Third Degree

by Julie Cross

  She leans back a little, and I see that she’s gotten the message I wanted to convey. She stands up to take her next turn, but before walking away says, “You’re not as terrible at the girltalk thing as Marshall made you out to be, Izzy.”

  I must look shocked, because when Marshall returns and sits beside me, he says, “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” I smile at him, but it fades when I take in his pale, sweaty face and the rapidity of his breathing. I rub the back of his neck with one hand. “Promise me something?”

  He turns those amazing blue eyes on me. “What?”

  “Tomorrow. Blood work. Student health center.” I put my demands in as few words as possible. I don’t want to advise, but I’m gonna have to sometimes.

  He sighs and then nods, dropping his head into his hands. “Yeah, okay.”

  “I just did girl talk. Successfully, I think. At least a passing grade.”

  Marshall leans over and kisses my cheek. “Of course you passed. I had no doubts.”

  Huh. Well, that makes one of us.

  Chapter 20

  @IsabelJenkinsMD: Unfortunately, research to support daily fish oil tablets as a method of heart disease prevention is weak.

  @IsabelJenkinsMD: Heart-healthy diet + exercise + early intervention is the best method of attack. Good health takes hard work. #NoGetRichQuickSchemes

  Two weeks of steroids and Marshall is about 60 percent better and already beginning the process of reducing his dosage to try to get off them soon. I think it’s too soon, but I exhibited some self-control and only mentioned this one time.

  “So it’s an outdoor music festival in November?” I’m walking across campus with Kelsey. We’ve been in the library getting research material for a psych paper that I’m helping her with. Yes, that’s right—me and psych are becoming allies for the sake of roommate bonding. Some things require a big sacrifice, I’ve learned.

  “November isn’t that cold.” As she says this, a huge gust of thirty-degree wind sends both of us reaching for our hoods and fastening the top buttons of our coats. “Okay, maybe it is, but not in Nashville. It won’t be as bad.”

  For the past several days she’s been trying to talk me into driving us in my car to some music festival. She’s got tickets and a hotel room.

  I let out a sigh. “What time do we need to leave?”

  “Afternoon, like two or three.” She jumps up and down a few times, the books in her arms bouncing along with her. “You are so my favorite person right now, Izzy!”

  “But,” I add, “I get to invite Marshall.”

  Her expression turns from excited to pissed off. “I knew there was a catch.”

  An hour ago, Kelsey had just listed (again) all the reasons that she’s pissed at Marshall and refusing to speak with him other than when required. Her words, not mine. Not only does she know that I’m Dr. Isabel Jenkins now—though she’s the only one who knows—she’s also pissed that Marshall never mentioned his illness, not even last year when they hung out all the time and she asked him what the deal was with his weight loss. She’d been worried about him. On top of that, Marshall reported our relationship, as he promised he would. That resulted in him being moved to the first floor and Becca becoming our RA. And Kelsey and Becca do not get along at all.

  “It’s not logical for you to be pissed off at him without being mad at me,” I say. “I’m in the relationship, too. I told him he could tell people.”

  “Yeah, but he’s the fucking RA. Not you,” she snaps. “He’s the one who lied and told me you were home-schooled. And I’ve known him way longer than you have, yet he can’t confide in me about his personal life? No offense to you or anything. And now he gets his own fucking bathroom. What the hell is up with that?”

  That is something I had to really push him to ask for. I even left a message at his doctor’s office to have her fax a note to the residential life office. He was pissed at me for like a day after that, but he makes a lot of trips to the bathroom and over half the RA rooms have their own and he was moving rooms anyway, so it seemed like a good idea to ask.

  “Did you ever think that maybe him revealing his personal life has nothing to do with me,” I ask, “and more to do with the fact that he’s ready to deal with it? Like he’s been in denial until now.” I’m trying my best to hit all her psych-major points, because them not talking is getting really annoying.

  We both stop in the middle of the sidewalk near our dorm and stare at Marshall, who’s decked out in workout gear and bending over to lace up his sneakers.

  “What is he doing?” I ask Kelsey. “He’s not running, is he?”

  She rolls her eyes. “Do I look like I give a fuck?”

  “He’s sick.” I glare at her. “He shouldn’t be running. It’s practically snowing.”

  Marshall’s wearing headphones, so I have to jog to catch up to him, and grab his arm to get his attention. “What are you doing?”

  “Running.” He steps out of my grip and uses the bike rack to lean against and stretch his calves.

  “You can’t run!” I’m panicking. I need to calm down. “Your iron saturation is only two percent, and your hematocrit is only twenty-five—at least wait until it gets to thirty or thirty-five. And your CRP—”

  He gives me a look from underneath his arm, and it’s enough to stop me. But seriously, he’s down at least eleven pounds. I can’t stand the thought of him burning calories on purpose.

  I take a deep breath and my hands ball up at my sides. I squeeze and unsqueeze them a few times before turning abruptly around to face the dorm again. Kelsey says nothing about this exchange, but her eyebrows are raised. She’s thinking something. That much I know.

  Warm hands land on my shoulders, and then Marshall is in front of me, leaning down so that our eyes are on the same level. “You’re pissed at me for working out? Seriously?”

  My jaw tenses. “I’m not pissed at you!”

  “Izzy,” he says, looking concerned, “you’re mad. I can tell.”

  I press my hands against his chest and shove him to the side. I close my eyes again, reminding myself to answer as honestly as possible. “I’m right and you’re wrong and I hate not getting my way, but I’m dealing with it. So can you let me go deal with it?”

  “Okay,” he says, sounding relieved. “I can do that.”

  I’m thundering up the steps, and I can practically feel the snarky comments rolling off Kelsey. I jam the key into our door and kick it open. “I don’t want to hear your psychoanalytical bullshit today. Or tomorrow.”

  “Fine,” she says, “whatever. I was going to tell you that you can invite Marsh this weekend. But I refuse to be a third wheel and watch you two all over each other. I’m bringing a date and you’re not going to test him for STIs or any other disease, for that matter. I don’t care if he has a brain tumor hanging out from inside his ear—you will not play doctor, got it?”

  I hold up my hand. “I swear to ignore brain tumors that present themselves by hanging out of the ear canal, which is impossible, by the way.”

  “It’s not impossible,” she argues. “You can’t say that. Have you seen every single brain tumor in existence?”

  Kelsey is surprisingly smart when it comes to medical arguments. She comes up with random shit that has a decent amount of logic in it but a tad too much creativity for my taste. It’s like meshing my straightforward approach to finding answers with Marshall’s very odd and unconventional methods. Strangely enough, it’s helped provide a bridge between my thought processes and Marshall’s, and it means that I’ve been able to help him with anatomy a little better than before.

  And being able to help him with anatomy—using my, ahem, preferred methods—is another reason I want him to come with me this weekend. We can get in lots of studying.

  “I’m getting my own hotel room,” I say to Kelsey. I walk over to the window and watch Marshall jogging away, pretending to be any other healthy student exercising on campus. “Who are you going to br
ing? It’s kind of last-minute, right?”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll find someone.”

  I’m sitting on Marshall’s bed watching him pack his bag for the weekend trip when the other RA from the first floor walks by his open door. I immediately stand up the second she pauses in the doorway. I hold up my hands in surrender. “I’m being completely PG, I swear.”

  She stares at me and then looks back at Marshall. “That girl in 105 is crying again. Just thought you should know …”

  “Fuck. What now?” Marshall whispers, tossing a couple of T-shirts into his bag. “I’ll be right back,” he says to me. “Gotta go be supportive.”

  I grin at him. “Bet the crazies up on floor two are looking mighty good right now.”

  “Especially that Izzy girl.” He winks at me and heads for his door, but nearly plows right into Kelsey.

  “All right, Marsh,” she says. “I’ve decided to stop being pissed off at you. You’re not completely forgiven as of yet. But I want to have a fun weekend and I refuse to let my anger ruin it.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate your partial forgiveness.” He cranes his neck, looking out the door around Kelsey. “That’s your date for the weekend?”

  I dive under Marshall’s arm to get a look at the guy standing awkwardly in the hall, giving us a tiny wave. “Shirtless Carson?” I say at the same time Marshall says, “The beer-belly guy?”

  He throws his hands up, exasperated. “I do not have a fucking beer belly!”

  “Right, we know.” Marshall finally escapes to perform his last RA duty before the weekend starts. “Meet you guys outside in ten, okay?”

  I grab Kelsey’s arm and pull her into Marsh’s room. “Excuse us for a minute,” I say to Shirtless Carson, who is actually wearing two shirts today. “Where did you find him? And isn’t he like thirty or something?”

  She rolls her eyes. “He’s twenty-four, and I found him at Jesse’s place, remember? We’ve hooked up since then.”

  My mouth falls open. “You have? When?”

  “I don’t like to talk about my one-night stands.”

  I shake my head and force a smile. “Whatever. I don’t need to know, and I did promise to not … you know, ask questions.”

  “And you booked your own room, right?” Kelsey reminds me. “And we’ve got ours, so you have nothing to worry about.”

  “True.” We have our own room. All weekend. Shirtless Carson’s sexual history is none of my business.

  Chapter 21

  @IsabelJenkinsMD: Asexuality is not an admirable choice to abstain. It is an orientation.

  Marshall snatches the bags of food from a restaurant near our hotel before Kelsey can get to them. He quickly glances through them, then slides one bag across the counter to her, keeping the other in his hand. “I think we’re gonna take this back to our room.”

  “You don’t want to eat by the pool?” Kelsey asks. “We can try out the hot tub.”

  “Maybe later,” Marshall says, nudging me through the door of the restaurant. We cross the street to the hotel before Kelsey and Carson can follow.

  “I can’t believe your brother is friends with that dude. He’s making me crazy.” I glance over my shoulder one more time to make sure they aren’t behind us. “Why couldn’t he have slept at least an hour of the drive? Even thirty minutes would have been a nice break.”

  Marshall laughs. “He’s not that bad. Though I think you’re gonna show up in his next novel, so have your lawsuit ready or whatever.”

  That gets me to laugh. “You can’t prove in court that fictional characters are based on real people.”

  We turn the corner past the lobby and make the short walk down the hall to our room. Once we’re inside, Marsh sets the bag of food on the desk and I begin pulling items out. “Potato soup. That’s new, right?”

  Marshall sticks to a pretty short list of post-flare-up foods, mostly high in carbs, low to moderate in fat, low in fiber.

  He comes up behind me, sweeping all my hair over to one shoulder. “It’s on my list. Just haven’t come across it recently. What did you order?”

  His warm lips on my neck cause me to nearly drop the container of soup. “A black bean burger and a Greek salad.”

  “If I ate those things, I would be curled up in the fetal position all night crying like a baby.” His fingertips slip under my sweater and glide over my skin.

  Two weeks of being Marshall Collins’s girlfriend and I’m still amazed by the fact that he can say things that make me feel like a better person … and we can have this.

  I spin around in his arms. “You would not do either of those things. You’d tell me you were fine and flush your pain meds down the toilet.”

  “Maybe,” he says, not committing to an answer. “Hey, I have to tell you something.”

  My stomach lurches, I don’t like those words.

  He gives me his sexy half smile, probably reading the concern on my face. “I ran this morning.”

  “I know that.” I narrow my eyes at him. Is he trying to make me mad?

  His thumbs catch on the bottom of my sweater, and slowly the hem rises higher and higher. “I ran, and then I did push-ups and chin-ups. I was hot and sweaty for all the right reasons. Call me sexist if you want, but it felt so …” My sweater hits the ground, and Marshall nudges me until my back touches the wall. “Manly,” he finishes. “I felt the good kind of physical pain, my energy level went up, and I kept thinking about getting you alone so I could really do this right. And then you asked me to run away with you …”

  “Run away with you? Corny.” I laugh, but my entire body is getting hotter by the second. “And what do you mean, do this right? You didn’t think it was good the first time?”

  Personally, I thought it was mind-blowing.

  “It was amazing the first time.” Marshall presses his body to mine, dipping his head low to kiss my neck, my collarbone, my bare shoulders. “But I keep thinking about all the places on you that my lips haven’t touched yet, and I don’t know if you’re a girl who could possibly come more than once—I’d really love to find out. And we’ve only done it on a bed. Never a chair or a table …”

  I close my eyes, and what should have been another laugh turns into a moan as Marshall slides my bra straps down and takes his time feeling each nipple with his fingertips.

  “Or up against a wall,” he adds, reaching for the button on my jeans. “Where do you prefer, Izzy?”

  I shake my head, my entire body melting into the wall. “Dinner … what about dinner?”

  He captures my mouth with his and kisses me so hard, I have a feeling like I’ve been caught in a rough ocean wave and have lost track of where the surface is and where the ocean floor is.

  “You want food involved?” he teases. “Want me to sprinkle soup on your nipples? That could be kinky.”

  I laugh again, but the sound is swallowed when Marshall drops to his knees, unzips my jeans, and tugs them down around my ankles. “Yesterday when I was taking that quiz in anatomy, I kept looking at the diagram of the pelvic bone and lower extremities, trying to recall the muscle and bone names, but I kept visualizing you and your panties and guessing how long it would take to make you come with just my mouth.”

  A sharp intake of air gives away how turned on I am right now. But really, what’s the point in hiding it? Marshall lifts his head and grins up at me. My arms are down and pressed flat against the wall. My chest is rising and falling rapidly. “Probably five minutes, maybe ten.”

  I’m not used to this feeling—like he could command and I’d follow him anywhere. Marshall’s so laid-back that I don’t think of him as that kind of person, but there have been hints of it. Like the last time, when he stopped in the middle and made me admit that I wanted more than sex with him. But he hadn’t put the thought inside my head; he had only drawn it out of me and placed in the open for both of us to see.

  “I’m going to shoot for two minutes,” Marshall says, gripping my hips and touching his mouth to my
stomach. “And then again two minutes after that, and two minutes after that …”

  There are no words to respond to that, especially with his mouth positioned on my inner thigh and his index finger hooking onto the crotch of my panties and sliding it over. That’s the point at which my brain shuts off. All the thoughts that normally fill my head nonstop while I’m awake evaporate, and it’s just me and Marshall—his mouth between my legs, his fingers inside me. My head flops back against the wall and my eyes flutter shut. Heat and tingling spread across my body until it explodes into blurry thoughts and Jell-O limbs.

  Before my legs can give out on me, Marshall is on his feet, an arm hooked around my waist, the other hand behind me, unfastening my bra. I reach for him, holding the back of his neck and kissing the front. He steps away from me for only a moment, quickly dropping his own clothes onto the floor and yanking my feet out of my jeans and underwear. I stretch my arm out for a second, holding my palm against his chest so my gaze can roam up and down, taking in his entire naked self. I release a loud sigh when his bare chest eventually presses to mine and my fingers journey south, gripping him with one hand. He groans and leans into me.

  “Hey,” I whisper, sliding my hand up and down him. “You don’t need condoms, okay?”

  The words tumble out before I can really decide if it’s the right moment to mention that. He tenses, pulls back, and looks me over. “You sure? I have some in my bag …”

  I grab his face and bring it to mine, foreheads touching. “I’m sure.”

  Marshall kisses me for somewhere between five seconds and five minutes, or maybe five hours, and then he’s lifting me off the ground, wrapping my legs around his waist, the muscles in his arms bulging. My back makes contact with the wall again and Marshall is inside me.

  Just me and him—no condom between us this time. I cling to him, my arms tight around his back, my face buried in the hollow of his neck. There’s something about this position, about Marshall holding me so tight and still lifting me up and down, about him being so far inside me—I can’t stop this semi-truck of feelings rushing head-on toward me.