laughed as Victor snatched a Snickers out of her hand and tore open the wrapper. After taking a huge bite of the chocolate bar, he groaned appreciatively. “Mmm, that hits the spot.”
Tamara tsk-tsked him. “I’m surprised at you, Dr. Aguilar, choosing empty carbs over more nutritious snacks.”
“Says the woman with the bag full of candy bars,” he muttered around a mouthful of chocolate.
Tamara grinned. “I only bring those to bribe the nurses into—”
“Bribe?” Victor interrupted in a tone of mock indignation. “Why, Dr. St. John, I didn’t know you engaged in such unethical behavior. Shame on you.”
Tamara chuckled. “Yeah, well, some of us don’t have the nurses eating out of the palms of our hands. Some of us have to do more than wink and smile to get what we need around here.”
Victor gave her a look of sham innocence. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Tamara laughed . “Riiight.”
Grinning, he polished off his Snickers bar and snagged another one.
She shook her head at him. “Keep eating all that junk and your arteries will get clogged, then I’ll have to operate on you.”
“Good.”
“Good?”
He met her surprised gaze. “I wouldn’t entrust my life to anyone but you.”
Tamara warmed with pleasure at his words. “Likewise,” she murmured. And she meant it.
Victor smiled at her, his eyes glittering like molten sapphires.
As they stared at each other, the moment stretched into two.
Glancing away, Tamara busied herself with returning the remaining snacks to the bag. “You know,” she remarked offhandedly, “all the nurses think you look like Adam Rodriguez from CSI.”
“Yeah?” Victor drawled, leaning back in the chair and propping his sock-clad feet on the table as he continued munching on his candy bar. “And what do you think?”
She tilted her head to one side, lips pursed as she pretended to examine his masculine features. “I can definitely see the resemblance. But—” She broke off, shaking her head.
“But what?”
She hesitated, then sighed. “At the risk of further inflating your ego,” she said grudgingly, “I think you’re even better looking than Adam.”
A slow, wicked grin curved Victor’s mouth. “Are you flirting with me, Tamara?”
Heat rushed to her face. “Of course not.”
“Are you sure? Because that would be against hospital policy, and you know—”
She rolled her eyes in exasperation. “I’m not flirting with you. Sheesh. Can’t a woman compliment you without wanting to sleep with you?”
Victor looked thoughtful. “I don’t know. I’ve never met one.”
Sputtering with indignation, Tamara slapped his hard, muscled thigh. “Pendejo!” she hissed, seizing on her expanding Spanish vocabulary to call him a jerk.
He threw back his head and laughed, a strong, deep laugh that rumbled up from his chest and raised goose bumps along her skin. She’d have to be an occupant of the morgue not to be affected by his raw sex appeal.
“I forgot that you’re learning Spanish from Isabelle so you can communicate with more of your patients,” Victor said.
“That’s right, and I’m a damn quick learner. So pretty soon I’ll be able to insult you in two languages.”
Again he laughed, discarding his Snickers wrapper in the trash. “You knew I had to say something to get a rise out of you,” he teased. “We were getting along too well.”
“God forbid we should do that,” Tamara muttered, plumping up the stiff pillows before lying down on her side. “I’m going to sleep.”
“You can’t.”
“Says who?”
“You have to keep me company until my sugar rush wears off.”
She snorted. “No one told you to eat two candy bars.”
“I had the munchies. Come on, Tamara,” Victor cajoled, moving his foot from the table to playfully nudge her leg, a simple touch that sent heat crashing through her veins. “Keep me company.”
“Fine,” she relented with a huff, knowing damn well she wouldn’t have been able to sleep anyway.
Over the next few hours, as the storm raged on outside, she and Victor talked and laughed, swapping horror stories from medical school and comparing notes on the best and worst professors they’d had. When Victor’s cell phone beeped, he turned off the alarm and tossed the phone aside without missing a beat in their conversation. It seemed like they could talk all night and never run out of things to say to each other.
But eventually Tamara felt drowsiness settling over her like a warm blanket. Taking pity on Victor, who’d appeared increasingly uncomfortable in the chair, she invited him to share the bed with her.
It’s just for another hour or so, she told herself as he stretched out alongside her, the heat of his body penetrating hers even though they weren’t touching. Surely it won’t rain all night.
Before sleep claimed her, the last thought that drifted through her mind was that after tonight, things would never be the same between her and Victor.
Chapter 3
Victor was having the most amazing dream.
It had to be a dream because he certainly didn’t remember taking a date home last night, though it wouldn’t be the first time he’d woken up in a woman’s bed with no memory of how he’d gotten there.
But this time was different. The woman in his arms felt like she belonged there.
So she couldn’t be real, his subconscious rationalized. He had to be imagining the gentle rise and fall of plump breasts, the tantalizing thrust of nipples against his chest, the shapely swell of hips beneath his hand, the luscious curve of a feminine thigh draped across his waist. She wasn’t real, yet it seemed wholly natural for him to brush his lips over her forehead and nuzzle her soft, fragrant hair. And when she sighed contentedly and cuddled closer to him, he couldn’t be blamed for the hot rush of arousal that sped to his groin and had him cupping the woman’s lush, round bottom.
When she stiffened without warning, he snapped his eyes open.
And was greeted by the stunned, beautiful face of Tamara St. John.
They stared at each other in stricken silence.
