Houston, We Have A Problem

by Erin McCarthy

Genres: Women's Fiction; Contemporary Romance; Romantic Comedy

Synopsis

Use As Directed, For As Long As It Takes


Dr. Houston Hayes has never had trouble maintaining his professional distance. . .until he meets resident Josie Adkins. Every time she drops a chart in his presence, he's treated to a view that makes him extremely interested in her bones. Jumping them, that is. For a man who prides himself on control at all times, this is a problem. . .



All her life, Josie has wanted to be a surgeon. But how can she do that while she's suffering from the debilitating Dr. Hayes Induced Dropping Medical Equipment Syndrome? And then Dr. Hayes prescribes a cure: one night of sheet-burning passion to erase the tension for both of them. But only one night. . .he won't need more than that. . .



Suddenly, Josie has her mission--a chance to prove to the arrogant Dr. Hayes that one night with her will never be enough. And soon, both doctors may be falling into a desire deeper than any they've ever known. . .

Release date: April 6, 2010

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 304

Sample

Josie Adkins had to stop waving her hot little ass in Houston’s face, or he was going to have to slide his hands across it and squeeze.

Which would fall squarely under the heading of sexual harassment. He could see the headline: State of Florida vs Dr. Houston Hayes. Surgeon fondles resident and loses license.

Sweet little Josie had no idea he was plotting ways to lick her like a cat does cream. She wasn’t tempting him with her curvy behind on purpose, so he couldn’t really blame her for the detour his thoughts had been taking on a regular basis.

But just how in the hell an orthopedic surgeon could be so damn clumsy was beyond him. And Jesus, was Josie clumsy.

So clumsy that at least six times a day he was subjected to the sight of her, bent full over at the waist, retrieving something she had dropped from the floor. Today was even worse.

They were alone in a semidark alcove, for the purpose of looking at a patient’s X-ray, only Josie had done her usual butterfinger bit.

The film Josie had been holding had slipped out of her hand, hit the floor, and disappeared under the desk next to her. She was now on her hands and knees, wiggling around searching for it.

God help him.

No one with a body that lush and womanly should be wiggling on her hands and knees unless she was naked and it was part of foreplay.

“Whoops. It just jumped right out of my hand, Dr. Hayes,” she said in a cheerful voice.

Houston counted from one to ten and back again until he was in control of himself and his bodily urges. He didn’t know what it was about her that had him hiding hard-ons left and right and sweating through three pairs of surgical scrubs a day.

She wasn’t his type at all. She was on the short side, with an odd haircut that made her light brown hair flip around at gravity-defying angles. When she smiled, twin dimples appeared and she looked about twenty years old. She talked constantly. He had heard other staff members affectionately refer to her as a dingbat.

Yet here he was, unable to look away, all too aware that her scrubs were worn thin in strategic places.

“It has to be here somewhere.” She chattered on, her head half under the desk.

“What the . . . ?”

As she pulled her hand back, Houston saw she was holding a crust of moldy bread.

“Gross.” She flung it down.

Time to leave a note for housekeeping.

Josie disappeared back under the desk—at least the front half.

The back half was still in full view.

He could see her underwear.

The thin scrubs hid nothing, and the position she was in on her knees pulled them taut, giving him a clear view of her panties. They were riding up just a little, sliding into the crevice between her cheeks, fitting close and tight. There was a little red lip print stamped on each side of her panties, and he wondered what she would do if he leaned forward and placed his own mouth right on one of those lip prints.

And bit her.

He was fascinated by the full curviness of her behind, and ached all over from the desire to taste her, to cup his hand between her legs and feel her heat pulsing through his fingers.

He wanted to know if there was a matching lip print on the front of her panties. So that if he kissed it he would feel her soft dewy mound give a little beneath his mouth.

It seriously annoyed him, this edgy uncontrollable desire.

Houston had never had a problem maintaining his professional distance with both patients and co-workers. If anything, he had been accused of being too reserved. Now this one woman, this tiny tornado of smiles and klutziness, had successfully breached his aloofness.

Impatient with his thoughts, he glanced at his watch. How long had she been on the floor? It felt like hours.

“Do I need to come back, Dr. Adkins, when you can make your X-ray films behave?” Visions of making her behave with his hand on her soft bottom flitted through his mind, playing like a porno video. He had meant it to sound like a cool rebuke, but it came out sounding suggestive.

Either of which seemed too subtle for Josie. She laughed from under the desk, like he was simply teasing her, then gave a little cough.

“Yuck. I think I inhaled a dust bunny.”

Her head reemerged long enough to smile at him in reassurance. “Just give me a sec. I’ll get it.”

“Really, we can do this later.” Since he had learned just about nothing could hurry her up.

Of course he could brush her aside and get the damn thing himself. But he didn’t want to hurt her feelings. Josie always tried so hard to gloss over her gaffes. Plus he was a total masochist who didn’t want to deny himself the glorious view of her backside, even though he knew he couldn’t, shouldn’t—wouldn’t act on his lust.

So Houston resented the distraction and cursed himself, but still couldn’t tear his eyes away from her, not even long enough to pick up the X-ray himself.

“Almost got it.” She gave him another blinding smile, head cocked to the right as she stretched her hand a little farther.

He put his hands on his hips and reminded himself, again, that getting involved with a resident would be a complete nightmare, no matter how freaking adorable she was.

“I need one of those rubber arms, like Stretch Armstrong, that really weird doll my cousin had when we were kids. Remember that?” she asked him.

He shook his head. Rubber dolls were the least of his problems right now.

“Well, it was kind of cool, in a bizarre sort of way, kind of like molded Silly Putty. What did you play with?”

Houston fought the urge to moan. Josie managed to mix innocence with that lush body, all tossed alongside her brains and her quirky personality. It was an unusual combination he was finding damn hard to resist.

Especially in this room that wasn’t really a room, but a very small, very crowded alcove cut out of a corner in the hallway. Where Josie was just inches away from him.

“When you were a kid, I mean, what did you play with?” She kept feeling around on the floor. “Risk? World domination seems like your thing.”

Should he be offended? “No.”

“So what then? Nerf football? Twister? Chess club?”

He folded his arms and rubbed his chin. He’d forgotten to shave that morning and the stubble was irritating and itchy. He was well aware that if another co-worker had engaged in this ridiculous conversation with him he would have walked away.

“I played doctor.” Let her figure out what exactly he meant by that. Except that Josie seemed immune to sexual innuendos.

“Here it is!” She pulled the film out and handed it to him.

Josie sat back on her heels and blew her hair out of her eyes. “Oh, well, that makes sense. Like Operation? That game that buzzed at you if you dropped the body part?”

Houston just stared at her as she brushed her knees off. He had read Josie’s personnel file. On paper, she was only a few IQ points short of a genius. In person, she was a chatty, clumsy, sex nymph. Who had his nuts in a knot without even trying.

“Thank you, Dr. Adkins.” He took the X-ray, shaking a dust ball off it, and wondered just when her residency would be over.

With a little luck she would leave Acadia Inlet Hospital for another resident rotation at least fifty miles away, taking her sweet ass with her. Of course, she had just started her second year of residency so it could be a year or more before she left.

Until then, he was going to have to work overtime at pretending she didn’t make him go hard just by entering the room. He’d had two rules since he had broken things off with his last semiserious girlfriend four years earlier. No long-term relationships. No anything with another hospital employee.

It had worked so far. He dated casually, and when it was mutually agreed upon, had some no-strings-attached sex. Neither of which were done with someone he had to see every day in a professional capacity.

But when he joined the staff at Acadia Inlet three months ago, he had met Josie. And suddenly his hormones seemed to think rules were meant to be broken.

Taking this position had seemed like a good career move, allowing him to focus on reconstructive orthopedics, and he liked the other doctors in the orthopedic group. It was an intelligent decision and he wasn’t going to let one sexy little resident interfere with that.

Holding the film up to the light, Houston focused his thoughts squarely back on his job and was pleased to see evidence of his original diagnosis.

“Okay, exactly what I thought. Schedule surgery while I talk to Amber’s parents.”

Surgery for the second time on a fifteen-year-old girl didn’t thrill him, but Amber had suffered multiple fractures in a gymnastics injury six months prior, and surgery on her ankle had been done in Atlanta.

The injury had healed and Amber had returned home to Acadia Beach to recover, but she was left with increasing pain and swelling. Houston knew a second surgery to release scar tissue and remove any bone fragments was the only way to curb a lifetime of debilitating arthritis.

“How soon?” Josie asked.

“Within a week.”

“Okay. Not a problem. I’ll take care of everything.” A smile danced across Josie’s plump lips as she played with the ID badge clipped to her waist.

She smiled so much it gave him a headache. No one could be that damn cheerful all the time. Yet she was, and damn it, he found that attractive. Everything about her was attractive to him, almost as if he liked her.

At that thought, he shot her a violent scowl.

The ID badge flew off her pants and hit the floor.

“Whoops.”

There was no way that word should be sexy, but somehow it was.

Josie leaned down to pick up her badge right as he turned to move out of her way. Her forehead connected with his thigh.

His pants were no thicker than hers and he could feel the warmth of her skin brush against him. Hot breath drizzled across his crotch as she gasped in surprise.

Houston took a fast step back. By sheer willpower he prevented an erection from popping up and embarrassing the hell out of both of them.

“Oh, sorry, my fault,” she said, brushing her hair out of her green eyes. The movement made her shirt pull up, exposing a tiny ribbon of pale smooth skin above her waistband.

If he opened his mouth, the only thing that would come out would be a primitive growl, so he kept his lips clamped tight.

This time when she started towards the hall, she tripped. Over nothing, from his point of view. But as she stumbled, he reached out and grabbed her arm to steady her.

“Thanks,” she said in a breathless voice, her moist pink tongue peeking out from under her shiny teeth. The corners of her eyes crinkled as she smiled.

If she had any idea how close he was to yanking down her pants and sliding into her, she wouldn’t be smiling at him.

She would be running.

Or moaning.

Shit.

Houston dropped her arm. “You’re welcome.”

Annoyed, he turned his back on her to hide the hard-on that he could no longer keep at bay. He stood rigid and listened to her leave the room, her shoes squeaking on the tile floor.

He was never this greedy, this needy, this wanting. It made him feel reckless and vulnerable, out of control.

All feelings he despised.

The first of his rules wasn’t one he was about to break. There wasn’t ever going to be any woman who would entice him into wanting a relationship, or even more than one night. But Josie Adkins was well on her way to beguiling him to toss the second rule out the window.

He’d never slept with a co-worker, but then he’d never been this distracted by a woman’s backside either. There were a thousand reasons why dating Josie would be a disaster. But the reasons against it dipped down to only several hundred when he thought about just having a quick, burning-hot affair with Josie.

Would an affair be wrong? Yes. But so was repairing Mrs. Kransky’s kneecap while sporting an erection, which he was going to have to do in another minute, since his dick was not cooperating and deflating.

Sleeping with Josie wouldn’t just be inappropriate, it would also be a mistake, of course.

Houston had made mistakes in his life, though nothing monumental or unfixable, including proposing to his first lover in a fit of Jack Daniels-inspired euphoria at age sixteen.

He’d skirted disaster on that one—and given up alcohol for life—and would on this, too, if he handled it with a little bit of discretion. As long as no one knew and it was just a night or two . . .

Houston grabbed the film and started towards the door. No. He would not give in to his base carnal urges.

Unless Josie gave him the slightest hint that she was interested.

Then he wasn’t sure he could stop himself from taking a taste of those lips. All of them.

“It makes no sense!” Josie said to her friend Sara as she tried to peel back the wrapper on her cream cheese packet. “I mean, why is this happening to me? I can’t go within two feet of Dr. Hayes without dropping something.”

It only happened when he was in the room.

Left on her own, she was capable and confident. But when Houston Hayes approached her with his deep, penetrating stare and towering strength, blood pressure cuffs seemed to jump out of her hands and to the floor. Scalpels dropped and spun like bottles. Her hands shook, her hips knocked into gurneys and surgical trays, and she tripped over intravenous tubing.

It had to stop.

She was a grown woman of twenty-seven, with a medical degree, well-respected by the hospital staff and her patients. She was starting the second year of her orthopedic residency with relative ease and competence. Except for the Dr. Hayes–induced Dropping Medical Equipment Syndrome.

Sara raised her eyebrow and stirred cream into her coffee. “It’s called sexual tension, Josie.”

All Josie heard was sex. The top pulled back with a sudden jerk and the cream cheese container went sailing out of her hand. It skidded to a stop under the table next to her, where two male doctors were eating their dinner by the windows that boasted a view of the Florida coastline. She sat there stricken while Sara grinned at her. Josie was not amused.

“It’s not sexual tension,” she whispered urgently, standing to retrieve the now useless bagel spread.

That was a lie. No matter what he felt, it was definitely sexual tension on her part.

For one simple reason.

Dr. Hayes was a god.

Every inch of him—from his short black hair, to his gorgeous ice-blue eyes, and all down the length of his muscular, toned body—screamed power. Control.

A man who knew what he wanted and took it without any doubts or delays. The desire to be the taken had been creeping up on her steadily until she had found herself suffering from chronic klutziness in his presence.

So maybe what Sara said did make sense. But that didn’t make it any easier.

Josie bent under the neighboring table and said to the pair of doctors, “Sorry, guys, I dropped my cream cheese.” They moved their legs while she fished out the wayward package, neither surprised nor upset to see Josie on the floor collecting fallen items. Her colleagues at Acadia Inlet Hospital were starting to expect it.

“No problem, Josie,” Mark Givens said with a grin, tucking into his hamburger.

His grin said it all. Everyone thought she was a royal idiot, incapable of holding onto a simple pack of cream cheese. How in the heck could she expect to be a surgeon if her fingers weren’t steady on snack foods? Eight years of education and in a matter of three months she had jeopardized all of that.

Because of sex. Or lack thereof.

She blamed a certain orthopedic surgeon entirely. If he wouldn’t stare at her with those probing ice-blue eyes, and stand way too close for comfort, she wouldn’t get nervous. And when she got nervous, she dropped things.

She sat back down with Sara and sighed. “I’m ruining my career before I’ve even gotten started. Dr. Hayes is afraid to trust me with a scalpel, and who can blame him?”

Sara pulled to tighten her blond ponytail. “You’re caught in a vicious cycle. He makes you nervous, so you act like a klutz, which makes him doubt your qualifications. Then you get more nervous, and on it goes.”

Josie knew she was right. From the first day she had met Houston three months earlier when he joined the staff, she had been intimidated by him. By his confidence, his coolness, and his surgical skill.

“So what am I supposed to do? He won’t even let me close a case, let alone conduct a surgery on my own. And I certainly can’t go to the resident chief and complain about it.” Josie felt even worse just thinking about it. “I’d look like a whiner and besides, what if Dr. Hayes tells Dr. Sheinberg I’m an idiot who needs my medical degree revoked?”

Becoming a surgeon was a lifelong goal, one she had been working towards steadily since high school. When her dad had died, himself a surgeon, she had been doubly determined to be successful.

Tripping over thin air and scrambling around on her hands and knees for X-rays wasn’t the way to do it.

Sara tossed her spoon down on the table and grinned. “You know what they say if someone intimidates you. You need to picture them being powerless. Like standing in front of you in just their underwear.”

Underwear? Josie’s face began to burn. The sudden image of six-foot-three, tanned, muscular Dr. Hayes standing in front of her in a pair of black boxer briefs sent her senses into a tailspin. “Are you trying to torture me?” Her voice was a strangled whisper.

Sara shrugged. “Or you could just sleep with him. That ought to reduce him to human status.”

While Sara made it sound no more exciting than a stroll down the produce aisle, it made Josie flushed and uncomfortable, even in the air-conditioned room. “That’s even worse! I can’t have sex with my orthopedic mentor.”

There could even be rules against that, for all she knew, never having looked into the hospital fraternization policy. Besides, not that the guy was easy to read, but from what she could tell, Houston wasn’t all that impressed with her. Intellectually or physically. Josie was used to men dismissing her on both counts, and Dr. Hayes appeared to be no exception.

She added, “I’m sure he would laugh hysterically at the prospect of sleeping with me. He doesn’t even like me. At least I don’t think he does.”

He sure in the heck spent a lot of time frowning at her. Probably trying to determine how a clueless idiot like her had survived medical school.

And he never smiled. Not at her.

Of course there was that other look he gave her sometimes, the deep and penetrating look that made her want to glance down and check to see if her clothes were on. She had convinced herself she was imagining it, that it was the wishful thinking of a sex-starved imagination, but maybe she wasn’t.

“Sometimes, Sara, I catch him staring at me, and I swear, he has The Look in his eye. But that’s crazy, I must be wrong, I know I’m wrong.” She fanned her face just at the thought of Houston’s eyes sweeping over her body.

“What look?” Sara paused with her coffee mug halfway to her mouth.

Josie glanced around to make sure no one was paying attention to them and lowered her voice to a barely audible whisper. “The If-we-were-alone-I’d-rip-your-clothes-off look.”

It wasn’t a look she had seen often in her life, given that most men saw her as a slightly chubby, cheerful companion. Like a living Care Bear. But the few times she had seen that kind of sexual intent were burned into her memory.

Sara set her mug down. “Are you sure?”

“No, I’m not sure.” It could be a total delusion on her part, brought about by poor sleeping habits and lack of sexual release.

After all, Dr. Hayes was hot. He could have any woman he wanted, she was sure, so why would he want her? The two P’s. Perky and plump.

“My life is ruined,” she wailed. It was so like her to do something as idiotic as falling for the man who held her career in his hands.

“Don’t be so dramatic, Josie.”

“Easy for you to say.” Tall and thin, with dark glasses, Sara looked studious and was taken seriously. “People respect you. I always have to prove myself over and over again before I’m taken seriously.”

It was the curse of being cute. She was embarrassingly short, taller only than the average sixth-grade boy, and for ease of styling, wore her brown hair cropped. She had also been born with dimples, which didn’t aid her cause.

Add to all of that her natural buoyant personality, and most people dismissed her as less than intelligent. Which was why it was so frustrating to be contributing to that prejudice by her own behavior with Dr. Hayes.

Sara blotted her lips with a paper napkin. “Do you ever worry that by becoming a surgeon, you’re denying your natural self? That maybe you’re meant to do something more . . . whimsical.”

“Whimsical?” Josie sat back and wondered how she could ever have thought Sara was her best friend. “What do you want me to do? Twist balloon animals? Make hemp jewelry? I had a 4.0 grade point average in college. I graduated magna cum laude!”

She didn’t care if her voice went a little loud. She was proud of that gold braid she’d gotten to wear around her neck at graduation.

Stirring another packet of cream into her half-empty coffee cup, Sara shook her head. “That’s not what I meant. But you’re also a social, cheerful person who is in a profession that is made up mostly of arrogant men who don’t go in for conversation. It just seems to me that having to deny the gregarious and fun-loving side of yourself every day has you rattled.”

Interesting theory and not as offensive as Josie had originally thought. But she knew what had her rattled, and it wasn’t having to slow down her motormouth.

“Thank you, Dr. Phil. But I think it’s a lot simpler than that.”

She just wanted to jump Dr. Hayes’s bones. Simple.

Josie shook her head. “While surgery may not exactly be fun-loving, even if I wanted to I couldn’t back out now. People would think I was insane, and I would have to be, to toss out all those years of education and money. I just want Dr. Hayes to treat me like any other physician, like a male physician.” If she kept telling herself that, maybe she would start to believe it.

“But how is that going to happen if I’m falling all over myself and blushing every time he’s near me?”

“I don’t even know what you see in him,” Sara said, her brown eyes puzzled. “He’s so cold.”

What did she see in him that made her pulse jump and her hands shake? Beyond the handsome face and rock-solid body, that is. “He’s brilliant, Sara. The man is absolutely calm during surgery, confident without being arrogant. He knows what he’s doing.”

She felt her insides turn to oatmeal just thinking about him. Her hand propped her head up on the table as she continued. “He’s so focused on being a fantastic surgeon that he has this amazing tunnel vision. Nothing else around him matters.”

Josie wished she had that level of concentration.

Sara wasn’t impressed. “That sounds annoying to me. I always thought that was the nice thing about being a pediatrician. There aren’t a lot of inflated egos running around my office.”

“It’s not annoying to me.” Sh. . .