Sampled: A Steamy Opposites Attract Medical Romance

Good girls like Vandy Patel spend their days behind books in the library. But when her twenty-first birthday rolls around, she meets Royce Murphy with his tattoos and gorgeous red hair. Just the guy her mom would tell her never to date.

Firefighter Royce Murphy knows he's not permanent dating material for a college girl like Vandy. Still, something about her draws him to her, and he soon discovers how eager she is for anything he can teach her - in and outside of the bedroom.

And their passion is more than enough to lead them both astray...

If you want to get away from your parents on your twenty-first birthday, tell them you’re visiting a responsible friend. A solid pre-med friend would never help you get all slutted up and take you to a sake bar/dance club.

‘Slutted up’ wasn’t quite true. Like the good girls they were, they followed the Beyonce rules of sexy. Skimpy top or skimpy bottom, but not both.
Hence, on her twenty-first birthday, University of Chicago senior-to-be Vandy Patel wore a skin-tight, fluorescent-pink, long sleeve top with a micro mini.

And also her first thong.

That might have been violating all sorts of Tiger Mom rules, but too bad. Tiger Mom was Korean, not Indian, and honestly, Indian moms were far more intimately acquainted with tigers.

Genetics or something, right? Vandy’s med student brother Raj would know that, or her engineer sister, Aparna.

Who cared, because Vandy was ordering her first drink.

She’d worked her way to the front of the bar, and when she got there, she realized she had no idea what to order. “I want a…”

The bartender, who wore a kimono but was decidedly not Japanese, waited a couple of seconds and then turned her eyes to a different customer.

“Oh, damn it,” she swore.

“Order Ginjo,” a man next to her said.

She turned to say something back and stopped with her mouth open. White guy, green eyes, red hair past his collar. Muscles. Freckles. Worse, did he have a tattoo?
He glanced at her uncertainly. “You okay?”

“Yes-yes. I am. I just never had sake before,” she stammered. His blue suit jacket brought out light flecks in his irises.

“Why don’t we fix that?”

“I’ve never ordered before. It’s my twenty-first birthday.” Now she sounded lame.

“It’s best to buy the bottle.” He waved the bartender over and paid for a bottle of sake with two cups.

“I need two more cups,” she interrupted. “I’m here with two girlfriends.”

He nodded, and Vandy resisted smirking at the bartender.

See, hot guy in his half unbuttoned white dress shirt wanted ‘Vandy with a V, not an M.’

She grabbed the two cups the bartender set down and led him through the crowd back to the side tables. It was more difficult than she expected because the dance floor had gotten busier. Luckily, he had a solid six inches on her and shielded her from the worst of the jostling.

Anna and Tara were quite surprised by her new company.

“This is…” Vandy realized she didn’t know his name.

“Royce,” he politely supplied. “I was giving the birthday girl a hand. Is it really her birthday?”

“Of course it’s my birthday. You think I’m pretending?” Vandy said, slightly affronted.

“I can’t say since you’re a pretty girl.” Royce set out the cups on their table.

Tara, Anna’s friend from Case Western University, sniggered. “I absolutely did that at Friendly’s when I turned twelve. You got a free sundae.”

Vandy’s mom, Dr. Sonal Patel, would have been unbelievably embarrassed if Vandy had ever pulled something like that. However, since he called her pretty, she might reconsider. “I don’t need to pretend. It’s my real birthday.”

“Here’s my present, birthday girl. Don’t forget to pour for each other,” Royce offered gallantly and moved to leave with his cup.

“Stay.” Anna stopped him. She pointed to the chair next to Vandy. “You paid for it. You should at least try it. Teach her how it’s done. It is her first time.”
Vandy flashed a scowl at Anna. They’d gone to high school in Charlottesville together but ended up at different colleges. She wore a little green dress that nearly violated Beyonce’s rules, and she had more than a little mischief behind her smile.

“Can’t refuse that.” Royce sat down, and his gaze dropped when his leg brushed Vandy’s.
His eyes flashed with something Vandy didn’t quite recognize. She burned too hot and too cold at the same time. Part of her brain urged her to drape her knee over his.

Which she did not obey.

They both reached for the bottle at the same time, and his fingers covered hers.

Calluses. This man worked for a living. What did he do, with his tribal tattoos peeking out of his cuffs and twisting up his wrist?

He didn’t move his hand right away and caressed the top of hers with his thumb.

She’d thought trying out college guys had taught her about lust and passion. This didn’t even compare. He wasn’t a boy who stayed up reading Fundamentals of Microeconomics and whined about his stock portfolio.

Royce poured the three of them glasses and passed the bottle back to her. She remembered not to stare at his lips and poured his cup.

She picked up her glass and said, “Bottoms up.”

He put a hand on her wrist to stop her. “No. Sake is meant to be sipped. It’s not a shot. And it’s stronger than wine, so unless you want it to knock you on your cute little birthday girl ass, sip it.”

She nervously licked her lips and took back everything she thought before. She was totally staring at his lips. His behavior wasn’t any better because his hand released her after a solid ten seconds while he stared back.

After taking a sip of the sake, which tasted relatively sweet, she found her tongue. “So, do you live around here?”

“Cleveland born and bred,” he said. “You ladies?”

“Anna and I go to Case. She’s visiting from University of Chicago,” Tara said.

“Chicago?”

“Yeah. I’m an accounting student.” Vandy tried to sip her sake again without slurping.

“I was kind of surprised she got a whole week off to visit me. She took classes the past two summers, and she’s an intern at KPMG,” Anna added.

Vandy would have kicked her for making her sound boring if her knee hadn’t bumped into Royce’s.

“What do you do?” Tara asked at the same time Anna said, “What are you doing here tonight?”

“Hanging out with friends from work.” Royce set his cup down and aimed his next words at Vandy. “Would you like to dance with me?”

She must of have heard that wrong. He wanted to dance with her?

Vandy didn’t move until Anna nudged her with a foot under the table, missing Royce’s leg completely. “She’d love to dance.”

Unable to think in sentences, Vandy tried to wiggle off the chair without losing her skirt. Royce helped her up with his hands gripping her hips. She froze for a second as he headed to the dance floor without checking on her.

Probably because normal girls didn’t turn into mumbling zombies.

Anna, who had been her best friend in high school, shoved her in the direction of the dance floor. “He’s into you. Go get it!”

Successfully not tripping over her three-inch strappy heels, Vandy made it to the dance floor.

Within three seconds, a few things were clear. Royce was a passable dancer. Vandy was not. She gave him her best smile and almost cracked her head on his chin.

Obviously, she should have been taking ballet classes rather than going to national honor society classes and oboe lessons. When her mother sent her to swim lessons because ‘drowning is a leading cause of death under the age of twenty,’ she should have considered that dance floor humiliation was a leading cause of social death.

Less weekends studying and more time going out might have prevented this too.

“Sorry,” she mumbled. Her hands fluttered in weird directions as she failed to locate the beat.

“Try this. Lean back and stop thinking.” Completely ignoring the actual music, he twirled her around to press his chest to her back. He swayed back and forth, and she felt some of her tension ease.

He was much larger than her, firmer, muscled and, oh my god, was that his cock? Could she think about his cock? Did she do that to him?

Experimentally, she thrust her butt against that spot, and his hands caught her hips. She froze again, but he bent his head down and kissed her by her ear.

Unfamiliar need rushed through her. The heat of him, the darkness, she wanted his hands on her. She was hot, bothered, and wishing they were alone. What would it be like to get the way too short skirt off and feel him for real?

She ignored her mother’s constant refrain of ‘a good Indian girl is judged by how she behaves.’

Royce’s hands guided her right back to what she’d been doing, and he whispered, “What’s your name, birthday girl?”

Feeling daring, she tried an experimental hip wiggle. “Vandy. Vandy Patel. Like Mandy with a V.”

He matched her movements. “Vandy. If you keep doing that, I might have very bad thoughts about you.”

Did bad thoughts include naked thoughts? She had plenty of those. “I – I – I…”

The music faded away, and he stopped dancing. “Don’t worry, Vandy. I won’t take your halo. Though your phone number would be nice.”

“I’m only here for a week,” Vandy said and instantly regretted it. A hot guy who admitted to having sexy thoughts about her asked for her number. She sounded like a complete goody-two-shoes.

He didn’t react. “I see. Let me take you back to your friends. Have a happy birthday.”

She followed him back to the girls, cursing rather loudly in her head. Way to torpedo things. In the first ten minutes of meeting him, she’d proven to be a novice drinker, dancer, and flirtee. Great.

Her friends weren’t alone, though.

“These are Royce’s friends. Did you know they were Cleveland firefighters?” Anna’s words ended in an exultant note, pointing to two guys with way too many muscles.

“We saw you dancing it up with our Royce,” one guy said, with Tara hanging on him.

Royce stopped short, looking considerably less excited to see his friends than Vandy would have expected. “It was one dance.”

The second guy almost mocked. “You stopped at one dance?”

“As I was saying, it’s Vandy’s twenty-first birthday,” Tara said helpfully. “Royce bought us sake. Want to join us?”

“Murphy was showing Mandy a good time?” the first guy said, like it was an odd occurrence.

“She’s visiting for a week from college.” Royce, whose last name must have been Murphy, partially blocked her from his friends.

“You don’t even need a week. You gonna make Mandy’s twenty-first birthday memorable? Give her an adventure?” the second guy shouldered past Royce and gave Vandy a head-to-toe visual assessment.

“She’s not interested, Jon,” Royce said, while it seemed that Royce wasn’t interested.

“What twenty-one-year-old doesn’t want an adventure?” Jon said, having finished his assessment. “Mandy’s dressed for it.”

“She doesn’t seem to like the adventuring type,” Royce said and took half a step away from her.

Definitely not what she wanted. “I am the adventuring type,” she lied.

Royce’s green eyes seemed shadowed with doubt. “Really?”

“Really.” Vandy hated how her face felt hot.

“Any tattoos?” His gaze skimmed down her sleeves to her short skirt.

“Zero.”

“Felonies?”

“None.” She kept her chin up. It was her twenty-first birthday, and this man screamed adventure.

“Misdemeanors? Shoplifting?” He took that step back toward her and hooked a finger on the boat neck of her shirt. “Even if you didn’t get caught.”

“Never. Accountants need clean records,” she gasped. His heat radiated through her skin. Here he talked about how she DIDN’T want adventure and yet he seemed not to be able to back down.

“Streaking? Skinny dipping?” Royce slid his hand down her back to her waist.

“No.” Vandy faced him, almost in his embrace.

“Ever had a one-night stand?” he asked.

She licked her lips, wanting to lick his. Everything else faded away except him.