Fated An Alpha Male Romance - K. Alex Walker Page 0,4
and peering into the pitcher.
“It’s an old secret family recipe,” she answered. “I usually only make it for special occasions, but figured that since the two of you are out here busting your butts working overtime so close to Christmas, it called for a reward.”
“And you’re sure you don’t want to join us?” Ethan asked, lifting a glass between his fingers and handing the other one to me. His fingers grazed mine as I took the stem, and another fantasy tried to surge forth as though it had been waiting for its turn in a game of double-dutch.
“I’m sure,” Grandma Evelyn replied, placing the cap on the pitcher. She slipped her gloves back over her hands. “You two unwind and enjoy. I’ll leave this right here.”
“Hold on, I’ll get you a cab,” Ethan offered.
She playfully swatted at him. “I’m a very capable woman, Ethan, but I do appreciate your chivalry.”
She turned to me, winked as though we’d shared some hidden secret, and then left through my office door. Ethan and I now stood alone in the office, me behind my desk and him just on the other side. When he’d run back to his office to get the glasses, he’d slipped out of his white coat and was now standing in a blue button-up and grey slacks. His matching tie was slightly slackened, and his face had just the right amount of scruff to where the kids were never afraid of him, and the mothers wanted to scale all six-foot-two inches of him.
“I always enjoy seeing your grandmother,” he said, tossing back a gulp of the punch. “But let her know that if she brings by any more of that peach cobbler she baked a couple months ago, I’m putting in an application to be your step-grandfather.”
I burst out laughing and brought the glass to my mouth to chance a sip. A rush of magnificent sweetness rolled down the back of my throat. “Wow.”
“I agree,” Ethan chimed in. He polished off his glass and poured a second. “This goes down pretty smooth. What kind of liquor’s in it? I mean, is there even any liquor in it? It doesn’t taste strong at all.”
I finished my glass and extended my arm for a refill. “I don’t know. This is my first time ever tasting it.”
We continued to drink until the pitcher was nearly empty. When I finished my final glass, he slipped the stem from my hand. Our fingers brushed again, but this time a charge raced down my body, nearly bowling me over.
Honestly, I’ve had a thing for Ethan ever since I came to work with the Stewart and Associates Pediatric Group two years ago, but giving into my attraction was not exactly possible. So, this simply meant that I spent a lot of energy resisting the urge to touch myself whenever I fantasized about him, as well as fighting to keep a platonic distance between our bodies.
As my mother told it, good women did not have wanton fantasies and absolutely never touched themselves in the “forbidden” place between their legs. I’d been perfectly fine being a “good woman” until Ethan came along, but ever since then, in my mind, he’d put me in more positions than the Kama Sutra.
Ethan had the kind of natural charm that could pull you into work with a hundred-and-four degree fever, broken leg, and a missing chunk of ear. Ever since our very first casual conversation in the medical center’s hallway, our interaction was comfortable. I’d told him one of my traditional lame jokes that screamed, “I’m a sheltered general’s daughter,” and he’d laughed as though it had actually been funny.
We occasionally had lunch together at the restaurants within walking distance of the center where he would sit across from me and train those sexy, smoky eyes on me, never missing a word that spilled from my mouth. We would exchange college stories while stealing food from each other’s plates. Once, I was enjoying a particularly good cup of butternut squash soup when I’d looked up and he’d just been smiling and staring at me. When I’d asked him what was wrong, he’d simply looked at my mouth and said I had soup at the corner of my lips. It was the only time in my entire existence that a man had looked as though he could, possibly, see me as a woman to be desired.
While I’d known that there was nothing behind that look, and that he had probably been thinking about another