Make It Hot

Chapter 3

After two-and-a half months of intense therapy, Joel had come to hate his sessions.

He didn’t hate the sessions so much as what they represented: the ever-growing possibility he might never fight fires again.

Sure, they could make the pain manageable and most times nonexistent. He could even get on with a perfectly normal and boring regular life, but no matter how hard he worked, he couldn’t seem to bring things back to the way they were before the accident. His back still wasn’t strong enough to support the heavy equipment.

And then there was his physical therapist: Little Miss Spitfire. It seemed as if she lived to disagree with everything he said.

One would think two black urban professionals would have more in common, especially when he felt an intense attraction to the woman unlike anything he’d ever felt before, and his attraction led him to the irony of ironies. The woman knew all about his injuries and therefore his limitations, and no man wanted to step to a woman when she already knew he wasn’t bringing it the way he wanted to.

Forget that.

So for the past couple of months he’d been resisting. Resisting the urge to plant a kiss on those lips of fire. Resisting pulling the curvaceous body that could put Jennifer Hudson out of business into his arms. Resisting putting down his best lines and his tightest game to pull the most beautiful dark-chocolate goddess into his life.

And all the resisting kept a brother in a state of constant grumpiness.

When she finally came into the room, all bubbly and carrying those electric stimulation pads, he felt like smiling back at her, but all he could do was nod and grunt hello.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t my favorite curmudgeon.” She laughed and it sounded like music—music he wanted to bottle up and keep.

He glanced at her. She was wearing her white lab coat over a light summer outfit. Her cream slacks were topped by a pastel pink-and-cream blouse. The twists she normally wore in her hair had been loosened and gave her jet-black hair a crinkly, curly effect.

He liked how she looked way too much.

Trying not to smile or laugh or otherwise let her know how much her simple presence brightened his day, he coolly asked, “Do you make a habit of insulting all your patients?”

“Nope, only the overly pleasant ones like you,” she offered sarcastically.

He had to laugh at that.

“See, there’s that million-dollar smile. You really ought to show it more often, Mr. Surly.” She grinned and he noticed the soft gloss on her lips. It was a neutral shade with more shine than color, but with the flash of her perfect teeth she didn’t need any color to highlight her smile.

Samantha Dash had the kind of smile that could make a man clean out his bank account and give her everything he owned just to see it.

“I would if you were always so pleasant and agreeable, Little Miss Spitfire.”

She’d finally placed the electric stimulation patches on his back and started the treatments.

He grimaced as the small shocks did their job. “Sometimes I think you get too much of a kick out of this.”

“Who me? Never.” She laughed her sweet bell-like laugh again.

He didn’t know what worked better for his pain, the treatment or seeing her.

Seeing her.

After the treatment, they sat in her office, going over her plans for the rest of his treatments and discussing his progress.

He realized he had come a long way from where he was when he was injured during the big warehouse fire, but he still wasn’t back on the job.

The people around him, from his doctors to his family, kept pushing him to consider what he would do if it never happened, if he could no longer fight fires. He didn’t even want to think about those possibilities. Instead, he pushed them out of his mind and focused on his surroundings.

He had come to like her cozy little office. The only thing that didn’t seem to fit her was the fake greenery in the room. She seemed like a real-plant kind of a girl.

There was nothing fake about her. From the tips of her natural hair, to each and every curve on her body, to the unapologetically real retorts that came out of her mouth, she proved time and time again she kept it real.

“So how is the pain? You have less than a month left of therapy. We’ve been at this for over two months, are you noticing any difference? It definitely looks like your range of motion and strength are improving.”

“Yes, the pain isn’t as bad. In fact, sometimes I can go weeks without a flare-up.”

“That’s wonderful.” She smiled, and he could have sworn the entire office lit up.

He felt a stirring in his heart, and it shot straight to his groin. He couldn’t believe out of all the women he had come into contact with since his accident, he would find himself growing increasingly and overwhelmingly attracted to the one woman who knew all his shortcomings.

When he’d first become injured, he pretty much pushed the women he’d been casually dating away, at least the ones that tried to stick around and came to visit him in the hospital. He told himself that he didn’t need any pity, and he still firmly believed that. He also didn’t want anything taking his focus away from making his back stronger and returning to his job.

He hadn’t even missed the female companionship. In fact, the entire time he spent confined in the hospital, the only thing he really missed was his job. Then he came to physical therapy…Seeing Samantha three times a week seemed to add heat to parts of him he’d thought were frozen. His emotions were thawing, and he liked it.

He shrugged and tried to play nonchalant.

“You don’t look pleased.” She squinted her big, bold, brown eyes and studied him a bit too closely for his taste.

“I’d be more pleased if I could go back to doing what I was born to do.”

She inhaled and nodded. “You do realize how lucky you are, though, don’t you? You could have died in that fire. Or your back injuries could have been such that you could have been permanently paralyzed, but you’re alive. You’re healthy. You can walk without aid. You just have a sensitive back, one you will have to take care not to aggravate or reinjure.”

Joel bristled at her sharp tone.

“Well, don’t hold back now, sweetheart. Tell me how you really feel.” He leaned back in his chair.

As he took her in, he realized his chocolate beauty was probably thanking heaven her delicious dark skin wouldn’t show any signs of blushing. She looked really cute when she was contrite, and he found himself enjoying her uneasy stance.

“I’m sorry. I don’t usually give my opinion in this manner with patients. You can, of course, feel anyway you wish. I just wanted to highlight that you really have a lot to be thankful for…” Her voice faltered off.

“Oh, your point is very much noted, Ms. Dash.”

He watched her back straighten and her hand absently twirled her hair. She sucked her bottom lip in and nibbled on it for a moment, and in that moment he wished he were her teeth. He wanted to nibble and suck on those lips with an intensity that caused him to shift and squirm a bit to contain his urge to lean over and plant one on her.

In that very moment, he realized he was going to have Little Miss Spitfire soon. No matter what.

She took a deep breath and stood. “So, I guess I’ll see you Friday then. Your next appointment is in the evening, right?” She walked over to her office door.

He followed her with a pep in his step he hadn’t felt since the accident. There was something about coming to a realization, an understanding with oneself you’d been trying to fight or deny that rejuvenated one’s energy.

Giving in to the inevitable almost felt like a brick wall being lifted from his spirit, a shackle being broken from his soul. It felt like freedom.

It felt like a challenge he knew he would rise to and conquer. Because knowledge of his injuries and their many differences aside, Miss Samantha Dash’s lips demanded to be kissed and her thick bodacious body needed to be held.

By him!

Little Miss Spitfire had heated things up, and he was just the man to show her how to really make it hot.

“Argh!” Samantha sank into her seat and groaned in disgust.

She hadn’t meant to go off on her patient the way she did, but the sexy Joel Hightower brought out things in her she usually kept contained and under wraps.

Sure, she thought of snappy things to say and had some funny wisecracks running through her head all the time, but she had never voiced them before. Not with a patient. She had always been content to think them and make herself laugh—until Joel.

Growing up not being able to always tell her mother the things she was thinking had conditioned her to let all the things she wanted to say filter through her head and censor before she said them. Most times, she kept her smart comments and wisecracks to herself. It was enough to just come up with the zingers. Since meeting Joel Hightower, she had been letting her thoughts and opinions run freer than ever.

And what was with her telling him he should be thankful he’s alive and could walk? Even if she did firmly believe he should, she would have never crossed the professional line in the past.

Chastising a patient? That was a big no-no.

She leaned back in her chair and started to play with her hair. She needed to wash it and retwist it.

She had been wearing her hair in its natural state for several years now and had started to wear her shoulder-length, jet-black hair in two-strand twists as she flirted with the idea of locking her hair permanently.

The door to her office came bursting open, and she glanced up. Jenny needed to learn how to knock.

“I noticed our finest patient just left. That man is yummy to look at.”

She rolled her eyes at Jenny. “Does your husband know you spend your days ogling handsome patients?”

“Oh, so you finally acknowledge he’s handsome? Interesting.” A knowing smirk crossed Jenny’s lips as the older woman took a seat.

“I didn’t acknowledge a thing. He’s a’right. He’s not all that.” She sighed.

Shoot, Joel Hightower was more than all that. He was all that and then some…and then some more on top of that!

The only problem was she wasn’t supposed to notice how fine he was. The man was off-limits.

“Right, all I know is he is lucky I’m a married woman. He might have a stalker on his hands. That man is movie-star handsome. Goodness gracious!” Jenny patted her chest in mock-lust.

“Girl, stop. You know you wrong for that. You’re the one married to the Denzel Washington look-alike.”

If Samantha didn’t know Jenny was madly in love with her handsome husband, Walt, she might have been worried. But she had spent enough time with the couple and their two beautiful children to know that, as much smack as Jenny talked, she would never act on it.

Even though Jenny and her husband, Walt, were about ten years Samantha’s senior, she considered them to be good friends. She didn’t know what she would do without Jenny in the clinic to laugh and commiserate with. Having another sister there was comforting, and they hit it off from day one.

“Girl, my Denzel look-alike is fine, but every now and then a new youngster comes around and makes you take notice. And that one that just left here…” Jenny fanned herself. “Girl, you better snap him up.”

She shook her head, laughing at her friend’s antics, and Jenny started laughing, too.

“He’s a patient. That’s unprofessional.”

“Girl, please. He won’t be a patient for long. Remember, I file the charts. He has less than a month left, and you need to start putting things in place for when he’s no longer coming here three times a week.” Jenny rolled her eyes. “And last I checked, there weren’t any rules against you dating a former patient.”

“He’s still a patient. Anyway, it’s unprofessional. I can’t do it. I try to be as professional as I can be at all times.”

“Mmm…Well, professional isn’t gonna keep you warm at night, and professional isn’t easy on the eyes like Joel Hightower. In my opinion, professional is highly overrated if it means you have to pass on a man like that. I saw the way he looks at you…Girl, that man eyes you as if he wants to sop you up with a biscuit.”

“Stop lying, Jenny. He does no such thing.”

“You wanna put some money on it?”

“No, I don’t. I wouldn’t put money on something like that. Plus, a man as fine as him could have and probably does have any woman he wants. He probably likes those skinny model chicks.”

Samantha was more than happy with her curvy figure and had no desire to move from her size twelve to a size two, but, she knew not every man could handle a sister with some meat on the bones.

“What he wants is you, and I wonder what you’re gonna do when he decides to go after what he wants.”

“I don’t think we have to worry about that happening.” But Samantha couldn’t help letting herself wonder what if…

What if Joel Hightower really wanted her? The heat rose to her neck, her face flushed and her heart started to flutter. Why now?

After years of being able to go with the flow and date guys without getting caught up in emotions…After years of staying clear of men with dangerous occupations…After years of being professional and not crossing the line with anyone she was treating…

Why was Joel Hightower able to tempt her with a smile and a look? Why was he the one to cause her desire to bubble over and need she had barely known she had to erupt? Most importantly, why was she starting to believe she wasn’t going to be able to continue doing things the way she had been doing them. After years of steering clear of the dangers that came with falling in love, she seemed to be primed and ready to make the leap right into Joel Hightower’s arms. And that scared her as much as it excited her.

Chapter 4

After her last appointment of the day, Samantha made it home to her apartment in Elmwood Park in record time.

The town she lived in, Elmwood Park, had started out many years ago as a sort of suburb of Paterson, like South Paterson and West Paterson. In fact, the town used to be called East Paterson until they changed the name to remove all associations with the inner city. Still, it was a little safer for a single woman living on her own. Also, her apartment complex was nice and welcoming.

And she never felt happier to see the red-and-white brick, colonial-style apartment units than she was today. She pulled into her parking spot, thinking about what she could quickly make for dinner. Her phone was ringing as she walked through the door, and she rushed to answer it.

It better not be a telemarketer, she thought as she made the dash across the living room/dining room to the phone hanging on the back wall of her galley kitchen.

“Hey, Sammie. It’s your mother.” Veronica Dash’s soft voice wafted through the phone lines, and Samantha tried to discern what kind of mood she was in.

Was it her sober and depressed mother on the line, her two-glasses-of-gin shy of passing out and depressed mother or her angry, bitter, lashing-out and drunk mother?

“Hi, Mom. How’s it going?”

“When are you coming home? Why can’t you get a job here in Chicago? What kind of daughter leaves her mother all alone?” The slight slur in her voice canceled out still sober.

Samantha started walking with the cordless phone, kicking off her shoes and making herself comfortable on the huge plush brown sofa-sectional that took up the majority of the small living room/dining room. There was no telling how long she would be on the phone with her mother this evening.

She could hear the sound of clanging glass and knew Veronica must have been fixing herself another drink.

“Mom, I have a job here that I love, and I like it here. You could always move out here. A change of scenery might be good for you.” She had made the offer many times before, and she knew her mother would turn it down.

Samantha loved Chicago and would always consider herself a Chi-town girl. But when she left home to attend graduate school and earn her MS in Occupational Therapy at Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey, she ended up staying on for the DPT—Doctor of Physical Therapy—program. By the time she finished her studies, she’d come to love the North Jersey area, and she had come to love the newfound peace in her life and not having to watch her mother drink herself to death.

Finally, she had a legitimate reason to leave the continuous sadness looming in her childhood home. As much as it shamed her to admit it, she was sort of glad her mother didn’t want to move to New Jersey.

“I’m all alone, and I don’t want to leave my home. It’s all I have left of him. It’s the only thing I have left. If you were any kind of a daughter, you wouldn’t have left me. How could you leave here? We’re a family here.”

“You have me. The house is just a place, Mom. You have me, also. Daddy was murdered but you still have me…” Samantha wished she could call back the words as soon as they left her mouth.

“I don’t have you. You’re not here. You’re no help. You’re selfish. You’re trying to punish me because you think it will make me stop drinking. Just like when you stopped visiting. Cutting me off…Selfish!”

Samantha closed her eyes. She didn’t say anything because her mother was right. She had tried to use the threat of not visiting as a ploy to get her mother to go to rehab in the past. It hadn’t worked.

“They murdered him. They took him away from me. Why? Why did he stop at that corner store to pick up cough medicine for you? It’s your fault. It’s your fault my husband is dead.” Veronica’s angry words caused Samantha to go still.

It wasn’t as if she hadn’t heard the words before. It was more that she was shocked that they still had the ability to wound.

Samantha spoke so she could barely hear her own words. “It wasn’t my fault. It was the criminal’s fault, the one who was robbing the store when Daddy walked in.”

In the past, Samantha might have been spiteful enough to add that she wasn’t the one who called her husband and asked him to pick up a bottle of Robitussin while he was on duty. But the grown-up woman knew it was no more her fault than it was her mother’s.

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