âItâs just lust,â Faith gasped when they came up for air
âAre you sure?â SuddenlyâshockinglyâLuke wasnât sure himself.
âExtremely. Lust is just a bodily function, right? Soâ¦we deal with it.â
âAre you trying to say we should have sex?â he asked, incredulous.
âWell, not here,â Faith said. They were in a storage closet. At the clinic. With patients just down the hall. âBut after work. Just on the Saturdays youâre still honor bound to give me.â
âWhat about after that?â
âWell, youâd just have to let me go. Iâm sorry, Luke, but like we said, weâre just too different.â
Luke shouldâve been doing the happy dance. But he didnât feel like dancing. âFaith, you deserve more than that.â
âItâs what I want.â She arched, letting her tight, hot nipples rub against his chest. âAre you going to turn me down, Luke?â
The thought made him want to cry. âNo. Definitely, noâ¦â
Dear Reader,
I think a bigger-than-life hero is fun to read aboutâthereâs something so inherently sexy about him. Iâm hoping you think so, too, as Dr. Luke Walker is both bigger than life and extremely sexy. Heâs certainly sure of himselfâ¦maybe more than any other hero Iâve ever written. Heâs a black-and-white kind of guyâno middle ground for our Dr. Luke. So it was fun letting Faith McDowell have her way with him and show him all that gray in between.
And getting to do this miniseries with Lori Foster (Riley, June 2003, Temptation #930) and Donna Kauffman (Sean, July 2003, Temptation #934)â¦talk about exciting! I hope you enjoy our AMERICAN HEROES, readers!
Happy reading,
Jill Shalvis
P.S. Be sure to visit me at my Web site, www.jillshalvis.com.
THE TWO NEARLY NAKED WOMEN frolicked in the waves only yards away and Luke Walker yawned. Yawned.
Oh, definitely, he was on the edge of burnout. On the edge and skating on thin ground. Behind him stood his home on the Malibu bluffs. In front of him were the bikini babes.
And inside himâ¦exhaustion. Actually, he was far beyond exhaustion and heading straight for brain dead, but who was keeping track?
Unfortunately, even sleep couldnât help him, not today, not when every time he closed his eyes, he transported himself back.
Blood soaking his hands, splattering across his scrubs as he knelt on the moving gurney next to the far-too-still six-year-old boy. Orderlies racing them down the hallway towards surgery as Luke barked orders, held the boyâs wound shut and prayed to a God he wasnât sure could hear him.
âSo why arenât you down there frolicking with the babes?â
At the heavily Spanish accented voice, Luke groaned and opened his eyes. Carmen DeCosta took great pleasure in thinking she knew him well enough to boss him around. She stood there with her hands on her ample hips, waiting for an answer.
Was everyone going to give him that bug-on-a-slide look today? âDonât go there,â he warned. âIâm trying to take a breather here.â
âGood. You donât do that enough.â With a spryness that belied her chunkiness, the dark-haired, dark-skinnedâor should he say thick-skinnedâwoman dropped to the sand next to him, apparently taking a break from her duties cleaning his house to offer him her opinions on his life. Nothing new. She liked to boss him around. She liked to fuss over him as well, and he knew she thought of herself as a surrogate mother since his own was gone.
But he didnât need one. Actually, heâd never needed one. And yet somehow heâd never managed to convince her of that.
He looked out at the pounding surf, at the ridiculous bikinied beach babes, and saw nothing but Dr. Leo Atkinson from South Village Medical Center frowning at him. Luke was head of the E.R., but Leo was head of surgery. He was also director of all the various department heads. So while technically they were peers, Leo, sitting on the hospital board and also town council, had far more power. Which was fine with Luke, who just wanted to be left alone to heal people, not navigate the bullshit, ass-kissing waters that was hospital politics.
You went too far, Luke, Leo had said. Youâre a marketing nightmare, and now, unfortunately, something has to be done or you wonât be named E.R. Head again in this century.
He was referring, of course, to when Luke had let out a statement regarding the idiocracy of the bureaucrats running their hospital after heâd learned theyâd helped fund Healing Waters Clinic, a place where conventional medicine wasnât even practiced.
The comment had been leaked to the press, whoâd gleefully reported it in the Los Angeles Times and The South Village Press, among others. The fallout had been immediate. The owner of the clinic had called the hospital board, whoâd gone to Leo, whoâd gone to Luke.