Chapter Four

Lauren

As Ryan Castle stared at me, I barely managed to keep staring at the paperwork on my desk. Blankly staring, of course, because I wasn’t registering anything other than panic, and yes, damn it, an inconvenient rush of physical attraction.

It was him—my sexting guy! As soon as I’d realized it, I’d started freaking out inside, but somehow I’d managed to hold things together. I mean, it wasn’t like he’d recognize me. My face had been obscured in my profile picture and I’d given him a fake name.

Yet somehow he’d recognized me too! I’d suspected it as he’d stared at me and I’d stared at him, but the moment he called me Lana, confirming it, my heart stopped.

At any moment, I’d have to perform CPR on myself, I thought.

What kind of twisted joke was this? What had I ever done to deserve this?

And of course he hadn’t done the gentlemanly thing and let it go. No. Oh no, he wasn’t going to play along and pretend he didn’t know. What resident would? He’d just walked into a proverbial goldmine. He had huge leverage over me. I was basically his boss for the next month and probably far longer.

I’d just gotten the nerve to look at him again, but to my surprise, he turned around and walked quietly out of my office. Relief swept through me until I realized it was only a temporary reprieve. He wasn’t going anywhere, a fact that was confirmed when I finally left my office an hour later and saw him leaning against the nurse’s station in the ICU. He was talking to Sheila Barnes, and the light above him highlighted his messy strands of dark hair, and his green eyes sparkled.

I don’t know how it was possible, given the sheer masculine beauty he’d radiated in his profile pic, but for a moment I was blinded by how much more handsome he was in his pants, dress shirt, and tie. That night, I’d thought he was a medical student, but now I knew that he’d not only graduated, but had already made a name for himself as a brilliant resident. He was smart as well as sexy. Handsome. Warm flesh and blood.

His jaw was strong, his body was prime and tight, and my chest rose and fell as I pushed away thoughts of what he’d said to me in our chat messages.

Touch yourself, Lana. Do it.

No! I pushed the rogue thoughts from my mind. Jesus, Lauren, get a grip on yourself.

As if he’d heard my thoughts, as if he was determined to challenge them, his gaze met mine. He cocked an eyebrow and grinned at me.

My blood boiled. I found myself annoyed despite a good reason why. Maybe because he seemed so unruffled, while here I was, at a loss for words at our situation and way too aware of how tall he was and how ridiculously sexy he looked. Especially with that little knowing smile he threw in at the end of every sentence. He may as well have shouted, “I made this woman come just using my words!”

My mind reeled with possibilities. Messaging with him had been one thing, but this? Seeing him in person was something else entirely. I wanted to launch myself at him, rip his pants off, and suck his cock while I fingered myself again. And again. Until I came hard just from pleasing him.

Holy shit, thoughts like these had never entered my mind while at work.

I needed a cold shower, a slap to the face, a Valium, anything. Not even Samuel had made me reach into the horniest sections of my mind like this.

Suddenly, Ryan straightened, then while I watched in fascinated horror, he slowly walked toward me. As he did so, the whole ICU floor seemed to rapidly shrink in size and all I could think was he was going to get back at me for my nasty barb earlier. He’s going to out me here and now. Tell the whole floor what a desperate, pathetic, hornball I was, advertising for a hook up with men, age 25-45. I thought I’d been humiliated when Samuel had cheated on me. It had almost killed me to know that everyone in the hospital was talking about me, pitying me, maybe even laughing at me—

“Dr. Decker, I’ve been given a tour. I also now have my official ID badge,” he said, his head inclining to indicate the badge clipped to this shirt. “I was hoping you’d have time to talk to me about how my time here at Graton’s will be spent.”

I waited for him to continue. To make some lewd sexual innuendo about how he could service me personally or something, but it didn’t happen. He simply looked at me, hands clasped casually in front of him, his expression friendly yet professional. It finally hit me that he was sending me a message—that I didn’t have to worry about him “outing” me as a sexual deviant to my colleagues. I took a moment to weigh my options.

I’d been bitchy to him earlier, which I now knew had done nothing but put me in a position of weakness. Giving a resident—and especially a cocky one like Ryan—a reason to doubt my abilities was the fastest way to get stabbed in the back around here. As a woman in a male-dominated field, I’d had to work twice as hard for the respect I deserved, and I wasn’t about to let that go to shit all because some gorgeous hunk of man flesh could weaken my knees with his twinkling gaze, didn’t matter how talented a doctor he was.

Ryan hadn’t forced me to sext with him. We’d both been active participants, and the fact we had to work together was probably as upsetting to him as it was to me, even if he didn’t show it. I could either reject the olive branch he had just extended and continue to let things be awkward between us, or I could begin my mentorship to a brilliant young doctor on the right foot. Doing the latter meant I had to put aside my own embarrassment and my preconceived notions about him, and treat him the way I would any other new resident.

“To be honest, Dr. Castle,” I said slowly, “I was only informed this morning by Dr. Pierre that I would be your attending. So I think the best thing would be for us to talk and get to know one another a little better. We could meet in the cafeteria for lunch—”

He leaned slightly closer to me, as if to share a secret, and I automatically stiffened, part of me afraid he was going to suddenly turn on me, but part of me noticing that Ryan Castle not only looked good, he smelled good, too. Fresh clean shower and manly scents all rolled into one. I fought to make sure he didn’t notice the way he affected me.

“I’ve already been informed more than once how terrible the cafeteria food is,” he said in a low voice.

I was so surprised by his teasing comment that I couldn’t stifle my laughter. “That it is.”

“Would it be acceptable for us to go someplace close by?”

It was an odd way for him to phrase the question, but again, I suspected he was just making a concerted effort to reassure me that the tone of our relationship was in my control. I nodded. “Of course. There’s a great place close by. 12:30?”

“Sounds good, Dr. Decker.” With a small smile, he returned to the nurse’s station and began chatting with Sheila again. I let out a slow breath of relief.

To an outsider, it wouldn’t be weird at all, me taking Dr. Ryan Castle, the man our hospital administrator was so vigorously courting to be our new chief resident, to lunch. To me, however, it seemed too reminiscent of a date. Given his behavior just now, I was even more attracted to Ryan than I was before—and curious about the man behind the dating profile and the reputation as a stellar doctor.

Given our history, I had to be careful.

Work and personal life were two completely separate things, and I had to keep it that way. While a relationship with Ryan wasn’t technically against any hospital policy, he didn’t want a relationship. He wanted sex. Or at least he had before. I had no idea if he still did; I just knew I wouldn’t be going there.

Although Graton’s didn’t have an official policy prohibiting relationships between co-workers, there were still ethical considerations about sleeping with a subordinate. In addition, it complicated things when you were sleeping with someone across the OR table from you. I knew that without a doubt, as did most people in this field after a while.When in doubt, all I had to do was remember how my marriage ended up.

For a moment, the humiliation and betrayal I’d suffered after discovering Samuel’s infidelity washed over me. I relived the crushing sensation in my chest when I had opened the supply closet door to grab a warm blanket for a patient and saw Samuel, pants down to his knees, his body in between that nurse’s freckled legs.

For weeks afterward, I’d had to work with him and the nurse he’d cheated on me with. I’d had to suffer the pitying stares of my colleagues and the whispering behind my back. I’d almost cried with relief when I’d learned Samuel was transferring to another hospital (along with his mistress Christina, who as far as I knew he was still dating) and I hadn’t even cared when he’d said he was doing it for me. I’d simply said thanks and walked away.

It was the least he could do.

So… lesson learned. That was the biggest reason for me to stay away from Ryan in any form other than professional. I had no interest in being made a laughing stock again. Samuel and I had been the same age, and while he’d always been confident, successful, smart, and charming, he didn’t scream playboy the way Ryan did. If Samuel had betrayed and humiliated me after ten years of marriage, imagine what Ryan, a man ten years younger than me, could do.

* * *

A few hours later, Ryan knocked on my office door to pick me up for lunch. I knew within seconds that I was in trouble. For all my musings about why things needed to remain strictly professional between Ryan and I, my mind and body refused to get the message.

All I could see when I looked at his blue dress shirt were the abs I knew lie underneath. When he rapped his fingers against the doorframe all I could imagine were those very same fingers wrapped around his hard cock. Hard because of me. When I fell into the trap of those sharp, intelligent eyes, all I could do was accept the fact that every time I closed my own they would be all I saw.

Twenty minutes later, things hadn’t gotten any better. Sitting across from him at one of my favorite restaurants, I fantasized what it would be like to just throw caution to the wind and kiss him. Fuck him.

Damn it, damn it, damn it to hell. My overly sexualized thoughts didn’t make sense. Yes, he was hot, but I wasn’t an overly sexual creature. Yes, after going over a year without, I’d needed something to take the edge off a few nights ago, but I was a mature woman. I was a doctor. I didn’t act this way.

As if he sensed my internal struggle, Ryan’s gaze darted over my face, his green eyes darkening.

I swallowed and opened my mouth, to say what I wasn’t sure, but he beat me to it, speaking quietly. Intimately.

“We don’t have to pretend it didn’t happen, you know. Not when it’s just the two of us.”

“I disagree,” I said quickly, then grabbed my glass and took a sip of water before continuing. “Best to put it behind us and stay focused on work. On your residency.”

“If you truly want to put it behind us, we need to talk about it first. Recognize it. Treat it. Excise it. You know better than most that ignoring something is the surest way to have it come back and bite you, Lauren.”

I cleared my throat. “Dr. Decker,” I reminded him. When he didn’t respond, I sighed and folded my hands in front of me. Maybe he was right. Clearly ignoring what had happened between us wasn’t working. Maybe all we needed was to discuss things out in the open so we could move on to more important things. “Okay, fine. Exactly what do we need to talk about before we can put it behind us?”

“Why did you delete your profile?”

“I think that’s obvious. I regretted what we did. I’m smarter than that.”

“You’re a beautiful woman with needs. Nothing stupid about that.”

I cocked my head. “You sure about that, Ryan? Because our current predicament suggests otherwise.”

He smiled slightly before correcting me with, “Dr. Castle.”

Grrr. I so wanted to kiss him.

“Were you really wearing silk panties or some old sweatpants and sweatshirt?”

My mouth almost turned into a smile, but I bit it back. I could not give him the satisfaction of knowing I found him charming any more than I could admit he turned me on so much. “Unacceptable question,” I said, not realizing until after I said the words how they echoed the formal manner in which he’d asked if we could have lunch today. But that was good—we needed to keep things between us on the formal side. That didn’t stop me from saying almost accusatorily, “Your profile said you were still in med school.”

He shrugged. “Obviously it was old.”

I mentally winced. Old like me, though he’d given no indication that our ten-year age difference mattered to him in the least. “How did you know I was Lana?”

“You have a very distinctive birthmark on your knee. I’ve pictured it a lot in the past few days, because I couldn’t stop thinking about those legs of yours wrapped around me all night long as I pounded inside of you.”

My face flushed and I narrowed my eyes. “Ah, so I was wrong about you extending an olive branch. You are going to play this like an asshole.”

“Because of my choice of words or because I’m being honest about how I’ve fantasized about you?”

“Both!” I managed to choke out, yet where was my mind going? Now all I could imagine was him pinned between my legs, filling me up, as he held my arms up against a wall.

“Is that what Lana would say?”

“Considering I’m Lana, yes.”

Ryan just raised an eyebrow. “If you say so. As for my olive branch, I intend to be nothing but professional when we’re at work together.”

“This is a work lunch.”

“Not yet, it isn’t. Right now we’re discussing what happened between us before I arrived at Graton’s. I need for you to acknowledge it happened, Lauren. I want you to know that from the moment I saw you, I’ve wanted it to happen again. I’m open to more happening. But it won’t. Not if you don’t want it to.”

“I don’t,” I said swiftly.

“Then it shouldn’t be a problem. I wouldn’t force myself on a woman, whether I work with her or not. But if you don’t want anything to happen between us, you need to stop looking at me like the only thing you want to do is unzip my pants, take out my cock, impale yourself on me, and ride me like there’s no tomorrow.”

Oh God. So my thoughts had been obvious and he was merely calling me on it. Again, it might not be gentlemanly, but he was right, it was honest.

“Duly noted,” I said. “You won’t have to worry about me looking at you…like that…any more. Because no matter what it is you’re open to—whether it’s just sex or something more—it can’t happen. A relationship between co-workers at the hospital would be complicated enough. I can’t tell you how many combinations of doctors and nurses hooking up I’ve witnessed, only to see the havoc it causes when things turn sour. Even when things are good, other people will judge. And when things are bad? Reputations and careers are ruined. I have no intention of putting myself through that, particularly since you’re my resident, which brings up ethical concerns so long as that’s the case.”

“I don’t want anything between us getting messy either, Lauren. Especially because I’ve already survived one messy work romance gone sour.”

Just the mention of a previous relationship between him and another woman caused my heart to squeeze. So silly. “Oh?”

“I dated a fellow resident in New York. She wanted it to be more than it was. I didn’t. After we broke up, Callie started playing other doctors against me. Suddenly I’d be getting shit assignments or find patient records tampered with to cast me in a bad light.”

I frowned. “That’s horrible. Is that why you’re here in Denver? Because I’d heard it was to be closer to your family.”

“I am here to be closer to my family. My mom specifically. But I’m also relieved to be away from Callie. So I understand exactly why you’d be reluctant to get involved with me. Except you and I are different people.”

Yeah, I’m not Callie. I’m way older, I thought. Then I folded my hands in front of me and gave him my best “attending surgeon in control and handling her unruly resident” look. “Nonetheless, we’re keeping things professional, period. Now that that’s all out of the way, why don’t we go ahead and order and start talking about what you’ll be doing at Graton’s this month?” I suggested breathlessly.

He stared at me for several seconds before finally nodding. “Fine.”

And just like that, for the next hour, Ryan acted very much like a gentleman and a professional. I was surprised at how quickly any tension between us disappeared and how easy it was to slip into a professional dialogue. We exchanged histories and I gave him specifics about how things worked at Graton’s. He told me about his time at New York Metro, as well as his decision to move to Denver to be closer to family, his mother specifically. Apparently she and his father had recently separated and she was taking it hard.

It was only after we returned to the hospital and were taking the elevator to the fourth floor that I decided to revisit the subject we’d launched lunch with.

“You’re right,” I said suddenly, wanting to keep my gaze averted but looking at him directly instead. “I was attracted to you that night, and I’m still attracted to you, Ryan. But nothing personal can happen between us again. On that I’m firm.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets, and somehow I found that sexier than if he’d reached out and touched me, because it suggested he was forcing himself not to touch me as he so desperately wanted to. “I’ll respect that choice, Dr. Decker,” he said. “Given our jobs, given how we met, it seems a safe bet neither one of us wants anything complicated. But if you change your mind, if you want something intense but uncomplicated at the same time, even for one night, that would be entirely acceptable to me. As I’ve shown you, I can switch from professional to personal and back again quite easily. All you need to do is let me know how you want it from me, and I’ll give it to you.”

Feeling like I couldn’t breathe, wanting to grab him and beg him to give it all to me, soft, and hard, rough and gentle, I could do nothing but stare at him until the elevator dinged. The doors opened like molasses dripping down a jar and with a jerk, I slipped sideways to squeeze through the moment I saw daylight. Once on my floor, I glanced over my shoulder. Ryan walked behind me. Hands still in his pockets, gait easy and casual. He knew full well he was tearing me apart.

And he loved it.