A Man Who Knows What He Wants Box Set 5

by Flora Ferrari

  “To the city,” I say acknowledging our sky high table and the view it provides. “And to you,” I say acknowledging that the view in front of me is even better.

  She blushes slightly and we clink glasses.

  “What brought you to the big city?” I ask after we take a sip.

  I want to know everything about her all at once. My patience issue is in fine form tonight and I’m doing everything I can to control it…and failing.

  Just like I’m failing to control the form that took place in my trousers the minute I saw her tonight. At least now I’m sitting down and I can hide what I’ve got underneath the table. I’m throbbing so hard it hurts, but I don’t feel the pain. I’m so focused on her and learning about her.

  “Small town. Small opportunities. At least that’s how the saying goes.”

  “I know the feeling,” I say.

  “It’s hard to believe you’re from a small town too.”

  “Why is that?”

  “You just seem so…polished.”

  “Polished as in rehearsed? Not authentic?” That’s definitely the last thing I am and something no one has ever accused me of. I’d be shocked if she’s the first and if so we’ve got major trouble on our hands.

  “No, not like that,” she says and I exhale. I didn’t even realize I was holding my breath waiting for her response.

  “It’s just that you seem so…comfortable and relaxed in your own skin.”

  “You seem the same.”

  “Then I’m doing a good job of keeping up the act,” she says. She laughs and takes a sip of her alcohol. I mirror her movement without even realizing it.

  The champagne tastes good, but what I really want to taste are those lips of hers.

  I can’t even remember the last time I had alcohol and I also can’t remember the last time I was with a woman…but for a very different reason. One I’ll have to disclose to her in time. I’m not about to waste her time and I want to build trust with her, but I’m not about to blurt out my life story at dinner either.

  “I don’t think it’s an act,” I say. “You’ve got a lot of pep to you. You don’t seem to be one to back down. I feel like you’ve got a lot of fight to you.”

  “It’s learned behavior.”

  “How so?” I ask. I know from my biology studies that learned behavior is what we develop as the result of our experiences. They are in direct contrast with innate behaviors, which are genetically hardwired in us and can come naturally without experience or training. The fact that she even used the words learned behavior tells me she’s drawing on her own biology studies, or from some sort of experience, very possibly traumatic, earlier in her life. I just want to get up from the table and hug her if that’s the case. I can’t even force myself to imagine anything bad happening to her ever, nor would I ever want to. It’s too painful.

  She doesn’t immediately reply.

  “If my question is out of line we can disregard it.”

  “No. No. It’s not that.” Another pause. “Once I get to talking I can’t stop, and I’m a bit of an over communicator. Not in a bad way or anything, but I just provide way too many details and it sometimes bores the other person.”

  “I’m interested in all the details when it comes to you.”

  “Really?”

  “Really,” I say raising my glass.

  We clink again and each take a sip.

  “Why?”

  “You work in a hospital. You know how people are irrational. You see the results of their behavior each and every day. Sure, there is plenty of bad luck but there are also a lot of bad decisions.”

  “But those so called bad decisions are more based on emotion than logic.”

  “Exactly. And for years I always wondered why people couldn’t just get a hold of themselves. Eat right. Get sleep. Exercise. It’s not that easy.”

  “And don’t start fights with people who carry guns,” she says.

  “Also a big one,” I say and a laugh stretches my mouth a bit. She’s got a quick wit and I’m going to have to stay on my A game to keep up.

  “So how does that apply to the details of my life.”

  “It doesn’t seem to, does it?”

  “Not at all. I mean I don’t exactly have a handgun tucked away in my purse and certainly not in this dress. I’m still wondering at what point I’m going to get to exhale in the evening. I know if I do it right now it will probably come apart at the seams. And I’m still wondering how I can somehow sit at an angle in my chair so the food I eat bypasses my stomach entirely and goes straight to my leg. No way the dress can hold an expanding waistline this evening.”

  “Nonsense. You look amazing and life was meant to be lived. Tonight we eat and enjoy, consequences be damned.”

  “I wish it were that easy, but I’m a woman.”

  “I certainly noticed,” I say trying to avoid my line of sight dropping past her eyes, across her feminine collarbone and becoming transfixed on her heaving breasts. Our snappy conversation has her laughing from time to time and when she does her chest rises and falls. So far I’ve been able to get my fix of it thanks to my peripheral vision, but I don’t know how much longer I can hold out with just a sneaky look. I want to take in her beauty in a more straightforward way. In a way that would be much to feral for a restaurant like this, and not in line with the amount of respect I have for her.

  She lifts her eyebrow inquisitively and takes another quick sip. “So we haven’t got to the point yet. Still no answer.”

  “Right. So it would seem to have nothing to do with learning about the details of your life, but it has everything to do with it, in fact. And here’s how.” I wet my whistle with another sip. “My entire life I’ve wondered how people act irrationally. How they can’t just control themselves. I pride myself on mine. It takes some work at first, but once you get it in place it runs on it’s own…in the background. I don’t even think about it now. It’s just part of my life. Until something comes along and shakes it all up. Something that threatens my way of life and makes me realize just how rational it is that people act irrationally.”

  “You’re confusing me.”

  “That’s my point. You’ve completely confused me, or should I say the construct I’ve built for myself. The one I forgot even existed. The way everything happened when we first met. The way you came in like a hurricane…twice…and shook up everything. And now that you’ve come through you can’t un-comethrough.”

  “Is that even a word?”

  “Probably not, but tonight it is.”

  “I’ll go with it. But this hurricane that I am…I’ve left damage?”

  “Oh you’ve left damage alright.”

  “That doesn’t sound very nice.”

  “It’s not nice at all.”

  “I’m not sure I want to be associated with that kind of destruction and mayhem.”

  “You should.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because the destruction and mayhem you’ve caused are to my world. You’ve showed me I wasn’t living at all. I thought I had almost reached the pinnacle of the human existence and then you came along and showed me I was as far from it as humanly possible.”

  “That sounds like a line. It can’t be true.”

  “It’s very true.”

  “Prove it.”

  “What’s the penthouse in the sky, the money in the bank, and the accolades from your colleges worth if you have no one there to share them with?”

  “You still have them though.”

  “Why? What’s the point? So I can frame some certificate and throw it on the wall and stare at it from time to time…in the dark.”

  “I highly doubt that’s what you do with your free time.”

  “It’s not. I don’t have much free time, because I was focused on more, more, more all these years.”

  “Isn’t that the American dream?”

  “Maybe for some.”

  “Including you…until recently?”
<
br />   “Until you.”

  “Please.”

  “Now I realize that the thing I want is the thing I can never achieve, for lack of a better word, myself. But yet it’s the thing I need more than anything.”

  This time there’s no reply. No snappy comeback. Just a look in her eye that nearly matches the intensity of mine.

  “You,” I say. “You.”

  Chapter Seven

  Rose

  In all my twenty-three years I’ve never opened up to anyone so much.

  Nor have I ever been so fascinated by anyone.

  Nor have I ever had such an incredible date.

  Nor have I ever wanted a man so badly.

  I know it and surely he knows it too. It must be written all over my face.

  “So, um, yeah…this is me,” I say as we arrive at my door.

  I put my back to the door and fumble for my keys. I want to invite him in, or better yet for him to invite me in, but I don’t want to appear too easy. It’s just so soon. I’m completely conflicted as my hand scrambles inside my purse unable to find the simplest of things…the key that will take me into my apartment and let me take a deep breath so I can slow down before I do something that’s way too impulsive.

  Or is it?

  Isn’t that part of the reason why I came to the city? I mean sure, it was to make more money, but it was also to be more spontaneous and meet new people too.

  I just never figured that new people would mean the incredibly hot doctor living across the hall from me.

  This is all just too convenient. It’s like he was brought here, wrapped up in a nice bow, and left on my doorstep…quite literally.

  “I really had a great time,” he says in that smooth voice of his that would make everyone but Barry White jealous.

  “Me too,” I say. My fingers find the keychain in the bottom of the black hole which is my purse.

  “Thanks for sharing so freely and being such a great conversationalist,” he says.

  Then out of nowhere it hits me. I spent most of the night talking. When was the last time anyone, especially a guy, let me do more than half of the talking?

  Never.

  Even at work guys will brag and go on and just talk and talk and talk, like you’re actually interested in the horsepower of their new fancy sports car.

  Not him. No way.

  He was completely engaged and asked really good questions. The best part is it never felt like an interrogation, even though we did get pretty deep on some subjects. I even told him about my parents passing away five years ago in a car crash just a week after my high school graduation.

  It’s been five years, but that is personal. I never share that with anyone, and I told him over dessert like I was telling him what’s on offer on Netflix.

  It’s just something about how he listens. How his eyes focus on you like what you’re saying is the most interesting thing in the world, whether you’re describing the reasons you left your small town for the big city or what you had for breakfast last Tuesday…not that our conversation veered in that direction though.

  And right now I’d really like this conversation to veer right onto my couch and then take a hard turn towards something a little bit more aggressive like, “Please don’t stop,” and “deeper…more, more,” but I’m still a small town girl at heart. I don’t have any set rules, like three dates before getting naked with a guy, but I also couldn’t ever imagine going too far with a guy on a first date…until now.

  “Thank you for an incredible time with the most beautiful woman in the entire city,” he says.

  I blush and subconsciously turn towards him. Primal instincts still prevail no matter how big or populate a concrete jungle we find ourselves in.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “You can’t thank me entirely.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because I’m not being entirely honest,” he says.

  “Hey!” I say, slapping him on the arm. “That’s not very funny.” I liked his beautiful compliment and the night was ending on a high note. Why would he go and take it away now?

  “I’m not being honest because you’re not just the most beautiful woman in the entire city. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid my eyes upon in the whole wide world.”

  And just like that the butterflies are back fluttering around in my stomach and I feel like the toast of the town again.

  “And right now it’s not only my eyes I want to lay upon you.”

  He pauses and thoughts of our bodies tangled on the couch quickly fill my mind.

  “It’s my lips,” he says.

  He leans in and his lips come down gently on mine. Of all the ways he could have kissed me, and they all would have been welcomed right now he chose the best.

  The one that makes me feel like a princess in a fairy tale. The one that makes me feel so feminine and light on my feet.

  And the one that makes me feel like I’ve met the one.

  Chapter Eight

  Cristiano

  I shut the door behind me and faceplate into the couch.

  What an incredible young woman. Absolutely incredible.

  And it’s only enhanced by her beauty.

  How is she single?

  I jump up from the couch and immediately begin pacing the room.

  That lasts all of a handful of seconds before I’m in the kitchen boiling water for coffee.

  I need to get to work, but not in a professional sense. One much, much more important.

  I need to make this girl mine. No way am I letting her slip through my fingers. As a matter of fact it’s her finger that I’m going to have plans for.

  We filled our stomachs with food tonight, but the real goal here is to fill her stomach with my child.

  The thing about these big cities is that people become jaded. Add in working in a hospital and before long you’ve seen it all.

  Not her. God, she’s just so bright eyed and bushy tailed. So full of life and energy and ready to take the world by the horns.

  But she knows where she came from and she’s never going to forget it. She’s a girl with her feet firmly planted on the ground but her head in the clouds. What could be better? She’s a rational dreamer.

  And I’m anything but rational right now.

  I can’t focus on one thing. Not at all.

  My cock is telling me to go take a cold shower, or better yet a warm one to release all this built up pressure in my pants.

  Viagra? Are you kidding me? I was hard as a rock from the moment I picked her up until the moment I…well, now actually! My dick still hasn’t come down and she’s not even with me anymore.

  Talk about powerful. I thought doctors were supposed to be calm, cool, collected and in charge.

  I laugh. I guess it’s a microcosm of life. Men think they’re in charge only because their women allow it. And just like life the man’s out in front tooting his own horn while a woman is silently pulling the strings in the background not asking for a bit of the credit.

  I’ve been that alpha out in front for a long time now. It’s one of the reasons I got hired for this job. They wanted a face for the hospital. Someone that could get business. It’s tough to think about sometimes but hospitals in this country are definitely a for profit operation and a big name doctor can certainly add to the bottom line.

  And that was all fine with me, but now I finally see the light and did it ever happen so quickly.

  Once I met her.

  I get all the credit, but it’s the nurses like her that make everything run smoothly. The ones who do the tireless jobs around the clock. As a doctor I’m just a rock star who comes in, does my thing to a bunch of accolades, and then it’s done.

  But the nurses are the real heroes. She’s the hero.

  Here I’ve been thinking my life is so great and so complete and now I know for sure that it all means nothing without the absolutely perfect woman.

  The one you can look your entire life trying t
o find, yet most never will.

  But I’ve never ever considered myself to be most, and I certainly wouldn’t expect anything less from my woman.

  And my woman is her.

  She may not know it yet, but she is.

  I’m sure she’s got a clue though. It wasn’t hard to see how fascinated I was with her at dinner. Twice I didn’t even hear the waiter, I was so lost in her words and those beautiful eyes of hers.

  I can picture them now.

  The way she looked up at me before I kissed her. And the way she looked at me when I wished her a good evening and forced myself down to my own door.

  The entire time my legs felt like cinder blocks, my mind asking me, “What in the hell are you doing? Go back there! Stay with her.”

  And oh how I wanted to.

  To kiss her once more, knowing there’s no such thing as only one more kiss with her. That’s why I had to stop at one and one only.

  That alone took all the discipline I had in my body.

  And now that discipline is being tested yet again. I could go into that shower and fantasize about her but I won’t.

  I won’t accept that kind of fake, temporary “victory.” A shallow and unfulfilling release.

  I want the real thing. I want her.

  I tip back the coffee and think of all the things I’m going to do with this girl.

  How I’m going to show her I’m the absolute only man for her.

  And when I do she will be mine and I’ll be hers, and I’ll have the only real “victory”…a ring on her finger and my child inside her.

  Chapter Nine

  Rose

  “Girl, you better get your head out of the clouds and focused on that catheter you need to give to Mr. Morris down the hall,” Nurse Tanya says.

  Talk about killing your buzz.

  And buzzing like a busy little bee is exactly how I’m feeling this morning.

  And not just busy, but beyond happy.

  The ride into work felt so much shorter than usual. The air certainly was fresher this morning. I had my window down and the stereo blasting. Even people at stoplights seemed to be smiling at me. Heck, I think I even heard birds singing. And now that I’m here I’m getting so much work done that I’ll surely get nominated for RN of the month, or at least I think I just might deserve it.