by Hamel, B. B.
Truth was, I admired him.
I wasn’t sure I would keep pushing if I were in his position. If Maria fired me, I could imagine myself walking away and giving up. I knew this was going to be hard, that it might take some sacrifice, but I didn’t picture my entire life changing so drastically because of it. The mobsters trying to intimidate me were bad enough, but losing my job at the hospital I loved the most would be going too far.
And yet there he was, still scheming. I couldn’t help but feel impressed.
“All right, fine,” I said. “But I’m never around the neuro department. You’re going to have to walk me through it.”
He nodded and reached out to me, tentative at first, but I didn’t pull away. Our last conversation flitted back into my mind, and I knew I should stop this, but I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to stop it last time, and I still didn’t want to stop it—even if I felt like I should.
He leaned down and kissed me. I kissed him back softly, without any promise of more. His fingers brushed against my hips and I felt the power of his arms and his muscular chest. I chewed my lip, staring into his eyes.
“I want this to be over, you know,” he said, voice soft. “But I also want it to keep going for as long as possible, because that means you’ll still be in my life.”
“Dean—”
“Hear me out. You say you want to end things because you’re afraid that I’ll resent you, but that’s not true. I’m betting you’ve spent your whole life ending things, because you believe not being able to have children is a deal breaker for people, that someone could never love you because of it. But I’m telling you that’s not true for me, it’s not even slightly true.”
I felt my old anger flare. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“I think I do.” He tilted his head. “Maybe not everything, but I think I’m right about this.”
I wanted to argue, but I clamped my jaw shut. I’d spend so long angry, fighting, arguing, trying to convince the world that I was broken and not worth its time—but maybe, for once, I could listen to what he was saying, and try to believe him.
It wasn’t easy, but maybe I could try.
“I’ll get your papers,” I said, slipping away from his grasp. “And then maybe we’ll talk some more.”
He laughed and drummed his fingers on the table. “You get those papers and I’ll do more than talk with you.”
I rolled my eyes, but smiled. “You’re crazy, you know that? Anyone else would’ve walked away by now.”
“You’re probably right. I guess Maria got really unlucky when I was the one that overheard her in that hallway.”
“I guess so.” I walked to his front door and he followed after me. “Call me tonight and explain exactly where the fax machine is, okay?”
“I will.”
“Good. And by the way, the whole hospital is talking about you getting fired.”
“I’m sure they are.” His face darkened. “And I’m sure the stories are all true.”
“Actually, most people are just confused. You’re pretty well-liked there, all things considered.”
His face calmed a bit and he laughed. “That’s a huge compliment, coming from you.”
“Damn right it is. Talk to you tonight. I should get back before Mary gets overwhelmed and tells someone I went AWOL.”
He nodded, and I opened the front door, then slipped out into the afternoon.
I went there expecting him to be shattered and struggling to stay afloat—and left there completely positive that if anyone was going to bring Maria down, it was going to be him. I didn’t know how he kept his head up, despite being attacked, despite being fired, and I wanted to tell him how impressed I was, but couldn’t quite put it into words.
Instead, I was going to do my best to emulate him. I’d push forward, despite being afraid of where this all might lead, and I wouldn’t turn away from something that felt good.
For me, that was a win, about as big a win as it gets.
22
Dean
I lied when I told her about the faxes.
It was a white lie. I wasn’t proud of it, but as soon as I realized what I had to do, I knew she’d insist on going with me.
But breaking into an accounting firm and stealing files wasn’t the same as breaking into Maria’s office. It was much more likely that I’d get caught, and I couldn’t risk bringing her down with me.
Maybe I was spiraling. Breaking into this office was truly insane, but I couldn’t help myself. Maria had gone to the next level, and now it was time to risk everything to make sure this happened.
I parked in a rain-soaked lot in a corner spot away from an overhead street light. I lingered behind the wheel for a second, watching the office park through my rearview. It was true that the firm’s offices were out in Doylestown, a quiet little suburb about an hour north of the city. It was past one in the morning, and the place was quiet—no other cars, no other people. The office park was a single story, a tangle of different companies, each with their own door, and a complicated directory was posted on every corner.
The firm was called McPurty and Donahue, and had about six employees as far as I could tell. The office park itself looked nice, but older, probably built in the eighties or nineties, and not updated since. I wondered how long these people had been in their offices, how many hours they logged behind the same old desks, doing the same tasks year in and year out—and I wondered how long I’d be behind my own desk, treating the same kinds of patients, over and over. It wasn’t a bad life, not by a long shot, but it was strange to see it from that perspective.
I got out of the car and walked across the lot with my head down. I reached the door that led into the office and tried the knob, but of course it was locked. I moved around the side of the building, testing each window, until one at the far end was unlocked and slid upwards.
I let out a sigh of relief. I brought a lock-pick kit with me, and I watched a bunch of tutorials online about how to pick locks, but I had no clue how to actually use it. My plan was to climb in a window if I got lucky, or to pick the front door lock if I didn’t, and fortunately it wasn’t going to come to that.
I pushed the window all the way up then hoisted myself up and in. I slid headfirst down on top of a desk and knocked paper, pens, an old mug, a trophy for best chili in the tri-state area, and several pictures in frames down onto a carpeted floor. I cursed and barely caught myself before I crashed down and broke my neck.
The office was fairly large with some chairs against the far wall, several filing cabinets, and a desk that stretched around the corner and had multiple screens. I walked to the filing cabinet and opened it up, then rifled through with my phone flashlight illuminating the pages.
I definitely had the right place. They were tax documents for a whole host of businesses, and it took me a second to recognize the filing system. I opened another drawer and found Mercy General’s file, but it didn’t have much in it, only some general forms from this last year.
I snuck out of the office. There was a small waiting room lobby up front and to the right. I went left, ducked into another office with a similar setup, and went through those folders. This time, there was nothing on Mercy.
I checked two more offices, and came up empty, before finding one last room down a flight of stairs. It was a storage space, with row after row of filing cabinets, and I grinned to myself.
“Leave it to accountants to keep a paper trail,” I said softly to myself, opening drawer after drawer.
It was slow going and took me a while, but eventually I found the Mercy files. It took up an entire drawer and then some, and I began to flip through the pages, looking for anything that would be useful. There was a lot, and it stretched back almost a decade, but I focused on the last three years and began to set documents aside.
When I had what I hoped would be enough, I snuck back up, found the secretary’s desk, and used the fax machine. I briefly wondered if the nurses on night duty
would notice a bunch of financial documents coming through into the neuro department at two in the morning, but it didn’t really matter—stranger shit happened around Mercy.
It took me another twenty minutes to fax everything, and when it was done, I did my best to put it all away. I closed the window, got the office cleaned up, then snuck out the front door—leaving it unlocked behind me.
I figured they’d come back, realize it was open, and be annoyed they forgot to close up, but relieved nothing got stolen.
I walked back to the car, got behind the wheel, and drove back home.
* * *
Fiona showed up that night with a stack of papers under one arm and a bottle of red wine in her hand. “Well, you managed to do it,” she said.
I let her inside and shut the door behind her. “Told you, I can be very convincing.”
She laughed and dropped the papers on the kitchen table then held up the bottle. “Drink?”
“Of course.” I took it from her, opened it up, and poured two glasses as she started paging through the documents.
“There’s a lot of crap here,” she said. “I’ve been looking through it most of the day.”
“Yeah? Find anything interesting?” I sipped my wine and placed her glass down in front of her.
“A few things.” She pulled a couple documents out and set them aside. “But no smoking gun, not yet.”
“We’ll find it, if there’s anything to be found.”
She frowned at me. “What’s that mean?”
“I’ve had a lot of time to sit around and think today, and I’m worried that we haven’t given Maria enough credit.”
“You think she covered her tracks.”
“It’s very possible.”
“I’m not so sure.” She sipped the wine and tapped on the stack of papers. “Maria’s smart, but she’s also arrogant. I think she covered for herself enough to keep from getting caught if anyone gave a superficial look in her direction, but I don’t think she ever anticipated what we’re doing.”
“I hope you’re right.” I took a pile of papers. “How was the shift, by the way?”
“Busy.” She chewed on her lip absently. “The rumor mill churned hard all day.”
“Yeah? About me?”
“Of course.”
“Nobody has anything better to do.”
I laughed and drank some wine then got to work sifting through the pages.
We spent the next couple hours reading through every piece of paper in there and finished the bottle of wine. We started out at the table, but by the time we were finished, we were sprawled out on the couch and had two main stacks: one of all the papers that were more or less useless, and one of all the papers that might mean something.
I stared at the stacks and let out a breath as I finished off the dregs of the wine. One stack was huge. The other was not.
“I think we’re screwed,” I said.
She sighed and leaned her head back against the cushion. “That’s an understatement. How isn’t there more?”
“I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t even understand half this crap.”
“What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know.” I leaned toward her and she put her head on my shoulder. I shifted my weight, sliding my arms around her, and pulled her against me.
We tipped back and she landed on my chest. I stared into her eyes and she looked back, mildly surprised.
“This is why you had me come over,” she said. “It was your way of seducing me.”
“Nothing more seductive than paperwork.”
“You know exactly what a girl wants.”
I touched her cheek gently. “If you want, we can fill out some forms together.”
“Don’t tease. I can’t handle it.”
I moved forward and pressed my lips against her ear. “I could use some help… filing my taxes.”
She laughed and pushed me back, and I grinned up at her, our lips inches away, her hair spilling down around me. I ran my fingers through that hair, unable to help it—and gripped tight, pulling her down, her lips meeting mine.
I kissed her hard, and she kissed me back. She tasted like wine and cherries, and I let out a soft growl as she shifted her weight, her hips pressing into mine. She was gorgeous, and I hated the way she thought about herself, and wished she could see herself the way I saw her—smart, beautiful, strong, funny. I bit her lip and felt her breasts against my chest, before shifting my weight and turning her over, pinning her back down.
She looked up at me with those wide, big eyes, and I couldn’t help myself. I kissed her neck then pulled her shirt off. She let me, didn’t stop it as I kissed her collarbone, her breasts, and unhooked her bra, letting it spill forward. I licked her nipples, moved back up, kissed her lips, then pulled my own shirt off. Her skin was warm and soft against mine as she moved her hips in slow, rhythmic pulses as we kissed, tongues lingering, lips moving slow, and I felt myself grow stiff, pressing up against her body.
I pulled back and admired her for half a moment, her lips, the long curve of her neck, the arch of her back, her small, firm, pink nipples, and that scar—god, yes, even that scar, even if she hated it so much. I unbuttoned her jeans and tugged them off, and I could tell she was uncomfortable, probably from the way I was looking at her, and I didn’t care. I kissed her belly button as my hand went down between her legs and teased her, made her hips move, a moan escape her lips.
“I love every part of you,” I whispered, kissing along her scar, then back up to her breasts. “I love the taste of all of you. I know you think that can’t be true, but trust me, Fiona. You’re beautiful.”
“I know you mean it,” she said, then gasped as my fingers teased her faster. I pushed her panties aside and felt her slick wet spot. “I know you mean it, but I’m afraid—”
“There’s always a reason to be afraid.” I sank my fingers inside. “But this feels good, doesn’t it?”
“It won’t forever.”
“It can, if you let it.” I bit her bottom lip and teased her again, rolling my finger along her hard little bud. She moaned, her back moving, and I pinned one of her hand above her head. “I can make you feel like this all the time, if you let me. I can do things for you, my Fiona, do things to you that will make you forget everything else.”
Her eyes fluttered open. “Show me.”
I smiled and dropped down between her legs.
She tasted like heaven. Her dripping wet pussy was perfect as I lapped her up, licking her faster and faster, making her body squirm and moan, her back arch and writhe. I loved the way she reacted to every little touch, every bit of pressure, and I kept going, pushing her, making her gasp and groan—but I didn’t take her all the way.
I pulled back and sat down, unbuckling my belt.
She crawled to me, gorgeous and lithe, her ass in the air as she helped me get my jeans off. I spanked her and teased her, and she took my cock in her hand, sliding it into her mouth. I groaned as she took me between her lips, sliding up and down, and my fingers found her wet spot, teasing her, making her moan as she sucked me.
“I love watching you take me in your pretty lips,” I said. “I love the way you lick me top to bottom. Goddamn, girl, I want to see your face as you slide down my cock. Tell me you want it.” I grabbed her hair and pulled her back.
She moaned and stared into my eyes. “I want it.”
“Say please.” I kissed her.
“Please,” she whispered.
I pulled her up to her feet, got her panties off, kicked away my boxer briefs, then dropped to my knees and licked her until her fingers went tight through my hair. When I stood again, I fell back onto the couch, and she straddled me, back arched, body firm and gorgeous, as she slid backwards and took me deep between her legs.
She tossed her head back and I marveled at her body, at her hips, her flat stomach, her quivering lips. I ran my fingers down her, palmed her breasts, teased her nipples, and let
her ride me, her slick pussy sliding up and down, faster and faster. I gripped her ass and fucked her, taking over, taking control. She gasped, panting, and I could barely control myself.
“I think about this constantly,” I whispered and bit her lower lip. “I think about taking you, about making you feel good. You deserve every inch of my cock, my darling Fiona, you deserve all the pleasure you want. I want to keep you, my pet, make you squirm and beg, make you give in to every single desire you can possibly imagine, then teach you everything else you couldn’t.”
“Yes,” she moaned. “God, yes.”
I turned her and pinned her back down onto the couch. I took control, spread her legs wide, and we fucked slowly at first, moving together, lips locked, before I took her faster, moving in time with her moans. I followed the signals of her body, licked her nipples, fucked her faster, gripping her hips. She gasped, back arched, and I went faster, faster, feeling her slickness, her dripping wet, sweat on her skin, beading along her gorgeous pale body. I growled out my pleasure and went harder, roaring, animal-like, primal, unable to stop. I pinned her down and fucked her, took her, and when she came, her pussy clenching down, I knew I couldn’t take anymore.
I filled her then, moaning my desire, and we came together in one glorious rush of pleasure. I gasped, kissed her, slowed down and extended her orgasm as long as I could, her body shaking with pleasure, her fingers digging into my back.
I bit her lip and smirked as her eyes fluttered open.
“Fuck,” she said.
I laughed. “Yeah, fuck.”
We stayed like that for a while—maybe a minute, maybe a lifetime, before we parted and got dressed again. I took my time, watching her, still amazed at how incredible she looked, how much I still wanted her even moments after having a taste. She drove me wild, made me want even more, and I was half hard by the time I got my pants on again.