Playing Doctor: A Standalone Office Romance

by JD Hawkins

  “Hey Colin.”

  He turns, smiling when he sees that it’s me, and I draw closer.

  “Is everything okay?” I ask.

  “Of course. Why wouldn’t it be?”

  I point back toward the side of the bar. “The toilets are over there.”

  Colin chuckles and look down at his feet with a little mischievous guilt.

  “Ah… I didn’t really need to go. I was going to make a clean getaway. Just didn’t want to spoil the party or deal with anyone asking me to stick around.”

  I smile at this, feeling a strange kind of connection. Nobody understands more than me how hard it is to leave a party early.

  “Yeah. I was thinking I might get going myself, actually.”

  We look at each other for a moment. It should be uncomfortable, but the pounding music seems to fill the void until Colin smiles and gestures for me to join him as we leave the club.

  Outside, there are cars pulling up, people carrying on their good vibes after or before being inside. A bouncer stands by the door, and we walk away from him toward the street.

  It’s dark, the sky more blue than purple. The club’s neon sign vividly bright, reflecting off the expensive cars in the lot. No stars, but headlights and brake lights skip along in the distance and through the streets. A slight breeze blows, sending a chill through me. The alcohol and the sudden shift from the heat of the club making my skin sensitive. I shiver and then pull my cardigan tighter, hunching a little.

  Then I feel a warm weight on my shoulders. Something placed over me. I look up to see Colin wearing just his shirt, cuffs rolled up over his forearms. He’s given me his jacket.

  I almost laugh. I almost melt. I end up just smiling blankly. I’m never good at interpreting these kinds of things sober, fat chance of it while I’m this drunk.

  “What time is it? How long were we in there?” is all I can think of to ask.

  Colin checks his watch. “Just after eleven. Not too late.”

  I sigh heavily and without thinking pull his coat a little more closely around me.

  “I’ve had a little too much to drive,” he admits, looking back at the lot, then at me. “So have you, I would imagine. Wanna share a cab?”

  “I don’t live that far actually,” I say, starting to take his jacket off. “I’ll walk.”

  He holds his palm up to stop me. “Keep it,” he says.

  “You sure?” I ask. He nods. “Thanks. I’ll bring it in tomorrow.”

  He looks up and down the street again.

  “Actually… I could walk you home if you want. You get to give me the coat back at your door, I get to sober up a little. If you don’t mind, of course.”

  “I don’t mind,” I say. We look at each other for a few moments that feel intensely long again, and then I turn and thumb down the street. “It’s this way.”

  I’ve always had a brisk walk—a doctor’s walk, though even in college, I hurried everywhere. Now though, the slow burn of the alcohol through my body is making my movements a little more sluggish, and the cool, flower-scented air of the Los Angeles night is making everything else feel somewhat dreamlike.

  Colin walks beside me casually, hands in pockets, with an attitude so comfortable you’d think he does this all the time. Actually, he probably does.

  We don’t talk for a few blocks, and I let myself enjoy the relaxed, quiet bond between us.

  This is nice. What would it be like to have someone to just walk with… No destination. Just walking. His jacket’s so nice. Probably expensive. Is that musk smell his cologne? Or him? It’s a good smell whatever it is…

  “This is me,” I say, when we arrive at the small, pink stucco condo.

  Colin looks up at it, smiling slightly. Then he looks around. A siren blows past in the distance, but it only seems to emphasize the silence between us.

  “Nice area,” he says.

  “It’s okay.” I shrug.

  His eyes return to me and gaze at me for a few more seconds.

  Is he waiting for me to say something? Am I supposed to invite him in for coffee or something? He did walk me home, it would be a nice gesture… But coffee, no… That would mean sex. He would interpret it as meaning sex.

  Do I want to have sex with him? I don’t even know. Maybe I do. I mean, I know I want to, but should I? Even if I should, isn’t it a bit soon? I’ve only known him five minutes.

  Maeve would say do it—but then, Maeve is Maeve.

  Thoughts run through my mind so quickly I start to sweat a little even in the cool air. That tension inside of me, the knot that pulls whenever I look at him, whenever he smiles at me, it begs for me to just give in. To follow this further. To invite him in, or hell, just grab him right here and grope him up against a palm tree. But those racing thoughts stop me from doing anything. A mind full of questions and uncertainties.

  I can’t handle this. Just bail.

  “Okay,” I say suddenly, in a weirdly perky voice. “Well, thanks for walking me home. See you at work.”

  I turn quickly and make for the balconied steps that lead up to my apartment on the second floor.

  “Mia. Wait.”

  I turn and freeze, a shudder running up my stiff spine and manifesting in a quiver on my lips. Like I’m bracing for something to hit me.

  Colin lets out a little laugh. “My jacket,” he says.

  “Your—oh! Yeah. Of course,” I say, feeling a wave of relief. I slip off his jacket carefully and approach him to hand it over. “Thanks.”

  Okay. So no invitation, no “move.” He just wanted his jacket. Great. Fine. We’re on the same page.

  “Thank you. Again. For the office thing,” he says, as he whips an arm through the jacket and then pulls back to put his other arm through.

  As he does so he winces. A sharp intake of breath as if in pain, and I notice him slow right down as he pulls the second arm through.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” he says, though it’s through a clenched jaw. He puts a hand to his shoulder and moves it slowly, wincing a little less as he does so. “Just a soccer injury.”

  “Let me take a look.”

  Colin holds up a palm as I draw a little closer.

  “It’s fine.”

  I look at him now like an unruly patient rather than a hot guy who makes my heart thump—it’s a lot easier. “It doesn’t look fine.”

  “You can’t even see it.”

  “I can see how much pain you’re in. And I know that it takes something pretty severe for guys like you to even show it.”

  “It’s really nothing. Just a little bruise.”

  “Just a little bruise,” I repeat skeptically.

  Colin laughs.

  “Did you forget I’m also a doctor? I can take care of it.”

  “Oh I definitely didn’t forget that you’re a doctor. That’s why I know you probably won’t take care of it. Doctors are the worst when it comes to looking after themselves. Pull your arm back. Like you’re rowing.”

  “Come on—”

  “Just do it,” I command.

  Colin looks right at me, lifts his left arm, and pulls it back behind his shoulder. I stare right at him, and he stares right back with his defiant smile. He shows nothing.

  “Is that as far back as you can pull it?” I say.

  He tries to push a little farther and then his poker face breaks completely. A small grunt, his eyes blinking, a sudden tensing of his whole body.

  “Right,” I say, turning back toward the condo. I gesture for him to follow. “Come up and let me look at it. You should at least have some ice on there.”

  “Oh God…” He groans, though the way I said it he knows there’s no protesting.

  He follows me up to my apartment door on the second floor. I’m full of purpose now, my doctor’s walk back again. Through the door, I kick off my shoes and drop my keys into the bowl in the hall, then move on inside.

  “Wow…” he says, ambling inside, closing the door.
“This place is a lot smaller than I imagined.”

  “Take your shirt off and sit down,” I call back over my shoulder as I quickly dash to the bathroom.

  The apartment’s warm—or maybe it’s still the effects of the alcohol—so I take off my cardigan. Half a minute later, I finish and emerge from the bathroom into the living room.

  And there he is, sitting there on my couch. On the edge, stiff-backed and alert, his forearms resting on his knees like he’s some samurai warrior meditating before battle. Naked from the waist up.

  It’s a perfect body. It takes a single moment to see it, and yet it’s the kind of body you could stare at for hours. The kind of body people do stare at for hours—although those tend to be made of stone, and this one is real and worth ten times the price of an average museum pass. His skin’s a little darker than I imagined, too. Sunbeaten. Weather beaten. But the slight roughness only accentuates the deep ridges of the muscles down his sides and front. Muscles so well-defined you could get a crash course in anatomy just looking at him.

  Suddenly my apartment does seem small. The size of him seeming to double since he took his shirt off. Most people shrink a little when they get naked. Hunch a little. The vulnerability of losing their clothes making them defensive. Somehow, Colin’s nakedness seems to amplify his presence, his charisma, his sense of authority—and he’s still wearing his pants. I feel like I’m the one shrinking a little.

  He looks up at me, his face still bearing an “I’m only doing this because you asked” expression, and it’s only this sudden sense of medical duty that allows me to keep my legs from crumpling as I approach him. He stays still as I slowly sit beside him on the couch. His posture rigid, his eyes forward.

  I reach out slowly and place a fingertip on his shoulder. He flinches. He doesn’t say why, but I can feel how cold my hands are against the warmth of his skin, so there’s no need.

  His shoulder alone could keep a life-drawing class occupied for a whole weekend. A bulging lattice of power that emerges from the carved slabs that form his back, curving so elegantly into the roundness of his bicep. I carefully trace two fingers over it, so delicately I can feel the fine hairs bristling. The silence is like a third presence in the room. So heavy it’s like being underwater.

  I wonder if he can hear my heart thumping in my mouth, how hard I’m trying to control my breathing. This close I can see the slow rise and fall of his back as he breathes himself, slow and steady, an immense power at rest.

  I completely lose my sense of time—let alone who I am, who he is, why we’re even here. I completely forget what I’m supposed to be doing. Outlining the beautiful curve of his shoulder now meaning enough, purpose enough. I part my lips and the nearly silent smacking sound feels almost deafening.

  My other hand goes to his triceps to lift his arm. I feel how firm he is there, like skin pulled over rock. Some part of me still realizing I’m supposed to be inspecting his shoulder. He understands what I’m doing and raises his arm, and as I feel his triceps flex beneath my fingertips, I hope he can’t hear the shudder in my breath.

  Say something, Mia! At least pretend you’re not falling to pieces!

  “Is this a…ahem. Um. Are you sure you didn’t dislocate it?”

  Colin turns his head slightly—not enough to face me.

  “No. I’ve dislocated my other shoulder before and I’d know if I did.”

  I nod. The formality of medical talk rescuing me from myself. “How did you injure it exactly?”

  Colin sighs and shakes his head with a little remembered amusement, but all I notice is the twist of his traps, and how perfectly toned they are.

  “I was running with the ball and some guy couldn’t quite catch up, so he decided to play MMA and pulled me down. Twisted my arm back when he did.”

  “You’ve sprained it,” I say, pulling my fingers away from his body as if to protect them. “I’m guessing you didn’t do anything about it since it’s inflamed now.”

  Colin groans a little and lets his posture drop back onto the couch. His muscles still rippling even in this slouched posture, perhaps even more so.

  “I was more worried about my knee,” he says. “But that cleared up right away.”

  “Best get some ice on it,” I say, standing up and darting into the kitchen.

  I grab the ice cube tray from my freezer, and lay out a dish cloth on the counter. Then I crack and bash the tray until the cubes are on the cloth, but before I gather it into a bundle I put my hands on the counter and lean as if exhausted.

  Fuck him, Maeve’s ghost tells me from the back of my mind.

  I push it even further to the back and remind myself of all the reasons fucking him would be a bad idea. The emotional drama, the issues it would cause at work, the fact that I still know virtually nothing about him.

  And then I think, if he was even interested in fucking me, wouldn’t he have done something about it by now? Either he’s extremely patient, or he’s just not interested. But then again, he walked me home—gave me his jacket. Maybe I’ve got him totally wrong, and he’s actually a perfect gentleman, rather than the playboy I had him down as. Maybe…

  “You need some help in there?” he calls.

  “No,” I answer quickly, then bundle up the cloth, clenching it so the ice stays in the center.

  I hurry toward him and sit on the coffee table opposite as he shifts forward on the couch again. I press the cold pack to his shoulder.

  “Ah!” he says, jerking quickly.

  “Come on. Don’t be a baby,” I say, holding the cold pack there, almost like it’s punishment for him being so hot and messing me up.

  “No…you…hold on…”

  He shifts a bit more on the couch until he fishes out an ice cube from between his thighs, then holds it up like evidence. He looks at me blankly, I look back at him, but when our eyes meet this time there’s another undefinable but powerful charge between us. A force that pushes and pulls.

  I draw my gaze as slow as a touch from his face to his arm, to the twisting muscles of his forearm, and then the wet ice cube held in his square fingers.

  I can’t fight it anymore. This is more than horniness. More than simple attraction. It feels wrong to be this close but still not touching him. The real sin is pretending I can resist.

  The knot inside of me is as tight as it’ll go. Something has to give.

  I pull the hand holding the cold pack back, but raise my other hand to his—the one holding the ice cube. I take it by the wrist, my eyes on his all the way, and lower my head toward it. Lips parted, I kiss the ice cube in his hands, eyes closing at the cleansing brace of the ice. My lips over his fingers, I suck the wetness from them.

  Suddenly there’s a black hole of terror that opens up inside of me.

  What the fuck am I doing? Already excuses thundering through my mind. Blame it on the alcohol. Pretend you were—

  But then his fingers twist, pressing the ice cube onto my tongue, and I feel something pulling at me, urging me forward, toward that glorious torso.

  When I open my eyes I’m straddling him, the arm he used to pull me on top of him under my tank, palm stroking my lower back. He pulls his fingers from my mouth but leaves the ice there, and I finally allow myself to do all the things I’ve wanted to do since the first time I saw him.

  I let the cold pack fall, scattering ice cubes across the floor, the clatter sounding like my self-control breaking. I grab a fistful of his hair and pull his head back, drawing mine over his, lips breathing cold air into his mouth. His tongue rising, licking my lips, the ice, as I keep it just out of reach. I clench it between my teeth and let him suck, and it melts in the heat of our breath, tongues tasting cold lips.

  I don’t know what I’m doing, wanting all of him at once, clawing at his chest, turning his face so I can bite his jaw, his ear, back curling with the easy pleasure of pressing my breasts against him. Every part of me urging toward him. I feel a fullness and an emptiness at the same time. A burning intox
ication that makes me all body, all flesh and desire.

  It explodes out of me, this wildness. Too long suppressed. Too long kept bottled up by an overactive mind. Pussy grinding against the thickness in his groin, back arching as he pulls my neck to his cold mouth. Cold tongue leaving trails against my neck that his hot breath ignites into trickling fire.

  My tank top flies from me, his deft, strong hands pulling it away, and I let myself fall onto him, pressing my bare breasts to his chest. Skin against skin, lips against lips, tongue against tongue. His biceps engulf me, squeeze me, and it’s still not enough. His hands move all across me, to my breasts, my back, my thighs, and it’s still not enough. The more I taste and touch and press him, the more I want, until his kiss is as agonizing as it is euphoric.

  And then, out of nowhere, a bracing shock in the center of my chest makes me throw my head back and hiss with delight. I freeze as the icy cold moves across my chest, down between my breasts. The ice cube Colin slides against my skin already melting as he outlines the heat of my body in a sweet frost. He presses the ice against the diamonds on my neck, and I feel their cold sparkle against the explosive heat of my skin. His tongue follows, and just as the ice stiffens me, his tongue melts me against him until I can almost imagine him swallowing me whole.

  As I let out breathy gasps and moans, I feel my body get heavy, and suddenly Colin rolls me onto my back on the couch, the cold ice against my back freezing me in place as I watch him tower over me. A colossus of muscle.

  A sudden, brief giggling fit comes over me. I push a hand through my hair, which has somehow escaped from its ponytail, and which I can feel tumbling wildly all around me.

  “You look even better from this angle,” I say, still smiling like a madwoman.

  Colin pulls apart the fly of his pants and steps out of them. His cock like a weapon, big enough to make my eyes widen and my body feel small. He pulls a condom over it as I shimmy out of my jeans, my whole body feeling so warm and ready it takes only seconds. He moves to the end of the couch and kneels on the armrest, between my legs.

  “How about from this angle?” he says with a dangerous humor.