LITMIR.BIZ

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such frivolities. His calling her the prettiest thing stirred up a thousand butterflies in her belly.

      “I think that right now.”

      His words set every butterfly into fluttery flight. Oh, my. Carly gulped.

      “You must have had your eyes closed a long time, then.” She fought to keep from putting her hand over her stomach.

      Studying her, he shook his head. “You were in these same blue scrubs, but had on different shoes. Your laces were bright orange rather than neon green.”

      He remembered what she’d been wearing when they first met? That her shoe laces had been a different color?

      “You are a lovely woman, Carly.”

      To which she could only say, “Thank you.”

      Embarrassed, feeling a little shaky at the knees, Carly glanced around the employee parking lot and caught sight of a co-worker curiously looking her way, the nurse’s aide who’d been with Rosalyn earlier.

      The woman called out, “Goodnight.”

      Carly waved and wished her a good evening as well, then frowned at the man still standing too close.

      “She’s a wonderful person, but does tend to gossip. No doubt, everyone will know you were at my car with me.”

      “Then we should give them something to talk about.” The eye-twinkle was back.

      Horrified, Carly shook her head. “No, we shouldn’t.”

      She needed her job, couldn’t risk anything creating waves at her place of employment. Not even the temptation in Stone’s eyes.

      He sighed and raked his fingers through his hair. “You’re right. Sorry. I seem to have a one-track mind where you’re concerned. Give me your address. I’ll follow you home and carry the box inside.”

      “Not going to happen.” No way would she be able to explain to Joyce why a handsome doctor had followed her home. Carrying a heavy box in wouldn’t begin to satisfy the protective older woman’s curiosity.

      As for Stone’s one-track mind, why was her body heating up at the possibilities of what he’d meant?

      “Are you capable of saying yes to anything I suggest?”

      Yeah, she was being ornery. For her own safety and sanity. His, too.

      “Probably not,” she admitted, giving a wry smile.

      “I’m a pretty straightforward guy. I’d like to date you, Carly. I’ve been trying to get to know you and thought we were until yesterday. If my overhearing your conversation with Rosalyn upset you that much, I truly am sorry.” His tone was appropriately repentant. “I want to take you out, talk with you, dine with you away from the hospital, and eventually kiss those lips of yours that I find myself thinking about way too often.”

      Insides shaking, heart pulled into a tug-of-war between need and want and guilt, Carly closed her eyes. “I can’t do this.”

      “You can’t talk to me?”

      “I can’t hear you say those things,” she clarified, not opening her eyes. In a tug-of-war of its own, her mind raced between logic and emotion and loyalty to her mother.

      Stone wanted to date her. Stone wanted to kiss her. She’d not been kissed in so long. Not since Tony.

      Suddenly the need to be kissed, to feel like a woman, to feel alive and wanted and young, burst free and filled every cell of her being to overflowing.

      Which was what made Stone so very dangerous to all she held dear.

      He could make a total disaster of her life.

      “Because?”

      Had his voice been closer? She thought so, but she didn’t open her eyes to check. She couldn’t look, couldn’t see whatever was in his magnificent green eyes.

      Stone tempted. Tempted her to want things she shouldn’t want.

      Couldn’t want.

      Couldn’t have.

      Which didn’t seem to matter because she was a woman with normal urges and he made all those urges come on full force whether she wanted them to or not.

      Probably the rest of her life she’d look back and wish circumstances had presented her with the option to throw caution to the wind with Stone Parker.

      To forget the pain of Tony turning his back on her.

      To embrace all the warmth and urges Stone stirred.

      Because she’d like him to kiss her. Had not been able to stop the late-night thoughts about what it would feel like to be kissed by him.

      Now, he’d said he wanted to kiss her.

      How was she ever supposed to get him out of her head when he’d verbalized things she’d fantasized?

      “Carly?”

      His voice was so close, her name whispered against her cheek.

      “Hmm?”

      “Open your eyes.”

      She bit the inside of her lower lip. “I can’t.”

      “There’s a lot of things you say you can’t do, lady.”

      “Exactly. You should run.”

      “I don’t believe there’s anything you can’t do.”

      He was definitely closer. She’d swear she just felt his breath tickle her ear.

      “For the record,” he continued, “I’m not going anywhere.”

      The brevity of his words dug in deep, breaking through barriers that were best left alone.

      “Not unless you tell me to,” he clarified. “Then I will leave you alone, because I’m not some psycho stalker, just a man wanting to date a beautiful woman.”

      Tell him to go away.

      Tell him sticking around is futile.

      Tell him...

      Stone’s lips brushed against her hairline, near her ear. Soft, gentle, tentative. Not a sexual kiss, but one full of longing and question and space. Space that gave her control of what happened next.

      Carly’s eyes shot open, stared into his eyes, and she wondered at what she saw there.

      Desire, confusion, so much she couldn’t label.

      “Tell me you aren’t curious, Carly. Tell me I’m crazy when I look in your eyes and see a kindred desire. Tell me to put you in your car, watch you drive away, never think of you again, and I’ll try to do just that.”

      Tell him.

      Not to do so would be selfish.

      Self-destructive.

      But her lips refused to cooperate so she said nothing.

      “Tell me what you want, Carly.”

      She didn’t know what she wanted.

      Not true. She wanted him to do exactly what he’d said he wanted to do. She wanted him to kiss her.

      Crazy.

      She wasn’t free to have a relationship. To pull some unsuspecting man into her chaotic life wouldn’t be fair.

      Plus, with two jobs and her mother, she barely slept as it was. Where would she fit in a relationship?

      She opened her mouth, determined to tell him she only wanted a professional relationship, that he needed to forget about her and whatever it was he thought he’d seen when she looked at him.

      So why did she hear her address spill from her lips?

      She was crazy. She couldn’t let him

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