Never Coming Down

by Deja Voss

  Instead, he kisses me on my forehead, brushing my hair out of my face, tracing his fingers across my tear spattered cheeks.

  “We can’t do this here,” he says. “I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

  It’s probably the sexiest thing anyone’s ever said to me. He’s right. None of this can leave this room. I need to disappear, pretend like this entire day was just a dream. I don’t want to let go, but for right now, I just need to walk away.

  “God, Gavin, I know, but right this second I feel like it would be worth it.” I run my hands down the waistband of his jeans, thumbing at his belt, looking into his eyes with my best fuck me face.

  “Sloan, you better watch what you’re doing there, girl. The way I want to fuck you, there’s not going to be anything quiet or discreet about it.” He’s biting his lip as he grabs my face in his hands, gently kissing me on the lips as my body starts to quiver. “You’ll get yours, don’t you worry. Gimme your phone,” he says. He punches his number into my contacts and I hear his vibrate in his pocket. “You better get back to work. I need to figure out what I’m going to do with this idiot and my asshole father.”

  All I can do is sigh and pretend like I didn’t just throw myself at him like a crazed maniac. “Are you gonna stay with him overnight? I have to get you some paperwork, but I think I can make it happen.” I say. Hank’s breathing is getting deeper. I can see his eyelids are fluttering. Even if he wakes up right this second, he’s still going to be pretty tired.

  There’s a soft knock on the door, and Nurse Carol peeks her head in. I fly across the room like I just got stung by a bee, trying to put as much space between the two of us as possible. Gavin just shakes his head and laughs.

  “How’s everything going in here?” she asks.

  “I’m gonna go track down Dr. Peterman. Hank looks like he’s going to come around soon. We should probably keep an eye out.” I head for the door. “It was nice meeting you, Gavin.” I boldly lie, shooting him a wink. “You don’t worry about a thing. Hank’s in good hands.”

  “Thanks, Dr. Sullivan,” he says, smiling.

  I close the door behind him softly, trying to hide the goofy grin I know is marked all over my face.

  I want to squeal like a schoolgirl, but I hold it in to the best of my ability.

  “Holy shit, Sloan.” Carol giggles. “The things I would do to that man.”

  I just shake my head. “Trust me, I’m already making a list,” I think.

  “I would pay good money just to take a bite out of that ass.”

  “You’re twisted, Carol. His brother was just in an accident.”

  And yet I can’t disagree with her. I was fully ready to take a bite out of that ass before he decided to be a rational adult.

  “He could probably use consoling. I wonder if he has mommy issues?” She laughs.

  “Oh don’t be so hard on yourself. You could pass as his much older sister.”

  She punches me in the shoulder, cackling.

  “Here’s my stop,” I say to her.

  I wrap softly on the office door. “Hi, Doctor Peterman.”

  “Hi, Sloan,” Dr. Peterman says, smiling. “I reviewed your rehab plan and it looks perfect. Nicely done.”

  “Thanks,” I mutter, tying to hide my face behind my hands. I’m sure I look like a hot mess between my streaked mascara and my wild hair. Twelve-hour shifts capped with excessive drama tend to do that.

  “Are you ok? You’re all red. It looks like you’ve been running or something.”

  “No, no. I think I’m just tired. I don’t know. If we’re being honest, I want off this case,” I explain. “Those people are nuts. There’s no way he’s going to follow rehab protocol. That plan was a waste of my time.”

  I’ve done enough already, and if anyone knew what went on between those four walls, I would be in serious shit. Better to just distance myself from it as a whole.

  “I understand where you’re coming from completely,” he says. “You did great work today. I’ll drop by and see what I can do. I’m sure Mr. Boden will be well taken care of. Seems like there’s something about that room that has all the nurses tripping over each other to get in there.”

  We both laugh. That something in that room has me tripping all over my own feet, tripping over my words, making bad career choices, just like Olive warned me.

  It’s just a fling I remind myself over and over again. Like a nasty virus that shows up out of the blue, I just need to let it run its course. There’s only one way to get it out of my system, and hopefully sooner than later, because the heat in my panties is spreading to my whole body and a fever like this can cause long-term damage if left untreated.

  I scurry down the hallway and out into the parking lot, eager to shut myself in my car and scream my head off. I look in my rearview mirror and something strange is happening. My face. I look happy. Holy shit, I’m smiling on my own volition.

  I debate calling up Olive and telling her everything that happened today, but it’s late, she’s going to be pissed, and I’m sure she’ll find out soon enough. For now, I just need to focus and make it home in one piece without getting distracted by any thoughts of the things I’m going to do with that sexy man as soon as I can get him alone.

  Chapter 6

  Gavin

  I wake up with my head in my hands, hunched over in the stiff hospital chair. She’s gone, as she promised, and I am glad. She’s done enough. As much as I want nothing more than to have her with me, it’s not fair to her to ask her to compromise her career. It has to be her choice, and I kept a promise to Olive that I would not be responsible for her undoing.

  I would hope she would choose her career over me a million times over. This life, it’s not good for girls like her.

  Something tells me there’s more to her than that.

  I’m confused as why she’d ever even consider a guy like me, even in a moment of weakness.

  Let alone a moment of darkness and insanity like yesterday.

  She is so beautiful, even hidden under a frumpy set of scrubs. She doesn’t play by the rules, not the ones created by the hospital, or the ones my dad seems to think every woman needs to play by. She’s light, she’s healing, she’s smart, but the way she kissed me, the way she teased me, she has no idea what kind of beast she’s stirring up inside me.

  The fact that I’ve been holding off so many months for her makes it even harder not to just take her wherever I can, making her scream as I show her exactly what happens to girls who toy with guys like me. Use her. Mark her. Own her. But first, I have to prove to her that I’m a good man.

  Plus, there’s more pressing matters at hand right now than my dick trying to escape from my jeans.

  Sitting next to me in the hospital room is Heat. He punches me in the shoulder as I stir from my slumber state.

  “Good morning, sunshine,” he laughs.

  Not the beautiful face I wanted to wake up next to, but I’m glad to see him. Knowing my brothers are here to keep an eye on Goob is a perfect example of the true meaning of the club, the loyalty and the fellowship that follows.

  Clutch, our treasurer, is posted up next to Goob’s bed. Former Marine, he’s a total lady-killer. In the moments that I’ve been awake, the gaggle of nurses peeking in the window, taking turns coming in and out of the room, is amusing to say the least. Dirty birdie wannabes and they don’t even know it.

  I notice Goob is awake, scowling at the TV hanging from the wall above his head.

  “How ya feeling?” I ask.

  “Like shit,” he whines. “I can’t get more medicine for another hour, either. This place sucks.”

  I just shrug.

  “What the fuck even happened?”

  “I don’t know. I saw a deer and swerved.”

  I’m thumbing the baggie in my pocket, trying not to say anything, but I feel like he needs called out.

  “You sure you weren’t nodding?”

  “What do you care?”

  “G
oob, we all care. You gotta stop this shit. Look where you are.”

  “Well, Dad says I’m getting out of here tonight.”

  “Then what?” I ask. “You can’t even fucking walk, dude.”

  “Hey, don’t worry about it. I’ll figure something out. I wouldn’t want to inconvenience your life with my neediness again,” he says dramatically. The truth is, he has always been an inconvenience in my life, but it’s one that I’ve chosen. When I brought him back to the clubhouse when he was just ten years old, I happily took on that responsibility. He’s a grown man now, though.

  “Good.”

  Heat stands up and pulls me aside.

  “Why don’t you get out of here for a little bit? You’re looking pretty rough, man.”

  I’m feeling pretty awful. Being cooped up in this room would drive me insane. I can understand why Goob is so excited to get out.

  “You sure? I’ll just go to camp and take a shower and chill for a little bit.”

  “Take your time. We’re fine. I’ll call you if anything changes,” he says.

  “You guys behave. Anything Doctor Sullivan says, you do without asking questions. I mean it.”

  “Your dad warned me about her. Said she was a real ballbuster,” Heat says in a low whisper.

  “She’s not. She’s good people. Don’t fuck this up for me,” I bark.

  It’s as if a lightning bolt just hit him over the head. He smiles from ear to ear.

  “The elusive one?”

  “Shit,” I mutter. Considering I haven’t so much as looked at another girl since meeting her, it’s not too hard to put two and two together, but I was hoping I could be more discreet. As soon as word gets out, I know these guys will do their best to make my life a living hell, recounting all sorts of embarrassing stories about me to her. “Keep it on the low. I’m not trying to fuck with her job or anything.”

  “Just with her everything else?” he laughs.

  “You know me too well,” I say. I pull him in for a hug. “Thanks for looking out.”

  I am quick to get the hell out of this place. The concrete floors and hiss of the fluorescent lights overhead make my skin crawl. I can’t help but peek around every corner, look in every room, trying to catch her out of the corner of my eye.

  It doesn’t matter.

  I have her number.

  I need to go get my mind right, and then she gets my undivided attention in every possible way.

  I peel out of the hospital parking lot, the morning sun beating down, but the chill in the air rattling through my sore bones.

  I need a bed that’s not a chair.

  I need a long nap.

  I need a shower.

  I need to think.

  Usually a long ride is the best cure for anything that ails me, but I don’t have it in me right now to be on high alert, so I’m going to have to settle for the next best place besides the mountain. I turn off the highway down the long dirt road. The hideout. The little one-bedroom camp nestled on the edge of town. Twelve acres, no neighbors; it’s the closest thing to home I can get down here. I can be at the hospital in less than fifteen minutes, and I can at least avoid the chaos that is my father for a few hours.

  I pull into the driveway. Only the screen door is closed. Cautiously, I park, shut my engine off. I feel for my gun in my waistband. There’s only three people who have keys to this spot.

  Goob.

  Myself.

  And Dad makes three.

  I kick open the door, armed and ready to go.

  There on the couch she sits, wearing nothing but a smile. Morgan, the bleached blonde dirty birdie who just never seems to fly off, no matter how many times she gets rejected.

  “Well, I wasn’t expecting you, Gav,” she calls. “This sure makes things interesting. I know you’re a kinky fucker, but this is a new level of low even for you.”

  “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  “Oh, Goob and I were playing house. But I haven’t seen him since yesterday.”

  “He’s in the hospital.”

  “Oh no.” Her face grows sad. “Is he ok?”

  “He’ll be fine. But you gotta go.”

  They’re all the same, the dirty birdies. They don’t care who they’re banging as long as it gets them one step closer to being an old lady. Morgan was an ok chick, and I’ll admit we’d hooked up a couple times, but that was usually after a bottle of whiskey and nowhere else to stick it.

  “You look stressed, Gav,” she whines. “Why don’t you let me help you relax?” She gets up from the couch, standing before me fully nude. She has big fake tits and she’s pressing them into my chest, trying to kiss me.

  “Seriously, Morgan, enough,” I bark.

  “You don’t mean that,” she says, dragging her hand up my thigh, reaching for my cock. Just because I have a boner doesn’t mean I’m going to put it in her. At this moment, I’m actually fairly disgusted with the situation as a whole.

  I grab her by the wrist and pull her away.

  “Get your shit,” I growl, “And get out.”

  “You used to be so fun, Gav,” she squeals.

  “I’m calling you a car. Get dressed and start walking.”

  She huffs and puffs as she pulls on her green sundress and flip flops and I hold the door open for her.

  I wince as it slams behind me. Finally, silence.

  I lock the big wooden door behind me and sprawl out on the bed. I’m too exhausted to strip. I just need an hour or two of sleep.

  My erection is pulsing hard in my jeans. She was right, I couldn’t relax.

  I think about her lips circling my cock.

  Repulsive.

  I think about her bent over, soaking wet, ready to take me in.

  Disgusting.

  I think about her doing the same things with my brother all over this bed I’m laying in. If I wasn’t so beat, I’d throw the blankets in the fireplace right now.

  My mind goes somewhere else. Somewhere different than the life I’m used to. Somewhere that’s stressing me out more than I thought it would.

  Sloan.

  Seeing her tangling herself up in this mess that my club is so good at making makes me want to push her as far away as possible. She doesn’t need to be dragged through hell with me and the boys, and I am too far gone for her to save my soul from that life.

  Everything about her gets me so excited. It’s not just her body, her hair, her looks, or those big beautiful eyes.

  I don’t know what it is, but there’s something dark buried in that healing light she casts on everyone. I don’t want to be the one that drags it out of her, but I don’t know if I can help myself.

  Maybe Olive is right. I need to just leave her alone, forget about her, find myself a dirty birdie to spend my days with.

  I close my eyes and sprawl out on the comforter.

  As much as I try to fight it, my dick is begging to escape from the confines of my pants, thinking about Sloan’s body pressed against mine, taking her, marking her, making her mine.

  Maybe I should call her.

  My phone rings from the nightstand and, for a second, I get a little excited, until I realize it’s my father.

  “What do you want, Dad?” I ask. I don’t feel like running errands for him today.

  “We’re taking him home tonight; midnight. Should be about shift change. Clutch is bringing the truck.”

  I get where he’s coming from. Every time we leave that mountain we put ourselves at a risk to be busted by the cops or stuck in the middle of a rivalry situation. The fact that one of Moses Boden’s true sons is laying in a hospital bed puts a huge target on his back for anyone looking for revenge for any of our previous indiscretions.

  I know what Sloan said, that he could leave on his own accord, but I don’t know if she meant it, or if she was just scared of my dad. I don’t want her to get in any trouble.

  “You think you can keep the lady out of this shit? I have a bad feeling about that one.”
r />   “Who?” I ask, playing dumb.

  “Just make sure she’s distracted. Take her in the woods and tie her to a tree for all I care. I just don’t want her nosing around in our shit anymore.”

  Under any other circumstance, that would probably get me hard. Watching her gorgeous body writhe as I tease her all over with my hands and my mouth. But not right now.

  I know it’s for her own good.

  And I know it’s for Goob’s own good.

  The prospect of getting her alone, separate from her world, separate from my world, is exciting, even if it’s under the wrong pretenses.

  “I’m on it,” I say.

  I lean back and let myself drift off to sleep.

  Chapter 7

  Sloan

  Most of my days at the hospital, I play a waiting game.

  As a trauma surgeon in training, I oversee the rehab and recovery plans created for the patient after performing surgery, but there is also a lot of down time and paperwork. Today, I’m using that as an excuse to hide in the office with my head on the desk.

  I couldn’t sleep for shit last night, and even underneath the assault of an ice-cold shower I couldn’t escape thoughts of him. I checked my phone obsessively, hoping that maybe he would want to sneak away from the hospital and slip into my bedroom.

  It’s selfish of me, but family isn’t something I understand like a normal person.

  Even though I told Dr. Peterman I wanted to be pulled off Hank’s case, I’m dying to go to his room and see what’s going on. More like dying to see that mountain of a man again.

  As I turn the corner of the hallway, I notice two men sitting outside the door. They look like bodyguards, big, ripped, tatted and scary. Dressed in their leather cuts, they’re definitely here to send a message.

  “Hey, guys,” I say, pretending like their presence is a normal everyday occurrence. “How’s he doing today?”

  “Ugly, whiny, and high on pain medication,” one laughs. “So pretty much normal.”

  I extend my hand to him. “Dr. Sullivan.”