Tamed By Her Army Doc's Touch

Lilah turned and found her nose practically touching a crisp white shirt. Startled to find him so close, she took a step back and slid her gaze up past a green-and-gold-patterned tie, strong tanned throat and hard jaw. Her gaze lingered for a couple of seconds on his mouth before lifting to look into deep green eyes surrounded by fringes of long dark lashes.

Her stomach gave an alarming little dip.

“Oh … uh … Dr. Sullivan,” she said lamely, and cursed the breathless quality of her voice. “It’s you.”

“Uh-huh.” He lifted one eyebrow in a move that made Lilah wish she could look as mocking. “Expecting someone? Webster, maybe?”

“Peter?” Lilah was confused. “Why would I be waiting for him?”

Luke rocked back on his heels and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Peter?” he demanded with a ferocious scowl. “Since when are you on first-name terms with the Emperor of ER?”

“Since it’s none of your business,” she shot back, angered and confused by his confrontational attitude. The last time she’d seen him he’d been dressed like a bad biker dude. But at least he’d been smiling. Right now, glaring at her as though she’d done something unforgivable, he looked like a sophisticated angel of doom. A very sexy angel of doom. Darn him. And darn those tingles.

She turned back to pretend interest in the seating plan and tried to ignore the way the hair at the nape of her neck lifted—as though straining towards him—like he was a giant magnet yanking at every atom of iron in her body. Then he leaned closer and the tingles turned into a full-body shiver accompanied by goose bumps and tightening nipples.

Her eyes widened and she sucked in a shocked squeak.

Stop that, she ordered, but her body ignored the warning despite every instinct alerting her to danger. Holy cow, his blatant masculinity called to something deep and primal and feminine within her—something that had chosen now, of all times, to awaken and unfurl deep in her belly. She held her breath and kept her body as still as she could. Maybe he’d think she was a statue and go away.

Please go away.

“Why did you tell everyone I saved the kid, wild thing?” he murmured softly in her ear, and the breath she’d sucked in escaped in a soundless whoosh. She felt at once dizzy and amazingly clear-headed; something that was not only impossible but alarming.

And she didn’t like it. And because she didn’t, her spine stiffened and she said, “You did.”

“Did not,” he denied softly, chuckling when she made an annoyed sound in her throat.

Schooling her features, she turned slowly to face him. “I have no desire to become a celebrity,” she informed him coolly. And she had no desire to become some rich playboy’s newest toy either.

Luke rocked back on his heels, his hands shoved casually in his pockets. One dark brow arched arrogantly. “And you think I do?”

Lilah shrugged. “You have broad shoulders.” She let her gaze drift over his wide, solid chest. “You can handle it,” she added, before turning on her four-inch heels and escaping into the ballroom.

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_78455997-f8c9-5905-8c73-4a1ae6b26069)

THE INSTANT DINNER ENDED, Lilah escaped to the ladies’ room to freshen her make-up and shore up her shaky composure. What the heck had Jenna been thinking to seat her beside Luke Sullivan?

Okay, so she knew what Jenna had been thinking. It was what everyone else had been thinking ever since the tabloids had hit the stands this morning. Damn that picture. And damn the rosy cloud of romance Jenna was floating around on. She was madly in love and wanted everyone else to be too.

Little did she know that Luke Sullivan was the last person Lilah would ever consider having a romantic anything with. And although he wasn’t her boss, he was the boss’s nephew. In Lilah’s mind it was the same thing. It was a nightmare to go along with all the other nightmares she’d had recently. Like South America but with a guy she couldn’t ignore no matter how much she tried. A guy who refused to let her ignore him.

The harder she tried the more perverse pleasure he seemed to take in sabotaging her. Like brushing against her when she talked to the man on her left or accidentally bumping her arm and spilling her champagne down her cleavage.

And he smelled delicious. Like warm, virile man and cool, earthy forest. Every breath she took filled her senses with his wonderfully warm woodsy smell until she was dizzy with the notion of finding out exactly where it originated. With her mouth.

Or maybe that was just the champagne.

Whatever it was, she became excruciatingly aware of his every move, and soon found herself holding her breath, waiting for his next. And, boy, he made plenty. Playing with the stem of his wine glass, invading her space while he kept her champagne glass filled, or removing his jacket and tie, rolling up his shirtsleeves to expose the corded strength of his forearms and his big boney wrists. Accidentally brushing his knuckles against her thigh.

And breathing. Especially breathing.

It all combined to make her as twitchy as a preschooler in Sunday Mass, and if she’d gulped down more champagne than usual, it was his fault. As was the headache blooming behind her eyes.

Exhaling with relief at finally being able to breathe without inhaling his potent masculinity, Lilah joined a host of other women at the mirrors. While listening to the gossip flowing around her, she spent a few minutes wrestling with her hair, even though she knew it was a lost cause. Taming the long curls had always been a challenge.

Finally, when she could no longer avoid the inevitable, she shoved everything back into her clutch bag and left the bathroom, praying Luke Sullivan had ridden off into the sunset on his big black hog. Maybe then she could start enjoying the evening.

Following the sounds of the band, she exchanged a few greetings with other guests on their way back to the ballroom and paused in the doorway as Jenna and Greg took to the floor for the newlyweds’ dance.

It was a beautiful moment and she couldn’t help feeling a little envious of the way Greg looked at his new bride. The couple practically glowed with happiness, reminding Lilah she hadn’t had anything resembling a date in over two years.

The dance ended to hoots and cheers as the couple shared a heated embrace. Without pausing, the band segued into another song and the little pinch of envy became a sharp ache of emptiness as Jenna’s father stepped onto the dance floor. He tapped Greg’s shoulder then swept his daughter into his arms with a look of such pride and love that Lilah felt tears prick the backs of her eyes.

This was a moment she would never experience for herself. And though she tried to shove them back into hiding, all the old feelings of resentment and abandonment she hadn’t felt since adolescence came rushing back.

Right there in the midst of celebration she was sucked back to her mother’s death and the letter telling Lilah about her father.

It had taken her almost a year to get past the grief and anger following the plane crash that had killed her mother to summon the courage to open it. Sometimes Lilah wished she never had—wished she didn’t know about her mother’s summer internship at a prestigious Seattle law firm or her wild romance with the married son of the firm’s founding partner. Life would have been so much simpler.

When twenty-two-year-old Grace Meredith had revealed she was pregnant, Rowan Franklin had been furious. He’d accused her of trying to ruin his life and his career, and then he’d offered her money.

Her mother hadn’t exactly said it had been for a termination, but Lilah wasn’t stupid. She could read between the lines. Even at sixteen she’d known her father had paid Grace to have an abortion then kicked her to the curb like an unwanted pet.

She clearly remembered hopping on an intercity bus with plans to confront him. Lilah snorted silently. She didn’t know what she’d expected, but to a girl who’d dreamed of the day she would meet him, Rowan Franklin III had been handsome and dazzling as a movie star. She recalled being struck dumb in his presence as a chaotic mix of anger and desperate hope filled her.

Unfortunately, he’d been no happier to see her then than he’d been the day her mother had dropped the baby bombshell. He’d checked his watch and listened impatiently while she’d introduced herself and explained about her mother’s death. When she’d finished, he’d walked to his desk, pulled out his checkbook, and without once looking in her direction he’d coldly asked how much it would take for her to go away.

She’d been devastated. With one stroke of his ten-thousand-dollar gold pen he’d destroyed a young girl’s fragile dreams as easily as he’d signed his name.

So she’d reacted badly.

Lilah huffed out a silent laugh. Okay, badly was an understatement. She’d flung scathing insults in his smug, handsome face and when he’d looked her in the eye and denied being her father, she’d snatched some fancy glass paperweight along with several family photographs from his desk and hurled them at the wall of glass cabinets behind him. The destruction had been as satisfying as it had been horrifying. Even to this day she couldn’t believe what she’d done.

White-faced with fury, he’d stalked over, grabbed her arm in a bruising grip and dragged her to the door. Then he’d slapped the check in her hand and warned that if she ever contacted him or tried to blackmail him again, he would have her arrested.

She’d walked into that lavishly appointed corner office a nervous, eager child with dreams of finding a father who’d been searching for his daughter and had left with her heart and pride in tatters. She’d also left determined never to let anyone close enough to hurt her again.

That meeting had cured her of any “daddy” issues she might have had. And just in case she forgot, she’d kept that uncashed check of twenty-five thousand dollars as a reminder that she had to rely on herself and that some men made promises they never intended to keep.

Lost in the past, she didn’t notice someone come up behind her until a deep voice drawled, “Don’t tell me you buy into all this sappy stuff, wild thing?”

Startled, Lilah sucked in a sharp breath and rounded on him. “Will you stop sneaking up on me?” she snapped, slapping a shaking hand over her pounding heart. “And stop calling me that.” Besides, she didn’t want to be anything like her mother.

Luke shoved his hands in his pockets and hiked a dark brow up his forehead as though she was acting crazy. Lilah felt a little crazy. He made her crazy, dammit.

“Lady, you’re either in hearts-and-roses land or you need another glass of champagne.” He snagged one from a passing waiter and shoved it at her. “Here, maybe this will help.”

Lilah stepped back and looked at the glass like it might bite her. Frankly, the last thing she needed was another glass of champagne. Muttering something, she swung away to watch as other couples began drifting onto the dance floor. Maybe if she ignored him long enough he’d get the hint and go away.