh?”

  Colin found it more than a bit odd that he was standing in his office with a patient—ex-patient—and she was the one doing the analyzing.

  “I consider myself a little on the suspicious side, but you,” she was standing in front of him now and poked her finger into his chest, “you really take the cake, Dr. McKenna.”

  Colin stared into her flushed face for long moments. Could he be wrong? Could everything that had happened between him and Lucky have been just a natural progression of events?

  Even as he asked himself the question, he knew there was nothing natural about his wanting to claim her in a way he’d never claimed another woman before. Or perhaps it was purely natural, some kind of primal instinct to overpower his enemy.

  She tsked as she ran her fingertip down over his buttons. “It’s a shame.”

  She turned around and walked toward the exit door.

  “What is?” Colin couldn’t resist asking.

  “That I won’t be seeing you again.” She opened the door, then stood leaning against it.

  “You see, I make it a habit not to get involved with anyone more screwed up than I am. And you, Colin, have demons not even I can compete with.”

  He squinted at her as she gave him a once-over.

  “It really is a shame. I have the feeling you’re very good in the sack. And I definitely was interested in finding out how good.”

  Colin winced at the quiet click of the door closing.

  FIVE DAYS LATER Colin was no closer to finding out the truth behind what had happened than he had been when he’d been cushioned between Lucky’s sweet thighs, literally an inch away from having sex with her.

  “Come on, Mac, get your game on!”

  Colin absently twirled the tennis racket in his hand and stared across the tennis court at Will who had just taken the first set and was two points into winning the next game.

  The ball hit the center line then whizzed right by his left ear.

  He’d agreed to meet his friend at his condo complex for tennis hoping some exercise and Will’s company would help him forget about what had transpired in his office. Instead all he could think about was that it was Saturday morning and he had two whole days to fill before he could go back to work on Monday morning. Two yawning spring days that he usually looked forward to but now dreaded.

  Twenty minutes later Will called the second set and tossed him a clean towel as they left the courts.

  Will grinned at him. “Well, that was certainly a nice change of events. You usually beat the crap out of me at tennis.”

  Colin used the towel to wipe his face, though he didn’t need it, then draped the terry cloth around his neck. “Yeah, well, I took pity on you this morning.”

  Will nudged him in the arm with his covered racket. “No, mate, you’re distracted. And I don’t think it’s one of your whackos behind this one.”

  Colin grimaced at his friend. “For a doctor you can be very insensitive.”

  “Me? What would make you say that?”

  “Whackos?”

  “I’d never call them that to their faces.”

  “Your referring to them that way at all makes you insensitive.”

  Will chuckled. “I’ll let you have that one. If only because I’m concerned about your mental welfare after this morning’s match.”

  They walked in silence, winding around the three buildings that separated the tennis courts from the Victorian block that held Will’s condo.

  Will made some comments about the quality of the women sunbathing at the pool then turned his attention back to Colin.

  “So, are you going to share who she is or not?”

  “Who?”

  “The wily female who’s stolen your brain straight out of your head.”

  “There’s no one in my life right now. You know that.”

  “I know that’s what your attorney advised.”

  Colin slanted him a wary look.

  “Good, then. You wouldn’t mind doubling with me and Janet then tonight.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me.” Will feigned a couple of tennis moves then continued walking next to him again. “The pretty resident has finally agreed to go out with me, but only on the condition that I bring someone along for her girlfriend.”

  “No way. If you’ll remember correctly, my attorney advised me not to date anyone.”

  “This won’t be a date. This will be two pals getting together and running into a couple of girls while they’re out.”

  “Mmm.”

  “You wouldn’t deny a guy a chance to take the pretty pink ribbon out of Janet’s hair now, would you?”

  That’s how Will always referred to the women he dated. And quite accurately at that. While it was highly unlikely Janet wore an actual pink ribbon, she was the type that would have done so in high school. While she was the head varsity cheerleader.

  “I would and I am.”

  Will took his keys out of his pocket as they neared his building. “Why? Has something happened on the Jamie front I don’t know about?”

  Colin ran his hand over his face, not really up to talking about it just then. “Yeah, a couple things. But nothing to be worried about.”

  Will held open the door for him, but when Colin would have entered, two young women bounded out, looking as if the only thing they would do with pink ribbons was tie them around their body piercings. Short, tight T-shirts and even shorter denim cutoffs revealed bodies buff enough for the cover of Playboy without the need for air-brushing.

  “Hi, Willy,” the short brunette said, stopping in front of Will and smiling at him in open suggestion. “So when are we going to hook up? How about tonight?”

  Colin covered his grin with a none-too-discreet cough while Will squirmed under the sex kitten’s attentions. “Another time, perhaps?”

  “Mmm. Another time. I’m going to hold you to that, Willy.”

  The woman gave Will a loud kiss then followed after her friend who was a good twenty feet down the walk.

  “Friend of yours?” Colin asked.

  “Neighbors.” Colin followed Will’s line of sight. Yes. Despite his preference for young and innocent, Will’s gaze was definitely glued to the brunette’s pert backside.

  And what a backside it was, too.

  “And she’s gay.”

  “Is not,” Colin objected.

  “Is, too. That’s her girlfriend. And when I say girlfriend, I don’t mean they’re both girls and they’re friends. I mean they share the same bed at night and they do more than sleep in it. Come on. Maybe it will be quiet now without the two of them playing their music so loudly.”

  Colin led the way inside and climbed the steps to the first floor where Will’s condo was located.

  Halfway up, Will stopped and said, “Don’t tell me it’s the girl from the bar that’s got you all worked up.”

  Colin turned to stare at his friend. “What?”

  Where in the hell had that come from?

  Will jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. “It’s just that I was thinking about how those two were just your type—well, if they went in for that sort of thing, anyway—when I remembered that girl, that redhead that got fired from the bar.”

  Colin looked away.

  “All this, your distracted state, it is about her, isn’t it?”

  Colin cleared his throat. “Are we going to catch a shower and get going to that lunch at the club or not?”

  Will slowly ascended the stairs to stand next to him. “Oh my God. I’m right, aren’t I?
You’re preoccupied with thoughts of banging a patient. An out-and-out whacko.”

  “She’s no longer my patient. And she’s not a whacko.”

  “Oh? Cured that fast, hey?”

  Colin stared at him, then at what Will was staring at. Namely, the fist Colin had raised.

  Colin blinked. He’d never been a scrapper. Had never even gotten into a fistfight. Not in elementary school. Not in junior high. Never.

  So what did it mean that he had a fist raised against his best friend?

  “Whoa. This is worse than even I feared,” Will said quietly as Colin regained control of his hands and his thoughts. “I have some advice for you, mate,” Will said as he unlocked his condo door then led the way inside.

  Colin tensed at the blast of cold air that hit him. He hadn’t turned on the air conditioner in his own apartment, although they’d had it on at the office for a few weeks now.

  “And that is?”

  Will put his tennis gear away in the hall closet then turned to grin at him. “Come out with me tonight. I bet Janet’s friend will be able to make you forget what’s-her-name.”

  That’s what he thought.

  “Or else…”

  Colin sat down on the white leather couch. Everything in Will’s place was either white or off-white. Well, there was no accounting for taste. He and Will didn’t share the same taste in furniture or women.

  “Or else what?” he prompted when Will didn’t immediately offer.

  “Or else screw the woman’s head off and get her the hell out of your system.”

  5

  “ANNETTE, could you please bring me Miss Clayborn’s contact information?”

  Two days later Colin sat tensely in his office chair. It was five before five and the staff was about to go home. But the lateness of the day and his own uncomfortable interest in the sexy siren wasn’t what prompted his request for Lucky’s file. Rather, his partner Morgan Szymanski had just left his office after consulting with him on what to do about Lucky’s not showing for her group session that afternoon.

  A brief knock then the door opened and Annette handed him a paper. “Just put it on my desk when I’m done, okay? I’m on my way out.”

  Colin thanked her and wished her a good night as he stared at the sheet sitting in the middle of his desk.

  So innocuous.

  So dangerous.

  He’d managed to talk Morgan out of contacting the court, although even now he couldn’t be sure why. He supposed after what he’d done last week, he owed Lucky at least the benefit of the doubt. After all, she had shown up for her previous two sessions.

  And, after all, he had practically bruised her jaw when he’d accused her of being sent by Jamie.

  He blew out a deep breath then leaned back in his chair and picked up the paper. Home phone, address, the works. Colin eyed it, familiar with the northwest Toledo area near the Michigan line, though he’d never been there.

  He picked up the phone, then put it back down, cursing under his breath.

  In the two weeks since he’d met Lucky Clayborn nothing about his life had seemed right. If he wasn’t thinking about her, he was ordering himself not to think about her. And when he did allow himself the luxury of remembering her, he got hard as a rock, recalling how she’d opened her thighs to him, and how her pale fingers had squeezed his erection.

  Colin clamped his eyes closed, trying to banish the thoughts.

  He’d met with his attorney yesterday, but his father’s old friend Don Maddox was no closer to settling the fraudulent case against Colin than he’d been three months ago.

  Meanwhile Jamie was making it clear that Colin’s life was an open book.

  From notes left on his car, to curious answering machine messages, whenever Colin began to forget about Jamie’s presence, he was reminded again that out there somewhere someone had it in for him.

  He’d taken the notes and made copies for his attorney, but at this point there was no solid way to connect Jamie to the goings-on. Besides, the police likely wouldn’t be interested unless and until a real physical threat was made.

  Colin ran his hand through his hair several times. Wasn’t the threat to his career enough?

  He grabbed a yellow legal pad, scribbled Lucky’s home address near the bottom, then ripped the slip off and stuffed it into his pants pocket. No matter what was happening with the case with Jamie, he was worried about Lucky. There was…something about her that called to him on a level he had yet to understand. Despite her ballsy behavior and saucy smiles, he was concerned about her in a way that had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with her.

  But to initiate contact with her outside the office to inquire about office matters was like inviting the devil to come out to play.

  He grabbed his jacket, then locked his office door after himself.

  Devil or not, he needed to see that she was okay.

  Screw the woman’s head off and get her the hell out of your system.

  Will’s direct words of advice ran through his mind. He put Lucky’s contact info on Annette’s desk, leafed through his phone messages, then headed for the parking lot. As crude as it seemed, his best friend might have had a point. Colin was all too aware that the more you made an object off limits, the more appealing it became. Was that what was happening with him and his growing obsession with Lucky? First she’d been inaccessible to him because she’d been a patient. Second…well, second, he’d allowed paranoia to get the better of him, although if he’d been thinking clearly he would never have allowed things to go as far as they had last week. When he’d invited her into his office to talk about her having switched doctors, he’d been fool enough to believe he could control his sexual impulses. What he hadn’t anticipated was Lucky taking the initiative and kissing him, putting him at a very definite disadvantage.

  He pressed the button on his key chain to unlock his Lincoln Navigator SUV then climbed inside the sleek black-and-tan vehicle. And what made him think he’d be any better at controlling what happened if he showed up unannounced at her house?

  He caught sight of his reflection in the rearview mirror and grimaced. He looked tired even to himself. And this constant obsessing about Lucky wasn’t getting him anywhere. Whatever the outcome of this visit, he needed to attain some kind of mental closure. If he and Lucky had sex…a long, hot shudder ran through his body. If he and Lucky had sex, well, they were adults and consenting.

  If they didn’t, he hoped that whatever transpired would be enough to stop her from haunting his dreams at night. From interfering with his work during the day when thoughts of her crossing and uncrossing her shapely legs intruded. From compelling him to seek her out outside office hours on a Monday night.

  He pointed his car in the direction of her apartment and pushed the button to roll down the window rather than switching on the air-conditioning. All around him were the unmistakable signs of summer. Convertibles roared by, stereos pumping out thick, bass-heavy music. Kids played on neighborhood streets. The ice-cream parlors were open for business and full of Little League teams sitting at picnic tables eating cones either as a reward for winning or as consolation for losing.

  The scenery was familiar, yet it seemed odd to Colin that while he wasn’t looking the season had changed. Though it had been rainy and chilly only two weeks ago when Lucky had first walked through his door, now summer was in full swing, as were the colorful activities that went along with it. And the sensory input was almost overwhelming. When he ran early in the morning, just before dawn, most of the city was still asleep, the warming temperatures and changing vegetation the only reminders of the time of year. There were no children learning how to ride a bike for the first time. No young women in cut-off shorts. No cars cruising by blaring rap music. There was only him and the river and the odd jogger or two.

  He rolled the window back up then switched on his own state-of-the-art radio to an oldies station. The song “Summertime” filled the interior of the SUV. He immediately chan
ged the station to classical, looking for something to drown out the sounds of summer around him, but mostly hoping for something to calm his growing anticipation of seeing Lucky again.

  He pulled his collar away from his throat, surprised to find he was lightly sweating, although it was relatively cool in the car. And if he checked his pulse, he was sure it would be a couple of beats above par for him.

  He’d been engaged once. A long time ago. He’d just graduated from medical school and had completed his residency at the Medical College of Ohio, and he’d figured what the heck? He’d been dating Amanda on and off—but mostly on—for the past three years. The next logical step was marriage, right?

  Wrong. Oh, she’d accepted the two-carat engagement ring. And they’d picked out wedding invitations and shopped around for houses together. They’d seemed perfectly matched. He was a psychiatrist. She was a lawyer. They would easily gross well into six figures annually. Enough to start a family, live anywhere they chose. They weren’t limited by resources in any way.

  But their sex life…

  Colin absently rubbed the back of his neck.

  His sex life with Amanda had been perfunctory at best right from the beginning. While they’d matched up in every other area of their lives—they traveled in the same circles, laughed at the same jokes, were both early risers and joggers, enjoyed going to the same restaurants and films and exhibitions—in bed she stopped short of staring at the clock on the night table, and he always felt rushed to finish. Afterward as she snuggled close to him, seeming to prefer his embrace more than his lovemaking, he’d felt oddly…empty. Unsatisfied.

  And the closer the wedding got, the more unsatisfied he’d become.

  Then one night, after a particularly aggravating sigh of impatience from Amanda during sex, he’d rolled off her without climaxing and asked her what was wrong. She’d assured him nothing was the matter, that she enjoyed making love with him and then she’d tried to coax him into continuing. But he’d put the brakes on and after a long, awkward silence had suggested they postpone their wedding plans and consult a therapist.