by Evie Monroe
“And guys who wear suits and are old enough to be your father. You know how to have fun.”
“He is not!” she said, so passionately her tea sloshed over the cup’s rim and onto the saucer. “He’s only a few years older than me. And he’s a good man.”
I took a gulp of the tea. It didn’t taste much better than the cracker, and it burnt my mouth. “You can’t seriously tell me a guy like that can get you off.”
Her eyes widened. “I’m not talking about this with you.”
But she didn’t move. Her pretty ass seemed fastened to that little box. So I tried again. “What, your own daddy ignore you? Is that it?”
“No,” she said flatly.
I could tell that I’d hit a nerve. And whenever I got close to the core of things, I didn’t let up. I dug and pushed until I pinned my quarry. “You needed someone to fill the space in your heart when he walked out on you?”
Her blush dissolved into a frown. “If I wanted someone who reminded me of my father, I’d be with you.” She stood up so quickly that the tea did spill, all over the wood floor. She let out a curse and stomped off to the kitchen.
So her daddy was a biker? I didn’t believe it. Not her. But it made sense. How else would she have known that those guys in the lobby were from a rival club? She walked the walk.
She came back a minute later. I smirked at her. “You mean your daddy was devilishly handsome?”
She ignored my joke and frowned at the mess. “Ugh. I don’t even have any paper towels!”
I reached for my bloody scrubs shirt and tossed it at her. She dropped it on the ground and started to swab up the mess. “Thanks,” she said, sinking to her knees. Then she added, more quietly, “My father was in the Devils’ Army. He died when I was thirteen, though.”
I could see the pain there. I would’ve pushed it with anyone else. But she looked so damn fragile. And she’d just gone through hell for me. So I didn’t. “Gotcha.”
She gave me a sad smile. “And yes, I’ve been on my own since then. Living with my cousin. But my cousin had her own family and life to worry about since she wasn’t much older than I was. To cope, I threw myself into my studies. Michael was the first man I ever . . .”
She trailed off, leaving me to think . . . Holy shit.
That old dude was the only guy she’d ever been with?
“So . . . what about you?” she said suddenly. “You live in Aveline Bay long?”
I nodded. “My brother and I came up from Southern California when I was a teen. After my mom died. My dad’s been out of the picture for a long time. Been here ever since.”
“Your brother?”
“Nix. Guy who visited me in the hospital.”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “I know him. He’s in the club with you. Said no way in hell would you be giving up just because of a little gunshot wound to the stomach.” She rolled her eyes.
I laughed at her. “Well . . . you gotta know, ‘cause of your daddy. You know it before you go in. When you sign up, it’s forever.”
She sucked in a breath and nodded. “Right. You leave this life before you leave the club.”
Damn. The girl was smarter than I thought.
Chapter Nine
Nora
“Why are these men after you, Jet?” I asked. “Why do they seem so keen on ending your life?”
He smirked. “Our war with the Hell’s Fury’s been brewing for a while. They threatened our girls. Bombed our place. Tried to take over our turf in Aveline Bay. A couple of nights ago, we went in to rescue a girl. The president of their club shot me,” he said matter-of-factly. “They want all of us dead, but I was an easy target.”
I listened to all this, my throat going dry. “There has to be a way to pull back, though. Maybe not leave the club, but not be so involved in it that you’re risking life and limb.”
He shook his head. “I’m Sargent at Arms, hon. Officers don’t take this job intending to half-ass it.”
I tried to sip my tea, but my hands shook. Jet spoke about all of this so easily, and he sounded just like my dad. “My father was Road Captain of the Devil’s Army. You sound so much like him.”
“He died for the club.” It wasn’t a question. He already knew.
I nodded. “A rival gang gunned him down in my front yard. He died in my arms, as I was holding him in my lap, trying to stop his bleeding. I didn’t have a clue how to stop it, so, I made sure I learned. No matter what I had to sacrifice.”
When we finished the tea, I grabbed the scrubs shirt, placed it on the tray and walked back to the kitchen, knowing Jet’s eyes were on my ass. My knees wobbled as if he were physically pushing me over.
I twisted the faucet to cold and scrubbed at the bloody, tea-stained shirt. Luckily, the stain was fresh, so it came out easily. When I finished, I spread it out and draped it over the oven handle to dry.
“So what made you move up here to Aveline Bay? Bet a thousand hospitals were fighting to get a crack at a surgeon like you,” he called into the room, his voice echoing through the hall.
“Michael,” I called back as I cleaned up the cups and saucers, taking my time because I was afraid to go back to him again. “I met him down in L.A., but this is his hometown. He was born and raised here.”
“So he made you come up here to be with him? Sounds like that prick makes you do a lot of things.”
“No,” I murmured, even though Jet had hit the nail on the head. Michael always saw me as the little innocent who needed him for her own good. He often just took on big decisions for me, as a mother would do for her child. “He’s not a prick.”
“Sweetheart. He’s as prickly as they come. He ain’t even good-looking. I can’t for the life of me think of what you see in him. He can’t get you off, can he?”
I scowled. “Why are you so obsessed with sex?”
I heard him laugh. “The only reason you aren’t is because you’ve never had good sex, baby.” I could almost see that sly smirk of his. “If you need help, I’m your man.”
Ugh. I got the feeling this kind of persistence worked for him. I could feel it chipping away at me, little by little. Enough of it, and I’d collapse like a house of cards, probably like every other woman he’d used it on.
After that, he was quiet for a few minutes while I finished rinsing out the cups. I didn’t have a rack, so I left them on the granite counter next to the sink to dry. When Jet still hadn’t said anything, I started to worry whether he was okay.
I walked around the boxes to find him peering into one that he’d opened. I cringed, hoping it wasn’t anything weird. Before I could get too worked up, he reached in and pulled out a bottle of Grey Goose. “Fuck, yeah. So you do know how to party.”
I most definitely did not know how to party. Leisure time was one of those things I sacrificed when I became a doctor. I’d never been at a party where tea wasn’t served in my entire life. I shook my head. “Someone gave me that when I graduated from med school.”
To confirm it, he blew a layer of dust off the bottle. “That’s okay. Ain’t Tito’s, but it’ll do. Got some glasses?”
I shook my head. “I don’t—”
He’d already started leafing through the box. He pulled out a paper-wrapped thing that was probably one of my orange juice tumblers. Great.
“Come on,” he said, unwrapping two of the tumblers. “It’s gotta be fate. And a hell of a lot more fun than tea and cardboard.”
I remembered thinking my finding the tea kettle in the first box I’d looked through was fate. This? This was probably suicide. I gave him a tight smile. “Actually, I don’t drink.”
From the expression on his face, he expected an answer like that. “Why’s that?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I had champagne once, at a wedding. I didn’t like it. And maybe it has something to do with my cousin’s husband being a drunk. I always had to clean up his empty beer cans whenever I wanted to go to sleep. I always looked at him as the model of who not to be.”
“Eh,” he said, opening the bottle and pouring two glasses of the clear liquid. “This is different.”
“Wait,” I said. “When did you have your last dose of pain meds?” No way was I going to let him drink on narcotics. Not in my house.
“Uh, yesterday? I was due for another hit when you sprang me from that place.”
I breathed a sigh of relief and sank to my knees in front of the couch, fell to my backside and crisscrossed my legs. I tipped my head to the glass. “In what way is this different?”
“First. This is vodka, not beer or champagne. Second. I don’t like drinking alone. Third. I’m in pain, so consider this medication. And fourth, you’re shaking. You gotta relax.”
I looked down at myself. I thought I’d done a good job at containing the jitters that had been multiplying in my body since we’d started our escape from the hospital. After all, I was supposed to be the Ice Girl. But he was right. My hands were shaking. And I was a goddamn surgeon. That wasn’t good. “There are better ways to relax than getting shitfaced.”
“Agreed. But you already said sex was out of the question. So I’m settling.”
God, I’d stepped in it that time. I tensed, and all those fantasies I’d been having about him back in the hospital threatened to invade. I didn’t think he noticed the way I flushed because he was too busy guzzling his drink.
He set it down and grinned. “Good shit.” He poured himself another and motioned to mine.
I picked it up, contemplating. Michael wasn’t anti-alcohol. He always asked if I’d like a cocktail when we went out to his fancy dinners, but I usually declined. He had a full bar in his apartment and always had wine with dinner or scotch before, but I was never tempted to join him. But the temptation to join Jet? It was overpowering. Exciting, even.
I guessed a couple little sips wouldn’t hurt. And maybe it’d get me to calm down. It could be a good thing.
Aware of his eyes on me, I brought it to my lips and took a small nip of the vodka.
It burned a trail down my throat. I coughed, set the glass down on the floor and clutched at my chest, thinking I might have scarred my esophagus for life.
“Good, huh?” he said with a grin.
“Ouch,” I croaked.
“Couple more and it’ll be going down like water,” he said, tossing back his second. Just like it was water.
“I don’t know if I want more after that,” I said, staring at it like it was laced with poison. Then I took another sip anyway. He was right. It didn’t burn so much now. In fact, the warmth had settled through my body very pleasantly.
He poured himself another glass. Clearly, this was something he did a lot, since he was still coherent after two glasses, and I was feeling a little swimmy in the head after two sips. I told myself I should probably stop, but then I looked at the glass and decided it would be a shame to waste it. A little more wouldn’t kill me. I took a bigger sip.
He held out his glass. “Toast?”
I didn’t mind the taste of the stuff anymore. I pushed up onto my knees, ambled closer, and clinked my glass to his. “To what?”
“Good health.”
I smiled.
He started to drink, then stopped, pensive. “’Course that’d put you out of a job.”
I shook my head. “Nah. There’d still be plenty of guys like you deciding it’s cool to get shot at.”
He shrugged then looked down at his bandage. It wasn’t bleeding anymore, but that wasn’t what had caught my eye. He was lying there, bare-chested on my old sofa, his loose, blood-stained scrubs-bottoms low on his hips to accommodate the bandage and all those wicked thoughts of touching and tasting him dancing in my head. He had the most magnificent body I’d ever seen.
He must’ve noticed me staring because that smirk threatened to come back. I pretended to look at his pants. “I should probably wash the stains out of those.”
He reached for the tie and my face heated as I realized what was about to happen.
“Later!” I blurted, already averting my eyes. “I don’t have anything else for you to wear!”
He chuckled. “I don’t get it. Don’t you see naked bodies all the time, doc?” When I didn’t answer, he added, “You have a towel, maybe?”
I looked around. “The bath towels are probably upstairs. In boxes. Might take a while to find you one. But I could.”
He lifted his hands over his head to yawn but then winced in pain. “I feel like shit. Am I allowed to take a shower with all these staples?”
The image of him showering, drops of water dancing on his skin, was almost too delicious to bear. I took a larger gulp from the glass and swallowed. “Sorry. You’re in sponge-bath city, sweetheart.”
I caught myself as I was saying it. That was definitely not something the sober Nora Benson would say. And since when had I ever called anyone sweetheart? A little voice inside me told me to take it easy on the vodka, but a louder voice overpowered it, saying actually, this felt good. I felt cool. Witty. Invincible. Like I could hold my own against this God of a man.
And when he grinned at me like I was really amusing, wild horses couldn’t have pulled me away from my next drink.
“You offering?” he asked.
I blinked. Was I? Maybe. Giving sponge baths wasn’t really in my wheelhouse since nurses handled that. But I was a doctor. And I’d vowed to take care of him. If he wanted one, I could do it. “Do you want a bath?”
“Haven’t showered in three days. So that would be a hell yes.”
I drained my glass, then tried to get to my feet gracefully, but I had to grab onto the arm of the sofa to stop from pitching forward into his lap. “All right,” I said, looking around. “Let me check upstairs. At least I’ll find you a towel.”
I climbed the stairs, knowing I was setting out on a dangerous path, but also that I couldn’t stop even as I had the rope tightening around my neck. The movers had dropped off fewer boxes upstairs. I found the one with the bathroom linens easily. I grabbed a few towels and washcloths, and a bottle of body wash then went into the bathroom. I’d loved this place because I wasn’t a tub girl—baths took too long. Just the shower in this bathroom was nearly double the size of my cousin’s whole bathroom. It was a walk-in, with a wall of frosted cubes of multicolored glass, a big bench, and a massive rain showerhead. During my first tour of the place with the realtor, it’d probably been my favorite room of the house.
Was I really going to give him a sponge bath here? If I did, it’d likely end up being my least favorite room. I’d probably never to go back into this room without thinking of Jet and feeling guilty.
But it was just a bath. He was my patient. Somewhere, in my liquor-muddled doctor brain, it all made sense.
I went down the stairs, swaying a little. I grabbed the banister to steady myself and just gazed at him for a while. Maybe it was the liquor, but he looked sexier than ever.
When he looked over and caught me staring, I quickly threw the towel over to him. “Here you go. Take off the pants, and I’ll rinse them out and hang them to dry. Our washer and dryer aren’t hooked up yet.”
I turned around to give him privacy, but he said, “Don’t worry, baby. I ain’t shy, remember?”
Oh, but I was. I couldn’t trust myself at all. In the hospital, at least I had fear on my side preventing me from taking that extra step and touching the gorgeous buffet of man in front of me. Now, with liquid courage coursing through my brain, that barrier was all but gone. I was in trouble. But I didn’t care. The alcohol had erased whatever aversion I had to moving forward. I wanted whatever I was heading for. I welcomed it.
So I turned around. But he’d already removed the scrubs and put the towel around his waist. He tossed the pants to me.
I caught them. “Okay. Well. Come upstairs, I guess. It’ll be easier in the bathroom. Or do you need help?”
He gingerly maneuvered himself to the edge of the couch and pushed up. “I can handle it.”
He slowly follow
ed me up the stairs to the bathroom, and when he stepped inside, he whistled in a way that echoed in the huge, tiled room. “Nice digs. You could sponge bath a whole football team in here.”
I did my best not to notice that he dwarfed that towel. It was one of the big ones, too. It barely covered his muscular thighs and the end of his bandage, hanging only a centimeter below his package. I’d seen all of him before, and I was tipsy, so I shouldn’t have been so hyperaware of his nakedness.
But I was. And I was definitely not thinking of his body in clinical terms.
I wanted him so bad that I was practically drooling, and my nipples puckered under my athletic bra. I sucked in a breath, kicked off my shoes, stepped into the shower, and turned the faucet. Then I stepped out and motioned to the shower. “Go ahead and sit on the bench.”
He took a step, then stopped. “You gonna get naked, too?”
I’d been doing my best to brace myself for what came next—namely, him, whipping off that little towel—that I almost didn’t hear what he said. Even inebriated, his suggestion shocked me. “No. Of course not.”
“If you’re gonna be washing me, you’re gonna get wet. Really wet. Just sayin’.”
I did my best to avoid the double entendre, and also the fact that I already did feel very wet between my legs. Like, Niagara Falls-wet. But I most definitely wasn’t going to strip in front of him. I lifted my chin and said, “Oh well. Then I’ll get wet.”
He shrugged. Then without warning, so I got a full view of that hard ass of his, he slipped off the towel, slung it over the cube wall, and stepped inside, settling himself down on the bench, out of the stream of water.
I think if I’d polished off that entire bottle of Grey Goose, it still wouldn’t have been enough to deaden me to the effect of the mere sight of him on my body. I took a few deep breaths, mentally preparing myself for the job ahead—oh God, I’d be touching him— and followed him.
I placed the soap bottle down on the bench beside him and squeezed the dripping washcloth with both hands, my heartbeat thrumming out of my chest. He was so beautiful, sitting there, waiting for me to take care of him. And the alcohol really made me want to take care of him. It made me horny, like I wanted to sit on his lap and kiss those pretty lips of his.