A Sweet, Sexy Collection 1: 5 Insta-love, New Adult, Steamy Romance Novellas (Sweet, Sexy Shorts)

by Kaylee Spring

  When he first set me down, I was sure that he was giving into Matt’s demands. That Finn was going to leave me here. That I was too much trouble. He’s always been more of a book nerd, which is how he got into medicine in the first place, I suppose. So I certainly didn’t expect him to initiate a fight. And I especially never expected him to be winning one.

  But Finn ends up on top in the tousle with my father, straddling the larger man who struggles to free himself of Finn’s grip. The initial sweep to the ground has left him breathless though, and Finn may not be terribly heavy, but he is enough to keep Matt pinned. When his hand raises and stops, ready to come down, I’m sure that he is about to slug Matt in the face. That it will be the first in a torrent of similar punches. His fingers are not balled up into a fist though. And instead of hitting him in the face, Finn aims lower, connecting his open palm with Matt’s throat. It’s not even all that hard of a hit. But whether this was intentional or not, it leaves the older man clawing at his throat. He completely forgets about Finn. Doesn’t even react when he returns and lifts me into his arms once more. Still hasn’t so much as stood by the time Finn opens the passenger door and sits with me in his lap.

  “What did you do to him?” Ashley voices my same question.

  “Damaged his trachea. He’s going to have a hard time breathing for a while. Probably won’t get his voice back for a few hours.” We both look at him in awe. “What? It’s an effective way to disable a man. Shouldn’t even leave a bruise, so there will be nothing for him to show the police if he happens to call them on me. Which I highly doubt, by the way.”

  Ashley gets the car moving with a screech of tires. “Remind me never to get in a fight with a doctor.” After a couple of turns, we are out of the neighborhood and onto a larger street with other cars and at least a mile between us and my parents.

  Whether Finn was actually thinking when he decided to keep me on his lap rather than dropping me in the spacious back, I’m glad for it. It’s cramped, but that just gives me more reason to lean back against him, nuzzling my head into his shoulder. At a stoplight, Ashley gives me a single look of confusion but says nothing. Maybe she’s already figured out our status as a couple. Or she’s just chalking it up to my trauma spilling out and needing a warm body to lean against.

  What she can’t realize is that Finn’s body has gone rigid now that the adrenaline has fled his system only to be replaced with hormones of a different color. Each time I squirm in his lap, I can feel him trying to position my butt on his thigh, away from the growing bulge he can’t hide. And though I’m traumatized, just as Ashley might suspect, I can’t help myself from teasing him. I could blame the fever for making me delirious or the experience I’ve just gone through, but the truth is that I am in control as I squirm right against his dick. Partly it’s fun to watch Finn’s reaction, and partly it is that I need a distraction. I need physical and emotional distance from that house. From that table where I signed those documents with my false birthday. Remembering the ruse I pulled, how ludicrous it is that I was able to accomplish such a lie in front of my parents makes me giggle to myself.

  “Is she alright?” Ashley asks.

  “They made me sign the insurance forms,” I answer, even though her question wasn’t directed at me. The giggle is now an uncontrollable laugh that racks my feverish body. “They didn’t even realize I wrote the wrong birthday. I was born in May not March.” I look to Ashley, see the concern in her eyes, but blurt out again, “May! Not March!”

  “What’s going on with her?” Ashley says again, but her question sounds far away, like she’s whispering a secret I’m not supposed to hear. I try to answer that nothing is wrong with me, and that it’s not polite to keep secrets from someone in the same car, but my tongue feels too large and floppy in my mouth. Then I’m falling into a familiar blackness.

  Chapter 16

  Finn

  Again I find myself sitting at April’s side, her limp hand in mine, waiting for her to wake up. Only this time everything is different. I’m not just her best friend’s brother anymore. She’s not just a patient. Even if we haven’t had the time to sort through all of our feelings with words, I know that she means more to me than any other girl I’ve ever had in my life. She’s my April, and I can only hope when she wakes up that I’m her Finn.

  We get her back to the hospital right as she goes into seizures. Not even I realized the extent of her continued brain swelling that her meds have been keeping at bay. But one night away from the constant care of the hospital was enough for the symptoms to break the surface and rear their ugly little heads.

  From all the tests we’ve run, there shouldn’t be any lasting damage, but the final test is for her to wake up, which she refuses to do. It’s been three days, and she is still out. Now I can only hope she waits one more hour to wake, because I have an appointment that I simply cannot miss.

  “Come on, Finn,” says Rebecca. She’s standing in the doorway looking on the scene inside with somber eyes. “It’s not going to help your case if you show up late.”

  My case. My hearing in front of the board of directors. Somehow Joshua got his complaint to the top of the ladder, and now I have to explain myself to the people who write the paychecks. Despite the fact that Rebecca defends what I’ve done, acknowledging that I’ve not once slacked off on my duties while April has been in our care, she will not be in the room with me. It will only be me and my accuser and half a dozen doctors who have proven themselves in the field of medicine with countless papers and saved lives between them.

  I kiss the back of April’s hand. “I’ll be back soon,” I promise her. And then I am in the hallway, my legs automatically carrying me into the elevator, up to the conference room where my fate will be decided. I should feel like a dead man walking, but I can’t honestly care about what’s about to happen. My mind and heart are still in the room with April.

  “Good luck,” Rebecca says before I knock on the conference door before and let myself in.

  “Ah, the man of the hour has arrived. Please take a seat here,” says Dr. Harbert, the director of our hospital. He is a polite older man who has proven time and time again to care more about the patients than about funding for the hospital. If anyone is going to take my side in this argument, it will be him. It’s the others I have to worry about.

  Across from my seat is Joshua, his face contorted around his smug smile. He is so fresh here and has already gotten to sit in on one of these hearings. He must feel like he’s conquered Everest.

  “To get down to the heart of this business, it has been brought to our attention that you have been fraternizing with the patients, and in doing so, have been ignoring your other duties. Either of these accusations alone would be enough for a severe reprimand, but taken together they have the power to bring together this sort of meeting. I believe we are all aware of the generals of the allegations brought up before you, but what we don’t know are the specifics. For those we will turn to our witness. You are in your first year of residency, are you not?”

  “Yes,” Joshua answers. He begins to stand up, but as the others look upon his actions strangely, he remains in his seat, playing it out as though he had simply needed to stretch. “That’s right. During the past year I’ve been under the wing of Finn over here.” He says my name so flippantly, as though we’re childhood friends. “I admit that he taught me many things in the beginning, so I took a liking to him. That’s why the recent turn of events has been so shocking.”

  If nothing else, I must admit that Joshua has a talent for playing to his audience. He strings together a tale of sordid deeds. Of my sinful falling in love with a comatose patient. Of grooming her after she regained consciousness. Of dumping all of my duties onto Joshua when I refused to leave the girl’s side. All twisted accounts of the actual truth.

  “I believe all of you are aware of the most recent turn of events,” Joshua goes on to say, “which involve the accused kidnapping the patient from her parents’ lovin
g home. During this heinous act, the stress inflicted on the patient caused her to decline, to fall back into a coma after a bout of seizures. All the fault of Finn.”

  I stand up in a sudden fluid movement. Imagining myself from a third-party point-of-view, I can see steam coming out of my red ears. What I really want to do is leap over the table and strangle Joshua. Instead, I take a few deep breaths before daring to open my mouth. All eyes have turned to me. All ears are waiting for what I will say.

  “She isn’t just some patient,” I say, feeling a complete disconnect between my mouth and my brain. The words are just tumbling out, completely unedited. “She’s not just some girl I’m having a fling with. She’s April. She’s my April. And I love—”

  The door opens so suddenly that it flings back and hits the opposing wall. A nurse is standing there, hissing at a patient to come back. But it’s not just some patient.

  April’s leaning on her wheeled IV stand, her face flush from apparently rushing here. She licks her dried lips before jerking out of the nurse’s pathetic grip and saying, “I love him. I love him, and this isn’t right.”

  Chapter 17

  April

  I feel like I’m watching a movie, not living it out, and as such, I’m now frozen, having completely forgotten the script. But everyone is watching me, and Finn isn’t shying away from my embarrassing declaration. And I did come up here to defend him, so I might as well at least try. I’m opening my mouth, not even sure where to begin, when I see that sniveling rat-like face of the boy who ruined everything.

  “You,” I shriek out, taking two steps toward him. Whereas Finn is unreachable on the opposite side of the conference table, my antagonist is right here within easy grip. Unfortunately, the nurse finds a hold on my left wrist and pulls me back before I can wrap my hands around the boy’s fat neck. “You’re the one who did all of this. If it weren’t for you, my parents never would have been able to check me out in the first place.”

  He’s standing up now, waving both hands in front of him in a placating manner. Some quiet explanation on his lips. “No, no. That’s not—”

  “Joshua,” the man at the head of the table, whom I can only assume to be the big boss around here, says. “Care to explain?”

  “I was just acting in lieu of her primary,” he says. “Following protocol.”

  “Is it protocol to send a patient home with people she was emancipated from at the age of sixteen?” I shriek at him. “To people who have public records for having abused their daughter to the point that the emergency room staff know her by name? Is it protocol to forge documents with Finn’s name, saying that I am fit and able to leave the care of the hospital? Because I saw you do all of that. You’re the reason I almost died again. You’re the reason—”

  I never get out my next sentence because Finn is sliding across the conference table having launched himself at Joshua. Then they are tumbling at my feet, fists flying, the sound of flesh beating against flesh. I shriek when Joshua’s sheer weight overturns the tide and he is suddenly on top of my Finn, fists flying into his face. Before too much damage is done, the others around the table pull them away from each other. Both Finn and Joshua have swollen cheeks and blood leaking out from the corners of their mouths. Finn looks as though he will have at least one black eye, which is swelling so fast that he won’t be able to open it in half an hour. Joshua’s lower lip is twice the size it was when I came in the room.

  “That is enough for the both of you,” says the older gentleman at the head of the table. “Although both of you should be ashamed, it is not in equal proportion. You,” he says and turns to Finn, “are the mentor here. You have more experience, and I hoped, more maturity. I cannot excuse the fact that you threw the first punch, despite being antagonized.”

  “But—” I begin to interject, but the man’s eyes silence me. His hard stare softens as he watches me hold out a hand to Finn.

  “Although I have heard enough from you, Miss, we will be needing a written statement to use in the case against Joshua here. For he is immediately under temporary suspension, which shall be made permanent, I suspect, as soon as all of the evidence has been collected. Tampering with a patient’s welfare simply as revenge against your superior. It is not only despicable; it is inhumane and unbefitting someone training to be a doctor. Which again, is a status I believe will be changing for you in the very near future.”

  Joshua slumps against the arms that hold him back from Finn. Although he was on the verge of winning the fistfight, his whole visage is now one of utter defeat.

  The nurse finally ushers me out and escorts me to my room. Joshua and Finn are told to both stay off the premises until a final verdict has been decided as to their fates. This at least gives me time to fill in Ashley on everything that happened.

  She’s asking for a blow-by-blow reenactment of every word and action, but at the end her energy falls away, replaced by a somber tone. “You really do love him, don’t you?”

  I nod. “I know I should have told you sooner. It’s just that we were enjoying keeping everything in this room. It was our own world. We could pretend that nothing else was happening outside.”

  “I get that,” she says. “That’s how it was with my first girlfriend. Remember Beth?”

  “Beth was your first girlfriend?” I sputter out. “But you two were besties, always having sleepovers and—oh.”

  We laugh together as this revelation clears the air.

  “I really do love him,” I say.

  “I can tell,” Ashley replies. “For what it’s worth, I’ve never seen Finn act like this with any of his past girlfriends. I didn’t think he would ever do anything to jeopardize becoming a full-fledged doctor, but he didn’t hesitate when it came time to get you back. He was breaking rules left and right to figure out where they were keeping you.”

  “Really? For me? But I don’t deserve that sort of thing.”

  Ashley sits next to me. “Listen. I know you’ve had a rough time of it, but don’t ever think you’re not worthy just because you lost the first hand life dealt you. Yeah, you’ve got shit parents, but you ended up with a pretty badass best friend to make up for it.” She pats the back of my hand, and when I look up at her, my eyes rimmed with tears, she’s got that goofy look on her face she always has right before telling a corny joke. “And if my stupid brother plays all of his cards right and ends up marrying you, we’ll end up sisters, which means I can live with both of you when I fall on hard times, right?”

  A little laugh that I didn’t know was still surviving inside me bubbles out. Before I can add my own dose of comedy, the door opens and in walks Finn. Ashley’s hand tenses on my own as we wait to hear the verdict of everything.

  “Two weeks unpaid leave,” Finn says as soon as the door shuts behind him. If I expected him to be sorrowful about this mark on his permanent record, I am proven wrong soon enough by a wildly flashing smile. “Which just means no one can tell me to leave you alone until I come back to work.”

  He leans down and, without any embarrassment at his sister being right beside me, kisses me on the forehead.

  Chapter 18

  Finn

  After two weeks of simply being a visitor, I return to my scrubs and rounds but never stop checking in on April whenever a spare moment allows. These happy days of her always being near come to an end two months after the whole incident with her parents when she is finally able to check out of the hospital. I’ve taken the day off especially for the occasion. Ashley is here too, helping April with all the things she has accumulated over the past weeks.

  “Are you sure it’s alright?” she asks for the thirtieth time as we all take our seats in my beat-up car. “I mean, I could just—”

  “You’re not looking for a new apartment. Not when I have a perfectly good one that barely ever gets used.”

  During her time in the hospital, April’s roommates got in an argument and dispersed, breaking the housing contract and leaving her homeless. At first,
Ashley offered to let April sleep on the floor of her dorm room, but I swooped in, desperate not to let our time together end. Even now I fear she will fly away like a bird whose cage has accidentally been left open. That all the time we’ve spent together will be forgotten and I will have to return to my regular life that I have worked so hard for, but now tastes bland without her.

  April leans over the console and kisses me on the cheek. “Thanks.”

  I try to hide my erection as we pull out on the highway. Even though I’m planning on letting her use the bedroom while I sleep on the pullout in the living room, my thoughts can’t help but wander to the scenarios that could crop up as we live together. The past month in the hospital room has not allowed us much freedom to explore our newfound love in physical manners. Patient doors don’t lock, so we always had to be mindful of nurses barging in at all hours of the night and day. Being alone in an apartment is going to be a whole new experience.

  “Get your mind out of the gutter,” Ashley says from the backseat, leaning forward to smack me across the back of the head.

  “I didn’t do anything,” I cry out in fake pain. April rubs her fingers into my hair where Ashley hit me, her lower lip sticking out in sympathy.

  “Not yet, but you’re thinking about something,” Ashley says and throws herself back into her seat, crossing her arms and snorting. “Sisters can sense these sorts of things.”

  After we arrive and unpack, I order pizza for all of us. We were planning to watch a movie, but Ashley gets a text message, and her face goes white. Thinking it’s something serious, April and I go perfectly still as we wait for an explanation. “The essay is due tomorrow?” Ashley hisses in disbelief. “Shit, I gotta go.” She heads for the door, but not before grabbing a slice for the road.