by C. Morgan
She giggled.
After I finished cleaning the scratches, I applied a thin layer of gauze over them and taped it down. I put the supplies away and relinquished her hand.
“Thank you, Doctor,” she said.
The word “doctor” had never sounded so sexy before.
The first five minutes of the drive were relatively quiet. My radio played Christmas music on a low volume setting and Natalie gazed out the passenger window while running one finger over the back of her taped hand.
“I don’t know how to thank you, Rylen,” she said quietly. “I’m truly so grateful. I love that cat more than anything and I don’t know what I’d do without him.”
We came to a stop at a red light even though there wasn’t another soul on the road. “I understand. Pets are precious. They don’t judge, shame, or preach. They don’t tell us when we’re being foolish. They don’t remind us of our shortcomings. They’re just there when you need them. Sometimes people can’t even do that.”
“Amen.” She shifted in her seat as the light turned green and we pulled away from the line. “How much do I owe you?”
“Let’s not talk money. This was a favor. Friend to friend.”
“No, I’d like to pay you. You got up in the middle of the night. You used anaesthetic. You performed surgery. Your clinic shouldn’t have to absorb the cost of all that.”
“Do you have pet insurance?”
“No.”
“We’ll work something out.”
“Yeah, we’ll work out what the full price is and I’ll pay you that,” she insisted.
I chuckled. “Damn, you are stubborn.”
“Muse would never say something so rude to me.”
I laughed and so did she. It was easy with her. Even though she’d been through a hell of a night, she was still able to poke fun at herself and me. It was refreshing. Mona’s sense of humor had never been her strong suit. We got in arguments all the time because a joke landed poorly.
Natalie’s stomach growled. She winced and pressed her hands over her tummy. “Oh my goodness, sorry. That’s embarrassing.”
“Why? I’m starving.”
“Same,” she grumbled. “I’m always hungry when I’m stressed.”
I spied a pair of golden arches down the road. “Fancy a breakfast sandwich and a coffee?”
“I love it when men talk dirty to me.”
Chuckling like stoned teenagers on their way to get McDonald’s because we were both obviously overtired, I pulled into the McDonald’s lot and went through the drive thru. We ordered breakfast sandwiches, coffee, and hash browns, and once we had our order, I parked the truck facing the main road so we could watch as the city stirred to life around us.
Natalie put her hash brown on her sandwich and ate it as one unit like a psychopath.
“On second thought, maybe I don’t want you to come to Paris with me as much as I thought I did,” I said as I watched her take an unladylike bite. “The French would be mortified.”
She covered her mouth with one hand as she chewed and giggled. “The French can kiss my ass. This is the right way to eat a breakfast sandwich. Try it.”
“And ruin a perfectly good meal?”
“I’m telling you the God’s honest truth. It’s better this way.”
I indulged her and tried it. It wasn’t as bad as I’d expected and she didn’t rub it in my face that she was right. Instead, she pointed at a little red car driving by and coming to a stop at the intersection about forty feet in front of us. “Where do you think she’s going?”
I frowned. “Who?”
“The girl in the car,” Natalie said. “Sometimes when I’m alone, I like to look out my window and watch people walk by my apartment. It always amazes me how many people are in this city living lives as rich and complex as our own. They have their own stress, grief, happiness, relationships. I always wonder what their life is like. Who they are. Where they’re going. What they’re thinking about.”
I studied the little red Volkswagen coupe at the red light. She had a bumper sticker of a peace sign on the back window and something hung from her rearview mirror but I was too far away to make it out. “She’s going to her barista job,” I said decidedly. “She’s running late. Her name is Hannah, or Jessica, or something in that vein.”
Natalie grinned excitedly as I played her game. “She’s listening to country music.”
“And she’s already looking forward to her first break so she can text her boyfriend, Kyle, and tell him how much she misses him.”
“Oh, a romantic,” Natalie mused. She spied another car approaching the light as it turned green. The coupe pulled away and a silver sedan blew past us. “What about them? Who were they?”
“A middle-class forty-five-year-old man going to his finance job downtown with coworkers he hates and a boss he dreams about tearing a new asshole in one day.”
“Good one.” Natalie snickered.
“Oh, here’s another,” I said, sitting up straighter in the front seat of my truck as a pearl white Range Rover appeared. A young blonde woman was behind the wheel, and as the light turned red, she flipped her visor down and began inspecting herself in the mirror. “This is a real winner.”
“Her name is Tiffany.”
“I was going to say Brittany.”
Natalie flashed me a dazzling smile. “Brittany’s and Tiffany’s are the same people, aren’t they?”
I smiled against the lid of my coffee as I took a sip. “Like Brad and Chad.”
“Exactly. Now where is Brittany going?”
“Probably tanning.”
Natalie snorted. “Are we being bad people right now?”
“Bullying strangers without them being here to defend themselves, you mean?”
“Yes.”
I shrugged. “Brittany drives a Range Rover and has the luxury of going tanning at six in the morning on a Wednesday. I think she could stand to be knocked down a peg.”
Natalie roared with laughter.
This, I thought, is the best game I’ve played in a while.
Chapter 17
Natalie
Rylen followed me through the main door of the apartment building into the lobby, where we came to a stop in front of mine and Victoria’s apartment door. A Christmas wreath hung around the peephole. Red and gold ribbon threaded through dense garland and silver and green ornaments added a bit of luster. A cardinal sat nestled near the bottom. If memory served me correctly, Victoria had found the wreath at a thrift store the first year we lived in this apartment. It was the first piece of decor we’d owned and I had a sneaking suspicion Victoria would never part with it.
I turned to Rylen after unlocking my door. “Thank you again for everything.”
He looked tired as he offered me a warm smile. “What good is it knowing a vet if he won’t help when a crisis arises?”
“No good at all.”
He slid his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “Like I said, I’ll be in touch with you later this afternoon. Probably around one or two o’clock. As soon I get to the office this morning, Muse will be the first guy I check on. He’ll be comfortable and well taken care of. Get some rest. You don’t have anything you need to worry about.”
His words of reassurance meant more to me than he could possibly understand. I was exhausted—dead on my feet exhausted, to be precise—but without the promise of Muse’s guaranteed recovery, there was no way I’d have been able to catch a wink of sleep tonight. As it was, it was going to be a strange night because I was used to my furry friend being curled up between my legs or snoozing pressed up against my back.
I nudged the door open and kept my voice low so I didn’t wake Victoria. “I’ll find a way to thank you that isn’t Paris.”
“You don’t have to thank me. It’s my job.”
“There is nothing you can say that will convince me into believing your job entails getting up in the dead of night to personally pick up a cat and perform e
mergency surgery on him. You provided the full-service deal with breakfast included. I’ll make sure I leave you a good Google Review.”
Rylen’s smile was dashing and humble all at once as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Some people are worthy of exceptions.”
That was true.
Some people were worthy of breaking codes, rules, and expectations. Some people, the rare ones who came along and made you wonder why you had to say no in the first place, were worth casting aside caution and just going for it.
A rush of need rose up inside me as I gazed at the man standing on my front stoop. His blue eyes seemed as dark as the night sky in the dim lighting of the lobby. His broad shoulders hinted at his strength, as did the swell of his chest beneath his V-neck sweater. The way he’d handled Muse and shown exceptional kindness to both me and my animal spoke volumes of the quality of man he was. And the way he’d patched up my hand at the end of the night?
That was the kind of thing that happened in movies and story books, not real life.
And yet it had happened. To me.
He looked over his shoulder to the front doors. Through the Christmas light trimmed glass, I could just make out the silhouette of his truck parked at the curb. “I should go,” he said. He reached out and put a gentle hand on my upper arm. “Talk soon.”
His hand fell away.
“Rylen?”
His eyebrows lifted in silent response, and they continued to climb toward his hairline as I took hold of the front of his sweater so I could pull myself close. He was an inch or so over six feet tall, so I had to strain to the very tips of my toes in order to press my lips to his. The kiss was soft. His lips felt like velvet against mine. He leaned into the kiss, breathed in sharply, and gathered me up in his arms.
I was right. He was strong.
He enveloped me and we stumbled back against my doorframe. He held me there as one hand crept up toward my cheek. He brushed my hair away from my face as the kiss deepened. He tasted like salt from the breakfast hash browns and he smelled like pine and leather.
He smelled like a man.
My heart raced like a wild rabbit in my chest and my nerve endings began to tingle.
Still clinging to the front of his sweater, I pulled him into the depths of my apartment. Our lips remained glued together even as we started giggling when his hip bumped the side table at the door. A set of keys jingled softly.
“Shush,” I whispered, pressing a finger to his lips. “I don’t want to wake Victoria.”
He kissed me deeper. It was easy to stay quiet as his tongue slipped between my teeth and his fingers plunged into my hair. The man that had seemed so lost sitting in my office wasn’t lost at all. He knew exactly what he was doing as we inched through my apartment toward my bedroom door.
As soon as we slipped into the depths of my bedroom, I closed the door behind us. I spun to face him and hurried to work my sweater over my head while he righted my bed from where it was still leaned up against the wall. He set it down gently, mindful of my sleeping roommate, and turned back to me as he unzipped the fly of his jeans. Impatient and desperate for his touch, I leapt into his arms.
Rylen fell backward onto the bed. I pressed down on his chest while I straddled him. He put his hands on my thighs and squeezed. I rocked forward, backward, and forward again, until I couldn’t bear to not have my lips crushed against his.
His kisses set my skin on fire and I was ready to burn all the way down.
I slowed things down as I leaned over him. His heart beat steadily against my palms which were still flat against his chest. He worked his hands from my thighs around to my ass, and based off the small sound that escaped his throat, I assumed he liked what he felt. There was a lot back there admittedly.
Desperate to see and feel more of him, I slid my hands up the inside of his sweater and guided it up over his head. He let me strip it off him before tossing it over the side of the bed. His body was far more chiseled than I’d been expecting. The rise of his chest gave way to a lean stomach and a six pack. Further still was the cut of his hips. His black boxers peeked out from his fly, and as I tried to shimmy his jeans down to see the rest of him, he caught my wrists.
I paused and looked up at him, a silent question written on my face.
Why was he stopping me? Men never stopped me, especially not when I had my fingers hooked around the waistband of their jeans and my tits were half spilling out of my bra.
Rylen guided my hands back to his chest and trapped them there with his grip still tight on my wrists. “Slow down,” he managed in a strained voice.
My blood rushed in my ears as he pulled me down to him, hooked a leg around mine, and used his own momentum to roll us over so that I was pinned beneath him on the bed.
I shot him a sexy smirk as he pinned my wrists above my head. I was about to make a smart-ass remark but he shut me up with more fiery kisses. Before long, I found myself breathless and damn near delirious. His bare skin against mine and the way his hands moved surely over my body made it impossible to think of anything else in this moment. Everything was Rylen.
He worked his way down the length of my body. I watched over my breasts as he stripped my leggings off and left me lying beneath him in only my black thong and basic bra. I found myself wishing I had something a little sexier on, but sexy undergarments hadn’t been on my mind when I frantically got dressed in the middle of the night.
Rylen gripped my hips and trailed kisses down past my navel. He gazed up at me over the rise of my breasts. “You have no right being this sexy. No damn right.” The strain in his voice was still there but it was huskier now. Deeper. It turned me to putty in his hands.
Words were lost on me. Normally, I’d have something to say back—something that would make him smile or make him even crazier for me—but I said nothing. I lay there as he nudged my panties to the side with one finger. I knew how wet I was. I’d been able to feel it since that first kiss out in the lobby.
Now he was about to feel just how much I wanted him.
Rylen ran a finger down the length of my pussy. A sigh escaped me and I rested my head back against the pillows scattered across the top of my unmade bed. My work had consumed so much of my life over the past few years that indulging in sex with another person had completely fallen off my radar. I had a collection of toys that did the job but nothing could replace this feeling. My vibrator might have been electric, but Rylen’s touch was electrically euphoric.
I sighed as he massaged gently around my clit in semicircles. I could feel myself swelling as blood rushed to my pussy. I ached for more and bit down on my tongue to stop myself from begging. We’d only just begun. I couldn’t beg yet.
Rylen settled between my thighs and sealed his lips over my clit.
I gasped.
His tongue flicked over my clit before rolling up and down. All the while, he suckled, applying the perfect amount of suction and pressure, and I fought every muscle in my body as they dared to writhe upon the bed. His hands slid up my sides to squeeze my hips and feel my body. He squeezed my breasts and moaned between my legs when I pulled them free of my bra for him.
His tongue slipped down and back up. I whimpered.
When he eased a finger inside me, I felt like I might burst apart. My eyes rolled back. A sound slipped free of me that I couldn’t define as a moan or a sigh—it was just a sound. Rylen gave me another finger, stretching me, and he pressed up, knowing exactly what he was searching for as he suckled my clit and made my body sing.
He found my G-spot.
I gasped.
I felt him smile against my pussy.
A growl of pleasure came out of me as he flicked his fingers hard and fast against my G-spot. I gripped the blankets in a desperate attempt to feel some semblance of control but I knew full well Rylen had stolen that from me. He could have it. After calling the shots at work and being so in control for so long, it felt glorious to hand the reins over to someone who knew what he was doing.
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br /> My body thrummed. Blood rushed to my head. The room tilted and spun as my toes curled. A cry almost left me but I stifled it by using my own forearm as my orgasm crashed over me in a mighty wave. It knocked me senseless and soon I forgot why I was trying to keep quiet. Victoria no longer seemed like a relevant concern as my muscles spasmed and my legs trembled.
Rylen rose to his knees. He stepped off the edge of the bed and took off his pants. He ripped them off and nearly toppled over when they got caught up around his ankles. I giggled and he shut me up with a dark glare full of lust.
He pointed a finger at me. “Stay where you are.”
I had no intention of moving. I gave him a coy smile. “Hurry the hell up then.”
His boxers came off next. His cock was tall and proud. I started salivating. That would do nicely. That would do very nicely.
He crawled back onto the bed on top of me. I spread my legs in invitation, making it clear where I wanted him to be.
He responded by holding himself above me, one knee down between my thighs, the other beside my hip. “Please tell me you have a condom,” he grated.
I reached for my nightstand but didn’t have long enough arms.
“Can I?” he asked.
I nodded.
There was nothing for him to see in that drawer besides a box of condoms, a notebook, a little bullet vibrator, a lighter, and three tealight candles. He yanked the drawer open and found himself a condom. He straightened above me to tear open the wrapper. As he did, I took him in one hand and stroked him.
His breath hitched in his throat.
I smiled up at him as he rolled the condom on. He licked his fingers, stroked my pussy, and dropped his hips down to meet mine.
We locked eyes as he pushed deep inside me. I felt my brow furrow as he filled me up. My lips parted in a silent whimper as he buried himself up to his shaft. He groaned and the sound was enough to make me wild for him. I reached up, hooked a hand behind his neck, and pulled him down for frantic, desperate kisses.