Nyc Angels: Flirting With Danger

He couldn’t do anything about her damp hair—the loose strands a charming melding of blond and red—but he could slip her coat off and at least let her sleep in dry clothes.

His fingers went to the knot at her waist, and he frowned at how tightly she’d cinched the thing. If he’d had any doubts about leaving her in it, that quashed them. He worked at the tie until one loop loosened then slid free. Taking a deep breath, he parted the edges of the coat. The air whistled right back out of his lungs at the sight that met his tired eyes.

Holy hell.

A black negligee—opaque lace on top with a floaty skirt made of some kind of see-through fabric—was all she had on … well, other than the tiniest pair of panties known to mankind. Panties that were clearly visible. Clearly sheer.

He swallowed hard, torn between the desire to devour her with his eyes and wrap the coat tightly back around her. His body was having a tough time knowing which of his mixed signals to obey, although he might as well finish what he’d started and take the coat the rest of the way off, so she could at least sleep in comfort.

Unlike him, who’d probably have this image seared onto the backs of his eyelids for the rest of his life.

He slid the coat off her, turning her body to the side as he pulled it out from under her. What in God’s name had Chloe been thinking, walking around downtown New York like this?

She was the cautious one. The one who’d balked at riding on the back of his motorcycle, even after he’d tamed some of his wilder urges.

And yet here she was. In his apartment, like a sexy flasher from one of those secretary fantasies. She sure as hell hadn’t come here to seduce him with the get-up.

Then who?

He remembered the smeared mascara. The haunted look in her eyes.

It suddenly became clear in a rush. Jason’s random comments about his brother-in-law took on new meaning. How he’d said Chloe never complained but Jason was convinced something was wrong with their marriage and had been for a long time. Travis always seemed to be off somewhere or other on business, leaving Chloe at home alone.

Brad pulled the covers over her, hiding her from his own prying eyes—something that he was now thoroughly ashamed of.

He could almost bet Travis was in a hotel room somewhere in New York. And that Chloe’s shoes were there as well. He could easily guess why she’d come to town and what she must have found once she’d arrived. His fingers tightened around the coat in his hands until his knuckles ached as he stared down at her long lashes, the dark circles under her eyes … the slight swelling on her lip.

Damn that man. He’d hurt Chloe.

If it was the last thing Brad did, he was going to make Travis Maroni pay for his sins.

CHAPTER THREE

“I GOT A CALL this morning. He’s looking for her.”

Jason’s worried voice met him as soon as Brad answered his cellphone. He looked up from the case notes of Angel’s newest prenatal patient, a thirty-five-year-old woman whose ultrasound scan had revealed a fetal heart defect. The baby was fine in utero, but would die within minutes once out of that safe environment if something wasn’t done.

To top it all off, he’d arrived at his office that morning to find a snarky resignation letter from Katrina, his date from the previous evening. She’d evidently not been as blasé about being shooed from his apartment as she’d seemed to be at the time.

Which meant his unit was now short-staffed.

That’s what he got for getting involved with a colleague. Never again.

“Brad, you still there?”

“Yeah, yeah. Sorry. Just trying to think.” That was another thing. There was no way he was going to let Chloe head home before he knew exactly what was going on between her and that scumbag husband of hers. “She wasn’t in good shape last night, Jason, which is why I called. I figured you’d be worried.”

“I’m glad you did. We had no idea she was even headed to New York. Dad is fit to be tied. Travis swears it’s all a big misunderstanding, that Chloe took off after an argument, but he’s not fooling anyone. If he weren’t my sister’s husband …”

Brad’s thoughts exactly. “Is he still in New York?”

“No, he’s home. Said he was surprised not to find Chloe here. Claims to be worried as hell.”

There was no way Brad would have ever left New York without searching every inch of it first. For the man just to drive home without even trying to locate her was unthinkable. What if she’d been mugged … or worse?

“Did you tell him she was at my place?”

“I’m not telling him anything.” There was a pause over the line. “Is she okay? Physically, I mean?”

“She seemed to be. She was still asleep when I left this morning.” Should he tell Jason about the split lip or what she’d been wearing when she’d shown up at the apartment? He’d laid a pair of exercise sweats and a black T-shirt across the end of his bed. He figured she could pull the laces around the waist tight enough to keep the pants from sliding below the swell of her hips. Which brought his mind right back to those soft curves that were everything a man could want.

Except she was Chloe.

And it was best to keep her racy attire between the two of them—no need for Jason to know. He didn’t want to embarrass her any more than necessary.

An idea formed. “Is she still working at the community hospital there in Hartford?” Chloe had graduated from nursing school about the same time he had graduated from med school. She’d even specialized in pediatrics, if he remembered right.

“Yes, why?”

“Can you call them and explain the situation? Ask them to give her some time off?”

“I think she’s got some vacation time coming, but I’ll check to make sure. Dad invested quite a bit of money in one of their service projects a year or two ago.” A chuckle came over the phone. “Chloe just about blew a gasket when she heard, asked him if he was trying to buy a permanent position for her.”

Brad could imagine that quite well. He’d been on the receiving end of that outrage a time or two—like when he’d caught her holding hands with a boy on the swing at her parents’ house. The glare he’d given the kid had sent him scrambling for the sidewalk. But when he’d tried to give Chloe a stern warning, she’d sniffed and claimed there was nothing to worry about. She’d decided to wait until she got married to “do it.”

Did people even do that nowadays?

Evidently they did, because when he’d laughed in her face, she’d flushed scarlet and then balled her fingers into a tight fist before punching him in the chest. Right on top of the fading bruise from his motorcycle accident. It had stung, but it had also gotten her point across: her virginity was no joking matter.

Something his mind had also toyed with the night of her wedding. Had she really saved herself? Only to wind up with a jerk like Travis?

His hand went to the spot and rubbed it as if he could still feel where she’d walloped him. And, really, he could. A circular Celtic symbol—the tree of life at its center—was inked on the very spot his road rash had once covered, starting at his chest and wrapping around the top of his left shoulder. A reminder to always choose life.

Thankfully his polo shirts now covered up that little bit of history. Some of his patients might not understand what the tattoo had come to symbolize.

He shook himself back to the present and Jason’s phone call. “I’ve just had a nurse quit on me. I don’t know if Chloe will go for it, but maybe she’d be interested in filling the spot for a while. At least until she can sort through whatever happened with Travis. Or until I can talk the nurse into coming back.”

Why was the thought of calling Katrina suddenly distasteful?

“That’s a great idea. Maybe she’s finally ready to unload the bastard.”

“Maybe.” Brad scrubbed a hand across his jaw, his eyes going back to the notes on his desk. “I’ll let you know what she says. She can stay at the apartment until she decides what she wants to do. It’s not easy to get a short-term lease nowadays.”

And just why had he offered that? He wasn’t exactly celibate, neither did he have any plans to become so. He gave an internal shrug. She was an adult. Surely they could work out some kind of arrangement. After all, it wasn’t a permanent thing. Probably a week or two at the most. She might not even go for it—he was beginning to hope she wouldn’t, in fact.

But deep down inside something whispered that he was telling the biggest lie of his life. Because he did want her to stay. Wanted to somehow keep her safe from whoever had hurt her.

And if she turned him down and walked away?

He might just have to coax her to change her mind.

“You want me to what?”

Chloe stared across the table at Brad. He was offering her a job? She toyed with the tie on the sweats he’d loaned her and tried to keep her face from flaming in renewed embarrassment. When she’d awoken coatless on a huge king-sized bed with no memory of how she’d gotten there, she’d thought for a panicked second she might have slept with him. His warm masculine scent permeated the space, from the pillow where she’d laid her head to the clothes currently enveloping her body.

But there’d been no sign that he’d slept in the bed, neither was there that familiar morning-after ache—an unpleasant side effect of sex with her husband.

But still. His offer had come out of nowhere.

Brad glanced up from the plate of takeout Yakisoba, brows raised. “One of the nurses in the prenatal unit quit unexpectedly. I wondered if you might want to fill in until we can find a permanent replacement.”

“Why?”

“Why not?” He studied her from across the table. “Unless you’re anxious to get home.”

Dammit. The fire licked along her cheeks again. She had no intention of going home—not that the monstrosity she and Travis had lived in had ever really been home. She’d already contacted a lawyer in Connecticut and started the ball rolling on her divorce. No, you weren’t supposed to make any major changes during a crisis, but she’d already decided to leave if her swan dive into the deep end of the seduction pool didn’t work.

Swan dive. Right.

Instead of a smooth, clean entry into the water, she’d landed with a belly flop that had been deafening, knocking the wind from her lungs and leaving her clawing her way to the surface.

Well, she was there now, taking her first breath of freedom after six long, suffocating years. She was never submerging herself like that ever again.

Not for anyone.

“I was actually thinking of relocating,” she said slowly, the idea taking root and sprouting its first leaf. She could do this.

Unless her father was behind Brad’s offer, just like she suspected him of being behind her promotion at the hospital. “Wait, did Daddy call and ask you to hire me?”

Brad’s eyes narrowed for a second or two. “Do you think I’m lying to you, Chloe?”

It wouldn’t be the first time she’d been lied to. “No, but …”

“But what?”

She licked her lips. “I don’t want you doing this because you feel sorry for me.” As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t seem to hold his gaze, fiddling with her chopsticks instead. “I’m filing for divorce.”

“I’m glad.”

The low voice caused her head to come up. Some knowing glimmer in the depths of Brad’s eyes caused her to bristle. As if he’d expected this outcome all along. “You and Jason never gave him a chance.”

“No. But you did.”

Yes, and now her brother and Brad were free to gloat about her stupidity behind her back. Wouldn’t she, if she were in their place?

Instead, his hand covered hers, the warmth seeping through her icy skin. “Whatever else you might think, I wanted it to work out. Wanted you to be happy.”

Just as Jason had. He’d kissed her cheek at the rehearsal dinner and whispered that very thing. “Be happy, little sis.”

She swallowed the wave of emotion. Brad had always been there for her, even though he’d never been loud and showy about it. He had always been one of the first people on the scene when something had happened—whether it had been when her sickly appendix had needed to come out, or standing beside her as she’d cried over the grave of Treehouse, her dog.

And later he and Jason had accompanied her on her first official post PADI certification dive off the New Jersey coast, and they’d later explored several local shipwreck sites. She blinked away memories of those muscular legs propelling him through the water with ease, of his fingers gripping hers as he’d tugged her away from areas he’d felt were too dangerous. He’d had no idea that he’d been the most dangerous thing in the ocean. At least to her equilibrium.

Despite those awkward moments, she’d always been able to count on him. Maybe it was time she returned the favor. If he really was in a bind, shouldn’t she be willing to lend a hand?

“Thank you.” She sighed. “About the position. I would imagine there’d be plenty of nurses ready to jump at the chance to work at Angel’s.” She loved the hospital’s nickname, loved how it seemed to fit, as if the hospital served as the guardian angel of sick children everywhere.

Brad sat back in his chair. “There are, but it’ll take time to put out a call for applications and then wade through them all.”

“What about an apartment? There’s no way I can commute from Hartford.” Neither would she want to.

“I thought you might consider staying here. I have an extra bedroom. I’m sure we could stay out of each other’s hair.”

She bit her lip. Speaking of bedrooms, she’d noticed there was no way to lock the door of his room. Oh, there was a keyhole, but no key to secure it that she could see. The same held true for the bathroom. When she’d looked at the other doors—with the exception of the front door—she’d found the same thing. No keys for any of them. He lived alone, so he probably didn’t think anything of it, but if she stayed here she wanted to be able to at least lock the bathroom.

His voice broke through. “What are you thinking?”

She scrambled around for an answer and finally just blurted it out. “Where are your keys?”

“Keys?”

“For all your doors.”

His face went utterly still for a second or two then he shrugged. “There’s no one else living here, so I haven’t felt the need to mess with them.”

Just as she’d thought. “But you do have them somewhere, right?”

“I do.” There was something strange about the way he answered her, but she couldn’t put her finger on it so she tried a different tack.

“Well, what about your life? I don’t want to disrupt whatever you’ve got going on by staying here.” She stopped again when his frown deepened. “Are you … um, seeing someone?”

The lines between his brows eased, and one corner of his mouth quirked up. “Not at the moment.”

“Oh.”

“Even if that situation changes, the apartment has thick walls.”

Heat swept up her neck and threatened to shoot from her ears. In other words, she wouldn’t hear anything that went on. Maybe not, but her imagination would fill in the blanks. “Are you sure you want me staying—”

“I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t mean it.” His brows went up. “Unless you don’t think you can handle it.”

The battle cry from their younger years hung in the air between them. The only time she hadn’t risen to one of those challenges had been when he’d rolled up next to her on his motorcycle, fresh from getting his medical license, and had dared her to take a victory lap around town with him. The thought of being pressed tight against his back, her inner thighs gripping his, had made something dangerous shimmy through her abdomen—the exact sensation she’d experienced when they’d danced at her wedding. It had brought a wariness that was even stronger than her fear of motorcycles.

She’d gulped before chickening out—blaming it on his long-forgotten accident in high school.

And now? Was she still chicken?

With those light green eyes watching her every move, trying to ferret out any exposed weakness? She’d vowed to give herself a brand-new start. To do that—and to survive her time with Brad—she needed to live by a whole new set of rules. His. And if he could throw down the gauntlet, she would just pick it up and twirl it over her head.

Dropping her chopsticks onto her plate, she leaned forward, all too aware that she was dressed in the man’s clothes and was about to agree to live in his home. But that was small potatoes. She’d survived the horror of knowing he’d seen her body in all its questionable glory last night—and he’d evidently been unmoved by the sight. So they were good to go.

“As long as I can have a key to my bedroom and the bathroom, I think I can handle it all right,” she said sweetly. “But … can you?”

CHAPTER FOUR

THE JEANS FIT PERFECTLY.

Of course they would. Brad could probably tell a woman’s clothing size with a single glance. And the smoky-green belted top did make the blue of her eyes stand out. She couldn’t remember the last time Travis had bought her an article of clothing.

Not that she’d wanted him to. She assumed men didn’t like doing that sort of thing, unless it was buying slinky lingerie.

Well, in reality, Brad had had no choice. It wasn’t like she could go shopping in the get-up she’d arrived in—which she’d stuffed in a plastic bag and thrown right in the trash. The fewer reminders she had of that night the better. Even so, answering the door and finding Brad’s doorman standing there with a wrapped package in his hand had been a surprise. Swallowing her pride and accepting his offer hadn’t been easy.

But at least it meant she could go out and shop for her own clothing … including hospital gear. Brad said scrubs were the order of the day, the funkier the better. And true to his word he’d produced two shiny new keys, one for her bedroom and one for the bathroom, so she could at least dress and bathe in private.

A spark of excitement zipped through her. Brand-new scrubs were fitting for a brand-new life. This was the perfect opportunity to start over. The lawyer she’d spoken with had assured her she’d only need to face Travis one more time … across the courtroom when the divorce was finalized.

Although there was a certain amount of guilt swirling around inside of her over her failed marriage, she felt more relief than anything. No more worrying about showing enough enthusiasm in bed or fearing the slightest twitch of discomfort would bring about one of Travis’s long-suffering sighs.

She checked out the view from behind in the full-length mirror in Brad’s bedroom, carefully avoiding glancing at the expanse of reflective glass mounted on the ceiling over that huge bed. Somehow she didn’t think he used it for shaving.

Chloe shuddered. At least her ex had never suggested putting mirrors in their bedroom. Her eyes tracked to the bed again, the image of Brad’s muscular frame sweeping through her mind, the tattoo across his shoulder bunching with each movement.

Her mouth went dry. She closed her eyes and tried to remember exactly what that tattoo looked like. It had been some kind of jagged circle enclosing a tree. As a teenager, her eyes had gone to it again and again as he’d sprawled out on a lounge chair by her parents’ pool. Even then he’d cut a powerful figure. No wonder she’d had a crush on him.

But as gorgeous as he was, there’d been a raw, untamed quality to him that had frightened her at times. Travis had been smooth and refined … steady and safe in comparison, which had been what she’d thought she wanted.

She gave a pained laugh. Boy, were appearances deceptive. Travis had been anything but safe.

At least now she was free.

Digging in her handbag, she located her phone and sent Brad a text thanking him for the clothes and letting him know she was headed out to go shopping for some new things. He’d promised to take her to the hospital tomorrow to show her the prenatal wing and introduce her to the staff.

Just as she got ready to head to the lobby and ask the doorman to hail a cab, the phone rang. She stared at it, wondering if she should answer it or let the machine pick up. But maybe Brad had gotten her text and was calling her to firm up times for dinner or something.

She lifted the receiver from its cradle. “Hello?”

There was a pause then a woman’s voice came through. “Who is this?”

Uh-oh. That was not a happy tone.

“Chloe Jenkins. I’m a … friend of Brad’s.” It was true, right? “He’s not here right now, though. Can I take a message?”

“This is Katrina. I wanted to see if he got the note I left him.”

Note? Brad hadn’t mentioned anything about one. But why would he? Those mirrors came back to her thoughts. Of course. This was probably one of Brad’s “women.”

“I … um. I’m not sure.” How was this for awkward? “I can leave him a message and let him know you called.”

“Don’t bother.” If anything, the woman’s voice had grown even colder. “He’s got my number. If he wants me, he can call me.”

Chloe gulped. If he wanted her? Did she mean as in beneath the mirrors?

Oh, lordy. This could get really weird if a parade of women started trekking through at all hours of the night.

The sound of the dial tone in her ear told her the lady in question hadn’t even bothered to say goodbye before hanging up. But, then, why would she? This Katrina person didn’t even know who she was.

She dropped the phone back onto its stand, making a mental note not to pick it up again. Ever. Otherwise someone could get the wrong idea about why she was staying here. She had no intention of becoming part of Brad’s female entourage.

Actually, the woman’s call had come at the perfect time because she needed to remind herself of her reasons for being there. It was to get away from Travis, not to dive head first back into the dating pool.

Although from Travis’s cutting remarks about her prowess in the bedroom she might not need to worry about that for a long time to come. She certainly didn’t want to relive any of those awful moments, especially with a stranger.

She’d have to eventually, though. She didn’t want to go through life alone. She wanted children. A family. It’s why she’d gotten married in the first place, to have what her parents had. A love that endured for decades.

Maybe she could talk to someone about her difficulties in that area. She certainly couldn’t talk to Jason, not only because he’d always despised Travis but because of the ick factor involved. And the few girlfriends she had couldn’t really give her a man’s point of view—other than claiming Travis was a jerk who was terrible in bed. But was he? Other women seemed to like his moves just fine, judging from the bimbo who’d been hanging all over him at the hotel. So the problem had to be with her.

But how to fix it …

She glanced at the phone, remembering Katrina’s irked voice. Brad had been with lots of women. And Katrina’s attitude indicated that they didn’t mind the instant replays. They wanted to be with him. Were peeved when they couldn’t be.

What better person to pinpoint where she’d gone wrong with Travis and give her some pointers on how to act in any future relationships. It wouldn’t be strange, right? The two of them had been friends since childhood. He had no idea she’d had a crush on him during their teenage years. And his experience with the female sex could give her insights that a stranger might be too embarrassed to be honest about. Brad could always be counted on to tell it like it was. No sugar coating involved with that man.

She took a deep breath and let it out. That settled it, then. She’d broach the subject somehow and see how he reacted. If he acted like it was no big deal, she’d pick his brain and try to figure out exactly what a man wanted from a woman.

Because, whatever it was, she didn’t have it … and she had no idea where to get it.