Emergency Delivery (Love Emergency)

by Samanthe Beck

  Hunter turned his arm so the crook of his elbow faced up. His partner leaned close and tapped the puncture site.

  “Get the angle right. Don’t move that fucking needle once it’s in my arm.”

  Beau didn’t bother looking up. “Calm down. If I miss, I’ll just stab you again.”

  “I’m serious.” He raised his head off the pillow and glared at his partner. “Don’t bruise me. I need my arms.”

  “I could go for the vein in your dick, but I didn’t bring a small enough needle.”

  Madison’s head went numb just listening. She crawled off the arm of the sofa. “I’m outta here. Do you need anything from the kitchen? Maybe some coffee?”

  Beau glanced up and gave her an apologetic smile. “I’d love some. Thanks.”

  “Anything in it?” You could take the girl out of the coffee shop, but you couldn’t take the coffee shop out of the girl.

  “I drink it black.”

  “Like his soul,” Hunter added.

  She escaped to the kitchen to brew a pot and puttered around, listening with half an ear to the proceedings in the other room.

  “Ow! You sadistic fuck, stop moving the needle around.”

  “Stop moving your arm around, dickhead, or I swear to God I’m going to…there. It’s in.”

  “Thank Christ. Where’s my lollipop?”

  “You can suck on this.”

  Men. She rolled her eyes and got two mugs down from the cabinet. Their no-doubt heartwarming conversation continued, but the noise from the coffeemaker made it impossible to follow. When the machine spit the last of the coffee into the pot, she poured two cups then walked back to the living room in time to catch the end of Beau’s sentence.

  “…she’ll come through with a recommendation letter.”

  “I don’t think so,” Hunter replied.

  Beau reached out and took the mug she’d handed him. “Thanks.” To Hunter, he said, “I’ll write you a letter. Thankfully, they want a professional recommendation, so I can leave out any mention of what a pathetic lightweight you are.”

  She put the other mug on the coffee table next to Hunter and settled on the arm of the sofa again. “I’ll write you a letter, too, if it helps. I know I don’t work with you, but I have firsthand experience with your medical skills, and I think you’ll make an excellent doctor.”

  Hunter moved his left arm from behind his head and rested his hand against her thigh. “I sincerely appreciate the offer, but I had to give the school a list of my references. They expect a letter from Ashley Granger. If I substitute someone else at this point, it’s the same as admitting my current supervisor thinks I’ll make a shitty MD.”

  Anger fired her blood on Hunter’s behalf. What was wrong with this Ashley woman? “What’s her deal? Why hasn’t she written the letter?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. That whole conversation went sideways on me. Something ’bout how I don’t have ‘emotional maturity’”—he lifted his hand off her leg and made air quotes—“for the job.”

  None of that told her much, but he sounded so exhausted, and uncharacteristically bleak, she realized now wasn’t the best time to try and make sense of it. Apparently Beau agreed, because he turned and started loading supplies into his backpack.

  Hunter had his wrist propped on the arm of the sofa, right next to her hip. His palm faced up, his long fingers lax. Her heart clutched a little at the sight, which looked too much like a gesture of surrender to her newly aroused protective instincts. She ran her fingertips into the cup of his palm and then down his wrist and along his inner arm.

  He shivered.

  She stopped. “Sorry.”

  “Feels good.”

  She worked her way back up and repeated the motion in slow, smooth strokes. Her mind filled with all the plans she’d had for tonight before Hunter had texted and told her they were going to be out late. As usual, her timing sucked.

  Beau got up, holding his phone. “Savannah called. I’m going to wash up and then step outside and call her back. And I’m going to blame your sorry ass for why I’m so late. Madison’s in charge while I’m gone.”

  Hunter flipped his partner the bird, which earned him the same from Beau. Madison couldn’t help being curious about Savannah. She knew some basics thanks to Hunter. Beau and Savannah had been neighbors when they were small but had lost touch when Beau’s family moved away. Decades later, a couple of years after Beau lost his wife and child in a car crash, they ended up neighbors again. According to Hunter, Beau very nearly let Savannah slip through his fingers. Now they were getting married and expecting a baby in the summer.

  Hunter tipped his head and looked up at her with bloodshot eyes. “Sorry.”

  She shook her head and resumed trailing her nails along his arm. “You don’t owe me any apologies. You went out and had fun with your friends. You’re entitled.”

  He turned his face to his shoulder and yawned. Afterwards, he settled his head against the pillow, but his eyelids never made it quite to all the way open. “I don’t want you thinkin’ I do this all the time. I don’t.”

  “I know.” She traced the bend in his arm and the smooth, paler skin along the underside of his biceps.

  He lowered his arm, ran his hand down his flat stomach, and adjusted the front of his shorts, where a thick ridge formed. How had she missed that?

  “Told you it felt good,” he mumbled and lost the battle to keep his eyes open.

  “Oh, Hunter…” She fiddled with his hair, because she couldn’t not touch him.

  “Don’t worry.” He stretched his sinful mouth into the lopsided smile. “I couldn’t do anything with it right now, even if you could.”

  “What I can do with it is a whole ’nother topic of conversation,” she said but pulled the blanket off the back of the sofa and arranged it over him. He automatically pushed it down to his waist and kicked his legs free. Hunter radiated heat no matter what the temperature. She contemplated telling him the other important outcome of her doctor’s visit, but decided to wait. He’d stilled, and his breath came slow and even. Another minute and he’d be asleep.

  Beau returned, glanced at Hunter, and checked the drip. “Savannah says you’re a saint, and if we’d showed up on her doorstep, she would have left us there.”

  Madison smiled. “Well, in actual fact, it’s his doorstep, so I’d be a pretty lousy houseguest to lock him out.”

  “She disagrees, for the record, but told me to reassure you we don’t pull this shit very often.”

  “It’s okay. Honestly. I don’t need any assurances.” She looked down at Hunter. “He needs to blow off some steam. He rarely lets it show, but I’m sure he’s under a lot of stress right now.”

  Beau looked at his friend, too, and absently rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah.”

  “Because of me and Joy…right?”

  He froze, flicked cautious brown eyes up to her, and generally looked like a deer in headlights. “Uh…”

  She waved her hand. “Erase the question. You don’t have to betray any confidences.” But clearly he had the confidences, and the fact alone told her plenty, without the need for words. Hunter might put on a calm front for her, but to Beau he’d admitted worries about when the heck he’d get his normal life back.

  “I think a good portion of his stress revolves around his applications and, beyond that, the specter of failing again,” Beau offered, obviously looking to downplay her role as a source of anxiety.

  A nice effort on his part, but she couldn’t help wonder how much of Hunter’s worries about failing centered around the fact that he was currently living in a frighteningly similar environment as he had been when he’d failed the first time?

  I’ll need to minimize distractions.

  His words from the other night replayed in her mind. No, he wasn’t rushing them, but the end goal remained the same, and the longer the timeline extended, the more pressure she put on him.

  She looked at him crashed across the sofa with his e
yes closed, and his wide, superhero chest slowly rising and falling. Her heart contracted. Doing a few loads of laundry and preparing some meals made her feel less burdensome, but those deeds didn’t magically lighten the weight of responsibility on Hunter’s shoulders. Spending time in his arms, sharing laughs, and kisses, and amazing orgasms might mean their feelings for each other had grown beyond protective, on his part, and grateful, on hers, but it didn’t change the underlying reality. You are a burden as long as you’re here. The only way to change that is to get out.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Hunter woke up in his bed, alone, with sunlight streaming through the slit in the curtains. He vaguely remembered Madison walking him from the sofa to the bedroom after Joy’s three a.m. feeding, and he thought she’d snuggled in next to him, but considering the shape he’d arrived home in last night that might be wishful thinking. At any rate—he lifted his head from the pillow and looked around—she wasn’t there now. He flopped back onto the pillow and stared at the ceiling. He had some groveling to do, to apologize to her for coming home at all hours, puking-his-guts-out wasted, and letting Beau turn the living room into a Hangover Heaven—although he had to admit, the IV had helped.

  What time was it? He turned to stare at the clock on his nightstand. Nine twenty. Crap. He hadn’t slept so late since…? Christmas, when he’d helped Beau numb the pain of a colossal fuckup in his relationship with Savannah.

  Huh. Heartache and hangovers. He sensed a pattern.

  But in his case he couldn’t even legitimately own the heartache. Madison would be back on the job next week. He should be happy, because that had always been the plan. It brought her and Joy one step closer to moving out—also the plan—and the best one for all of them. Madison needed her independence, and so did he.

  Something unfamiliar on the nightstand caught his eye. He pushed his clock out of the way and closed his hand around a plastic cylinder. He brought the pump-top container closer and turned the bottle until he could see the labeling.

  Liquid Silk.

  Where had it come from?

  Well, Einstein, either Madison put it there or you had a visit from the lube fairy last night.

  His pulse quickened, and his morning hard-on got serious. A piece of their conversation last night replayed in his mind.

  Don’t worry. I couldn’t do anything with it right now, even if you could.

  What I can do with it is a whole ’nother topic of conversation.

  He sat up and looked at the nightstand. Now he spotted the rectangular box of thirty-six ultra-thin, lubricated condoms. Had he really spent last night drinking himself into oblivion with four sweaty guys when he could have been home, in this bed, doing things to Madison he’d been fantasizing about for weeks?

  If that wasn’t a public service message for drinking responsibly, he didn’t know what was. And yeah, he definitely had some groveling to do, considering she’d obviously had plans for them last night, and he’d been a no-show. Hell, she might have decided she’d dodged a bullet, and approaching her first thing this morning with his eager cock tenting his shorts, still stinking of all his poor decisions from the night before, struck him as an unlikely way to change her mind. Nobody was that persuasive.

  He needed a shower first, followed by a long, drawn-out apology delivered with her legs over his shoulders, and his tongue getting properly acquainted with all the territory from which her doctor had removed the metaphorical yellow “Do Not Cross” tape. Sounded like a plan.

  He stood, pulled off the wad of cotton taped to the inside of his arm, and winced at the golf ball-sized bruise Beau had left to remind him he had shit for brains. Nice.

  The house sounded quiet, which surprised him, because around this time of the morning, Joy liked to get her groove on and Madison usually turned on the pop-country channel and threw them a little dance party. She sang along to Miranda Lambert, or Florida Georgia Line, or whatever, and two-stepped Joy around the living room. Damn. Something disturbingly close to disappointment settled in his gut. His girls put on a hell of a show, and he liked to catch it on his days off.

  Hold up. They’re not your girls.

  Okay, maybe not, he admitted as he pulled a pair of jeans from the stack of clean clothes on his dresser, but they were there for now, and he was honest enough with himself to admit the arrangement had perks—perks that had nothing to do with clean, folded laundry…or the possibilities presented by thirty-six ultra-thin condoms and a jumbo tube of Liquid Silk. How cuddling a grumpy infant at three in the morning had become a perk, he didn’t know, but he liked watching those big blue owl-eyes blink up at him as he talked nonsense in a low voice and lulled her back to sleep. He liked coming home to find Madison puttering in the kitchen or entertaining Joy in the living room, and he sure as hell liked feeling Madison’s sexy little body pressed up against his in the middle of the night. In that regard, the last couple of weeks had been an exercise in creative torture. He hadn’t spent this much time at third base since high school, and he prayed to God he hadn’t blown his chance to take her all the way home.

  The short trek to the bathroom confirmed his initial impression—the girls weren’t around. While he pissed away the last of a thousand milliliters of IV medium, he glanced behind him. He remembered leaving his dirty clothes in a pile on the bathmat last night. Of course they were nowhere to be found this morning. He rolled his eyes and turned on the shower. Maid Madison had struck again. That perk he wouldn’t miss. And this morning, particularly, knowing she’d tidied up after him added another weight to his load of guilt. He stepped under the spray, closed his eyes, and let the water beat down on him.

  The muffled slam of the front door had him opening his eyes. He washed up, pulled on the jeans, and skipped the shave. He liked the way she squirmed and squealed when he scraped his scruffy jaw over the ticklish spots on her neck and breasts. Maybe she had other ticklish spots he could scratch for her?

  He opened the bathroom door and then stepped into the hall to find her standing in the living room, shrugging out of her black hoodie. She wore a pair of broken-in red cowboy boots, a denim skirt that hit mid-thigh, a long, fuzzy red sweater, and a startled expression. She’d expected him to be down for the count.

  “How’re you feeling?” Her question contained all sorts of caution. She tipped her head and her dark hair streamed over her shoulder.

  “Like a dick.” Literally. The sight of her, the cinnamon-honey scent of her skin, and the husky sound of her voice had him so hard he could barely think. “Where’s Joy?”

  “I just dropped her at Nelle’s for a few hours”—her lips twisted into a faint smile and his cock drilled into the top button of his fly—“’cause I figured you could use some peace and quiet.”

  He crossed his arms and leaned against the archway leading from the hall to the living room, liking the way her eyes roamed all over him. “How ’bout you, Madison? What could you use?”

  She blinked and crossed her arms over her chest, unconsciously mimicking him. “Me? Nothing. I’m good. Do you feel up to some breakfast?”

  He pushed away from the wall and walked toward her. “Yeah.”

  Her head tipped back as he neared. “Want me to make you something?”

  “Uh-uh.” Keeping his eyes locked on hers, he reached under her skirt and palmed her through her panties. Her breath rushed out and her eyelids fluttered. A pretty flush swept into her cheeks. “The only thing I want to sink my teeth into is standing in front of me.”

  Her hand landed in the center of his chest, and a little moan filled his ears. “Hunter…”

  He wrapped his other arm around her and pulled her closer, working the widest part of his palm into the tight space between her thighs. She hung onto his shoulders and hitched one leg up to his waist. He slid his hand from the small of her back to the curve of her ass, lingered there for a squeeze, and then took hold of her thigh so she didn’t have to strain to keep the position. Because he liked the position. He stroked her again
, using the heel of his hand up front while his fingers delved lower, doing more than teasing the final frontier.

  She tightened her arms and pressed her forehead to his chest. Her breath puffed over his skin. “I bought some things…yesterday.”

  “I saw.” He stroked her more firmly, and her body went hot and damp. He squeezed. She shuddered and rocked against him impatiently. “Does it mean what I think it means?”

  “Let’s go to the bedroom.”

  “Not so fast. I haven’t had my breakfast yet.”

  That’s all the warning he gave her. He picked her up, went to his knees, and put her on the rug. The move startled a little scream out of her, and before it ended, he had her knees over his shoulders, her skirt around her hips, and her tight little ass suspended two feet off the ground.

  She scrambled to push her skirt back into place at the same time he hauled her parted thighs closer to his face. “No…noooo…oh my God, Hunter Knox, don’t you dare!”

  He held on, lifting her hips higher. She couldn’t put up much of a struggle with most of her body weight pressing into her shoulders. Wide blue eyes skidded around and finally connected with his.

  “Madison, I’ve let you put your mouth all over me.” He scratched his chin along her thigh and she shrieked again. “Now it’s my turn.” Then he dipped his head and took his turn.

  She bucked, and twisted, and cried out like a woman hurtling down the first drop on a roller coaster. He held on and took his time, letting his tongue roam over her through her panties, deliberately leaning in with every stroke so she’d feel his whiskers against the delicate skin inside her thighs. She shifted her legs to maximize the friction.

  When the noises coming out of her graduated to restless moans, and her thighs clamped and released in an impatient flutter around his head, he dragged her panties aside and finally put his mouth on her. Just her. No barriers.

  She arched up, gasping. Her fingers dove into his hair and held onto him like he was the only thing anchoring her to the planet. He circled her slick clit with the tip of his tongue while she moaned her appreciation and rocked into his touch. Self-conscious Madison had officially left the building—at least for now. Slowly, he widened and expanded the route into a figure eight, edging closer to her threshold with each pass.