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Night Fever
Tori Carrington
Dr. Layla Hollister isn't thrilled to find out that her new boss is notorious playboy Dr. Sam Lovejoy. She's learned the hard way to avoid mixing business with pleasure. Still, after caring for others all day, she can't help wishing she had someone to take care of her….Then, that night, a sexy stranger unexpectedly steals a kiss, a kiss that promises exactly what she craves–pure, selfish, unadulterated pleasure. And it's obvious this man is willing to give her everything she's hungry for–and more.It's exactly what the doctor ordered…until Layla walks into the hospital the next morning and discovers her sexy stranger is none other than Dr. Sam Lovejoy. And he's expecting to pick up where they left off….
“There’s something I’m dying to find out…”
They stood face-to-face in the crowded restaurant, and when someone walked past, Layla was forced to step closer to Sam to make room. He watched her green eyes dilate in a telltale sign of arousal. “Oh? And what’s that?” she asked lightly.
A slight upturning of her lush lips made his stomach crave something other than food. Continuing to play the game, he answered, “Whether or not you taste as good as you look.”
Before she could respond, Sam closed the few inches separating his mouth from Layla’s, giving her plenty of time to pull back. She didn’t. In fact, she leaned forward.
Her mouth tasted like a juicy peach just begging to be devoured. He flicked his tongue out, licking the rim of her lips, then dipping it inside. He’d never tasted anything sweeter, hotter, more addictive…
Desire hit, strong and hard. And Sam suddenly realized just how hungry he really was….
Dear Reader,
Sugar ’n spice and everything…naughty. That description fits the three heroines in our KISS & TELL miniseries to a T. Especially Layla Hollister, no matter how much she’d like to have you believe otherwise. Especially when fellow physician and resident hottie Sam Lovejoy comes onto the scene.
In Night Fever, general practitioner Dr. Layla Hollister literally shivers whenever she hears plastic surgeon Dr. Sam Lovejoy’s name. The truth is she would never have been attracted to him if she’d known who he was when they met. But she didn’t know. And attracted? Well, that doesn’t begin to cover how she feels about the notorious Dr. Lovejoy. The problem is once he catches on to her feverish condition, he relishes challenging her on all she’s come to believe about life and love…and about hot, sticky sex!
We hope Layla and Sam’s sizzling journey leaves you running for a cold shower! We’d love to hear what you think. Write to us at P.O. Box 12271, Toledo, OH 43612 (we’ll respond with a signed bookplate, newsletter and bookmark), or visit us on the Web at www.BlazeAuthors.com and www.toricarrington.com for fun drawings.
Here’s wishing you love, romance and hot reading!
Lori & Tony Karayianni
aka Tori Carrington
Night Fever
Tori Carrington
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
This one’s for the incomparable Kathryn Falk, Lady of Barrow, the extraordinary Carol Stacy, the gifted Giselle Hirtenfeld/Goldfeder and the entire staff at Romantic Times BookCLUB. You all are the stuff of which heroines are made!
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
1
Hollywood Confidential—October 13, 2003
A casting call went out for an actress with natural breasts to perform a love scene with heart-throb Ben Damon. Not a single candidate has stepped forward, leaving this reporter to wonder if there’s a pair of natural breasts left in all of Tinseltown….
DOCTOR LAYLA HOLLISTER closed the latest edition of the gossip rag she’d picked up on her way to the restaurant and glanced at her own modest breasts. They were all but nonexistent beneath her high-necked white blouse. She resisted the urge to wave her hand and say, “Me! My breasts are natural!”
Not that it mattered. Of the nearly two million people in L.A. proper, not to mention the ten million in L.A. County, she was one of the ten percent not interested in an acting career. Not in a bit part in a commercial or music video. Not even in a starring role opposite one of the world’s best-looking men. De nada. Add that she was also a third-generation Hollywood native whose family tree didn’t include any actors and, well, she was even more of a rarity. She made a face, peeled off the piece of lime stuck to the side of her glass, and sipped on her club soda.
At any rate, the casting agents would get one look at her small bustline and probably laugh her out of the studio. Yes, they may be fishing for natural, but it was a pretty good bet they were looking for Halle Berry breasts and not her own boobs that essentially hadn’t grown one iota since she was twelve and had bought her first training bra. Her well-endowed mother, Trudy, had told her she must have inherited them from her father’s side of the family. Layla had thought it was God’s idea of a cruel joke. At least until she was twenty and so busy with medical school she’d had little time to think about her breasts beyond the time it took to buy a new bra.
The paper rustled as she put it on the empty stool next to her. She glanced around the packed bar, wondering when her table would be ready. The restaurant she’d chosen had recently hit the trendy list, not because it was new, but rather because some star or another had stopped for a meal there and it had instantly become all the rage. She’d chosen it because it was close to home and she liked the food. So did Reilly, Mallory and Jack.
She sighed; just thinking of her three friends made her smile. She hadn’t had many friends growing up. Okay, she’d had none—unless you counted Dirtbag Della who’d come to her house a couple of times back in second grade. Della had been the only person willing to hang out with the gangly geek in bottle-bottom glasses, at least until Della’s mother had moved into a house where the shower worked and Dirtbag Della had suddenly qualified for Clique Three status. Then when Della had gotten a nose job at age eleven, she’d quickly moved up to Clique One and forgotten Layla existed altogether.
She found herself shrugging her shoulders even now, pretending not to care. And at twenty-seven, she really shouldn’t. But she was only human and every now and again memories of her childhood in a town where looks were valued over everything else sometimes got to her.
She nudged her watch around her wrist. Where were Reilly, Mallory and Jack anyway? She was usually the one running late. As if on cue, her cell phone vibrated in the purse in her lap. She extracted the palm-size receiver, then answered when she saw the number was Reilly’s.
“Can’t make it, Lay. Sorry,” her friend said without so much as a hello. “Last-minute order came in for three batches of Big Fat Greek Baklava and, well…you know.”
Layla did know. The only thing worse than being an ugly kid in Hollywood was being a fat kid. And she sometimes thought that Reilly Chudowski—once known as Chubby Chuddy—had had it worse than Layla had. Reilly had long since taken off the weight, but she seemed determined to keep upsetting the status quo by opening a pastry shop called Sugar ’n’ Spice smack-dab in the middle of healthy diet country. Surprisingly Reilly had turned a modest profit the first year. Now her goal was to corrupt the whole of L.A. with Sugar ’n’ Spice.
“Give Mallory and Jack a kiss for me, will ya?” Reilly requested.
“We still on for next Saturday night?” Layla asked.
“Your place, right? Definitely still on. And I’ve got something special in mind just for the occasion.” Reilly made kissing noises then rang off.
Well, that stank. Next Saturday was a good ten days away and she hadn’t seen Reilly for at least as long. She’d hoped her day would improve with dinner. Instead it seemed to be taking an even sharper nosedive.
Layla slid her phone back into her purse, catching an envelope before it could fall to the floor. She flipped it over to read the return address. Her quarterly student loan statement. How long had it been since she’d actually paid any attention to her financial affairs? Her paychecks from both the Center and the clinic were deposited directly into her savings and checking accounts, and her loan payments automatically taken out. She had the same overhead every month—what with rent, utilities and car insurance—so there wasn’t really much need to balance her accounts on a monthly basis. The problem was she was pretty sure a year or so had passed since she’d last sat down and gone over everything. All her bank and loan statements sat on her foyer table unopened. Or she temporarily stuck them into her purse with the intention of opening them—which she never did.
She made a face. Wasn’t that how people got into trouble? So she didn’t like doing that sort of stuff. Who did, other than a boring accountant?
She slid her short thumbnail into the corner of the envelope and opened the statement. A quick glance told her that everything was going like a well-oiled machine. No flags to say that she’d missed a payment or that she was being penalized for anything. She stuffed the envelope back into her purse, figuring that’s all she really needed to know.
“This seat taken?”
Layla blinked up into a pair of cappuccino-colored brown eyes a woman could easily fall into. A man who looked better than anything any menu could offer up was gesturing toward where she’d put the gossip magazine on the next stool. The seat was just about the only one in the place. Layla gestured at him. “It’s all yours.”
She covertly eyed the drop-dead-gorgeous guy; he had dirty blond hair and an even dirtier grin. Maybe her day had just gotten a whole lot better….
A MODEL. She had to be.
And Sam Lovejoy definitely liked models.
He grinned again at the tall, slender brunette as he took the stool next to her. He was at least twenty minutes early for dinner with the Trident Medical Center’s senior board member. Hey, you couldn’t be too careful in L.A. While the term “fashionably late” had likely come as a result of the rotten L.A. traffic, he prided himself on always being punctual. Even if that meant getting somewhere way too early.
Tonight it looked as though luck was on his side, though. As far as he could tell, the hottie next to him wasn’t with anyone. And the way she kept sliding him glances told him she was open for any suggestion he might like to make.
He gave himself a mental thumbs-up and ordered a club soda.
“Twelve step?”
He raised his brows at the soft sound of her voice. She had one of those throaty voices that belonged in a smoky nightclub down on Sunset. “No, business dinner.”
She smiled as she crossed her legs. Sam openly watched the movement, wishing her skirt was just a few inches shorter. “Not from L.A., are you?” she asked.
“That obvious?”
“Natives usually drink their way through meals, business or otherwise. In fact, they’ve been known to forego food altogether. It’s what they call coping.”
He handed her the paper he’d picked up from the stool. “Yours?”
She quickly accepted it. “My one vice.” Her smile was a knockout. “I’m obsessed with these things. Can’t leave a store without picking one up.” She tucked her thick dark hair behind her ear. “How long are you staying?”
“In L.A.? Oh, I don’t know. I’ve been here for eight years and have no immediate plans for departure.”
“Ah. In the business?”
“How do you mean?”
She gestured at the others around the bar, most trying to look important or as if they weren’t scoping the place out for familiar famous faces. “Movie business.”
“Oh, no. Not even close.” Well, for all intents and purposes anyway. He didn’t make movies.
She seemed to relax, and he chuckled.
“How about you?” he asked, plucking the lime from the glass and putting it on the napkin. Something she seemed to take note of. “Model, right?”
Her green eyes narrowed slightly. “Wrong.”
“Then you should be.”
While the comment was true, he got the distinct impression that she hadn’t taken it as a compliment. He held up his hands. “Whoa. That sounded like one of the worst come-on lines on record, didn’t it?”
“Mmm.”
“Give me another chance?”
She stared at him for a long moment then cracked a smile. “To what? Embarrass yourself?”
“I deserved that.”
She slowly sipped on her club soda through the tiny straw and stared thoughtfully ahead. “No, you didn’t. I’m sorry. I’m having a really bad day today and it just got worse, and I guess you’re the closest available target.”
“Apology accepted.”
She toyed with the napkin under her glass. “It’s just that, well, one of my friends just cancelled out on me and my other two are late and…” She trailed off.
“And…?” he prompted, surprised to find he was waiting for what else she was going to say.
She waved her left hand—a hand devoid of jewelry. Her nails short and neat and clean. Most men might not notice something like that, but as a surgeon, Sam did. The expression “cleanliness is next to godliness” undoubtedly came from the medical profession.
“You don’t want to hear this. Really you don’t.”
“You’re right, I probably don’t.”
She stared at him.
“But since I still have…” he glanced at his watch “…at least a good fifteen minutes before my party arrives, listening to you sure beats watching the wallpaper fade.”
Truth was, Sam was in an exceptionally good mood. His grandmother had always called him the Golden Boy, and when a college mate had overheard her calling him that, the tag had followed him throughout medical school and well into his career. Not so much because of his looks, but because of his demeanor. While he experienced black moods like everyone else, the difference was he never let anyone know about them. But that didn’t stop him from being interested in others.
“If I ask you a question, will you promise not to go cold on me?” he said when she fell silent.
“Depends on the question.”
“Spoken like a true woman.”
“You noticed.”
His grin turned decidedly suggestive. Oh, yeah, he’d noticed. And then some.
Truth was he was highly attracted to the woman next to him. As far as first meetings went, he felt good about this one. She was elegantly gorgeous and obviously had more than a couple of marbles rolling around in her head. Most women he’d met over the past year would have immediately launched into a tale about a coffee enema gone awry when he asked about their dark mood. And while he still didn’t know the source for her agitation, he’d bet it didn’t have anything to do with coffee or enemas. And that was a refreshing change indeed.
