“You were jealous?”
Throwing her arms in the air, she groaned. “No! Really, could you be more full of yourself? I’m starting to feel less and less guilty about not paying you for your ‘expertise.’ I said I was pissed, not jealous. I trusted you … your judgement, but dipping your dick in San Francisco’s communal pussy shows complete lack of judgment on your part—”
“Jessica?”
“And now I’m going to have to find someone else and start this whole process over again.”
“Jessica?”
“And it’s going to be a woman!”
“I didn’t have sex with Ellie.”
“But-but she sucked your dick, didn’t she? God! She’s such a man-eater.”
Luke raised a lone brow.
She looked up at him. “Don’t give me that look. I’m not a man-eater. I may take a nibble here and there, but I have discriminating taste. Ellie’s just … gross!”
Luke laughed a little. “Gross? Like … icky or yucky?”
“So help me, Jones … if you’re making fun of me—”
“What? Are you going to bite me?” He knew his words were unprofessional and provoking. But with Jessica, Luke was caught in the crossfire between a man who desired her and a psychiatrist that needed to help her. The psychiatrist reminded the man every day that he could never have her. Most days the man listened, but some days he told the psychiatrist to go fuck himself.
She swallowed. “Why didn’t you have sex with her?” Jessica whispered.
Luke was drawn to her. His body detached from his mind as he moved toward her, pinning her against the counter with his hands on either side. “Because I have it on good authority that she … gets around.”
Jessica risked a glance at him. “I’ll help you find a nice girl.”
“You will?”
He could feel her heart pounding in her chest over and over as her breaths chased one another. Her proximity smothered his ability to think with any sort of clarity. He felt like a masochist in her presence.
“Yeah … I have one in mind.” She trapped her lower lip between her teeth, looking vulnerable without any resemblance to the Jessica Day he’d come to know.
“You do?” Luke’s gaze shifted from her face to her chest, then the rest of her body. She looked like hell, the way she did at the hospital, and maybe it was her vulnerability, but in Luke’s eyes all he could see was her beauty.
“I do. But she’s very particular and I can’t guarantee she’ll like you.”
Luke met her gaze again. “I can’t guarantee I’ll like her.”
“Oh, you’ll like her.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because she’s brilliant, and sexy, and athletic, and just … a real catch.” Jessica nodded with resolution.
“Well then I can’t wait to meet her.” He didn’t recognize the raspy voice that floated past his lips, lips that yearned to touch hers.
“You’re baiting me.”
He squinted. “Baiting you?”
She ducked under his arm and scurried to the opposite side of the kitchen. “Yes, baiting me with your intoxicating smell, and evil sapphire eyes, and perfect skin, and thick dark hair that’s been begging my hands to free it from its orderly confines.” Jessica planted her hands on her hips. “And you show up here flaunting all of your … your … hotness! I’m completely sex deprived and the thought of you with Lickey should repulse me, but it doesn’t! Because I’m SO. FUCKING. HORNY. The thought of you having sex, naked, with anyone, actually turns me on!”
Luke had an exorbitant vocabulary, yet not a single word in the English language came to mind. He felt like Kevin Bacon’s character in A Few Good Men after Lt. Kaffee got Jack Nicholson’s character to admit he ordered the Code Red. Eyes glazed. Mouth agape. Pulse barely detectable.
Jessica sighed on an eye roll. “I know what you’re thinking …”
Luke was impressed. He didn’t even know what he was thinking.
“You think I just need to get laid, and you’re right. But I’m trying so hard to not go all ‘Hannibal Lecter’ on anyone, so it’s not as easy as just an innocent fix-up. If I can’t have sex then I just need to … hit something and get rid of all these emotions that feel so … toxic.”
He stared at her for a few silent moments, dealing with his own inner turmoil. “We’re taking a field trip.”
“Excuse me?”
He nodded. “This weekend we’re going on a field trip. We’ll leave Friday after we’re both done with work and come back Sunday night. But you can’t tell anyone.”
“If this is a lock-in at the Y—”
He walked past her to the door, stopping for a quick second to press his finger to her lips. “Shh, no more questions.”
She jokingly nipped at his finger. “Just one more.”
Luke sighed before opening the door. “One.”
“Is the chance of us having sex still less than zero percent?”
“Yes.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Knight
Jillian loaded the back of Woody with her plastic containers of sex toys. In a short amount of time she had become the top seller of Lascivio products in her region. She was three grand away from receiving a new car and the bachelorette party she had on her schedule that night was sure to push her past her goal.