Yearn (Revenge Book 4)

by Burns, Trevion

  “So what? You’ve been sitting in this dark office for hours, playing back old security footage, dreaming up pretend lawsuits, looking for any minuscule reason to write me up? You’re that desperate to punish me?” Because raping me wasn’t punishment enough? Her voice rose and shook. This time, it was harder to swallow back the violent heave in her stomach. “You have nothing better to do with your time? You’ve already hired a new chief of staff, Gage, why are you even here? Is it just to make my life miserable? This is pathetic.”

  Gage remained calm as she unloaded. He took a deep breath, lifting his fingers from the papers before pressing them back down again. “As I’m sure you already know, every write-up is a level. Per hospital policy, three write-ups is a level orange, and that puts you on six months probation. Four write-ups is a level yellow and prompts an immediate disciplinary hearing. Five write-ups is a level red, and that’s an automatic termination. A level red is something… not even your union can fight. And, Veda, please believe me…” His eyes bulged softly. “I won’t sleep until we get to red.”

  And I won’t sleep until your nuts are sliced to bits. “I want my gift,” she whispered, sucking in a breath at the shot of pain that sliced through her heart. “Now.”

  Gage tossed the pen in his hand across the desk. It rolled toward her and fell to the floor. “Sign the papers.”

  Veda glared down at the pen, her lips curling at the corners, veins pulsing so strongly she was amazed she couldn’t see them rolling under her skin. Sucking in a breath through flared nostrils, she leaned forward and seized the pen before standing tall and slamming her hands on his desk.

  Gage flinched, and a wave of darkness crossed his face. He leaned back and yanked at his tie, loosening it, his eyes never leaving hers. A long silence passed, and then he raised his eyebrows, his brown orbs falling to the papers.

  Veda signed each write-up as quickly as she could before slapping the pen down on the desk. “Give. Me. My. Gift.” Her voice rose. “Now.”

  Gage clasped his fingers together. “One more thing, Dr. Vandyke….”

  Veda gave him an exasperated look, wondering what she could possibly have left for him to take.

  “My ring…” His lips turned downward, and for a moment, he was silent. His clasped fingers tightened as he broke their gaze, looking off toward the window. “I’d appreciate it if you could return it to Maria by tomorrow morning.”

  “Done,” Veda spat.

  His eyes shot back to hers. They held on.

  “My gift,” she said again.

  Whatever had just flashed across his face, he recovered from in the next moment. With the tiniest lift to the corner of his mouth, he licked his lips and looked down, yanking open another desk drawer and producing a small white box.

  He tossed the box the same way he’d just tossed the pen, sending it soaring across the desk with a lazy flick of his wrist.

  Veda’s eyes widened as the box stumbled to a stop on the desk between her hands. She took several moments, trying to calm down, but when her eyes slowly crept up to meet his, glaring from under her clenched eyebrows, she could feel her fury blazing from her eyes and across the desk.

  “You opened it?” she hissed, snatching the white box that, earlier that day, had been wrapped in pink paper and tied off with a white satin bow. She held it up. “You opened it?”

  His eyes followed the box as she lifted it. One of his eyebrows hitched. He appeared to be fighting another smirk as his eyes crawled back to hers.

  Her voice wobbled, and so did the box in her hands, her body flirting with the edge of control. “You had no right.”

  “Go ahead, Dr. Vandyke. Go ahead and give me a reason.” His licked his lips, a smile finally breaking free. “Go ahead and give me a reason to get you out of my hospital, and out of my life, for good.”

  Unable to think up a single word in her wild mind, all Veda could do was nod sharply. She stood tall with the box still clutched between her trembling fingers.

  He wanted her to get upset. He wanted her to listen to every bone in her body telling her to cuss him out, to fuck shit up, to throw some furniture, to rip that entire office and everything in it—including him—to pieces.

  But at that moment, Gage had underestimated her.

  She didn’t yell. She didn’t scream. She didn’t fall apart. She didn’t give him any reason to turn those three write-ups into four.

  She’d made a promise to herself, weeks ago, that she was done getting angry. She was done making noise. From that day forward, she’d vowed to move in silence.

  So she turned away, clutching Linc’s gift so tightly the cardboard box bent under her fingers.

  The only thing that got her to the door and out into the hallway without completely exploding was the thought of eventually destroying Gage as badly as he had her.

  She knew she’d have to play the smart game. The long game. Patience was of the essence. Keeping her emotions in check was paramount if vengeance was to be hers.

  Gage’s would be the sweetest vengeance of all, but she still had six monsters to take care of before she got to him. The only way to finish them all was to do it one by one, and regardless how badly she wanted Gage…

  Brock Nailer was next on her list.

  11

  “You’re so gorgeous—it’s ridiculous.”

  Veda released a sound that was a toss-up between a laugh and a moan when a shot of both pleasure and amusement zipped through her all at once. She let her eyes blink closed, lost in the pleasure blasting through her before she managed to find her voice.

  “You can’t even see me—” She looked over her shoulder and smiled when she found Gage’s eyes locked to her pussy, watching in awe as it hugged his dick, up and down, as she rode him. She tightened her hold on his calves as she drank him in, trying to fight the deep giggle in her belly. He appeared to be on another planet as he enjoyed the view, his greedy fingers palming her ass and spreading her cheeks apart so he could get a better look. Veda bit her bottom lip, fighting another laugh, but it snuck out when, as she sank down, tightening her pussy around his hardness, his face went so dark with desire he actually appeared angry.

  “You’re incredible,” he breathed, his voice somehow begging even though he asked for nothing.

  Veda tried to picture the sight before him. The sight taking him hostage. Her tight, pink walls clinging to him, squeezing him, desperate to hold him deep inside as she drew her ass up to the tip. The shaft slowly disappearing as she sank back down. In conjunction with the white-hot pleasure surely shooting through him, the same way it was her, it was enough to leave even the strongest man spellbound.

  Veda soon found herself mesmerized at the sight of him being mesmerized by her. She craned her neck over her shoulder to watch him as she bounced on his dick, fucking him with such vigor, such hunger for that amazed gleam in his eye, that their skin began clapping with each desperate hit. Their juices quickly followed suit, filling the room with the sounds of their lovemaking and their hurried, anguished gasps.

  Veda cursed under her breath as she felt the beginnings of her orgasm rolling in her belly. She removed the death grip she had on his calves, pulling the fitted sheet from its corners as she came, feeling the moisture of her orgasm dripping down the inside of her thighs as she rode the wave with her spine curled and her bones convulsing.

  She was sure the evidence of her peak was also dripping down his hardness because his whispered adorations grew downright vile, and in the next instant, the bud of her ass was squeezing tight against the insistence of his thumb as he slathered it with her essence.

  “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, baby,” Gage gasped, digging his fingers into the globes of her ass, all while the bed of his thumb flirted with her second entrance. An animalistic sound, not quite a groan and not quite a whimper, flew from his plump, parted, heavily kissed lips and filled the air.

  Swallowing the saliva that had gathered in her parched throat, Veda continued w
atching him over her shoulder, her naked breasts heaving with remnants of her apex. And she teased him, lifting her ass up high until just the tip of his hardness remained buried in her pussy, which still flexed and twitched from her orgasm.

  She giggled when he lost patience and lifted his hips from the bed, his gasps moving to moans as he filled her with one desperate thrust after the other. His hands left her ass and clutched the top of her thighs, finding leverage as his strikes grew frenzied, blind, short. In the next instant, he was riding the wave of his own peak, his long, writhing limbs nearly taking the mattress off the bed as he filled her with his seed.

  “I love you,” Veda whispered, over her shoulder.

  “I love you.” His brown orbs held hers through each shot, his shaft flicking and twitching inside her. Even his legs flexed and bobbed underneath her, the sensation shooting all the way down to his toes, which curled at the foot of the bed.

  “Let me see…” he begged—giving her ass one last squeeze before nudging it softly. “Let me see you.”

  Veda heeded his pleas, lifted her hips, and let his dick plop out. The sound of it slapping against his belly filled the air, but his eyes were still riveted to her center, now gleaming with both their love.

  Biting her lip, still watching him over her shoulder, Veda leaned forward, spreading her legs even wider on either side of his body, pointing her toes toward the ceiling and letting him see all of her.

  He palmed her ass and spread it wide. She both felt and saw the very moment when his cum dribbled from inside her and raced down her inner thigh, it’s creamy color surely jumping out against her dark skin.

  His eyes grew foggy, more every second until the soft smile had completely vanished from his face.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he said, so gently she barely heard it. “I love you so much.” He lifted his gaze back to hers. “I’ll love you for the rest of my life.”

  A full-body earthquake nearly dismantled Veda’s bones as her alarm blared next to the bed. She rolled over and turned it off with a cringe.

  It was only the first snooze, but she forced her eyes to stay open.

  She couldn’t risk falling back asleep.

  Not after a dream like that.

  The nightmares, she could deal with. The nightmares, she expected. The nightmares were easy to swallow.

  But the dreams? The sweet dreams, where all was well? Where the Gage she’d once loved took center stage and refused to exit? Where his warm words, his lingering looks, and his gentle touches were filled with nothing but unconditional love?

  Those were the dreams that were going to kill her.

  And there wasn’t a five-minute snooze in the world worth having that dream twice.

  Even if she had only gotten two hours of sleep.

  ——

  Veda and Dr. Penny Nailer laughed together at the hospital cafe later that afternoon, enjoying their lunch at a white wicker table outside. The conversation flowed as smoothly as the breeze that sunny afternoon, and even as Veda berated herself for getting saddled with yet another friend, she couldn’t deny Penny was wonderful.

  “I’ve been having these… nightmares,” Veda said, halfway through lunch, squinting under the blazing sun as she watched the passerby on the sidewalk. “About the baby’s dad.”

  Across the small table, Penny lifted an eyebrow. “If I had a nickel every time one of my patients said that to me…”

  “These nightmares are the worst because… at first? He’s wonderful. He’s the man I thought I loved. He’s… everything. And then he transforms into just… a monster. The monster he’s always been, but that I couldn’t see.” She took a deep breath when her heart felt like it had caught fire. “I hate him so much.”

  “Again. If I had a nickel.”

  Veda let a smile break through. “You’re determined to make me normal.”

  “I think you’re more normal than you give yourself credit for.”

  Is it normal that your husband’s cherries will soon be mine? Veda bit her tongue when she almost spoke that thought out loud. The thoughts reminding her why she was at this lunch in the first place. Reminding her that this wasn’t a real friendship, but a one-sided business transaction. A way for Veda to learn her number four’s ways without actually having to follow him around. By the end of that lunch, Veda fully intended to have a complete game plan in place.

  She drew in a breath. “The weird thing is… I hate him, but these dreams…”

  “Are erotic?” Penny offered, pausing in the middle of stabbing her fork in her salad.

  Veda’s salad went completely ignored because she couldn’t find her appetite. She nodded.

  “Completely normal,” Penny said. “Even though I know how much you hate the implication that you’re normal.”

  “I don’t hate the implication. It’s just incorrect. That’s all.”

  Penny chortled. “You’re pregnant. Estrogen and progesterone? Through the roof. Labial lubrication? Doubled. Blood flow to the pelvis? Severe. Don’t even get me started on the sensitivity of your breasts and nipples. You’d screw a lampshade if you could.”

  Veda cut an eye at her. “You been watching me?”

  “Again. If I had a nickel. One of my patients got off with a file cabinet.”

  “Seems legit.”

  Penny laughed. “Years ago, Brock and I made it all the way to the second trimester. Let me tell you, I wore him out. I never thought I’d see the day when he’d look at me and say…” She made an expression of mock exhaustion, deepening her voice. “‘Penny, please, I’m not just something to rub up against. I’m a human being.’”

  Veda smiled, but it slowly faded when Penny’s eyes went to a faraway place. A long silence passed, her blue eyes gleaming.

  “That one almost took, you know?” Penny drew in a sharp breath, eyes filling. “Almost.”

  Veda frowned.

  The fork fell from Penny’s hand, clattering down onto the plate. “I’m sorry,” she blubbered, snatching the fabric napkin from her lap and dabbing the tears bubbling from her eyes. “It hits at the oddest times, you know?”

  Veda reached across the table but didn’t touch her, leaving her hand next to Penny’s salad bowl to show she was there to offer comfort if she needed it. Even as Veda tried to fight it, a blast of guilt zapped through her. This was the part she still struggled with.

  The innocent outliers. The victims of the residual devastation that always followed a nuclear blowout. The punishment of one resulting in the punishment of several. Penny had never done anything to hurt Veda. Yet, however inadvertently, Veda was out to hurt her.

  Taking revenge on Brock would rob Penny of her only chance to have a biological child. Sure, Penny’s odds weren’t great, but like Veda, they also weren’t impossible. Veda could see the hope in Penny’s eyes every time she looked at her. That maybe, one day, she’d get “lucky” the same way Veda had. That maybe, one day, she’d beat the numbers, beat the odds, and not just get pregnant, but carry a baby to term.

  Veda couldn’t help but wonder if stealing this woman’s only chance at motherhood was not just selfish, but inherently evil.

  As Penny began weeping into her napkin, blubbering out apologies every few seconds before clasping Veda’s hand on the table, Veda’s heart split.

  “I’m sorry, Veda.”

  “Don’t be sorry.”

  The only person who should be sorry was her.

  Soon enough, she’d be making those tears in Penny’s eyes permanent.

  Penny blotted her eyes, still sniffling. “I’m sure Brock will throw a party the second I leave town. An entire weekend without his weepy, desperate-for-a-baby-that-will-never-come-wife killing his vibe.”

  Veda’s fingers tightened around Penny’s. “This weekend?”

  Penny nodded, collecting herself. “50th annual obstetrics conference in Chicago. Three days.” Penny rolled her eyes. “This is how neurotic I am. Brock isn’t coming with me, and I can’t help but think that
those three days might’ve been the days. The three magical days where we made a miracle happen, and he’s going to miss it.”

  Penny’s words should’ve made the guilt already bubbling up in Veda’s stomach move into a full on boil. But they only made the anger in her heart more fervent, rendering every other emotion completely obsolete.

  In mere moments, Veda was blinded.

  Blinded by the rage.

  Blinded by the hatred.

  Even if it meant stealing Penny’s last chance at motherhood, Veda knew it had to be that weekend.

  That weekend, regardless how nice he and his wife were, Brock Nailer was coming up two balls short.

  12

  Baby momma to a monster, professional future on the rocks, and shaky moral compass be damned, Veda nearly skipped through the hospital halls the following morning.

  It appeared she was the only one.

  The fluorescent hallway lights were no match for the glum faces of her co-workers. Side eyes hit her at every turn. Every conversation was held with whispered voices. The smiles and good mornings that usually graced the lips of the staff had been cut clear in half. Replaced with terrified eyes, hard lips, and patient charts clutched so tightly it was a wonder they didn’t split apart.

  Veda knew without asking that Gage’s daily rampage was well underway. It was all over everyone’s face. He’d stayed true to his word at the employee meeting. Cuts were happening, and they were happening fast. The student nursing staff had been reduced by twenty percent. Wide-eyed Coco had been spared by the skin of her teeth. Nurse practitioners had already been introduced into the acute care department, slicing and dicing jobs like it was nothing—some belonging to doctors who’d been with the hospital for years.