He sneered at me. Somehow, he was still hot while sneering. “This is ridiculous.”
I put my hands on my hips and tried to look authoritative. “Oh really? Well, so was punching a patient. Actions have consequences and this is yours. Now please, can we just get your statement?”
“I’m not going to go type you up a statement right now.“
“Yes, you are. I’m in charge when Martin is gone, and you’ve got to explain this to me,” I insisted. “I have to complete my report of the incident. That means getting yours.” I gestured to a nearby resident to come get the patient and put him on a gurney and I put my hands on my hips again and tried to look intimidating at Brandon. It’s hard when you’re short, but I liked to think I managed it.
He made an annoyed noise. “Tomorrow,” he told me. His eyes scanned my face in a way that somehow made me feel naked and vulnerable despite the fact that he was the one in deep shit. “Not right now.”
“Yes, right now,” I snapped back.
“Listen, Aimee, I have to go. I’m already late to meet some friends and I don’t take orders from you.” His expression was as haughty and condescending as I remembered, but it no longer intimidated me the way it used to.
“Yes, you do. And it’s Dr. Ford. Not Aimee. I’m the highest-ranking doctor here today, and the safety of every patient here is my responsibility. That means that you have to explain your terribly stupid, irresponsible behavior to me. Now.”
“Goodnight, Aimee,” he said. “This has been fun, but I have to go.”
He rolled his eyes, turned around, and headed toward the locker room in the hospital gym. There was another exit out the other side of the building in there. He thought he could escape me just like he escaped from his life thirteen years ago.
God, he was an asshole. He thought he just owned the entire freaking world and that everyone was just required to go along with it. But he was wrong. So wrong. I was not a frightened little girl anymore. He would have to explain himself to me, or I’d get his smug ass fired and disgraced. If he thought he could brush me off, he had another thing coming.
Furious, self-righteous, and utterly fed up, I followed him.
9
Brandon
“Coward!” Aimee yelled, stomping behind me straight into the men’s locker room and grabbing me by the arm. “Don’t run away from me.”
My jaw went slack. She followed me in here? Was there no escape from her? She was persistent, and generally I admired that quality, but not at the moment. At the moment it was just plain old irritating. I couldn’t wait to get away from her.
“Aimee, what are you doing?” I asked her. I shook my head in annoyance and shrugged out of her grip. “You shouldn’t be in here. This is the men’s locker room in case you didn’t realize it.”
Her blue eyes rolled back and then focused on me. They narrowed dangerously and she stalked closer, invading my personal space. “I don’t care whose locker room it is, Brandon. It could be Jesus’ locker room for all I care. You don’t get it, do you? You can’t just order me around and bully me anymore. I have a job to do and if you don’t want to lose yours here, you’re going to help me do it.”
“Maybe I want to lose my job at this god-forsaken hospital,” I snapped back irritably. “Why don’t you just put that in your report and get out of here.”
She drifted closer to me still, pinning my back to a locker. It should have been hilarious, because she barely came up to my chin and was the opposite of physically intimidating, but it wasn’t. My heart hammered in my chest for reasons that had nothing to do with fear or humor. I had a sudden, vivid fantasy of kissing her and I hated her even more for it. There was no one here with us. I could do it. I wondered if she’d let me. Probably not.
Why did she have to be so goddamn beautiful now? When she was a chubby, awkward tween it was so easy to transfer my hatred of my mom’s cancer to an annoying interloper who showed up in my life to hang out in my backyard and steal my dad’s attention. The fact that she had a huge crush on me only made it worse. I’d made it my mission to drive her away and ignore her existence, as if it could make my mom’s illness go away too. In my own teenage confusion, I thought that if I could drive her away, I could make my own life normal again. Ignoring her then hadn’t worked. Ignoring her now was fucking impossible.
Aimee was now a striking, perfectly proportioned beauty, with lush curves, shiny golden hair, and perfect skin. She effortlessly commanded far more of my attention than I wanted to admit. Somehow, it made me hate her even more. Hate and attraction battled for supremacy in my brain. They both won.
“Why did you hit that patient?” she questioned, pressing a hand against my chest to keep me in place. Her voice was calm and superior. It irked me that she had thrown me so thoroughly off guard.
“What does it matter? You’ve already made up your mind that I’m in the wrong.”
“Hitting people is always wrong,” she insisted.
“Is it? That wasn’t what the army taught me.”
“This isn’t the army. This is a hospital. We’re in Texas, not Kabul.”
“Oh, gee, thanks for that. I forgot.” I rolled my eyes at her. “Listen,” I continued. “Sometimes hitting is necessary.”
“No, it’s not! Even little kids know they’re supposed to keep their hands to themselves.”
“What about that time I punched Hunter to keep him off you? Was that wrong?”
Her mouth dropped open in apparent disbelief. Then it closed into a pouty line. “It’s not the same. Hitting patients is always wrong.”
“What are you expecting? An apology essay?”
“It would be a start. I need that statement.”
“Don’t hold your breath.”
“Why am I not surprised you can’t follow simple instructions?” she huffed. “I see you haven’t learned anything about responsibility or compassion at all in the last thirteen years. You’re still the same bully you always were, only now you’ve got a stethoscope and an even heavier chip on your shoulder.”
I wasn’t thinking clearly at all. This day had been hellish from start to finish. And now, Aimee Ford had decided to invade my personal bubble and stare up at me with those beautiful blue eyes and fiery attitude. I could feel the heat of her body, and I didn’t know what to do with my need for it.
Had her eyes always been that incredible color? Maybe I never noticed them behind her thick glasses.
“You don’t wear glasses anymore,” I heard myself saying in a voice that was more curious than irate. “Did you get Lasik surgery?”
She blinked. “What?” Her expression shifted and she flushed. “No. I didn’t get surgery… I’m not a candidate because of my astigmatism, but I, um, I wear contacts now.” I’d knocked her off her guard.
I seized the upper hand while I could. Before she could entrance me more, I had to shift the balance between us. If she could be distracted by personal conversation, maybe I could get out of this situation. She’d always been attracted to me. Maybe all I needed to do was make her physically uncomfortable? I could do that. It seemed only fair. After all, she was so very distracting with her little pout and huffy attitude.
I started unbuttoning my shirt in the narrow confines between the locker and Aimee’s body. Her eyes widened in shock and I cocked an eyebrow at her.
“What are you doing?” she stuttered. She inched back from me, giving me about six inches of space to work with. Her face went beet, glowing red.
Good. It’s working.
“Undressing,” I told her, shrugging out of my button-down and peeling off my undershirt. I stretched to give her an extra-good view of my body. “This is a locker room, you know. I think I’ll take a shower.” My voice was dry. I started on the buttons of my jeans. “You might want to leave now. I’m done talking to you.”
“Stop,” she ordered, staring at me in something that looked like horror and interest mixed together. “You don’t say when we’re done. I say when we’re done.�
�� I started working my pants down my hips, nice and slow. Her eyes were locked on my lower body. “I’m talking to you about the patient you hit?”
Did she mean for that to come out as a question? I doubted it. Her eyes were huge in her face when I stepped out of my jeans and fished a towel out of my bag.
Somehow, getting undressed and watching her become incredibly uncomfortable made me feel a lot better. I could feel her eyes crawling up and down my torso. Did she like my tattoos? My six pack? It felt good to have the upper hand with her. Too good. Especially while she was flushing that nice, bright pink color.
I decided to answer her question since she was still staring. “The abusive, drunk dick-wad that tried to smack his pregnant girlfriend right in front of me?” I asked her sarcastically as she ogled me. “That guy? I’m sorry, but I had to protect her and the baby even if he was technically the patient. I’m so sorry if that violated hospital protocol by preventing an assault on a defenseless pregnant woman. I would think you of all people would realize that sometimes protecting someone requires physical intervention.”
Aimee frowned and she stood up straighter, snapping out of her trance a little bit. “He tried to hit a pregnant woman?” She paused. “I mean, he was obviously intoxicated, so you’re probably covered, but still…” she trailed off weakly.
My total disgust at the situation was probably the only thing preventing me from yelling. The fact that everyone blamed me was infuriating. “In the exam room, yeah. But you didn’t give me a chance to explain.”
“That changes things,” she admitted in a small voice. She shifted from foot to foot uncomfortably and bit her full bottom lip.
“Perhaps if anyone had given me the benefit of the doubt, I could have explained all this a lot earlier,” I groused. The parallels to that time with Hunter and my dad flashed through me. I was still irritated, all these years later.
“Maybe if you didn’t go around acting like a loose cannon all the time somebody would,” she retorted.
I didn’t have a response to that. She could’ve been right. We stared at one another for a long moment. It suddenly dawned on me that I was standing in front of her in just my boxers, and that we were completely alone. Hot tension rose between us, swirling like the mist from the showers to our left.
“Do you want to see me naked now or do you have everything you need?” I asked her.
Her cheeks turned that pretty red color again. “What?” she stuttered.
I gestured to my near-nakedness and her pupils dilated wide.
Then her full, pink lips parted, and I lost the battle against my attraction to her. Without thinking, I pulled her against my chest and kissed her like my life depended on it.
10
Aimee
When Brandon kissed me, I should have slapped him into next week. I should have screamed and kicked him in the balls with all my strength. I should have told him off and made sure he knew just how much I fucking hated him and would hate him forever and ever.
But I didn’t. Even though he had no conscience, I let him kiss me and drive every other thought from my mind in favor of the heat and sensation of his body against mine. I felt like I was about to burst into flame. Like every synapse in my nervous system was filled with giddy, sparkling electricity. I allowed myself to lean into his embrace and felt my heart rate leap and gallop away with the last of my rationality. I’d wanted this for too long to put up any real resistance. I had a physical problem and he had the cure. Even though I rationally hated him, I was so worked up that it seemed distant and unimportant.
In a beat, I found my back against the smooth, cold locker. I threaded my hands into Brandon’s hair and breathed into our kiss, feeling out of my body and lighter than air. What was I doing? Why was I doing it? I couldn’t be bothered to care. All I knew was that I didn’t want it to stop. I never wanted it to stop. I wanted to kiss him forever, consequences be damned.
Brandon’s big, heavy hands encircled my waist and held me firmly in place while he explored my mouth and claimed it as his own. I felt so tiny and delicate next to him. His hands on me were possessive, dominant, and insistent. I melted into the sensation, not thinking about anything but how much I wanted to keep feeling this feeling a little bit longer.
The sound of the locker room door opening and male voices rising in conversation snapped me out of my bliss. I froze and stared openmouthed at Brandon.
Without missing a beat, Brandon held a finger to his lips with one arm to tell me to be quiet and lifted me up to wrap my legs around his waist with the other. I complied, not knowing what was happening but too overwhelmed and frightened of detection to resist. I found myself quickly carried to the showers and pinned to the slick, tiled wall. Brandon pulled the door closed behind us, enclosing us in the three-foot by three-foot shower stall. I could hear the sounds of the men in the locker room beyond us, but then Brandon was kissing me again and I didn’t care.
Brandon was still wearing just his boxers and I could feel his erection growing long and hard against my thigh. He peeled me out of my clothes efficiently, making much shorter work of taking them off me than I’d spent wriggling into them. The shower was warm and humid, but the look in his eyes when he saw me topless turned my nipples hard in an instant. He cupped me from below, pinching and kneading me with his hands while his mouth worked on one nipple and then the other until I was panting and reminding myself not to make a peep and give us away.
“Did you hear something?” One guy said to another. “I thought I heard somebody.”
Brandon and I froze, and the other guy made a noncommittal grunting noise that indicated he heard nothing. Brandon pinched me harder, making me involuntarily bite my lip and stare at him with desperate eyes. I wanted to moan but couldn’t. I had to stay quiet or they’d hear us. Getting caught like this with Brandon was utterly unthinkable.
He obviously liked me like this, helplessly absorbing the sensations he was giving me and driven nearly out of my mind by him. I liked me like this. I’d gotten so used to being alone. This Aimee that let Brandon have his way with her in the men’s locker room was so different from the cool, calm, collected version of myself I had to maintain all day in the hospital. In his arms, in this moment, I could abandon that other Aimee. I could be someone else. Someone exciting.
By the time he was finished with my chest, I was silently panting and ready for more. The heat and pressure between my legs was starting to be unbearable. I pulled at the hemline of his boxers and was rewarded with a knowing look and tiny smile. I smiled right back at him. I knew I’d regret this later, but right now I wanted him. All of him. And he wanted me too.
After a few slow, eager strokes of my hand around his cock, he spun me around and leaned me over the shower’s tiny bench. Clearly, he couldn’t wait either. He pulled my scrub pants down, rolling them below the curve of my ass and revealing my soaked panties. He pulled them down too, just far enough down my thighs to give him access. Then he pressed into me all at once, gripping my hip with one hand and muffling my blissful noise with the other.
“Stay quiet, baby,” he whispered to me in a low voice that made me clench deep inside. “Unless you want everyone to know I’m fucking you in here.”
I craned my neck around to look him in the eye as he took me, seeing that his expression was just as lost and overcome as mine. He was huge and thick, and my body struggled to accommodate him, but the pinch and discomfort were fleeting. I leaned into the feeling. The little pain was nothing compared to the pleasure when he started to move. He kept his hand firmly against my mouth, pushing into me in a quick, hard rhythm that was exactly what I needed. Soon I was meeting him stroke for stroke, eagerly pressing my hips backward into him and grateful that he was keeping me quiet when there was no way I could do it myself.
Our bodies worked against each other like animals, finding friction and building pressure as we moved. No one had ever made me feel like this. I was wild and uninhibited, seeking pleasure freely and feeling s
exier than I ever had. Brandon looked at me like I was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, and his breathing was as ragged as mine. When I came, gasping against his palm and barely able to hold myself up, he was moments behind me. We both collapsed against the little bench in each other’s arms, drenched in sweat, sated, and exhausted.
It wasn’t until my body cooled that the regret slammed into me like a tidal wave.
Holy shit. Had I just lost my damn mind? What did I just do?
11
Brandon
Aimee took off like a bat out of hell. After we had the most mind-shatteringly hot, angry sex of my life, we’d curled up into a ball of naked limbs in the shower. I wasn’t sure what to say to her. This was all unexpected, to say the least. I was looking for the words, but I didn’t have time to find them. Because when she’d looked up at me with horror and regret on her face, anything I could have said froze in my throat. Her face was so hostile. Earlier, she’d been angry. Now, she looked positively murderous and on the verge of tears. I didn’t know what to say to that, so I just stared in confusion. She pulled on her clothes and slipped away immediately, leaving me sitting on the ground, naked, alone, and pretty damn confused.
Needless to say, I was late to meet my friends Lara and Mark at the bar that evening. The Lone Star Lounge was busy that night, but I had no trouble finding them. A six-foot-one Chinese woman and a six-foot-three man, both covered in military tattoos and various battle scars stand out just about anywhere. The fact that Lara was also currently sporting long pink hair didn’t hurt either.
“You look like you had a really bad day,” Mark said when he saw me. “I was going to give you a hard time about being late, but here, have a beer.”
Mark was a truly good person. A better person than I deserved to have as a friend. Lara was the same way. I slid onto a stool next to them, shaking my head and feeling guilty. “Sorry I’m so late. Really. It’s been a crazy day.”
Bad For You: An Enemies to Lovers Romance Page 5