Sleeper

by Katherine Rhodes

  “It was Doctor Dubrovsky’s idea.”

  “For?”

  “When I dream, I sleep. If I can fall asleep long enough to catch REM, I will sleep like the damn dead. Minimum of eight hours, I’ve gone as long as twenty-four.”

  The comprehension lit up his eyes. “One of the biggest side effects of Singulair is vivid dreams.”

  “So if we forced the REM with the side effect…”

  His head bobbed in approval. “That’s pretty damn ingenious of Dubrovsky.” Back to the notepad he scribbled something down again. “Your last sleep test?”

  “Eighteen months. We were doing them every six weeks for that long and nothing was showing up, and I rarely fell asleep.”

  “Apnea machine?”

  “No change.”

  “Do the hallucinations always coincide with the migraines?”

  Only when you touch me and make me think about a potentially huge dick I can ride all night?

  “Not always, but they happen more often when they do coincide.”

  He put the pen down. “You’ve been through all these questions dozens of times, haven’t you?”

  I nodded. “I am an enigma, Doctor. I’m a high-level journal study. I’m used to all of this. The only real rest I get is when I catch one of those dreams. And I haven’t in nearly three months. I’m on the edge of desperate, and it’s going to start pushing me into depression soon. I don’t want to have to give up what I do because I can’t close my fucking eyes.” Or shut off my fucking libido.

  “Are you opposed to another round of tests?”

  “Hey, why not.”

  He glanced at the door and raised his voice, “Doctor—” he cut himself off. “Fuck.” He looked horrified at the swear, but I waved it off. “Sorry. My associate seems to have disappeared for her usual Saturday hours.”

  I coughed, and he eyeballed me.

  This was ridiculous. I ran a hand down my face, and let out a breath. “Look, Laxmi and I hit it off when I was here yesterday and we went on a date. I left her at my place and she and my roommate hit it off even better. She might be at my house right now. They went out for breakfast while I tried to beat this migraine.”

  Fischer

  She was gay.

  “You’re gay?”

  Could I possibly be anymore unprofessional with this woman? At this point I was glad I could manage to keep addressing her as doctor.

  To that point, all I had wanted to do with this beautiful creature in front of me was lay her back on that couch and fuck her senseless. She was curved in all the right places: plump breasts, rounded hips for holding on, legs that were long, but not lean. She could probably kick some serious ass with those gorgeous calves.

  And, she was gay.

  My dick, which had been hard as a rock all this time, twitched in disappointment and started to deflate.

  “I’m bi, actually.”

  And, the hard-on was back.

  Be professional, asshole.

  “You’re confident in that?”

  She nodded. “I never had parents who could disapprove and my aunt who raised me was an absolute nut and didn’t care. I brought home girls and boys, and she made them all tomato sandwiches on white bread and poured them glasses of SunnyD like it was still 1979.”

  The easy manner this woman had was working my professional façade hard. She was also keeping my dick hard. This was insane.

  I cleared my throat. “So we don’t have to worry about that as a potential source of anxiety.”

  She was not confused in anyway, judging my her breathy, husky, quietly suggestive answer. “I wouldn’t say that.”

  Oh. Well.

  I swallowed hard. I really wanted this erection to stop twitching so I could think. The images that had flashed through my head when we shook hands had been utterly indecent and I wanted to see more.

  I had never had that happen before, but I wasn’t willing to dismiss something like that as a mere coincidence or one off. The brain was one of the least understood, most misunderstood organ. After all of my years of research and practice, I was loathe to dismiss anything at all like that. She had clearly been shaken by our shared hallucination, which was why I had not pursued it. The truth was, I wanted to shake her hand again and see what happened.

  Professionally, and personally.

  “I’m afraid we’re going to have to go for another round of tests, just so I can have a fresh view of what’s going on in there. As for sleeping more… I’m not sure what we can or want to do before that. You’ve been through so much therapy and so many drugs that I’m not keen on the idea of changing anything until I have a bigger picture.”

  She nodded. “I appreciate that. Every time we switch up a routine, it seems that my sleep suffers even more. Getting the two hours I usually do now is a vast improvement over previous situations.”

  “Then we’ll start with the tests. MRI, CAT, all with contrast. I’ll have Skylar set them up and send you the time and date for each.”

  “Open MRI, please.”

  “Don’t like to be closed in?”

  “I don’t like to hear the banging without a clear escape. It intrudes on what little sleep I get and drags me into a nightmare.”

  I scribbled down that in the notes. “Nightmares. Get them often?”

  “About half of my dreams are nightmares.”

  “Do you get trapped in those?”

  “Yes.” I saw the shiver run through her body. “They’re horrible. Cruel. Dark, blazing heat. Closed. I’m always stuck, and there’s a rhythmic banging that starts to drive me out of my mind. I can’t get out of the box I’m in, and I can’t get out of the dream.”

  There was the anxiety that I had been looking for. I wrote down a few notes and schooled my reaction to her terror at the nightmare. It might be the only thing that triggered it, which meant this might be a ‘doctor, heal thyself’ situation—as in she needed to talk to therapist to get beyond it. But for the moment, I wanted to run more tests to eliminate problems.

  “Scotch. Double, straight.”

  Wes was shocked at my order, but I needed something. I would have drunk gasoline at that point if it calmed me down.

  “That bad?” He put the glass on the counter and poured my four fingers of the best MacCallan he had hidden, after checking over his shoulder for Matthew.

  “This patient,” I said.

  “Hard case?”

  “Well, something is hard.”

  Pushing the glass at me on the napkin, he raised an eyebrow. “Doctor patient lines being crossed?”

  “She is medically fascinating, and personally I feel like I’m standing next to a whirlpool being sucked in. She’s incredibly hot, incredibly intelligent, and incredibly screwed with her insomnia.”

  Wes smiled. “Sounds like you’re screwed too.”

  I stabbed the counter with my finger. “She had no problem crossing the line with Laxmi.”

  “She’s a lesbian?”

  I took a hard swig of the scotch, and the warm burn felt good. “She plays for both teams.”

  “Is she interested in the contract you’re offering for your team?”

  “I have no idea.” I let out a breath and slumped. “I don’t want to lose her as a patient. I don’t get challenges like hers every day. But God, I’d love to slip into bed with her.”

  “My suggestion? Don’t tip the scales, Doc. Keep the patient. Mary Palm and her five sisters will just have to do the trick for now.”

  I nodded. “I don’t know her. Getting tangled like that risks my license. I’ve already fucked up at CHOP, and this is just going to make everything worse.”

  Wes pulled back. “Wait. What did you do at CHOP?”

  “Fucked up?”

  He cocked his head, and I sighed.

  “I basically told off Gutierrez last night. He wanted me to testify for the kid on the table. I stitched him up, I didn’t see what else I had to do.”

  “And you don’t do bureaucracy.”
r />   Twisting my head, I watched the man. “Am I that predictable?”

  “It’s a mantra with you, Doc. You do what you do best and leave the rest to the others. I’ve heard you say it every time you’ve come in here after a tough case.” He wiped the bar top even though there was nothing there to clean off. “If I might, Doctor Skillman, you might want to consider revisiting that policy. You don’t have to do anything in court but report what you did and what you saw. They never ask you to conjecture on what got them there, or where they would go after. Just the facts, ma’am.”

  It was hard to explain my aversion to the bullshit of the courts to people who hadn’t been through the incident with me. Wes probably knew the most about it, and he was getting tired of my broken record about staying out of it.

  “When someone you love is let down by the courts, and you have to bury them because of that…”

  “Isn’t it worth it try and save them? The way he couldn’t be?”

  “It’s more than that…”

  Wes leaned forward. “It’s lazy, Doc. You’re being a coward. And you can smash whatever bottle you like over my head, but that’s the way I see it.” He crooked an eyebrow at me. “And you’d damn well better go talk to Gutierrez. You know you’re the best brain surgeon in the city. They need you. A little humility wouldn’t kill you.”

  “You’re probably right, Wes.”

  Chuckling and looking for Matthew again, he refilled my glass. “I’m the bartender, I’m always right.”

  “Possibly the only person who’s more qualified to say that than I am,” came a sweet voice I didn’t expect. I turned and found Doctor Warner standing there, resting one hand casually on the counter. She smiled at Wes. “The usual, please, Weston?”

  “Coming right up, Doc.” He grinned.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  I could not manage to get anything decent out of my mouth around this woman.

  “I drink, too. Weston is the best bartender in University City, and I like a good—” Wes dropped a glass in front of her with a smile and salute. “—glass of bourbon.”

  Picking up the glass, she took a swallow. Watching her take that sip was amazing, and seemed to almost happen in slow motion. She tipped her head back just enough to make sure the lips she wrapped around the edge of the glass sealed and allowed the bourbon to slip over them. The creamy expanse of her throat was long and delicate, and she held the glass near her collar as her eyes fluttered closed, shutting me out of the expressive light brown eyes, the long dark lashes resting on the top of her cheeks.

  A look of bliss drifted over her features, and she clearly enjoyed the taste and burn of the rich golden liquid. A moment passed and she swallowed once, her eyes slowly opening again, and searching me out.

  Jesus. Fucking. Christ.

  I nearly came in my pants right there at the bar.

  Resting her glass on the bar top, she leaned in close to my ear. “We’re not in the office. We’re not at the hospital. I’m also not blind and can see that erection you’ve been sporting the whole time I’ve been around you.” Pulling back, her eyes landed on my lips. “I’m curious about that hallucination from earlier.”

  I really felt like I had swallowed my tongue whole, but I finally managed to find it. “What did you see? Out of…professional curiosity.”

  “Mm. Professional curiosity?” Her mouth was close to my ear again. “I saw you, above me, driving into my pussy, wringing pleasure from my body. And you?” Leaning back, she snagged the glass again. “Professionally, of course.”

  Shit, was I going to play this game with her? Was it even a game at this point? Were we flirting? This felt more like foreplay. I didn’t answer right away as I was too taken by her pleasure at the second sip of bourbon.

  “You,” I answered, quietly. “Spread below me, your gorgeous sandy brown hair fanned out on my pillow and your legs wide and welcoming, as I drove my cock into you.”

  I had never quite felt lust like this.

  Another sip of bourbon, and her throat moved slowly. She licked her lips. “Are you still curious about what would happen if we touched again?”

  “Professionally?”

  She shook her head slowly.

  “Wes, charge me for these,” I snapped my words down the bar and saw him wave me an okay. Dropping my attention back to Wren, I choked out my offer. “I live in Manayunk.”

  To my utter disappointment she shook her head and pulled out her phone, quickly scrolling. She glanced up, maybe sensing my disappointment, and gave me the dirtiest smirk. “Too far.”

  I grabbed her wrist as she was still scrolling, and headed out to the street, checking left and right. My car was up in the parking deck and I headed us over to the elevators there.

  “Go down Walnut. It’s at the Cira Center.” That was all she said as she buckled herself into the seat.

  I wasn’t going anywhere yet. I unclicked the belt she had fastened, wrapped my hand around the back of her neck and hauled both of us to the middle of the car.

  There was nothing subtle about the kiss. I sealed my mouth over hers and drove my tongue in to taste her.

  ...the lightning streaked across the sky as I grabbed for her hand. Something was yanking and tearing us apart, a force I couldn’t see. She reached for me, desperate, screaming. There were more people reaching for her, trying to hold her, bring her back.

  A cruel laugh cracked the sky instead of thunder. “You have disobeyed El, and she will suffer the most for your disobedience!” Before we could get our hands on her more solidly, she was ripped away.

  I pulled back, panting. Her eyes were sparking with fear and lust, her chest heaving in time with mine.

  “Is it going to happen every time?” She was as torn between another kiss and the fear of the hallucinations as I was.

  I simply wanted this woman below me naked too much not to risk it. I leaned in and pulled her close. “Let’s find out.”

  She surged forward and caught my mouth this time, her tongue swiping into my mouth, desperate for a taste of me as I was for her.

  Nothing happened.

  Well, nothing happened in regard to a hallucination. Other things happened, like each of us wrestling the other for control of the kiss. She tasted like bourbon and vanilla, and I was suddenly desperate to commit her to memory. I surrendered to demands and let her explore me, licking and sucking my mouth and lips. Her tongue twined around mine and I realized she was inviting me in, and I followed willingly.

  The bourbon vanilla taste was even more powerful, and I explored her desperately. Her tongue slicked against mine, intimately courting me there, offering her mouth as worship.

  It took us a long moment to finally pull back. We stared, breath heaving. She pulled back first, and clicked her seat belt back into the fastener.

  “Drive,” she demanded. “Just go.”

  I threw the car in reverse, and jerked out of the parking spot.

  Wren

  The hallucinations were completely terrifying. They were exactly like the nightmares I got caught in. That this man was experiencing them the same as me also scared the shit out of me.

  But not him. He didn’t scare me at all.

  There was something about him that brought my normally unapologetic libido to a whole new level. I wasn’t shy about sex, but I had never so openly suggested that we had a bed in our future.

  Not without dinner, anyway.

  Bourbon and scotch weren’t dinner.

  I didn’t even care. Between the appointment this afternoon, and the flirting at the bar, I just wanted this man. Everything in my code of ethics was screaming that this was a bad idea, but those few moments in the hallucinations where he was inside me had me tossing my code.

  The hotel I had found was just a few blocks down from the bar where we had been, and there was a valet waiting there. My hands were shaking so much I almost couldn’t get my seat belt undone. But I did as Skillman handed the keys to the valet and grabbed the ti
cket.

  I strode without him to the main desk and checked in, grabbing the two keys and leaving the card for the room charges. Turning I found him standing by the elevators, hand out waiting for me.

  Grabbing his hand we stepped into the elevator. He spun me against the wall next to the buttons, and reached for the panels. “What floor?”

  “Fifty-five.”

  It was the last thing I said before his mouth was on mine again. I felt like he was going to strip my clothes off my body right there. His hand slid around and palmed my ass, squeezing gently. I couldn’t stop the moan that escaped.

  He kissed down my jaw, nibbling down my neck. “At what point does my brain stop calling you Doctor Warner?”

  “Your hand is on my ass. I think you’re good to call me Wren any time, Fischer.” I was really glad he said it, because my brain wasn’t letting go of Doctor Skillman either.

  He laughed, and his breath tickled my skin at my neck. It tripped through me and my nipples peaked. I pressed my body against his, and this time he moaned as my hip found his erection.

  “This elevator is too fucking slow,” I grumbled.

  “It’s fifty-five floors.” He laughed again.

  “I wish I was young enough for backseat car sex,” I answered.

  “Oh, but this is so much better.” His tongue trailed up my neck to my ear, where he nibbled on the shell of it. “I can spread you wide and roll you over, and maybe even tie you up a bit.”

  I shivered at that. A good shiver.

  “Like that idea?” His hand found my breast and palmed it.

  “Yes. Goddamn, how slow is this thing?”

  The bell dinged just a moment later, and the door finally opened to the floor we were on. It was serendipity that no one else needed to get on the car while we rode up.

  Grabbing my hand, Fischer pulled me into the hallway, and found the room number quickly. He dipped the card in the reader and I shoved the door open as soon as it went green.