"We're not together, and after next week when I'm done with the clinic, we're not seeing each other anymore."

"Well, who made up that brilliant rule?"

He sighed. "Don't you have a toilet to clean or something?"

"I'd rather bother you." She leaned back, made herself comfortable. "So let me get this straight… here's the first woman in forever to grab you by the heart strings and hold on tight, and you're going to walk away from her? And all this time I thought you were so smart."

"We both agreed this was just a temporary-" He broke off, stared at the pounding surf. Temporary. He was beginning to hate that word.

"A temporary sex thing?" She cackled. "Well, I'm all for that. Only it turned out to be more, you big, fancy idiot, and now what… you're too proud to say so?"

"More never works out for me. Not with my lifestyle."

"So a doctor isn't allowed to have a life now? You know what I think?"

"If I say yes, will you be quiet?"

"I think it's more than that. I think you're afraid."

He managed a laugh. "Don't be ridiculous."

"You're afraid to get married and have kids because you think you'll be no better of a daddy than yours was."

Startled, he looked up at her. She nodded. "Your brother called me yesterday. Wanted to check up on you. I told him everything, so get over it. Matt said he thought maybe you didn't want to get involved since your parents didn't like the responsibility of having kids and never even looked at the two of you. He said that'd been his problem until he was knocked off his feet by some fancy, beautiful scientist he's going to marry."

He was going to kill his brother. "Carmen-"

"Right." She rose. "Mind my own business. Sure." She started to walk away, only to turn back. "I guess the thing I'm really surprised at is that Faith is being as stubborn and proud as you. I mean, we all know what's holding you back. Stupid, male pride. But what's holding her back? I would have thought at least one of you would have had the guts to fight for this." With that, she walked away.

The waves hit the shore with a relentless rhythm that now matched his new headache. He did know what held him back, and yes, maybe part of it was fear, part of it resignation that he could never have a normal family life, so he figured why try.

Sitting there on the sand watching Mother Nature do her thing, he could admit, it'd always been easier to date casually, letting women in and out of his mental revolving door rather than try to solve the problem.

But what the hell held Faith back?

Chapter 12

And then it was their last weekend. Faith was going to open the clinic both days, as they were doing a special Women's Awareness Day on Sunday.

Luke had agreed to work the entire weekend, so readily that Faith actually let herself believe he didn't want it to end any more than she did.

Faith woke up feeling blue. She told herself she was worried about money, worried about a few patients, worried about a class she wanted to work into her schedule, worried about her blood sugar since late the night before. Driven by stress, she'd broken into Guy's personal stash of candy and had wolfed down two candy bars.

But what was really bothering her had nothing to do with any of those things and everything to do with the fact that tomorrow, after Women's Awareness Day, Luke would be gone.

Guy had bought some goodbye decorations at a party shop, and was dressing up their staff room. Shelby had made cookies, oatmeal with raisin, of course, and was proud of the fact that they contained no sugar or wheat.

They tasted like bricks, but that wasn't what caused the unswallowable lump in Faith's throat and she knew it.

Only two more days.

Forty-eight hours.

Two thousand eight hundred and eighty minutes.

She was mentally calculating the seconds when Luke walked into the room wearing his usual neat trousers and button-down shirt already shoved up to the elbows. He smiled at the decorations, grabbed a cookie and turned to Faith.

He took her breath.

Leaning back against the counter, he studied her while he took a bite. His eyes seemed to see everything, the way she'd pulled her wild hair back in an ineffective attempt to tame it. The crystals she'd put in her ears, guaranteed to make wishes come true… she'd be putting those to the test today. The high spots of color she could feel on her cheeks. The snug, unusually flattering knit dress she'd chosen hoping he'd notice that it actually made her look good-

His eyes flared with appreciation as they roamed over her, assuring her he'd noticed. He popped the rest of the cookie into his mouth and pushed away from the counter. "Those are awful," he said, and cupped her face. Tilting it up, he ran a thumb over her lower lip and destroyed a whole host of brain cells.

"That's because there's no sugar in them."

"Ah." Bending, he brushed his lips over hers. "Tonight, Faith?"

Her eyes drifted shut and she silently thanked him, because he'd made it so she couldn't think, which meant she could no longer calculate how much time she had left with him. "Tonight."


* * *

That night, Luke helped her close up the clinic. "Dinner," he said, but she shook her head. She wasn't wasting a single moment of their second-to-last night together.

"Upstairs."

Slowly he nodded, and reaching out for her hand, led her up the stairs.

"Shower?" she murmured, dropping her coat right inside the front door and reaching for his. "Lots of steam and hot water?"

"If it involves a wet you."

They stripped each other on the way down the hall, between long, wet kisses and hands fighting for purchase. Faith opened his shirt and shoved it off his shoulders so she could touch the chest she could never get enough of. Luke unzipped her dress, nudged it to the floor and bending his dark head, put his mouth over her heart.

No. Too emotional, and if they went the emotional route tonight she was going to lose it. She wanted hot, hard, and fast, and with that in mind, she nibbled her way over his hard pec, scraping her teeth over his flat nipple.

He sucked in a harsh breath as his nipple beaded.

Looking up at him, she licked her way to his other side at the same time she shoved his pants down.

"Faith-" But he broke off with a choked breath and staggered back against the wall when she wrapped her fingers around his long, hard, hot length and stroked.

Luke actually saw stars, heard fireworks in his head. If he didn't slow her down, it was going to be over too soon, but then she stroked him again, slowly, with just the right pressure, and his toes started to curl. With a low oath, he reached for her but she held him off, dancing away, moving towards the bathroom.

He saw pink towels, and a pink toothbrush on the counter, with smiley faces on the handle. Then he caught her just as she turned on the water, caught her and spun her around, pressing her back against the cool glass door of the shower, sandwiching her there with his hot, hard body.

But she just smiled that smile that always melted him, and spun them again, holding him pinned against the door as she slowly, slowly, sank down to her knees in front of him.

"Faith-"

Her warm, silky mouth surrounded him and all the air left his lungs. Normally this was Luke's very favorite sexual act, and indeed his eyes were crossing as she kissed and caressed her way over him, but right now all he wanted was to be buried deep inside her warm, giving body. He wanted to look into her eyes, wanted to see she felt the same unbelievable, inexplicable pull, and he wanted, desperately, to pretend she could be his for more than just this last weekend. Wanted that so damn much he didn't know how to function.

But what she was doing to him… It took every ounce of control he had to pull her to her feet and into her bedroom, where he tossed the covers aside and gently tossed her onto the mattress.

"The shower-"

"Can wait." He kneeled on the bed. "I want you, Faith. I want you surrounding me, looking at me, seeing me… just me." Bending over her, he nuzzled at her throat. "Just me," he whispered, rubbing his jaw against the warm, full curve of her breast, watching the nipple harden even more, as if blindly seeking his mouth. His hand slid down her belly, between her thighs, and at the creamy wetness that slicked his fingers, he groaned.

"Oh, Luke…" Melting arms surrounded him. "I'm looking at you, seeing you, just you… just you, Luke." She opened her legs to accommodate him, and when he settled between them, she arched up, so that he could bury himself exactly where he wanted to be, deeply within her body. It was so powerful and complete his knees went weak, and he was grateful he hadn't tried to take her in the shower standing up or he'd have killed them both.

Pulling back, he thrust deep. She gasped and whimpered and sighed all at once, eyes closed, mouth open, body tight as an arrow beneath him. Her breasts were creamy and full, her nipples beaded and tight, her stomach quivering slightly as she waited impatiently, restlessly, for him to move again. When he didn't, when he could only hold on and stare down at her, overcome, she arched her hips, silently entreating him to take them both right off the edge of the cliff they clung to.

"Can't," he managed through gritted teeth. "Left the condom on the floor in the hallway in my pants."

With a soft moan, she sagged back. "Hurry."

He never moved so fast in his life, and when he sank into her again, suitably protected now, he combed his fingers into the hair at her temples and held her face, craving that connection as well. "Okay?"