At a table for two by the window, Becky was stirring cream into a paper cup filled with really bad coffee served from the grocery deli, giving all her attention to it. Mister hot doctor was across from her, sitting on the other stool welded to the table. Why had he insisted she have coffee with him when he really didn’t want to? It made no sense, and nor did the fact that she’d agreed. Here she was, taking a break at work, sitting across from Dr. Tom Campbell, the gorgeous, mysterious ER doctor who had stitched up her hand and was responsible for her mixed emotions. He seemed angry or something to be sitting here with her, and he wasn’t the kind of man, from what she was picking up on, that her dad would have approved of. He seemed far different than the doctor who had stitched up her hand. Maybe he was tired from all the hours he’d said he worked.

“So I can’t quite figure out why I’m getting this feeling you don’t really want to have coffee with me, but then you insist I take a break and join you,” Becky said. “Maybe you could elaborate and explain why I’m here with you.” She tapped the wooden stick on the edge of her cup, which was steaming, and he said nothing as she flicked her gaze back over to him. The pensive man sitting across from her, his hand around his coffee, was just staring at her as if she’d done something. What, she didn’t have a clue. He still hadn’t smiled. In fact, he’d said nothing at all.

“I don’t. You’re everything I shouldn’t want sitting across from me. I’m not a nice man, and you’re a nice girl—a young woman, much younger, far too nice for a man like me.”

Oh, so weird, yet all her good sense should have been telling her to excuse herself and walk away. This was ridiculous, and she was both shocked and insulted. WTF? She just stared across the table at the intensity, the emotion, something that bordered on…what? Everything bad. He was a man the likes of whom she’d never met before and was far different from the kind she’d ever had in her life. “So why me?” She gestured at him with her bare hand, her gloves having been discarded in the trash after her supervisor had said, “Sure, why not?” to her requested break.

He didn’t break his gaze, and she found the scrutiny a little unnerving. Then he took a breath and turned his head to the side as if looking for something, an answer, maybe, then back to her. “You’re the problem. There’s something about you that I want.”

She didn’t know what to say, so she lifted her cup, took a sip of the hot coffee, and put it down. He was still watching her. His expression, everything about him oozed a chemistry that had her sitting there like a fool as she slid her hand up over the back of her neck and tried to ease some of the giddiness. This was crazy. “You want to date me?”

He glanced away again, his jaw set, no smile, no happiness. Then he turned back to her, leaning in closer. The table was small, and he seemed in that moment to take up a large portion of the room. “I don’t date. I told you that. I don’t do relationships. They don’t work for me.”

This was the first time in her life that she didn’t know what to say. He wanted her, but he didn’t want to date her. What else was there? She felt her face warm as she understood his meaning, maybe. Did he have any idea how not okay this was? Yet there she was, still sitting there, unable to will herself to leave, unable to get her legs to stand, unable to get her emotions on the same page as what she knew her family wanted her to believe about a man and a woman.

“You want to…” She couldn’t say it as she glanced around at all the full tables—men, women, kids talking, snacking. She hoped no one knew or could hear what they were talking about.

“I want to sleep with you. I want you in my bed only when I need you, only when I want you.”

Was he kidding? This was insane. She stared down at her hand, her fingers, as his hand rested over her wrist.

“And I don’t want you seeing anyone else, sleeping with anyone else,” he added.

She squeezed her cup, and he pulled his hand back. She took in his face, trying to figure out what this was, what he was about. “Let me get this straight. You want to have sex with me, and I’m to be exclusive to you whenever you want me.”

He still didn’t smile. “Yes.”

She took another swallow of her coffee, knowing full well this was when she needed to get up to leave the table and go back to work, chalk this up to…what? She didn’t have a clue as she stared across the table at this man and the chemistry that rippled between them, spiking up this insane attraction she couldn’t want. “But you don’t want to date me,” she said, “and you don’t do relationships, but isn’t sleeping with me a relationship, especially when you’re expecting me not to see anyone else or be with anyone else?” She looked him straight in the eyes, those blue eyes that were so intense. She wondered what they’d be able to get her to do. She was smart, level headed, and not lacking in self confidence. She loved who she was, she had a family who loved her, and yet here she was, sitting here, discussing giving something to a man she would never have considered giving to anyone.

He didn’t shake his head, but strength oozed from him as he leaned back as if he had all the answers, or was he now deciding something, and she didn’t have a clue what? “You should tell me to fuck off, leave this table. I’m not a nice man. I want what I want and on my terms, and you’re so young and…” This time he let out a sharp laugh under his breath. She didn’t know what to make of it, or maybe this was all a big joke.

“Why exactly did you ask me for coffee? You don’t want to date me; you want to sleep with me. You say you’re not a nice man, but then what you do every day is help people. It’s such a quandary, like you don’t know who you are or what you want—but I do,” she said, sitting back, her hands on the table edge, taking in the store, the clock on the wall, knowing her break was up. She had to get back, and what to say to Tom? She didn’t have a clue as she slowly stood, taking in how he followed her every move. It was so predatory that it should have scared her. “I need to get back to work,” she said.

Then he was standing in front of her so close she could feel his warmth, smell the coffee on his breath. “Yes, you do,” he said. “But before you go, I want an answer.”

For the first time in her life, Becky didn’t have a clue what to say.