Friday and Saturday passed in this way: double shifts in the ER; polite, but awkward interactions with the Dr. Ken Miles; not-so-polite interactions with Meg; study visits with Angelica and Rose three times a day; carted back and forth to the hospital by Quinn’s guards. I saw Janie in passing a few times, as I was coming or she was going. When I wasn’t at work, I was knitting, or reading the latest medical journals, or listening to music loudly, and/or—more often than not—fantasizing about Nico Manganiello.

I looked forward to the study visits with Angelica and Rose, seeing them, visiting with them. I enjoyed taking care of Angelica and easing Rose’s fears, providing them support. On Friday we met for lunch before the infusion and then decided, when my schedule allowed, we should continue doing so for the rest of the month.

Rose informed me during the 6:00 a.m. infusion visit on Saturday morning that all the equipment from my list would be at the penthouse by that afternoon. With approval from the study sponsor in hand to take the drug offsite, I made a plan to stop by their apartment once my shift was over.

Much to everyone’s excitement and relief, I was able to complete Angelica’s Saturday evening study visit in the comfort of their apartment rather than everyone having to migrate back to the clinical research unit at the hospital. I was doubly relieved because it meant I wouldn’t have to go back to the hospital at 6:00 a.m. on Sunday, which was my day off.

The alarm woke me up at 5:15 a.m. Sunday morning. It pulled me out of a really nice dream; Nico and I were on a private beach someplace. All my dreams recently, good and bad, seemed to involve him. It wasn’t something I struggled against. I accepted it, even looked forward to sleep partially because of it and partially because sleep is awesome.

My plan was simple: I would take a shower, pull on some scrubs and slippers, administer the infusion, come back home, go back to bed and hopefully reenter the dream exactly where I’d left off: Nico shirtless and walking toward me. Yum.

I used the key Rose had given me on Saturday to enter the penthouse around 5:45 a.m., still yawning and feet trundling as I closed the door behind me. It smelled like coffee and baked goods. My stomach rumbled.

I walked past and took note of two suitcases by the entranceway, but thought nothing of them; then moved into the living room, where we’d placed the infusion chair and other needed supplies. Rose was there and Angelica was curled on her lap, still asleep. A My Little Pony cartoon was on the TV.

Rose met my gaze and gave me a hazy, sleepy smile. “I’m going to let her sleep for a few more minutes. There is coffee in the kitchen if you’d like some, also apple fritters.”

I scrunched my face at her. “How long have you been up?”

“Not long.” Rose pressed a kiss on Angelica’s forehead. “Go get something to eat. I’m hungry just looking at you. You’re like skin and bones, working all the time.”

I lifted an eyebrow, but did as I was told and turned toward the kitchen in search of apple fritters. Rose liked to tell me I was skin and bones, but I was not. I was a size eight and healthy with a pleasant tummy pooch in the middle. I liked to think it made me cuddly.

I slipped my hand under the shirt of my scrubs and was scratching aforementioned pooch when I walked into the kitchen, to the coffee machine, and stopped, immobilized.

Before me was the sight of Nico, shirtless and in black boxer briefs, making apple fritters. He was standing at the kitchen table spooning apple goo into a waiting dough shell. Flour speckled his chest and stomach. I noted his stomach was pooch free.

Watching a shirtless Nico Manganiello bake was something that belonged in Playgirl magazine.

He was obscene, and the scene was  p**n ographic. Between the smell of coffee and apple fritters, the still-lingering arousal from my Nico-beach dream, and finding him in the kitchen all hot and domesticated, I thought I might orgasm on the spot.

I certainly would if he touched me.

Don’t let him touch you!

Chapter 16

I stared at him and his . . . everything. Just. Freaking. Everything. And I might have drooled a little bit. In fact, I know I did because I felt drooly water fall to my arm. It was enough to wake me from the Nico-domestic- p**n  trance. I wiped my arm and hand on the pants of my scrubs and—with every ounce of self-control I had within me—tore my gaze from him and his . . . fritters.

As luck would have it, Nico appeared to notice me at the exact same moment. “Hey, Elizabeth. Want a fritter?”

“Uh, nope.” I noted that the color of the kitchen walls were pale gray.

He crossed to me, holding a golden pastry. “Sure you do.” I lifted my eyes at his approach, was slapped in the face with the unrealness and unfairness of his perfect physique.

“No. I’m good. Really.” I turned slightly and backed up, unthinkingly trapping myself between the island counter and the sink.

He lifted the pastry to my mouth and said, “Open up.”

I leaned backward over the sink, my arms flailing, and forced him to stop his advance. “Hey buddy—you want to put that junk away?”

Nico glanced down at his black boxer briefs. “What are you talking about?”

“The torso of magnificence and thighs of splendor. You want to cover up?”

Nico placed the fritter on the counter to his side; his other hand rested on his chest, and he issued me a soporific smile. “Torso of magnificence?” His hand moved down the front of his chest, over the ridged plane of his abdomen then slowed just above the elastic of his briefs, hovered there. I watched the movement of his hand as though it were a snake ready to strike.

Bad, bad, bad analogy!

“Am I distracting you, Elizabeth?”

“No, no you’re not. You’re just—you just shouldn’t walk around half- or mostly na**d when people are out and about. That’s all I’m saying.”

“Do you have a problem with male nudity?”

“I don’t have a problem with male nudity.” I shook my head. “I have a problem with your male nudity—in this apartment.”

“This is my apartment.”

“Yes, I know. But there are women and children in this apartment, in the other room watching cartoons.”

“She’s my niece.”

“I know that.”

“And my mother.”

“Yes, I’m aware of that fact as well, but I’m not related to you.”

“No . . .” His grin was less lazy, more focused. “No, you’re not related to me.”

“No . . . I’m not . . .” I was trapped in his gaze for a moment and may have swayed forward a few inches before catching myself and averting my eyes. “I’m not and we’ve already established that fact and I’m going to leave the kitchen now.” I tried to move past him, but he shifted to the side; my arm made contact with his bare chest, and I recoiled as though burned.

“Well, let me just get out of your way.” He said though he purposefully filled the entire space between the two counters, ensuring that I would have to touch him and his torso of magnificence—if not his thighs of splendor— in order to pass.

“Very nice, very nice—” I rolled my eyes at his antics and attempted to navigate a path through the small space without rubbing against his impressively proportioned and well-chiseled body.

“You know, maybe you would be more comfortable if you took your clothes off.” Nico shifted and caught me against the counter between his arms; his hands rested on either side of my hips. “I think if you took your shirt off then you wouldn’t feel like things are so uneven.” He was the only person I’d ever met who could swagger while standing still.

“Would you please just—please just move out of my way?”

“I mean, you don’t have to take your bra off, you could just take your shirt off.”

“Oh, really? Did you want me to administer the infusion to Angelica with no clothes on? Would that be appropriate behavior?”

His grin intensified. “Elizabeth, I can think of many things I want you to do without your clothes on, but administering an infusion to my niece is near the bottom of the list.”

“Oh? Okay, what other things can you think of that would be near the bottom of the list?”

“Let’s talk about the top of the list.”

“No.” I forgot for a moment that I was trapped and found myself thoroughly enjoying the unexpected turn of our conversation. “I want to talk about the bottom of the list first.”

“Okay, at the bottom of the list of things I want Elizabeth Finney to do with no clothes on is,” Nico glanced at the ceiling, his eyes unfocused as though deep in thought, then he abruptly returned them to me. “Hug another guy.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, yeah. That’s near the bottom of the list.”

I placed my index finger on my chin. “Well, what about washing a car?”

“No, no—that’s high on the list. Very, very high.”

“Oh, it is?”

“Lower on the list would be something like cleaning up poop.”

An involuntary laugh burst forth. “Okay. I can see that. I can see why that wouldn’t be so great.”

“How about you?”

“How about me what?”