Corey helped Rachel to her feet and they laughed about something as the other women went back to their workout. Corey turned to Thayer, beaming, and raised her arms again. “Yo, Adrian, I did it!”
Thayer laughed at her endearing, unself-conscious antics. She clapped, making a concerted effort to keep her eyes on Corey’s face and not rake her sweat-slicked, pumped-up body while licking her lips like a starving animal. “Good. I prefer my drinks celebratory to medicinal.”
Corey laughed, her blue eyes flashing with joy and anticipation.
Thayer was so distracted she almost didn’t hear her phone buzz and quickly pulled it from her pocket, recognizing the hospital number. “Dr. Reynolds.” She could feel Corey’s eyes on her as she pressed a finger to her other ear. She listened for a moment, her mood deflating with every word. “I’ll be right there.”
“What’s wrong?” Corey leaned her arms across the top ropes, her brow furrowing.
She grimaced as she turned back. “There’s been a multi-car accident. I’m needed back at the ED.”
Corey’s mouth opened and closed a couple of times. “I understand.”
“I’m sorry.” She felt as disappointed as Corey looked.
“No. It’s your job.” Corey climbed down. “I’ll drive you back.”
“I need to hustle.” Thayer held up a hand to stop her. “I’ll grab a cab.” She turned and headed for the exit.
She’d only taken a few steps before she turned back to see Corey still standing, watching her. “You looked really great out there.” She smiled seductively and then she was gone.
Chapter Ten
They walked in to Pitch Stop, a bar that while not specifically a lesbian bar, sponsored a lot of women’s sports teams and had become an informal dyke hangout. It was now nicknamed by the regulars as “The Bitch.” It was a classic sports bar with cheap beer on tap, fried food in baskets, loud music, and a television on every wall. They did a hilarious karaoke night once a month, collected for the local food bank, and often hired young people looking to get off the street and back on their feet. Corey approved wholeheartedly of their efforts and was friendly with Jan, the frizzy-haired, middle-aged owner, and many of the regulars. She nodded at a few of them on their way in.
“Be right back,” Rachel said and headed directly to the bar while Corey slid into a booth at the back. She absently stared at a televised baseball game while she spun a cardboard coaster.
Rachel was back in minutes with a tray carrying a pitcher of beer, two shots of tequila, and a basket of cheese fries. She slid a shot to Corey and poured them each a beer. “So, let’s start with this.” She waited for Corey to raise her glass and they clinked them together. “Congratulations. Your win was well-deserved.”
Corey threw the shot back with a grimace and reached for her beer, draining half of it. “Thank you.” She eyed her friend, suspiciously. “You weren’t going easy on me were you? You know because—”
“Because you showed up with the hottest, fucking woman I’ve ever laid eyes on?” Rachel tossed back her own drink and sucked in a breath. “I did not. But since you brought it up, where the hell did you find Dr. McSultry?”
“Cute.” Corey finished her beer and refilled her glass. “First of all, you know I work at a hospital, right? Doctors also work there.”
Rachel laughed. “Go on.”
“Secondly, she found me.” She shrugged.
“Come on, Corey, for real. What’s going on? What happened with, um, Anna?” Rachel pinched a pile of fries dripping in cheese sauce and crammed them into her mouth.
“Oh, right.” She winced. “Anna left me the other day. Said I was an asshole and she deserved better.”
Rachel barked a laugh and raised her glass. “To a wise woman.”
“Yeah, no kidding.” Corey worked on another beer. “And the next day, or maybe it was the same day, Thayer Reynolds showed up in my life. And seriously, Rach, I have not known up from down since.”
Rachel grinned. “She’s into you.”
“Weird, right?”
“Nah.” Rachel spun the glass around in her hands and looked away. “It’s not weird.”
Corey wrinkled her brow and helped herself to the fries. “Now you’re being weird.”
“You have this thing. This, I don’t know, calm, heroic way about you.”
“Jesus, Rach. You trying to get into my pants again?”
Rachel shook her head. “It’s not just me. You should hear what some of the other girls say about you in the locker room.”
“Uh, hard pass.”
“It’s not like that. A couple of the new girls, Emily and Emma, the ones from the university, were talking the other day about being harassed pretty seriously at a party. They sounded pretty shaken about it. They both wished you’d been there. That you would’ve known what to do and put those cocksuckers in their place.”
“Really? I mean yeah, I wouldn’t have let dickheads like that treat them that way, but you know, wouldn’t anyone do the same?”
“No, Corey. Not everyone would do the same. In fact, probably very few people.”
“Well, I don’t really know what to say.” She mused on Rachel’s words, and on her recent conversation with Cin. “I just do what feels right. I don’t really think about it. It’s just who I am.”
“Well, you keep doing you, and maybe soon you’ll be doing Dr. McSultry.” Rachel grinned.
Corey laughed. “You are a class act.”
“So, tell me about her.” Rachel’s eyebrows waggled.
“I admit I have completely lost my chill over this woman, which is freaking me out. We’ve spent a total of an hour together and that’s being generous.” She refilled her glass. “But I’ve not had enough to drink yet to share. I don’t want to jinx it.”
Rachel eyed her as she slid out of the booth. “Back in a sec.”
It was just past midnight when the last accident victim had either been admitted or released, minus the one who had gone straight to the morgue. Thayer trudged wearily out to the staff lot making a valiant effort to remain vigilant, which is why she saw a person walking slowly between the rows and peering into windows of the twenty or so cars parked overnight.
Her eyes narrowed and she debated going back in and informing security, when the figure straightened and she recognized her immediately, her heart skipping at the sight of the broad shoulders and mussed up short hair. “Corey? What are you doing here?”
Corey jumped and whirled at her name. “Oh, shit.” Her hand went to her chest. “You scared the hell out of me.” Her face broke into a wide grin. “Hey.”
Thayer looked her over, jeans hanging low on her hips and her faded T-shirt just brushing the top of her waistband, flashing skin when she moved just right. She swayed slightly and her eyes were bright and glassy. “Are you drunk?”
“What?” Corey held out her hands innocently. “No, I mean, no. Well, maybe a little.”
She frowned. “How did you get here?” She looked around for her truck, ready to light her up if she drove.
“Rachel dropped me off.”
“Okay, good. Why?”
“So, I could leave a note on your car because I didn’t have your phone number,” she explained.
“I see.” Thayer forced down a laugh and looked around. “And how were you going to find my car?”
“Using my amazing superpowers of observation and perception about people.”
Thayer laughed now. “Carry on then and I’ll give you a ride home.”
Thayer watched with barely contained amusement while Corey circled the cars and continued to return to the same one—a black Audi A4.
She eyed Thayer over the top of it. “This one.”
Thayer arched a brow at her. “It is a nice car.”
Corey looked at her expectantly. “Well?”
“Well, get in. I’ll drive you home.”
“I was right?” Corey’s eyes flashed and she thumped her chest. “Boo-yah!” She yanked the
handle of the passenger door and the alarm whooped to life, shattering the quiet of midnight. She jumped back. “Shut it off!”
“I can’t.” Thayer laughed and looked around wildly. “It’s not my car.”
Corey stared at her, stupidly.
“Come on. Come on.” She grabbed Corey by the hand, pulling her across the parking lot to her ten-year-old Range Rover.
“Jesus Christ.” Corey barked as she flopped into the passenger seat. “That was mean.”
She was still laughing as she raced out of the parking lot before the owner of the Audi showed up. “Sorry, but I’m a big believer in what comes around goes around.”
Corey shook her head and laughed. “Yeah, that was good.”
Thayer grew quiet. Now that the teasing was over, something hung unspoken and heavy in the air between them. “Where do you live?”
“Not far.” Corey indicated she should turn left. “I actually could have walked.”
“Don’t be silly. It’s late.”
Corey didn’t speak again save for giving Thayer directions to her condo, less than two miles from the hospital. It was a quiet street of condos and bungalows.
“This is nice,” she commented as she pulled up to Corey’s place on the dark street.
“Yeah. It suits.”
“Why did you come to the hospital tonight?” Thayer asked softly, her heart thumping hard in her chest.
“I told you.”
“Hmm. Let’s see it.”
“What?”
“The note.”
“Oh.” Corey seemed to consider. “Okay.” She pulled a crumpled paper from her back pocket. It was scribbled on the receipt from the bar.
Thayer took it from her and unfolded it. “Call me,” she read aloud and recited Corey’s phone number. “You’re a woman of few words.”
“But grand gestures.”
“So I see.” Thayer tucked the paper into her own pocket. “I will.”
“Will what?”
“Call you,” she replied, struggling to keep herself in her seat and not lean across and take Corey in her arms and blaze fiery kisses up and down her neck, working her way over to her lips while she slid her hands under her shirt to feel the hard muscles of her abdomen. She looked adorable and sexy and a little bewildered.
“Oh.” Corey nodded. “I should go.” She eased out of the car and closed the door softly behind her, leaning back in through the open window. “You must think I’m a complete lunatic.”
“No.” Thayer smiled and shook her head. “I don’t think that of you, at all.”
“What do you think?”
She offered the safest thing she could think of. “You make me laugh.”
“Oh. Well, it’s a start, I guess.”
“Why? What do you think?”
Corey looked at her for a long time, a slow smile creeping across her face. “One day soon, Dr. Reynolds, I’d like to kiss you breathless.”
She inhaled sharply, her blood heating and belly clenching. Corey’s gaze smoldered over her as she gave voice to Thayer’s own thoughts. “Okay,” she whispered, swallowing hard.
“Okay.” Corey grinned crookedly. “You have my number.”
Chapter Eleven
Corey stretched, feeling the tightness in her muscles from yesterday’s fight with Rachel. She rolled her head to the clock. It was barely six. Rachel wasn’t picking her up for another hour to take her to the gym and pick up her truck. She should definitely make time for a light workout, too, to ease some of the stiffness and sweat out her hangover. She smacked her lips and tried to work up a swallow around her pasty mouth. She needed to be far more careful. Two women-induced binges was getting the week off to a rocky start.
She stared at the ceiling as the memories of last night came flooding back. She groaned a laugh, vacillating between being impressed with herself and thoroughly disgusted. Thayer sought her out, waited for her, and wanted to buy her a drink. When she had other plans, Thayer wanted to come with. That was not nothing. Corey had somehow managed to beat Rachel for the first time while she was watching. That pleased her. Her level of disappointment that Thayer got called back to work seemed out of proportion with how long they had known each other.
She had a good time with Rachel. They hadn’t been out in a while and Rachel was relentless at keeping Corey real. It was good to talk to her about the end of her relationship with Anna and the beginning of one with Thayer. She covered her face and sighed. Then to cap off the night, she drunk stalked Thayer’s car, set off a stranger’s car alarm and was, in general, a complete idiot.
The look on Thayer’s face when Corey told her she wanted to kiss her breathless may have been the one thing that made the entire fiasco worth it. She tried to convince herself it was just the alcohol talking, and she’d let her mouth run away from her, but she knew however she tried to spin it, she meant it with every fiber of her being. She had rarely said anything like that to someone she was dating and certainly never to someone she had just met. But it rolled easily off her tongue and it had stunned the totally composed Thayer Reynolds.
The Pandora’s box of Corey’s libidinous thoughts was opened at the memory of Thayer’s parted lips and gorgeous golden eyes, wide with surprise and mutual desire. She was extraordinary and Corey closed her eyes, inviting the fantasy to consume her. She could imagine Thayer stretched out beneath her, taut and trembling at her touch, full breasts and pointed nipples arching against her hands, hips thrusting against her.
Corey groaned as the damp ache between her legs grew urgent, and she slid her own hand down to feel her slick arousal. The image flipped in her mind as she stroked herself, imagining Thayer straddling her, grinding down on her hand with her back arched and head thrown back in ecstasy while Corey buried her fingers inside her, their hips rolling in concert.
She clenched around her own desperate fingers as she came hard and fast with Thayer on her mind. “Oh, God.” She breathed heavily, turning into her pillow. “What the fuck am I doing?”
Corey badged herself in through the loading dock. She was so lost in thought about what was happening to her and wondering if she was losing her mind that she walked directly into Jim Collier.
He jumped to avoid her, his hands jerking and sloshing hot coffee over his shirt front. “Jesus, Curtis! Watch where you’re going.”
“Damn,” she said, wincing. “I totally didn’t see you, Collier.” She brushed ineffectually at his clothes.
“No shit.” He frowned at her and backed away. “One of these was for you but I’ve changed my mind.”
She pouted as she opened the morgue door. “Oh, don’t be like that.”
He followed her in and set the cups on the desk and wiped at his tie. “Christ.” He glared at her. “What’s got you all dopey faced?”
She straightened her expression. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t even bother.” He handed her a cup. “I already know.” He pulled a folded square of paper from his shirt pocket. It was slightly damp with coffee. “Serves you right if you can’t read it now.”
She took the paper and carefully teased it open to avoid tearing it. Her heart leapt when she saw it was a prescription page from Dr. Thayer Reynolds. The written message was hastily scrawled, but her script was smooth and classic. The message sent Corey’s pulse through the roof. Dinner tonight. 8:00 p.m. Pick me up in the ED.
She folded it and tucked it in her pocket. “What?”
He was staring at her. “If I could bottle your face right now, I would be a wealthy man.”
She shrugged, unable to deny how giddy the invitation had just made her. “She gave the note to you? Did you read it?”
“Yeah and no. I don’t give a shit about your love life, Curtis.” He dug in a pocket for his notebook. “My night shift officers took garbage statements from the victims of the car crash so I had to follow up on a few things in the ED earlier. Plus, you got one down here I need to see about.”
Corey couldn’t help a gri
n. Thayer could have called but decided to play along with Corey’s ridiculous note writing. “Thanks,” she said dreamily.
He snapped his fingers in front of her face. “Can we get to work now?”
“Yes. Sorry.” She took a big gulp of her coffee and flipped open the file left on her desk from the police when they brought him in. “This your guy?”
He peered over her shoulder. “Yep.” He referred to his notes. “Dead on scene. The family has requested an external only and Doc Webster has agreed.”
“Good on him.”
She wasn’t sorry she didn’t have to do another full post on a tragically mangled person. It wasn’t unusual in the case of an instant or near instant death in some obviously accidental manner for the family to request an external exam only to spare their loved one any further perceived indignity.
“Sure.” He was taking notes from the information in the file. Information he had access to six other ways, but as far as he was concerned, if it wasn’t in his book it didn’t happen.
“Speaking of dead bodies…” she called from inside the cooler. She wheeled a gurney out loaded with a heavy-duty, black vinyl body bag.
“Were we?”
“Yes.” She maneuvered the gurney up against the autopsy table and lined it up to transfer the body. “And not this one, by the way,” she gritted out as she moved the body across still inside the bag. She was hoping she could get away without moving him. “Did you get my report on Gordon Akers?”
Gallows Humor Page 6