by Teresa Roman
“Did he hit you?” Jude asked, his jaw tensing.
I shook my head. “It wasn’t anything like that. Nick was just really jealous. He hated me hanging out with any of my friends. He hated me wearing anything the least bit sexy. If a guy so much as glanced my way he’d start a fight. It was awful. I kept thinking that if I could make him see that I’d never cheat on him eventually he’d trust me, so I went along with everything he asked. But it didn’t help. We were together for almost a year before I finally worked up the courage to tell him it was over and he needed to move out. Which he eventually did, but not before he stole almost two thousand dollars from my bank account.”
“Dawn, that’s horrible. I’m so sorry you went through that.”
“There’s more,” I said, putting my hand under my chin and looking across the table at Jude. “After Nick, I swore off dating. But there was this guy, someone I thought I knew well. Someone I was sure wouldn’t hurt me. We got together a few weeks before Christmas, but then he decided to get back together with his ex and didn’t even bother telling me until I confronted him and asked him why he wasn’t returning any of my calls. He made me feel like an idiot for trusting him. The whole thing pretty much ruined my entire Christmas.”
“And then I asked you out.” Jude shook his head. “Talk about bad timing. I had no idea.”
“Of course you didn’t,” I said. “You know I still feel bad for the way I treated you on our first date.”
“That’s water under the bridge.”
“Anyway, that’s why I’m sort of gun-shy about relationships. When I was with Nick it felt like I wasn’t in control of my life. Everything he wanted me to do, I did. I don’t want to lose myself like that again. And I don’t want to be a fool for anyone either. The idea of getting close to someone and getting hurt again scares me.”
“Believe it or not, it scares me, too.”
“So what now?”
“Come here,” he said, gesturing with his hand and scooting back from the table.
I got up from my chair and slowly walked over to Jude. He pulled me onto his lap, and I clasped my hands behind his head.
“What am I going to do with you?” he said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that I’ve got it bad for you, Dawn Masters. You’re all I think about. It damn near killed me these past two weeks, not hearing your voice.”
“I hated it, too.”
Jude reached up to brush my hair back from my face, a moment later his lips were on mine. I breathed in his scent, losing myself in the dizzy way he made me feel.
“I want you,” he whispered against my lips. The sensation of his lips and tongue as he kissed my neck and then my collarbone made my eyelids flutter. I moaned and tilted my head back.
With me in his arms, Jude stood from the chair, still kissing me, and carried me into his bedroom. He lay me down and then pressed his body on top of mine. I arched my back to get closer to him, not wanting to lose contact even for a second.
“Good Lord, Dawn, you drive me crazy.”
“You do the same to me.” I snaked my hands under his shirt to caress the smooth skin on his back. It wasn’t enough. I needed to feel him again, skin to skin, so I lifted his shirt over his head and then did the same with mine. I ran my hands over his sculpted chest and shoulders, wondering if he knew how sexy he was. He sure didn’t act like he did. Jude inhaled sharply at the initial contact of our bare flesh pressed together. I knew what he felt because I felt it, too. I was drowning in him.
I unclasped my bra, and Jude cupped my breasts before flicking his tongue over my hardened nipples. I wanted to cry out, it felt so good. He had me so turned on that I couldn’t get the rest of his clothes off fast enough. His erection pressed into my upper thigh. I wanted him inside me again, loving me, completing me.
Jude slid his hand under my pants and underwear. “You’re so wet,” he whispered, his dark eyes full of desire.
He reached over me and opened the drawer of his nightstand, pulling out a condom. He rolled it onto his erection before sliding inside of me. His eyes fluttered shut for moment. “You feel so good.”
I wrapped my legs around Jude’s back, pulling him closer, deeper. With each thrust, I breathed harder, panting with pleasure. A gasp sounded from my throat as I climaxed. Moments later, Jude reached under me and grabbed my bottom pulling me closer and thrusting deeper as he came. He called out my name, and rested on top of me for a moment before rolling to my side and wrapping me in his arms. I felt so warm and safe in them.
We lay beside each other quietly for a while before Jude broke the silence. “I promise I’ll be good to you, Dawn. I won’t treat you like those guys you were with before.”
I looked into Jude’s eyes. “I believe you.”
“You do?”
I nodded and Jude kissed me. He pulled away at the sound of my rumbling stomach and laughed. “Is my girl hungry?”
“Well,” I said, teasing, “you were supposed to feed me instead of dragging me into bed before I had a chance to finish eating.”
“I couldn’t help myself,” he said with a grin.
I sat up to gather my clothes from the floor.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“It’s getting late, and I’m pretty tired.”
“All the more reason you should stay here. It’s not safe to drive when you’re tired.”
“I don’t have any clothes to change into in the morning.”
“If that’s all you’re worried about, then I can go run to the mall right now and get you something to wear,” he said.
“Are you serious?”
“I don’t mind. The mall is only five minutes from here,” he said. “And I really don’t want you to leave.”
I was flattered by his chivalrous offer. Not that it was necessary since I hadn’t actually been wearing my clothes for very long before he’d undressed me. Jude tugged on my arm, and I lay back down beside him. The truth was I didn’t want to leave. “Fine, I’ll stay, but can I at least finish my fajitas?”
Jude smiled again. “Of course you can.”
Chapter 18
It felt even better waking up beside Jude the next morning than it had the day before. With our talk out of the way and neither of us needing to rush to get to work we were able to just relax and enjoy each other’s company. We stayed in bed until after ten only to find ourselves right back in it after a morning shower turned us both on so badly that we couldn’t keep our hands off each other.
After finally managing to get ourselves dressed, Jude took me out for lunch at a restaurant in walking distance of his apartment.
He reached for my hand after we were seated, staring at it for a moment before asking, “So when will I see you again?”
“Tonight’s probably not good since you have to work tomorrow.” Jude’s shift started at six, an hour earlier than mine did.
“And the next two days after that.”
I frowned. “I’m back to work in another three days.”
“Since you brought up the subject of work, I have a question to ask you.”
Before he could, a server came by to take our orders. After she walked away, I looked across the table. “So what is it?”
“When we see each other at the hospital, will we still have to act like strangers?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“If I walk up to you and kiss you on your cheek, you’d be okay with that?”
I smiled at the thought, picturing him doing just that. “Yeah, I’d be okay with it.”
We returned to Jude’s apartment after lunch. I didn’t want to say goodbye, especially since it would be a few days before I’d see him again, but I wanted to change my clothes and I had a long list of chores I’d been putting off for far too long that I needed to get to.
“Can I walk you to your car?” Jude asked.
I reached for his hand. “You better.”
When we got to my
beat-up old Toyota Prius, I pulled him closer, kissing him. He backed me up against the car, pinning me against it as he pressed his body into mine.
“I can’t get enough of you,” he whispered into my ear. His warm breath sent shivers down my spine.
I kissed him again, long and deep and hard before saying, “I better go.” If I didn’t turn around and get into my car, there was a pretty big chance we’d wind up back in bed again. Not that that would be a bad thing. But there was something I wanted to do. Something I’d been putting off for way too long.
“Call me when you get home so I know you made it there safely.”
“Okay.” I slid into the driver’s seat of my car, and drove away with a goofy grin on my face.
When I got back to my apartment, the first thing I did, after calling Jude, was change into new clothes before chucking the ones I had on into a laundry basket piled high with dirty clothes. Laundry wasn’t the only thing I needed to tackle. There were dishes that needed washing and my floors were a mess. But before I could start any of those things, I needed to do something more important first.
I sat down at the table, pulled my phone out of my pocket, and dialed my mom’s number.
“Oh hey, honey,” she said. “It feels like forever since I’ve heard from you.”
“Yeah. I’ve been pretty busy with work.”
“I hope you haven’t been putting in too many extra shifts,” she said. “You’ll burn out that way.”
“Mom, you worry too much. I’m fine. In fact, I’m more than fine.”
“Really? And why is that?”
“I’ve met someone,” I said, trying to think of the best words to explain. “Someone I really like a lot.”
Chapter 19
I called my sister next. At first, she gave me a hard time for not telling her about Jude sooner. Then she said, just like my mom had, that she couldn’t wait to meet him. But since my sister was deep in the midst of graduate studies at UC Davis and my mom couldn’t take off from work until the summer, meeting him would have to wait. My family visited me every summer since I’d moved to LA to escape the hot summer temperatures back home. It was cooler down here because I lived so close to the coast. Temperatures in the north valley of California could easily hit over a hundred degrees in the summer and stay that way for extended periods of time.
“Wow, my sister is dating a cop,” May said. “I just can’t believe it.”
“Is it really that strange?”
“I don’t know. You’ve just never really been into the macho type before, that’s all.”
I didn’t realize my sister thought I had a type. “Jude’s not really like that,” I said. “When you meet him, you’ll see.”
It was true what I’d told my sister. Jude fit none of those stereotypes about police officers. People really did assume all sorts of things about cops, a lot of which I’d come to realize wasn’t exactly fair. Just like people assumed I’d become a nurse because I wasn’t smart or driven enough for medical school, though neither were true. I happened to have been drawn to nursing because of the special relationship nurses formed with their patients. Even the most attentive doctors often didn’t get the same amount of time with their patients as nurses did.
“Well, I can’t wait,” May said.
And neither could I. For the first time since Jude and I started dated, things between us felt real. A flash of panic passed through me, but I shrugged it away. Over the past two weeks I’d come to realize that Jude meant a lot to me, and I wasn’t going to mess things up between us or let fear ruin my happiness.
The next time I saw Jude was a few days later at work. He walked into the ER with a woman in handcuffs, her feet bare. She had makeup smeared all over her face and was screaming all sorts of obscenities. Despite that, a smile made its way across my face at the sight of him. I secretly hoped that the charge nurse would make the woman Jude brought in my patient so I’d get a few moments with him.
He winked at me as he led the woman down the hallway and into a room that I’d been assigned to. I followed the two of them.
From behind me came a voice. “So what do you have here?” Eric asked, addressing Jude. I hadn’t even realized he was trailing me down the hallway.
“Jail clearance,” Jude told him. “She got bit by a dog right before her arrest so we had to bring her here first.”
Even though Eric had no idea Jude and I were together, and Jude didn’t know about my past with Eric, I felt weird being in the same room with both of them. I snuck off, waiting for Eric to finish his exam before returning to take the patient’s vital signs. She was still as agitated as she had been when she arrived, apparently under the false notion that if she didn’t cooperate it would delay her being taken to jail.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring you someone so rude,” Jude said after the fourth time the patient called me a bitch.
I shrugged. “It doesn’t really bother me. Working here, you get used to it after a while.”
“Well, it bothers me. You deserve to be respected.”
His sweet words made it impossible not to smile. Eventually, the woman calmed down enough that I was able to take her blood pressure. Eric had put in orders for me to clean and dress her dog bite, which was on her thigh and actually pretty superficial, and update her tetanus vaccination. Just as I finished doing those things, Officer Gunn showed up.
“Hey, Frank, do you mind keeping an eye on her real quick?” Jude asked him. “I’m just waiting on the doctor to finish up some paperwork, and then we can go.”
“No problem,” his partner replied.
Jude walked over to me and whispered, “Can I talk to you somewhere in private for a few minutes?”
I nodded and Jude followed me out of the patient’s room. Truthfully, there really wasn’t anywhere totally private in the ER that I could take him, so I settled for as private as I could get, which was the fast-track area since it was currently empty thanks to yet another shift where we were short on nurses.
“I’ve missed you,” he said.
“I’ve missed you, too.” I wanted to wrap my arms around him and kiss him right then and there, but I was worried that we’d be seen. A kiss on the cheek was one thing, but making out in the middle of the ER was another.
“How is it that you look even more beautiful than I remembered even though it’s only been a few days since I saw you?”
I blushed as he reached for my hand. The contact sent a wave of heat through me. We’d made plans to see each other later that night but seven o’clock felt so far off. I was so engrossed in Jude that I didn’t realize anyone was headed in our direction until that someone cleared his throat. I turned my head and saw Eric headed toward the dirty utility room. He was looking away from Jude and me, but I knew he’d seen us. Panic set in, but only for a moment. Eric wasn’t my boss, and it wasn’t his business if Jude and I stole a moment together.
I leaned forward to give Jude a quick kiss. “I should go,” I said. “I’ll call you tonight after I get off.”
He gave my hand a squeeze before letting it go. Minutes later, he left along with Officer Gunn and the woman they’d brought with them. I stared at him from behind as he headed toward the ambulance doors, picturing myself with my arms draped around those broad shoulders of his and my legs wrapped around his trim waist. Seven o’clock could not come fast enough.
As the doors shut behind Jude, Eric walked up to me. “So you and the cop?” he said.
“Yes. Me and the cop,” I replied, smiling, refusing to let the reproachful tone in Eric’s voice bother me.
“Dawn, c’mon. You can do way better than that.”
“And you can mind your own business,” I said, trying to keep my cool.
Eric had more to say, I could see it in his eyes, but I turned and walked away before he had a chance.
It had taken almost losing Jude to realize how much I cared for him and what a good thing the two of us had going. I was damned if I was going to mess thin
gs up again or let anyone get between us. Especially Eric.
Part 2
Chapter 20
March gave way to April, then April to May, and before I knew it, spring was upon us. While most of the country seemed to have the most perfect weather at this time of the year, spring in Southern California could be pretty dismal. The months of May and June were dubbed May Gray and June Gloom because of the cloudy mornings caused by a marine layer that, thankfully, usually cleared by noon. Still, I hated waking up to such depressing weather. It made yanking myself out of bed in the morning nearly impossible.
Jude and I were both on the last day of a three-day stretch of twelve-hour shifts so I hadn’t seen him for a a while. I looked forward to spending some time together with him after a stressful shift in the ER. We’d managed to sync our schedules so that we worked mostly the same days, but often we wouldn’t see much of each other on those days because we worked such long hours.
After getting dressed, I went into the kitchen to make myself a cup of coffee. It was only another few days before my parents and sister would be in town for a week to visit, and my place was a total mess. I was half-tempted to find a cleaning service to help. I’d always been a tidy person, but between work and the time I spent with Jude, I’d let things get a bit out of control.
I ate a quick breakfast and then headed off to work. Only an hour into my shift, Jude showed up with a psych patient—a girl who’d run away from home and told Jude and his partner, after they’d found her, that she’d kill herself if they made her return home. At twelve years old, she wasn’t even a teenager. I shook my head. It seemed like we were getting younger and younger patients with mental health and substance abuse issues all the time these days. Some of them came in so often, the ER staff had memorized their names and faces.
After bringing the girl to a room and giving report to one of the nurses, Jude walked over to me. “Are we still on for tonight?”