The Promise of Everything - Garner-Willoughby Brothers Book Three

by Blaire Broderick

  Bar-goers were all glued to the beauty on the stage serenading the small crowd with a classic Fleetwood Mac tune. Random cheers, hoots, and hollers filled the space around me, and the second Sophie sang her last, final note, she collapsed in half with a hand across her heart, as if it’d taken all the energy she had at that moment, and the patrons erupted into wild applause. She stood back up, brushing the dark waves from her face and smiling as she slid the mic back into the stand and skipped off the stage.

  She rushed to our table and sat down, exhilarated, and looking to me for approval.

  “Well done.” I clapped my hands.

  “You get to pick the next one,” she said, reaching for a plastic water cup on the table and quenching her parched throat. She crunched on an ice cube as she smiled at me. Our eyes locked like magnets unable to let go.

  “You could sing the phone book, Sophie,” I said. “Pick whatever you want.”

  She stood up and sauntered over to me. “Come on. Pick something. Live a little.”

  She slipped one lithe arm around my neck and made herself at home in my lap, clearly the result of all the cocktails coursing through her system.

  “Pick me a song,” she said, batting her thick lashes. “You like music, right?”

  I laughed. “Yes, I like music.”

  “So, it shouldn’t be that hard for you to pick me a song,” she said, her hand trailing down from my shoulder to my chest. I prayed she couldn’t feel how hard my heart was beating at that moment. My breath suspended. And without warning, she jumped back up pouting her lips at me. “Be that way.”

  I tossed back the rest of the beer. I knew I was buttoned-up. I knew I needed to loosen up and have fun once in a while. I didn’t know how. Growing up, I was treated like an inconvenient burden parented by two selfish assholes who believed all children should be seen and not heard.

  I’d spent most of my days holed up in my room, nose in a book, trying my hardest to keep quiet like a good little boy. God forbid I spilled my Legos on the wood floor and made too much noise. My mother would sic the nanny on me. And forget playing with my little brothers. Being the oldest, I was constantly told I might hurt them if I played with them. And never mind roughhousing. We were nothing but handsome little ceramic dolls dressed up for family photos and paraded around at get-togethers and put away in our places each night.

  “You want another drink?” I asked the girls as I stood to leave. They nodded, and I returned several minutes later with three Sunset Wheats complete with floating orange slices.

  “You’re the best,” Mia said, reaching for one and raising it to me before taking a sip.

  “Thanks, Jamison,” Sophie said, her dark eyes drawing me in.

  “Where’s the stupid songbook?” I asked. Sophie handed me a small, black booklet. I thumbed through it, sticky pages and all, as my eyes scanned the pages, finally deciding on Cheap Trick’s “I Want You to Want Me.”

  9

  SOPHIE

  TEN. NINE. EIGHT. SEVEN…

  I glanced over at Jamison sitting back in his chair with his sweater draped over the back. A few beers and he’d finally unbuttoned himself a little. I bit my lip. Maybe it was the alcohol. Maybe it was the fact that I couldn’t get a read on him. Maybe it was the fact that it very well could be my last New Year’s, but I couldn’t help myself.

  SIX. FIVE. FOUR…

  I scooted out from the table, lunging at him like a tiger in the wild.

  THREE. TWO...

  Jamison’s glassy blue eyes fell to mine as I lowered myself into his lap and slipped my arms behind his head grabbing a handful of his sandy brown hair.

  ONE… HAPPY NEW YEAR!

  As the bar crowd erupted into chaos around us and streamers soared and confetti sprinkled, I lowered my mouth to his. His full lips parted, and his hands slid around my waist gripping me and holding on for dear life. I closed my eyes breathing in his expensive cologne and tasting the amber beer on his tongue as my fingers slipped through his soft hair.

  I came up for air, my lips were red and slightly swollen as they curved into an apprehensive smile. I half expected him to gently nudge me off his lap.

  I didn’t know him that well, but I knew for damn sure he wasn’t big into PDA. He was reserved and quiet, thoughtful and intentional. He didn’t do drunken-lap-make-out-sessions. He didn’t do karaoke. He didn’t even do Christmas. But he did it all. For me.

  “You wanna get out of here?” I asked, my eyes searching his. In the darkness of the bar, his gaze served as the only beacon of light I needed. I slid off his lap, and his hand slipped into mine somehow as he stood up. I briefly scanned the room for Mia, but she was nowhere to be found.

  We slipped our coats on, not bothering to button them up, and we pushed past the crowded bar and out to the street. Hands still locked, I skipped along, dragging and pulling him behind me. I wanted to be alone with him. I wanted to peel off those layers and get down to the basics with him. I wanted to feel his hands all over me. I wanted the weight of his stare as he pressed himself into me. It’d been years since I’d been with a man.

  I pulled him into the foyer of my apartment fumbling for my keys as we hurried up the stairs. Breathless, I stumbled into my messy apartment tossing my purse to the floor and kicking off my shoes as I staggered backward. Hair in my eyes and a devilish grin on my face, I slipped my jacket off waiting for him to make the next move.

  He stood frozen, paralyzed by the door, looking at me as if he’d never wanted anything more in his life. But something kept him back. I sashayed toward him, my fingers feverishly working the buttons of my blouse as I stood on my toes to kiss him. With all the height he had on me, I could hardly reach him.

  Jamison’s hands soon found the back of my head. His fingers tangled up in my hair as he kissed me hard.

  I slipped my blouse off and reached for his pants tugging at the buttons and unzipping them as we landed on the unmade mess that covered my bed. The pitch black of my place swallowed us whole, the windows naked and uncovered, and the unobtrusive twinkle of tiny stars against a moonless sky provided the perfect amount of lighting.

  I pressed my head back against the covers as Jamison tugged his sweater off and unbuttoned his shirt. The quick tugs as he pulled my leggings off sent jolts of anticipation through me from head to toe.

  I couldn’t breathe. I’d never wanted sex so badly in my life. I wanted hot, crazy, irrational, animalistic sex, and I wanted it with him. I didn’t want to think about tomorrow or the next day or the next day. I didn’t want to think about the fact that I might not be around long enough to have wild and passionate sex with anyone ever again. I wanted his hands all over my body as he filled the deepest parts of me.

  I slid back placing my head on the pillow and admiring the outline of his body in what little light surrounded us. I reached out gripping his rounded shoulders and guiding him over the top of me. The nip in the air was immediately put to rest the second his body pressed against mine. I parted for him, my legs gripping around his strong thighs. By the feel of his body in the darkness, I could tell he worked out.

  His hot lips pressed into the flesh of my neck sending shivers down each ragged nerve ending and kicking my arousal up a notch. Just like in real life, Jamison stayed silent. Focused. Determined.

  He worked his way down my neck as I wrangled to get my bra off flinging it across the room. His lips next tasted the soft flesh of my belly before lowering himself between my thighs, spreading them gently with his hands. His warm breath against my mound took my breath away, keeping me on the verge of crying out until his fingers carefully opened me. The hot wetness of his tongue as it carefully traced and swirled and lapped my arousal forced my hand down to his head gripping a handful of his hair in the process as I bit my lip.

  My free hand slapped the bed sheet as I fought the inevitable. I didn’t want to come yet. I didn’t want it to end when we were just getting started.

  “Jamison,” I sighed, breathless and wanting. It
’d been years since I’d last been intimate with anyone, and I’d forgotten just how intense it could get. He stopped, his pale blue eyes glowing in the dark as he looked up at me. I reached down grabbing him by his arms and pulling him over me.

  Without saying a word, he knew. And by looking at him, I knew he wanted it as much as I did.

  He reached down fishing his wallet from his jeans on the floor and pulling out a shiny gold packet, ripping it with his teeth, and letting it flutter to the bed. He stood up on his knees gripping his generous, throbbing cock with one hand and slipping the condom over it with the other rolling it down slowly and securing it.

  I bit my lip bracing myself for his grand entrance.

  I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and relaxed as he positioned himself above me widening my hips just so. One smooth, perfect placement was followed by a textbook seamless insertion as if he knew the human body better than any other man on the face of the earth.

  He gripped my hips as slow thrust after slow thrust sent my body reeling. He lowered himself over me until I could feel the heat of his body against mine, and his face was buried in the warmth of my neck. He breathed me in with each thrust exhaling as we rubbed together.

  I’d never felt so alive, so present. Lying under his weight, my nerves on fire, nothing else mattered. Nothing but that moment.

  I gasped for air with each thrust, tiny moans of sheer ecstasy escaping my lips with each sigh. I opened my eyes to see his face, only to find him studying me, observing me. That look of curiosity and wanting that always seemed to consume his face whenever we were together followed him to that moment as well.

  His hand reached up to my face cupping my cheek as he buried his head into my neck once more, saying nothing. My hands slipped down the length of his corded steel arms resting on the rippling muscles of his long back as he glided over me. I couldn’t fight it much longer. I had to let go and ride the wave.

  “Jamison,” I whimpered as I let myself go, my body clenching and seizing, peaking for a second before riding down the rippling waves of the best climax I’d had in my young adult life.

  His hips bucked, thrusting into me harder and harder until he plunged one final time, releasing himself and falling on top of me when he was finished. Pinned beneath his form, I felt safe. Connected. Wanted.

  We laid for a moment in the darkness until he rolled off me resting his head on the pillow next to mine. A smile consumed my face as I reached over and brushed his hair from his forehead. I’d never seen him with a hair out of place before. I’d never seen him so flushed or breathless or anything other than picture perfect.

  “I needed that,” I sighed, closing my eyes and replaying my orgasm in my head. “Oh, God, did I need that.”

  He reached across resting his hand on my heaving belly as I struggled to catch my breath. At that moment, it didn’t matter that I still didn’t know his last name. I didn’t want to know it. If I knew it, I’d be doodling our names together like a schoolgirl in love, and I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t get attached like that. I just wanted to have fun.

  It also didn’t matter that I’d only met him a few weeks earlier. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t my boyfriend. I wasn’t thinking about tomorrow. I wasn’t thinking about trying to steer this ship in any specific direction. And I certainly wasn’t thinking about the aneurysm tucked away in the back of my skull.

  I didn’t have a damn thought about a damn thing, and I loved it.

  10

  JAMISON

  “First patient’s here, Dr. Garner,” my nurse, Esmé, said as she popped her head into my office Monday morning. Her short, black hair was tucked behind her ear, and her lips spread into a nervous smile. She was new to me, and for some reason, I always seemed to make her nervous. Perhaps I was too quiet.

  “I’ll be right out.” I nodded to her as I finished composing my email. I stepped out of my office grabbing the chart from the holder on the wall and slipping it under my arm as I headed to the exam room. I stood outside the room and opened the file briefing myself quickly before I introduced myself.

  Sophie Salinger.

  My heart dropped, sinking like a stone into the lowest part of me. My eyes scanned her file soaking in everything and not wanting to believe a fucking thing. The folder in my hands was a blow to the head and a punch to the gut all wrapped into one.

  Unruptured aneurysm. Bledsoe referral.

  It was never a good thing when Bledsoe referred someone to me. It meant they needed surgery. It meant their case was beyond his scope of expertise. I drew in a deep breath reaching for the door handle.

  Seated on the edge of the exam table with her ankles crossed rested Sophie, wild brown hair spilling down her shoulders and bangs in her eyes. Her face fell the second I entered the room, and an audible gasp slipped from her mouth.

  “I’m Dr. Garner,” I said, sticking out my hand to meet hers as Esmé sat at the computer pulling up Sophie’s imaging file and displaying it against the far wall. I had to stay professional. I didn’t have a choice.

  Sophie opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Her eyes searched mine, and her face flushed.

  “So, Dr. Bledsoe referred you?” I said, going over her chart notes. “We’re going to take a look at this aneurysm and see what we can do.”

  Two nights ago, I’d been inside her, my lips all over her body, breathing her in, tasting her, and loving every minute of it. Now she was a patient in my exam room, and I had to pretend like I didn’t even know her.

  “We have a few different treatment options,” I said. She looked right through me. She probably wouldn’t remember a single thing I said. Her eyes danced toward the door as her foot twitched like she was anxious to leave. “There’s surgical clipping which would require removing part of your skull.”

  I walked over to the projected image of her brain against the wall.

  “Think of your aneurysm as a berry on a stem,” I said, my fingers tracing the image.

  “That’s what Dr. Bledsoe said,” she said, eyes focused back toward the image as she avoided my gaze.

  “So, there’s endovascular coiling,” I continued. “It’s less invasive, but there is a higher risk of re-bleeding. I’m going to go over your file in more detail and try to come up with a plan of action.”

  I stared at her face, watching as the carefree, happy-go-lucky Sophie I knew faded, and the version she probably kept tucked away emerged. Her lip trembled as she blinked away tears brimming in her eyes.

  “In the meantime, it looks like Dr. Bledsoe has you on acetaminophen and calcium channel blockers,” I said, going over her chart. “You still taking the Nymalize?”

  She nodded.

  “I’m going to also put you on an anti-seizure medication just as a precaution,” I said.

  “Dilantin?” Esmé interjected, grabbing my script pad and preparing it for my signature.

  “Yes,” I said, turning back to Sophie. “In the meantime, it’s extremely important for you to keep your blood pressure down. Don’t smoke. Don’t stress.”

  Her eyes lifted meeting mine as if we were complete strangers all of a sudden.

  “Eat healthy. Limit caffeine,” I said. “Exercise. All these things should buy us more time as we fight this thing. Do you have any questions for me?”

  I signed the prescription and offered it to Sophie, who yanked it from my hand and shoved it in her pocket.

  She slid down from the exam table and grabbed her coat off the chair. “No questions.”

  “Why don’t you schedule a secondary consultation with me on your way out?” I said. “Stop by the check-out desk. It’ll give me time to go over everything, run some ideas by my peers, and come up with a plan of attack.”

  “Do I have to wait another month for that, too?” she huffed, zipping her coat and fluffing her dark hair down her shoulders.

  “A day,” I said, my eyes burning into hers, though she wouldn’t look at me. “I need a day. Here, I’ll walk you.”


  We left the exam room, and I escorted her down to the check-out desk.

  “Squeeze her in tomorrow, okay?” I said to the receptionist. “It’s very important that I see her no later than tomorrow.”

  The receptionist pursed her lips and breathed out loudly through her nose as she shook her head. “You know you’re double-booked all the way out to February.”

  “Find room,” I said, clenching my jaw.

  “Dr. Garner, your next two patients are here,” Esmé said, breezing by me to room another patient. As usual, one appointment down, and I was already running late. I glanced over to Sophie wishing I could talk to her but not knowing where to even begin. I wanted to pull her aside, but surrounded by nurses, patients, and staff, there was nowhere to go.

  “You going to be okay?” I said, placing a hand on Sophie’s shoulder.

  She turned toward me, her dark eyes finally meeting mine, and she forced a smile. “It was great meeting you today.”

  Fuck.

  I rushed to Sophie’s apartment immediately after stepping off the train. Within minutes, I found myself pounding on her door. A thousand thoughts swirled around my head, and not a single one made sense.

  Her door flung open. Standing before me with her hands on her hips was a wild-eyed Sophie.

  “Need something?” she asked.

  I brushed past her, letting myself in. “We need to talk.”

  “Damn right we do.”

  “When were you going to tell me you had a brain aneurysm?”

  “When were you going to tell me you were a doctor?”

  “It never came up.”

  She crossed her arms. “Same here.”

  “I can’t date patients,” I said, my voice low and exasperated. “And I can’t treat someone I’m sleeping with.”

  “We slept together once,” she huffed.

  “Was it a one-time shot?” I spit back.