Dr. Lee was waiting for them by the emergency entrance, intimidating despite her short stature and pixie cut. She crossed her arms and gave them the most controlled yet lethal glare Aurie had ever been on the receiving end of in her life.
“Aurie,” Dr. Lee greeted crisply. “Fine friends you’ve made here.”
Aurie winced. “It wasn’t on purpose?”
Dr. Lee snorted and shook her head. “You can explain it to me on the way down. Might affect how his operation goes,” she said as she swiped her ID card over the reader to reveal two uniformed assistants. “Correli, Marcus, please show these fine folks to the theater.”
The taller assistant nodded and beckoned. “Come with us, please.”
Dom, Aurie, Hyde, and Thalia all looked at each other, then moved forward. Dr. Lee caught Aurie’s hand in an iron grip.
“You and I need to talk,” she said. “The others can get prep done.”
“That’s… she’s kidding about messing up the operation, I promise,” Aurie assured the others as they were led down the hallway.
“So how’d you end up in this mess?” Dr. Lee asked when Aurie caught up to her.
“I think they just had a register of the people who worked with brains and scalpels,” Aurie told her. “I just drew the short straw.”
Dr. Lee harrumphed. “You’re not going to be taking part in the surgery. I don’t need a backseat doctor.”
Aurie swallowed, thinking about having to cut Dom open. “No, I didn’t think so.”
“You ain’t coming back to work any time soon, are you?” Dr. Lee asked, sideyeing Aurie.
“I haven’t decided yet, ma’am,” Aurie said truthfully. “But it doesn’t look good.”
Dr. Lee was silent for a long moment. “I don’t have to tell you how stupid this is, right? Gallivanting off with a bunch of kidnappers because one of them’s pretty?”
“Oh, I’m not doing it for Thalia,” Aurie joked nervously before wilting under Dr. Lee’s hard stare. “And I’m not doing it for Dom, either. I like him. I think I like him a lot. But I’ve always thought there was more than being resident number five, you know, the one with the tits. I think this might be my more.”
Dr. Lee exhaled long and hard through her nose. “If you need something, be it a ride home or anything else, comm me. But let it be known that I will be saying I told you so until the day you die.”
Aurie gave her a weak but genuine smile. “Thanks. That means a lot.”
“Alright,” Dr. Lee said, rolling her shoulders back. “Let’s go get this chip out.”
The walk to the operating theater was, by design, less than a minute from the emergency entrance. Dr. Lee’s assistants were in full surgery, plasticy caps and all, and Hyde and Thalia were seated in the non-employee waiting room, the one that didn’t have a window to look in on the surgery. Dom looked smaller than ever, laid out on the table, eyes closed as the anesthesia worked its magic. Logically, Aurie knew that this was the best and safest place for him to be right now, but her breath still caught in her throat as she looked down at him.
Dr. Lee squeezed her shoulder. “Go sit with the others. This will be fast.”
Aurie, unsure of what else to do, obeyed.
Hyde and Thalia looked up as she closed the door to the waiting room quietly behind her.
“I kind of thought you’d be in there,” Thalia told her.
Aurie shook her head. “Not my area of expertise, remember? Also, I… I don’t think I’d do to well with this one, even if it were. There’s just so much at stake here. Not that there isn’t always so much at stake, but—”
“—but now it’s personal. We get it,” Thalia told her.
They sat in awkward silence for a moment, every second seeming to take a year, before Thalia spoke up again.
“So,” she said. “You and Dom. That’s a little weird. Good, but weird.”
Hyde sighed. “Thalia…”
“No, really, I’m glad that the girl we kidnapped has managed to find it in her heart to forgive us through the healing power of seeing Dom shirtless.”
“Thalia,” Hyde said again.
“I mean, it’s a pretty fair trade off. If my type wasn’t apparently one-eyes assholes with terrible tastes in eyepatches and worse taste in drink, I’d go for it. Well, I would if he was taller. And didn’t whack me with cleaning brushes when I say something rude on shift.”
“That’s sweet, I think,” Aurie said before blurting the first thing that came to her mind, which was: “so are you actually from an organized crime family?”
Thalia stared at her for a second, then burst out laughing. “Is that what you guys think?” she asked, wiping tears from her eyes. “Oh, my God. I needed that, thank you. Hyde, baby, did you think I was from a mob family?”
Hyde shifted in his seat. “It just made more sense than a lot of other things. Like the possibility of you being from a normal family and turning out this way anyways.”
Thalia started laughing again. “This is great. Both of you are in charge of helping me convince Zosha that that’s absolutely the case. Maybe the captain, too, if you think we can swing it.”
“Let’s nobody swing anything,” Hyde grumbled, barely audible over Thalia’s giggling.
Aurie checked her watch. A little over five minutes had passed. Since Grand View had the best equipment possible for this sort of surgery, and since the chip was relatively close to the surface, one way or another the operation would be over soon. It seemed strange that such a huge event took so little time.
Sure enough, the buzzer sounded to alert anyone in the waiting area that the surgery was over. Aurie bolted upright as Hyde strode past her to the door. She willed herself to follow him, but it seemed like her feet were stuck.
Thalia came up behind her and poked her back. “Come on. One way or another, it’s over, and not knowing is worse than any possible outcome here.”
“Pick that up in your family’s criminal empire?” Aurie asked faintly.
“Oh, honey, there is nothing criminal about my family’s empire,” Thalia said, pushing Aurie towards the door.
Getting chased through the halls by a berserk Dom had been the most terrifying experience of Aurie’s life. Walking steadily towards the door with no idea whether or not it had succeeded was a close second.
Seeing Dom wincing as he touched the bandage on the back of his neck, Hyde smiling down at him, was like being able to breathe again. Dr. Lee took one look at Aurie’s face and rolled her eyes.
“Alright,” she said, handing Hyde a bag. “There’s everything you need to treat the incision, including instructions. Now get out of my hospital before someone who isn’t as nice as me comes along.”
Dom smiled and reached out for Aurie, who with trembling fingers took his hand as they made their way back to the ship. Aurie honestly couldn’t say what happened on the trek back, other than that Dom was there and that she was happier than she had been in recent memory. Time only returned to her when she and Dom were sitting next to each other on the floor of the engine room, smiling and talking.
“I can’t believe the miracle of medicine has been handed to you and you just want to go back to your job,” Aurie said, laughing.
Dom shrugged, then winced. “I missed my normal life. It’s nice to get back into the schedule.”
“I’m glad,” Aurie said quietly. “Do you want me to look at the scar?”
“If you wouldn’t mind,” he said, turning his back to her. She jerked awkwardly up to her knees and peeled back the bandage. The dermal regenerator had done wonders, but he’d still need to keep the bandage on for another twenty-four hours and the skin would feel tight until he got used to it.
“Looks good,” she told him, prodding him gently to test the elasticity of his skin. “Unless you’re feeling actual sharp pain, I’d say everything’s as it should be. Sorry to be poking my hands all over your scar, by the way.”
Dominic hummed. “That’s fine. I like your hands.”
It was, surprisingly, the easiest choice she’d ever made.
It was so quiet, only the hum of the engines and their breathing and the runaway beat of her heart, and he was there and she was there and it all felt right. She leaned forward and pressed her mouth—gently, lovingly—to the thin scar on the back on his neck. She could hear the breath catch in his throat as she let her eyelids slide shut, lashes sweeping lightly across his skin. The warm skin shifted under her touch and she pulled back, opening her eyes to meet his. They sat there for a moment, suspended in an eternal second of perfect understanding, before Aurie leaned back in. This time, Dom met her halfway and their lips met in a gentle kiss. Aurie hummed and opened her mouth, a shiver of pleasure running down her spine as Dominic copied the motion.
She leaned forward and he leaned back until he was lying down on the metal floor and Aurie had the top of her torso pressed against his chest, her legs kicked off to the side. Their breath mingled as they just lay together, Dom’s hand coming up to gently release Aurie’s hair from her ponytail and his other warm hand wrapping around her waist. She leaned forward and pressed her forehead to his neck, smiling.
“Think it’s worth it to try and hightail it to your room?” she asked quietly and felt her body be lifted slightly as he huffed out a laugh.
“I can’t think at all right now,” he told her. “Do you really think this is a good idea?”
“Do I think it’s a good idea to have sex with one of my kidnappers, who’s merry little crew I may or may not have been Stockholm Syndrome’d into joining, on the floor of the engine room?” she asked wryly. “I think it’s the best idea I’ve ever heard.”
It should probably have worried her a little more that she was telling the truth.
Dom was quiet for a moment. “If at any point you want to stop, or leave…”
Aurie leaned up and silenced him with a kiss. “I’ll let you know.”
Dom looked hard into her eyes before relaxing, whatever he saw in them extinguishing whatever fight he had left. “In that case,” he said with a smirk, “want to play doctor.”
A snort burst out of Aurie’s mouth before she could contain it. “Oh my God,” she said, giggling, “that was terrible.”
“No, no, really,” Dom said, his smirk splitting wider into a grin, “I think you need to examine me.”
“Stop,” Aurie commanded, collapsing back on top of him and rocking both their bodies with her laughter.
“Mmm, okay,” he said, slipping a hand under her shirt and rubbing soft circles on the skin of her back. “Let’s try something else instead then.”
Aurie shifted back to look at him, relaxed and beautiful and—for once—soft as he stared back at her, and leaned in to press her smiling mouth against his.
“Get naked,” she whispered into his lips. “Doctor’s orders.”
Dom leaned in and deepened the kiss for a moment before pushing her back and stripping off his shirt. He was every bit as well built as he had been when she had examined him, but this time there was the burning frisson in the back of her mind of the knowledge that she could touch. She ran her fingers lightly over the defined muscles of his abs, pleasure sparking through her at the way his stomach muscles tensed under her touch.
Dom tugged at the hemline of her blouse. “Your turn, Dr. Talbott.”
Aurie smirked and yanked her top over her head. She reached for the clasp to undo her bra, but Dom’s hands slid up her back and grabbed her as he sat up to kiss her. He pressed a languid open-mouthed kiss to her lips before peppering kisses along her jawbone and down her neck, leaning her back so he could trail his lips between her breasts as his fingers swiftly undid her bra and slid it down her arms. Aurie’s breath shuddered as the cool air hit her sensitive nipples. Dom looked up at her with those lazy, hypnotic eyes and slowly, almost teasingly, took one in his mouth. Aurie whimpered as he tugged lightly on it with his teeth, thumbing her other nipple with the hand that wasn’t at her back to keep her steady. On instinct, Aurie ground down, rubbing them together between two layers of clothing and making them both moan.
“How about we save foreplay for round two?” Aurie asked breathlessly.
“Agreed,” Dom said, pressing a kiss to her collarbone and they rolled apart to hurriedly strip off the rest of their clothing. Dom spread their shirts out on the floor and maneuvered her on top of them, settling between her thighs as he did so.
“Well, someone likes being on top,” Aurie teased.
“It’s only gentlemanly to volunteer to be the one who has to put ointment on their knees for the next few days,” Dominic told her, running his hands up the sides of her thighs. Aurie sighed happily and lay back, letting her legs fall wider apart.
“Are you on… I mean, do you have…” Dom started, suddenly uncertain.
Aurie snorted. “Of course. Get to work, will you?”
Dom raised an eyebrow in response and suddenly his clever fingers were sliding along the hot, wet juncture between her thighs. “Like that?”
“You’re not getting paid by the minute here,” Aurie huffed. “Mind hurrying up?”
“So impatient,” Dom said, his voice threaded with the barest shade of adoration, “and all for me.”
“Every inch,” Aurie promised. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind, please get inside me already.”
Dom leaned up to kiss her, bracing his hands on either side of her shoulders and kissed her once more as he slid into her. A gasp punched out of Aurie’s lungs as he filled her, her arms snapping up to wrap around his back.
“Move,” she told him, half a command and half a plea. Dom, ever the gentleman, obeyed her.
Kissing Dom had been like putting a piece of lightening on her tongue. The naked friction between them had threatened to consume her with its heat. But this, oh, this… this was something new, something powerful, something so overwhelming that Aurie didn’t have words to describe it. It was like she was floating weightless, her body eroded away and only Dominic above and the steadily growing feeling of white-hot pleasure the only things left in the whole universe. She’d made love before, but never like this. This was the connection of two souls through the stifled moans and heady gasps and sweat-slick skin.
“I’m going to…” she managed to warn Dom in a strangled breath seconds before her orgasm shuddered through her body, her nails scraping across his back as she moaned his name. Almost immediately after, Dom swore and grunted, collapsing on her and panting heavily.
They stayed like that, unable to find the energy to move, until the cooling sweat became uncomfortable enough for them to drag their exhausted bodies apart and fumblingly get dressed. “I’m, um. I’m going to go take
a shower, I think,” Aurie said without looking at him, suddenly and inexplicably shy.
“That’s smart,” Dom replied.
“Would it be okay—and you can say no—but, would it be okay if I stayed with you tonight?” She asked, dragging her eyes to his face to see his response.
Dom smiled at her like a sunrise, slow and bright. “Sure. I could use the quiet.”
FIN
Adam
Grizzly Groomsmen I
by
Becca Fanning
If she was being honest with herself, Maya wasn't even sure why she was invited in the first place. Glancing around the crowded room, she sighed, and reached for a glass of champagne; she would need it to get through the rest of the night.
At every wedding she'd been to, there'd been at least one guest who no one knew. She just never thought it would be her. As soon as the email had pinged into her inbox, she'd had a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach, but she knew she couldn't turn the opportunity down. After all, Dina and her had basically grown up together, well, if you considered growing up those formative years between the start and end of college, which Maya did. They'd lived together for four whole years, before Dina had moved in with her s
oon to be husband. And now, Maya was here, with a sunset-hued bridesmaids dress in her closet, tossing back champagne, and staring across at her college roommate and her husband-to-be.
Maya was pretty far from a wallflower most of the time, but right now all she wanted to do was finish out the last of this reception, get to bed, and catch her flight home the next day. Because, of course, Dina couldn't resist taking off to some remote tropical island to hold her wedding. Christ, if Maya had known about that, she probably would have found some way to wriggle out of it, Dina might be all grown up and done with her student loans, but Maya certainly wasn't. Hell, that wasn't the only way Maya was pretty far from being an adult. She was still living in the same rent-controlled apartment in the centre of town she had for almost nine years, she was still single, she was still avoiding calls from her mother. Part of her felt like she should have grown up by now, but, as she kept on reminding herself, she was only twenty-eight. She had plenty of time to figure things out, even if watching the girl she used to do tequila slammers with seven years ago with her fiance was freaking the hell out of her. Maya tried to keep her face nonchalant as she watched Dina show off her ring to some member of the family Maya didn't recognize. All of a sudden, it became far too real, Maya stood up, and headed towards the catering table, trying her best to look nonchalant.
Leeward Bear (BBW Shifter Romance) (Fisherbears Book 3) Page 67