Read Online The M.D.'s Surprise Family by Marie Ferrarella - Free Book Online Page B

it.
    â€œNo?” Her eyes widened. “Then you’re in for a treat. It had everything—humor, action, mystery, buddies being there for each other, terrific scenery. Anytime you’re up for it,” she impulsively promised, “we can make a marathon of it.”
    Assaulted with her enthusiasm, his head was beginning to spin. “Excuse me?”
    â€œA marathon,” she repeated. “You know, the way they do on some of the cable networks whenever there’s some kind of a holiday. Ten, twelveuninterrupted hours of something or other,” she prompted when he continued to look at her as if she’d suddenly begun spouting Martian. “In this case, Magnum. ”
    He had absolutely no intention of sitting anywhere with her, watching anything. The scenario she was suggesting was far too intimate. It was something he and Lisa had done. “Wasting time” someone on the outside would have called it. Savoring time was the way he saw it.
    â€œI’ve never had ten uninterrupted hours of something, other than work,” he amended. His tone was meant to cut the conversation dead.
    But it refused to die. “Might be just what the doctor ordered.”
    Peter frowned. He’d once been told that his frown could freeze a sunspot at fifty paces. “Not this doctor.”
    Unfazed, Raven was devoid of any frostbite. Instead, there was actual concern on her face as she gazed up at him. “Why are you trying so hard to be superhuman? To deny that you can be human?”
    Maybe it was because he was warming up to her and maybe, here in the darkness, he allowed himself a rare moment of truth, a rare moment in which he allowed the truth to be heard by a complete stranger. A very strange stranger. “Because being human is extremely painful, extremely unrewarding and if I wasn’t attempting to be ‘superhuman’ asyou call it, your brother might not stand any chance at all to—”
    Peter never got a chance to finish what he was trying to say.
    One moment he was lecturing this woman who had exploded into his life. The very next moment, his lips were no longer moving. Or at least, no longer allowing any sounds to slip past them.
    They were sealed to hers.
    It happened so suddenly, Peter had no idea how he’d gotten from point A to point B. For a moment he entertained the idea that he was either hallucinating or having, quite possibly, an out-of-body experience. One moment, only darkness surrounded him, and the next, bright lights went off, filling him inside and enveloping him on the outside.
    Lights and warmth and something that he vaguely recognized as desire.
    Which was impossible. Because desire in all forms had deserted him. Whether it encompassed the most basic kind or just a craving for a particular food, he had become utterly devoid of it.
    Until now.
    He felt desire, robust and full-bodied.
    He would have sworn this part of him had died at Lisa’s gravesite. He’d become, for all intents and purposes, a hollow man.
    Yet he wanted to be kissing this woman he’d inexplicably found his lips pressed against. Wanted tobe holding her to him, feeling her soft, supple body molding into his.
    Wanted this rush that both hurt and felt good.
    He was coming unglued.
    Â 
    She knew it, knew that it would be like this. Knew the second she had seen the tall, dark, brooding doctor and heard his voice. Knew that there was trapped emotion within him that if she could only tap, would sweep her away.
    And she needed to be swept away, needed to feel, just for a moment, as if every star in the universe was in the right place and that everything, everything would be all right.
    Anything less was unthinkable.
    She needed to know, to be convinced, that this man cared. Because only a caring man could fix her brother and make him well again.
    Raven raised herself up on her toes, her fingertips digging into a pair of strong, muscular shoulders. It was hard to remain