I work my thumb around her clit and she bucks her hips into me. She’s close already. It won’t take much to get her there. I increase the pressure I’ve got on her nipple, pinching and twisting as I continue to work the fingers of my other hand inside her.
“Yes. Oh, Kyle. Oh, God!”
I watch her face as she comes. I’ve always watched her. It gets me hot. But as her head whips around on the pillow and she bites down on her lip to suppress her screams, I realize I’m barely more than lukewarm.
She reaches down to grab me, surprised I’m not rock hard. “Everything okay, Kyle?”
“Yeah, just tired and overworked, I guess.”
“Well, I’ll just have to wake you up,” she says with a sultry smile.
She sits up and pushes me down on the bed. She takes my near-flaccid dick into her hands and works it up and down. When that doesn’t produce results, she climbs her way down my body and takes me into her mouth.
Nothing.
I stare down at her. There’s nothing more erotic than watching a woman suck you off. I watch her long brunette ponytail bob back and forth as she tries everything she can think of to ‘wake me up.’
Nothing.
For the life of me, all I can see when I look down at her is blonde hair with dark roots. Blonde hair that is almost too short to be held back in a ponytail. Blonde hair that would curtain the sides of her face and tickle my thighs if she did this to me.
If it were Elizabeth and not Gina.
And damn it if I don’t want that with everything inside me. With everything that I am.
Fuck.
Gina stops her futile efforts and looks up at me in question.
“Sorry,” I say.
“Don’t be sorry. It happens,” she says. “Like you said, you’re tired and overworked.” She reaches over to grab her scrubs. “Although with your one patient, it seems like you’d have time to catch up on your sleep.”
Her curt words annoy me, but I hide it with a careless shrug. “Red has been letting me help out on other cases.”
“Right. I heard you got an assist the other day.”
“It’s more than just that, Gina,” I tell her. “And I’ve been spending my spare time down in the ER.”
“Oh, well that explains it.” She finishes dressing and heads for the door. “Page me after you’ve had a rest. We’ll finish what we started.”
I nod, watching her walk through the door.
Then I send a text to Cameron.
Me: Meet me at Happy’s after shift.
~ ~ ~
“So, let me get this straight,” Cameron says, slamming his second shot glass down on the table. “You have a hot chick desperate to screw you anytime, anywhere, and you’re telling me you don’t want to anymore?”
He looks at me like I’m ten cards shy of a full deck.
I toss back my own second shot. “I do and I don’t, man. I mean, it’s always been great with her. No strings. No commitments. I know it’s crazy. It’s every guy’s dream. But today, I couldn’t . . . when I was with her I couldn’t—”
“Dude, you couldn’t seal the deal?”
I shake my head in shame.
He motions for the waitress to bring us more shots. “That really blows.” He laughs. “Or I guess maybe it didn’t. Next round’s on me,” he says, grabbing my shoulder supportively.
The alcohol from my third shot burns my throat on the way down. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
He studies me. “Maybe it’s not a what. Maybe it’s a who.”
“A who?”
“Come on, Kyle.” He raises his brows at me. “Your patient. The one you talk about incessantly.”
“Well, she is my only patient,” I say. “Who the hell else am I supposed to talk about?”
“It’s not that you talk about her, it’s how you talk about her. It’s been obvious to me from the beginning that you have a thing for this girl. First you arrange to pay her hospital bill, then you have your sisters-in-law and your friends come and keep her company. Hell, you get a stupid shit-eating grin on your face every time you talk about her, bro.”
“I do?”
He nods.
I run my hands through my hair in frustration. “Shit, Cameron. What the hell is wrong with me? She’s my patient. And she’s pregnant. And I don’t know the first thing about her. But I can’t get her out of my goddamn head.”
“Does this infatuation go both ways?” he asks.
“No. I don’t know. It’s obvious she wants me there with her, but for all I know she might want Jack the Ripper there, too, if it meant he’d keep her company.”
He tosses a few peanuts in his mouth. “I checked in on her the other day,” he says, to my complete surprise.
“You did? But you’re not on Red’s service.”
“I know. I made up a lame excuse about looking for an ultrasound machine.”
“Why would you do that?”
He stares me down. “Why do you think, Kyle? Because my friend is seriously close to fucking up his life and maybe even his career. What if she’s a con artist and she’s after your money? Did you ever think of that?”
“What the hell, Cameron? That’s ridiculous. As if she planned her pregnancy and then willed herself into placenta previa so that she could scam me. What’s your problem?”
“Okay, you have a point,” he says. “But I’m just looking out for you, bro. Anyway, I’m pretty sure she’s not a con artist. In fact, she’s just about one of the nicest people I’ve met.”
I nod, absently tracing the rim of my shot glass.
“Hot, too,” he says, laughing. “If you take away the hugely pregnant belly. And I’m no Jack the Ripper, but she didn’t try to get me to stay and keep her company. I’m also fairly sure she mentioned ‘Dr. Stone’ no less than five times in the two minutes I was in her room.”
“What do I do, Cam?”
“She’s your patient, Kyle. You take care of her and make sure that baby is healthy. She’ll only be here for a few more weeks, right? After that, it’s no one’s business but yours if you want to see her, fuck her, or raise a child with her.”
“Do you have to be so damn crude?” I ask, giving him a look of disdain.
“Oh, what, you can fuck Gina to kingdom come, but when I mention fucking Elizabeth, you look like you want to pin me to the damn ground.”
“I don’t think of her that way,” I say.
“You don’t think about fucking her?” He winces when he sees my angry stare. “Sorry, you don’t think about being with her?”
I blow out a long breath and run my hands through my hair once again. “Therein lies my problem, Cameron. That’s all I think about.”
Chapter Twenty-one
“You know what today is?” Elizabeth asks with a smile.
“Your birthday?” I ask, even though I know it’s not, because her date of birth is written right here in the chart, and it’s only a week away from mine. That makes her two years and one week younger than I am. But who’s counting?
“No. Two weeks, Kyle. Today marks the two week point from having the baby. I’m thirty-five weeks today.”
I flip through the chart. “So you are. That’s good, you know. Even if the baby came today it would have an excellent chance of being perfectly healthy.”
She nods. “I know. I read that in my book. But I’d just as soon have it stay where it is for the next few weeks. I can’t take any chances with his or her health.” She looks at me wearily. “That’s okay, isn’t it? Do you think the hospital wants me to have it early so they don’t have to pay more for my stay?”
“That’s ridiculous. Everyone here wants you to get as close to term as possible. Don’t worry about any of that other stuff. You haven’t mentioned your pro bono status to Dr. Redman, have you?”
She shakes her head and furrows her eyebrows. “I just assumed everyone knew, like it was in my chart or something.”
“No. Your chart has no billing infor
mation in it.”
“You mean to tell me you went over your boss’s head to get me in?” she asks playfully.
“I didn’t need her approval either way, I just submitted it to the committee. But best not mention it to her, you know how she can be.”
“It makes sense now that I think about it,” she says. “Everyone up here treats me like a paying customer, not some moocher off the streets like that nurse did my first time in the ER.”
“Everyone deserves to be treated the same, Elizabeth, regardless of their financial status or ability to pay.”
“Sadly, not everyone shares your philosophy, Kyle.”
“Well, then everyone can take their misplaced righteousness and shove it up their tight narcissistic asses.”
She giggles. “Why, Dr. Stone, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you speak so harshly.”
“Sorry, it just makes me angry. In my book, everyone is just one unfortunate circumstance—”
“—away from being in someone else’s shoes,” she finishes my sentence.
I cock my head to the side and study her.
She laughs. “Mallory pretty much told me that’s your motto.”
“Did she now?”
“She came for another visit last night. So did your friend, Piper Mitchell.”
“Busy day, was it?”
“Yes, but Nurse Ratched didn’t let either of them take me for a walk because I was bleeding the day before yesterday. But I haven’t so much as spotted in over twenty-four hours. Can you get me out of here for a while? Please?”
I page through her chart, looking at the notes that cover the last thirty-six hours when I wasn’t on duty.
“It says here you experienced bright-red blood over the period of about six hours. They did a blood draw. Results look normal. Ultrasound was good. And you say no bleeding since?”
“Nope, none.” She looks proud, like it’s an accomplishment she had control over. “Please, Kyle. I’m going stir crazy. There is only so much baseball I can watch. A lot of the games aren’t even televised, I just have to wait for highlights. And I’ve read five books since Baylor came to visit. That’s five books in less than four days, Kyle. I need fresh air. I need to smell lavender. I need to eat Jell-O. Please?”
So many things are running through my head right now. Things like how I should get a nurse to escort her to the courtyard. Things like how I should turn around and walk out of this room. Things like how I can remember every detail of her face when we walked into the gardens last week and she smelled those purple flowers. Things like how her piercing blue eyes are begging me to take her.
And I know that, despite all the reasons I shouldn’t, I’ll say yes anyway.
I put down her chart. “Don’t go anywhere, I’ll find you a wheelchair.”
She claps her hands like an excited school girl. “Oh, thank you!”
When I return a few minutes later with a wheelchair, I see she’s removed the strap from the fetal monitor, turned the machine off, and put on her robe. I admonish her with my stare.
“What?” she says. “Abby taught me how to work the monitor. It was always slipping off me. It’s just easier if I know how to do it myself.”
“And the robe?”
She rolls her eyes at me. “It was two feet away on the chair, Kyle. Geesh, and I thought Nurse Ratched was bad.”
“Exactly who is Nurse Ratched?” I ask. “I know it’s not Abby, since she taught you how to work the monitor and all.”
“Her name is Rachel, but she’s a slave driver. She was here filling in for the night-shift nurse.”
I get her situated in the wheelchair and walk her out to the elevator. Abby and another nurse follow us with their eyes. Elizabeth seems to notice as well.
“What’s their problem?” she asks.
“Don’t mind them. They just think we’re having a torrid affair.”
She guffaws. “They what?”
I laugh. “Haven’t you learned by now that nurses gossip about everything? Patients. Doctors. Other nurses. They work long twelve-hour shifts. I suppose it keeps things interesting or something.”
She joins my laughter. “I guess my room is too far away from things to hear the good stuff. Darn.”
On our ride down to the main floor, the elevator stops and the doors open. Cameron walks in. He looks down at Elizabeth and then up at me. His face cracks into a huge smile that only I can see. We ride in silence to the ground floor, then we all get off.
“See you later, porn star,” Cameron says as he walks away.
“Porn star?” Elizabeth questions me. Then her jaw drops. “Kyle,” she says, before clearing her throat. “Did you pay your way through medical school making adult movies?”
I look around to see if anyone heard her ask. Then I lean down and explain, “I have the unfortunate honor of sharing my name with a famous adult film actor.”
She covers her mouth and belts out a laugh. “Oh, no. That is unfortunate.”
“You have no idea,” I say. “Growing up with two older brothers, I never heard the end of it.”
“Your parents didn’t realize what they’d done, obviously.”
I shake my head. “That was over twenty-seven years ago. People didn’t do internet searches to pick the name of their kid back then. It wasn’t until I was in middle school when some idiot friend of my brother mentioned it to him. My brother researched it for accuracy and then proceeded to wallpaper my bedroom with photos of the guy.”
“As in naked photos?” she asks.
“Not just naked photos. Action photos,” I say. “I was barely twelve. I didn’t even know what the hell was going on in most of the pictures. He practically scarred me for life.”
She laughs again. “Which brother, Chad or Ethan?”
I’m impressed she remembers both of their names. “Ethan.”
“It sounds like you had a lot of fun growing up,” she says. Then she looks down the hall and beckons me down to her level where she whispers, “Isn’t that Billy Hainey?”
I look in the direction of her gaze. “So, it’s not just baseball you like. You’re a hockey buff, too?”
“Is that him?”
“Looks like him,” I say. “It’s not unusual to see famous athletes around the hospital. They do a lot of goodwill work.”
“That’s nice of them. I’ll bet the kids love it, and maybe even some of the adults,” she says, as I wheel her past the cafeteria. “Hey, aren’t you forgetting something?”
“Right. Jell-O.” I back up and push her into the cafeteria, parking her to the side while I gather up our supplies.
“More research?” the cashier asks with a smirk.
I laugh and nod.
Out in the courtyard, we resume the same spot we had last week. And just like last week, she takes in a huge breath through her nose, savoring the aroma of what must be her favorite flower.
I sit on the bench and take the Jell-O cups from her, making a pile next to me. “Whose turn is it?” I ask, as if I don’t know. As if the memory of every minute I spend with her isn’t chronicled in my head.
“Mine,” she says. “I’ve had a lot of time to sit around and think about it, you know.”
“Fire away,” I say.
“Okay. Never have I ever been arrested.”
I chuckle. “Good one, but not good enough.” I leave the cups sealed and untouched. “Although I did have a few near-misses back in high school. One time, a bunch of guys and I got drunk out on a golf course. The night watchman chased us all over the back nine before he pooped out. Damn, I haven’t thought about that in a while. Good times.”
“Now you go,” she says.
I don’t miss the fact that she doesn’t ask me any questions about what I just said. Questions like where was the golf course or what high school did you attend. She doesn’t ask me questions like that because she knows I’d quid pro quo.
I try to think of a question that won’t stir up bad memories. “Never have I ever kisse
d someone of the same sex on the lips.”
Her face pinks up and her eyes close briefly as she grins and shakes her head back and forth. “Give me the orange one, please,” she says, holding out her hand.
My jaw drops.
She rolls her eyes. “Tenth grade. Her name was Jewel. Let’s just leave it at that.”
I open the orange Jell-O and hand it to her along with a spoon.
“I’m a guy, Elizabeth. I can’t just leave it at that.”
She laughs right before taking her bite. “Eww,” she says, making a face. “Definitely not my favorite.”
“Did this kiss involve Jell-O?” I ask. “Or perhaps melted chocolate?”
“Oh, my God, Kyle. No. It was a dare. But I got the idea she liked it way more than I did. She stalked me for weeks after. It was humiliating. Rumors started. Apparently, I was the only one in tenth grade who didn’t know she liked girls.”
“Was she blonde or brunette?”
“What?” she asks, scrunching her nose. “What does that matter?”
“I have a thing for brunettes,” I say. “Was she blonde or brunette?”
“Oh, I’m . . . I mean, uh . . . she was brunette.”
I can’t help my smile. She was about to tell me she’s a brunette.
“My turn again,” she says. “Never have I ever stolen anything.”
“Doesn’t that kind of go along with being arrested?” I ask.
“No, not necessarily,” she says.
“You’re right, it doesn’t.” I pick up a spoon and take a bite of the orange goo.
She’s raising her eyebrows at me, waiting for an explanation.
“I was fifteen. We had recently moved to L.A. and I was going through a rebellious phase. We were in the mall and I swiped a pair of sunglasses. Funny story, it’s actually how my brother, Chad, got discovered as an actor.”
She looks vaguely embarrassed. “I know, Mallory told me.”
“Told you my brother was an actor, or told you I stole something?”
“Both. I just wanted to see if you were an honest thief,” she says. She nods to the two remaining cups. “You only have one left to try and I have two.”
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