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It shouldn’t matter that he was as physically affected as she was by the strange chemistry between them.
Unfortunately, it did and left her powerless against the desire erupting inside her body.
“Blair.” Oz’s lips brushed against hers. His mouth tasted hers. Soft. Gentle. Reverent.
Yet hungry.
Desperately hungry.
Starved.
She pressed against him, wanting closer, wanting as much contact as possible. Deep in her mind she registered stress had likely caused her weakness. Probably, stress had caused Oz’s reaction to her, too. But she couldn’t pull away, didn’t even want to try.
Her fingers slipped into his hair. Soft. His hair was so soft. So were his lips. Soft, yet hard.
His whole body was hard.
He pressed her against the concrete hospital wall, pushed against her, groaned. “I swore I wasn’t going to do this. I know I started it, but we have to stop. We’re in the hallway.”
He was right. If caught, she’d forever be labeled as the woman who had been making out in the back cardiac hallway with the seductive Dr Oz Manning. Eventually, he’d leave Madison, but she had no plans to leave. She’d be the one left facing the consequences of a few stolen moments of pleasure.
Nothing new there.
“I shouldn’t have kissed you, Blair.”
Rattled by his kiss and by how much she’d wanted him to keep kissing her forever, she frowned. “Why not?”
“I’d never want to hurt you or Addy.” He drew in a deep breath, raked his fingers through his hair. “A relationship between us would never work. We’re too different, want different things from life. We can’t be more than friends.”
“If we were more than friends you’d hurt me?” She knew it was true even before he answered. Hadn’t she always known? Wasn’t that really why she’d avoided him all those years? Because she’d known Oz had the power to hurt her? Perhaps even more so than Chris had?
“It’s what I do.” He took her hand in his and lifted it to his lips. “What I don’t want to do to you, Blair. I don’t do commitment, you don’t do flings. This is new to me, but I really would like us to be friends.”
Blair let his words sink in, searched his eyes for some sign he was kidding. For some sign he wanted her to say yes, she’d love to have a fling with him. Because, in the insanity of the moment, that was exactly what she wanted to scream at the top of her lungs. Sure, she recognized that her insanity was temporary, that she’d regret saying anything of the sort. But in the heady aftermath of Oz’s kiss, she didn’t want sanity, didn’t want logical. For once she just wanted to feel.
“I want to be friends, Blair. Say yes.”
God, he was serious. He wanted to be her friend. “Why? For Dr Talbot’s sake?”
“If Dr T is the only reason you can find, then yes, for Dr Talbot’s sake. But also because I like you, respect you and enjoy spending time with you.”
Blair considered him, admitting to herself that there was something different about Oz, that he really didn’t fit the mold she’d created for him so long ago. But that didn’t mean there could ever be anything between them.
Because he was right. He would only hurt her. Possibly Addy, too.
She forced a smile onto her numb face. “Friends it is. For Dr Talbot’s sake.”
She wasn’t looking for a man in her life, but one could never have too many friends, could one?
Or was she fooling herself that they could ignore the sparks between them and just be friends?
CHAPTER SIX
OZ MANNING might be completely undateable, but he was turning out to be a better friend than Blair would have thought.
That night they sat on Dr Talbot’s back porch, enjoying the gentle breeze blowing off the Gulf, bringing the scent of the sea with it. The sliding glass door leading into the house was open so they could hear anyone who awakened.
Addy had played with Boo-boo until they’d both run out of energy, talked Dr Talbot’s ear off until the man dozed and, when she’d finally sat still, had fallen asleep curled next to him. Stephanie had gone home shortly thereafter, leaving Blair and Oz virtually alone.
