Love Me

Love Me (Take Me sequel)

Copyright 2010 Bel a Andre

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“Car accident. Ten-year-old girl. Possible ruptured spleen.”

Luke Carson dropped the x-ray he was groggily reviewing to run beside the frightened girl who was rapidly losing blood. Her cheeks were stained with tear tracks and her long blond hair blew off the side of the gurney as the nurses wheeled her into surgery. She looked up at Luke with big, barely conscious blue eyes.

“I know you don’t feel so good right now, honey, but in a few seconds everything wil be better. I’m going to take care of you.”

“Promise?” she whispered.

“I promise.” He would do everything in his power not to let her, or her family, down.

He held out his hands for surgical gloves just as Robert, another trauma surgeon who’d come on an hour earlier, popped his head in the door.

“You’ve been on for twenty-four, Luke. You want me to take this one for you?”

“Nope. I’ve got it.”

Saving lives was not just a job for Luke. Being a trauma surgeon was what he’d been born to do. He was the best man for the job. It wasn’t arrogance. It was the truth.

Luke was ten years old when he decided to become a doctor. Even though the rest of his friends – and his brother, Travis - had been out partying in their twenties, he didn't regret a single one of the long hours he'd spent in class or poring over thick textbooks in the library. His number one priority had always been to save lives. Because he knew what happened to families when somebody died.

They fel apart.

Every parent he brought back from the brink meant there was one more kid who had a dad to play bal with and a mom to kiss him goodnight. And every child he took care of meant there was one less devastated parent trying to pick up the pieces of their life. Luke's job was everything to him. Especial y on nights like this when a little girl's life was at stake. He had caught a very brief flash of her parent's faces as they ran into the ER behind the paramedics. They'd been scared, more frightened than they'd ever been before. If she died, the hole in their hearts would never be healed

Luke couldn't let that happen. But when he moved to press the scalpel down onto the girl’s skin, he suddenly realized he couldn't control his hands.

Shit.

He pul ed his hands away and took a deep breath. Surgery required complete concentration. His strength of wil had never failed him before. But even with his hands stil at his sides, he could feel the shaking grow worse, damn it.

He looked up and was surprised to see Robert standing unobtrusively against the wal , looking concerned, but waiting for Luke’s cue. When had his col eague come into the OR? Had it been that obvious to him that Luke wasn't up to the job tonight?

Fuck, no.
He could do it. He was going to stand by his promise to save the little girl's life.

A second later, everything began to blur, and he felt Robert's hand on his arm, steadying him.

“I'm fresh, Luke. Let me take this.”

Luke had to fight like hel not to shake off Robert's hand.

Damn it. He'd worked plenty of twenty-four-hour shifts. He should be able to pul this off.

Only, this was about a hel of a lot more than “pul ing it off.” This was life and death for an innocent ten-yearold girl. Every second counted in the ER. He'd already wasted too many.

If the girl died it would be his fault. He'd have to face her parents and tel them that his ego had kil ed her. And he'd never forgive himself.

“Robert,” his said in a low voice, “go ahead and take over.”

His friend quickly stepped in, taking not only the instruments from Luke, but his control over the situation as wel .

For the first time in years, Luke didn’t know what to do. The only thing that was clear was that he was no longer needed. Robert and the nursing staff had everything wel under control.

They'd save the girl. They had to.

Al he knew for sure was that if he'd stayed, if he hadn't stepped away and final y handed over the reins, his hands might have slipped at a crucial moment.
He could have killed her.

On leaden feet he left the OR, walked down the hal way, and entered the locker room. He ripped off his scrubs and threw them toward the overflowing hamper in the cluttered locker room at San Francisco General Hospital. No surprise, the bundle of blood-laced green fabric missed the basket. By a mile.

He should have gone home twelve hours ago. But he hadn’t. Because he had nothing—
no one
—to go home to.

He dragged his hands over his face, through too-long dark hair that was just beginning to curl at the base of his neck. Standing in front of the scratched and dirty mirror in the corner of the locker room, his bloodshot eyes stared back at him accusingly.

He'd been on the verge of overstepping his bounds as a doctor.

Because he'd thought he could play God instead. Luke wanted to tel himself that what had happened tonight was a fluke, a one-time deal. That he was in control of his life.

In the past few years he’d pushed himself harder. Worked longer hours. Saved more lives. Sewed up more chests. Pul ed out more bul ets.

But for some reason, they were empty victories. And, lately, he'd been thinking more and more about why that was, if it had something to do with coming home to an empty house. No wife. No kids.

So far, however, he hadn't met anyone he could imagine wanting around forever.

His last girlfriend was a business analyst who worked nearly as many hours as he did. She'd been attractive, but cold, and even though she'd always warmed up in bed, he hadn't been able to shake the feeling that they just weren't a good fit. Even though she should have been perfect for him. Before Laura, there'd been Christine. Another bright, attractive, mature woman. A prominent economist, she also wrote regularly for the Chronicle. But she hadn't cared for his hours and when she'd given him an ultimatum - her or his job - the choice had been easy. Goodbye Christine.

The truth was, when he looked back, al of his exgirlfriends blurred together. Attractive. Driven. Mature. Sensible.

Boring.

He stripped off his boxers and white T-shirt and stepped beneath the hot spray in the shower stal , barely feeling the water pelt him across the chest as he quickly shampooed and soaped up. He felt broken, used up. Miles beyond exhausted.

He shut the water off and shook like a dog in the smal laminate cubicle. He wrapped a towel around his waist and stepped out of the shower.

Elizabeth, a new resident, said, “Hel o, Luke,” to let him know he was no longer alone in the room. She was exactly the kind of woman he'd usual y ask out. A cool, reserved blonde, she turned away quickly so that he could have his privacy getting dressed.

For a moment, Luke thought about it. He wasn't seeing anyone right now, and it had been too long since he'd gotten release outside of his hand in the shower. But he discarded the idea as quickly as it came. Judging by the way his cock was just laying there utterly limp beneath the towel, trying to act like he was into her would be a hel of a lot more work than it was worth.

Not to mention the fact that he didn’t do one-night stands. Never had. He’d left that territory to Travis, who’d settled down with Luke’s best friend, Lily, five years ago. They’d married in a surprise ceremony in Tuscany and had two great kids.

Luke was happy for them—of course he was—and yet, their perfect relationship only seemed to highlight everything he was missing. Thinking of his brother and sister-in-law and their happiness only made the thought of going home with a virtual stranger more distasteful.

“Elizabeth,” he said with a curt nod, reaching for the clean jeans and shirt in his locker and quickly dressing. Taking the stairs down to the underground parking garage, he got in behind the wheel of his Porsche and turned the key in the ignition. Pul ing out onto the empty, dark street he was about to turn right, up the hil to his house in Pacific Heights. But he couldn't face his big empty house tonight. And he couldn't barge in on Lily and Travis. Not at 1:30 a.m. when the whole family was already asleep.

On a night like this, where everything he thought to be true, to be real, had spiraled out of control, there was only one thing left that might help him hold on to the remains of his sanity: the one woman he couldn't have. And the only one he'd ever wanted.

Instead of going right, he turned left, heading for South of Market.

Heading straight to Janica.

“Hey baby, Nick and I are seriously into this.”

Janica El is looked up from uncapping a couple of beers for her two guests and forced a smile at Jarod. A half hour ago she'd gone by one of her regular haunts and picked up not just one guy, but two. She was just so fucking bored.

Of course she was thril ed with the success of her clothing line, J Style. She loved spending time with her sister, Lily, and Lily's kids. And between her girlfriends and the guys she dated, Janica almost never sat home alone in front of the TV on a Saturday night. Stil , even great sex with a hot guy got old after a while. Particularly if it was sex with the wrong hot guy. The problem was, so far they'd al been the wrong guy. She'd been dating since she was fourteen but she'd never been in love with any of her boyfriends. Not even close.

Maybe, she'd started to think, some people were hardwired to fal in love – like Lily who had fal en headover-heels in love with Travis as kids - and some people weren't.

In any case, even if Janica was missing the love gene, she stil needed to figure out what to do about tonight. Lately she'd read a bunch of books with ménages. They seemed pretty kinky. Exciting. And for a second, when she'd let the guys know what she was up for, and they'd accepted, it had been a rush. But before they'd even made it out of the bar, the thril had fizzled away. Right now she didn't feel any more excited about what she was about to do with two hunks than she had about any of her previous lovers for the past year. Sure, they'd probably make her come in some sort of real y inventive three-way position. But so what? She could come just fine on her own.

Good thinking, Janica
, she said to herself in a sarcastic voice.
How in hell are you planning to get
them to leave now?

“
Hey, I know I suggested this three-way, but guess
what? I was just kidding.”

Not only were the odds of them laughing damn low, any woman with half a brain could easily guess they weren't going to be too gung ho about leaving either. Lately, she'd been grading her impulsive actions more and more, having these annoyed, silent conversations. Thankful y, she stil felt great about her business, but on every other front—whether she was a good enough sister, a good enough friend, a good enough person, period—she wasn't at al sure.

For the first twenty-nine years of her life, she hadn't given a second thought to any of those things. She'd simply decided what she wanted and gone after it. She hadn't wasted time on worry or regret, on trying to

"act her age." She'd focused on squeezing every last ounce of joy out of life, on racking up exhilarating life experiences.

But something had changed this past year, as she'd rounded the corner toward thirty. No, not something.
Her.

She had changed. Out of the blue, she suddenly found herself lying in bed thinking about al the things she'd never wanted before. Real love. Someone to come home to at night. Someone to laugh with. Someone to plan with. Someone to share new things with.
Luke.

Damn it. Why couldn't she control her thoughts about him?

Twenty-five years ago it had started as a secret crush, a little girl spying on a big boy with a heart-melting smile. And it had turned into an obsession. A stupid, pathetic obsession that only got worse with every family event she went to.