protect you.”
Tamara forced herself to ignore the way her pulse skipped at the term of endearment, which he’d undoubtedly used without conscious thought.
As they walked down the empty corridor, their footsteps crunched against the plastic tarp, the sound echoing loudly in the silence. “Where, exactly, are we going?” Tamara asked.
“To find an open room.”
“What if there aren’t any?”
He slanted her an amused look. “Think positive.”
They rounded a corner and tried the first door. It was locked, as were the next twelve doors they approached.
Weary and frustrated, Tamara was about to give up and suggest that they head back downstairs. And then they came to an unlocked room near the end of another hallway. Laughing softly, they slipped inside like a pair of vagrants relieved to find shelter on a brutal winter night.
When Tamara automatically reached for the light switch, Victor warned, “Don’t turn it on, or someone might see us.”
“Oops, that’s right. I forgot.”
Not that they really needed the light. Since the curtains were open, rooftop lighting from an adjacent building poured through the window to reveal a small room occupied by a single bed, a night table and a chair tucked into the corner.
It wasn’t until Victor closed the door behind them that Tamara felt a moment’s pause at being alone with him. Not because she was attracted to him or anything, she told herself. She just didn’t want to be caught in a compromising position with him. Their chief of staff, Dr. Germaine Dudley, frowned upon intra-hospital relationships. The last thing Tamara needed was to be disqualified from receiving the research grant because she’d violated the hospital’s nonfraternization policy.
“Make yourself comfortable,” Victor told her.
She hesitated, then sat stiffly on the bed and shrugged out of her backpack.
Victor set his helmet on the table and dropped his duffel bag to the floor, then crossed the room to retrieve the lone chair. He dragged it over to the bed and plopped down with a grateful groan.
“Damn, it feels good to be off my feet,” he said, stretching out his long legs and rubbing his hands over his face. “Thank God one of these rooms was open.”
“Yeah.” Tamara glanced out the window. “The rain doesn’t appear to be letting up.”
Victor followed the direction of her wistful gaze. “Nope. Looks like we’ll be stuck here for a while.”
She sighed heavily. “Looks that way.”
Victor chuckled dryly, bending to remove his black boots. “Don’t sound so depressed, St. John. I’m sure we can get through a couple more hours without killing each other. Especially if we’re both asleep—which I intend to be pretty damn soon.”
Tamara grinned. “Good point.” After another hesitation, she toed off her sneakers, loosened her ponytail, then stretched out on the bed facing Victor. “We should probably set an alarm so we don’t oversleep.”
“Good idea.” Victor pulled out his cell and quickly programmed some numbers, then stuffed the phone back into his pocket. “All set.”
“Thanks,” Tamara murmured.
“De nada. Sweet dreams.”
“You, too.”
She watched as he propped his big feet on the table, folded his hands across his flat abdomen, leaned back against the chair and closed his eyes.
Tamara rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling, willing sleep to come. But she was too keyed up to take a nap, and Victor’s proximity didn’t exactly help. It had been eons since she’d last gone on a date, let alone shared a bedroom with a man. And this wasn’t just any man. This was her nemesis, her archrival, the only person who could derail her chance at landing the research grant she’d worked so hard to receive.
Gnawing her lower lip, Tamara cautiously turned her head on the pillow and looked at Victor, allowing her eyes to trace his features. Even she had to admit how ridiculously gorgeous he was, with thick dark brows, strong cheekbones, a square jaw and a deep, olive-toned complexion that was a gift of his Colombian heritage. But the feature Tamara found most distracting—next to his hypnotic blue eyes—were his lush, sensual lips. Watching those lips move had caused her to lose her train of thought more often than she cared to admit.
But she knew better than to indulge an attraction to Victor Aguilar, no matter how unbelievably hot he was. According to the rumor mill, he’d secretly dated over half the hospital’s nursing staff, as well as one of their fellow interns, Isabelle Morales. Even if Tamara weren’t a stickler for following rules, she wouldn’t have allowed herself to become involved with Victor. Her sense of self-preservation was too strong for that.
So why are you lying here ogling the man when you’re supposed to be sleeping? her conscience mocked.
Heat stung her face, and she quickly averted her gaze. As thunder rumbled outside the window, she squeezed her eyes shut and silently began counting sheep.
Several moments later she felt a light, prickling awareness that made her reopen her eyes and turn her head. Her heart thumped into her throat when she discovered Victor watching her from beneath the thick fringe of his dark lashes.
She stared at him.
He stared back.
After a prolonged silence, she whispered, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Can’t sleep?”
He shook his head slowly. “You?”
She shook her head. “The thunder’s too loud,” she lied.
“Yeah.” But he didn’t sound very convinced.
“I think I’m too wired to sleep,” she added, sitting up and folding her legs into a half-lotus position. “No matter how exhausted I am at the end of the day, it usually takes me a while to come down off an adrenaline rush.”
Victor smiled a little. “Me, too.”
Tamara hesitated, then said with soft wonder, “We performed an emergency thoracotomy today.”
“We did, didn’t we?”
She nodded. “Even though we were taught how to do the procedure in med school, we were always told that the survival rate is so low, less than two percent. But we beat the odds, Victor. We defied the experts, and Bethany Dennison lived. Isn’t that amazing?”
“Absolutely,” Victor agreed, gazing at her with an expression of quiet fascination.
She blushed, sheepishly biting her lip. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to gush like that.”
“Don’t apologize. I feel the same way you do. That same sense of awe
