Fatal Desire, Teen Edition by Emma Grace

his
hands.
    “Thought I’d take a pretty lady to lunch if
she’s available,” Derek said as he reached her desk.
    “Oh, you know I’m available,” Tanesha
replied.
    Amber smiled. Derek handed her the roses and
she went to find a vase to put them in. “Don’t eat him while I’m
gone, Tanesha,” Amber teased.
    “Girl, you know I want to,” said Tanesha.
“Eat him like candy.”
    Derek waggled his eyebrows at Tanesha and she
giggled like a school girl. Sally just shook her head at the
foolishness.
    “Have fun at lunch, Amber,” she called as the
two walked off down the hallway.
    “That girl has her one fine looking man,”
Tanesha said watching them walk down the hallway together.
    “That she does,” Sally agreed.
    Aware her coworkers were staring at them,
Amber turned and waved before getting onto the elevator. Tanesha
and Sally waved back.
    “Yep, one fine looking man,” Tanesha said
again.
     
    “So, what’s the occasion,” asked Amber.
    Derek gave her a puzzled look.
    “Lunch, roses,” she said with a question in
her voice.
    Derek smiled. “Just because. No
occasion.”
    “Oh. Where are you taking me,” Amber
asked.
    “To this little out of the way Chinese
restaurant. I hope you like it,” he replied.
    “I love Chinese food,” said Amber.
    Derek drove out of the parking lot and they
talked about their day as he made his way to the restaurant. Once
there, the hostess sat them and a waitress took their drink order.
Both ordered the buffet.
    After filling their plates and sitting back
down in their booth, they began to talk about other cases Derek had
worked.
    “Your job sounds very interesting,” Amber
stated.
    “Yeah, but it can get lonely sometimes. At
the end of the day, or week, or case, I come home to an empty house
and a lonely bed. I wish I had the right to ask a woman to share
that life and understand when I had to be away for long periods of
time.”
    “I understand. It would be hard for a woman
to have to share her husband with the job. Knowing in her heart he
might not come back. But there are thousands of women who do
exactly that every day. Wives of soldiers, firefighters, and
policemen. Do any of your FBI buddies have wives,” asked Amber
    “A few do. The ones lucky enough to have
found the right woman I guess,” Derek replied.
    Amber looked down at her plate. Was this
Derek’s way of telling her she was not the right woman to be able
to fill his heart and life? She wasn’t sure where he was going with
this conversation so she steered it to another topic and began
telling him about one of her patients. She was taking care of an
elderly man who seemed to have no family interested in visiting him
in the hospital but the man was so full of life and energy. He made
all the nurses laugh with his teasing and joking.
    Derek watched as Amber described her patient.
He smiled at her animated eyes and the way she used her hands as
she talked. He was falling hard for this woman and he wasn’t sure
that was wise. He had made sure not to touch her again since the
day they made love but it had been torture not to sneak into her
room and hold her. He wanted to kiss her and beg her to stay with
him. Be that person in his life that understood the demands of his
job and would be there for him. But he just couldn’t do it. He
couldn’t be that selfish after all she had been through. When he
found her stalker, he would have to walk away from her.
    Derek and Amber finished their meal and Derek
drove Amber back to the hospital. The drive was quiet as each was
lost in their own thoughts and Amber wondered again about the
conversation Derek had started.
    Amber walked back to her station amid the
calls and laughter of her new coworkers. She smiled, picked up her
clip board and got back to work. Her next patient was the elderly
man she had told Derek about.
    A month after starting her job, Amber decided
to call Olivia. It had been more than two months since she had
talked with her best friend and