Confessions of a Naughty Night Nurse

by Lily Harlem

  My phone suddenly jangled out its tinny tune. Hurriedly I reached for it. Carl kept an arm around my shoulders and I rested my hand on his thigh.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘Sharon?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s Felicity Broom again.’

  ‘Any news?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve spoken to the head of Personnel who is most shocked that Sister Stanton didn’t think your accusation and evidence was worth sharing with us and the police. It really is very inappropriate for a manager in her position and certainly will require an investigation of its own.’

  ‘Really?’ Oh, hell. How sweet was that? Iceberg in trouble for not passing on my information. A double whammy of success. ‘And Javier?’

  ‘I can’t say much more, because a very current investigation is taking place.’

  Bloody hell, did that mean the police were on their way to raid his place? I hoped so. I could just imagine his handsome face twisting with fury that they dare accuse him, Doctor Javier Garelli. He would likely implode with rage. ‘Oh, OK then.’

  ‘But we really are incredibly grateful for your investigative skills and for feeling able to report a superior. It takes a lot of courage to do that.’

  ‘Well, I’m not one to see many grey areas between right and wrong.’

  ‘And a good job, too, because both of these members of staff are most definitely in the wrong.’

  Both. Excellent. ‘You know they’re having an affair, don’t you?’ I said.

  Carl gave a shocked cough then cleared his throat.

  ‘Really?’ Felicity said, her voice high with surprise.

  ‘Yes, so that might be why Sister Stanton felt the need to protect him like she did.’

  ‘Well, yes, that would certainly explain some things.’ She paused. ‘Really, those two?’

  ‘Hard to believe but it’s common knowledge.’

  ‘Well, I would never have guessed, they don’t seem exactly …’

  ‘Suited? No I agree.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘So,’ I said. ‘Can I ask what will happen about my suspension?’

  ‘Oh, yes that. Forget it, obviously. Sister Stanton will be the one suspended now, for not reporting Doctor Garelli.’

  ‘And the thing she accused me of?’ I glanced at Carl who was finishing off the last of his McMuffin.

  ‘Water under the bridge. Clearly she’s been having trouble distinguishing between the good guys and the bad guys as well as reality.’

  I was off the hook. I wanted to do a hop, skip and a jump. Iceberg had failed to strike me off the register. I was still a nurse, always would be. Thank goodness, because it was all I really knew how to do.

  ‘Great,’ I said, trying to sound relieved more than jubilant. ‘Good.’

  ‘Yes, forget it all. We’ll be in touch if we need anything else from you, but I doubt it. These pictures are pretty damning, and once the police have done their investigation, too, it should be a closed case.’

  ‘So I can turn up for duty as normal.’

  ‘Yes, absolutely. The hospital is lucky to have you.’

  I let out a long breath of relief. She couldn’t have said a nicer thing to me. ‘I’d best get some sleep then, it’s been a long night.’

  ‘All sorted?’ Carl asked as I slotted my phone back into my handbag.

  ‘Yes, yes it is. I’ve gone from thinking I was about to be made homeless and living as a tramp on the streets to being thanked by Personnel and told the hospital is lucky to have me.’ I shook my head, hardly able to believe my turnaround in fortune.

  ‘Well, yes, they are lucky to have you, but I don’t think you would ever have been on the streets,’ he said.

  ‘Where else would I go, if I lost this place?’ I genuinely had no idea. I would be desolate.

  ‘My house?’

  ‘You’ve got a house? I thought you said you were in the doctors’ accommodation at the hospital.’

  ‘I was, but I figured I’d be hanging around for a few years and I wanted to get on the property ladder, so I’ve just put an offer in on a little place. You should come over when I move in, it’s cute. Thatched roof, apple trees in the back garden and a fabulous wood-burning stove, perfect for cold winter nights.’ He stood and pulled me up next to him. ‘You would never have been living on the street, not when I’m on this earth.’

  ‘Really?’ A sudden set of tears welled in my eyes. ‘That’s so kind.’

  ‘Hey, hey.’ He rubbed his thumbs beneath my eyes, catching the drips before they trickled down my cheeks. ‘No tears, everything’s OK. And there’s nothing kind about it. I care about you.’

  ‘It’s just …’

  He tipped my head up, with his fingers cupped over my ears. ‘Just what?’

  I looked up into his face and could see a faint reflection of myself in his glasses. ‘It’s been a long time since anyone was as nice to me as you are.’

  ‘I’m sure it isn’t, it’s just the first time you’ve noticed for a while.’

  I shrugged, a little childishly, because maybe he was right. But even so, I was embarrassed by my tears. I didn’t know what it was with the waterworks lately. A combination of stress, exhaustion and fear I guessed.

  I tried to turn away, but he held my head securely.

  ‘What the hell did this Michael bloke do to you?’

  OK, now that was dangerous tear territory and not something I talked about. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Nothing? He must have done something. You were like a deer caught in headlights just at the thought of a date with me.’

  ‘I wasn’t.’

  He raised his eyebrows in a way that said I couldn’t persuade him to think otherwise. And what was the point? He was right. A date was the first step in a relationship, and relationships were scary. The thought of having my soul shredded from my body again wasn’t particularly appealing; to be honest, it was downright terrifying.

  But even so, Carl deserved the truth. More than anyone he’d persevered with me. He’d forgiven, trusted and treated me with respect. I supposed he really did need to know what the hell he was getting himself into if this was going to be more than friendship.

  ‘OK.’ I took his hands from my head, linked my fingers with his and held them between our bodies. ‘You really want to know?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘I do.’

  ‘He really did nothing, literally. He just left. I came back from work, a day shift actually, that was before I went nocturnal, and he’d … gone.’ I paused, waiting for the usual stab of pain at the memory of walking through the door, calling to him that I’d splashed out and bought steak and a bottle of red on the way home, as it was a Friday. He hadn’t replied and I’d thought he was in the shower or something. He wasn’t.

  ‘Gone?’ Carl said, tilting his head. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He’d left a note, saying that he didn’t love me any more. Didn’t want to get married and he had an urge to travel the world while he was still young enough to do it.’

  ‘And you had no idea he was feeling like this?’ Carl shook his head. I could sense his confusion, his struggle to comprehend; it was like everyone else had been at the time.

  ‘No, not at all.’ I glanced away. ‘We’d been out the night before, to the cinema, came home, made love and then enjoyed breakfast together. I thought he was happy, like I was. Truth be told, I was more than happy. I spent the first two years living in this flat with Michael, feeling like I was the luckiest woman on earth and walking on cloud nine all day every day.’

  Carl looked bemused. ‘And he hadn’t said anything. Not even hints of travelling and stuff?’

  ‘No, Michael is a Yorkshire lad, born and bred. Yorkshire men tend to be homebodies, they don’t get the wanderlust other people do, and who can blame them? It’s beautiful here.’

  ‘Yes, but …’ He squeezed my fingers. ‘But you just don’t do that, do you? Walk away from someone you love.’

  ‘He didn’t love me.
’

  ‘But he proposed. Bought this place with you.’

  I sighed. ‘Yes, I agree the signs were there that he loved me. Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. But his actions undermined my ability to trust, to believe in my skills in judging how people felt about me.’ I nodded at the cream pile rug in front of the fireplace. ‘Have you any idea how many nights I lay on there sobbing, wondering what the hell I’d done wrong or what signs I hadn’t picked up?’ I pulled in a deep, shaky breath. ‘Over and over I asked myself why he’d left in such a cruel way, no explanation, no chance for me to defend myself or try to make things right. The only contact I ever had with him was through a solicitor to sort out the deeds to this place. He took himself off the mortgage and I bought him out. I had some crazy idea in my head that if I kept our home together he might come back.’

  An image of myself, what I must have looked like on that rug sprang to mind. I’d been boneless with grief. Michael leaving had been the most awful thing to ever happen to me. If he’d died in an accident it would have been easier. I wouldn’t have had the questions, the uncertainties, the damn hang-ups I was now making every nice, innocent guy I met cope with. Talk about baggage, I had a bloody ten ton truck trailing along behind me.

  ‘I don’t want to think of you like that,’ Carl said, turning me to face him and running his hands over my shoulders and down my arms. ‘Perhaps we should make new memories for that rug.’

  ‘New memories?’

  ‘Yes.’ He brushed his lips over mine. ‘Perhaps I should make love to you there – sweetly, gently, right now.’

  That sounded like a damn good idea to my body, but my emotions stuttered.

  He knew me too well, already. ‘What?’ he asked. ‘You’ve changed your mind?’

  I looked away. Damn, I was such a tease. I did want to, really I did. But …

  ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘It’s OK, whatever you want is fine.’ He paused. ‘I don’t really know what’s going on in that pretty little head of yours, but if it helps, I promise, absolutely promise, on my grandparents’ graves that I will never ever just leave, walk away, or disappear. Ever.’

  ‘You promise?’ I looked up into his face. It was full of earnest, his jaw set, his eyes solemn.

  ‘I promise, with all my heart. I would never do that to you, or anyone. It’s just cruel. Unbelievably cruel.’

  ‘It is.’ I nodded. ‘It was.’

  He gathered me close, tucking my head beneath his chin and stroking my hair. I leaned into him, let him hold me up. I was knackered, emotionally and physically, almost to the point where Carl was keeping me together.

  I slid my hands down his back, to just below the waistband of the smart trousers he wore for work. The rise of his buttocks was a gentle slope and like the rest of him, slender but strong.

  Letting my palms absorb the heat of his skin through the material, in this slightly too familiar pose for a couple yet to make love, I allowed the first stirrings of desire to build within me. It was new, this desire. It wasn’t lust or a craving for physical satisfaction, which were the sexual emotions that had been with me for so long. It was something more brilliant, brighter, deeper. It came from within, an urge to connect in every sense, not just our bodies but as two souls. Not since Michael left had I felt that, not since Michael had I allowed myself to.

  But maybe those years banging around weren’t wasted ones though. Perhaps they’d been necessary. Kind of like an Elastoplast around my heart. Yes, I’d shagged any willing guy, been more than happy to reap the benefits of Raif’s multi-talented tongue and ridden Tom’s mammoth appendage until I could barely walk, but I’d never been truly satisfied. Hadn’t come away feeling as though my heart had been nourished by the joining, no matter how spectacular the orgasm or how many I’d been treated to.

  However, now, just holding Carl, and feeling him cuddle me was more nurturing than any fleeting rendezvous. He knew me. Had seen me up and down. He understood that I was a sucker for patients who needed a night out and thought it enormous fun to watch senior colleagues up to no good in theatre. He also grasped, though many men wouldn’t, that I’d had a sudden change of heart when just about to get up close and personal with Javier. Yes, he knew me, and now I wanted to learn everything about him too.

  ‘You OK?’ he whispered.

  I nodded, inhaled his cologne. ‘Yes, I’m fine.’ I looked up at him. ‘The rug is a little uncomfortable. How about the bed?’

  He grinned. ‘Sounds good to me.’

  With a sudden flourish he swooped me up against his chest. One arm behind my knees the other around my back. I laughed, a bubbling rush of a sound, and looped my arms around his neck.

  ‘I’ve been wanting to do that for ages,’ he said with a smile. ‘Sometimes I’ve looked at you on a ward, busy organising meds or helping someone out of bed, and I’ve wondered what you’d say if I just strode over, picked you up and marched out of the place.’

  ‘You have?’

  ‘Yes.’ He walked into the hall, turning sideways to fit us both through the doorway. ‘I always liked that film An Officer and a Gentleman; thought they should remake it though, The Doctor and the Nurse.’

  ‘I think they have, and you can find it on the top shelf of sleazy, over-eighteen-only shops.’

  He laughed. ‘Yes, you’re probably right.’ He paused. ‘Which one?’

  ‘Door on the left, the other one is the bathroom.’

  ‘OK, I’ll remember that for later.’

  He shoved at my bedroom door with his foot, and I was relieved that I’d left the room relatively tidy. It was quite a decent size, with one purple wall behind the bed and the others silvery grey. The bedspread was also purple and held a stack of fluffy, decorative cushions.

  He laid me down, carefully, then flicked on the bedside lamp. A warm, amber glow filtered over the bed and cast shadows around the chunky pine furniture.

  ‘Much as I like these sexy pyjamas of yours,’ he said, stooping and talking against my lips, ‘they’re going to have to come off.’

  ‘That can be arranged, doctor, but I think you might have to lose your clothes first.’

  He straightened. ‘Ah, it’s like that, is it?’ He dragged his shirt over his head and I got my first look at his bare chest.

  And a fine chest it was too – creamy skin, unblemished; dark, hard nipples; a whirl of black hair in the centre of his sternum; and subtly defined, squarish pectoral muscles. His body was long, his chest hair forming a neat, tantalising, lickable line right down to his navel before fanning out, over his taut belly and disappearing into his trousers.

  It was the length of his body and limbs that so appealed to me. He wasn’t all beefed-up muscle, bulging biceps and stacked six-pack. He was lean, strong, tall, perfectly formed and all male. He was Carl.

  Without tearing my attention from him, I flicked the cushions to the floor and tossed back the duvet. After toeing off my slippers, I poked my feet beneath the cover. ‘Coming in?’ I asked with a grin.

  He didn’t return my smile. He’d pressed his lips together and hovered his fingers over his belt buckle.

  ‘What?’ I asked. A shard of fear sliced through my chest. Please don’t run out on me. Not now. Not when I’ve just let you in.

  ‘It’s just …’ he said quietly.

  ‘What?’ OK, now I was worried.

  ‘It’s just …’ He twisted his mouth into a half smile. ‘I just hope you like it, that’s all.’

  I frowned. ‘Like what?’

  ‘I’ve been told it’s a bit of an acquired taste.’

  ‘Acquired taste.’ I was really confused. ‘Carl, what are you talking about?’

  ‘This.’ He undid his buckle, slowly slipped it free, then undid his trouser button and zipper.

  Bloody hell. What was going on? Was he of mammoth proportions like Tom? Perhaps he had a wiener and I’d have to find inventive ways to get off with him. No, I’d felt the damn thing in the cupboard after the Hartley and Emily show. It’d seemed
of perfectly acceptable proportions then.

  He shoved his trousers down to his ankles then kicked them and his socks away.

  OK, judging by the tenting in his tight, black boxer briefs, he definitely wasn’t on the wiener end of the scale. That looked just as I remembered it to feel. A healthy, aroused specimen waiting for fun.

  But this just made me even more puzzled. ‘Carl,’ I whispered. ‘What –?’

  ‘This.’ He hooked his fingers into the waistband of his boxers and moved them down to his thighs. His cock sprang free from a nest of black pubic hair. He was a very pleasing length, decent girth and nicely engorged.

  But as all of this registered, one thing overrode everything else.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ I gasped. ‘Is that real?’

  He gave a strained laugh. ‘Yes.’

  ‘What the … why?’

  ‘Why not?’ He fingered the silver ring that emerged from his slit and then pierced the underside of his dick, just beneath the flared glans.

  ‘I’ve never seen a Prince Albert,’ I said, sitting forward. It looked amazing, the metal thick and shiny and kind of pretty too. ‘And I thought I’d just about seen everything.’

  ‘Does it freak you out? I can remove it if you want.’

  ‘No, no, not at all.’ I glanced up at his worried face. ‘I think it’s bloody amazing.’

  He widened his eyes. ‘You do?’

  ‘Yes, how long have you had it?’

  ‘About seven years. Had it done in Australia when a mate dared me to. Hurt like bollocks for a while but then I got used to it, fond of it. Now it’s part of me.’

  ‘Remind me never to dare you to do anything.’

  He laughed. ‘Yes, I’m not good at turning a dare down. You’d do well to remember that.’

  I grinned. ‘I will.’ Damn, I’d always suspected Carl was a dark horse beneath his white coat, square glasses and easygoing ways. I’d been right, and it seemed my luck just kept going up now that it had changed its course. ‘Can I touch it?’