by Audra North
Robert gave him a funny look. “You okay, Doc?”
Am I? Greg stared at Robert, but before he could answer, he felt something on his hip.
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
He slapped his hand down, grabbing at the pager clipped to his waistband. Damn it. Sure, he was on call this week, but the hospital never paged unless it was truly an emergency.
He looked at the number and cursed. An emergency. Critical. Risky.
“They playing your song?” asked Robert.
“Yeah, I—” He could feel his chest constricting at the mere thought of the operating room. What was this? He thought he’d gotten rid of his anxiety. Why was he feeling this panicky tightness again?
He stood, shaking it off. Not here. Not now. “I’m sorry, Robert. Excuse me. I have to phone in and see what’s going on.”
And I have to see Carrie. Seeing her would ease the tightness.
He stepped into the hall and pulled out his phone to call the hospital paging desk. The nurse who answered his call told him that they’d identified a donor heart down in Manhattan and were immediately transferring the donor to New Haven.
That gave him two hours to get to the hospital and get prepped for a surgery that would need to happen as soon as the donor arrived.
He hung up the phone and ran a hand over his face.
Shit.
He didn’t like the way his skin felt. Cold and clammy, as though he were perspiring inside of a freezer.
Carrie. He needed Carrie.
She would calm him. He would see her, and kiss her, and then he’d be fine.
He propelled himself down the hall toward her office, but when he looked inside, she wasn’t there.
“Fuck.” Where had she gone? Didn’t she realize how much he needed her? This was an emergency. This was—
“Greg?” She was walking toward him from the bedrooms wing. “What happened?” She picked up her pace when he turned and she saw his face, reaching him in a few hurried steps. “Is it one of the residents?”
He shook his head and pulled her against him, crushing his mouth to hers. For a moment, she didn’t respond. But then she muttered, “Oh, fuck all if anyone sees,” against his mouth, and kissed him back, hotly, sweetly.
Everything he needed.
She looped her arms around his neck and pulled her mouth away, resting her forehead against his and whispering, “I can’t take this any further at work. I shouldn’t have done even that. But I’m definitely looking forward to tonight.”
He took a deep breath. The tight feeling in his throat was gone.
She was a miracle worker. Not just for his anxiety, but in so many ways. She made him laugh. She’d introduced him to people he enjoyed being around, and she’d reminded him how important family was. He felt good for the first time in a long time because she was in his life.
He smiled down at her, though regretfully. “About tonight…I got called in for an operation. It’s a transplant, which means it probably won’t be over until really late.”
Blue-gray eyes stared into his. “Are you going to be okay?”
He nodded. “I am now. Just being near you is enough. I’ll be fine since I’ve seen you.”
She didn’t say anything in reply, but kissed him gently before stepping away. “I see.” She had a strange look on her face, but before he could ask her what was wrong, she wiped it clean. “Good luck, okay?”
He must have imagined it. “I’ll call you,” he told her, already walking away. He didn’t have much time to get into the operating room. He’d see her tomorrow, after he’d slept off what would no doubt be a long and arduous operation, and he’d tell her about what he’d been thinking about earlier. That maybe he’d been wrong, and that it was possible he wanted something more after this week was over.
No. Not something more. Everything.
…
What was that sound?
Carrie opened her eyes to near-complete blackness and fought through a sleepy haze to figure out where the ringing was coming from. After a moment, she remembered—she’d left her phone on the bedside table.
But who would be calling in the middle of the night? Please, don’t let something terrible have happened to one of the residents.
She dove for it on the fourth ring, pressing a few wrong buttons before finally succeeding in answering.
“Hello?” Her throat was slow to warm up, and her voice came out thick and raspy.
“Carrie.”
Her traitorous heart sped up. “Greg? It’s—” She fumbled for the clock on her bedside table. “Three seventeen in the morning. What’s going on?”
“I’m sorry to call so late like this. I thought…well, I’m leaving the hospital and I-I’d really like to see you. Really. Is it okay? Will you forgive me for waking you up?”
She hesitated.
I’ll be fine since I’ve seen you. The moment he’d said it to her, in the hall today at New Beginnings, she’d realized two things. One, that even before they’d started this ridiculous arrangement, she’d already cared about him more than she’d realized. She’d fallen for him.
And two, that he was using her. Not for just sex, but as a crutch for his anxiety. While she’d fooled herself into thinking that it was okay if she knew up front.
I’ll be fine now that I’ve seen you. Panic attack? Carrie will soothe you. Worried about a heart operation? Kiss Carrie. Don’t want to deal with seeing a doctor about your problem? Fuck Carrie for a few days.
She’d fallen for him, and he’d been using her. Like Eddie had. That’s what had been off the whole time. He hadn’t been honest with her about what he really wanted. Oh, no doubt he wanted sex. But he’d also used her for something that they hadn’t agreed upon, and she’d gone and fallen for him, believing he was forthright and frank and up front, just like he’d said he was.
Hell. Maybe he still thought he was, and he didn’t even realize how much he was hurting her. That almost made it worse.
It already hurt. Inviting him over would only make it hurt more when he walked out of her life.
But he had never misled her about that part, had he? Imagining a future for them…she had done that to herself. And she missed him already.
“Carrie?”
She snapped to attention. “Sure. Yes, I’m here. Come over.” You’re so weak.
“I’ll be there in twenty.” Just those words, then silence.
Weak or not, she had to see him, even if it was only to tell him good-bye. She needed to see him one last time. She rose out of bed to brush her teeth and her hair.
Twenty minutes later, there was a soft knock on her front door.
She gasped when she opened it. Even in the faint light of the full moon, Greg looked awful.
While she’d waited for him to show up, her resolve had strengthened. She’d planned to tell him it was over as soon as he got here, but now, seeing him and how wrung out he looked, she couldn’t do it.
She would end it tomorrow.
Without a word, she opened her arms and he stepped inside, into her embrace. She led him into the bedroom and pushed him to sit on the bed, still warm from her body, then moved to stand between his legs.
He sighed, his arms going around her waist as he rested his head against her belly. She ran her hands up and down his back, his arms, recognizing that same tension that she’d felt the first time she’d met him and had to soothe his body into submission. They stayed like that for a long moment, until she could feel his coiled muscles relaxing and heard his breathing slow.
Finally, she bent forward, sliding his T-shirt up and over his head so that she could touch his skin. He growled and pulled her forward to kiss her, deeply, and after a few minutes of playing in each other’s mouth, she pulled back and a palm in the center of his warm, hard chest. And pushed.
He fell back onto the bed with a whump, legs hanging over the edge and a small smile playing around his lips. Her breath quickened at the sight of this big, sexy man looking up at her.
/>
The man who was going to break her heart. Who already had, in a way, without meaning to at all.
Damn if that didn’t somehow make it worse.
The light from the hallway reflected off their bodies as she leaned down to unzip his jeans and pull off the rest of his clothing, discarding it on the floor next to the bed, then slipping off her own clothes until she stood above him, completely naked.
His breath was coming fast, too. He reached a hand up and laid it across her belly, slipping it downward and to delve between her legs, but she pushed it aside.
She bent forward, slid her hands up his body, then dipped her head down to lick him from base to tip before she slid the head of his cock into her mouth and sucked lightly.
“Oh, God, Carrie.” He jerked and groaned and his palms came up again to cup her breasts, gently squeezing. He stroked the soft mounds, his fingers circling around her nipples to pinch them lightly.
Yes. Touch me. Make me forget that I’m only setting myself up for pain.
She moaned, low in her throat, and his hips bounced against the bed, pushing himself farther into her mouth. Strong and delicate. Hard and soft. She wrapped one hand around the base and stroked up at the same time that her mouth slid down farther, then sucked and licked her way back up.
He hissed out a breath.
She dipped again, taking him in deeper this time, setting a slow rhythm with her mouth After several minutes, one of his hands came up and fisted gently in her hair, speeding her movements until he was bucking beneath her, grunting with the effort to hold back.
“Carrie. God, Carrie. I’m going to come.”
Yes, she told him, by slicking her hand up and down his shaft and she suckled the head. Yes, she told him, as she took him as far back as she could. Yes, she told him, as he tensed, then groaned his release into her eager mouth.
She took all of him, swallowed everything he gave her, and when it was done and he was lying ragged on the bed, she released him gently and laid her bare body against his side, snuggling him close, feeling him relax into sleep.
Yes.
But never again.
Chapter Ten
She was in the kitchen, dressed in work clothes and rinsing out her coffee cup, when he padded out of her bedroom in his boxers.
“Hey.” He flashed her a sleepy smile and her heart squeezed.
No matter how much her head knew that continuing to see Greg was a mistake, her heart didn’t seem to agree. The way he looked, so good in her home, in her life, made her want to keep pretending that everything was okay, and that they could pretend out the rest of the day without anyone getting hurt.
“Good morning.” She clenched her fingers in a tight fist to keep them from sifting through his rumpled hair. “Long surgery?”
She didn’t ask what she really wanted to know. Why did you come to me last night?
He nodded, reaching for the pot of coffee. “Long, but it went well. The patient seemed to be doing all right as of two hours post-op, when I left the hospital.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank God.” Not just for the successful surgery. But she didn’t think she could have accepted it if he had used her to console himself over someone’s death.
“I’m sorry I slept so late.” He took a sip of his coffee. “I’ll grab my clothes, and I can be ready in five minutes.”
Would it be so bad, to finish out the week and pretend she didn’t care? He’d be gone soon enough…
No. She couldn’t do it. The pain of knowing that she’d let it happen to her again was too much. She shook her head, lips drawing into a tight line. “Look, Greg. Last night…I shouldn’t have let it happen. I-I can’t keep doing this. I’m ending it now. There’s no point in waiting until later.”
The smile fell off his face, and he opened his mouth as if to speak, but she continued, talking over argument he might try to make. “It’s past seven o’clock, and I’ve got to get going. I know you had a rough night, so you’re welcome to go back to bed here and sleep some more. Turn the bottom lock when you leave.”
She didn’t bother to tell him good-bye. It was hard enough to keep her muscles from tensing and her eyes from blinking back tears. The reality that this was really over was finally hitting her, and keeping him from seeing how much that hurt was taking everything she had.
But he still saw. “So that’s it? This is over and you’re upset but you’re not going to tell me why?”
Damn. This wasn’t like her. She usually faced problems head-on and didn’t like leaving things unresolved. And he had been honest with her at the start, even if he wasn’t being honest with either of them now. Regardless, he didn’t deserve to have her continue hiding from him.
She blew out a breath. “Why did you come here last night? I mean, why did you call me in the first place?”
He immediately answered. “I wanted to see you.” He frowned and shook his head as though it should have been obvious.
She leaned back against the counter. “I know that. And I wanted to see you, too. But why at three o’clock in the morning? Was it really just for sex?”
His mouth opened, then closed again. He turned and set his coffee cup on the counter behind him, opposite from her.
“No. I called because I was feeling anxious, and I needed to see you. You have a way of making things better, Carrie.” The look on his face nearly destroyed her. It was open, raw, and almost pleading.
She closed her eyes. “Then what happens next week, when we are over, anyway, and the anxiety comes back?”
“I was thinking we could keep seeing each other.”
Her eyes snapped open. “In what capacity, exactly?”
“You know. The way we have been.”
Just sex. No strings.
Oh.
Her heart squeezed again, but this time not with joy. The pain was so intense. It hurt. It hurt.
She was a fool.
She had gone and fallen for Greg and all he wanted was to do was fuck her to relieve his anxiety and—“No. Greg—I’m sorry. I truly am because I like you and I—just no. I think it’s better if we end this now.” She wrapped her arms around herself like a shield, but instead of trying to keep the pain from getting in, she was trying to prevent it from spreading out. Out of her, bleeding onto the floor and making a mess that she would have to step in every time she came home.
He recoiled like she’d slapped him. “What? But—I didn’t mean to offend you, really. I thought things were good. I know I won’t be able to help out at New Beginnings after this week, but I can make it up to you some other way—”
“What?” She couldn’t keep the outrage from her voice. “I told you I didn’t want it to be like that. Are you really implying that you’ve been paying me for sex by volunteering?”
“No! God. No. That’s not it.” He reached out to touch her shoulder, but she jerked away, covering her face with her hands.
“I should have seen this coming.” Her words were muffled by her hands, but he heard them.
The breath he drew was swift and sharp, but when he spoke, his voice was gentle, like she was a skittish horse that he didn’t want to spook. “What I meant was that my volunteering allowed us to spend time together that we wouldn’t have once I went back to work. I was trying to say that I could try to make time to see you some other way. I know it has only been a few days, but the truth is that it has been building for so much longer. I thought you wanted this. I thought you were into me. Into us.”
It didn’t matter that his words echoed her thoughts from earlier. That they had been building up to something over the past year, with every half-hour block of time that they spent together. But while she imagined it as a foundation for a future, he saw what they’d created as a bridge over troubled waters. Once he crossed it, he’d be gone.
She dropped her hands from her face and looked at him through bleary eyes. “I thought I was, too. But I—you’re just using me to get rid of your anxiety. And that’s not okay. I’m no
t going to be your solution. I’m not going to be the person who helps you hide from whatever you need to face. I’ve been there. Done that. I didn’t like being used by Eddie, and I sure as hell won’t be used by you.”
He shook his head. “That’s not true. I’m not trying doing what Eddie did. I’m not using you as a solution. I like spending time with you. I think you’re overreacting and trying to pin Eddie’s problems on me.”
She stiffened. He muttered a curse and then brought one hand up to run through his hair. “I’m sorry. That was—that was unfair of me. Regardless of what happened to you in the past, you didn’t deserve that. I know you’re actually trying to use your experience to help me.”
Not exactly what she’d expected him to say. Not if he really was only using her for comfort. Had she overreacted? Was there a grain of truth in what he had said? The question ricocheted through her mind, but she pushed it away. It couldn’t be true. After all, her pride had been destroyed by Eddie when he left, and she had vowed never to let it happen to her again. But that had been her pride. This was her heart that was hurting.
They were completely separate things.
Right?
The silence stretched between them for what seemed like years before Greg shook his head. “It’s awful, Carrie. It’s awful and I’m sorry he did what he did to you. He’s a jerk and never deserved to be with you in the first place.” He cocked his head to the side. “But I’m not hiding from my problems. I know I need help, and that’s why I took the time away from work. Is it really so bad that you happen to be someone who makes me feel better?”
She could feel the hot tears behind her eyes. Maybe, if Eddie hadn’t done to her what he had, she’d feel differently. Maybe she wouldn’t feel so confused right now. But that didn’t mean this was right. Besides, he’d admitted that she made him feel better. He was using her. She wasn’t overreacting.
She shook her head. “I don’t want to be anyone’s crutch.” With that, she turned and walked into the hall, Greg trailing after her. Just before the door, she set her mouth in a tight line and turned. “I think we’ve exhausted everything we need to say at this point. I wish you luck with everything. I hope you get the help you need.”
