“I see,” I say, nodding, doing my best impression… well, of myself, when I’m with anyone other than Macie. “And what has brought you to this decision? I know that can seem like a personal question, but I pride myself on only working with people when I can fully support them.”
I’m glad to return to some familiar territory. I make this speech every time I speak with a potential new patient, and it’s true.
I’ve had high-powered couples in here desperate to conceive, but I could tell they would be terrible parents.
I didn’t tell them that, of course.
I make the right excuses and send them on their way. And perhaps they went on to have kids.
But it was without my help.
She interlocks her fingers, pressing her hands close together, letting out a trembling breath that goes right to my core, doing crazy things to me. It’s just a breath, but it almost turns me into a beast.
Or lets the caged beast inside of me out to play.
She bites her lip for a moment, something she wouldn’t do if she knew how feral it was making me.
My whole body is thrumming at the sight of her.
“I’ve always wanted a family, I guess. My parents and my little brother… died in a car crash when I was very young. I hardly remember any of them, truthfully. My aunt took me in after their deaths and—the only reason I wasn’t in the car was that I was sick, staying with my aunt, who’d insisted they go on their day out anyway. They got into an accident shortly after dropping me off with my aunt. Isn’t that crazy? So my aunt either saved my life or I killed my family.”
I grip the edge of the desk, staring hard at her, wondering if she feels comfortable enough to open up like this because she senses the closeness between us as powerfully as I do.
“I’m sorry,” she murmurs. “I didn’t mean to overshare like that.”
“You were a child,” I growl. “You can’t blame yourself.”
This is something I rarely do, offer judgment based on my patient’s life. My job is to stay impartial, and yet there’s a note of desperation in her voice that tugs at parts of me that were dormant before she stepped into my office, parts of me I find impossible to ignore.
“Maybe I shouldn’t,” she says, with a shrug. “But if I wasn’t sick, they would’ve gone directly to the activity center – it was this place with mini-golf and rides and a movie theater, stuff like that – and they wouldn’t have been on that road at that specific time…”
I know it’s a mistake even as I do it, reaching across the desk and taking her hand.
I squeeze hard, staring firmly into her eyes, feeling the shock rioting through her body, watching it cascade across her features.
“You can’t blame yourself,” I snarl firmly, with the beast thrumming inside my voice, telling her that I’m giving her an order she better not ignore. “Do you hear me, Macie? It isn’t your fault. I don’t want to hear you say that again.”
Chapter Three
Macie
His hand is firm on mine, hot, his touch burning into me as he squeezes me tighter and his stark eyes gaze into me. I feel my body setting alight with even more flaring passion, with even more shivering need than has already taken possession of me at simply being close to him.
I didn’t mean to blurt everything about Mom and Dad and Jimmy, but it came spilling out as though I’d known this man my whole life, as though the crazy buried-deep pulsing inside of me wouldn’t seem ridiculous to him if I voiced it aloud.
And yet his hand is on mine, his touch hot, hotter than it was last night when I imagined him stroking up and down my body with possessive pressure.
He clears his throat, seeming to realize what he’s doing as he withdraws his hand.
“I… I’m sorry for oversharing,” I murmur into the ensuing silence, as his features turn grim again, his jaw tight, his eyes narrowed. “I know you probably didn’t want that much detail.”
My hand tingles where he just touched it, my mind bursting with thoughts of how sweaty I am, praying he wasn’t disgusted with the streaming sweat. But he makes me so freaking nervous, so aware of my own body, my nipples rubbing achingly against my bra, my panties attacking my clit with friction.
“There’s no need to apologize,” he says, his voice deep and gruff. “So you want a family because you never had one?”
I wonder if I imagine the note of rage simmering in his voice, but why would he be angry?
This is his job.
“Yes,” I murmur. “And I know how that sounds, could sound. I’m not going to be giving this child the sort of family that was taken from me. But I can give them love. I can give them a home.”
He nods shortly, staring hard at the desk like he’s finding it difficult to meet my eyes like I’ve annoyed him. “And do you work?”
“Not right now,” I say. “But I’m trying to get my career started. And I have money to start a life… my aunt, she passed away recently, and she left me plenty.”
My cheeks prick at the mention of money. I hope he doesn’t think I’m bragging or anything like that.
A voice inside me screams, Get out of your head. Be in the moment. Be with your man.
But that’s plain craziness.
Dr. Miller Marshall isn’t my man and he never will be.
“I see,” he murmurs, again in that annoyed tone.
Part of me wants to snap at him, yell at him for going cold when he just made such a lovely gesture by reaching across and taking my hand. But at the same time I know he was probably only doing that because I was getting overly emotional and he wanted to calm me down.
I have to be careful of reading too much into anything he does because then I might end up making a complete fool of myself, being too forward, and cause him to kick me out of his office.
Even so, I can’t stop myself from tracing the line of his jaw, the strong cut of his cheeks, the way his eyes seem to glimmer with wolf-like intensity. It’s like any second he could flip the table and grab me by the shoulders, lifting me off my feet and pulling me up against him.
I imagine wrapping my legs around his waist and sitting down with greedy need, chasing the pleasure of his body, grinding my sex against his manhood pressed through his pants like a promise he’s hungry to fulfill.
I push that thought away, forcing myself to focus on his next words.
“You said you were trying to start a career. What did you mean by that?”
He talks in a measured tone, as though there’s a primal piece of him afraid to let out his true emotions, his fuck-me-hard emotions like he wants to palm my breasts and greedily suck my nipples but he knows he can’t because he’d risk his job.
But no, that’s just my overactive mind screaming for what it wants to be true. It has nothing to do with reality, with the way things really are.
It’s one hundred percent steamy fantasy.
“A writer,” I murmur. “I’ve written a couple of books, but they weren’t great. I’m still learning. I’ve taken a few classes, but mostly I’m just trying to read and write as much as possible.”
“So you’ll still be able to care for your children as you work.”
“Yes,” I say passionately. “I’ve got this image… it’s silly.”
“Go on, Macie,” he growls, something else entering his voice, husky and confusing. “Tell me.”
Suddenly he’s got those glinting blues aimed at me, swimming with emotion like a turbulent sea, like he’s ready to throw his head back and roar at me.
“Just me sitting at my desk with my baby in her basket next to me, sleeping soundly, and me there trying to type as quietly as possible so I don’t wake her. It’s funny. My aunt, Jackie, she used to say I typed like I was trying to win a ‘Loudest Girl in the World’ competition.”
I giggle at the memory, Jackie’s face flooding into my mind, her kind eyes, and her witty smile.
“So you’ll be able to stay with the babies,” he says, nodding.
I let out another
laugh, even as my belly tightens with nerves.
What if he snaps at me to stop laughing? What if the noise is annoying him?
I hate these pathetic thoughts and do my best to ignore them, but that doesn’t change the fact they exist.
“Babies?” I say. “I was hoping for just one, at least for now.”
He looks at me for a long moment, his temples pulsing, clenching his jaw as though he wants to roar at me to get the fuck out of his office. I shrink under his dominator’s gaze, biting down to stop myself from letting out a prey-like whimper.
If I’m prey, he’s my predator.
Except… does prey normally want to be caught?
“Slip of the tongue,” he says, smirking at me. “Of course. Just one. For now.”
“So?” I murmur. “What do you think? Am I a suitable candidate?”
“I…”
He trails off, another enigmatic look coming into his night-sky eyes.
“I’m going to need some time,” he says after a long pause. “To give it some thought.”
A note of anxiety flutters up inside of me, twisting around my chest, spreading frustrating tendrils that make me think all my hopes and dreams are going to come crashing down.
But that’s just the thing.
My hopes and dreams before entering this room were to become a single mother.
And now?
My womb screams out for Dr. Miller Marshall, for a future where he wraps those muscular arms around me and drives his stiff manhood deep inside of me, and never mind I’d probably make a fool of myself if we ever got that far, that I’d reveal how inexperienced I really am.
My body sizzles and sparks at the thought of him pushing inside of me, inching so deep his seed has no choice but to explode in primal domination over my womb.
I let out a shaky breath.
I can’t allow my mind to skip down such impossible avenues, telling me impossible things that make no freaking sense.
“Oh, okay,” I murmur, with a long-as-heck pause of my own. “Do you think there’s a problem with me?”
“What?” he snarls. “No, Macie. I just… I have to think about this.”
I stand, my hands clasped in front of me. “Okay, that makes sense. Will you be in touch?”
He nods shortly. “I have your details.”
That’s right. He has my phone number and my email, and now my body is aching at the thought of him calling me up later, his husky voice sounding down the phone.
“I couldn’t say this at the office,” I imagine him growling, “but I need to taste your pussy. I need to fuck you until your body has no choice but to get pregnant. There’s no way I’m allowing you to become a single mother. Because you’re mine.”
I curse my stampeding imagination as I turn away from the desk.
There’s no way he’d say that.
“Have a good day,” I murmur as I stride for the door, hoping he can’t detect the wavering nervousness in my voice, the nervousness which slams through my body in time with my reverberating heartbeat.
“And you, Macie,” he growls. “We’ll speak soon.”
How soon? I want to scream, but instead, I pull the door open and stride into the waiting room, my eyes low, fighting the shame that pricks my cheeks and the lust that makes my sex sizzle.
He’d never want me.
But I need him.
Chapter Four
Miller
I pace up and down in front of the floor to ceiling windows of my penthouse apartment, still in my workout gear, watching as the sun sets slowly over the city below.
The light kisses the top of the buildings, and sometimes I’d pause and watch it for a while, but right now I’m too amped-up.
Even killing my body in the gym hasn’t distracted me from thoughts of Macie, bouncing around my head all damn day.
After my meeting with her, I had several more consultations and appointments, and it took everything I had to focus professionally on the work in front of me instead of letting my mind sprint off to worlds made of her curvy-as-fuck ass, her bulging breasts, the innocent blush in her cheeks telling me she’d melt for me in the bedroom, biting her lip as she stares up at me and I drive savagely between her legs.
I clench my fists, pacing, letting out a ragged breath.
My cock is rock hard in my gym shorts, pressing against the fabric, causing me to clench my fists harder.
I don’t want to touch myself. I don’t want to waste my seed unless it involves my woman.
My fucking woman.
When my mind isn’t captivated with thoughts of her curvy body and her wide eyes, it flits to darker scenes, to places where she’s being kissed by other men, claimed by other men, and that prompts the monster inside of me to howl and beat its chest in primal rage.
No other man gets to touch her, fucking ever.
She’s mine and mine alone, and she always will be.
Even if she doesn’t know it yet.
I sigh, turn away from the window and walk across my open-plan penthouse to the kitchen.
I haven’t eaten all damn day, but the thought of food seems pointless when her fresh young body is out there waiting for me to feast on it, kiss her hips, her thighs, move my way to her tangy hole as she moans and begs for me to give her the release she desperately needs.
After I touched her hand in the consultation, I had to force myself to be detached, cold, because it was the only way I could stop myself from being too forward with her.
But the longer we stayed in the room together the more difficult it was becoming not to roar out my true desires. I kept trying to imagine what her reaction would be to her doctor telling her how I really feel about her, telling her I knew I was going to spend the rest of my life with her the second I saw her.
I laugh gruffly, shaking my head at the thought.
It doesn’t even make any fucking sense.
How can I know that with so much goddamn certainty?
My thoughts are interrupted by my landline blaring through the house, telling me it’s my mother. She’s the only one who bothers to use the landline these days.
She’s the only reason I bother keeping it, in fact.
I walk over to the living room, across the hardwood flooring and the fur rugs, and pick up the cordless phone.
“Mom?” I say, answering.
She chuckles lightly. “You always do that, Miller. What if it’s somebody else?”
I grin, strolling back to the floor to ceiling windows. “It never is. You good?”
“Oh, yes, just waiting for my nails to dry. I’ve got you on the loudspeaker thingy. Are you proud?”
I laugh, shaking my head at the sarcasm in her voice. “I teased you about being shit with technology once.”
“Firstly, young man—”
“Forty-five is hardly young.”
“It is when you’re seventy. Now stop interrupting me. Firstly, mind your language.”
“What did I say?”
“It begins with s and rhymes with pit.”
“Oh, spit.”
I can practically hear her rolling her eyes, which just makes me laugh even harder. Mom might like to pretend my teasing bothers her, but it’s one of the things that brought us closer in the years after Dad’s passing. Dad always used to tease her, delighting in making her squirm, and I think part of her misses that.
“And secondly?” I prompt.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she says. “You’ve made me lose my train of thought like you always do, you pest.”
I chuckle again, my eyes moving over the city, my chest tightening as I wonder if my woman lives in this neighborhood… or this one… or this one.
I could call her and find out, but calling her for anything not related to work would be incredibly unprofessional.
And what the hell am I supposed to say?
She’d think I’m insane if she knew how I really feel about her.
“Miller?” Mom says, in that tone of voice that tells m
e she’s said my name several times already, but I’ve been too busy fantasizing about my woman to listen.
“Yeah?”
“I said have you met any nice women recently?”
There’s a playful note in her voice like there always is when she asks this question. This is the part where I’m supposed to banter with her, telling her I’ll never find the woman of my dreams. Then she’ll laugh down the phone at me.
I don’t need you to find the woman of your dreams, she’ll say. I just need you to give me some grandchildren.
I know how badly she wants them, but what I’ve always told her has held true.
I never found the woman who triggers something in me, who provokes the feral need I require to commit fully.
Until now.
“Miller?” she murmurs, lowering her voice. “Have you?”
“I… may have,” I say. “But it’s complicated.”
“How so?”
I laugh raggedly, hardly believing I’m going to say this. “Because she’s a potential patient…”
“So she already has a partner?”
“No,” I growl, hot fire entering my voice at the thought alone. “She wants to become a voluntary single mother. She doesn’t have anybody else in her life.”
Thank God.
It wouldn’t go well for them if she did, even if that would be unfair, even if it would make me the beast that so desperately wants to erupt from my chest.
“I don’t see how there’s a problem then,” Mom says, doing a terrible job at masking the excitement bubbling up in her voice.
I know she’s waited a long time for me to tell her I’ve found someone, and now this is her chance to be a grandmother.
How the fuck am I supposed to explain the craziness of the situation?
I sigh. “Mom, I only met her today. I probably spent ten minutes with her.”
“What?” Mom gasps. “I don’t understand.”
I laugh drily. “Yeah, neither do I. But it’s the truth. The second I saw her I knew…”
I trail off as savage words try to rise on my lips, the sort of words I’ll throw at my woman when I finally grab her by the shoulders and pull her flush against me.
Dr. Good: A Steamy Standalone Instalove Romance Page 2
