No Good Doctor

by Nicole Snow

  He’s so thick I feel like I’m too small for him. But it’s like my flesh knows what to do even when I don’t, stretching to accommodate his girth. He surges deeper and deeper and deeper in this slow liquid glide. My body seems to mold around him, reshape to take him, until I swear I was made for him.

  And him for me.

  It’s the most glorious feeling I’ve ever known, his heat melting me from inside, radiating through me. For every inch that thrusts inside, I just want more when I can still feel places that are empty, and I need him to fill them.

  There’s no pain, no discomfort. I lose myself completely, clutching at him, rising up to meet him, gasping out his name so needy, so hungrily, rubbing my thighs against his hips and squirming until I feel him writhe and caress inside me.

  God. It’s so good I catch myself crying out mindlessly, feeling like a little animal in heat, bursting with desire and ready to scream myself to pieces.

  Then – oh, mama, then – suddenly there’s one last push. A jolt of pleasure snapping wild and deep through me, and our bodies lock together.

  I feel so much of him in such excruciating, perfect detail. From the flared edges of his head spreading my depths to how thick the base of his shaft is, parting my folds, holding me open and rubbing my clit as he settles inside me with a deep, guttural groan.

  For a single shuddering breath, he holds, and even if his voice is silent, I feel the shape of my name on lips that imprint mine.

  Ember.

  Then he shatters me. His body begins to move – and takes mine with it.

  He’s a human riptide: dragging me deep, drowning me in his heat and piston thrusts. Doc makes love like he lives – intense, slow and measured at first, but then frantic as soon as the tether barely holding him back snaps.

  I want this so much it’s killing me, and I can’t breathe as Gray thrusts, these devastating taunts where he pulls out of me slowly, so slowly. I feel every inch of him gliding inside me and every pulsing empty place he leaves behind, only to drive in deep and swift as if he’s piercing me with a sword-thrust, filling me again and giving pleasure in these explosive rushes that make me scream.

  Gasping, shuddering, I writhe against him with utter abandon. All my muscles clenching up inside as if I can keep him there, hold him inside me, stop him from pulling out again, but he’s unstoppable.

  The mild-mannered doctor is gone. This is Doc, Gray the wild beast. All strength and animalistic fire, all passion and masculinity, everything I need in every touch, in every slow, hot surge inside me.

  He drives me to the brink again and again.

  I wanted to last longer. I thought after he’d made me come a few times, I could hold out, I could wring a few more minutes of this from my aching flesh when I never want it to end.

  But I can’t resist. He’s too powerful. He’s too perfect. He feels too flipping good.

  He feels too right.

  And as he drives into me harder, harder, scorching my clit with his friction, pushing me to the bed, enveloping me in the fire and strength of his body over and over, I can’t hold on.

  I snap.

  I’m totally undone. I know how it feels to lock my body around him and imprint his shape on me from the inside, and it’s the best sensation I’ve ever known.

  I’m going up in flames, the embers inside me ignited to a firestorm.

  But this time I take him with me.

  As I tense, as I clench, as I convulse and thrash and writhe beneath him, he goes rigid, a heavy sound catching in the back of his throat, one that starts as a soft growl and builds to a roar. His entire body turns to granite, but no stone is this molten or vibrant or downright sexy.

  And, his tiger eyes locked on mine, we both overflow.

  We break together, and I feel him spilling inside me, his body mixing with mine until we’re one in sex and heat and churning passion.

  Oh, Gray. Yes.

  My eyes sting with blurring tears – not of pain, but of pleasure, happiness, longing.

  It’s more than I ever hoped it would be.

  He’s more than I ever hoped he would be.

  And after tonight, I never want to imagine anything with Gray that doesn’t end in forever.

  18

  Done Dog Dirty (Doc)

  This girl.

  I feel like Goliath, and she – this small butterfly thing, this woman who should be powerless but still has the strength to move the mountains of grief and self-recrimination living inside me – has brought me down low.

  Like it or not, I’m tamed to her kiss, to her softness, to her touch. Even if I fuck her like the devil, all I feel is this angel’s grace in every taste of her skin.

  Frankly, I don’t think I want it any other way.

  Last night, watching her discover what it means to feel pleasure, was one of the greatest goddamn experiences of my life. To be able to give her that, to see her face transform with confusion, curiosity, desire, then sheer ecstasy; to taste her again and again and watch her give herself to me with such abandon...fuck.

  No doubt about it. She’s changed me. A second fire sweeping through my life, leaving smoke in its wake.

  The first fire left nothing but damaged wreckage inside me.

  But it’s like hers has scoured me clean, burning away all the scars and pain and darkness to leave only fresh, new earth where something new can grow.

  I want to tell myself I’m too old for her. I’m too broken.

  Except it would feel like a lie.

  It would feel like dishonoring her faith. This trust I can’t believe she has for me after knowing my past.

  She’s made it so clear she accepts me just as I am, no matter what I might’ve done before.

  No matter what fucked up burdens I carry.

  No matter the dark purpose that still hovers over me, demanding I answer old demons and make things right for the people of Heart’s Edge.

  Though we only fell asleep a few hours ago after a night tangled in sweat-soaked sheets, discovering each other’s bodies again and again, I’m up with the dawn light. I prop my head up and watch the light streaming in from the window, falling over her sleeping form.

  Ember’s so pale in my arms, her pearl skin and platinum hair too beautiful for this life. But the sunlight gives her color, turning her the softest, most luminescent shade of white gold all over.

  She hasn’t noticed, on the nightstand, the wilted pink flower resting there.

  The one that she put in my hair, that day we walked to the base of the cliff where lovers cast their deepest wishes over the edge.

  So I lean over her, catching the stem of the flower, and tuck it into her hair, weaving it along the locks until the darkened pink petals rest against her hair as if it grew there naturally.

  She stirs lightly at the touch, letting out a soft yawn, murmuring before snuggling deeper into me. Then she cracks one eye open, bright blue turned dark with sleep, peeking at me drowsily through the fringe of her honey-colored lashes.

  That blush – the same blush that caught my attention her first day on the job, and probably damned me from the start – returns, and she offers me a tiny, shy smile.

  “Hi,” she murmurs.

  I can’t help but chuckle. “Hi, Firefly. Sleep well?”

  She nods eagerly. I tuck her hair back behind one ear, grazing the curve with a lingering touch.

  I can’t help myself, she’s so soft all over, and there’s something fascinating about the contrast of her velvety skin with the roughness of my touch. I feel as if I’m at once defiling her and worshiping her, every time I caress her skin.

  Especially when she shivers at the slightest touch and makes me want to completely saturate her in sex and sensuality all over again.

  There’s something about her, this bright-eyed innocence.

  Last night, every time I touched her, it was like the first time all over again.

  This wonder she expressed in every touch. The surprise and delight at her own pleasure turned
my dick to diamond.

  Damn. I can’t help wondering if she’ll always be like this in the years to come.

  An idea that’s equal parts ridiculous and sad.

  As if I could have years with her.

  As if she’d want me for that long, when I’m so broken, claiming her could only be a curse. Hell, it was danger that put her in this bed next to me in the first place. How can I live with that? How can I believe she wants me when I’m the reason she got to star in a thriller scene she never wanted?

  Fuck.

  She might, you fool, some dark, faint part of me whispers. She could want you, Gray, if you’d just 'man up' like the children say and ask her.

  I try not to snort. It’s a younger voice speaking I don’t recognize as part of myself. A more hopeful, determined voice I haven’t heard in so many years.

  After I punched my old man in the face and lived through the war, I thought I could do anything. I thought I’d come home stronger from Iraq, a survivor amid the pain and the bullets and the first big scar I got taking a hot round during an ambush. I thought nothing could be worse than those lives I saved – or the few I couldn’t – good men and women bleeding out on dusty roads as I desperately tried to do hopeless surgeries in hell.

  I still had hope then, before Galentron stole it. That night with the fire, the destruction, the fear, and Leo gutted me out, leaving something hollow. Or something that should be.

  Because I think what scares me is what that voice could be. It might be hope, returning from the void far too soon.

  She’s still watching me, though, misty-eyed and sweet. Goddamn, she makes me smile so much, this unexpected light in the darkness called my life.

  “How you feeling?” I ask.

  “Good,” she murmurs and shifts her body to tangle a little closer to mine, naked under the bed sheets. Little minx. “A little sore, but...” She ducks her head, biting her lip in that fetching way she has. “Not too sore, if you catch my drift.”

  Mercy. It’s like she knows how to pull my every string, capturing my attention until I’m nearly growling, vibrating with the hint of what she’s suggesting. “You want more? Because if you wanted to wear down my caffeine fix with something way more worthy of waking up for, you’ve done it.”

  She dimples, her cheeks growing redder. “I’m just saying I’m not too sore.”

  “Brat.”

  With a rumble that’s trying not to be a laugh, I roll her over, tumbling her back to the bed and pinning her under me. Her reaction is instant – a sharp, indrawn breath that makes her chest heave, those rosy pink nipples peaking, her blush deepening and her lips parting as she looks up at me with dilated, glittering eyes.

  I could devour her whole, this tiny morsel savored as a single sweet bite. My dick jerks something fierce, but there’s a question hanging on my lips that’ll determine how much of a lightning fuck or a slow burn this will be.

  “We have work,” I remind her. Honestly, reminding myself, especially when she moves underneath me, her naked flesh gliding soft and enticing against my rapidly hardening cock.

  I shouldn’t love how small she is under me.

  But it just makes it that much more pleasurable to completely and utterly possess her and fill her when her entire body has to strain to take me. I feel like I’m imprinting myself on her body, making her mine.

  “Do we?” she asks breathlessly. “It’s Saturday, Gray. You have your phone...there are the volunteers...”

  I touch my fingers to her lips, trail them down to her throat. “Are you suggesting we take the weekend off?”

  That teasing smile flares on her pink lips again, almost taunting. “When was the last time you did? You could use a little break.”

  Then she moves again underneath me, spreading her slender, shapely, ever-so-plush thighs to flank my hips, and suddenly it’s not just soft skin against me. It’s soft, wet skin, a pussy begging for relief, and I can smell her arousal, feel how slick she is against my cock, hounding me to delve inside her and make her arch with my name on her lips.

  “Or maybe just a little…stress relief,” she finishes, a wicked, husky edge to her voice.

  Fuck. She’s taken to lovemaking like a fish to water.

  It just makes me crave her more, how wholeheartedly she gives herself over, surrenders her body to mine.

  This is the part where I should be a sane person.

  I should tell myself this is only sex. Two coworkers experimenting. A mistake, maybe, but a beautifully wild one.

  Too bad the way she entrances me with every little thing about her, the way I’ve been refusing to let myself truly see her as a woman for weeks for fear of giving in, just makes me a raving madman.

  It’s not just sex, dammit.

  Maybe I’m not sure what it is, but it’s definitely not just sex.

  Right now, though, sex is definitely first and foremost as I lower myself over her and fit our bodies together more. She moans for me real sweet while I drive into her. I reach down, clasp her ass, pulling her up my shaft. Then I run my fingers along the length of her arms to watch her shiver and her flesh prickle as I coax her wrists up over her head.

  “Wouldn’t mind letting off a little steam,” I growl, leaning down to take her lips for my own. “Know any good workouts, Firefly?”

  Her hips grind into mine, meeting my first thrust. That’s all the encouragement I need to find out how hard we can push this bed before it breaks.

  I drive into her while I attack her mouth. For the next twenty minutes, we’re all twining tongues and lashing hips, thunder growls and piercing screams, manic passion boiling over.

  I bring her off once and hold back the fire in my balls while she comes on my cock. Then I flip her over, mount her from behind, and sink my teeth into the soft, lush part of her hot little ear. “Hold on, Firefly. Here the hell we go.”

  Her hands fly up and clench the sheets while I fuck lightning through her body. Her delectable ass grinds under me as I bring myself down with deep, clit-teasing thrusts, snarling as she clenches around every inch of me.

  She comes for me once, then twice, her nipples seething in my hands. That’s all I can take before my inner beast tears out of me, and I mess us both up something exquisite.

  I’m fucking her right to the brink, holding on tight, bed shaking wildly underneath us as my own fire licks up my balls and electrifies my spine. Then I’m coming harder than I’ve ever come in my life, deep inside Ember Delwen, thunder pouring out my throat even faster than my seed.

  If this sweetness milking my cock for all its worth ends up killing me, remember I died happy. Remember I spent our waking hours pulling every bit of pleasure I could from our flesh and surrendered to the addiction like a man does to a fine cigar.

  I have no plans of going in to work today – or letting her out of my bed.

  By the time we’re done, I’ll know the taste of every inch of her body and how beautifully she sings as I lay claim.

  We’ve worn ourselves out hours later.

  The sun sets through the blinds, casting the entire room in brassy shades.

  Baxter is asleep on our feet. During one of our breaks for food – even if we ended up making a mess on the kitchen table, feeding each other little slices of charcuterie naked and then just spilling everything on the floor when we turned the table into an improv bed – we let the cat out to explore.

  She’s had the night to familiarize herself with the sounds and scents of the house in an enclosed space, so she should feel safer let out into the larger open areas around here.

  She’s made herself right at home. She’s an affectionate cat, and I have trouble believing who owns her. I’ve never known Fuchsia to spare affection for anyone or anything.

  After that cold memory of her looking in at the rhesus monkeys with zero compassion or empathy for their suffering, it’s hard to think she could ever care for this cat.

  So then, who the fuck did she steal her from? Who socialized her this well?


  And what happened to Fuchsia that made her just leave the cat behind?

  I don’t want to think about her. I don’t want to wonder.

  I sure as hell don’t want to worry about that ice-cold monster of a woman again. Whatever happened to her, she deserved what she got, and I hope it hurts somewhere.

  I close my eyes, groaning to myself, pushing a tight hand through my hair.

  Even now, I can’t think that way. Major league bitch or not, she’s another life, and I can’t stand to see anyone else die. Not without due process.

  Maybe that has something to do with the girl drowsing in my arms right now.

  There’s a part of me that wants to see what she sees today. A scarred man worthy of redemption, who wants to save this little world called Heart’s Edge from burning down all over again. And I know Ember wouldn’t want to see Fuchsia dead, no matter how much the woman terrorized and haunted her.

  “Hey,” Ember mumbles sleepily, poking me in the center of my chest. “You’re brooding.”

  I smile faintly. “How can you tell so easily?’

  “You’re tense.” With a shy little giggle, she smooths her hands over my chest. “You’re always rock-hard, but...it’s different.”

  “Rock-hard?” I arch a brow, beyond ready to tumble her onto her back again, but she catches me with a finger over my mouth first.

  “No,” she says, though it’s not hard to tell that she’s trying not to laugh, her eyes glittering. “I can barely walk, and honestly, I don’t want to find out if it’s possible to wear out my birth control.”

  I smile a touch sheepishly. “Shit. I probably should’ve asked about that before we...ah.”

  “Oh, I think you remembered after round six.”

  I can’t help a touch of pride. “Have we really gone that many times?”

  “Nope. More. That's just how many before you asked me. I think we’re up to nine now.” She mock glares at me. “So maybe give it a rest before you chafe. Friction burns happen, you know.”