Outside The Lines (7 page)

CHAPTER SEVEN

Jules leaned
across the narrow work table bisecting her cozy apartment kitchen, the muscles in her forearm tightening with sweet, familiar tension as she grated the last of the mozzarella cheese from her fridge. Her burn had healed down to a slightly tender patch of skin, still protected by a large Band-Aid when she cooked, but that was a lot more manageable than the gauze and tape of last week.

She scattered the fat, fluffy strings of cheese over the ten-by-fifteen tray of
still-unbaked lasagna in front of her, a tiny smile playing on her lips at the dish. Mac’s night cook, Nate, and his wife were having a baby any second now, and a little lasagna would hit the comfort food spot when they needed a meal. The four dozen oatmeal cookies Jules had whipped together to go with it were just an added bonus.

The fact that they’d kept her mind on butter and brown sugar rather than how unbelievably right Blake’s hands had felt on her this morning didn’t hurt, either.

“Damn.” The whisper pushed its way out from her chest, where her idiot heart had begged her all day to consider that Blake was right. Her little apartment here on Ninth Street might not be much to brag about, but it was clean and bright and, most importantly, hers. She’d worked hard to move here four years ago, and even though her delivery was sometimes tough and her hand-written methods unconventional, she really was passionate about her job.

Even if Blake’s mother was still passionate about thinking Jules wasn’t good enough.

She snapped the lid over the disposable lasagna tray and slid it into her fridge, pushing away the thought. Although she didn’t regret kissing Blake this morning, that still didn’t mean it had been a good idea. She’d come dangerously close to losing the job for Mac’s, and after Serenity had taken a chance on Jules four years ago when her resume was all attitude, no experience, a repeat performance with Blake was a risk Jules simply couldn’t take.

No matter how much she wanted to believe him.

A knock on her front door startled her back to reality, kicking her intrinsic defenses into high alert. Both Serenity and Violet were working tonight, which exhausted the list of people who would come knocking on her door unannounced. Then again, on rare occasions, her elderly neighbor came by for help opening a stubborn jar, and oooh, maybe Jules could send her home with some cookies for later. She smoothed her hands over her threadbare T-shirt and flour-streaked yoga pants before heading toward the door, sending up a silent prayer of thanks that her neighbor was too nearsighted to tell she was slumming it this evening.

But as soon a
s Jules got her eye to the peep-hole, her questionable attire was the last thing on her mind, because Blake Fisher was standing on her threshold, and the intensity on his face made it clear that it wasn’t for hospital business.

“
Hi,” he said as she swung the door open, and oh God, could that smoldering green stare
be
any sexier? “I’m sorry to barge in on you. I didn’t have your number, and, well, I wanted to talk to you.”

“I don’t have a number. I mean, other than my cell.” She tugged in her brows, digesting her surprise in tiny bites. “How did you find
my address?”

“It’s listed
in the Brentsville directory online. I went to Mac’s first, but Serenity said you were off tonight.”

“
Oh, yeah, I was just…” Jules frantically searched her mind for something to say other than
trying like mad to forget how much I want you
. Which would’ve been exponentially easier if her lady bits weren’t still vibrating at the thought of their earlier kiss. “Baking! Baking. Yup. I’m baking. Is everything okay with the carnival planning?”

A sudden sliver of panic bloomed in her chest, her palms going slick. Surely the board wouldn’t
send him here to fire her at eight-thirty on a Thursday night, would they?

But Blake was quick to give a nod to the affirmative. “
The planning is fine. I just…” He paused to take a breath, and his brows cinched together. “Are you baking oatmeal cookies?”

The peal of laughter working up from her throat laid waste to the tension
she’d been harboring like a fugitive all afternoon. “I just pulled them out of the oven ten minutes ago. Are you hungry?”

Blake’
s silence lasted just long enough to bust him. “Oh, no, that’s okay. I didn’t come here for…well, shit.” His return chuckle slid through her like butterscotch over ice cream, and how could this be wrong when it felt so vital and good? “Yeah, I haven’t had anything since lunch. But I really do want to talk to you. Can I take you to dinner?”

“I’m not really fit for the public,” she said,
biting her lip as she tugged at the hem of her ratty blue T-shirt, and awesome. There was a smear of butter on it to go with all the flour. “But I’ve got four dozen cookies and a pantry full of food right here. Why don’t you come in and I can make you something.”

“
I didn’t come here so you’d have to cook for me, you know.” He ran a hand over his damp hair, but followed her into the apartment regardless.

“I like cooking for people, you know,” Jules joked back
, falling into the rhythm of easy conversation as she re-locked her front door and led him down the hall toward her kitchen. “So now that we’ve established why you
didn’t
come here, do you want to tell me why you did?”

“I wanted to talk to you about what happened earlier. This morning.”

Jules’s feet clattered to an ungraceful stop in the middle of the hallway, and she swung to face him. “It’s okay, Blake. The whole thing was my fault. I know I got carried away, but I meant what I said to your mother. You don’t have to worry about it happening again.”

“It wasn’t anybody’
s fault, Jules. It happened because we both wanted it to.”

“Well, yes.” Her cheeks went thermonuclear
at both the admission and the image still branded in her traitorous memory. “But your mother—”

“Respectfully,” Blake
said, stepping toward her until they were close enough for her to inhale the scent of fresh soap on his skin. “I don’t care what my mother thinks about this.”

Jules smiled, although she’d never felt it less in her life
. “Yes, but it doesn’t matter. Because plenty of other people do.”

She turned toward the kitchen
, desperate for the comfort of having food in her hands, and thankfully, Blake let her go. She padded to the work space in the center of the room, but rather than taking a seat at the counter by the breakfast nook, he hooked a palm under the back of one of the bar stools and brought it over to the island to sit across from her.

“So you
have the night off, and you bake?” He pointed to the cookies piled high on the cooling rack between them, reaching in to help her pack them into a storage container.

“
Guilty as charged. They’re not for me, though.” Jules slid a small stack of cookies over the smooth pine tabletop, a ribbon of satisfaction uncurling in her chest as Blake took them with eager hands. “What about you? What do you normally do on your nights off?”

“I don’t know. It’s been so long since I had one, I’ve kind of forgotten what to do with myself.”

“Ouch.” Her satisfaction multiplied as Blake polished off two cookies in as many bites, and she moved to gather some sandwich ingredients from the fridge. “And I thought I was a workaholic.”

“You probably are,” Blake teased. “
I’m still the low man on the ER totem pole, that’s all. But I don’t really mind the long shifts.”

“I’m sure taking care of people is really rewarding, but isn’t it hard on you, too? You must see some awful stuff.
”

Although his expression didn’t budge from his calm, cool demeanor, something slight rippled behind Blake’s e
yes, and he set his last two cookies aside to help her assemble the sandwich fixings she’d placed on the island.

“I’m not going to lie. I’ve seen just about everything you can imagine, and more than a few things you
should be thankful you can’t. But helping people when they need it most makes all the graveyard shifts and difficult cases worthwhile. It’s what…” He trailed off, and the ripple behind his stare grew. “It’s what I wanted for Jeremy when he died.”

“But he had that,”
she said, confused. “The doctors here did everything they could for him.”

“I didn’t mean from other doctors. I meant from me.”

Jules’s head jerked up, understanding clapping her right in the sternum. “You feel guilty.”

“Not as much as I used to
, but yeah. Sometimes.” Blake’s words were quiet, but his honesty tore through her as if he were screaming through a bullhorn. “He just got so sick, so fast. I wonder if, you know. If it had happened later, I’d have been able to help him more. Then he’d have had more time.”

“Blake.” Jules’s pulse pushed through her veins fast enough to make her dizzy, but she rounded the island
to stand right in front of him anyway. “Look at me. Jeremy had been sick for a long time, and he got the very best care. There’s nothing anyone could have done to change what happened. Not even you.”

“I know.” Blak
e nodded, skimming a palm over the back of his neck. “I mean, logically, I understand that he was given every available treatment by all the best doctors. But I got to go on to become a doctor, to be healthy and have a life, and he didn’t. We had the same genetics. It just doesn’t seem fair.”

“That’s because it’s
not.” The brash words popped right out of her, but she didn’t rein them in. “It’s not fair that Jeremy didn’t get to live past twenty, but it’s also not your fault. He wouldn’t want you to feel guilty for surviving. If anything, he’d want you to let loose and live extra because of it.”

Blake’s chin lifted in surprise.
“I never quite thought of it that way.”

“I never thought of it any other way.
You’re an incredible doctor. Jeremy would be proud.”

“Thanks.” For a second, Blake stood perfectly still, his eyes searching
hers. Then, as if he’d found what he was looking for, he moved toward her. “So you’ve thought about it a lot, then? About me?”

Jules swallowed, but her
tough-as-nails northie heritage refused to let her back down. “Yes.”

“I
t wasn’t a lucky guess last week when you said I graduated
summa cum laude
, was it?”

Sure. One little verbal slip, and of course he’d noticed. “I might’ve looked it up out of curiosity. Just wondering, and all.”

“I wondered about you, too. In fact,” He reached out to slide his fingers over the curve of her jaw, and even the slight contact froze her breath into place. “I wondered about you a lot. About what might have been.”

“Blake.”
Oh, God, this conversation was veering into dangerous territory, but his hands felt so good on her skin as he slid them around to cup her face, Jules didn’t care. “We were young and impulsive. You didn’t know what you wanted.”

“I know I wanted you.” His mouth dropped close enough to draw a whimper from her chest, and a wicked smile shadowed his face.

“But not as bad as I want you right now.”

Blake closed the excruciating
space between them in one smooth motion, drawing Jules tight against the hard plane of his body, and she didn’t hesitate. She arched up to meet his lips, the heat of his skin and the scent of fresh, woodsy soap filling her senses and sending a deep shot of desire all the way down her spine. He swept his tongue over hers again and again, tasting and exploring as the kiss grew deeper, their breath coming out in short, hard bursts as they finally broke apart.

“
But you’re hungry,” she whispered over the tightly-muscled angle of his shoulder as Blake dipped his mouth between her neck and the curve of her ear, and his answering chuckle vibrated over her skin.

“You really don’t get it, do you?” He made his way around
the soft, sensitive spot behind her ear, holding the fall of her hair out of the way with a firm palm as he whispered back. “The only thing I’m hungry for is you. It’s always been you.”

The words grounded her, fading everything else to black around them while Blake stayed in vivid, constant focus,
and Jules nodded against his mouth. Their differences, their work, their families, none of it mattered except for the way his hands felt on her, reverent and needful and true.

“I want you, too. Please don’t stop.
Please
.”

He returned to her mouth
, only this time he kissed her in slow, languid strokes, and each one made her hotter and more desperate. His chest pressed against hers, and the soft layers of cotton between them and the hard muscles of his chest were enough to turn her nipples to beaded, aching points. Reaching down low, Jules knotted her fingers over the back of his T-shirt, a throaty sound of approval welling up from her throat at the glide of his skin as she pulled the garment off.