Endurance

by Amy Daws

  It’s all I can see, smell, taste, and hear as soon as the demand tumbles out of her mouth.

  There’s no turning back now.

  In a flash, I reach out and grab her hand, hauling her onto my lap. Our bodies snap together like two magnets that were once repelling each other and have now been flipped.

  Her legs wrap around me and the heat of her centre warms my own as my dick jumps to life inside my trousers. The silk of her nightie bunches up around her thighs as she slices her hand roughly through my hair, catching on some tangles. She grabs hold of me like I’m her property and she’s going to claim me. My hands cup the nape of her neck as I roughly pull her face down toward me and connect our lips.

  She angers me so much. She’s so loud and so brash and so fucking pushy!

  I’m desperate to fuck this out with her.

  How she can call herself fat is delusional. It’s incomprehensible. Unimaginable. She has the most beautiful body. I’ve fantasised about defiling it in about eighty different positions.

  “This won’t be one night,” she pants, her forehead pressed to mine, her lips raw from my beard. “We have weeks left together, Tanner. This will get complicated.”

  “Let’s just enjoy it while it lasts,” I murmur, hearing the faint tear of fabric as I rip the tiny spaghetti straps off her shoulders. “One night. Four weeks. What’s the difference if we’re both on the same page?”

  She nods and shimmies her arms out of the straps, allowing the nightie to slip down off her chest and revealing the hottest set of cans I’ve ever seen. I’d never heard the word “cans” before when referring to tits, let alone used it in a sentence, until my American teammate said it one night at a club. For some reason unbeknownst to me, staring at Belle’s bare breasts before me, “cans” seems like the perfect adjective.

  “Fuck me,” I curse and bury my face in her chest that’s currently eye level. “Fuck me, I’ve died and gone to tit heaven.”

  “God, you’re stupid,” she groans, rolling her hips into my hard-on that just grew an inch bigger than it’s ever been before. All because of these glorious cans.

  “I want to live here,” I hum against her flesh, cupping the sides of her breasts to increase the pressure of them around my face. “I want to open up a little shop where my everyday job is to rub myself on these glorious creatures all day long.”

  “Shut up and fuck me!” she demands, moving her hand down between us to touch herself.

  No knickers. She was completely bare beneath this little scrap of fabric, completely content to taunt me mercilessly.

  She leans back to give herself better access to her pussy, and I’m torn between enjoying her glorious performance or ploughing myself inside of her. I dry-hump her a few more times, my dick rubbing harshly on the zipper of my jeans. The pain is excruciatingly erotic. I attempt to rock her arse back and forth with my hands before my resolve cracks wide open.

  Gripping her beneath her legs, I stand and set her on the glass table. She cries out, “It’s freezing! Tanner, you fuck!”

  “Fucking you is exactly what I’m going to do,” I growl, plunging my fingers deep inside of her wet centre. God, she’s soaked. Fighting with me turns her on, too. “Fucking hell, you’re perfect.”

  She groans out loudly. I can tell she wants to yell at me some more, but she’s too busy riding my fingers like a rollercoaster. I grab hold of her nipple with my free hand and squeeze the hardened bud between my fingers. So pert, so huge, so impeccable. Her body is on full display for me, with just a strip of the nightie covering a few inches of her torso. She has smooth sculpted arms, lush, big tits, and legs that belong around my face at some point this evening.

  “God, you’re fucking gorgeous,” I grind. “Your body is so bloody hot.”

  “Tanner,” she groans. “Stop.”

  “Stop what?” I ask, stalling my fingers. “Stop this?” I wiggle them again.

  Her eyes fly wide and she looks up at me. “No, don’t stop that!” She reaches down and grips my hand in hers, urging me to continue. “Stop talking about my body.”

  I lean over her and drop a wet kiss on her smooth abdomen. It’s curvy and soft and welcoming to my very aroused state.

  “Not until you tell me you’re beautiful,” I murmur against her flesh.

  I don’t know why this is bothering me so much but it is. Belle projects all the confidence in the world, but sometimes it’s the loudest women that have the most to hide.

  “Don’t, Tanner,” she begs, her voice softening to a whimper as I feel her climax coming and know that I hold all the power right now. I have a moment of regret for forcing this on her, but deep down I know she’s strong enough to handle it.

  “Please, Belle?” I ask, dropping several open-mouthed kisses on her breasts. “Just say it once.”

  Her heavy breathing slows and she bites her lip, her eyes crashing on mine. I see her throat move before she finally replies, “I’m beautiful.”

  The corner of my mouth tugs up. “Fuck yes you are. And I’m going to scream that when I empty my balls inside of you.”

  WITHIN SECONDS, TANNER HAS A condom on. In another second, my legs are on his shoulders and he’s buried so deep inside of me, I can feel him in my heart. Or perhaps that sensation in my chest is the words he sex-leveraged over me.

  I’m beautiful.

  What a smug bastard, thinking he can come into my flat and start barking orders at me.

  But bark he did. And like a dog, I am lying here begging for more.

  I didn’t mean to get so fixated on my appearance. I like my body. I do think I’m beautiful. Most days. Sure, there are the odd jiggly parts I really wish didn’t exist. And there are some things I can’t get away with, like prints. If I wear certain prints, I come off looking like a sofa cushion instead of a fashion icon.

  But if it’s a choice between eliminating chocolate from my life or a softer landing on my arse, I’ll pick a soft landing every day and twice on Sundays.

  Perhaps I was searching too hard for a reason for Tanner to cast me away like he did. But if what’s happening now is the result of enduring a couple months of suspense, I have three words to say.

  Worth. The. Wait.

  Tanner between my legs is hot in that knuckle-dragging caveman sort of way. How he picked me up as if I weigh nothing and dropped me on the table like a feast he was desperate to devour…Sign me up for seconds of that meal, please.

  I hate to admit it because I’ve chosen to loathe him from here to eternity, but the entire time his tight, firm body pounds into mine at a punishing, hateful pace, I can’t help but think it’s been forever since I was fucked this well. Perhaps it was all the pent-up aggression between the two of us. Or perhaps it’s the fact that the last great shag I had was four years ago with my old med school fling. We used each other on a regular basis to relieve stress. There was absolutely no chemistry between us during the day, but at night we helped each other learn exactly what buttons needed pushing for maximum pleasure. We attacked our sex life the same way we attacked a surgery: with careful precision and textbook research.

  Tanner is the opposite of that in every way.

  He’s wild and messy and dirty. Even the long stringy hair on his head makes me wet. His taut jaw is rugged as his eyes pin me with complete possession. He says and does whatever comes to his mind without any thought of holding back. I mean, for God’s sake, we’re fucking on my dining room table next to our half-eaten Chinese food. If Indie decided to come home right now, she’d probably pass out from germophobe shock.

  Maybe I’ll buy a new table tomorrow.

  Regardless, I’m enjoying this ride more than I should. By the time Tanner gives me my second mind-shattering orgasm, my lungs ache from all the screaming and heavy breathing. He follows closely behind with his own guttural release, moaning out his promised words and confusing the hell out of my natural hatred for him.

  But I won’t get this twisted. It’s fucking. Not sex, not love-making. It’s
just two people fulfiling each other’s needs as they are required in order to work closely together. Like me and my med school partner.

  Seconds later, he pulls out of me and flops back down on the chair he vacated earlier. Our breaths are loud and I can hear the sound of him pulling off the sticky condom.

  “You weren’t kidding about superior endurance,” I murmur, my voice hoarse from the crazy adrenaline high.

  A soft laugh rumbles from somewhere deep inside of him. “I’d never kid about that.” He stands up. “I’m going to pop into the loo.”

  He walks over to the nearby bathroom while I manage to peel myself off the table and haphazardly put my nightie back in order. One of the straps is trashed and the other is hanging on by a thread. I knew wearing this would get a rise out of him, but I honestly didn’t expect all of this.

  I’m spraying down the table with disinfecting cleaner when he comes out and our eyes meet.

  “Hungry?” I ask with a laugh and drop the surface cleaner bottle beside the Chinese.

  “For more food or more you?”

  His heated gaze pins me to my place. I wasn’t sure if we’d go back to hating each other or if sex gave us a somewhat common ground. A peace treaty, so to speak. I watch him thoughtfully for a moment and we exchange a slough of silent questions. Questions I’m not sure either of us have answers to yet.

  “Let’s start with Chinese and go from there,” I reply.

  He simply smirks and a glimmer of a dimple forms on one side of his lips. That mouth will be my ruin.

  We sit back down and begin eating as if nothing happened. It’s quiet but not awkward. I’m trying to work this all out in my head but, to be frank, all I can think about is the delicious ache between my legs and how truly satisfied I am.

  As I take a drink of my beer, I see Tanner’s eyes flick to the spot where I was lain out moments ago. I assume his mind is where mine is until he turns to me with a grave expression.

  “You don’t think Cam and Indie have fucked on this table, do you?”

  I spit liquid out everywhere, including on Tanner’s face. He flinches, his eyes pinched tightly as he reacts to the onslaught. He wipes the dew from his eyes, slowly opening them.

  “Is that a no? Or a yes?”

  “It’s a—”

  “Wait,” he reaches out, his warm hand gripping my arm firmly. “Just lie to me.”

  I laugh. Truly laugh. I can’t believe this is the same man I was screaming at before, first in anger, then in pleasure.

  “They’ve never touched this table.”

  He exhales with relief and it makes me giggle around another bite of food. Indie’s told me how close she and Tanner have become, and his reaction just now secures that fact for me.

  After we finish eating and clean up, I stride into the living room and flop myself on the sofa fully prepared to ignore the sexual elephant in the room.

  “Shall we discuss that email?”

  Tanner nods, joining me and pulling his mobile out of the pocket of his jeans. He looks delicious in worn jeans and a T-shirt, his black inked arms on display. Or perhaps he looks more delicious because I’ve had his cock inside of me.

  “It’s not quite as painful as I anticipated,” Tanner says, scrolling through his mobile as he sits down beside me. I try not to take his comment personally, but I need to remember and hold on to the fact that, despite everything Tanner said before he shagged me senseless, he still has walls up when it comes to me. “We have to go on a London Eye double date with Cam and Indie. He wants us to do that next. Talk about cliché and touristy.”

  This is the one event I am actually looking forward to. “I’ve never done the London Eye.”

  “What?” Tanner exclaims. “You grew up in London. Didn’t your parents ever take you, or wouldn’t you go there for a school field trip?”

  “No,” I reply with a shrug. “Never. We had a nanny growing up, but the London Eye wasn’t on our list of approved sites to visit.”

  He blows out some air. “That’s a shame. Vi took us on a regular basis as kids. We even knew the best times to go to avoid the long queues.”

  Hearing about Tanner and Camden’s family life is odd. They all seem so close despite losing their mother at a young age. Perhaps that tragedy only unified them more. I’ve never had that with my brother. We had completely different interests, and his constant need to please our father was so off-putting, I could hardly stand to be around him.

  “Anyway, what else is there?”

  “Bethnal Green has a home match in two weeks that they want us to attend as…spectators.” He grinds the words out as if they are painful to say. “Then there are a couple of dinner things. Pretty typical stuff.”

  My brows lift. We actually won’t have to see each other all that much, based on this list. I can’t help but wonder how us sleeping together will change any of that. Regardless, I have to do my part in all of this and get back in good graces with Dr. Miller.

  “I have one event I need to add to the list that might be a bit of a headache.” He looks at me with curiosity. “My attending talked to me today…my boss. She wants me to get you and some of your footballer friends to come to a benefit the hospital puts on every year to raise money for research.”

  He looks surprised but not put off. “All right then. I’m sure I can get my brothers to go at the very least. What kind of research is it?”

  “Baby saving stuff. To make what I do possible.”

  He turns, pulling one leg up on the sofa so he’s angled toward me. His steely blue eyes look serious. “I don’t think I realised what it is you do exactly until you told Sedgwick. It sounds…heavy.”

  I exhale through my nose. “It is heavy. It’s hard and it’s heartbreaking and it’s awful, but the payoffs when it works are just…”

  “Aces?” The corner of his mouth tugs up.

  “Yeah.” I smile. “My boss has thousands of baby pictures all over her office of the little patients she’s saved. Little babies that probably would not have even made it to delivery if it wasn’t for what she does.”

  “What made you want to go into that field?” he asks, looking at me with honest and genuine curiosity.

  I prop my feet up on the coffee table. “Is this Tanner Harris Deep Talk again?”

  “It is if you want it to be.” He waits for my reply.

  Perhaps it would do Tanner good to hear some real world, scary shit. My eyes narrow at this challenge. “You’ve heard Indie and me talk about our Tequila Sunrise outings, right?”

  I look over at him and he nods. “But it honestly sounds like an excuse to get pissed,” he replies, draping an arm on the back of the sofa. His fingers accidently brush my hair and the sensation makes my eyes close.

  “It kind of is, but it’s so much more.” I shake off the warmth of his touch that’s in the forefront of my mind. “The reason we started that tradition is the reason I selected this specialty. When we were interns at the hospital, the first death we witnessed was a little baby girl who died from SIDS.”

  He frowns. “What is SIDS?”

  “Sudden infant death syndrome,” I reply, letting the weighty words have a moment in reality before explaining further. “It’s unexplained and doctors can’t correlate it to any specific cause. It’s just…random.”

  I look toward the window, needing to mentally pull myself away from Tanner before I can continue. I’m instantly transported back to that night. That cold, dark night when life slapped me right in my naïve face. Back when my biggest issue was dealing with my parents moaning at me for not going to law school like they wanted.

  I saw the baby roll into the hospital, so small on that adult-sized stretcher. Her hands limp. Her face slack. All I could think about was the mother picking her up at home and trying to awaken her. I didn’t even know what was wrong with her at that point, but I could tell by looking at her that she was dead. The familiar knot forms in my throat and I hurt inside all over again.

  I look at Tanner.
“I was so distraught when I saw her that I ended up sick in the toilet. It was like my body was trying to projectile vomit the pain out of me. I hated the feeling that little baby gave me. I was powerless, you know? That baby was so small and helpless, and I went to school and trained and studied and tried to make myself into the best doctor I could be. But in that moment, none of it mattered. I was completely ill-equipped.”

  “Christ, Belle.” Tanner shakes his head, his face marred with a mixture of sympathy and horror.

  I talk through the pain, though. “I couldn’t believe that life could be so cruel. The baby was only four months old. She still had a soft spot on her head.”

  My fingers twitch at the memory of touching her in the exam room after the parents had been ushered away by the grief counsellor. I had to feel her. I had to know she was real. That it wasn’t some horrid nightmare. I’d touched tons of cadavers in all of my various surgical trainings.

  But no babies.

  I look over at Tanner and his head is dropped. I instantly wish I hadn’t unloaded all of that on him. “Sorry.”

  He shakes his head, his eyes rimmed red when they meet mine. I don’t see the sadness I thought I would, though. I see…awe. His voice is thick when he says, “Don’t be sorry.”

  I swallow, nervously shaking my head. “I took Deep Talk too deep I think. Must be the beer.” I reach out and grab my bottle up off the coffee table.

  “I wanted to know.” He clears his throat loudly and looks at me with a furrow to his brow. “So that is how you chose your specialty.”

  “Pretty much. I thought I wanted paediatrics, but then seeing what Dr. Miller does, how she saves a baby when it’s still inside of its mother…It feels almost as if you’re taking an angel from heaven and demanding that God give them their own life first.”

  He smiles and gets a sort of glint in his eyes. Is it admiration?

  “So what are you? Their immortal legal representation?”

  I laugh at the notion and think it’s an ironic choice of words considering what my family does for a living. “I’ll leave the lawyering to my family.” Then a dark thought crosses my mind. “I’d call myself something more like the devil’s advocate.”