No Good Doctor

by Nicole Snow

  If this night is silver, her kiss is pure fire, lighting me up inside and igniting my deepest core, making my heart throb in a mighty pulse against my chest.

  It’s primal. It’s hungry. It’s strange. It’s reverent.

  It’s as wild as we are now, diving into our deepest passions and clutching each other with a ferocity that makes us feral, the way our mouths crash and tangle, the way our heat mingles until we’re scorched together. Body to body and soul to soul.

  Every tremor and moan in her gets echoed in the throb of my dick, in the ache in my flesh to have her, hold her, possess her, keep her.

  I’d meant to go slow at first. But there’s nothing slow about us tearing at each other’s clothes, my shirt shedding away so her hands can race over my flesh like she’s defining me with her touch. Then it’s my turn, and I rip her dress over her head, leaving her in nothing but panties, gloriously wet beneath the moonlight glowing off her curves in silver edges.

  For just a second, I pull myself back from ravishing her, breathless with the taste of her kiss on my lips, and let myself just look.

  Let myself take in every inch of her body, every sweetness of her flesh, branding Ember on my memory forever.

  That’s when I realize I’ve accepted what I’ll do.

  I’ve accepted that I’m going to fight Peters to the bitter end, if it means saving this town and the people in it. For Heart’s Edge. For every creature I’ve ever healed. For Ember.

  I’ve accepted some things are worth fighting for with every amount of courage and conviction.

  And if that fight kills me, so what?

  I’ll die remembering Ember.

  I’ll die remembering this night.

  I’ll die remembering this burn.

  She’s downright luminous. It’s the only word to describe her while she stands before me without the slightest shame. Her skin is this unblemished white silk, delicate and lush with her smallness, yet thick, rounded curves that float free without her breezy little dresses and skirts.

  Her legs are long, her waist high, the dip of her ribs leading into a soft swell of belly, her lace panties plunging down in manic temptation. Pointing toward the gap between her thighs and the warm shape of her eager pussy outlined in damp fabric.

  Her tits are full and heavy. Expectant. Pert, firm nipples in a deep, rosy shade that stands out all the more for her paleness, and her hair lays in soft wisps against her neck as the wind teases it free from its twist.

  Then there’s her face.

  She’s so delicate, her full heart in those fragile features, her eyes so wide and staring up at me with such trust and desire. I lay her down against the flowers, and she reaches for me without hesitation, silently asking me to come to her.

  To be hers.

  I sink down to my knees over her, kissing the bend of her own knee, her inner thigh. After taking her again and again I’m learning her body as well as I know my own.

  I made a proper study, knowing her anatomy. That’s the knowledge I put to work now as I find every place I know will make her sigh, will make her stretch like a cat, will make her arch and cling to me with her fingers kneading into my hair and my name on her lips.

  I kiss and nibble and lick her inner thighs, the soft crease where they join to her hips, skirting around the warmth of delectable wet flesh that calls to me until she begs with the arch of her spine and the sound of her whimpering sighs.

  Still, I won’t satisfy her.

  Still, I won’t satisfy myself, drawing this out as I leave gentle, bitten kisses over her stomach, drawing my teeth together just hard enough for her to feel a delicious pressure before letting go with a final lick, working my way upward.

  Her ribs. Her breasts. Her shoulders. Her throat. Her mouth.

  All mine tonight. All mine forever.

  I kiss her deep, drinking her sweetness, then slip her panties aside and slide my fingers into her depths.

  She’s hot, silky-wet, ready for me already. She moans against my mouth and goes lax as I explore her, sliding deep and slow, taking my time, building a rhythm that she matches. Our bodies do this carnal dance to soundless music between us, and I never want our song to end.

  This is what I love most – how this girl surrenders so blissfully, her lashes fluttering against her cheeks as she goes completely limp and pliant, allowing me into her in so many ways.

  Her mouth is soft, seductive heat as I finally plunge into those warm depths and taste, probe, caress. Her body welcomes me with a gasp, her mouth gripping at my fingers and sucking them deep, begging for more. I can smell her desire, its sweetness growing hotter and hotter, richer and richer, as more and more wetness spills over my fingers.

  Goddamn, she’s so beautiful.

  And I have trouble saying those words, but I know she can feel them in the way I touch her. In the way I kiss. In the way my cock grinds against her clit, damn near frantic to bring her off.

  She thinks she knows sore? Oh, sweet hell, after tonight I want to carry Ember into work.

  It’s a perfect night for lust. The late spring air swelters, yet compared to us, the breeze seems cool as I give in to what we both crave.

  One more hypnotic kiss and I finally yield to those insistent tuggings and the clasp of her thighs against my hips, shedding the last of my clothes to leave us naked as animals beneath the sky, against the grass.

  There’s nothing in here but us, the flowers, the call of quiet night birds, the heavens above.

  Beneath the quiet moonlight, I sink into her body, groaning as her heat envelops me, welcoming me home.

  I only feel right when I’m this deep inside her.

  It’s so easy to fill this girl, to find my way to her depths, to sink in to the hilt until it’s like I’m being swallowed by molten liquid fire. The tight pressure and suckling warmth around my cock spreads through my entire body in a heated rush, leaving me shuddering, struggling to keep control and not rut her into the ground like an unhinged beast.

  But I can’t stop myself. I couldn’t stop this beautiful fuckery for anything.

  For just a minute, we’re soft and reverent, meeting each other’s eyes with something almost like rapture and understanding.

  Then she makes a soft, choked sound. I fill her to the brim, our bodies locked together, fused at this base, primal level. Her nails bite my back. Her teeth needle my shoulder.

  That’s it, little Firefly. If we’re animals, let’s be wild.

  A low snarl builds inside me. I brace my hands in the grass and the dirt, fingers curling and digging deep. I feel something primitive, something savage, something hungry and dominant rippling through me, electrifying my flesh. It drives my dick, my thrust, my kisses into this woman, then drives the sanity out of my brain with it.

  I know what comes next.

  I rut into her, a beast in heat, demanding that she be mine, demanding that she submit, straining to fill her and relishing in every high, broken sound that slips past her lips. We crash together in a sweat-slick tangle, her body clenching me so tight it’s nearly painful, and I only want more.

  Every kiss is teeth and dueling tongues. Every thrust is a war of seething flesh and hunger and pure raw friction that tears at my senses and drives me faster, faster, deeper. Like I’ll mark her inside where she can never stop feeling me, never stop wanting me.

  Need is a vicious thing riding my back, and it sinks its teeth into me as roughly as she does, and goddamn I feel like I’m defiling her innocence, tainting her purity, but I want to.

  I want to fucking mark her. I want her kept.

  I want to break her, then put her back together again and shelter her, shield her, hold her while she lights up my night forever and goddamned ever.

  I just want her.

  And that crazed want ruins Dr. Jekyll and makes me a thing like Mr. Hyde. My pleasure rips through me in an explosion that feels as though it scours me down to ash.

  My cock aches as I fill her in one last hard, driving, needy thrust.


  She meets me with a high sweet scream in the back of her throat, tossing her head back. She convulses and spasms around me, locking me inside her, every ripple of her drenched pussy wringing me for more and more until I can’t fucking stand it.

  When I empty myself into her O, it’s like turning myself inside out.

  I give her my all. I give her everything. I give her a wish and a mark and a promise in fiery seed.

  I give her myself. Raw and honest, nothing held back.

  Hide anything from her again? No. Not when my sweet, breathless firefly sweeps away my endless night.

  19

  Die Like a Dog (Ember)

  It took Pam all of one minute to figure out Doc and I had...you know.

  I mean, maybe she already knew. After we went to the theater together, me with those marks on my neck, clinging on his arm, it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?

  The whole town gossip tree probably lit up like Christmas. There’s almost no doubt since last night.

  Or maybe it’s just that we showed up to work together in his truck.

  Or maybe it’s that I’m using one of his shirts as a dress, tied at the waist with one of his belts to make it a sort of shabby, walk-of-shame chic.

  But the knowing smirk on her face has me blushing. So I try to ignore her and head toward the back to retrieve a spare lab coat. Her voice trails after me, edged with good-natured laughter and teasing.

  “Interesting weekend?” she calls. “You’re practically walking on air.”

  “Am not!” I fire back, and she laughs wickedly.

  “I wasn’t talking to you,” she says. “I was talking to Doc.”

  Gray goes stiff mid-stride as he passes the breakroom where I’m rummaging around in a locker for a lab coat. He glances in at me, wide-eyed, his formal, elegant mask completely off-kilter, then shoots a peevish look over his shoulder.

  “I,” he says frostily, “am most certainly not air walking.”

  In the carrier dangling from his hand, Baxter lets out a little mew, as if to say, oh, yes, you are.

  I just hide my grin, ducking behind a locker door, and shrug into a lab coat before putting on my most professional face and skipping out to join him in the main exam room.

  Baxter is a little more skittish than she was at Doc’s house. Maybe she remembers the last time she was here, how tense things were between Fuchsia and Doc while they glared daggers at each other over the black cat.

  We both spend some time stroking and soothing her. This time when our hands brush, caressing the cat, I don’t jerk away like I’ve been static-shocked.

  I just linger, as soothed by his touch as the little furball with us, feeling a sweet warmth burst inside me that I can touch him like that.

  Slowly, Baxter calms down, until – with Doc holding her gently, carefully keeping her still on the table – I can run the RFID chip reader over her shoulders. Gray mentioned it last night after we made it back to bed and plucked the flowers out of my hair. He wondered who really owns her if it isn’t Fuchsia.

  I suggested she might be chipped.

  So here we are, and here’s the reader, beeping its confirmation with a little green light.

  I take it to the terminal on one side of the room and connect it with a USB cable, then load the last scan into the chip reader software.

  I instantly frown. The info that comes up on screen as it downloads the data linked with the chip’s code from the national registry isn’t what I expect.

  The name registered to Baxter isn’t Fuchsia Delaney.

  It’s a Lindsey Peters of Tacoma, Washington.

  Peters?

  My frown deepens. I briefly saw Everett Peters with my mother last night, and he’d been pretty flirty. “Gray? Is Everett Peters married?”

  His face instantly turns to stone. Mentioning Peters does that, but it bothers me less than it used to. Instead of being hurt that he’s turned so cold, it just worries me when I know how much Peters upsets him, and why.

  “I don’t know,” he says tightly. Under his palm, Baxter bristles, her fur standing up a little as she picks up on his mood. “He never really let us in on his personal life. Why?”

  “Because Baxter apparently belongs to someone named Lindsey Peters. I mean, it’s a pretty common surname, but it’s also too much of a coincidence.” I glance at him, biting my lip. “Hey, she’ll bite you if you keep that up.”

  He blinks, looking confused, then looks down at the cat and sighs, reaching up to scratch underneath Baxter’s jaw until the cat’s eyes lid with pleasure. “Sorry,” he growls, though I’m not sure if it’s to me or the cat. To me, though, he says, “Is there a number listed?”

  “Yep. Looks like a Washington number.”

  “Would you mind calling it?”

  My stomach flips. “Why me?”

  “Because it’s entirely possible she might recognize my number or my voice, if Everett Peters ever mentioned his business in Heart’s Edge.”

  “Oh.”

  I take a deep breath. This...this is like some serious espionage stuff. Spy stuff.

  Calling people to get intel and sneaking around? I’ve never done anything like this before.

  It’s exciting.

  It’s a little scary if Peters is really as bad as Doc hints.

  But I nod, plucking my phone from the breast pocket of my makeshift dress, and glance at the screen one more time to tap the number in before hitting Call.

  A woman picks up after two rings. I half expect it to be Fuchsia, coldly mocking and laughing at me for falling for her ruse over some made-up woman named Lindsey Peters, a cover for whatever she’s really doing...but this woman’s voice is new, and pleasantly polite as she asks, “Hello?”

  “Hi, is this—” My voice cracks, squeaks. I cast Doc a wide-eyed, apologetic glance, but he nods encouragingly. Heart thumping, I clear my throat and try again. “Hi, is this Mrs. Lindsey Peters?”

  She sounds puzzled, but not upset. “This is, may I ask who’s calling?”

  I try to put my best smile in my voice. “Hi, this is Ember Delwen. I’m with The Menagerie veterinary practice in Montana. We’ve picked up your cat, Baxter, and the information on the chip reader came back with this number.”

  “My cat?” She sounds totally gobsmacked. “We’ve never had a cat. No one in my family does. We’re all deathly allergic.”

  My stomach sours.

  I take a risk, then, trying to keep my voice neutral and calm. “Do you think maybe your husband once had a cat? Did Everett give her away before your marriage and her new owners just didn’t change the registry info?”

  “No, I don’t think so...” She sounds confused, then her voice sharpens. “How did you know my husband’s name?”

  Oh. Oh, crap. Um.

  I fumble for a second, brain racing, before continuing, “Oh, his name’s on the registry too. You’re listed as co-owners in the database.”

  “Co-owners?” Lindsey still sounds puzzled and a bit suspicious. “I think maybe there’s an error in the registry. Maybe our stuff got switched with someone else’s. We did have a dog once, before we had to give it away since I’m allergic to that, too.”

  “Probably,” I say brightly. I’m glad she filled in that blank because I don’t know if I’d have been able to. Phew. “Anyway, sorry to bother you. We’ll do our best to find Baxter’s proper owners, and thanks for your help!”

  I’m practically chirping and manic at this point, but I’m also terrified of tripping up and giving myself away.

  And I don’t let out my breath until she says “Sure, have a nice day” and hangs up, leaving the phone dead and quiet in my hand.

  I slump against the wall, pressing a hand to my chest. “Well...that felt like a heart attack and a half,” I say, shaking my head. “That was definitely Everett Peters’ wife...but they’ve never had a cat. She’s allergic.”

  Doc frowns, looking down at Baxter and stroking his long, capable fingers down her back. “Very odd inde
ed.”

  “Yeah, it’s kinda weird.” I fold my arms over my chest. “So now we know Fuchsia’s got a cat chipped in his name that he doesn’t own, and she doesn’t seem like a cat person. Or an animal person. Or a person person.” I bite my lip. “Gray?”

  He lifts his gaze to me, brows knitting together. “What’s wrong?”

  “My mom...” I rub the back of my neck, looking away. “She seems to really like Mr. Peters. But something’s super fishy with him, with all this. Should I be worried for her?”

  Gray regards me gravely, as if considering his answer. “Honestly, yes.” He presses his lips together on a frown. “I was thinking, last night, of asking Warren and Blake to help keep a closer eye on her considering they’re in town more frequently than me. Still, perhaps it’d be wiser to just speak to her and tell her the potential dangers of keeping company with that fucking snake.”

  I smile faintly. “The danger just might make him more attractive to her, you know.”

  Gray sighs in exaggerated exasperation. “How are you related to that wo—”

  I raise an eyebrow. He mouths a silent oh.

  I can’t lie: Gray’s delicious mystery, even when it scares me, is part of his mystique. But with him, I know there’s a good, human heart beneath the surface. Whatever skeletons Peters has in his closet could be a lot more worrisome, putting Mom in real danger.

  “If you’d like, Firefly, we can sit down with Barbara together. Tell her–”

  The sound of the back door banging open cuts him off – and nearly makes my heart jump out of my chest. I jerk up with a low shriek, stagger, then clutch at the edge of the table before my balance sends me tilting. Only Doc’s firm hands on her keep Baxter from bolting. The cat hisses, arching her back, her tail puffing out.

  I know how she feels.

  Especially when a familiar male voice – Warren’s? – roars from the back of the clinic.

  “Doc!” he barks. “You’d better get your ass out here right the fuck now.”

  Gray and I exchange wide-eyed looks before he nudges the cat toward me. “Not this again, that’s practically his catch phrase. I’ll be right back. Get her back in her carrier, please.”