Page 107 of Dare to Love Me

She rolls her eyes. “I’m fine. I’m not some old granny who needs to be swaddled in blankets.”

“You most certainly are not,” I mutter, catching myself just before my gaze drifts down those bare legs again. “Tell me you don’t walk home in that skirt alone.”

“Ooh, Doctor Daddy’s back in town,” she teases, smirking.

“I’d rather you didn’t twist my perfectly reasonable concern into something sordid,” I say, but my mouth quirks.

“Can’t help it. You’re too easy to wind up.”

Before she can protest, I shrug off my coat and drape it over her shoulders.

If I’m honest, I’m unnerved. This wasn’t planned. She ambushed me outside the hospital. Luckily, Lucia forgave me for cancelling on dinner. She’s become a good friend. I softened the blow by handing over my opera box for next month, at least.

“I usually change before I leave,” Daisy says, pulling my coat tighter around herself. “Don’t worry, I don’t let myself freeze to death. But I knew I’d be in your big, comfy car tonight.”

“I would have given you time to change.”

Her smirk turns sly as she tilts her head up at me. “Kept the skirt on for you, though.”

She does a little twirl, my coat fanning out around her bare legs as she saunters toward the Audi.

I groan.God help me.

Daisy

The forty-minute drive to my flat is the automotive equivalent of edging.

I’ve been in cars with Edward before—like that infamous driving lesson. Or those awkward lifts home when he played chauffeur for me and Sophia, radiating silent disapproval from the driver’s seat.

But this? This is something else entirely.

He’s driving so damn slow. Or maybe he’s just drivingnormally, and I’m the one whose turned into a sex gremlin. Because I’m hyper-aware of every little detail. The way his fingers flex on the gear stick—strong, capable hands I have now seen do . . . things. The way his forearms shift, the muscles tensing and relaxing as he turns the wheel.

I realize, with zero intention of fixing it, that my skirt has crept dangerously high on my thighs. One pothole and he’s getting the full show.

We’re attempting normal conversation, but the air is so thick with sexual tension I’m surprised the windows aren’t fogging up.

He’s asking me about work.Bloody garden tools.

He keeps flicking his eyes down to my legs before snapping them back to the road, and every time he does it, the air in the car thickens.

Deciding to poke the bear, I shift in my seat, crossing and uncrossing my legs just to see if—

Oh, there it is. The death grip on the steering wheel.

“Do you always drive this slow?” I ask, unable to stop the smirk that creeps in.

“Something wrong with my driving?”

I bite my lip, nerves manifesting as reckless sarcasm. “It’s just . . . like, are you trying to set a new record for most red lights hit in a single trip?”

He keeps his eyes on the road. “Would you prefer I disregard traffic laws entirely?”

I let out a breathy giggle. “Right now, I feel like I’m being chauffeured to bingo night.”

His knuckles turn white from strain.

I need to stop looking at those hands. Those surgeon’s hands that save lives.