Free Midnight Hour by Debra Dixon

their work on fund-raising.
    Squaring her shoulders and trusting Sophie’s instincts, she let a smile turn up the corners of her mouth. When she took a deep, slow breath and released it, Nick’s eyes fell right where they were supposed to fall. They widened the tiniest fraction of an inch, and Mercy began to enjoy herself.
    “I hope I didn’t keep you waiting?” she asked, warming to her role and entwining her arm with his as they walked toward the cafeteria. Nick gave her a wary look, but said nothing as she continued, “I had an appointment at the station that ran late.”
    “I wasn’t waiting,” Nick confessed. He felt the firm round swell of her breast press into his arm as she swayed against him while they walked. Her blouse and chemise were so thin that the contact felt like flesh on flesh. “I got tied up with a patient.”
    “Ooh, tied up! That sounds like my kind of fun,” Mercy purred, elated when she felt the muscles beneath her fingers tense. Encouraged by his instant reaction, she pressed on, “Whom do I call to get an appointment?”
    Nick restrained the impulse to pull out his penlight and check her eyes for signs of substance abuse. Nothing else explained the transformation from reluctant girl-next-door to blatant seductress. The Mercy he’d met last weekend might not sweet-talk, but
this
one had just handed him an erotic image on a silver platter. If this woman had answered Mercy’s door, Nick knew he’d have kissed her without hesitation. Kissed her and probably more.
    “Midnight Mercy doesn’t need an appointment,” he assured her, wondering how far she intended to push this conversation. “All you have to do is say the word. I’ve memorized the Boy Scout book of knots, but I should warn you, Mercy. All my affairs are strictly BYOSS.”
    “Hmm. Affair. I like the sound of that.” Disengaging her arm, Mercy entered the cafeteria and reached for a green plastic food tray. “Now what is BYOSS?”
    “Bring your own silk stockings.”
    The tray almost slipped out of Mercy’s fingers, but she managed to slide it onto the metal support. And Sophie was worried about shocking Nick? Worried about shocking a man who seemed perfectly comfortable standing in the middle of the hospital cafeteria, having a conversation about tying up his lovers with silk stockings? Although she was beginning to doubt her game plan, Mercy let her voice drop a bit and gave him her best provocative look. “Got a favorite color?”
    “Darlin’, if I have a choice, I prefer black, but I’ve got no objections to any color stockings you put on … as long as I get to peel ’em off. Real slow.”
    Mercy couldn’t shake the picture forming in her mind. As clearly as if she were recalling an actual event, Mercy could feel his hands as they slipped beneath her skirt to toy with the edge of her stocking. She could feel his fingers as they grasped the garter and he released the clasp with one flip of his thumb.
    The thought made her weak in the knees and heated her cheeks. This brilliant idea of hers was backfiring. Forcing herself to keep moving, she tossedher hair over her shoulder and stretched to reach the buckets of silverware behind the trays.
    Nick knew he’d won their little sexual skirmish by the way she flushed and got busy. The idea of stripping Mercy had his own blood rushing around, too, but while Mercy’s blood had gone to her cheeks, his had traveled south. Watching her skirt rise several inches as she reached for utensils didn’t help Nick’s state of arousal. He couldn’t remember being this hard for a woman he’d never kissed.
    Every moment in her company added to his conviction that Mercy kept an incredibly sensual nature under lock and key. He began to wonder if she was afraid to give in to lust unless she was acting a part, a part like Midnight Mercy. She could vamp to her heart’s content and never have to deliver, since most men would be shaking in their boots at the thought of making love