Rock Me Hard

by Casey Hagen

  He crossed his arms, whether to keep himself from reaching for her or to protect himself from the intent behind that mischievous smile of hers he didn’t know. “And you’ll get it, but not from me. We have other doctors.”

  “Well, I’m going away for a few days. I could use a road trip buddy,” she said, glancing away from him, those teeth running over that bottom lip again. “It’s okay if you can’t, I mean, it’s last minute, and you have your dad to worry about—”

  He had a thousand reasons why he should tell her no, but they all paled in comparison to the handful of reasons he deserved to say yes. “I’m in.”

  “Really?”

  His quick agreement knocked the air out of his lungs for a minute. “Yeah,” he said with a nod.

  “What about your patients?”

  What about his father? Shit. But he couldn’t take the words back now. No matter what it took, he had to find a way to make it work because he wouldn’t put that excitement in her eyes just to renege in the next breath. “My brother owes me. He’s just going to have to pay up. When do we leave?”

  “Is tomorrow morning too soon?” she asked.

  God, was he really doing this? “Not at all. What time do you want to head out?”

  “By eight.”

  “I’ll be there at seven with breakfast.”

  “Donuts?” she asked with a quick clap of her hands. “If you bring me butter crunch donuts, I’m yours forever.”

  “Careful, I might just hold you to that,” he said quietly.

  Her eyes danced and she smiled so big, those rosy cheeks of hers threatened to squeeze her eyes shut entirely.

  Nikki had been larger than life, the ultimate fantasy, and later that night, in the privacy of her room, a treasure trove of discoveries.

  But Natalie, with her fresh skin and the mischief that danced in her eyes, held more secrets to discover, and he couldn’t wait.

  This was the woman who’d written Hidden Heart, and he had every intention of finding hers.

  He flipped open her folder. “Is this your real address, Natalie,” he asked, giving her a pointed look.

  “Yup!”

  He tossed her folder on the counter and headed for her, enjoying the way her lips parted in surprise. “I’ll be there at seven with butter crunch donuts even if I have to make the little bastards myself.” He cupped her chin and kissed her again, grabbing one more taste of chocolate on her lips before forcing himself to let her go.

  For now.

  He savored the flavor of her that lingered on his bottom lip and winked. “Hang tight and I’ll send another doctor in.”

  “Aiden?”

  “Yeah,” he said, turning to her with the doorknob in his hand.

  “I’m curious...are chiropractors actually real doctors?”

  The age old joke and the way she pinched her lips together told him she knew it. “You’re going to pay for that.”

  “Good,” she said, her light laugh following him out the door.

  Aiden found Denise by the copier. “Hey, do you know if we’ve got anyone free who can either take my patient or swap with me?”

  “Your brother is twiddling his thumbs in the break room.” She shook her head and clucked. “I swear I don’t know how you two are so different personality-wise, but physically a carbon copy of one another. It’s almost terrifying.”

  He shook his head. “Not him.”

  She sighed. “I know she’s a pretty one and he’s a bit of ho, but he’s a good doctor.”

  “It’s not that. It’s a conflict,” he said.

  “Wait? But aren’t you adjusting Miss Lauren? He adjusted her just the other day, how is that—”

  “I’m begging you not to pry. Just take my word for it,” he pleaded. She had that look on her face that she got when she caught the whiff of a story. Especially a story that was none of her business.

  She smirked and clicked a few buttons on the copier. “Hmmm, she’s a pretty girl.”

  He drummed his fingers on the door. “You’re killing me here.”

  “And that skin...she positively glows. I wonder if she’s single.” She shuffled the papers that chugged out of the machine.

  “Stop.”

  She turned to him, the stack of papers clutched to her chest. “I seem to remember Anthony took a keen interest in her after her visit Saturday. Could it be that you’re hoping to go out with the beauty yourself?”

  “Denise,” he growled.

  She let out an exasperated sigh and fluffed the curled edge of her silver bob. “Fine. Claire is in her office. I’m sure she’d be happy to help you out.”

  “Thank you.” He started to leave but ducked his head back in. “And you owe me that lollipop back for torturing me.”

  She rolled her eyes. “We’ll see.”

  “And I’m going to need you to clear my schedule for the rest of the week,” he said.

  She let out a squeak, and her eyes widened in surprise. “What? Why?”

  He smiled and gave her a wink. “I’m going on a road trip.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned. You’re hitting the road? With her?”

  “Get that lollipop, and maybe I’ll spill a few details. If you check in with Claire for me, you can increase your chances.”

  She marched up to him and tapped his chest with her finger. “It’ll be on your desk in ten. And you better be ready to talk.”

  “We’ll see,” he said, turning her words around on her. He waggled a finger at her as he backed out the doorway and down the hall. “Don’t forget the goods.”

  Ducking his head in the break room, he found his brother taking a selfie. “Meet me in my office.”

  “I’m busy,” Anthony said without even the courtesy of looking at him.

  “Updating your profile pic can wait. This can’t. Come on.” The more plans he made, the more the idea of taking off settled inside him.

  Anthony slid his phone in his pocket and pushed away from the table. “Yes, Dad.”

  Aiden held the door and waited while his brother sauntered in. “I’m going out of town,” Aiden said, closing the door behind Anthony. “Denise is updating the schedule to cover my appointments through the end of the week.”

  Anthony whirled on him, his mouth hanging open. “Wait—what? I’m supposed to leave early both Wednesday and Thursday. I’ve got plans.”

  “Did you put in a time off request?” Aiden asked as he rounded his desk.

  “No. Why would I do that? I’m a partner.”

  Yes, he was. And if he wanted things to stay that way, he needed to start acting like it. “So, if you didn’t let the office know you were going to be out, who did you expect to cover you on those days?”

  “Well, it’s never been an issue before,” Anthony said, avoiding his gaze.

  And why did he avoid looking him in the eye? Because deep down he knew he was pulling a douche move, and he didn’t want to admit it.

  Well, everyone had to grow up sometime, and maybe the reason Anthony hadn’t was because Aiden always waited in the background to clean up his messes.

  “It is now,” Aiden said.

  “You didn’t put in for time off this week. Why is it okay for you and not for me?” Anthony said as he slid his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. The smirk on his face told Aiden that he thought he’d won this round.

  Nope. Not even close.

  “It’s not, and while I ordinarily I would feel bad about that, I don’t. You owe me. I’ve never bailed on you or my appointments. Not once, and you know it,” Aiden said quietly.

  Anthony threw his hands in the air. “Come on, man. I’ve got Knicks tickets.”

  “I’m sure you have a buddy that would take them off your hands for you.”

  “You can’t do this,” Anthony said, slapping his palms on Aiden’s desk.

  “Oh, it’s done.”

  “What about Dad?”

  Aiden snorted. “Now you care about our father?”

  “I’m
serious. I don’t know how to take care of him.” The blood drained from Anthony’s face and for the first time ever, Aiden saw stark terror in his brother’s eyes.

  If Aiden wanted to be a complete bastard, he’d let Anthony sweat it out for a while. “Relax. He’s covered.” The words slipped out, proving that he needed to work on that whole bastard thing.

  “What does that mean?” he asked, running a shaky hand through his hair.

  “He’s had an around-the-clock companion since Saturday night.”

  “But, we didn’t discuss—”

  “Oh, we did, and you shot it down. I reassessed and made the responsible decision,” Aiden said.

  “It’s not just your decision,” Anthony said, narrowing his eyes.

  “As long as I’m the only one who’s helping him, you don’t get to weigh on the choices. I made the decision, and it stands.” Aiden pushed out of his chair and set his leather briefcase by the door.

  He reached for his camera, the silence in the room unsettling him. He knew how to respond to the jokester playboy, but this was new territory for him.

  In just a matter of minutes, their relationship shifted, as it needed to, but it left them both in uncharted territory.

  And before they could find their way back to getting along, a whole lot of baggage of their past would need to be sifted through.

  For both of them.

  If Aiden hadn’t realized it before, it became clear the minute his brother brought up their mother leaving them.

  He missed the twin connection he’d had with Anthony. At one time, they’d been a whole lot more than a couple of boys whose mother dressed them in matching clothes and who’d tricked their teachers. They didn’t share that connection that most talk about where they feel each other’s pain or know what the other is thinking. They didn’t need to. They just had this unwavering dedication to one another no matter what. Not because they were siblings, but because they were two halves of one whole.

  “It’s going to take some getting used to...for both of us. But I’m not carrying the burden by myself anymore,” Aiden said, his tone a warning, a promise, before he sailed out the door for a different future.

  A path where he didn’t lay broken and beaten at the end.

  Chapter 10

  AIDEN FOLLOWED ALONG Armond Road, keeping his eyes peeled for sixty-seven.

  The houses had to get bigger. Right?

  He expected her to have grounds with gates, security, tennis courts, a pool or two, and multiple car garages.

  He spotted the knotted wood post holding an extra-large black mailbox with sixty-seven on the side and slowed.

  Turning in, he took in what looked like a modest, green family home. Maybe four thousand square feet, two-car garage, and a maroon Jeep Grand Cherokee sitting in the spot closest to the side door.

  A bit unsure, he slid into the spot next to the SUV and headed for the front porch, hoping this wasn’t the world’s biggest joke and he wasn’t about to interrupt a stay-at-home mom making breakfast for her toddlers right about now.

  Nothing about the way Nik—Natalie kissed him in that office said that she was messing with him. Nope, he’d guess she was just as wrapped up as he was.

  Only, there was no mystery to solve with him, and she was all new discoveries. Like this house. What drew her to it?

  He headed for the front door, climbed the three stone steps with butter crunch donuts in hand, and rang the bell.

  Why wasn’t a woman worth millions living on some lavish estate with maids, cooks, grounds people—an entire staff paid just to keep her comfortable and happy?

  But just as soon as the image cropped up, it winked out like the image on an old tube TV when you turned it off.

  It wasn’t her. Not that he really knew who she was. After all, she walked into his practice and not a single soul recognized her as Nikki. Clearly, she’d been careful to keep her real identity separate from her professional one in a rather spectacular way unlike anything he’d ever seen before.

  The door whooshed open, and cozy, warm air spilled out, washing over him. Natalie stood there barefoot in faded blue jeans, an emerald green sweater hugging her curves, her red curls hanging in a bouncy curtain just past her shoulders.

  “Hi,” she said with a flirty smile that left her eyes twinkling. “You have the goods?”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said, holding up the bag.

  She took a step back and waved him in. The minute the door clicked shut behind him, she grabbed for the treat. “Gimme!”

  He raised the bag up over his head out of her reach and cupped her chin with his other hand. “Hey. Wait just a minute. You know what this means, right? You’re mine forever now.”

  She tipped her face up to him, her gaze shooting straight to his mouth. “A gentleman wouldn’t hold me to a statement I made under the influence of the future prospect of butter crunch,” she said before licking her bottom lip.

  “Who said I’m a gentleman?” he said before leaning in to her and gently biting that plump bottom lip of hers.

  “Hmmmm,” she hummed over his mouth as her lips roamed his. “Oh, Aiden, I hate to break it to you, but it’s in everything you do,” she murmured.

  He glided along her jaw, leaving soft kisses all the way to that sensitive patch of skin where the curve of her jaw met her neck. “You got that about me, huh? What if I want to be the bad boy?” he whispered against the shell of her ear.

  Sometimes he wished he could go with the occasional urge to just take what he wanted from life. What would it be like to say fuck it to all the demands on his time, to shirk his responsibilities and wake up each morning with no more purpose than to fill his desires?

  “You already are. The baddest,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck and pushing up on her tiptoes, bringing her breasts right up against his chest and her hips pressed to his.

  He dropped the bag to the floor and wrapped his arm around her waist, holding her tight as the light scent of her soap enveloped him. Lemon and vanilla, a heady combination so at odds with her public persona, but absolutely perfect for a homebody padding along her wood floors in a cozy house tucked in the woods. “Right,” he said with a grunt, sealing his lips over the soft skin of her neck to taste her.

  Her hand slid over his chest, her fingernail teasing past his nipple on her way before she wound her arms around his waist. She pulled back and searched his face. “You don’t think so?”

  “No. Believe me, no one has ever mistaken me for the bad boy,” he said, sliding his hand over the swell of her ass and pulling her tight against his rigid cock straining against his jeans.

  “Well, then, they weren’t really looking, were they? You’re the complete package: smart, wildly attractive, responsible, a beast when the clothes fall off, and you have a knack for seeing people. Really seeing them.” She swallowed, her voice dropping to a broken whisper. “You saw me. There’s nothing more dangerous than that.”

  He closed his eyes, unable to utter a single word. Could scarcely even breathe with the praise she lavished on him. Walking his fingers under her sweater, he found warm, smooth skin that made him ache to touch her again.

  Clenching his jaw, he tried to bury the urge to take her, but when he opened his eyes, those steely eyes of hers gleamed with a burning desire so piercing that there was no way they were going to make it to the car if they didn’t do something about it.

  “We’ll revisit the forever discussion, but for now—I’m starving.” He picked her up off the floor and headed for the dining room table.

  “Wait—the donuts!” she said, reaching back toward the bag.

  He doubled around and bent over so she could snag the handles. The minute she locked her hands around the loops, he hoisted her back up and smiled at the squeal that bubbled up from her throat.

  He set her on the edge of the gleaming reclaimed wood table that had to have cost her a small fortune and stood between her parted thighs.

  “I don’t know about you, bu
t I wasn’t even allowed to have my elbows on the table, let alone my ass. My parents would be horrified if they saw this,” she said, snagging a donut from the box and taking a big bite.

  Her eyelids drifted shut, and she moaned as pieces of butter crunch that stuck to her lips fell onto her sweater. Smiling around the bite, she opened her eyes and held up her treat. “Want a bite?”

  He shook his head. “If your parents would be horrified, well, this might just send them to their graves,” he said as he pressed his thumbs against the flesh of her inner thigh, going higher, higher, and higher still until he grazed the seam of her jeans pulled tight against her warm pussy.

  “Aiden?”

  “Hmmmm?”

  “What are you doing?”

  “I don’t know about you, but I was taught breakfast was the most important meal of the day,” he said as he flicked the button of her jeans and unzipped her partway.

  She glanced around her as if she expected her parents to see. “Ummmm.”

  “Natalie...just eat your donut.” There was something so fucking sexy about her being comfortable enough around him to take an unladylike bite with no shame. He guided her hand back to her mouth and tapped the donut against her lips until she opened to take her second bite.

  He worked her jeans and lace bikinis over her hips and down her thighs, peeling them clean off her legs and tossing them in a heap next to them as she stared down at him, chewing slowly, her eyes wide.

  With his hand curled around the back of her calves, he slid her to the very edge of the table and dropped to his knees.

  She swallowed hard, the donut falling from her sugar-coated fingers as he licked his way from her inner thigh up to the warm pussy just waiting for him.

  Snaking a hand under her sweater and finding her breast, he teased the rock-hard nipple as he licked into her, her musky flavor bursting on his tongue.

  A low groan slipped from her lips, her head fell back, and she parted her legs farther in a wordless request for him to keep going.

  He could have been graceful and built the intensity over time, but starving for her, he closed his mouth over her core, parted her with his curious tongue, and sucked her clit into his mouth, working in a demanding rhythm that soon had her shaking, her hands gripping the edge of the table, and her gasping moans filling the air.