Dating Dr Notorious (3 page)

Over the years, many men had rejected her just for who she was or what she did for a living, and Regina had survived those rejections. Eventually, she’d survive this too, but at the moment she could still taste him, still feel his hands exploring her, still feel him rocking against her in passionate possibility. The loss of what could have been between them broke what was left of her forty-seven-year-old romantic heart.

Okay, breathe, she ordered herself. Screaming will not help. Do not scream. Do not let him know how destroyed you are.

Regina glared at the man’s embarrassed face, derision curling her mouth into a regretful grimace. In a matter of moments, the amount of anger rolling through her equaled the amount of attraction she had originally felt for him. She welcomed the anger because it was better than the pain.

“Well, excuse the hell out of me,” Regina said sarcastically, stepping an arm’s length away so she wouldn’t be tempted to punch the gutless man in the nose. “It was difficult to talk with your tongue in my mouth.”

Regina lifted her chin and moved past both the man and Lauren. “Give me five minutes and I’ll be ready,” she said to Lauren as she walked away, not glancing back.

*** *** ***

After Regina was out of sight, Lauren gave Ben a sheepish look and shrugged.

“Sorry about the interruption,” she said to him in apology.

Horrified, Ben stood there staring, watching the passionate woman he’d kissed striding angrily away from him. He could tell he’d embarrassed her, but Ben was too stunned by what he had learned to be able to feel bad about it yet.

Everyone in the club had seen him all but drag
Dr. Regina Logan
out the door. His predominant concern at the moment was that he had to go back inside the country club now as if he had done nothing out of the ordinary. The gossip about his behavior would be worse if he ran away as he wanted to do. God only knew what kind of hassle he would get when Alfred and Daniel heard about it.

“I just saw her across the room,” Ben declared in his defense, as if it somehow explained the insanity of it all. “I had no idea who she was
.
”

Lauren smiled wistfully, wishing something as romantic could happen to her sometime. She took Ben’s arm to guide him back.

“How utterly wonderful for both of you,” she told Ben in reply, squeezing his arm in approval.

Ben couldn’t tell if Lauren was being serious or sarcastic, but she dropped him just inside the door of the club, and walked up to the podium to introduce Regina.

Then Dr. Regina Logan, the woman who had only moments ago begged him not to stop kissing her, stepped up to speak. When a spotlight hit her full on, the applause in the room was deafening, complete with catcalls and whistles.

Ben looked around at the smiling, laughing faces in stunned disbelief. Then he looked back at the now smiling woman who was commanding the attention of the entire crowd.

How could he have not known? How could he have been attracted to the one woman here that was her?

“I see we have a lively crowd tonight,” she began, raising her voice above the whistles. “Okay people, let’s talk about sex.”

The crowd roared and clapped. Ben heard Regina Logan laugh huskily into the microphone. He felt himself getting aroused again as she began to talk, her teasing tone punctuated by her laughter. When she saw him, Ben could have sworn she winked in his direction. No one seemed to notice, but he blushed anyway, glaring back at her in response.

It wasn’t fair. He could still taste her, still feel the uninhibited response of her hips meeting his. Her reaction, he supposed, could now be explained by what she did for a living, by what she understood about the physical side of things.

Ben ran a frustrated hand through his hair before putting both hands in his pockets to restrain them. He wanted to hit something or someone. He wanted the violence almost as badly as he wanted to drag the woman behind the podium back to the garden and kiss her again to see if it was her or him or them.

Damn it, he thought. Why in the hell did that woman have to be Dr. Regina Logan?

*** *** ***

Regina’s legs were shaking the whole time she talked, but she glared back at the man glaring at her from the back of the room.

Let him be shocked. Regina didn’t care. She had learned years ago to handle the pressure of intense disapproval. By the time the evening was over, the man would officially be on the long list of just-didn’t-work-out relationships in her life.

Still, her emotions had tired her, and Regina was immensely grateful when Lauren rushed to rescue her after the speech, pulling her away from the lingering crowd and down the hall.

Since there were only a few stragglers left milling around, Lauren closed and locked them in her office.

“Great speech, Regina! People were laughing the whole time. You should see the donation baskets. People were putting triple digit bills and big checks in them all evening,” Lauren beamed, hugging her. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

“Who was he, Lauren?” Regina demanded, rubbing her forehead and fighting not to cry.

“Who was who?” Lauren asked, her mind still floating on her success cloud.

“Who was the man who kissed me before he found out who I was?” Regina asked savagely. “The man who pulled me to the damn dance floor when I tried not to go, turned me into a melting puddle at his feet, tongue fuc—” Regina bit off the words and swore more softly, struggling to constrain both her temper and tears.

She rubbed her eyes and groaned. “I’m
sorry
. I know you hate crude language,” Regina said more quietly, pacing in front of Lauren’s desk with hands fisted.

Being this close to Regina Logan in a full mad was downright scary, Lauren decided. How Regina had gotten through her speech with so much angry emotion toward Ben trapped inside, Lauren didn’t know.

How a nice man like Ben Kaiser had so completely destroyed Regina’s virtually unshakeable composure was even more of a mystery. Regina didn’t let men disappoint her to such a degree.

But it was the hurt she could see in Regina’s gaze that worried Lauren the most and had her answering carefully.

“Well, okay. Let me think. The guy in the garden with you was Benjamin Kaiser. Ben just turned fifty and has been widowed about six months. He has a killer smile and always dresses like a male model. Oh, and he’s CEO of Winslow-Kaiser Builders. He continues to run the business and work with his dead wife’s family, which could be a little weird if you two hook up. Ben’s a really nice guy—well, usually,” Lauren said, fading off at Regina’s renewed swearing.

Regina wiped her eyes with her hands. She would not cry just because another nice guy had rejected her.

“Ben Kaiser wanted me when he didn’t know who I was, Lauren. He was the one that walked across the room.
He
dragged
me
out to the garden to make out.” The admission choked her. The memory of his passionate lovemaking lingered and made her want to weep. The sheer enormity of her loss had Regina genuinely screaming in frustration, making Lauren jump.

“Shit. Sorry—really, I’m—sorry,” Regina apologized, mortified at her complete loss of self-control. She stopped pacing, took a few deep breaths, and then slowly gathered up her things.

Venting her temper wasn’t going to help and now she’d frightened Lauren half to death. There was nothing left to do but go home, have a drink, and cry it out.

But damn the man—damn Benjamin Kaiser—she wasn’t going to be able to sleep tonight without reliving those moments with him over and over again.

She had to dig deep for it, but Regina finally collected the shreds of her pride and pulled her composure back together.

“Just more water under the same old bridge, right?” Regina said as calmly as she could manage. She located her car keys before swinging the portfolio bag over her shoulder. “I’m glad tonight worked out well for you, Lauren.”

“Regina, are you going to be okay?” Lauren asked softly, glad to see Regina mostly calm again.

“Sure. It’s just been a while since I got this churned up,” Regina said sadly. “Sorry you had to witness my meltdown. I shouldn’t have let myself get so emotional over a few kisses.”

“Oh, honey, one day the right guy is going to stand his ground and realize what a great catch you are,” Lauren told Regina, sincerely hoping it could be true.

Regina laughed, but there was little humor in it. “I’m forty-seven, Lauren. The
right guy
better hurry before I’m too old to care anymore,” she said sadly, closing the office door behind her as she left.

Regina walked outside, noticing darkness had already fallen. There was barely any moonlight to guide her way to the parking lot.

She had her hand on Harry’s door before she noticed Ben Kaiser leaning against the black beamer parked next to her car. Her heart pounded fiercely as she glared at him in the dark.

Damn the man for looking so good
, she thought resentfully. Her first impression had been that Ben was absolutely the most attractive man she had ever come across. It only made Regina madder to reconfirm it.

She stared back at him, waiting for him to say why he was obviously waiting on her. A lame apology was coming, no doubt, but she was ready to blast him if he said anything further to hurt her. She was too tired to be polite, and there was no one listening this time.

*** *** ***

Ben noticed the anger in Regina Logan’s gaze as she studied him. He didn’t blame her for being upset. His reaction to her identity had been at the very least embarrassing for both of them in front of Lauren, especially considering moments before they’d been kissing—and well, doing other things Ben was still trying not to dwell on.

In fairness, Ben figured he at least owed the woman some sort of apology, which is why he had stayed.

He rose off his car and walked over to stand closer to her. Ben watched as she straightened her posture and turned to fully face him. He couldn’t help thinking she looked ready to take a swing at him at any moment.

Her open hostility should have irritated him, but instead it just made Ben smile. He’d probably let her take a swing just for the opportunity to pin her to the ground as he stopped her. It would give him an acceptable reason—other than insane, uncontrollable lust—to put his hands on her again.

“Look, I’m sorry I didn’t introduce myself before we danced,” Ben said calmly, holding out a hand for her to shake. “I’m Ben Kaiser.”

Regina looked at Ben’s extended hand in disgust even though a polite way out of their entanglement appeared in front of her. If she were a better-natured, nicer woman, she would be taking Ben’s hand and laughing at their moments together, making light of the kiss in the garden. They would no doubt part in a friendly manner and probably never see each other again. Their time together in the garden would become nothing more than an amusing story Ben would tell his friends.

But their time together had meant something different to Regina.

The desperate passion of Ben’s tongue stroking hers was going to haunt her, as was how incredibly good his hands felt holding her hips to his. She had waited a long, long time to feel like Ben Kaiser made her feel. In fact, she had waited her entire life to be wanted in just precisely the way he had seemed to want her in the garden.

Regina almost hated Ben now for giving her such hope then cruelly crushing it when he discovered her identity.

Screw being nice
, Regina decided. She wasn’t letting him off the hook so easily.

“Are you really expecting politeness from someone like me, Mr. Kaiser? I can’t and won’t pretend we haven’t examined each other’s tonsils. I also won’t pretend not to know you wear briefs instead of boxers. After what we shared, you’re nuts if you think I’m going to just shake your hand as if we were still strangers,” Regina said, biting off the rest of the angry words begging to be let out in a vile stream.

Ben ended up scratching his head with the hand he’d tried to offer her. What did she expect him to say back? His mostly sweet-natured wife hadn’t given him much practice in dealing with angry women. Though Ben had to admit there was no dishonesty in what she said, aggressive women with smart mouths like Regina Logan’s were an alien species to him.

When he could think of nothing clever to say back to her, Ben simply dropped his hands to his side and looked longingly at his car. Leaving was still a viable option. There was no one around but Regina to see him go. Ben had checked the parking lot and had waited for everyone else to leave before moving his car next to the one he had guessed to be hers.

He surveyed Regina’s body again, noticing she was still glaring at him. The urge to laugh was unexpected, and the source of his amusement was his own arousal. Checking her out, even in the dark, had the effect of reminding him what had sent him across the floor to her in the first place. And Ben couldn’t help but marvel at how badly he still wanted inside the hot-headed, smart-mouthed woman. He had heard of instant intense sexual attraction, but never had experienced it—until her. Since he wasn’t even officially dating yet, it was hard to accept it sneaking up on him this way.

He let his disbelieving gaze sweep over Regina again, until it rested on her flashing blue eyes and curly red hair. Finally, it fell to her generous mouth, and he remembered instantly and vividly how it felt to kiss her, how thoroughly unrestrained she had been kissing him back. He suddenly wanted to fan that damn fire in her into an inferno hot enough to incinerate both of them.

Then when it was done, he wanted to do it several more times.

So there was no use even trying to pretend he wasn’t attracted to her.

“You’re right. We’re not polite strangers, and I want the same things you do,” Ben said angrily, not pleased with having to admit what he felt.

Regina huffed at his vague reply. Cloaked in politeness, Ben’s answer could mean anything or nothing. His choice of ambiguous words only made her madder, so she decided to make Ben every bit as uncomfortable as he made her.

“How about you grab your balls and try for a real answer next time? Or are you afraid to speak your mind about what you think?” Regina demanded.