Branded

by Tara Sivec

  Knowing he was jealous and fought with his friend doesn’t make me feel vindicated, however; it makes me feel like the slut he accused me of being. Fifteen years ago, I dreamed of him looking at me the way he did the other night – like I was his entire world and nothing else mattered but pleasing me, nothing else existed but the two of us. A part of me is glad that he hadn’t behaved that way all those years ago or I wouldn’t have survived the aftermath of what he did to me. Knowing he never loved me, never cared for me, never even remembered what the fuck happened the next morning fueled the anger instead of the depression. It gave me a goal: to one day teach him a lesson, to make him pay for the shit he pulled on me back then. The plan was to give him a taste of his own medicine so that I’d be the one walking away this time.

  I should be happy that he thinks I’m a slut and a bitch. I should be able to just hold my head high and walk away, confident that he finally got what he deserved.

  Unfortunately, my head is filled with the knowledge that not only is he jealous that another man had his hands on me, he’s stable and hard working and fucking saves people’s lives for a living. I should have never allowed him back into my life. I poison everything I touch and I know he’ll be no different. Why can’t I just be happy that I could potentially fuck up his life the way he did mine?

  I need to stay away from him and he needs to stay away from me. No man will ever be able to understand what goes on in my head or why I do the things I do, certainly never someone like DJ. Why the hell couldn’t I just be attracted to Dax? He’s a manwhore who’s just in it for the sex. We could have spent a few weeks scratching mutual itches and then went our separate ways without any ruins left behind. Life would be so much easier if I wanted the bad guy instead of the good one.

  “Look, if it will make you feel any better, before I leave I’ll make some inquiries, find out if anyone else got any fun little notes on their front porches lately. While I’m doing that, you might want to make a list of all the people you’ve pissed off recently. Take your time, I’m sure it won’t be easy to remember all of those names,” he jokes.

  “Oh, kiss my ass,” I fire back as I turn towards the door.

  “Not on your life, sweetheart. I like my appendages right where they are, thank you very much. If DJ happens to catch wind that you were here, please do me the favor of calling me so I can at least get a head start.”

  “Stop being so dramatic. DJ couldn’t care less about what I do or who I talk to,” I tell him as I pull open the door.

  “Uh-huh, sure. And I’m not planning on getting laid tonight,” he laughs.

  Without turning around, I raise my hand and shoot him the middle finger as the door closes behind me. His laughter follows me all the way down the hall as I make my way out of the building.

  Leaning against the kitchen counter at the station, I calmly bring my coffee cup up to my mouth, listening to the familiar, ear-piercing page from dispatch that echoes through the building. Glancing down at my watch, I count down the seconds to myself.

  Five, four, three, two…

  The pounding of footsteps bangs through the sleeping quarters and I take another drink of my hot coffee as our newest paramedic comes racing into the kitchen with a frantic look on his face. His hair is all askew from being woken up so early, his white uniform shirt is partially untucked and buttoned wrong and he’s hopping up and down on one foot as he hurriedly tries to tie the laces of his black work boots.

  “What’s the emergency? Where are we going? Is the truck stocked? Shit! Did I remember to stock everything last night and charge the equipment? FUCK! Why are you so calm?!” Brad shouts at me.

  I shake my head at the newbie, setting my cup down on the counter. “Brad, that was the test page from dispatch. They send it out every morning at 7 am to wake us up. How many times do we have to listen to the different sounds the paging system makes before you remember what an actual emergency sounds like?”

  I probably could have warned the guy last night before he went to bed since it was his first time sleeping here at the station, but it’s much more fun to wake up before everyone else and watch the newbie freak the fuck out.

  I send Brad out to the ambulance bay to have him get started checking into what supplies and equipment were used during the last shift so he can restock and make sure all the equipment is charged and in working order. Going through the mental checklist in my head while I finish my coffee, I figure I have about forty-five minutes before our captain shows up. I need to meet with him and find out if we’re doing any special activities or training today and then take possession of the controlled substances carried by the ambulance from the last shift, inspect the narcotics and sign the narcotics log. I head down the hall past the sleeping quarters, listening to the men from last night’s shift go through their morning routines, joking and laughing about how they encouraged Brad to move his ass because the morning alarm page clearly meant a full-scale emergency.

  Taking a seat in the common room at the desk, I check my email and print off a few updates to SOPs and guidelines that will require some meetings with the staff. Hopefully, today is a quiet day in the county so I can get all this shit done. An email at the bottom of my inbox from an address I don’t recognize catches my eye. The subject line simply states ‘Emergency.’ I click on the email and huff in confusion and disbelief at what I’m reading.

  Did you have fun passing that whore around with your friend? Enjoy it while you can. Your time is almost up.

  I read the email three more times before I whip my head around and search the room, expecting to find some of the guys standing there, laughing their asses off at the prank they pulled on me. Obviously, that’s an asinine thought since I never breathed a word about what happened between me, Phina and Dax to anyone. Who in the fuck would send an email like this to me? Did Phina tell someone? Did Dax?

  Slamming my fist down on the desk, I pay no attention to the cup of pens that spills or the stack of papers on the edge that flutter to the floor. I’m so pissed off I want to pick something up and throw it across the room, but I don’t need the guys coming in here asking me what the hell is wrong. “Oh, no big deal. I had sort of a threesome the other night and now it seems like someone found out about it and sent me a fucked up email. So, who wants to make breakfast?”

  “Jesus, you’re a hard man to get ahold of.”

  Turning in my chair, I see Dax lounging casually against the doorframe. Fuck. First Collin sneaks up on me in the gym and now Dax. Why is everyone insisting on getting on my last fucking nerve lately?

  “Not if I actually want someone to get ahold of me. Go away. I’ve got work to do,” I tell him, turning back around to the computer to see if I can figure out who the email came from.

  “You don’t call, you don’t write…are you breaking up with me?” Dax asks.

  “Fuck off, dickhead,” I mutter, clicking angrily at the keys on the computer.

  I hear him move into the room and I growl deep in my throat.

  “Now, now, don’t be like that. I will have you know that I’ve taken your threat from the other night very seriously. I haven’t touched Phina at all,” he tells me, flopping down into the chair next to the desk.

  I glare at him, and then the door, hoping he’ll get the hint and leave.

  “It’s not my fault she came to see me and I had to talk to her. And look at her. It would have been rude to close my eyes and pretend I was mute,” Dax explains, picking up a piece of paper from the floor and reading it over.

  I snatch it out of his hand and slam it on top of the desk with a little more force than I meant to.

  She went to see him? She talked to him? Goddammit all to hell!

  Dax picks up a pen to examine and I grab that out of his hand, as well. “Stop touching my shit!”

  He laughs and shakes his head at me. “Yeah, I already got that message, buddy. Loud and clear.”

  Pushing myself away from the desk, I get up out of the chair and stalk to the other
side of the room. If I don’t move away from Dax and his smirk I’m going to shove my fist through his face. This is an ambulance transport unit, though. Any damage I inflict could be easily fixed. While I think about the merits of messing up his pretty face and whether we have enough gauze in the supply room to clean up the mess, I hear the squeak of Dax’s chair as he swivels it around to face me.

  “She found a note taped to her front door yesterday. You wouldn’t by any chance know anything about that, would you?” he questions with a raise of his eyebrows.

  “I’m pretty sure she isn’t the flowers and love notes type of girl, and I’m smart enough to realize that. So no, I didn’t leave any notes on her doorstep.”

  Dax shakes his head, clasping his hands together on top of his stomach. “Not a love note, man. This one pretty much hinted that they knew about what happened at Phina’s place the other night. The word ‘whore’ might have been used, as well.”

  My hands shake and my blood boils thinking about Phina coming home alone to find a note like that on her door, not to mention the fact that she went running to Dax about it. Fucking Dax with his three-piece suits and fucking product in his hair to make sure not one piece is out of place. When I got Phina to admit that her number one fantasy was being with one man while another watched, I immediately thought of Dax. We’d met in high school and ran in the same crowd back then. As adults, we kept in touch over the years and when I moved back to town, we hung out every once in a while when our schedules permitted. He was a decent guy, definitely not the type to settle down or stick with one woman for more than a night. He got more pussy on a weekly basis than a damn whorehouse. He appeared to be the perfect choice for the third wheel in Phina’s fantasy, especially since she knew him and it wouldn’t be like I was letting a total stranger walk into her house to watch her have a few mind-blowing orgasms. I could finally get a taste of the woman I’d wanted for longer than I could remember and I didn’t have to worry about the guy getting attached or taking her focus off of me. I never anticipated feeling so much rage and jealousy at having to share her. I hated seeing his hands on her and listening to him whispering words of encouragement in her ear. It didn’t matter that I was the one to feel her come against my mouth every time, it didn’t matter that she called my name over and over. All that mattered was someone else getting to witness all of that when it should have just been me.

  Bringing my thoughts back to the matter at hand, I have a thousand questions I want to ask Dax about the note Phina received, but I keep my mouth shut. I’m finished sharing shit with this asshole. I don’t like the fact that I just received an email with similar wording in it from someone I didn’t know. Someone knows about what went down the other night, and I’m going to find out who the fuck it is. I don’t give a shit if Dax is a detective and makes his living getting to the bottom of mysteries. I can and will handle this on my own and he can just go fuck himself. If anything, it will give me a reason to see Phina again, to try to get on her good side after fucking things up at the gallery.

  The piercing sound of the emergency alarm on the paging system rings through the building. A few seconds later, the static voice of dispatch comes through the speakers, giving the details of a car accident on the outskirts of town with two individuals in critical condition.

  I don’t bother saying a word to Dax, I just turn and head for the door.

  “Tell Phina I said hello!” Dax shouts in a chipper voice as I make my way out into the hallway.

  I refrain from giving him the finger and calling him every damn name I can think of since my co-workers are currently rushing down the hall with me towards the ambulance bay.

  Fucking Dax.

  After transporting the two injured parties from the car accident to the emergency room and then explaining several times to the doctor on call why we did certain things out at the scene, I’m exhausted and irritated as I make my way down the hall of the hospital. You would think being at the scene of an accident with life-threatening injuries would be the most stressful part of my job, but it isn’t. Explaining yourself to a medical resident with a stick up his ass and arguing about the procedures we conducted that he doesn’t agree with when he wasn’t even fucking there is the most stressful.

  I walk quickly with my head down, making notes on my clipboard for Brad to transfer to our computer system as soon as we get back to the station. I’m not looking where I’m going and so preoccupied that my shoulder slams into someone. I turn around and glance up to throw out a quick apology and stop in my tracks.

  Phina stands in front of me in pale blue scrubs with her hands on her hips. Her long red hair is pulled up into a ponytail and her green eyes bore into me with annoyance.

  “Next time, watch where you’re going,” she mutters, turning away from me.

  I lunge forward, wrapping my hand around her arm and pulling her back towards me. Her body slams into mine, her hands pressing against my chest to hold herself steady. My nose is instantly assaulted with the smell of her shampoo and the spicy perfume that is distinctly Phina. I couldn’t stop my dick from hardening if my life depended on it. I’m still pissed she went to Dax about the note instead of me, and I don’t know whether to argue with her or shove her into the nearest empty room and beg her to let me fuck her. I’m pissed that I want this woman so much when she clearly wants nothing to do with me. The disgust is evident on her face and I briefly wonder if she looked at Dax the same way when she went to see him. I’m sure she didn’t. She probably flirted with him and turned on the charm, giving him one of those rare smiles that I would kill to have aimed at me. My anger multiplies when I think about her laughing at something he said or being as close to him as she is to me right now. I should be asking her about the damn note she received, but all I want to do is make her pay for the jealousy roaring through me.

  “Get your hands off me,” she mutters through clenched teeth.

  I didn’t even realize I’d wrapped my arm around her and pulled her closer to me. I clench my fist into her scrub top at her lower back and hold onto her tighter.

  “What’s wrong, Fireball? I’m sure you let Dax put his hands on you when you went to see him today. I’m not good enough to get the same benefits?” I ask softly, trying to keep my anger in check.

  Her eyes widen when I mention her little visit with Dax. I’m guessing she didn’t want me to know she saw him today. I wonder why that is? Because she’s guilty of doing exactly what I suggested and letting him touch her?

  “What I do or who I see is none of your fucking business,” she growls, trying to pull out of my arms.

  Bringing my free hand up, I rest my palm on her collarbone before sliding it up and around the side of her neck, pulling her face close to mine. I run my lips along her cheek until I get to her ear, holding my mouth against her earlobe while I speak softly.

  “It’s my fucking business when I’ve had my face buried between your thighs and can still taste you on my tongue.”

  I feel her shiver in my arms and I smile against her ear, happy about the fact that at least I have some affect on her.

  “Next time you have a problem, you come to ME,” I continue.

  She instantly starts struggling again and I loosen my hold, letting her push back from me so I can see her face.

  “The only problem I have right now is you,” she complains angrily.

  I smile down at her. “That makes two of us, Fireball.”

  Forgetting about how pissed I am at my reaction to her and the fact that we’re in the hallway of a crowded hospital, I quickly dip my head and crush my lips to hers.

  My mouth opens on a gasp as soon as DJ’s lips press against mine and he takes full advantage, his tongue connecting with mine and sliding slowly against it. I hear a foreign sound in the back of my mind and realize it’s me, moaning into this kiss. He uses his hand against the side of my neck to hold me in place, his lips pressing firmer and tongue sliding deeper as he prolongs the kiss. My hands clutch to his navy blue unif
orm shirt instead of pushing him away. Why the fuck am I not pushing him away? We haven’t kissed since the night at the bar over four months ago when I told him about my fantasy. He wanted to seal the deal and the tequila I’d consumed deluded me into believing that was a stellar idea. The kiss that night is fuzzy in my brain; I recall the taste of whiskey on his tongue and not much else. Now I remember why I wouldn’t let him kiss me that night in my bedroom. Even though I was drunk the last time we’d kissed, a part of me realized what would happen if I allowed it to happen again – I would lose all ability to think rationally.

  It was hard enough to keep up the bitch façade when he slammed into me and I got my first good look at him in days. His muscles filled out his short-sleeved button-down shirt better than any man I’d ever seen, his biceps flexing as he stared me down with those crystal clear blue eyes. With my height, most men aren’t that much taller than me, but in my tennis shoes, DJ towers over me and makes me feel small and delicate. The way his arm tightens around me, keeping me firmly restrained against his chest, proves that at least he doesn’t think I’m a delicate fucking flower.

  Without thinking, I suck his tongue into my mouth and feel the vibrations of his own moan against my lips. My sex pulses and I feel myself getting wet, remembering what it was like to feel these same soft lips and talented tongue sliding through my folds and licking my clit.

  The busy sounds of the hospital fade into the distance as DJ’s arm pulls me up and against him so tightly that my feet almost leave the ground. The position puts me on my tiptoes and I immediately feel his erection pressing into me. The rhythm of his tongue repeatedly rubbing against my own lulls me into a haze of desire so strong that I completely forget about the patient whose blood I was supposed to draw and the hospital staff running back and forth about fifty yards away at the intersection of the hallway we’re standing in. Any one of them could look this way and see what I’m doing and I can’t bring myself to care. I want him to push me against the wall behind me so hard that it bruises my back. I want him to rip my scrubs from my body so roughly that they shred into a hundred pieces. I want to pull his hard cock out of his pants and run my hands up and down his length until he has no choice but to bury himself inside me, pounding between my thighs until I ache from the force of his thrusts. For once in my life, I think I could breathe easily with the pain he could give me instead of the kind I give myself.