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Defeat pulsed in his throat. He blew out a heavy breath and knocked the back of his head into the window. “It’s okay. I’m not even sure how much I wanted it…”
Mariah nodded knowingly. “It’s less time with patients. More bureaucracy.”
He froze at the bull’s-eye she’d just hit with her words, then scowled.
“You explained it Saturday night,” she said.
“Of course I did.”Fuck.Saturday night was going to kill him yet.
“You said it’d be a lot of administrationcrap, I believe was your word.”
“I like what I do now. Patient care is the whole reason I went into medicine. So the real question is why the hell I applied for the job in the first place.”
“Pressure. Your family.”
Saturday goddamn night, he thought as he strived to keep his expression from giving away how much he didn’t remember. He shook his head and stalked away from the window toward the open kitchen. “I guess.” He opened his fridge and took out a bottle of beer. “Want a drink?”
“I’m good,” she said. “Your mom and sister are overachievers, you told me.”
Sawyer popped off the lid and took a long drink. He set the bottle down hard on the breakfast bar that separated the kitchen space from the living room. “Always have been.”
“You said you feel pressure to do more. That being a general surgeon isn’t enough. You sometimes wish you’d gone on to specialize, but since you didn’t, you think you should take on more responsibility.”
The truth in her words was as disconcerting as not remembering the conversation at all.
Sawyer considered himself an optimist and sort of bought into the whole “focusing on the good in everything” philosophy. What Mariah was saying — which was obviously what had come out of his mouth originally — was negative. Doubtful. And okay, he could acknowledge it, fear-based. He wanted to deny it all and tell her it’d been tequila-induced nonsense, but he couldn’t quite convince himself.
“My mom introduced me to Ramon Tennyson. That’s not an opportunity I could afford to blow.” Just thinking about facing up to her, admitting to her he’d failed…
Once again, he found himself at the glass door, gazing out as if there were a solution out there. Fat raindrops began to pelt the outer edge of the covered balcony.
“Hey,” Mariah said, coming up behind him again and standing close enough he could feel her heat.
It would’ve been wiser for him to stay in the kitchen with the bar separating them. Without his permission, his body turned around to face her.
“Things happen for a reason,” she said. “That might be a cliché, but I believe it.Ifyou don’t get this job, then it wasn’t the right thing. However, there’s several hours left in the week, Dr. Pessimist. A lot can happen in an hour or two.” Her gaze lowered toward his mouth for a moment.
“Yeah?” he said, suddenly having a hard time speaking. His back was against the glass pane, and she pressed her body along the front of his.
“Absolutely.”
Mariah lifted her chin and kissed him.
6
Mariah’s lips brushed Sawyer’s with a whisper of a touch at first. Testing. Teasing.
Sawyer instinctively grasped her waist in both hands. Pulled her into him. Leaned in for more. The second meeting of their lips was firm. Urgent. Hot as hell. It took less than a heartbeat for his cock to go hard and his blood to boil.
Mariah moaned, and he tilted his head for better access, his tongue exploring her lips, her mouth, darting into her heat, making him think about other moist, hot places on her body.
A part of him knew this went against his plan, but at the moment, his plan was out the window. Kissing Mariah felt like the only thing that made sense. There was refuge in her touch. Respite from his disappointment. How could he worry aboutanythingwith her in his arms?
He burned with the need to touch her, to know her in ways others didn’t. Their hands were everywhere, on top of clothing, slipping beneath, caressing, burning. God, she was hot. Passionate. She made him forget everything except the heat between them that was building to explosive levels in record time.
They were both breathing hard when Mariah broke the contact of their lips and pulled her head back. Alarmed, he opened his eyes to see what was wrong and was relieved to see her smile with a seductiveness he was beginning to expect from her.
“Exactly what I thought,” she said, her voice thick with desire.
