by Shaye Marlow
I thought for a moment. “I still don’t get what’s wrong.”
“They put us in the psych portion of the ER. We’re locked in here,” she said, turning on me. “You probably won’t see him,” she falsettoed. “He probably won’t even know you’re here.”
“Hey, I didn’t say those things. And I don’t sound like that.”
Frances was pacing like a caged animal. Turning, she banged on the glass. “Hey,” she yelled to the two nurses at the desk. The nurses looked at her, but didn’t move.
“Maybe it was just my answer to the domestic abuse question.”
“No. For stitches, they should’ve sent you to urgent care. Not to the back. And certainly not to psych. Oh, fuck me,” she whispered, seeing something down the hall.
She backed up as a man in scrubs appeared. He had a stethoscope around his neck, a head full of brown hair, and when he saw Frances, he smiled.
FRANCES
This was a nightmare. Had to be. I was asleep, and my brain was playing a cruel joke. I closed my eyes, hoping that when I opened them back up, he’d be gone. Not standing there, with accusation in his eyes. I felt the slightest breeze as he opened the door.
“Frances,” he said. “Fancy meeting you here.”
I opened my eyes, one and then the other, and he was still there. Just in front of me, smiling, brown eyes gleaming, and generally looking like a tall drink of water. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.
He slapped a thick folder against my chest. “Fill those out,” he said, and stepped past me. He’d closed the door behind him before I could even think to lunge through it.
“Hi,” he said to Zack. “I’m Dr. Welsh. And you look like you might’ve tripped and hit a doorknob with your head,” he said, casting a glance back at me.
“Not a doorknob,” Zack said.
“Frying pan? Big book?”
“Ah, no. It was a pipe.”
The damn doctor raised his brows. Still looking at me.
“I didn’t do it,” I groused, pulling the folder away from my chest. Resting it on my forearm, I flipped it open.
I missed another opportunity to escape as I was staring at the title of page one. A nurse breezed past me, coaxed Zack into lying back on the gurney, pulled on a pair of gloves, and opened a paper-wrapped tray.
Zack’s eyes grew large as he watched her tap the bubbles out of a syringe. “What?” he said, his voice faint. “Did you go and get the biggest needle you could find?”
I put off the inevitable for the moment, and skirted the nurse to hold his hand.
The snapping of the good doctor’s glove brought my attention back around. Before he pulled on the other, Derrick dug a pen out of his breast pocket, and held it out to me.
When I went to take it, he held on. “Sign,” he ordered.
I bared my teeth at him.
He let go.
I set the folder on the gurney next to Zack, flipped it open with my free hand, and began to read.
“So,” Derrick said, turning back to a piteously-moaning Zack, “how’d you meet our Frances, here?”
“She’s teaching me how to fly,” Zack said, vinyl creaking as he leaned away from the antiseptic-armed nurse. Really, how many places was she going to stick that in him?
“Really? That’s exciting. Is she still flying around that yellow and red 180?”
“I’m not giving you the plane back,” I interjected.
“You don’t have a choice. Guess whose name is on the title?”
“Even if I was willing, I couldn’t.”
“Why’s that?” Derrick asked, dropping a pack of sutures into his little tray.
I hesitated.
“We crashed it,” Zack said.
“What?”
“We were shot down,” Zack elaborated as the nurse rinsed his gash. “The plane’s lying upside down in a swamp with a couple bullet holes in it.”
Derrick stared at me.
“It’s mostly in one piece,” I offered. “It just flipped a little.”
Zack looked back and forth between us. “What am I missing?”
“Your lovely flight instructor,” Derrick said, “is my wife.”
I could feel Zack’s stare.
“Hold still,” Derrick ordered, coming at Zack with a big, curved needle held on the end of a tiny set of pliers. He pushed it through the flap of flesh, then hooked it out through the skin of Zack’s forehead. “I want my plane back,” he said, yanking the dark cord taut.
“You can want in one hand and shit in the other because, like Zack said, it’s sunk in a swamp.”
“Where?” Derrick bit off.
“Why?”
“Because, my lovely little thief, it’s insured.”
“We can show you where,” Zack said, ignoring my head-shake.
“That would be very helpful,” Derrick said, spearing that big needle through his skin again.
“How did you two meet?” Zack asked.
“Here, incidentally. Frances was streaking in the park, and she tripped and broke a rib. I saw her a week later at a coffee shop, and… yeah.”
“How’d you get married?” Zack asked.
“Vegas. Just a month later,” Derrick said. “Not my shiningest moment. Two weeks after that, she took my plane and disappeared.”
“You were a stuffy, controlling dick,” I said. “Probably still are.”
“And you were a crazy, thieving bitch,” Derrick said, yanking another stitch tight as he glanced up at me. “Probably still are.”
“Please don’t call her names,” Zack whimpered.
“Why not?”
“Because I’ll have to hurt you.”
Derrick paused in his stitching to eye him, then grunted. “Just sign the fucking papers. It’s an annulment. I keep my stuff, you keep yours. We part ways, and I hopefully never see you or any of your moronic boyfriends ever again.”
“He’s not a moron,” I said, flipping until I found a page in need of a signature. “Continue calling him names, and I’ll have to hurt you.”
Derrick laughed. “Oh, this is precious.”
“Just do your job,” I said. “I’m signing.”
“I will be retrieving my plane,” Derrick said, apparently unable to work silently.
“Fine. You do that.”
“Fine,” Derrick said.
“Fine,” said Zack.
Derrick shook his head. “Frisky fucker, aren’t you? I can see why she likes you.”
Twenty-three stitches and a divorce later, we were back on the street.
“I have a proposal,” Zack said.
“What, so soon?”
Zack looked puzzled. “What?”
“Never mind. You were saying?”
“I know we were planning on getting groceries, but—”
“It doesn’t seem like we could carry much in the way of groceries on this,” I said, gesturing to the bike.
“And, I doubt we could get through a grocery store without getting attacked. So, how about, before somebody actually manages to get through me to murder you, we head on home?”
“That sounds like a wonderful idea.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
FRANCES
“She’s coming!” one of them whisper-shouted as I opened my bedroom door. A sultry song started slow, filling the cabin. As I walked out, I was prepared for hijinks, but I wasn’t prepared for… that.
Halfway between me and the kitchen, somebody’d installed a stripper pole. And there was Zack, in only a speedo, his leg hooked around it, holding eye contact.
Zack’s hips started to move, just a slow, easy roll, drawing my eyes like a magnet as the singer crooned. Then the beat dropped, and jazzy brass filled the space, winding around Zack as he undulated. His muscles flexed, pulling his hips in, running his package against that bar, then out and down, and I was hypnotized. The music sounded like something right out of a James Bond movie, but James Bond had never moved so good.
Grasping
the bar, Zack swung in a circle. He leaned back in a perfect arc, then eased upright. My breath caught as he took a step toward me, then another.
But then the music rose, calling him back to the pole. He grasped it with both hands and swung his feet up off the floor. I watched, mesmerized, as he worked his way around, arms in a Y, somehow supporting the entire weight of his body. His legs bent, wrapped around the pole, and then he was spinning faster, sliding down.
I emitted a girly squeal as he flipped himself back up, utterly defying gravity. He hooked his knee around the pole, and those legs worked, all of his muscles keeping him off the floor as he undulated in a circle. He was face-up, he was face-down. Then facing me, leaning back, his hips curling into a series of suggestive thrusts. Then climbing, his arms and shoulders taut as he used only his hands. He worked his way up to the music, then rolled downward in a controlled tumble that made me gasp.
The music came to a climax, and he spun away into the kitchen. Unwilling to lose sight of him, I found myself following without having decided to move my feet.
Rory was perched on the counter like a gargoyle. He was standing up, bent over because there wasn’t enough room for him under the ceiling, and holding a pitcher.
Zack stopped beneath him, his sultry gaze pinning me in place.
Rory tipped the pitcher, and a white substance that looked a whole helluva lot like milk poured over his brother. Zack let the white stream run over his face, moaned, and raised his hands to rub circles around his nipples.
I slapped a hand over the laugh that burst from my mouth.
Zack’s gorgeous baby blues drifted open, his expression almost post-coital. A white rivulet slid down his chest and abs to get caught in his waistband. His undies were wet, and currently not hiding a damn thing. I could see every bump, every ridge, and it made my mouth go dry.
“Well,” I rasped. “That’ll be hard to top.”
“I made you breakfast,” Zack crooned. “At the table.”
I took a seat at the dining table and finally managed to tear my gaze from him. There was a plate there for me, and it was full of food: bacon, eggs, pancakes, and a pretty little pile of fruit.
“How?” I asked, thinking of our ermine infestation.
“Borrowed some stuff from the neighbor. Do you like coconut?” Zack asked, his voice coming from very close behind me.
“Yes,” I said cautiously.
He moved to my side and tugged my plate his direction. “Coconut syrup,” he explained, flipping open the cap on a slim bottle.
My gaze stuck to his junk, which was just above table-height, hovering next to my pancakes. He lowered the bottle into my range of vision. It was blocking my view, and horizontal, and he groaned as he squeezed a white glop onto my pancakes. Then he did it again, lashing my pancakes with the coconut syrup in the most suggestive way imaginable.
When he seemed just about finished, I ran my finger through one of the sweet strands, and popped it into my mouth. “Mmm,” I said, making Zack stare.
Behind him, Rory laughed. “She got you, dude. So, hey,” he said, coming around to plop into the chair on my other side. “How was it? Did you see any room for improvement?”
I pulled my plate in front of me, and picked up my knife and fork before looking at him. “What, exactly, was the goal?”
“Turn you on,” Zack said as Rory said, “Get you wet.”
“Where’d you get the stripper pole?” I asked, getting distracted by the way Zack was wiping himself down with a kitchen towel.
“Oh, it was just something we had lying around,” Rory answered. “So, do you have any feedback for us?”
“Somebody’s gonna need to mop the kitchen,” I said between bites.
“C’moooon,” Rory said. “Just answer one question. You owe me that, at least, after abandoning me yesterday. On a scale from zero to ten—”
“Oh, leave her be,” Zack said, sitting on my left.
“—zero being no arousal whatsoever, watching maggots writhe around in a corpse, and ten being the most aroused you’ve ever been in your whole effing life, how turned-on did Zack manage to get you?”
“That’s none of your business,” I said.
“I saw your face,” he said. “You’re still flushed. Just tell me. Pick a number.”
“Is ‘fuck off’ a number?”
He stared at me, trying to wear me down.
I stared right back, refusing to fold.
“Fine,” he said, shoving back from the table. “I’m gonna go work on catapults. Zack?”
Zack waved him off. “I’ll hang with Frances while she eats. And I think we’re going for a flight lesson here pretty quick.” He never took his eyes from me.
Rory slammed the door on his way out.
I pushed my plate away, propped my chin in my hand, and grinned at Zack. “You really had a stripper pole just lying around?”
“It was an impulse buy,” Zack explained. His eyes flicked to the plate as I shoved it away. “Is the food not good?”
“It was in the way,” I explained before lunging across the corner of the table. I got hung up at the hips, but managed to drag him the rest of the way so that my mouth was on his. I moaned, breathing him in, feeling like I’d been waiting to do this forever.
He kissed me back, his hands cradling my face. “So sweet,” he muttered, making his chair screech as he rose, his mouth still locked with mine. I thought my heart might beat right out of my chest as Zack’s tongue came into play.
He dragged me right over the table and into his lap. Several minutes later, dazed and aching, I leaned away. My voice was barely above a whisper. “We shouldn’t. If we get started, then we won’t get stopped. You need your hours…” Despite my words, I couldn’t quite uncurl my fingers from his shirt.
“Just one more kiss,” he muttered, covering my mouth with his.
Clutching at his shoulders, I met him halfway. His cock was hard under my hip, his firm thighs supporting me while his soft lips enchanted. Our kiss burned hotter, faster, until I wanted to tear his clothes from him. Then it slackened, slowed, morphed into a wondrous tease.
When he pulled back, my eyes didn’t open for a good long while. He had one big hand on my hip, and the other was warm against my thigh. I didn’t want to move.
He leaned in again, and kissed my neck. Call me a weak woman, but I let my head fall back and moaned.
“If you really want to end this,” he said between hot, open-mouthed kisses, “you need to move.”
“Mmm. Have you had breakfast yet?”
He shook his head, stubble rasping softly against my neck, making me shiver.
“Want some?” I squealed as he tossed me up on the table, and then laughed breathlessly as he dragged my shorts down. “I’m on the pancakes,” I said, laughing even harder as I felt them squish under my shoulder.
He didn’t bother peeling my shorts all the way off, just pushed my legs up, and dove in.
“Oh, god,” I said, my head dropping against the table as my body lit up under his tongue. It took less than a minute for him to drain the laughter out of me. I was surrounded by heat, consumed by it.
I writhed in his hold, loving the way he gripped me. He was ravenous, kissing and licking every part that he could reach—even some parts that made me gasp in shock, and him grin wickedly as he moved back up. He clearly understood the importance of the clit, but he also seemed to want to taste…
I moaned again, a longer, deeper sound as he thrust his tongue into me. He pushed in deep, only retreating when I squeezed around him, and then pushed his hot, slick way inside again. That stubble was at work on my thighs, prickling as he swirled his way back up to my clit.
The first icy-hot tingles ghosted through me like voodoo magic. “Keep doing that,” I wheezed. “Please. Just like that.”
Oh thank you, Jesus, he did. He gazed up at me, watched as my face flushed and my lids drifted. I groaned as my hips ground out a rhythm against his face. His hands tightened, biti
ng into my skin.
“I’m…. I’m—” But I lost the breath to finish it.
He made a sound of approval, a vibrating growl just exactly when and where I needed it, and I exploded in his hold. My legs locked down. My inner muscles clamped, and I squished the pancakes flatter than they’d ever been as my back arched off the table.
Zack was groaning, prying my legs open to press his face in, to lap me up. My legs trembled along with my belly and breasts, one of which Zack slid his hand up into my shirt to claim. He squeezed, setting off another set of hard contractions that had me biting my lip against the need to cry out.
He licked me through it, seeming to want to claim every drop. The strokes of his tongue became gentler, more languorous, easing me down slowly.
I dropped back against the table, completely relaxed and open under him, half-hoping he’d put something in me besides his tongue. Something a little bigger, a little harder. Something…
A slightly harder touch on my labia made me jump. It was his finger, I saw through my spread legs. Just his finger, tracing my slick and puffy folds. I propped my heels on the edge of the table, hoping…
He leaned down, and flicked just the barest tip of his tongue across my clit. “We should get flying,” he said, his breath warm across my mons.
“Mmm.”
“You said it yourself. If we continue, we’ll be at this all day.”
I was pretty sure he was unbuttoning himself when we heard voices through the door. And these weren’t faint voices; these were Rory-had-his-hand-on-the-screen-and-was-about-to-open-it voices.
I shot off the table, nearly knocking Zack out of his chair as I tripped over him, then yanked my shorts up.
Rory stepped in and stopped. His eyes narrowed. “What’d I miss?”
“Nothing,” I said. “And if we had been doing something, it’d be none of your business.”
“Bullshit, it’s not my business. Whatever goes on in this house is my business, especially sex on the kitchen table.”
I propped a hand on my hip. “Oh yeah? How do you figure?”
“Well, ever since you drove off our house girlfriend—”
“Since I drove her off?”
