The Jinx: A Romantic Medical Comedy (Heartthrob Hospital Book 2) Read online

“Well...if you’re sure. A massage does sound great.” His ease at lying both surprised and shamed him.

  “You wait right here,” CeeCee said. “I’ll locate Jack’s key in my apartment and let you in properly. Then we’ll tuck you into bed and massage your leg. And in the morning, we’ll tell the superintendent the windowpane needs replacing.”

  Tuck him into bed? Hot damn.

  “That’s really sweet of you, CeeCee.”

  “Hey, Jack’s my best friend in the whole world. I would do anything for him. And that includes taking care of his twin brother.”

  And I’d do anything in the world for you, CeeCee. Anything at all. Even pretend to be my own twin.

  “I won’t be a second.” She touched him briefly on the arm, then took off upstairs.

  His eyes followed her graceful movements. His stomach hitched a ride to his throat. She was captivating, stunning, absolutely breathtaking. If he played his cards right, before this month was out, he’d be out of the friend zone and into her bed.

  And Dr. Jack Travis wanted nothing more in the entire world.

  5

  CeeCee’s hands trembled as she fumbled in her junk drawer for the key to Jack’s apartment.

  Was Zack destined to become a scorching affair? In other words, Jack antivenom so she could stop fixating on her best friend.

  “Calm down,” she chided after she dropped the key for the third time on her way out the front door. “Chill. You’re getting ahead of yourself.”

  Understatement of the year.

  Fifteen minutes with Zack and already her libido wanted to stampede right off a cliff. For the first time since Jack left, CeeCee realized how much her midnight sexual fantasies had taken their toll.

  Was she so gosh-darned hungry for her best friend she was willing to vault into the sack with his look-alike twin to sate her appetite? It was a natural urge, but to act on those urges wouldn’t be fair to either Zack or Jack.

  Or for that matter, her.

  “Look what you’ve done to me, Jack Travis,” she muttered under her breath. “And all I ever did was give you one little kiss on those killer lips. You’ve turned me into a nutcase. Thank heavens things never went any further between us.”

  She slipped out the door, key clutched firmly in her hand, and found Zack sprawled in a lounge chair surrounded by a throng of women.

  Giggling, cooing, beautiful women draped over him like tablecloths. One sat in his lap. Two others leaned on each shoulder.

  Hmph.

  She’d run slap-dab against the downside of setting one’s sights on a sexy rogue—fierce competition. But a little rivalry was fine with her. She wasn’t looking for a forever kind of guy and she wasn’t jealous. Zack was a charming free bird, and that’s what she liked about him. No strings tying down this twin.

  CeeCee approached the group, dangling the key at Zack. She wriggled her toes—painted Pretty-In-Pink just for the party—inside her strappy gold sandals and forced a casual smile.

  “Ready, Romeo?” She couldn’t resist.

  Zack studied her toes, a contented expression on his face. She could have sworn he murmured something like, “And this little piggy cried wee-wee-wee all the way over to Zack’s place.”

  What an ego.

  “Zack,” she said sternly.

  “Yes, ma’am?” He raised his gaze and gave her a lazy wink.

  Oh, but he was a player!

  “Your knee. The pain. You wanted to lie down. Remember?”

  Momentary irritation flashed through her. He was bold enough to flirt with her while three other women flanked him. She almost told him he could sweet-talk one of his new conquests into massaging his leg, but why let his behavior perturb her? It wasn’t as if she cared. It wasn’t as if he were his brother.

  “Oh, yeah.”

  Grinning, he gently lifted the blushing young lady from his lap and cautiously rose to his feet. He tried to disguise his discomfort in his knee, but CeeCee detected his brief wince of pain and immediately her irritation vanished.

  He was her best friend’s brother. He’d been hurt. She was a physical therapist. She’d give him that massage.

  It didn’t have to mean anything.

  “Nice meeting you, ladies,” Zack said to his admirers.

  The women tittered and grinned.

  “This way, Lothario.” CeeCee ushered him back across the courtyard toward Jack’s apartment.

  “Hey,” he said. “I’m not as bad as all that.”

  “That’s not what Jack tells me.”

  “My brother has a tendency to exaggerate.”

  CeeCee tossed a glance over her shoulder at the women who were still giggling and waving at Zack. “Oh, no? Then how do you explain them?”

  “Jealous?” He chuckled.

  “Of those women? Because of you? Get over yourself.” CeeCee stopped on Jack’s stoop and eyed Zack up and down before jamming the key into the lock with more force than she’d intended.

  “CeeCee?”

  “What?” she snapped and turned to find him standing right beside her.

  His eyes glimmered darkly, from tequila or lust, she couldn’t be sure which, maybe both. “Not one of those women can hold a candle to you.”

  For a brief second there, he sounded just like Jack. CeeCee caught her breath, then quickly expelled it. “Flatterer.”

  “I mean it.”

  “Yeah, right, Casanova.” She wagged a finger under his nose. “You don’t fool me.”

  “I’ve had my share of women.” His breath was warm against her nape. “Does that bother you?”

  “Why should your sexual history bother me?”

  He quirked a smile, then reached out and traced a finger along her collarbone. “Because I was hoping...”

  She knew what he was hoping. CeeCee turned away lightning quick before he spoke the words already on her mind. She nudged the door open.

  “Ta-da,” she exclaimed far too brightly as she flicked on the light and scurried inside.

  He ambled in behind her, pulling the duffel bag that had been resting on the porch after him.

  “Hey, that looks exactly like Jack’s duffel.”

  “Does it?” With one foot, he nudged the bag behind him.

  “I saw a program on one of those news shows about identical twins,” she chattered, anxious to fill the air with sound. Anything to lessen the reality that she was wearing nothing but a string bikini and standing beside one of the most sexually potent men she’d ever run across.

  “Apparently these two identical twins were separated at birth,” she continued, “and didn’t meet until they were in their thirties. Their similarities were uncanny.”

  “No kidding.” He looked distracted, as if he was worried about something.

  “They both had wives with the same name, and they drove the same make of car. They were both lawyers, and they liked the same foods.”

  “No kidding.” He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her. It was disconcerting and rewarding, so she just kept blathering. “And when they bought each other a birthday gift for the first time, they gave the exact same shirt! Spooky, huh?”

  “Spooky,” he echoed.

  “Is that how it is between you and Jack? You know, like telepathy?”

  “Well…”

  “Obviously, that must be the case to some degree. I mean you’ve both got the exact same duffel.” She gestured at the bag again. “Just like those twins and their shirts.” She was rattling on endlessly and she knew it, but she couldn’t seem to stop.

  “Jack and I really aren’t that close. Despite being identical twins, we don’t have much in common.”

  “Except for the duffel bag, of course.”

  “Oh, yeah, well that.”

  They stared at each other a long moment.

  “Why don’t you...um...head into the bedroom and shimmy out of those jeans?” she suggested.

  “Why, CeeCee, that’s the best offer I’ve had in weeks,” he teased.

  �
��You know what I mean.” She mentally cursed her peaches-and-cream complexion that blushed so easily when she was befuddled.

  “I’m sorry.” He touched her shoulder. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

  “I’m not embarrassed,” she denied although she felt her face heat to the flaming crimson of American Beauty roses. Zack was an odd guy. One minute, teasing and outrageous, the next almost like Jack, thoughtful and apologetic.

  Zack telegraphed her a knowing grin, dispelling the notion he was the least bit like his twin brother.

  She ducked her head, avoiding his eyes, and opened the door to Jack’s bedroom. Glass lay on the carpet beneath the window. A breeze blew through the hole, lifting the curtain and bringing in sounds from the party.

  “Holler when you’re out of those pants and ready for the massage.”

  Zack sauntered into the room. CeeCee closed the door behind him, sagged against it on the other side, and waved a hand to fan herself. Whew, somebody flip the air conditioning to arctic blast.

  A minute passed.

  “CeeCee,” Zack called.

  “You ready?”

  “Well...I’m having a problem.”

  She opened the door again and found him gazing sheepishly at her from the middle of the room. His jeans were unzipped, his rippling muscled chest still bare.

  The sight was enough to make her eyes bug.

  In the glow of the bedroom light he was thunderously breath-stealing. His tousled, collar-length hair and the beard covering his lean jaw gave him a knavish appearance. His skin was a burnished bronze, his grin devastating.

  How had she ever thought this undisciplined man was anything like his kind, gentle twin? Jack and Zack were as different as dusk and dawn. One heralded the coming of darkness, the other celebrated daylight.

  As much as she might long to reside in the daylight, it was her fate to spend her life in the dark thrill of night. Best to embrace destiny, not fight it.

  “I couldn’t shuck my jeans past my knee,” Zack explained. “It’s too swollen. I need you.”

  “Oh.” CeeCee wet her lips with the tip of her tongue.

  He wriggled his pants down over his hips, giving her full view of his white cotton briefs, and sat on the edge of the bed. CeeCee stayed rooted to the spot, staring, mouth agape.

  “Come here.” He crooked a finger at her.

  No way. Uh-uh. She wasn’t moving.

  “CeeCee.” His voice poured over her like warm brandy. “I need you.”

  How many times over the past four weeks had she imagined a scenario like this? Except in her fantasies it had been Jack on the bed calling her name—not his reprobate twin. But since she couldn’t have the man she wanted, could Zack be the next best thing?

  She was physically attracted to Zack, yes, siree, but only because he reminded her so much of Jack.

  She was confused. She had an overwhelming desire to kiss Zack, to see if he tasted like Jack. A good sign or a bad one? Was she trying to sublimate her feelings for Jack by taking up with his brother?

  A dangerous, wicked, forbidden thrill electrified her.

  Being with Zack would be like having her cake and eating it, too. She wouldn’t have to fear breaking gadabout Zack’s heart. And he was exactly what she needed at the moment. Sexual anesthesia to take her mind off Jack.

  Clearing her throat, she squared her shoulders and stepped across the room toward him.

  He sat on the edge of the bed, slipped the jeans down over his good right leg, and extended his other leg toward her.

  CeeCee knelt before him, her heart thudding so hard she feared it would explode in her chest. Boom. Grasping the denim material in both hands, she slowly began to work it over his swollen knee.

  Winnowing his Levi’s from around his ankle, she let the jeans drop to the floor, then slid her hands up his leg. Her fingers skimmed his honed calf muscles, tangled in the woolly hair on his shins, then came to rest on his knee. Gently she began to stroke him with soft, circular movements.

  Zack hissed in his breath.

  “Sore?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Try and relax. You’re very tense.”

  His laugh was hoarse. “Who wouldn’t be tense with a fine-looking woman like you rubbing his knee?”

  “You need to spend twenty minutes a day in the whirlpool, for two to three weeks,” she said briskly, ashamed to admit his compliment pleased her.

  CeeCee was accustomed to men making passes at her. She fended off pickup lines daily. Zack’s desire for her was nothing new. What was new was her corresponding passion.

  “Yeah, that’s what the doctor told me. But I don’t have access to a whirlpool.”

  “Yes, you do.” She still avoided his gaze. Avoided acknowledging that he was almost buck naked, that she was on her knees in front of him, that his nearness set her skin on fire. “We’ve got a whirlpool right here at the apartment complex, and I could give you a treatment every evening when I get home from work.”

  “Wow, that’d be great.”

  She finally caught his eye, beheld raw desire shimmering in the depths. He inhaled in rapid succession.

  A fine sheen of perspiration glimmered off his one hundred percent fat-free chest. He possessed a devilishly sort of magic she couldn’t ignore.

  Trickery, witchery. I need help, she thought. A talisman, a good luck charm, something, anything to ward off his dangerous allure.

  Oh! She pressed her teeth into her bottom lip to draw her focus to the task at hand and away from Zack’s amazing body.

  Did Jack look the same underneath his clothes? They were identical twins. The thought sent shivers capering up her spine like kids playing hopscotch.

  “Stop doing that,” he said hoarsely, causing CeeCee to lift her head and meet his gaze full-on.

  “Am I hurting you?” Alarmed, she let go of his leg and rocked back on her heels.

  “Yeah, but not in the way you think.”

  “Excuse me?” Puzzled, she cocked her head.

  “Stop biting your bottom lip. It’s driving me crazy.”

  “Huh?”

  “Seeing those pearly teeth sinking into that full, lush bottom lip of yours makes me so...” His strangled voice trailed off, and then he whispered, “Hot.”

  He reached out and ran his thumb along the bottom lip in question. A lip tingling with electrical impulses. “It makes me want to kiss you.”

  She groaned softly. “Stop it, Zack.”

  “Why?” he asked. “It’s obvious there’s a powerful chemistry between us. Why ignore it, sweetheart?”

  Then, before she could hightail it out of there, Zack hooked one arm around her waist, hauled her onto the bed with him, lowered his head, and kissed her.

  6

  Drunk on Zack’s identity, the vestiges of cheap tequila, and the proximity of CeeCee’s perfect little body—abracadabra!—Dr. Jack Travis was a man transformed.

  She wore a string bikini. He was in his BVDs. Her dewy skin rubbed against his tanned hide. Her warm breath fanned the hairs on his forehead.

  A sure recipe for disaster.

  But Jack didn’t care. He was no longer cautious, practical Dr. Travis. He was Wild Man Zack.

  The desires he’d repressed for six months gushed like a geyser spewing hot energy into his system. The proverbial Jack had been sprung from his box.

  Pop goes the weasel.

  He ate her up, plunging heart and soul into that kiss.

  His mouth absorbed her flavor. His tongue explored every corner of her warm, willing mouth. He kept his eyes wide open so he could see her, marveling at her long feathery lashes, the sweet curve of her cheek, and the way one bottom front tooth was just the slightest bit crooked. He was completely awed to have her in his bed.

  He could scarcely believe she was here. He kept running his palms over the planes of her face to prove to himself she was real, and he wasn’t caught up in a lucid dream.

  Mine, he thought greedily. Mine.

  I
n that moment he knew he had made the right decision by assuming his twin’s persona. Anything, whatever it took to win her, was worth it.

  CeeCee wriggled beneath him, mewling low in her throat.

  Her feminine timbre, her dainty movements thrust him headlong into full-blown arousal. Passion gripped him and refused to let go. He was hard enough to punch holes in tin metal.

  His blood surged through his veins, thundering in his ears louder than the ocean’s surf. His temperature spiked as hot as Arizona in August. A whole blasted chorus of butterflies cavorted in his stomach, kicking like Vegas showgirls.

  He reveled in her.

  Silky lips. Satiny hair. Velvety fingertips. Downy nape.

  Fuzzy. Fluffy. Plush and cuddly.

  She was sweeter than the most heavenly dessert. Death by Chocolate, hell. Give him Death by CeeCee. What a way to go!

  Down, down, down he fell into everything that was CeeCee. Her taste, her smell, her exquisite sounds. He couldn’t stop his descent.

  As if he wanted to!

  For the first time in his life, he felt utter bliss. He closed his eyes, savoring the experience.

  The moment lasted a good thirty seconds.

  Then he screwed it up by saying, “I want you, CeeCee.”

  “Zack,” CeeCee murmured, her mouth pressed to his, her small hands knotted into fists against his chest.

  “Uh-huh.” He drifted languidly in the pleasure, enjoying the way her whisper tickled his lips.

  “We can’t do this.”

  “Do what, babe?”

  “Have sex.”

  Have sex? He wasn’t having sex; he was making love.

  No wait. Jack made love. Zack had sex and CeeCee thought he was Zack.

  He couldn’t let her think he wanted to make love instead of simply having wild circus sex. If she had the slightest inkling that he was crazy for her—as either Jack or Zack—she would dash away faster than the Roadrunner zipping off from Wile E. Coyote.

  Beep. Beep.

  Nonchalant, carefree, tons of fish in the sea, that was the attitude.

  Yeah, easy to say. Now if only he could convince his heart to stop reeling into his rib cage every time that he looked at her.

  He pried open his eyes. “I’m on fire for you, and I think you’re hot for me, too. We’re both consenting adults. What’s the problem? Is it because I’m not interested in long-term?”