Sexual Healing for Three (4 page)

A likely story
, Chance had thought.

Don’t bet on it
, Donna’s look had echoed.

Chance grinned now at the memory of his previous meetings with Donna. He’d seen her in action often enough to be impressed with her zeal and dedication. In fact, he saw a bit of himself in her, especially the unfortunate dark half-circles beneath her doe eyes. The half-circles did nothing to detract from her peaches-and-cream beauty, however, only enhanced it, made her seem more human instead of the superwoman she tried to project to the world.

She needed a hug and a cuddle in the worst way, and he wanted to be the man to give these and more to her. Problem was, he couldn’t see an in past her woman-on-a-mission, no-time-for-a-social-life shields. They were always up, almost impenetrable, and one of the first things he had noticed about her for the simple fact that he couldn’t read her like he read the average person when he tried. Of course he rarely tried. His own personal ethics and the Wiccan Rede 28

Gracie C. McKeever

by which he lived and breathed forbade him from going but so far with his gift of telepathy. Now the empathy and healing he used as often as he could without completely depleting himself. Reading or influencing someone’s mind was an unforgivable invasion of privacy, but there was nothing in the Rede against giving the healing process a little push.

Chance regulated his empathy now to tune into Donna and sensed her weariness before she even opened her mouth to sigh and respond.

“You want the long version or the short?”

“I want whatever version you feel like giving me.” Chance closed the couple of feet between them and rubbed her back, letting his hand linger just long enough to warm her skin through the thin silk blouse she was wearing. She just barely leaned into his touch, zinging heat and electricity straight to his rock-hard dick with her instant reaction before she pulled away slightly. It was enough for him to get the message, though—stay away!

She was only going to let him in so far.

“He could have killed her, Chance.”

His heart stuttered at the despair and pain in her whispered words, his arms aching to go around her and just hold tight. Instead, he turned to follow her gaze and saw the woman in the exam room behind him having her ribs wrapped while a police officer stood watch and questioned her.

“If I was a man…”

Chance turned back to Donna, unsurprised to see anger and determination replace her earlier hopelessness and knew she would have killed the man responsible for hurting her ward, or at least she would have tried to.

“Is she going to press charges?”

“I finally convinced her it was the best course of action at this point. We’re going to relocate her and her kids to Safe Haven while the bastard’s cooling his heels in jail. By the time he posts bail,
if
he
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29

does, we’ll be well on our way to getting her and the kids new identities.”

“Damn, that’s drastic. No other option?”

Donna shook her head. “Wish there was, but this guy’s an animal.

It’s a wonder he hasn’t killed her already. And the kids, of course, would be next.”

“Where are they now?”

Donna turned to nod at the two small figures huddled together on the orange plastic chairs in the waiting area. They couldn’t have been more than four and five. “They’re emotionally drained and all cried out. I told them I’d check on their mommy before I came back and took them to get something to eat.”

Chance checked his watch. He had some time to kill, maybe twenty minutes before the next emergency came in. “Tell you what.

Why don’t I take you all across the street to Charlie’s Grill
for a couple of burgers and some fries?”

Donna grinned, and his heart pounded blood to his cock so hard and fast he thought it would burst out of his pants.

This woman did wicked things to his body without ever touching him, and he had to recite the periodic table in his head to get himself under some control.

“I thought you didn’t eat meat,” she said, and for some reason her knowledge gave him hope that she didn’t just see him as a colleague, that somewhere along the line she had either listened to news about him through the hospital grapevine or had purposely solicited information about him. The latter thought especially made his dick twitch.

“They serve soups and salads too. Maybe they aren’t as healthy as stuff at a health food store or the hospital cafeteria. But I figure you and the kids would appreciate getting out and away from the hospital for a while, and Charlie’s features some pretty cool video games.”

Donna gave him a genuine smile that lit up her mink eyes.

Damn, he was a goner.

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Gracie C. McKeever

“Sounds like a plan then,” she said.

Now Chance grinned. Normally, she’d have said no, and he saw the sudden realization of her slipup when her eyes widened right before she sighed again.

“It’s been a long day.”

“You don’t have to explain. Obviously, you need a break. Come on.” He turned to make a beeline for the kids, but she stopped him in his tracks when she grabbed his arm.

“It’s not just that I need a break.”

He turned to stare at her. “No?”

“I need to talk to you about something…personal.”

Now this was interesting. Not just the hesitation in her voice, which he hadn’t witnessed since meeting her, but the
personal
part.

Personal how, and what had he done to deserve such an unexpected surprise and treat? At least he hoped it was a treat. “Sure you want to do that in front of the kids?”

She frowned, then burst out laughing, consequently bursting his bubble. “It’s not that personal. I just have a little favor to ask.”

Chance squinted at her with mock menace, determined not to let her know she had so thoroughly sunk his hopes. “You want a favor from the Godfather?” he rasped in his best Don Corleone imitation.

It had the desired effect, Donna’s girlish musical giggles heating him from the inside out.

Damn, he had just gotten his boner under control too. What was he thinking to make her laugh and get his juices flowing again?

She grabbed his hand. “Come on, nut. We’ll talk over burgers.”

* * * *

Donna needed a man. Not just any man, but someone bright, articulate, and relatively attractive if she was going to be looking at him across a table half the evening. She needed someone convincing
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enough as her date to get Angela-the-matchmaker off her ass with all the hook-up schemes.

She didn’t have a soul mate, didn’t believe in them, end of story.

But a half an hour later, with a cheeseburger and French fries platter half eaten—she was going to have to double up on her aerobics and weight training to work it off for sure—Donna was tongue-tied and at a loss how to open.

Fortified with pockets full of quarters for the greasy spoon’s video games compliments of Chance, Naomi’s two kids were occupied and certainly giving Donna the privacy she needed to say what she wanted. Sitting across from Chance, however, gazing into his familiar, intense brandy eyes, she couldn’t think of a coherent thing to say. That she had blurted her need of a favor was bad enough. That she wanted him to say yes once she broached the subject again was even worse.

Never mind. He was definitely a man, and he fit all of her aforementioned prerequisites to serve as an escort to Angela’s backyard-completion celebration, especially the attractive part. And maybe that was the problem in a nutshell.

Donna was attracted to him, too attracted. She didn’t like being attracted to Chance, to any man. Attraction led to desire, which led to lust, which eventually led to loss of control and hot, sweaty sex on any available surface. That was something Donna could not allow—

loss of self-control. The sweaty sex on any available surface wasn’t something she’d totally discount, of course. She just couldn’t lose control, couldn’t lose sight of what was important to her, couldn’t let desire and sex take her focus off of her calling to help women less fortunate than her.

But damn, if she was going to fall down on the job and into bed with anyone, Chance was the perfect candidate for the position—any position, all positions.

Stop it! That’s not why you’re here. Keep it clean and all
business. That’s it. Present your case in a cool, calm, and logical
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Gracie C. McKeever

manner. No need to get intimate and personal. It’s just a favor. He’ll
either go for it or he won’t.

“So, about this favor?”

Her gaze shot from a pair of the most sumptuous lips on a man she had ever seen to Chance’s eyes before instantly sliding down to his mouth again. She licked her own lips, wondering what it would feel like to sink her teeth into his slightly fuller bottom one.

“Earth to Donna.” Chance waved a hand in her face.

Donna swallowed to keep from drooling. She had never been so turned on and nervous around a man before. Not that she thought Chance noticed. She was good at covering her discomfort around him, had a lot of practice hiding her emotions. She didn’t like giving men the upper hand, and like nothing else, showing her emotions gave them this and more.

When she gave a man the upper hand, he invariably took advantage and hurt her. Her ex-husband Peter had. Her ex-boyfriend Bo had. And then there were the countless other men she’d given the time of day to who thought that women had been put on this earth strictly for their amusement, someone on whom they could take out their frustrations on the world.

If men didn’t hurt women physically, then they screwed with their minds and emotions, neither option acceptable to her.

Donna was not going to let herself become a basket case wondering what
she
had done wrong. She would not be the fall girl again.

She cleared her throat. “I think I might have spoken too soon before. Please forget I mentioned anything.”

“Like that’s going to happen.” He peered at her, pushed her platter to the side, then leaned his elbows on the table. “Spill it. What’s the favor?”

Donna homed in on the crystal pendant dangling from a thin black leather strap around Chance’s neck. She recognized it as something Angela might wear. That woman wore all kinds of mystical-looking
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jewelry, and every piece meant or did something for her—aided healing, aided lucid and prophetic dreaming, aided clairvoyance.

Tempting fate, Donna impulsively reached out to touch Chance’s pendant and wondered what sort of aid it provided for him. His Adam’s apple bobbed an inch above her fingers as she brushed his skin, and she instantly became wet from the contact.

God, how could she be so turned on from a mere touch and with her clothes still on?

She should have jerked back her hand, but she didn’t, too attracted to Chance’s body heat and the heat from his crystal, each holding its own distinctive energy. She didn’t know how she knew this, but she did.

Damn it, Angela, the interfering busybody, was rubbing off on her. .

She glanced up into Chance’s eyes, fingering the pendant as he silently waited. “The favor I need…”

He arched a brow, just looked at her.

“My sister’s having a barbecue to celebrate and unveil the work she just had done on her backyard, and I need a date to go with me to the party, but it’s okay if you say no. I’ll perfectly understand. I mean, we barely know each other, and it’s kind of last minute and—” Donna cut herself off, her jaw unhinged. God, she was babbling! She never babbled. She was a forty-eight-year-old workaholic, not an oversexed teen with a crush. Babbling was a sign of an immature, unfocused mind, and Donna’s mind was always focused. Her job seeing to the needs of abused women and sometimes their children demanded nothing less of her.

Chance reached for the fingers that were busy fondling his crystal, took her hand in his, and gently squeezed. “It’s a good thing I’m a doctor and the hospital is nearby. You might need a hit of oxygen after expelling that mouthful.”

She slid her hand from his. “I knew this was a mistake.”
It was a
mistake in more ways than one.

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Gracie C. McKeever

“Who says?”

“Look, like I said. Forget I asked.”

“Not likely. Cat’s out of the bag now.”

“Chance…” Her eyes dropped to his lips again, then down to the pendant. In that instant, she realized she really didn’t know all that much about Chance Novak other than he was a colleague, one she saw far too often in the line of duty.

To throw a
date
into the mix of their professional relationship would just make things too complicated, even if it was understood he was just doing her a favor, a favor she still wasn’t sure she wanted him to agree to. If he said yes, well, that presented more problems than it solved.

“When’s this party?”

“You really don’t need to do this.”

“I want to.”

“Why?” She gave him her steely man-eater glare and expected him to gasp and back off like most men with good sense would have.

But Chance didn’t back off. He met her stare head-on with one of his own, engaging her in an impromptu match of stare-down, which she lost after several long, breathless moments.

This sort of defeat was unheard of!

“I know you may find this hard to believe, as grumpy and mean as you can be, Donna Vega, but I like you.”

“I’m not mean.”

He chuckled, reached for her hands again, and held tight enough that she would make a scene if she tried to pull away, but not tight enough to hurt her. It was the perfect combination of tenderness and strength and made her nipples pebble.

How does he know?

“I noticed you didn’t dispute the grumpy part.”

“I can be a real bear when I haven’t had my daily quota of caffeine.”

“I’ve noticed.”

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“And have you noticed I have a ferocious sweet too—”

He released one of her hands to pull a cherry and vanilla swirl lollipop out of his lab coat pocket and handed it to her. “I’ve got one too.”