Bad Boy, M.D.

by Virna DePaul

  Neither could I, I thought. Neither could I. If it hadn't been for Ryan I wouldn't have been. I typed a nervous message as I spotted Samuel's car pulling into the parking lot.

  You'll bail me out of jail if I throttle him, right?

  I glanced once more at my phone while walking toward the restaurant and smiled.

  Obviously.

  I looked up and was surprised to find Samuel waiting for me outside the restaurant. Even when we were first dating I'd always have to search through a crowded restaurant to find him with his martini if I came after him. I raised an eyebrow in suspicion, but he smiled when he saw me approaching.

  "You look beautiful," he said, giving me a kiss on the cheek. "But, of course, you always do."

  He was wearing the cologne he knew was my favorite on him and I was unpleasantly surprised to notice the little butterflies that started to tumble around in my stomach at the fact.

  "Shall we?"

  Samuel guided me with a hand on my lower back, held open the door and pulled my chair out for me when we were escorted to an intimate little table in a quiet corner in the back.

  A candle flickered quite romantically between us and for a moment I imagined this scene as a different, more happy kind of anniversary. The thought that it could have been, easily could have been, had I made different decisions after Samuel cheated made me feel anxious.

  "I was honestly kind of surprised that you agreed to meet me after the despicable voicemail I left and how I acted outside of Marcus's office," Samuel said after he ordered us a much too expensive bottle of wine.

  I released the tablecloth I had been wringing between my hands under the table since the time we sat down and shrugged.

  "Surprise seems to be the word that everyone has for this," I said.

  Samuel nodded. "Even you?"

  I looked into his eyes and saw for a brief moment not the man who cheated, but the man who came to my dorm room with Ramen and a cheap drug store candle for a quick date night on the floor amongst all my notebooks and textbooks while I studied for my finals at the time.

  I sighed.

  "Especially me."

  "Lauren, my behavior toward you has been despicable, I know that. And I'm sorry."

  I couldn't help my eyebrows from perking up at the last two words that slipped from Samuel's mouth.

  "You're getting better at saying those words, Samuel, when I don’t think I heard you say them once when we were married, even after I caught you with Christina.” I rearranged the fork for what was probably the tenth time at this point. "You cheated on me, Samuel, so if there is anything to be sorry about it should be for absolutely ruining a relationship I thought was loving and supportive and long fucking term."

  I was breathing heavily by the time I had finished speaking. I brushed hair from my face and I felt good. I felt really, really good.

  "I am sorry, Lauren. And I’ve been going to counseling.”

  I glanced up at him in shock. He was in counseling? Something he’d sworn he’d never, ever do.

  Samuel laughed and shook his head. “Your look says it all. We both know how proud I am, Lauren. Admitting I’m wrong has always been hard for me. And I know I've gone about getting you back in my life in the worst way possible so far. But I want to do better."

  "Do you? Because until recently, you didn’t do anything to get me back in your life. In the days after I found out you cheated, in the year afterward, you didn’t do one damn thing, Samuel. But now that you’re interviewing for Marcus’s job, you suddenly think you can have me, too? Why? Would it just be more convenient that way? Help repair your reputation at the hospital?”

  My questions seemed to shock him. Samuel, who was handsome and suave and very, very, very charming when he wasn’t acting like Dr. God, was shocked I was calling him on his bullshit, and it was as if the curtain had been raised and I could see the small, small man parading as the Great and Powerful Oz.

  "I promise you, it’s nothing like that, Lauren. I just…miss you. Plain and simple. I miss our life together.”

  It sounded perfect, the way he said it. It sounded perfect. But it didn’t soften me toward him. It didn’t make me want to hold him. Or kiss him. Or run into his arms. And that was very, very telling.

  The wine arrived and we placed our orders and to my continued shock everything was pleasant and relaxed and reminded me more and more on a very intellectual level of how things could be between us again. He even reached out for my hand across the table as we waited for our dessert and I even gave it.

  “What happened with Christina?” I asked.

  “She was young. Flighty. Emotional. She wasn’t you, Lauren.”

  I wanted to immediately respond that I was all of those things, too. Young. Flighty. Emotional. Only that wasn’t who I’d been with Samuel, so I couldn’t blame him for his comments.

  "Let's do something crazy after this," I said abruptly, wanting to forget about Christina and what she was or wasn’t to Samuel, wanting to push our little reunion to see if we indeed had any chance of being together again.

  Samuel eyed me cautiously. "Something crazy?"

  "Yeah," I nodded, enthusiastically. "Something we've never done before. Something that gets our blood really pumping. Something crazy."

  "And what's something like that exactly?"

  Samuel looked amused, like pointing a laser and watching a cat chase it around. I was the cat. It caused me to hesitate. But I needed to know.

  "Oh, it could be anything," I said. "I'm sure there's plenty we haven't done. Plenty life has for us. We could go to that new bar in Denver everyone is talking about."

  Samuel scoffed. "The one filled with twenty-three-year-olds?"

  "We could go take an art class," I suggested. "Or how about skinny dipping?"

  He slipped his hand from mine and laughed as if it was the most outrageous thing he'd heard in his entire life. It was as if I'd suggested we sneak into NASA and try to launch ourselves into space. My mind quietly said Ryan would probably be down. He'd bring the wire cutters to get past the chain link fence.

  "We aren't children," Samuel said in a tone that verged on condescending. "We're fully functioning adults that have real jobs with real consequences and we certainly don't have time for gallivanting around town like we're on a perpetual recess."

  He sounded old and stubborn and stuck. He wasn't going to change, wasn't going to change his behavior toward me, wasn't going to start treating me the way I deserved to be treated.

  And I realized in horror as the kind, young waitress placed a beautiful tiramisu between us that the way Samuel sounded was the exact way I must have sounded to Ryan when I laughed at his 'crazy' ideas: old and stubborn and stuck.

  But I didn't want to be stuck.

  I wanted more.

  "—and I'm telling you, Lauren, you'd laugh at the state of the doctor's lounge at Denver Mercy. You'd laugh."

  Samuel had continued on without a second's thought to my suggestion. He'd just continued on as if the conversation hadn't even taken place. It meant nothing to him, but it meant everything for me.

  I could see that Samuel was my past. But I did not want him to be my future.

  "And everyone gets to use it," I barely heard Samuel continue to moan. "The nurses, the interns, the residents, hell, even the fucking maintenance people get to use it."

  I pretended to nod along as I speared a slice of tiramisu and smiled contently. I felt free. It was the kind of free that I had hoped I'd get from signing the divorce papers a year ago. It was the kind of free that I'd chased for months and months and it constantly eluded me. But it was the free I finally had.

  And I was suddenly certain.

  It wasn’t my pride that had me resisting getting back together with Samuel.

  It was my heart.

  And it belonged to another man.

  Chapter Twelve

  Ryan

  I stared at the pile of cookie dough, ice cream pints, and tissues on my kitchen counter an
d wondered if I maybe should have gotten more. I'd never had my heart broken before.

  I felt ill-prepared.

  Chicks always went for the stuff your face with sweet things and cry in front of the television route. What’s good for them was good for me, I figured. And it had just started raining an hour ago so that seemed to add perfectly to my miserable mood. I did for a second consider that I was gathering all my research from cheesy chick flicks and romcoms. But I didn’t know what else to do. I was going crazy waiting.

  The clock on the oven seemed to be frozen in place and I was considering who I should call to fix it when it lazily switched from 10:31 to 10:32. I sighed and grabbed a beer from the fridge.

  She said she’d call me once her meeting with Samuel was over to let me know how it went. I told her that she didn’t need to, that it wasn’t my business, that it was between her and her ex-husband. But she insisted, saying that she at least owed me that. I was appreciative, but it meant that I’d spent the last four hours pacing my apartment, biting at my nails, and staring at that fucking unmoving oven clock.

  I grabbed my phone from where it sat, fully charged and set to full volume, on the counter and dialed up Chance.

  “Ryan, my man, how are you?”

  “Hey, what are you up to tonight? Wanna come over for a beer? Watch some baseball? Poker? I mean it’s raining, but we could go out if you really--”

  “I’m with Jenny actually,” Chance interrupted and right on cue I heard a baby cry in the background over the phone.

  “Oh, yeah, okay then.”

  “Sorry, man. Tomorrow?”

  I rubbed at my eyes and tried not to keep glancing at the clock that still wasn’t moving fast enough. “Sure, sure. Tomorrow.”

  “Cool man. You alright?”

  “Of course,” I said instantly without even thinking for a second to say otherwise.

  “You sure? If you need me--”

  “No, no, dude. Just bored,” I sort of lied. “Go have fun with Jenny. Did her kid like the little giraffe?”

  “She put it in her mouth and drooled all over it so… yes?”

  I laughed. “I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Bye, Ry.”

  This was all my mother’s fault. No, this was all Sharon’s fault for having to leave the other night. Well, technically it was her kid’s fault for getting the bug and technically, technically it was whoever gave the bug to her kid and technically, technically, technically this could go on forever. Just like my wait for Lauren’s call.

  I had to assume the worst with no call still at 10:43. I had to assume that she hit it off with her ex and she got so caught up in the whirlwind of it all that she forgot to call entirely. She realized she did indeed make a mistake leaving him without trying to reconcile last year after his affair and they were fucking in her car while I sat there on the couch staring at the pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream like an idiot. I moaned and sank further into the couch, hoping it would just swallow me whole.

  I liked Lauren so much and I had sent her running in the opposite direction. I shouldn’t have listened to my mother. I had part of Lauren, even if it wasn’t the whole of her. But now I had none. And this was much worse.

  There was a knock at my door and I frowned at it in confusion from the couch. Maybe the baby threw up on Chance and that was it, his line was drawn. Maybe it was a pizza delivery guy that got the wrong door. Maybe I’d actually driven myself crazy from all this stress and I was now hearing noises that weren’t real. But there was another knock and so I dragged myself off the couch, grumbling the whole time.

  I opened the door and stood frozen when before me was not Chance, not the pizza delivery guy, and not some imaginary figment of my imagination. No, it was Lauren.

  Her hair was wet and clinging to her sharp cheekbones as she stared up at me. There was a flush to her cheeks as if she’d just sprinted up the stairs instead of waiting the extra fifteen seconds for the elevator. Her umbrella was a dripping mess at her side and her navy blue dress clung tightly to her thin body. I could see the outline of her legs, the protrusion of her hip bones, her nipples as her chest heaved. I wanted her. That was all I wanted: her.

  "He is who he is. He is who he'll always be," she said, breathlessly. "But I realized at that dinner that I don't have to be afraid of who I am. I don't have to be any way if I don't want to. I can be who I want to be."

  I looked down at her and had to clench my fingers around the doorframe to stop myself from gathering her straight up into my arms. Staring at her, disheveled and wet and standing there like that in front of me, turned me on and it took all my self control to not reach for her.

  “Who is it you want to be?” I asked, my voice just above a whisper as the sound of the rain on the windows threatened to drown me out.

  Lauren did not hesitate. “The kind of woman who does this.”

  She pushed me back into my apartment with two hands splayed out over the thin, white t-shirt covering my chest. With her foot, she kicked the door closed and pressed me up against the wall. Her hands wound up into my hair and she pulled as she kissed me hard and fast and rough. Her hips ground up against my crotch and as blood rushed to my cock I couldn't hold back any longer. The way Lauren tugged at my bottom lip earnestly with her teeth told me she didn't want me to.

  I fumbled around the back of her dress for only a few seconds before gripping the wet silk and tearing it in two. Lauren groaned as I pulled the clingy material from her chest and squeezed her exposed tit. Her nails scratched down my chest before she slipped a hand into my sweatpants and fondled my balls. I gasped when she lightly scratched her nails over my sac.

  She raised herself up on her tip-toes to whisper in my ear. "Take off your shirt."

  She stroked the hard, throbbing length of my dick inside my pants. I pulled off my shirt as she watched through hooded, lust filled eyes. She grinned when my dick twitched at the sight of her, hair wet and fallen across one eye, dress ripped with one perfect tit revealed and one just barely covered, her arm moving slowly now as she twisted her wrist and flicked her thumb over my head already leaking precum.

  "Take off your pants," she ordered in a voice I'd never heard from her.

  She stepped back and I pushed my sweatpants down past my aching dick before kicking them off and out of the way. Lauren's eyes devoured my naked body as she slowly peeled the dress from her own. I moved my hand down to my cock and stroked it, unable to stop myself. Soon she was leaning against the opposite wall, watching my hips now thrust lazily back and forth as I fucked my own hand.

  I licked my lips as her own hand twisted each hard, perky nipple before skimming down her stomach and disappearing between her legs. I groaned when Lauren groaned.

  "Do you want me?" she asked, her voice dangerous.

  "Yes."

  "Do you want to fuck me?"

  "Yes."

  "Do you want to take me right here, up against this wall?"

  “God, yes.”

  "Do you want your neighbors to hear me scream as your cock punishes my wet pussy?" She bit her lip while staring at my penis and I had to squeeze at the base to stop from shooting off.

  "Fuck, yes."

  "Do you want me?" she asked and our eyes met across that small space between us.

  "Yes, yes, yes."

  Lauren grinned, wicked and dark and so fucking sexy. "Then what are you waiting for?"

  I crossed the distance between us in two steps and she yelped as I grabbed her around the waist and lifted her. Holding her against the wall, I reached one hand down and quickly lined myself up with her pussy and rammed myself inside of her.

  She gasped and pulled on the hair at the back of my neck as she locked her feet around my back. Her arm flailed and knocked the lamp from the entryway table and it shattered on the floor. So I grabbed her wrists with one hand and pinned them to the wall above her head. I sucked a nipple into my mouth, hungry and greedy and ravenous, as I fucked her hard and fast against the wall. I looke
d up from her tit to find her eyes hazy and mouth open as I thrust my cock again and again into her pussy.

  "Fuck, I'm already there," she said between labored breaths.

  Her arms squirmed in my grip and she pounded her head against the wall as I moved my hips faster and harder. I scraped my teeth against the peak of one of Lauren's nipples and she screamed my name, body shaking and going limp where I had her pinned against the wall.

  Her eyes fluttered closed as I pulled out and lowered her body to the floor. But I wasn't done with her yet. I quickly lay between her legs and before she had even finished coming down from her orgasm I circled my tongue around her clit. Her body jerked and I held her still with my hands on her thighs.

  I tasted her and moaned as she swore and cursed, but I gave her no relief, tongue working relentlessly against her clit. She came, voice strained from screaming and I only paused long enough to lube up my penis from the wet folds of her pussy.

  She looked utterly wrecked there sprawled out on the floor as I thrust inside her again, slowly this time. Deep and slow. She watched me fuck her with half-hooded eyes and I knew she was gone. The knowledge that I had made her feel so high, so good turned me on just as much as the sight of her tits bouncing to my rhythm.

  "You can fuck me harder," she whispered after several minutes of our gentle, easy pace. "I want to see you come."

  I was close. So fucking close.

  "I don't want it to be too much for you."

  Lauren responded by moving her hips right when I pushed back inside to drive my cock deeper and harder than I intended. "You're perfect for me."

  Our eyes locked as I quickened my pace again. I felt my balls tightening and my breath was uneven as I ploughed into her. Soon her eyes fell shut with a moan and her hands gripped the corners of the hall for something to hold onto.

  "Come on my tits," I barely heard her say over the rush of blood in my ears.

  Gasping, I pulled out and stroked my dick as I shot my load all over Lauren's sweat glistening breasts. My chest heaved as I took in the sight of her exposed body with my cum streaked across it.