End of Day (Jack & Jill #1) (12 page)

“It’s
Doctor
Luke Jones,” Kelly gushed while wrapping her arm around Gabe.

“A doctor, huh?” Jessica raised her eyebrows at Luke.

“I’m a psychiatrist.” Luke took a sip of his beer, eyes tracking Jessica’s every move.

Jessica accepted the glass of wine that Kelly handed her. “So not a real doctor then.”

Luke smirked. “I think four years of undergrad, four years of medical school, and a four year residency qualifies me as a
real
doctor.”

“But you’re not saving lives or anything like that, right?”

“Luke was a volunteer firefighter when we were in college, so he’s definitely had his days of saving lives. Now he just deals with the crazies of San Francisco.” Gabe was kind enough to jump in on Luke’s behalf.

Luke cleared his throat. For the first time ever, Jessica sensed his discomfort—his humanity. She wondered if “crazies” was Luke’s description or Gabe’s assumption.

“So what do you do, Jessica?” Gabe asked.

“Waitress during the day, strip at night.”

Gabe choked on his beer. Kelly patted his back while shaking her head. “No she doesn’t. Jessica’s a brilliant actuary intern. She does two to three triathlons with me every year, and she teaches self-defense classes at a battered women’s shelter.” Kelly laughed. “Well, come to think of it, Jessica’s a shit cook so she spends a lot of time eating out and when we shared an apartment in college she used to run around the place half naked like her body physically rejected clothes, so I suppose the waitress/stripper scenario isn’t too far off.”

Jessica shrugged and took a sip of her wine. It didn’t matter what she did, the night was a shamble of wreckage. She thought of the wasted hour on her hair, the dry-clean only dress getting another night’s wear, and the expensive perfume she only wore when her vagina needed some manly attention.

“Isn’t Luke’s place amazing?” Kelly kept the conversation flowing in a non-confrontational direction.

Jessica looked around. “I suppose it’s tidy enough.” Kelly and Gabe laughed at her comment that wasn’t meant to be funny. Luke … not so much.

“I’ll give you a tour.” Luke smiled.

“Mmm, yes we’ll meet you out on the balcony when you’re done. The view is amazing.” Kelly pulled Gabe toward the French doors.

Jessica and Luke stared at each other until the door clicked shut.

“This can’t happen.” Luke set down his beer. “If you choose to tell them you’re my patient, that’s your choice, but legally I can’t tell them.”

“Whoa, first, I’m not your patient anymore. I’ve done the financial risk assessment and based on our
progress,
I should have ended treatment weeks ago. Second,
this
is nothing.” Jessica gestured her hand between the two of them. “So don’t get your over-starched flannel boxers bound in a wad up your tight ass thinking anything is
happening
.” Jessica glanced over her shoulder at two sets of eyes peering in at them. She smiled. “Now, weren’t you going to show me what all my money has bought you?”

Luke drummed his fingers on the counter in a steady beat of contemplation. “We’ll make it through the evening and after you leave I’ll tell Gabe you’re not my type.”

“Not your type?” she mumbled to herself, following him down the hall. Apparently his type was submissive giraffes with weak personalities. Jessica inherited her mother’s vertically challenged gene and her father’s strong but colorful personality which was often intimidating to men. It was possible the blood “fetish” played a minor part in her one-and-done dating streak.

“Bathroom … guest bedroom … office…” Luke droned with zero enthusiasm “…master bedroom …”

Jessica veered off the tour into his bedroom. The view of the bay was nearly as amazing as his office. The bedding on the king bed was a mix of white, grays, black, and a few pillow splashes of blue. Everything was a perfect geometric configuration of modern design and immaculate order.

“This is my bedroom.” Luke stood in the doorway.

“I know. That’s what you said.” She dusted her fingertips over his dresser then the foot of the bed, mesmerized by how turned on she felt being in his personal space. “You have OCD.”

“I don’t. I’m simply entertaining guests tonight.”

“In your bedroom?”

“It’s on the tour.”

Jessica continued to his large walk-in closet.

“That’s not on the tour.”

It didn’t matter to her. The light automatically came on when she opened the door. With the same delicate touch, she ran her hand down the sleeve of one out of maybe twenty flawlessly ironed dress shirts. From a dark wood cubby she pulled out a folded hoodie and brought it to her nose.

“You’re in my closet … smelling my clothes. I think you’re crossing a serious line, Jessica.”

She turned, hugging his sweatshirt. “I hate how good you smell all the time.”

Luke leaned against the door frame with his hands casually resting in the back pockets of his jeans, shoulders pulled back, shirt hugged to his defined chest.

“It’s been distracting me for the past three months.” She took calculated steps toward him.

Luke tracked her every move with spine-tingling intensity. There was a predator and its prey, but neither one showed signs of submitting to the lesser role.

“My apologies,” he whispered.

“Liar.” Jessica rested her hands on his chest.

He regarded her with undaunted control, not retreating an inch or relinquishing so much as the slightest flinch. “What do you want?”

Jessica circled the pad of her finger over the buttons of his shirt. “That’s simple—you.”

She slid her hands up his chest to the back of his neck and pulled him toward her as she lifted on to her toes. When their lips touched, it felt like someone poured gasoline onto a small ember deep inside her that Dr. Jones had been fanning for weeks with his eyes, his smell, his militant control.

A painful urgency
to feel his hands on her body set off a familiar panic in her mind. Control—she was losing it. His hands remained static in his back pockets, but for some reason that felt more dominating than if they’d been tangled in her hair. Luke controlled her with just his presence. Jessica was drowning in his taste, the way his tongue manipulated hers, and his lips overruled the urgent pace hers were desperate to maintain. It was too fast and too slow, too much, yet not enough. It was in her head—
he
was in her head.

“Shit!” Luke pulled away, eyes wide for a split second before narrowing into small slits. He touched his middle two fingers to his bloodied lip.

Jessica rubbed her lips together as they curled into a smirk; blood red lipstick hid the evidence. She brushed past him. “Can’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Knight

J
illian rubbed her
lips together, still tasting the one kiss that would forever linger with equal parts pain and pleasure. She glanced up from the sofa where she was folding some clothes. Lilith smiled. She was always smiling, even when she slept. But each smile was unique. Jillian knew Lilith couldn’t hear her story, but the way her smiles changed throughout parts of it made Jillian wonder if she had a sixth sense for the emotions in the air.

“I’m going to work on the bathroom since you’re done with lunch.” Jillian stood.

Lilith squinted a bit, then nodded as she tried to get up from her chair.

“Do you need to use the bathroom first?” Jillian asked, helping Lilith to her feet.

Lilith shook her head.

“Do you want to nap in your bed today?”

Lilith hobbled down the hall as Jillian held her arm. When they reached the master bathroom, Lilith pointed to the floral upholstered vanity chair.

“Oh, you want to watch me install the bar?”

Lilith smiled again, and Jillian helped her sit on the chair. She had about an hour to get the handicap bar secured to the wall before Dodge would be home. Jillian had learned her handywoman skills from the most unlikely place, but that was a story for another day. She still hadn’t finished her blind date.

*

Day

Jessica left her
wounded ex-shrink behind to think about his wrong doings. She felt no remorse. He needed to adjust his treatment plan to actually address the patient’s problem before any more innocent victims were affected. Even more than that, he needed to stop wearing that cologne or using that soap, or whatever it was that made her have such an insatiable craving for him. It could have been those sharp navy eyes too, or his thick black hair he always wore styled just so. In Jessica’s eyes it begged for her fingers to mess it up and yank it hard.

“Hey, Jess. So what’d you think? Isn’t this place amazing?” Kelly moved her feet from the opposing patio chair at the table so Jessica could sit down. Gabe grabbed Kelly’s foot, pulled off her heeled sandal, and began massaging her foot. Gabe was a keeper. It had to be in the stars for them. They both had curly blond hair, his just long enough to tease his ears and hers midway down her back. Their children would be ridiculously cute and sweet. Both Gabe and Kelly were nauseatingly lovey-dovey.

“Yeah, it’s pretty amazing.” Jessica sipped her wine.

“Dinner will be ready soon. Is everyone good with eating out here?” Luke asked, peeking his head outside.

“Oh my God! What happened to your lip?” Kelly gasped.

“Jessica bit me.”

Jessica whipped around, dragging her jaw along the ground.

“What? No, seriously what happened?” Gabe laughed. The idea of Jessica biting her blind date within twenty minutes of supposedly meeting him for the first time was beyond crazy.

Jessica stood, giving Kelly and Gabe a nervous smile. “Kudos, you two. This guy is a real jokester and I love a good sense of humor.” She motioned to the door with her thumb. “Just relax. I’ll help Luke finish up in the kitchen.” She turned on her heels and marched toward Luke without any more confusion as to who was the predator that day.

Luke walked back to the kitchen like he didn’t just toss her off the ten story balcony.

“What the hell was that? What happened to doctor-patient confidentiality?”

Luke grabbed the plates from behind the glass-doored cabinet then turned toward her. “I didn’t disclose anything about my patient, Jessica Day. I simply shared the incident that happened in my closet five minutes ago with my blind date, Hannibal Lecter.”

“I was just proving a point.” Jessica leaned over the island, teeth clenched.

Luke leaned in from the opposite side until there were only a few inches between their faces. “So. Was. I.”

She huffed in exasperation while reclaiming her space. “I trusted you to help me.”

Luke’s brow creased. “I
was
helping you, but I didn’t get to remove anyone’s appendix on my first day of medical school. I had to study and master the human body first. It’s the same way with the mind. No two people are alike. I need to study and understand you before I can help you. There’s nothing textbook about thoughts and feelings.” He took a breath and closed his eyes for a brief moment, like that speech had been playing in his head for weeks, desperate to be heard.

Jessica’s shoulders slumped as defeat hijacked her voice. “I spent three hours getting ready for this date, shaving almost everything except my head—lotion, makeup, hair straightening, ten wardrobe changes—because I haven’t had sex in over six months. Six. Months!”

Luke gave her a sad smile. “You look truly stunning tonight.”

Jessica forced her gaze up to meet his. “If I wouldn’t have bit you would we have had sex tonight?”

He laughed, a real laugh. It was a foreign sound that Jessica had never heard him make. “Honestly I hadn’t thought that far.”

“Why not?”

He pulled the large dish from the oven. “Shit!” He sucked his finger just below the knuckle having burned it on the top of the oven. “Because…” he sucked it some more “…I was waiting for you to make me bleed.”

Jessica cocked her head to the side. “Why were you so sure I’d make you bleed?”

Luke ran his hand under cold water, looking over his shoulder at Jessica for a long second. “Because I’ve been studying you for the past three months.”

She fell into a brief, rare moment of speechlessness. Her eyes blinked in rapid succession. “You think I look stunning tonight?” she whispered.

“Painfully.” Luke’s gaze slipped as his hands commenced arranging the food on the plates.

They served dinner, enjoyed a mild sixty-five degree evening on the balcony with their friends, laughed at jokes, sipped fine wine and beer, and shared an occasional glance. But they never spoke directly to each other again until the evening came to an end.

“We’re going to head out so you two can have some time alone, exchange numbers, plan your wedding.” Kelly giggled as Gabe pulled her out the door with his hand over her mouth.

“She’s clearly had too much to drink. Thanks, Luke. Dinner was great.” Gabe gave a final wave before Luke closed the door, leaning back against it with his hands in his pockets.

She always remembered that image of Dr. Luke Jones as her favorite: casual and blindingly handsome. The evening had bestowed a few wrinkles to his clothes. The messy contrast to his perfectly parted, neatly combed hair gave him an unforgettable boyish appeal, and there was a soft surrender in his blue eyes.