It was seven in the morning, the start of a new day. Toy did well at night. It was the days that she often had trouble with.
“What happened?” she asked. “Why’d you stay so late? Was there some major accident the ER had to handle? Or did you get caught up under some doctor?”
“Both.”
“Dr. Douche? Did he earn out of his chastity belt?”
I inhaled through my nose and scrubbed at my face.
“Uh oh, what did he do?” I could hear the laughter in her voice. It sounded good. This was my favorite version of Toy; happy and giggly. The anxious, fearful one was still asleep on the mattress.
“The idiot tried to tattle on me to my supervisor. So, I swallowed the key to his cock cage.”
There was silence. And then Toy burst out laughing. “You’re right, he is an idiot. I know better.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Because I’m a good girl.”
“Yes, you are.”
She purred into the phone like a kitten. I had the urge to race home and scratch behind her ears, rub her belly, and pet her in that special place.
“Anyway,” I said as I closed my locker. “I’m done with doctors.”
Toy laughed again. “You’ve said that before. And then a new jerk comes on the scene and you can’t help but put his balls in a vise.”
“I can’t afford to anymore. We need the money.”
She was silent for a moment. “It’s my job to do the worrying in this relationship.”
“It’s my job to make things better so that you don’t have to worry. That’s what I’m doing now. Okay?”
“Yes, Mistress.”
“Good girl. I’ll be home soon. Do you need anything?”
“No, I put in an order with the grocery store and Amazon. Those should arrive this afternoon while you’re home.”
“All right. Then I want you to get up, take a shower, and wash that pretty kitty of yours.”
“Yes, Mistress.”
I caught the catch in her voice and it made me smile. “Good girl.”
I got off with Toy. I wished I’d used my break to take a nap instead of play around with West, or Dr. Douche as Toy had so aptly labeled him. Instead, I was left frustrated and with a bout of indigestion. Still, it was a new day and I was making a fresh start. Or so I thought, until I turned the corner and another cleansing product blocked my path.
Chapter Six
“There you are, Nurse Cleo.”
“Actually, there I go, Dr. Page. I’m heading out.”
“You did a great job in there,” he said, ignoring my words. He rounded me, blocking my path, and leaned in.
People who were bigger than me always made the mistake of thinking that their size would intimidate me. I stared Page down with a glassy gaze, cold and unblinking. His confident smirk faltered. I raised an eyebrow and cocked my head, indicating that he should get down to business.
“I saw you’ve been having some trouble with Dr. West.”
I sighed and rolled my eyes. I knew exactly where this little caring speech was headed.
Page cleared his throat and straightened his white coat. His eyes softened into predatory slits and his voice regained a false sense of confidence now that my glare was focused upwards.
“I have a solution,” he said. “I think it would be mutually beneficial if we worked more closely together. I’d like to take you under my wing.”
“I’m not interested in flying, thank you.” Giving him a curt smile that cut at the inside of my lips, I made to step around him.
Page blocked my path. Big mistake. But Wanda’s words to play nice went through my ears. I rolled my neck. The cracking of the tendons in my neck worked to slow my mouth down from saying something stupid.
“You should consider it,” Page said. “I know you’re up for a promotion alongside Nurse Charity. The report I give could influence the decision depending on how well we work together.”
I’d seen his work with Charity in the x-ray room. The next crack I heard were my knuckles. Luckily, I’d only balled my hand into a fist. It didn’t connect with anything on his body —yet.
I looked Page up and down. It wasn’t a long journey. It would be so easy to break this man. He had mama’s boy written all over him. He was of that breed of Millennials that had everything handed to him. The kind of kid that was taught to the test and not to think for themselves. The kind of kid that had been praised for just participating in the game and given a trophy for showing up.
It would take me a day, two max, before I was in his ass with a monster cock and he was begging me for more. It would be so very easy.
I took a step back. “Dr. Page, both you and my supervisor will have to judge my work based on my merits. Between Nurse Charity and I, I’m sure the best woman will win.”
Page looked up at the ceiling, as though he ran my words over in his head again and again. Then his jaw ticked when he realized he’d been rejected. “You’ve fucked every doctor in this place. You think you’re too good for me?”
“Honey, I would be so bad for you.” I reached out and patted him on his smooth, hairless chin. “I would turn you into my bitch and you would give me your job. But I don’t have the time or the energy to play with you and work through your homoerotic tendencies right now. I need to get home.”
“Oh yeah.” He tilted his baby chin up and down. “I heard you were a lesbian.”
“Sure,” I said. “If that makes you feel better.”
“Cleo?”
I caught sight of Wanda in the distance. Dr. Page took two steps to the side of me as she came to join us.
“You’re supposed to be long gone,” said Wanda.
I wanted to say the same to her. Her nose was red and her eyes puffy. I knew that if I fussed, she’d brush my concern away. From years of nursing I could tell that whatever had taken a shot at her would knock her down soon enough.
“Mrs. Steele, I’m glad you’re here,” said Page. “I just wanted to tell you what a valuable asset I think Nurse Charity is. Her help was instrumental on the surgical floor today. Not only that, but she caught a mistake another doctor had made.”
Wanda looked to me. “Is that so?”
I remained mute. I was too tired to play this game. “I’ll see you both tomorrow.”
“Cleo,” called Wanda. “Are you on the schedule later tonight?”
“No, I’m off. I’m going to spend the day with my girlfriend. We’ve got some lesbian stuff to do.”
I rounded the corner, thinking I’d escaped any more roadblocks when I walked into a wall of a chest. What the hell? Was I a magnet for man boob today?
There was no flab on this chest. It was all muscle and sinew and sin. Eagle reached out and steadied me. I took a step back and met the wall. I didn’t like men caging me in. I always had the upper hand. I resented that I had to look up so far. I’d felled men taller and broader than him. But there was something about the rock hard presence of him that seemed impenetrable. Damn, I wanted to climb that wall.
Eagle stepped back and gave me room to breathe. “You headed out?”
“Yeah, my shift is over. Was over before your friend’s surgery. But…”
“Thank you for that.”
“You don’t have to thank me. It’s my job.”
“Don’t do that.” He gave a forceful shake of his head to accompany his directive. The command in his voice called me up short. “You and I both know who did their job today.”
I didn’t answer. He didn’t need me to. A man like him didn’t need to see any recommendations or reports. He’d likely looked at me while I was doing his brother’s intake and made up his mind.
“Can I ride down the elevator with you?” he asked.
“I’m taking the stairs.”
He held out his hand for me to precede him. I headed into the stairwell.
“I owe you,” he said as the door shut behind us.
“No, you don’t,” I said, bracing my hand on the rail to steady my
self. “The hospital pays my bills.”
“I wasn’t offering cash.”
I turned and caught those hazel eyes. I knew exactly what he was offering before he spat out the words. My steps halted, but I kept my grip on the railing.
“So, is there anything else you might need?” he asked.
His voice was a purr. There was a gulf of space between us, but I felt like those words reached out and pinched my tits. I pressed my thighs together.
“Anything at all you might need?” He was beside me, but he took a step down below me, so that he had to peer up into my face.
His head tilted back. His lips parted. There was a hint of vulnerability on his face, just a hint. He let me look. Fuck if I didn’t want to wrench his head back and expose his Adam’s apple.
My panties dampened as I looked down at him in the submissive pose he’d struck. He inhaled as though he knew my juices scented the air, the bastard.
“Just ask,” he said. “And I’ll give it to you.”
How did he know I needed to come so bad? I’d been denied by Doctor Douche earlier. I hadn’t had a good orgasm in days. I couldn’t remember the last time a guy had worked me over enough to elicit something from my pussy, but I knew this guy could. If I let him.
“It looks like you need something,” he said, “and I’d really like to give it to you.”
A door above us opened and voices poured down. It broke the trance. Thank god.
“Too many people use this stairwell.” That was not what I meant to say. I’d meant to deny him out right.
“We can go somewhere else.”
I shook my head. “An orgasm is not on the invoice.”
“It would just be between us.”
I shook my head, slowly, left to right. I swore I heard it creak against the pressure. “I’m taking a break from men.”
He grinned sadly, taking another step down, putting himself in an even more submissive stance. Did he know what he was doing to me?
“As you wish,” he said. He stepped back into the railing, giving me a wide berth to pass.
It took a few seconds for my legs to work. I gripped the railing on both sides as I made my way down. He followed at a respectable distance.
“You guys are race car drivers?” I tried to change the subject.
“Yeah.”
We reached the ground floor and stepped out into the sunlight. “What happened on the track? You don’t seem to think it was an accident.”
Eagle turned his face into the sun. I didn’t think he was going to answer. We were at my car by the time he spoke.
“It was a bump and run,” he said.
“That sounds kinky.”
He gave me a half smile, but his eyes were still far away, probably back at the racetrack. “It’s when a car that’s behind you taps your bumper. It makes you slow down and then the other car can speed past you.”
“Sounds like cheating to me.”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“Did the other driver get hurt?”
He nodded again. “Minor wound. He went to a different hospital.”
I remembered the blond haired racist and his merry band of Nazis that had stormed out of the ER as Crow was being brought in. “Are you guys pressing charges?”
“The track officials are investigating it now. What will most likely happen is he’ll be slapped with a fine and have to sit out one or two races.”
Something in the tense set of his jaw told me that that wouldn’t be the end of it. I just hoped that whatever he, and the rest of his brothers, were planning didn’t end him up in my ER again.
“Your brother is going to be okay,” I said.
“Thanks to you.” He gave me a soft smile. Any thoughts of violence wiped clean from his handsome face.
“Thanks for walking me to my car.” I unlocked the door and slid into the driver’s seat. He shut it for me and leaned against the frame as I turned over the ignition.
The car wheezed. I tried again. It coughed. The last thing I needed was a car repair bill on top of the other crushing debt that Toy and I were under.
I jumped at the knock on the window. Eagle smiled and made a motion for me to roll the window down. I did.
“I can fix that, too,” he said once there was no longer glass between us.
My hand turned the ignition again. This time the engine kicked over. I grinned triumphantly at Eagle. His smile was filled with patience.
“You let me know when you change your mind, Nurse Cleo.”
“When I change my mind?”
His answer was a patient smile that touched his eyes, accenting his flaring nostrils.
In response to that carnal invitation, I flipped him the bird.
“Please,” he said.
My finger wobbled. I was a sucker for making a grown man beg. He chuckled like he knew my kink and was playing with me. I rolled up the window and took off. That guy was dangerous. I pressed the gas and put as much distance between us as fast as I could.
Chapter Seven
I pulled into our cul-de-sac. It wasn’t exactly a cul-de-sac. It was a dead end street that curved into a patch of dirt between two houses. To call it a blue collar neighborhood would be too kind.
The neighborhood was ninety-eight percent white. There had been one black family that had lived here years ago, but the son sold the house to a young white family after his parents passed away. So the remaining two percent was me. And then you could cut that down to about a quarter of a percent because I didn’t come from a family of purebreds.
My English-born mother had tasted the rainbow and come out the other side with a colorful set of children. Not one of the three of us shared the same daddy or the same heritage. None of us currently shared the same continent. My mum had gone back to England a decade ago. My older brother, Khan, was backpacking through Asia. And my younger brother, Solomon, went into the Peace Corp in the Middle East.
I saw another for sale sign as I drove down the single lane street. Most homes had for sale signs, but no one was buying. A developer was swooping in to get all the properties. Fewer and fewer families were holding out. Demolition had begun just a few streets over.
I pulled up to our house and hit the brakes. There was a car in my driveway. I knew that car. Goddamn Ford, American-made car that guzzled gas and polluted the airways. What the hell was she doing here?
The she in question stormed out of my house, throwing the door wide open. She reached for the handle, but then smirked and left the door open.
I saw red.
She saw me.
She made a mad dash for her rusty car and climbed in. I pulled up to the back of the driveway blocking her. I saw her blue eyes narrow in the rear view mirror in a challenge. My nostrils flared as I revved my engine.
She leaned out of the car window, torqueing her body to face me. “Move out of the way, you fucking mutt.”
I rolled my window down to be sure she could hear me. “Hit me, bitch.”
We sat in this close-proximity game of chicken for thirty seconds. I honestly don’t know who moved first. She backed up and I gunned it. The crash wasn’t as loud as I’d hoped which left me feeling unsatisfied. It was more of a crunch as her tinfoil car slammed into the steel of my German-built car.
Lisa hopped out of her car. She raced around to her rear bumper. When she got there she pulled the ends of her hair with tight fists and let out a string of curses.
I got out too, and surveyed the damage on the front end of my car. Where her bumper was mangled mine had a dent. I patted my car, good girl. In answer, smoke seeped out of the hood. Shit, that was going to cost me.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Lisa shouted. “Are you retarded, too?”
“Get off my property,” I growled.
“It’s my property.” She pointed her thumb to her chest. “My mother left it to me and that freak in there.”
I took a step toward her, my voice low and menacing. I itched for a flogger to punish h
er ass, but then clamped down on the thought. This bitch didn’t deserve the pleasure my pain could give her. “Don’t call her that.”
“Victoria was doing fine before you came here. So was my mother.”
“You’re just mad I didn’t come sniffing around your panties.”
Lisa turned red. She sputtered and flustered, shaking her head. But along with her head shaking, her whole body gave an unfulfilled shudder. Another confirmation of my theory that most homophobes were secretly curious.
“You nasty, nigger,” Lisa spat.
I didn’t have the same theory about racists that I had about homophobes. I truly doubted that they secretly wanted to be a part of the race they denigrated. Lisa’s insults rolled off me. I’d heard them so many times that they’d lost their power, especially after I realized how much she secretly and shamefully wanted me.
I couldn’t tickle her clit with insults right now. I was operating on no sleep in almost three days. I looked at the damage I’d done to her car. That would have to be enough for today. I’d pay her back for the slur the next time we crossed paths, which was hopefully never. I just wanted her out of my way right now. I rounded her and headed for the door to the house.
“You need to sell this house and get off welfare,” Lisa yelled.
“I’m a nurse,” I threw over my shoulder. “I make more in a night than you do in a week.”
“Then buy me out.”
She had me there. I didn’t have that kind of cash on hand. And even if I did, I couldn’t sell this place. It was Toy’s safety net. I was at the top of the stoop when I turned around to glare at her. “Don’t you care at all for your sister? She’s your family.”
Lisa’s lip curled. “She can leave that house; she’s just being a brat. You have until the end of the month to come up with the money or you have to sell. Doesn’t matter to me which way.”
Lisa hopped into her car. She backed out into the grass to get around my car and onto the street. Before she gunned it, she threw her middle finger up and then she sped down the street.
I looked at the dent in my car. It wasn’t so bad. It was the smoke coming out of the hood that worried me. I’d have to pay for that now. Smart, Cleo.
Slippery When Wet Page 4
