Flirting with the Doc of Her Dreams
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Janice Lynn
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HarlequinChapter One
ROLLING OVER IN bed and grabbing her cellular phone off the nightstand, sleepy-eyed nurse Beth Taylor squinted at the lit screen.
Who’d be texting her at...? She registered the time at just before midnight and winced. She’d just pulled two twelve-hour ICU shifts that had each been more along the line of sixteen hours. Exhausted, she’d hit the sack minutes after getting home.
The last thing she’d been expecting had been to be awakened by a text message. The phone number wasn’t one she recognized. If this was some sales advertisement she was going to scream.
Fighting a yawn, and her vision blurred with sleep, she touched the screen, opening the message.
Hello. If that was for sale, sign her up.
All traces of sleep vanishing, she stared at the text. More aptly at the photo burning her screen.
Burning her eyes into flaming orbs.
Wow.
She glanced at the number again and racked her brain, trying to figure out who the number belonged to.
Not one she knew.
Neither were those abs any she’d ever had the pleasure of setting eyes on in person. Ha, not even close. She only wished some hot guy would send her a picture like that. Sadly, hot or not, this was the closest she’d gotten to a bare male body outside the hospital—and that so didn’t count—since her break-up with Barry almost a year ago.
Okay, so the truth was she didn’t want some random hot guy to sext her, neither did she want her ex to sext her, text her, or anything else. It was one scorching hot man in particular she wanted paying her attention. Unfortunately, he already had an equally hot girlfriend and didn’t know Beth existed. Still, Dr. Eli Randolph was her fantasy guy, had been from the first time she’d seen him smile the day she’d started at Cravenwood Hospital a few months ago.
She wasn’t quite sure what it was about him that had hooked her so intently. Yes, he was total eye candy, but it was something beyond his looks, something deeper, something about the glimmer in his eyes, the sincerity in his laugh, the kindness with which he dealt with his patients and coworkers, and, yes, the warmth of his smile. She really liked the man’s smile. Then there was the outer packaging to all that inner wonderfulness that just made her knees weak. Eli was the whole package.
He was also someone else’s.
She would never step across that boundary. She’d been on the opposite side of that coin and it wasn’t a fun place to be. Never would she do that to someone.
Still, a girl was allowed a secret fantasy or two, right? Especially when that girl was as beat as she currently was. Perhaps she was so tired she was hallucinating the entire sext thing.
Maybe one of her friends was playing a joke on her.
A light bulb went off in her head. Sighing, she looked at the photo again. Yeah, that was a very realistic scenario now that she thought of it.
She’d pulled a prank on Emily earlier that week and her best friend had promised retribution. Hadn’t Emily mentioned a new phone application a while back where one could have their number appear as someone else’s?
Better to just ignore Emily than to encourage her. No telling what her roommate from college would do if given a little slack. Beth had learned that long before she’d moved to be near her friend when she’d wanted to make a fresh start far away from Barry and his new fiancée.
Stop sexting me, you perv.
Beth set her phone back on her night stand, punched her pillow, and prayed those sexted abs made an appearance in her dreams. At least in her dreams she should have a fabulous sex life, right?
At any rate, Emily couldn’t accuse her of showing how desperate she actually was. Her life, particularly her love life, was boring, boring, boring. Her best friend knew that and kept encouraging her to quit letting a man who didn’t know she existed hold up her love life. Problem was, no real-life man measured up to her fantasy guy.
Emily also frequently voiced that Beth might have subconsciously become fascinated by someone out of her reach so she didn’t have to move on beyond what had happened with Barry so she wouldn’t get hurt again. Wrong. She was so over that jerk who’d screwed her over. She knew not all men went back to their old girlfriends. Anyone who met Dr. Eli Randolph would know exactly why she’d become fascinated by him. It didn’t have a thing to do with her old hang-ups. The man was mega-hot and brilliant to boot.
Still, she really should take Emily’s advice and get a life outside work. Maybe she would go out with that guy from Administration who’d asked her to dinner a few times. She closed her eyes, saw a flash of blue eyes, curly brown hair, and a smile that took her breath away—all of which did not belong to the admin guy, but instead to a certain fantasy doctor.
Now wide awake, she rolled over in bed, picked up her phone and decided she might as well tell her friend she was onto her.
* * *
Leaning back against the leather sofa he’d sunk onto, Dr. Eli Randolph wondered just how low he’d gone.
Grimacing, he stared at the reply to his idiotic accidental text message.
Obviously not as low as he was going to go.
He raked his fingers over his tired eyes and shook his head in frustration.
He should have known better than to have taken that picture, much less considered sending it to his ex-girlfriend...or whomever he’d sent the bare-bellied photo to.
He’d been erasing Cassidy’s phone number one digit at a time, retyping it, time and again, wondering what was wrong with him that he couldn’t be happy with such an ideal-for-him woman, that her unexpected sext message and photo hadn’t provoked any of the right feelings inside him when logically it should have. She was a beautiful woman. What was wrong with him? Berating himself for not being able to love her the way he should, he’d hit a random number, realized what he’d done and gone to erase it, but had accidentally hit send instead.
He’d sent an inappropriate photo to a complete stranger whose phone number was one number off his perfect ex-girlfriend’s.
Perfect.
There went that word again. Tonight the word nauseated him.
Everyone was always telling him how lucky he was, how he had the perfect girlfriend, how he and Cassidy were the perfect couple, how he had the perfect life. Perfect. Perfect Cassidy. He’d dumped her a couple of weeks ago because of...he didn’t know why, just that he had told her they should start seeing other people.
Truth was Cassidy was the perfect woman. He’d spent three years of his life with her and had imagined he’d grow old with the pretty blonde hospitalist. Yet recently, when she’d started hinting about a ring, questioning why they hadn’t taken that next step, something had held him back. For lack of a better explanation, he’d told her they lacked physical passion. Tonight, she’d sexted him in ways that should put physical passion into any relationship. He’d wanted to feel something, but hadn’t. Knowing the problem lay within him and not within perfect Cassidy, he’d toyed with the idea of sexting back, to try to make himself feel something, anything. What was the worst thing that could happen?
He frowned at his cellular phone. What indeed?
Never in his life had he snapped pictures of his own body. But, nevertheless, he’d raised his shirt, flexed his abdominal muscles, snapped a picture, and let the thing sit unsent on his phone for over an hour. The sickening feeling in his belly had held him back, just as the feeling had held him back from giving in to Cassidy’s desire that he propose. No amount of sexting or wishing was going to make him want to marry Cassidy.
There was something wrong with him that he wanted more than a perfect woman, that he couldn’t be content with the idea of Cassidy as his wife and the mother of his children, that he couldn’t see himself waking up next to her for the next fifty-plus years. He hadn’t lied when he’d told her they lacked physical passion. He just didn’t feel a spark. Hadn’t in so long he couldn’t recall if there ever had been a spark or if she’d so ideally matched his criteria of what he wanted in a woman that he’d just imagined electricity between them.
Thank God he’d had enough sense to only snap his midsection. No face and nothing below the waist. The worst thing that could happen was he could be reported for harassment and his picture could be a social media blunder sensation, right?
His phone buzzed again. Wincing, he opened the text that no doubt would blast him for his depravity. Deservedly so. Maybe he should just apologize and admit to having sent the message by accident.
By the way, I know this is you, Emily. What did you do? Download that application to make your number appear as someone else’s? I’m so onto you. No worries. You didn’t interrupt anything in this girl’s bedroom except sleep.
Whoever had gotten his text thought he was someone else. That was fortunate. He should let it go at that, not say or do anything more. So why was he texting back? Boredom? Curiosity? Insanity?
What would you like me to have interrupted?
Feeling an even bigger fool than when he’d realized he’d sent the message and to the wrong number, he wondered at the force within him that had directed his fingers to reply. He really was messed up in the head, perhaps just from fatigue, but he definitely wasn’t thinking straight. He closed his eyes and waited for about thirty seconds before his phone buzzed.
Ha. As if you don’t already know the answer to that.
Remind me.
Dr. Eli Randolph tied to my bed and at the mercy of my tongue.
Eli’s jaw dropped. His brows rose. He stared at the number. He wasn’t tired any more. He was curious. Who had he sexted? Why was he typing out another message, because this had to be some kind of joke.
What would you do to Dr. Randolph with your tongue?
He’d started typing “me” and had to change it to “Dr. Randolph.”
The same thing every other living breathing woman wants to do to that man with her tongue.
Eli doubted that most women would even give him the time of day much less have tongue fantasies about him, especially if they knew there was something wrong with him emotionally. Okay, so he was a decent guy—minus the wayward random sext message and lack of ability to take that final step in a relationship—he enjoyed exercise and sports to where he stayed in decent shape, worked hard to where he had financial security, and he lived a good life. All of which had inspired Cassidy to want to shop for rings, but no tongue fantasies for either of them. Lord, how long had it been since he’d even let his mind fantasize about a woman? Any woman? To just close his eyes and think about sex?
With Cassidy, he’d thought about how compatible they were, how well they got along, how they could have the perfect life together, how she’d pass along her good genes to his children, but he hadn’t been able to take the steps that would bring all those things to fruition. Just as he hadn’t thought about sex.
He was a man. He should have been thinking about sex at least occasionally. What was wrong with him?
Tell me.
Because, crazy as it was, he wanted to know. He wanted to think about sex, to feel normal, rather than somehow lacking for not being able to commit to an amazing woman like Cassidy.
Lick every pore on his scrumptious body until he screams my name in ecstasy.
Eli swallowed. This was crazy. He was crazy. He was thinking about sex now.
What name would that be?
You’re a little slow here, Em. He’d be screaming my name.
Which didn’t tell him anything. He stared at his phone screen and tried to figure out how to reply. Before he could decide his phone buzzed again.
The woman he needs to dump his perfect girlfriend for and whisk me away for a wild weekend of really hot S-E-X. Our bodies slick with sweat and gliding against each other. His mouth on me. My mouth on him. That’s what you should have interrupted. Not that I’d have answered your text had I been doing any of those things.
Eli gulped. He was not a guy who got off on this kind of thing. He was sure of it.
Dr. Randolph doesn’t have a girlfriend, he typed. They were no longer a couple even if she had sent him the unexpected sext message. He’d thought she was okay with their break-up, but maybe he’d been wrong. Regardless, he wouldn’t be changing his mind. That he couldn’t respond to her sext message, that he had sent his fumbled attempt to a stranger, that he was more stimulated by a text conversation with that stranger than his ex-girlfriend spoke volumes.
Which was crazy. For all he knew, he could be texting with an eighty-year-old granny. Or a man.
Now, there was a buzz killer of a thought.
No, the texter had implied she was female when she’d said it was the same thing every woman wanted and when she’d said “this girl’s bedroom.” He was texting with a female. A female around his age. He was sure of it.
Dr. Randolph and Dr. Qualls broke up? When? Why haven’t you told me this? What kind of best friend are you?
He should put his phone down and not text any more. He wasn’t a man who texted with women he didn’t know. Totally not cool and not his style. He’d broken things off with his perfect girlfriend and needed to figure out what was wrong with him, not become some weirdo who texted with strangers.
Or not with a stranger. This was someone who knew him and Cassidy. Who?
A couple of weeks ago, he responded. So maybe he was a weirdo who texted with strange women.
Em, if this is your idea of a joke, I’m going to kill you.
Why would this Em person joke about him and Cassidy having broken up?
Are you sure? I hadn’t heard that and you know how everyone at the hospital gossips.
He doubted many people knew about them having broken up. Not that he cared who knew, but he hadn’t advertised the fact around the hospital. His private life wasn’t his coworkers’ business. He doubted Cassidy had told many people either.
Positive.
They’d stay broken up. He’d truly believed Cassidy to be the woman he’d spend his life with. Maybe he just hadn’t been ready for marriage; maybe when the time was right, his expectations wouldn’t be so impossible. Maybe.
They’re still friends.
Picture me rolling my eyes, Em. She was clearly in love with him. If they’re still friendly it’s because she hopes they’ll get back together.
Was that why she’d sexted him tonight? Because she’d hoped to spark physical passion and for them to get back together? Deep down, Eli knew the reasons he hadn’t proposed to Cassidy went much deeper than their lack of physical passion. Something more than sex had been missing. Which was why he knew there was a problem with him. Cassidy was his best friend, a beautiful woman, brilliant, good-hearted, and he’d broken up with her because when it came to the rest of his life, he wanted more. He was insane.
Was it also insane that he wished he could picture the texter rolling her eyes? That he’d like some visual image to go with their conversation? He had friends who’d dated via meeting someone on social media. He’d thought them nuts, but maybe there was something to the anonymity of it all that let a person step outside their normal shells. Certainly, he’d never imagined himself being intrigued by a stranger saying she wanted to tie him to a bed and lick him. But he was.
If she’s smart she’ll win him back.
Eli shook his head at his phone. Not going to happen. Ever. Until tonight he honestly hadn’t thought Cassidy wanted to win him back. She’d accepted his ending things as if she’d already come to the same conclusion.
How would you win him back?
Hell-o! I’d never have lost him to begin with, came the immediate response.
Eli laughed, liking the texter’s spunk. Yeah, he wished he had a visual to go with the messages.
I’d have him tied to my bed and at my mercy, remember?
How could I forget?
Eli closed his eyes and tried to imagine being tied to a bed. He’d never done that. Never given up control during sex, or to a woman, not that there had been that many. There hadn’t.
I guess you have heard me mention my obsession with Dr. Randolph a time or two, huh, Em? Sorry.
Obsession? With him? Who was he texting with? Was it someone who had recognized his number and was having fun at his expense?
Em. Emily. He racked his brain. The only Emilys he knew were Emily Jacobs, a bright dyed red-haired registered nurse who worked in the hospital emergency department most of the time, but occasionally filled in at ICU, and the Emily from high school who had sat behind him in chemistry, but he hadn’t seen her in years. Then again, Cravenwood was a decent-sized college town. There were probably hundreds of Emilys in the middle Tennessee area. But this one was privy to hospital gossip. Were there other Emilys at Cravenwood Hospital?
Game’s up, Em. You’ve had your fun. We both know the perfect couple are still in hotness bliss.
Eli winced at the texter’s use of the word perfect.
Maybe you’re right and I just need to forget him, the texter continued, and Eli felt her frustration in each word.
I can’t believe you chose tonight to do this. You know I just pulled two sixteen-hour shifts thanks to Leah being out sick.
Leah being out sick. Whoever this was definitely worked at the hospital with him. Bells rang in Eli’s head.
Leah Windham?
She’s the only Leah in ICU. You’ve had your fun. We’ve both got to be at the hospital early in the morning. Go kiss your hunky boyfriend and let me sleep. Goodnight, Emily.
Goodnight.
Whoever she was.
* * *
“This isn’t funny,” Beth insisted, grabbing an apple from the lunch line and wishing she could squeeze it like a stress ball. “’Fess up. You were just telling me about that phone app that makes your number appear as someone else’s last week. I know it was you last night.”
Following closely behind her in the hospital cafeteria lunch line, her best friend snickered. “I wish it had been, but I’m telling you, it wasn’t me.”
Emily had insisted the same thing earlier in the day when she had called the ICU regarding a patient and Beth had asked about the messages. She still wasn’t convinced her friend hadn’t sent the texts. The body build was wrong for the photo to have been a posed shot of Eddie, but Emily could have easily found the picture online. It was just the kind of thing jokester Emily would do. No doubt her friend would play the prank out a bit longer.
“You should show me the text messages,” Emily said as they sat down at a table in the hospital cafeteria. Not that either of them would be able to stay there long. Beth was surprised her friend had been able to sneak away from the emergency department at all. As a nurse, one never knew if you’d actually get a lunch break or not.
“You should confess that you sent the messages.”
Emily shook her head. “Wasn’t me, I promise.” Her friend waggled her perfectly waxed brows and crossed her heart. “Hope you didn’t say anything incriminating.”
“You know exactly what I said and about whom.”
Her friend’s eyes widened. “You revealed your crush on Dr. Randolph—” her friend mouthed the name rather than speaking it out loud in case someone t overheard “—to the mystery texter? As in, you gave a name?”
The absolute shock on Emily’s heart-shaped face had Beth’s stomach spasming. Despite the local theater her friend often volunteered at she wasn’t that good an actress, was she?
Trying to pretend she wasn’t freaking out inside, Beth took a bite of her apple, chewed slowly, let loose an inner scream of denial, then shrugged. “I don’t want to discuss this any more.”
“I do.” Emily’s eyes glowed with excitement. “I want to know who you were texting with, because Eddie seriously had me otherwise occupied last night.”
Trying to squash her doubts and thoughts of what her best friend claimed to have been doing instead, Beth shrugged. “Then I guess we’ll never know, will we?”
Lord, she hoped her friend was teasing, that Emily had been the texter, as she’d been so positive about the night before when she’d been too tired to think clearly. Good ole Emily. Always pulling her leg and trying to push her out of her comfortable protective shell.
“Sure we will.”
Beth cut her gaze to her best friend. “How?”
“Hello.” Emily snapped her fingers in front of Beth’s face. “You’re smarter than that.”
Realization dawned and Beth’s jaw dropped. “Uh-uh. No way am I calling that number.”
Emily held out her hand. “Fine. I will. Give me your phone.”
“No way.” Beth’s gut clenched into tight knots. “If I wasn’t texting with you, then I prefer not knowing who now knows my biggest secret. How humiliating?!”
Emily didn’t look impressed by Beth’s inner misery. “So what if someone knows you think Dr. Randolph is the cat’s meow? The man is hot. It’s a fact.”
Beth couldn’t stop her blush.
“Plus, if what you said is true and he and Dr. Qualls have broken up, then he’s fair game now.” Emily waggled her perfectly plucked brows. “If you ask me, you should tell him you think he’s one fine specimen of a man.”
Beth went into sensory overload and mental shutdown any time the man was near. The last thing she should do was tell him how fine she thought he was. She shook her head. “I don’t know that they’ve broken up. Plus, even if they have broken up, they’ll probably just get back together.”
“Ask him, and you can’t judge every man by what Barry did.”
Beth shook her head harder, faster, as if that made her response more negative and would jar Barry Neal from her mind forever.
“You have a serious problem, you know.”
Beth knew.
“You let a stupid ex influence how you view all men, influence how you dress and act, and then, when you finally start getting over him, you fall crazy in lust with a man you avoid at all costs. I’ve never seen feet move as fast as yours any time he comes near.” Emily gave a disappointed sigh. “I really think this whole Eli thing is just another way for you to avoid getting back into the dating saddle.”
“Maybe.” But she really didn’t think so because she’d like to be back in the dating saddle. As far as the way she dressed and acted went, Emily was referring to her college days. One couldn’t wear streaks of blue in one’s hair, a nose ring, and colorful Hello Kitty T-shirts and retro make-up forever. The changes in her had nothing to do with Barry having crushed her heart and spirit. She’d grown up, had a more mature look, that was all.
“You’re crazy,” Emily accused.
If she’d revealed her silly schoolgirl crush on Dr. Randolph to some stranger then she couldn’t argue with her friend’s assessment of her mental state. She was crazy.
Crazy about a man who didn’t know she existed.
* * *
Whether to distract himself of his failure with Cassidy or for some other insane reason, Eli had thought of little other than the previous night’s text messages. He’d even gone so far as to try to track down who the number belonged to via the internet but had been unsuccessful as the number wasn’t a public one.
He couldn’t seem to put the messages from his head.
Especially at moments like the present one.
Moments he was at the hospital and searching every face as if somehow he’d figure out who the texter was by the look on her face. What did he expect? That the truth would be stamped across her forehead like a scarlet letter?
Most likely, whoever the texter was, she worked in ICU since she’d had to work late to cover for Leah Windham. She was also probably a nurse. Which made sense since she was friends with Emily Jacobs.
With a little patience and a leading conversation to find out who’d worked late the night before, he’d have this figured out before the day ended.
Usually he rivaled Job on the patience score, but today he just felt antsy. He wanted to know whom he’d been texting. Why it was so imperative, he wasn’t sure—he just needed to know.
He’d actually considered asking Emily which one of her friends was obsessed with him, but figured the woman would tell him where he could go rather than give him a name.
“Dr. Randolph?” A pleasant female in her mid-fifties caught him just as he’d been heading for the elevator. “A patient is being admitted to 303 with a pulmonary embolism and you’ve been consulted on her,” the charge nurse told him. “She’s not on the floor yet, but should be within a half hour.”
“Thanks, Ruth.” Glancing at his watch, he figured he should grab something to eat while still at the hospital. Then hopefully the new admission would be on the floor and he’d do the consult prior to heading back to his office to start his afternoon appointments.
Maybe, just maybe, while in the ICU, he’d get a glimpse of whoever he’d been texting with the night before, because, whoever she was, his interest was piqued.
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