*
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.