Just Surrender.... Kathleen O'Reilly

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СКАЧАТЬ parts and a low heavy rhythm that could have aroused a dead eunuch. Identifying all the cheap marketing tactics designed to titillate him did not erase the fact that the place was getting to him.

      Or maybe it was her.

      Edie Higgins.

      A woman with a four-hour repertoire of dirty jokes, and a body that had never been under a scalpel. The body in question had sultry curves and a rosebud tattoo that rode high on her left breast—regrettably a little too high. Yes, he was feeling shallow and a bit debauched, but in his own defense, he also acknowledged her curiously appealing joie de vivre.

      The club’s whiskey was overpriced and probably watered down, but it didn’t matter. He hadn’t touched his glass, and already he could feel himself loosening up. Her smile was infectious—in the manner of avian flu or staphylococcus, he added as an afterthought. Dr. Tyler Hart was ready to take this woman every way, any way, she’d let him.

      Edie slipped an orange slice into her mouth, the juice dribbling down one side of her lip. She had luscious lips. Not collagen-full, not schoolmarm-thin. Juicy, he thought with a stupid grin, his mind wondering what her mouth tasted like. He was allergic to citrus, but was anaphylactic shock so bad? He hadn’t been tested for allergies in years, and people outgrew them all the time, so theoretically, he had probably outgrown his. Tyler leaned closer, taking a deep whiff of orange and Edie, which promptly sent him into the first throes of sexual dysphoria.

      “What was her name?” she asked, and he had to blink twice in order to focus on the words. Words.

      Slowly his mind formed a suitable answer. “Cynthia.” At the name, some of the sexual dysphoria evaporated.

      “Cynthia,” she repeated in a snotty voice and then giggled.

      It made him want to smile, or maybe it was the way her eyes tracked his face, as if he were the most fascinating man ever. His med school roommate, Ryan, had called him an alcoholic lightweight. Because of that, Tyler was usually careful when it came to drinking. Tyler lifted his full glass and took a hesitant sip.

      “Was Cynthia blonde?”

      “You’re blonde,” he pointed out, but then worried that he had a type. What if he was fatally attracted to toxic blondes? Quickly he slammed the last of his whiskey.

      “I’m not a natural blonde.”

      “Neither was Cynthia,” he volunteered in unchilvarious fashion.

      Edie giggled again. This time, Tyler smiled back.

      “I could buy you a lap dance,” she offered, sounding so sympathetic it should have touched his heart.

      You could give me a lap dance, he thought, and decided he wouldn’t drink anymore. Someone needed to stay in charge. God forbid that it was her.

      “Do you know why she dumped you?”

      “She didn’t dump me,” he protested, although why he was lying he didn’t know. Cynthia had dumped him. Rejected him. Humiliated him. And if he were smarter, he’d be milking this for all the sympathy points that he could get. As a specialist in coronary bypass, Tyler understood how easily the heart could be manipulated.

      He lowered his head, the very picture of dejection. “You’re right.”

      At his words, Edie put a comforting arm around his shoulders, and Tyler shamelessly moved in closer, drawn to her warmth, her generous nature, the feel of her warm and generous breasts brushing against him. Unsurprisingly, some of the sting of rejection disappeared.

      “I’m sorry,” she said, and once again he heard the tenderness in her voice. He was a virtual stranger, and an unchivalarous stranger at that. Before meeting Edie, he had thought that New Yorkers were hard-hearted and cynical, unmoved by the pathos of human suffering…

      Except for this one.

      He met her eyes. “Thank you,” he told her, feeling sincere, grateful and yes, still painfully aroused.

      “Do you want to meet paradise?”

      “I’d love to,” he agreed, his mind already transported to a lurid paradise where there was no dirt, no naked gyrating dancers…unless it was Edie. He’d let her dance. As long as she was naked. Paradise sounded perfect.

      However, instead of taking his hand and leading him away from this chaos, she stood and waved her hand, gesturing wildly to one of the dancers.

      Enlightenment shouldn’t hurt so much.

      “Is that paradise?” he guessed, as the buxom redhead bounced and buoyed her way toward him. Painful enlightenment rolled in his gut.

      “What do you think?” asked Edie, looking extraordinarily pleased with herself as she started on the introductions.

      “Tyler, meet Paradise, aka Anita.”

      Anita held out her hand, and politely Tyler shook it, not wanting to stare at what had to be 42 Double D, but somehow he knew that laws of nature and gravity had both been violated in the altering of her breasts.

      “You have to be nice to Ty. I put him through crap tonight. Girlfriend dumped him, then I had a flat, which he changed in the rain by the way, and didn’t even complain. Not once. He let me drive into Brooklyn, and didn’t bitch about it, even though I knew he knew we weren’t in Manhattan. And he’s a visiting Gemini from Houston.”

      Her words were tribute to a man who was swimming upstream in a tide of lascivious spawn, and whose very life now depended on getting Edie Higgins out of her clothes. Not wanting to disappoint her, Tyler adopted the humble aspect of a man who could do no wrong.

      “You poor man,” Anita cooed, as Edie wandered over to the bar.

      The dancer moved in closer, eyelashes aflutter, and began stroking his arm.

      Tyler tried to focus on her face, rather than her bare breasts, and happily noted the absence of forehead wrinkles that indicated either skin injections or a curious lack of stress in her life. He scanned the room, noted the glistening skin, the sultry dips and shakes, and knew it had to be BOTOX. If he spent every night in this place, he’d be ready for BOTOX, too.

      “How do you know Edie?” he asked, finding a square of ceiling tile to concentrate on.

      “We met at NYU.”

      “You’re a student?” he asked, proudly not jumping when a dancer gyrated dangerously close to him. “Economics.”

      “Of course,” he answered absently, searching out Edie at the bar.

      “She’s a peach.”

      “I noticed.”

      “You like her?” she asked, looking at him with naked curiosity.

      Tyler protested quickly. Apparently too quickly because Anita smiled with blatant sympathy. “It’s okay. You don’t have to feel bad. All the guys love Edie.”

      “Really?” he asked, noting where Edie was, leaning against the long, silver bar.

      Loving Edie СКАЧАТЬ