Better Than Me (A Remington Medical Contemporary Romance)

by Kimberly Kincaid

  She said it so cheerfully that Jonah almost let it go. Almost. “That is great, but you can have both, you know.”

  Her laughter was of the don’t-be-silly variety. “I don’t need both.”

  Jonah couldn’t be sure if it was the way Natalie always put herself last, or the fact that the always part was only just becoming so clear to him, but either way, something made him say, “But you deserve both.”

  Natalie blinked. A sound crossed her lips, too breathy for a simple exhale, but not something that qualified as a full-blown sigh, and Jonah recognized the error of his ways, too late.

  Not that he’d have taken things back if he had, because fuuuuuck, whatever it was, that sound had been hot.

  Jonah cleared his throat, mentally thumping himself on the back of the head for being a dumbass. “I mean, it doesn’t have to be anything fancy or big-deal. Hell, you could check yourself into a hotel for a night and sit around in your bathrobe, ordering room service and binge watch those rom coms you love the whole time.”

  Natalie let go of a rare giggle, and Christ, it was just as appealing as the sigh. “Or eat cake for dinner.”

  “That’s the spirit,” he said. “But really, you should do something you’ve always wanted to. Just for you.”

  “I’ll think about it,” she said, her tone marking the words as genuine. “Anyway, I’m going to go do a little more research on lymphoma therapies before I crash. I’m doing a bile duct reconstruction on an infant in the morning, and I’m going to need to be on my toes to fix that little guy up. Will you let me know if you hear anything from your oncologist friend in Tampa?”

  “Sure.” Jonah nodded.

  She grinned, unfolding herself from her bar stool and leaning in to squeeze his forearm. “Thank you. Call me crazy, but I have a really good feeling about it.”

  As Jonah watched her walk down the hall with her T-shirt off her shoulder and a happy little hum drifting up from her throat, he made a mental note to make sure she did more than think about having cake for dinner.

  5

  Natalie stood outside of Jonah’s bedroom with a basket full of toiletries in one hand and her chest full of indecision. She’d waited as long as possible to get to this moment, brushing her teeth and choosing her clothes for the day and putting on a pot of coffee before stripping out of her pajamas and slipping her bathrobe around her shoulders. But she had to be at the hospital early for rounds, and with back-to-back surgeries scheduled after that, she needed to be in the shower like five minutes ago.

  The same shower that stood on the other side of Jonah’s bedroom door, and was the only one of its kind in his entire apartment. Which meant she was going to have to go into his bedroom and wake him up if she wanted to access the spray and suds.

  Hence her indecision.

  Squaring her shoulders, Natalie shook her head. This was stupid. Of course she didn’t want to wake Jonah up, but she didn’t have a choice. She needed to shower so she could go to work and save lives. Raising her non-toiletries-holding hand, she knocked softly on the door.

  “Jonah? It’s me. Natalie.” Suave stats: negative ten. Who the hell else would be knocking on his door at six in the morning? “I’m sorry to wake you, but I need to take a shower.”

  A low, masculine murmur of acknowledgment sounded off from the other side of his door. It wasn’t quite verbal, but it also wasn’t a screaming “don’t come in!”, and Natalie couldn’t be choosy. She cracked the door open, using the light from the hallway to tiptoe over the threshold without breaking her neck.

  Jonah’s bedroom was basically tidy, with the exception of the king-sized bed smack dab in the middle of it that was obviously unmade and rumpled because it was still occupied. He lay on his back on the side of the bed closer to the spot where she stood, one arm thrown over his head, his chest rising and falling in a deep, steady rhythm. He must’ve replied in his sleep, Natalie realized, but that wasn’t the thing causing her heart rate to spike and her stomach to twist behind the sash of her bathrobe.

  In the throes of sleep, Jonah had shoved the covers off his shoulders and all the way down to his waist, and he was beautifully, gloriously, completely shirtless.

  Oh, shit, what if he slept naked?

  Sweet baby Jesus, please let him sleep naked.

  Natalie wrenched her eyes to the bathroom door even though they’d only been on Jonah long enough to register that he was A) still snoozing, and B) sans shirt. For the love of all things sacred and precious, he was her. Best. Friend. Not that it was okay to ogle a stranger, or anyone, in their sleep, because it most certainly was not. But now the split-second image of Jonah’s bare torso was stamped across her mind’s eye, and her imagination was doing triple-time wondering what the rest of him might look like. Whether or not his hips and legs were as tightly muscled as his chest. If his smooth, golden skin was as soft as it looked.

  How far down that scattering of dark blond hair that started just below his belly button really went, and okay, that was it! Her imagination was officially a ho.

  Straightening, Natalie moved to the bathroom door as fast as she could on her tiptoes, sliding past the threshold and closing the door with a near-silent snick. She locked the door—no sense in taking chances in case Jonah woke up groggy and auto-piloted his way to the loo like most normal people—and turned the water on, adjusting the temperature to a few degrees colder than normal, just for good measure.

  She’d been having a whole lot of really steamy thoughts lately, to the point that it was obviously becoming a distraction. She didn’t want to lose her virginity with just anybody, but maybe it really was time to start treating dating with less complacency. She’d meant what she’d said to Jonah about wanting to adopt one day, and the process could take years. True, she didn’t need a partner in order to be a parent, but having a husband to go with her kids had always been her strong preference. Adopting aside, the longer in the tooth her virginity got, the more Natalie found herself just wanting to be rid of it.

  She was curious. And ready.

  Also, apparently hornier than a sailor on shore leave.

  Brushing the thought—and the heat that had been mutinously growing between her legs—aside, Natalie forced herself to think logically. She couldn’t exactly run her predicament by Jonah. The mere mention of monogamous dating gave him hives the size of silver dollars, and anyway, they’d just gotten over their rare hiccup of awkwardness. She was pretty sure that an “oh, hey, by the way, I’ve never had sex, but I’m looking to change that up if you’ve got any pointers” would send him back around the bend.

  She’d have to ask Tess and Charlie for advice on the down low, at least about dating. Maybe if she actually had sex, she wouldn’t be so hot and bothered all the time. At the very least, it would probably help get the image of Jonah’s muscles out of her head. His chest. Those abs. That joyously happy happy trail arrowing down from his navel.

  Natalie cranked the water as far over to the cold side as she could stand, vowed to talk to her girlfriends as soon as humanly possible, and forced herself not to spare so much as a millisecond’s worth of a glance at Jonah or his muscles when she slipped out of his bedroom ten minutes later.

  NINETY MINUTES after leaving Jonah’s bedroom, Natalie’s panties were in no less of a proverbial twist. She’d managed to slip out of the apartment just as the water had kicked back on in the shower, signaling that Jonah was up and at ’em, then channeled her energy into making sure everything was perfect for her upcoming surgeries. Boldin and Young—who, according to the hospital grapevine (a.k.a. Don) were “sheboinking like teenaged rabbits” (his exact terminology)—were both well-prepared for the bile duct reconstruction, each of them answering Natalie’s questions and taking care of the pre-op lab results and patient prep with efficiency and care.

  Their ambitiousness had allowed Natalie some time to check in on Annabelle, whose tumor resection was surgery number two today. The girl had been snoozing—a good thing, since rest had been few and
far between for the poor kid with all that belly pain. But Natalie had been able to talk with Rachel for a few uninterrupted minutes, to do her best to reassure the woman and calm her understandably frazzled nerves, making sure she’d taken care of herself in the eat/sleep/breathe deeply departments, too.

  After that, she’d had just enough time to track down Tess and Charlie for a quick cup of coffee and a covert looking-for-sex chat before she had to scrub in.

  “Hey,” Natalie said, relief spilling behind her breastbone at the sight of the two of them and no one else in the ED lounge. “Do you guys have a second?”

  “Sure, but if you’re looking for advice on that baby bile duct surgery you’ve got on tap for this morning, I’m probably not going to be of much help,” Tess said. “My expertise in procedures is more crash-bang than slice-stitch.”

  Natalie shook her head. “Just because you’re not a surgeon doesn’t mean you’re not a great doctor. But anyway, this is something more, um. Personal.”

  Charlie’s green eyes lit with immediate interest. “Okay. What’s up?”

  For a second, she nearly balked. But really, how big of a deal could this be? It was just a casual question asked privately among good friends.

  Natalie dug up every ounce of nonchalance she could find and said, “I was actually wondering if I could get your advice on some good places to meet single men.”

  Both sets of eyebrows skyrocketed up to the fluorescent lighting, and crap, it looked like this could be a very big deal. “You want to meet a guy?” Charlie asked, forcing Natalie to nod.

  “Yeah. I just…it’s a long story, but yes. I’d like to start dating, and, ah. Doing some other things.”

  A soft laugh escaped past Charlie’s shock-parted lips. “You mean having more sex.”

  Since Natalie’s pride was nowhere to be found—the mutinous little shit—she just went with a simple, “Yes.”

  Tess recovered quickly, the whole thing seeming to make sense to her. “God bless the almighty orgasm. I say get them while you can. I’m sort of married, which puts me a bit out of the loop here, but have you tried any dating apps?” she suggested.

  Charlie dismissed the idea with a snort before Natalie could ask Tess about the ‘sort of’ thing. “Take it from someone who was single up until recently. Those apps are for screwing, not dating. Which is totally fine if some probably-hot, no-strings-attached, one-night-stand sex is all you’re after, but…”

  She looked at Natalie to confirm that it was, in fact, not all she was after, and ugh, maybe this had been a mistake.

  “No, I’d like to, um. Meet someone I actually see more than a time or two,” Natalie said. She was all for sexual empowerment, but this was her virginity. A one-and-done felt kind of impersonal, as if it were more appropriate for ripping off a Band-Aid than for the maiden voyage of her maidenhead.

  “Right. Today’s PSA: Be selective about what you put in your body. From cheeseburgers to penises attached to douchebags,” Tess said, making Natalie’s cheeks flare with heat. “Sorry,” she added with a matter-of-fact shrug. “I haven’t been legally single in a while, but that seems kind of universal.”

  “No, that’s…that does make sense,” Natalie agreed slowly. “So, no on dating apps, then?”

  “They’re not all bad,” Charlie said with a shrug. “You’ve just got to weed out the weirdos and the jackasses, so it’s a lot of work.”

  “What’s a lot of work?” came a cheerful voice from the doorway, and oh, no, no, no, no—

  Tess looked at Connor and grinned. “Oh, Natalie’s trying to find a man.”

  Well, shit. So much for a private conversation among girlfriends.

  “Ooooh! For fun or for actual legit purposes?” Connor asked, his brown eyes lighting up as he crossed the lounge to park himself on the couch and kick his cross-trainers up on the coffee table in front of him.

  “Both. Right?” Tess glanced at Natalie in question. There was no way she could back out now without drawing attention, and Connor was a good guy. It could be smart to get a single man’s perspective, she reasoned.

  “Yes. Definitely both.”

  “Both, what?” a different masculine voice asked, and sweet God in heaven, how was Emmett Mallory, their ortho attending, in here, too? And—Natalie fought the growing urge to flee—Jonah and Parker were hot on his heels.

  “Oh, it’s nothing, really,” she said with a dismissive wave, hoping it would end the conversation.

  No joy. “Nothing, my ass,” Tess said. “Nat’s on the prowl for a man.”

  “That’s not what I said,” she protested as Parker choked out a laugh and Mallory gave up a nonverbal oh really? Jonah, who was busying himself by filling his travel mug with coffee, remained impassive.

  Mallory, however? Didn’t. “I didn’t know you were looking to date, Kendrick.”

  His interest wasn’t creepy, but it was definitely present, and Natalie’s pulse knocked at her throat. She liked Emmett—they’d known each other for a couple of years and hung out together after hours at The Crooked Angel from time to time. He was a great surgeon, handsome in a dark and slightly dangerous sort of way. But she’d never been attracted to him. No glimmer of longing. No spark to make her belly flip and her other, more southerly bits all giddy with anticipation.

  Mallory must’ve realized that she’d connected the dots, because his slightly stubbled chin hiked upward. “Ah, not for me. I mean, nothing personal, but we work together, and just because Langston made an exception for these two”—Mallory gestured to Parker and Charlie, who had somehow convinced their ultra conservative chief of staff that they could work well together even though they were in a relationship—“doesn’t mean I’m interested in testing his limits. But my brother is single, and he’s a decent guy. He’s a graphic designer. Lives near Landsdale Park, on the south side of the city. I could hook the two of you up for a drink, if you want.”

  “Oh.” Natalie did a lightning-fast balance of pros and cons in her head. She did want to find someone to spend a little time with. If things didn’t work out, there was a small chance of weirdness between her and Mallory, but she was getting ahead of herself, there. It was just a drink. If anything, it was at least worth a shot. Even if she did feel a weird pang of hesitation in her belly at the idea.

  “Okay, sure. Why not?” Natalie said. “I’m in.”

  Jonah frowned from his spot across the lounge. “You’re going to go on a blind date?”

  “It’s better than Tinder,” Connor said, and Jonah’s frown deepened.

  “It’s exactly like Tinder. They’ve never met and they’re going to hook up for drinks.”

  His tone translated “drinks” to “an all-night fuck-a-thon”, but before Natalie could serve up a fresh helping of what the hell, Tess beat her to the punch.

  “No offense, Sheridan, but you’re not usually uptight about this sort of thing. What gives?”

  Just like that, Jonah’s frown made way for an affable half-smile, so quickly that Natalie questioned whether or not he’d frowned in the first place. “Nothing gives. I just want to be sure Nat’s safe, that’s all. You can never be too sure.”

  Heat crept up the back of Natalie’s neck, making her grateful for the long hair that covered what was surely an accompanying flush. She’d practically gone into spontaneous orgasm from one glance at his abs, and here Jonah was treating her like a kid sister. God, she needed to remedy this sex thing worse than she thought.

  “I appreciate your concern, but I’m sure I’ll be fine,” she said lightly. Things had just gotten back to normal between her and Jonah (ogling aside). The last thing she wanted was for him to worry about her.

  Mallory shot a hard stare across the lounge, the muscle across his jaw pulling just taut enough to signal his irritation. “My brother’s not a knuckle dragger, dude. I wouldn’t hook Kendrick up with an asshole, related or otherwise.”

  “Understood, man.” Jonah lifted his hands, mea culpa style. “I’m sure your brother’
s great. Hey, did you get a chance to look at the patient in curtain three yet?”

  “The guy who fell off a nine-foot ladder while putting up Christmas lights?” Mallory asked, blinking twice before following Jonah’s change in direction.

  Charlie looked up in surprise. “Who the hell puts up Christmas lights this early in the morning?”

  “Who the hell puts up Christmas lights this early in the season?” Connor asked with a laugh. “Most people are still working on their leftovers from Thanksgiving.”

  “The guy in curtain three, that’s who,” Jonah confirmed. “Although, right about now, I’m betting he’s questioning the hell out of his Christmas spirit.” He looked at Mallory again. “His head and neck were clear, but he’s still pretty banged up from the fall. Kelly was going to call you in for a consult.”

  Mallory nodded. “Yeah, I actually just saw the guy before I came in here. Vasquez is taking him up to radiology for a full set of films. I’ve got good money on his ulna being fractured, though. Maybe a bone or two in his wrist, too.”

  Relieved to have the topic be something other than her (lack of a) sex life, Natalie dove headfirst into the subject change along with everyone else. “I’m sure Vasquez loved playing chauffeur,” she said, punctuating the words with a smile to keep them out of mean-girl territory. Sofia Vasquez was a good intern—bordering on great in the skills department, actually. But she sure wasn’t shy about her lack of affection for scut, and that included taking patients from point A to point B.

  “I live to torture her with the mind-numbingly boring nature of ortho. Just ask her, she’ll tell you,” Mallory said, laughing. “But that’s okay. One day, she’ll learn we’re not all splints and slings.” Looking at Jonah, he added, “I’ll let you know when the films are back.”

  “Sounds good. I’m going to head upstairs to do rounds. Drake, you in?”