Hot Bodies Boxed Set: The Complete Vital Signs Erotic Romance Trilogy

by Hughes, Jill Elaine

  Sixteen

  Rebecca Marsh drove up to the small 1930s-era bungalow just off Main Street where Dana Johnson lived. The formerly timid nurse-anesthetist had apparently quit her job right after kneeing a male orderly three times her size in the groin. The orderly was furious and probably going to file charges. Rebecca imagined there was probably far more to the story than that, and she intended to go straight to the source.

  She climbed the three crumbling concrete steps that led to the old house’s front door. The bungalow was dingy and the stucco was peeling in places. Probably a rental with an absentee landlord. Rebecca figured it was exactly the kind of place where a young, single woman who was new in town would choose to live, probably with a roommate. There were two vehicles in the cracked concrete driveway—a small, well-kept Honda Civic, and a battered pickup truck, both with Georgia plates. Rebecca knew that Dana was originally from Georgia, so she guessed that the pickup truck probably belonged to Dana’s roommate, or perhaps a visiting college friend.

  She never would have guessed in a million years that it might be Billy Hartzell’s pickup truck.

  There was a worn cardboard sign posted over the doorbell that read “DOORBELL BROKEN, PLEASE KNOCK.” Rebecca rapped hard on the door. A moment later, it opened. And the bottom fell out of her stomach.

  Billy Hartzell stood just three inches away from her, on the other side of the worn wooden threshold. He was barefoot and held a glass of wine in one hand. And his shirt was off.

  “Miss Marsh?” he stammered, wide-eyed and incredulous. Rebecca did a double-take; how did he know her name? She’d never given it to him. “What are you doing here?”

  Rebecca’s mouth went cotton-dry. This is not at all what she’d expected. What the hell was Billy Hartzell doing back in Statesville? More than that, what the hell was the object of her desire and affection doing barefoot and shirtless in mousy, timid little Dana Johnson’s house?

  “Uhhh, I ahhhh, I’m just here to speak with Dana Johnson, please. Important hospital business.”

  Billy stifled a smirk. “Dana is, ummm, indisposed at the moment.”

  The words stung. Rebecca could well imagine why the woman might be indisposed. But she didn’t care. She had important business to take care of, after all. And who knew—maybe she could still salvage her chances with Billy somehow.

  There was some valuable swampland in Florida she should really look into buying, too.

  “Please tell Dana I need to see her immediately regarding her job at the hospital.”

  That same instant, Dana’s head appeared over Billy’s left shoulder. Her hands slid around his waist and clasped in front. “I quit my job at the hospital. I have nothing else to say about it, to you or anyone else. Go away.”

  Rebecca stood her ground. “Miss Johnson, it is imperative that I speak to you about what occurred on the Psych ward today. I should advise you that the police are involved.” She thrust one high-heeled foot over the threshold, trying to shove her way into the house. “And state inspectors are very interested in speaking to both of you regarding the incident in Geriatrics last week—“

  Billy placed a firm hand on Rebecca’s chest and gave an unfriendly shove. “Get out,” he hissed. And slammed the door in her face.

  Rebecca stood on the front stoop and fumed. She’d never been so humiliated in her entire life. Who the hell did those two cocky kids think they were, anyway? They hadn’t heard the last of Rebecca Marsh, not by a long shot.

  She climbed into her Lexus and pulled away from the bungalow fast enough to leave tire tracks. And headed straight for the Statesville police station.

  ****

  Dana threw her arms around Billy’s neck and leaned in to kiss him. But Billy stopped her, tenderly touching his index finger to her lips. “You didn’t tell me you quit your job,” he said. “What happened?”

  “Kind of a long story,” Dana replied. She’d changed out of her work clothes into a set of loose-fitting pink satin pajamas. They were demure and conservative, and covered her from head to toe—but Billy still found them as sexy as the most revealing negligee. Sometimes mystery is the best way to attract.

  “Well, we’ve got all the time in the world. We’re both unemployed.”

  Dana giggled. Billy pulled her to him and held her tight. He’d been here less than half an hour when that Rebecca Marsh woman had shown up and interrupted things. He and Dana had barely even spoken beyond pleasantries. But they hadn’t had to. When he’d shown up on her doorstep, it was as if they’d never been apart at all.

  Their connection was so innate, so natural, it needed no explanation, no discussion of any kind. All of Billy’s fears had evaporated in an instant. Dana loved him, loved him unconditionally, no matter what had happened back at the hospital. She loved him even though she barely knew him, and he felt the same way about her. It was like something out of a fairy tale.

  The logical part of Billy told him that such things were never possible in the real world, that there had to be a catch somewhere. But his heart said otherwise. His heart said to just go with the flow, to love the woman who, even in her innocence, loved him back with just as much passion. “Well, Dana?” he asked. “Are you gonna tell me what happened or not?”

  Dana nuzzled his cheek and sighed. “I’d rather not say too much about it. I’ll get too upset.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.” She pulled away from him slightly, stared deep into his eyes. “Besides, I think there’s something far more important for us to discuss.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Such as?”

  Dana blushed deeply and stared at the threadbare carpet. “Billy, I’m a virgin,” she said in a small voice. “I really, really want to make love with you, but I don’t have the slightest idea how, or even if I should. I’m so afraid I’ll be a disappointment to you.” She looked back up at him, and her eyes were brimming with tears. “And I’m just afraid I’ve completely messed up my life here in Statesville, and I haven’t even been here two months.”

  “How can you say something like that?” Billy asked, stroking her velvet-soft cheek. “I’m the one who accidentally helped kill five people. I’m the one who’s completely messed up my life, not you.”

  The brimming tears spilled out onto Dana’s perfect cheeks. “I’m not talking about anything like that,” she whimpered, choking down sobs. “I just don’t know how I ended up this way, is all. A twenty-six-year-old virgin, with no idea about how to act around men. I hit a man today, Billy. At work. Can you believe that?”

  He chuckled. “I’m sure he probably deserved it.”

  That got a laugh out of her. “He did, actually. But still that doesn’t mean I had to do it.”

  “Maybe you did have to. Were you afraid for your safety?”

  “Yes, but—“

  He put a finger over her lips. “Then you did have to do it. And there’s nothing anybody can do or say otherwise.”

  “You really think so?”

  Billy kissed her forehead. “I know so. What do you say we move this conversation into the bedroom?”

  Dana gasped. “You mean—“

  “We don’t have to do anything you aren’t ready to do,” Billy said, soothing her. “But there’s nothing in the world I’d rather do than make love to you, Dana. And I think it’s what you want, too.” He cast a glance down at his bare pecs. “Especially considering you’ve already relieved me of my shirt.”

  Without another word, Dana took Billy by the hand and led him down the bungalow’s tiny hallway until they reached her bedroom. Dana’s room was much like her—neat, petite, and feminine. The walls were painted a dusky rose, and there was a pink plush throw rug at the foot of her full-sized bed, which took up almost the entire room. The bedroom furniture was shabby chic, mostly flea-market and garage-sale finds that Dana had repainted and reupholstered in pastels. The bedspread was white eyelet cotton, the sheets smooth percale, the pillows overstuffed and plentiful.

  The whole room smel
led of lavender and honeysuckle, the very scent of innocence. Upon entering the room, Billy almost felt like it would be his first time, too. And in a way, it would be.

  Dana timidly sat down on the bed, her body sinking down several inches into the fluffy comforter and featherbed. She kept her pajamas on, and looked expectantly up at Billy, waiting for him to make the first move. So he did. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small travel pack of condoms. “We’ll probably need these,” he said.

  Dana blushed again. “I know,” she said. “Though you’ll probably have to show me how to use them.”

  He smiled, touched again by her innocence. “Don’t worry, it’s all on me.” He sat down beside her, placed his hands softly on her shoulders. “Funny, I thought you would have covered this in nursing school.”

  Dana blushed even deeper. “Well, yes. But only the broadest general principles. I went to a Baptist college. They weren’t too big on the particulars.”

  “Well, I’ll be glad to show you all the particulars you like tonight.” Billy began to unfasten the tiny fabric-covered buttons of Dana’s pajama top. Her body was stiff against his touch at first, but then slowly began to relax with each button, until the soft satin fell away from her shoulders, exposing her breasts.

  He pushed her gently backward onto the mattress, then began to kiss her softly, first on the mouth, then slowly working his way downward—her chin, her neck, the tiny indentation where her neck met her chest. He caressed each nipple, making tiny circles around her areolae with his fingertips that sent her gasping for breath. Her whole body trembled and shuddered at his touch. “You’ve really never done this before, have you?” he whispered between kisses.

  “N-no,” she whispered back. “You’re the first man who’s ever touched me in any way. Except for Captain Masters, but he didn’t count.”

  “I’m honored.” Billy shifted his mouth from her chest to her cleavage, leaving a trail of kisses that led to her right nipple. Dana let out a little squeal and sucked in her breath as he closed his mouth around it, softly sucking, sucking, sucking. At the same time, Billy’s hands strayed down to the fly of his jeans, which he eased open slowly so not to disturb her. On pure instinct, Dana wrapped her arms around Billy’s waist, then slowly began to help him push his jeans down his legs. He wiggled out of them, kicked them onto the floor.

  His rock-hard cock poked through the fly of his satin boxers; Dana instinctively reached down to touch it, her curiosity like a giddy teenager’s. She caressed his entire shaft, explored the intimate folds of his foreskin. She slid her fingertips with delight over the hot tip of his glans, slick as it was with happy juice.

  Billy eased down his boxers with one hand, and showed Dana how to pump his cock and knead his balls with the other. She took to the lesson instantly, giving him pleasure like a mature, seasoned woman with decades of bedroom experience, not the shy young virgin she actually was. Billy relished in the pleasure she gave him for a few minutes, but soon had to cut things short. “That’s enough, honey,” he whispered, nuzzling her neck. “I want to last a long time for you.”

  She didn’t question him further. He slipped her pajama bottoms off, then her panties; she lifted her hips up slightly as he did so, helping him along. Her legs spread of their own accord, welcoming him. He touched her intimately, exploring and probing her as gently as possible. He wanted her to be ready to receive him, ready to for her to have pleasure and ecstasy her first time, instead of pain and disappointment like so many women did. He rubbed her clit and vulva, getting her juices flowing. She writhed and moaned at his touch, spread her legs wider and lifted her thighs, beckoning him in. “Not yet, honey,” he whispered. “Not just yet.”

  He went down on her, plunging his tongue deep into her sacred depths. Dana screamed, moaned, and sighed at the incredible new sensations. She never knew that such feelings were possible. She realized then and there that sex was not dark and dirty, something to be feared and avoided. With the right person, it was transforming, beautiful. And Billy Hartzell was the right person—for her, for always.

  He licked her clit one final, sensational time, then worked his way back up her body. “Are you ready?” he whispered, kissing her breasts and neck.

  “I don’t know,” she whispered back. “I’ve never done this before.”

  He reached down, felt how slick she was, how swollen and spread her folds were. She was breathing in quick, tight little gasps, her mouth gaping open and her forehead covered in sweat. A red-pink sex flush dotted her bosom. She was ready, all right, even if she didn’t realize it. “You’re ready, Dana. Trust me.”

  “I do.” And it was true. Dana trusted him absolutely, with her love, her body, even with her life.

  The air in the room became heavy, silent. There was the slight metallic sound of a condom wrapper being torn, followed by rustling bedclothes. Billy positioned himself over Dana, gripping her buttocks to hold her at the best possible angle as he slowly slid inside her. “I’m coming in, baby,” he whispered. “Tell me if I hurt you.”

  Dana closed her eyes and sucked in her breath as Billy plunged into her. What she felt as his cock filled her wasn’t painful, though it was a bit of a shock at first. She took deep breaths, concentrated on relaxing her pelvic muscles, willing her body to make room for Billy. And her body obeyed. When at first the feeling of his cock inside her was strange, a foreign body intruding upon her—now it was the most natural thing in the word. Billy’s body became an extension of her own. They were joined in such a way that Dana knew they would never be separated again.

  He kept his promise to last a long time for her, too. They coupled for hours without stopping, as Billy kept his pace slow and steady, easing into Dana, taking care to be as gentle as possible, allowing her to get the most out of her first time. But even if he was gentle, that didn’t mean Billy wasn’t passionate. He’d never made love with such intensity in his whole life.

  Even with Billy as close to her as he could possibly be, Dana still needed more. She grabbed Billy’s rear, sinking her fingers deep into his flesh as she pushed him deeper and deeper into her. Her body met his thrust for thrust in perfect counterpoint, as if propelled by invisible machinery. His cock seemed to fill her whole body, even threatened to explode out of her into a cataclysm of bliss. The pleasure was intense, insane, otherworldly. And just when she thought it couldn’t possibly get any better, she came.

  Dana had never had an orgasm before. Truth be told, she hadn’t ever believed they existed for women in the real world—she’d read about them in books and magazines, heard them discussed on TV, but to her, they were old wives’ tales, something to be laughed at and never believed.

  Boy had she been wrong.

  Her climax started small and slow, just a tiny bit of vibration at the base of her clit. But it soon began to grow upward and outward, pulsing hard, heating her body in ever-stronger waves. Soon every inch of her exploded out into space, a nexus of pleasure that carried her to the stars and beyond. Billy’s own climax soon followed, and they both cried their joy in voices that shook the room to its foundations.

  Billy collapsed into her, staying inside her as long as possible before withdrawing. The bedclothes were soaked with sweat and the juices of their lovemaking, and the air was electrically charged from their passion. Immediately upon separating, the lovers fell asleep, their bodies cradled into one another like a pair of matching spoons.

  They slept on, not knowing that just outside their bedroom window, someone was watching them. Watching, and waiting.

  Seventeen

  In Rebecca Marsh, Starla Berring had found an unlikely ally in her quest to even the score with everyone who’d screwed her over at Covington Community Hospital. Starla never had any reason to encounter her employer’s HR director before now, but the two of them had run into one another by chance at the Statesville police headquarters and found they had a lot in common. Like their love (or rather, lust) for Billy Hartzell, for instance. And their mutual n
eed for revenge.

  Starla was at the police station to report that someone had egged her car. No permanent damage had been done, but it was the principal of the thing. Starla was filling out a standard complaint form when Rebecca Marsh stormed in, red-faced and fuming.

  Rebecca shoved her way up to the reception counter, nearly knocking Starla over. “I need to see the Chief of Police,” the flame-haired woman hissed. Her rage was palpable; it made the hairs on the back of Starla’s neck stand on end.

  The uniformed beat cop behind the counter blinked at her. “May I ask what for, ma’am?”

  “I’m here to report an assault.”

  The beat cop rolled his eyes and sighed. “You can report an assault to me, ma’am. The chief’s too busy to take routine statements.”

  “I’m also here to report a murder. Several murders, actually.”

  The cop’s eyes widened. “Now that’s something I will bother the chief about. Excuse me a moment.” He got up and disappeared into the station’s back office, directing a young female officer to mind the store in his place.

  Starla dropped her pen and turned to Rebecca. “Don’t you work at the hospital?”

  “Yes, I do. Human Resources. You’re one of the OR nurses, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah. Starla Berring.” She extended her hand cautiously, almost afraid that the older woman might bite it off. But Rebecca composed herself and shook it.

  “Right. I’ve read your file. You were hired by one of my associate managers, I believe?”

  “Yeah, just a couple months ago. How’d you know?”

  Rebecca snickered. “It’s my job to know. You know what else my job requires me to do?”

  Starla shrugged, thinking this was a very odd topic of conversation for a late-night police station.

  “I have to make sure that hospital employees don’t put patients in danger. And unfortunately, a lot of my employees have been doing just that. I think you know what I mean.”