Interesting.
“Sure you don’t want to think about it?” he teased, enjoying the blush in her cheeks.
“Positive. Some things a girl just knows.”
“Yeah?” He arched his brow. “There’s some things a woman just knows, too.”
Her gaze searched his and her voice cracked a little when she asked, “Such as?”
“How she responds to a man.” There were definitely sparks flying back and forth. He might have had a rough day but he wasn’t hallucinating the energy between them.
Not that he understood the chemistry, but he’d have to be brain dead not to recognize the man-woman pull.
“Don’t go confusing me with one of your bimbos,” she warned, chin notching upward. “I’m not interested in a guy like you.”
“A guy like me? Oh, yeah.” He grinned, refusing to be insulted. “We established that I’m shallow.”
Her gaze narrowed further, but the outraged look wasn’t working. Not when her lips twitched.
“I didn’t call you shallow,” she pointed out.
“You didn’t correct me.”
“Because you weren’t wrong,” she countered.
He arched his brow.
Rather than answer, she jumped up from the chair and gave him an expectant look. “Do you or do you not want to see Keeley with me?”
Standing, he grinned. “I most definitely want to see Keeley with you, Doc.”
Her hands went to her hips. “Don’t call me that.”
“Why not?” He kind of liked the nickname. It fit. Plus, she needed a nickname to lighten her up a bit. “It’s as good a nickname as any.”
“You don’t need a nickname for me.”
“Sure I do, so I can call it out when you’re ninja-ing in and out of your apartment.”
“Ninja-ing?”
“That thing you do where you come and go and hope no one sees.”
“Whereas you hang around in the hallway long enough to make sure everyone sees you in your God-given glory?”
Lord, he loved her sharp wit, that whatever he threw out, she had a quick response. “Does that bother you?”
“Of course not. You can do whatever you want. In your apartment. With your bimbos.”
“They aren’t bimbos.”
“They’re not bright and upstanding citizens.”
“For all you know about them, they could be.”
“I know they spent the night with a man who used them so that checks bright right off their list of attributes.”
“Sex for mutual pleasure isn’t my using them any more than it is their using me.”
“So it’s a case of mutual using and that somehow makes it okay? Keep fooling yourself if you want, but there are some of us smart enough to know better.”
He was standing so close to her now that he was looking straight down into her eyes, was tempted to remove her glasses so he could more fully see into their depths.
“I suppose a really pessimistic, prudish person might see mutual pleasure that way.” He egged her on, liking the spark his words elicited.
“And who are you? Mr. Optimism? Going around spreading happiness and cheer?” she scoffed with an exaggerated eye roll. “More like spreading something else with how many different women I’ve seen come out of your apartment.”
His lips twitched. “You keeping tabs?”
“Hardly, but I’m not blind.”
Arguable with those ugly glasses she wore.
“For the record, I’m not spreading anything.” He wanted the record straight. He wouldn’t let himself delve into why it mattered, but he needed her to know the truth. “I’m a safety kind of guy. Always.”
“Who runs into burning buildings when everyone else is running out? Yeah, try selling me another one.”
“Someone has to do it.”
Her chin tilted upward and her gaze didn’t waver behind the thick glasses. “Good thing there’s you.”
“Yeah, good thing.”
* * *
A bone-weary Sarah ninja-ed down the hallway and stealthily let herself into her apartment, pausing in her open doorway to glance at Jude’s closed door.
So much had happened since that morning when he’d been standing in that doorway.
He’d been flirting with her at the hospital.
She should have checked him for hypoxemia-induced psychosis related to smoke inhalation.
Because no way was he in his right mind.
Or maybe it was her who wasn’t in her right mind.
Maybe she’d accidentally inhaled some anesthesia or hallucinogenic medication that was messing with her head.
Something was messing with her head.
More like someone.
Because Jude’s teasing and hot looks refused to leave her mind even long after he’d left the hospital.
For the rest of her shift and an hour into the next when she’d stayed to help catch up the overload of patients, she’d battled with the facts that Jude was a womanizer, an incurable flirt, heroic when he’d rushed into a burning building to save Keeley, and sweet when he’d waited at the hospital.
Heroic. Sweet. Not adjectives she’d have ever thought she’d attach to the incorrigible towel-wearing man from that morning.
Unable to stop herself, she glanced toward his closed apartment door again. Was he home?
Should she check on him, make sure he was all right, that the smoke truly hadn’t gotten to him, that he’d rehydrated well?
Then again, he might not be alone and the absolute last thing she wanted was to see Jude Davenport with another woman twice in the same day.
Especially after he’d so blatantly flirted with her.
Especially after, despite her best attempts not to, she’d so blatantly liked his flirting.
So, her neighbor had a few redeeming qualities.
That
