The Doctor Takes a Detour

by Bren Christopher

  Josh froze as Ian’s arms trapped him against the broad chest he’d been dreaming about. Ian’s mouth pressed against his, tongue flicking the seam of Josh’s lips; asking, pleading for entrance. Ah hell. A shudder went through Josh and he opened, letting in Ian’s tongue to play with his.

  Flames licked along his skin, and he tangled his hands in the dark, soft curls. Tugging Ian closer until they were locked together, he returned the kiss with everything he had.

  When it ended, he dropped his head on Ian’s shoulder. “Damn.”

  “Yeah,” Ian rasped. “Wanna do that again.”

  A throat clearing made them both jump.

  “Maybe . . . um . . . somewhere else.” Lucia gestured toward the glass windows. “Kind of a fish bowl in here.” Her eyes were huge as she looked back and forth between them.

  Beside her, Gabriel simply was standing with his mouth open and a flush on his skin. “Dios mío.” He flapped a hand to fan himself.

  Josh buried his face in Ian’s chest. How the hell had he forgotten they were there?

  Ian twisted his fingers in Josh’s hair and tugged up his head. “Hey, you had dinner yet?”

  Josh blinked at him. That kiss seemed to have short-circuited something in his brain.

  “You gotta be hungry, right?”

  “I don’t—”

  “Don’t what? Don’t eat? Or don’t want to eat with me?”

  “I, uh . . .” Lord, the man was a force of nature, and Josh a bit of flotsam being helplessly dragged along in his wake. Helplessly, and willingly—but there was a really good reason he shouldn’t go home with Ian.

  He just couldn’t remember what it was.

  Josh followed Ian and the others out to the parking lot, his bemused brain unable to process this sudden turn of events.

  “I’ll drive,” Ian said as they headed for the Taurus after walking Gabriel and Lucia to their cars.

  “What? Why?”

  He looked smug. “You might need some recovery time.” He held out his hand for the keys.

  “God, you’re an ass.” But Josh slapped the keys into Ian’s hand because, the truth was, his knees might have been shaking just a bit. And if one kiss could do that . . . He shivered, then glanced at Ian who was, fortunately, too busy climbing into the car to make fun of Josh’s reaction.

  Josh unslung his bag and threw it in the back seat, then climbed into the passenger side.

  Ian started the car, and then pulled out of the lot. “My house is nearby, and I do a mean grill.”

  They’d already turned the wrong way on the road, heading north instead of south back to Josh’s place. Presumptive bastard. Josh sighed. “Sure.”

  “Don’t sound so enthusiastic.”

  Staring out the window, Josh tried his best to think about why this was a bad idea. Besides the risk of Langdon’s wrath which, honestly, was not something that Josh cared about all that much.

  Oh yeah. “Is this some kind of ploy to suck me in even deeper? What if I say I don’t ever want to be involved in—”

  The car lurched hard to the right.

  “What the hell!” Josh braced himself on the dash.

  Ian slammed on the brakes and came to a halt off the side of the road. He popped his seat belt and then leaned over, gripping the back of Josh’s neck and pulling him around to stare into his eyes.

  “Listen,” he growled, his eyes darkly intense from an inch away. “I don’t, um . . .” His gaze dropped to Josh’s mouth.

  Josh licked his lips, and then they were kissing again, tongues going deep as he let out another pathetic whimper.

  Ian moved to his neck, kissing and licking a line down his throat.

  “Oh God.” Josh threw his head back. “I . . . Oh . . .” Heat followed Ian’s tongue, searing his skin and then shooting down through his belly to pool in his groin.

  When Ian lifted his head, Josh croaked a protest. Slipping his hands into Josh’s hair to hold him still, Ian stared into his eyes. “What do you think?”

  Josh looked at him in confusion.

  “That’s what I thought.” But the shake in his voice said he was as affected as Josh.

  After buckling up, Ian pulled out onto the road while Josh resumed staring, unseeing, out the window. He touched his hand to his lips, feeling the lingering heat of that kiss, and then trailed his fingers over the slight roughness left behind by Ian’s evening bristles.

  Finally, he blew out a breath. “You don’t do things halfway, do you?”

  Ian slipped a hand onto Josh’s thigh and gave it a squeeze, then let it rest there. “Where’s the fun in that?” Driving with one hand, he petted Josh’s leg, stroking the inside of his thigh and playing with his seam almost absently, until Josh was so hard it hurt.

  If this was a scheme to suck him into working at Ian’s precious clinic, Josh was well and truly fucked.

  “Steak or chicken?”

  Josh looked up from the wicker chair on Ian’s deck. He’d been gazing out over the moonlit waters of the bay, but the sight of Ian at the grill was just as fascinating. With the leather jacket gone, Josh had a clear view of tattooed arms flexing under the body-hugging shirt as Ian lit the fire.

  “Whatever you’re having.”

  Josh watched Ian as he went back inside through the sliding glass door, his gaze lingering on a solidly muscled ass outlined in form-fitting jeans.

  He turned back to the water view. It was lovely, but he’d expected to be thrown up against a wall as soon as they’d stepped through Ian’s door.

  That hadn’t happened. Oh, it almost had. Ian had pushed him against the door, shoved his face an inch from Josh’s and then stilled, blinking.

  Josh had waited, almost afraid to breathe. After a contemplative moment, Ian had gotten them a couple of beers and pulled him out to the deck instead of doing . . . whatever it was he’d almost done.

  With the neglected beer dangling from his fingers, Josh had gaped at him while Ian flashed him a wicked grin. “I’m starting dinner. You’ll need your strength.”

  So here Josh sat, staring out at the water with a semi in his pants, telling himself anticipation would make it all the better later.

  “Cocktease,” he muttered into his beer.

  “What was that?” Ian had come back out and settled in the chair next to him.

  “Nothing.”

  “Huh.” He took a swig. “Steaks are marinating. They’ll be ready as soon as the grill is hot enough. Shouldn’t be long.”

  “I’m in no hurry.”

  “No?” Ian teased. “You sure about that?”

  “No rush at all,” Josh said firmly. A flash of white caught his eye as a night-feeding bird glided by, apparently looking for a fish jumping a little too high out of the water, or a turtle climbing onto the knobby knees of the cypress trees. “I can’t believe you have a water view.”

  Ian’s small house perched on the bay, held up on stilts at the edge of the water. Cypress and mangroves grew along the coast in a tangle teeming with life. A couple of large buttonwoods and more cypress meandered along the edges of the backyard and dotted the front, lending privacy from the nearest neighbors.

  “No beach,” Ian said. “The ground’s too soft for building anything with a solid foundation, and the sandbars and mangrove islands keep the water stagnant. It’s great for wildlife, but not much good for resorts.”

  “No swimming?”

  “Hell no. The gators and the mocs are bad enough when they wander on up. You don’t want to be throwing yourself into their jaws.”

  Josh stiffened. “Mocs? As in water moccasins?”

  “Good thing we’re both ready for any emergency, right?”

  “I should have brought my kit in from the car.”

  Ian chuckled. “I’ll save you, baby.”

  Stupid, but the baby made his heart give a weird lurch, though Ian clearly didn’t mean anything by it.

  Josh leaned back and let his gaze drift from the tangle of greenery along the water’s
edge below the deck to the ocean beyond, and then out to the horizon. An occasional cloud scudded across the gleaming stars.

  A rustle broke the silence as Ian shifted in his seat.

  “Do you get a sunset?” Josh asked.

  “A gorgeous one.”

  “That makes it worth it, I guess.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The feeling I have that this house is going to fall into the water during the next strong storm.”

  Ian slanted him a look. “This house was built by my great-grandfather in the forties after he retired from sponge diving up the coast. I don’t think it’s going anywhere.”

  “Sponge diving? Really?”

  “Sure. Lots of work for Greek immigrants in the early 1900s, diving for sponges. When my propappous couldn’t work anymore, he brought the family south and built this place. The vegetation and the sandbars provide a natural breakwater against high winds and storm surge.”

  “Good to know.”

  “City boy.” Ian dropped a hand onto Josh’s arm, gave it a squeeze, and then let it settle there.

  Josh contemplated the tattooed hand resting rather possessively on his own arm. “Soldier boy.”

  He set his beer down and then traced the tattoos with one finger, careful not to dislodge Ian’s hand. The tattoos weren’t full-sleeve, but he had plenty of them; a hodgepodge of places he’d presumably been, medical and military insignia, a few names peeking out from under his shirtsleeves. Full, beautiful color mixed with crudely drawn single ink. Every one of those tats had a story, and Josh wanted to know them all.

  Ian ran his hand along Josh’s arm. “Maybe I’ll show you the rest of them later.”

  “Maybe I’ll let you.”

  Ian snorted, as if the thought of the evening ending any other way but with them in bed was ridiculous.

  “Hey,” Josh protested. “I’ll have you know I don’t normally put out on the second date.”

  “Second?” Ian frowned, then his brow cleared. “You’re counting that lunch at the hospital.”

  “We ate. We talked. Hell, we kissed. It was a date.”

  “Damn. I wish I’d realized that at the time. I’d have called in sick and dragged you back here.”

  “Did you want to?”

  “Hell yeah. Since I first saw you.” He rose to bring out the meat from the kitchen, leaving Josh blinking after him, his heart caught in his throat.

  When the steaks were grilled to perfection, they moved to the table with citronella candles to keep the bugs at bay.

  “I’ve thought about screening in the deck, but I hate to lose the open air.” Ian dished out the baked potatoes and salad he’d thrown together to go with the steak. “And the open space for the grill.”

  The small white clapboard house had an outsized wraparound wooden deck. “Take that corner and screen it off?” Josh suggested. “Just enough space for a table and chairs. Like a gazebo, sort of.”

  “Yeah.” Ian didn’t take his gaze from Josh. A small smile played at the corners of his mouth. “That’s a good idea. I don’t have the tools here, but my dad does. If he helped, we could knock it out in no time.”

  When he said we, did Ian mean him and his dad, or . . .

  “It was your idea,” Ian pointed out. “The least you can do is help.”

  Josh felt himself being sucked into something else, unable to see how deep he was sinking until it was too late to get out. Only this time, it wasn’t the clinic. It was Ian’s life, his family. “Getting ahead of yourself, aren’t you?”

  Ian stared down at his plate. “Sorry. I’m a little . . . Like you said, I don’t do things halfway and sometimes I . . .”

  Josh touched his hand across the table. “Don’t worry about it.”

  A grin flashed across Ian’s face, curving his full lips. God, he was a handsome man. Josh let his hand linger on Ian’s, let his gaze lock on Ian’s eyes.

  Ian’s smile faded. He looked down again with a slight flush to his cheeks.

  Josh raised a brow. So Mr. Toppy wasn’t always so toppy, after all. “Why the hell aren’t you taken?”

  Ian shrugged. He gave Josh’s hand a squeeze and then resumed eating. “Haven’t met anyone around here.”

  “Around here?”

  “I was seeing someone in the Army, but he got out before me and never kept in touch. I thought . . . Well, it doesn’t matter what I thought.”

  “Of course it matters, but he was obviously an idiot, so you’re better off. Anyway, you’ve been out, what, three or four years? Don’t tell me there aren’t any gay men around. South Florida has plenty of opportunity. Maybe not so much right here in this town, although that Gabriel is a cutie.”

  “A very young cutie.” Ian’s eyes narrowed. “Why? You like him?”

  “Not my type.”

  “No?” The slight tension left him. “And what exactly is your type?”

  Josh contemplated the muscles sliding under tattooed skin, the teasing mirth lighting dark eyes. “I’m not sure anymore.”

  A smug grin flickered on Ian’s face. “I might ask you the same. Mr. Marcus what’s-his-name have something to do with your currently available state?”

  “Good deflection.”

  “Not so good if you noticed. But seriously, it seems like you split not long ago if he’s calling and getting you all riled up.”

  “We were together two years but called it quits about six months ago. He was—is—an administrator at the hospital where I worked in New York.” Tall, trim Marcus. Organized, skilled and precise in life and love. Not a tattoo on him.

  Josh watched Ian scratch the dark stubble on his face as he put the timeline together in his head. “That’s when you were attacked. But I’m guessing he’s not the one who ended it.”

  Josh pushed the remains of his steak around on his plate with his fork. “I told you about the cost-cutting measures that resulted in a dangerous lack of security?”

  Ian nodded, then his eyes widened. “Wait . . . a hospital administrator? Are you saying he was responsible?”

  “Saving the hospital money. That was his job, wasn’t it?” Bitterness showed in his voice, despite his attempts to move past it.

  “So you blamed him?”

  “Hell yes, and maybe that wasn’t fair. He insists it isn’t—that he was only doing his job. And maybe—just maybe—I could have gotten past that. But . . .”

  “But?”

  He clearly had Ian’s full, alert attention. “He never came to see me in the hospital. Not once.”

  Ian sat back. “The hell?”

  “Because he couldn’t make it look like the hospital had any blame.” Josh’s spine stiffened at the return of the familiar hurt and anger that had consumed him during the weeks following the attack. “He basically ignored me so the whole mess would get as little attention as possible.”

  Unexpectedly, Ian grinned. “I bet the ignore it and it’ll go away strategy didn’t work with you.”

  “When I told the police the story, including the lack of security, the newspapers got hold of it, and damn straight when they came calling, I told them what I thought of the hospital policies that did nothing to protect the workers who gave their all every day.”

  “Go you.”

  “Yeah, but the hospital publicity machine was a lot bigger than me, wasn’t it? Marcus and the other administrators spun the story. Tried to make it seem like it was my fault, like I was careless, even that I provoked the attack.”

  “That’s insane.”

  “Some of the other staff corroborated their claims.” That had hurt almost more than Marcus’s betrayal. They’d been afraid for their jobs, he knew that, but how could he ever have worked with them again? “All this while I was in the hospital and then recuperating.”

  “By yourself?” His horrified look sent warmth through Josh’s chest.

  “Well, I was living with Marcus—”

  “Oh God.”

  “I didn’t go home to him. I stayed with a
friend of mine, an ER nurse. She was great. She kept me informed of the rumors around the hospital and took care of me until I was on my feet again. But she had a husband and two kids, so I didn’t want to overstay my welcome. As soon as I could, I sublet a small place, went to Marcus’s while he was at work, and got my stuff.”

  “And he didn’t come after you? Try to find you?”

  Josh shook his head. The silence from Marcus had been deafening.

  “But he’s calling you now.”

  “It’s all blown over, so he thinks we can go back to the way things were.”

  Ian frowned at him, a line between his brows.

  “Never gonna happen,” Josh assured him. “Even if I go back to New York someday, Marcus is out of the picture.”

  “Oh.” Ian’s face was unreadable in the dim light.

  Something had happened to the teasing mood they’d maintained for the last hour, and Josh desperately wanted it back. He stood. “Let’s clear these dishes.”

  They moved inside, carrying the dishes to the sink. Ian’s hand landed on Josh’s back as Ian leaned past him to add his dish to the pile.

  Josh smiled up at him. “You cook a mean steak. That was—”

  Ian turned him and landed a kiss on his mouth. Josh opened for him, the heat running over his skin as arousal hit him hard. He wrapped his arms around Ian’s back, twisting the soft T-shirt to pull him closer, close enough to rub from mouth to knee. When Ian’s hard length pressed against his, he let out a helpless moan.

  Ian panted against his lips. “Love the noises you make. God, so hot.”

  “You like the sneak attack too.”

  “I may have a bit of an impulse-control problem.” He pushed Josh against the counter, trapping him between his legs and then grinding against him.

  Waves of pleasure radiated up Josh’s spine, almost enough for him to disregard the counter’s edge cutting into his back. He buried his face in Ian’s neck, breathing in his scent: something woodsy, a hint of smoke from the grill, a little clean sweat. He took a deep breath and then kissed his way up to Ian’s ear, giving the lobe a playful nip before he worked his way back around to Ian’s mouth.

  Ian chuckled against his lips as he threaded his fingers through Josh’s hair, holding him still. “Oh, you’re a biter. I would never have guessed.”