by Penny Wylder
“To what do I owe this surprise?” I ask, still blushing. I take a hesitant sip of the coffee before I relax. Cream, no sugar. Just the way I always drink it. Russ has picked up coffee orders en route to my parents’ place before, but I’m surprised he noticed which of our three orders was mine. Or that he remembered it. I can’t remember the last time we were all together like that. It must have been months ago. Did he really remember so many tiny details about me?
As if reading my mind, he winks. “It was a selfish move, actually. I wanted to brighten up my own day a little bit. I knew seeing you would be the quickest way to do that.”
I duck my head to hide the smile that tugs at the corners of my lips. “Russ…”
“About yesterday.” He dips a little closer, lowers his voice even more, although his baritone deep voice is already pitched pretty low. “I can’t stop thinking about you.”
“Neither can I,” I breathe, and I force myself to look up, then, and meet his gaze. Those dark brown eyes of his bore into me, from this distance, so filled with heat and desire that I can hardly make myself look away. But I do. I have to. “But, Russ… we can’t do this.”
He arches an eyebrow, studying me. “I already told you, I’m not worried about getting let go. I have plenty of other fish on the line, employment-wise. I’d be fine.”
“But you’d lose your status. Surely another hospital wouldn’t employ you at the… well, the level you’re at now.”
“Or with as much influence as I have, since the director is my best friend, you mean?” Russ catches my eye with a smirk. “Maggie. I’ve thought this through. Long before yesterday, actually.”
My cheeks heat up all over again at the suggestion. At what that implies. But I don’t rise to the bait. I can’t. “It doesn’t matter. I can’t do this, to you or to me. My father is… he’s so much more controlling than you understand.”
“Believe me, I know how controlling your father is, and what he’s capable of.” Russ shakes his head slowly. “Maggie, if you don’t want to do this, I understand—”
“It’s not that,” I reply, so vehemently that it takes us both aback. I shake my head. “I… I want you. I’ve wanted you for years. But we can’t, okay?” With that, I shove off the wall, determined to walk away before I do something more that I’ll come to regret. “Just… leave it.” Without waiting for him to reply, I push through the locker room door, into the women’s area, where he can’t follow me. I crouch there against one of the benches, my warm coffee in hand, and take deep breaths, until the stinging at the backs of my eyes finally goes away.
This is for the best. I have to push him away, before this goes any farther. Before we both get hurt.
By lunchtime, I’ve almost stopped obsessing over the deep, morose expression in Russ’s honey brown eyes when he looked at me, as I told him we had to end things. At least, so I tell myself. But it’s hard to stay preoccupied, or busy, when I barely have enough patients to take care of to distract myself. Unfortunately, all the down time my father ensured I have in my schedule just leaves me way more time to fantasize about his friend.
Just before lunch, I give in and lock myself into one of the bathroom stalls. I shut my eyes and lean back against the wall. Shut in here, I can almost imagine that I’m back in the stairwell again with Russ. I can feel the heat of his warm body pressed against mine. The way his thick, strong leg parted my thighs as he pinned me back against the wall. The way his hands roamed across my body, traced my curves. I do the same with my own hands now, following his tracks, and it feels all right, but nowhere near as good as when he did it. His hands were so much rougher, stronger, more calloused and manly than mine.
Finally, I give up and just slide a hand under the waistband of my scrubs, tracing my panties, dipping beneath them. Once again, it’s inadequate. My fingers are narrow and soft and slim. Nothing like Russ’s thick fingers. But I do my best, tracing the lips of my pussy, my eyes squeezed shut tight, trying to imagine him. The scent of his sweat and musk, the smell of sex that lingered between us in the stairwell the last time he fucked me. I try to imagine my finger is his, the way he pressed a fingertip inside my pussy and traced its edges, slowly moving in and out.
I curl my own finger inside me, and I picture the heat in his gaze as he told me he was going to fuck me, hard. I imagine the deep baritone of his voice. “I need to fuck you right now, Maggie.” I picture him saying that as I add a second finger, then a third, needing three of my own fingers to imitate two of his.
Finally, I start to build toward a climax, my whole body trembling with anticipation. I peak with a faint whimper, but it’s a lot easier to keep quiet when I’m by myself, rather than Russ, who somehow seems to know my own body better than I do.
When I’m finished, my whole body flushed, and yet feeling nowhere near satiated, I stumble out of the stall and wash my hands in the sink. Then I grab my clipboard and head out toward the cafeteria. Maybe some food will distract me, keep me from all these wayward thoughts.
Instead, I run smack into Russ again, striding up the hallway from the direction of the surgery wing.
“Maggie.” He tilts his head, offers an arm. “Headed toward the cafeteria?”
“I was, yes.” I ignore the offered arm, though I have to suppress a faint smile to do it.
“Wonderful. I’ll escort you.” He falls into step beside me.
“I thought I made things clear earlier today,” I murmur under my breath as we walk, mostly so nobody else in the crowded hallway will hear me. Nurses I do recognize, and doctors who I know report personally to my father, pass us. We plaster on smiles, and everyone waves or nods our way. They all know that Russ is my father’s closest friend, and I’m his daughter. We’ve known one another all our lives. It shouldn’t be strange for them to see us together. Nobody would suspect anything.
But I feel like I’m walking down the hallway with a giant neon billboard over my head. They just fucked each other, with an arrow pointed right at us. Surely every single person near us can sense the tension in the air between us, smell the hormones we’re giving off, or guess what it means that we keep trading sly glances, checking one another out even though I know we shouldn’t.
“Perfectly clear.” Russ tucks his hands into his pockets, looking entirely unconcerned as he matches my pace, strolling easily down the corridor. “Which is why I’ve decided I’ll need to step up my game to change your mind.”
My cheeks flush. “Why?”
“Because.” He lowers his voice even further, a barely-there purr that nevertheless doesn’t fail to make my toes curl up inside my standard issue nursing shoes. “I can’t stop thinking about you, Maggie. I want you. I want to fuck you again… and again and again.” His grin widens, no doubt as he notices the effect he’s having on me.
My heartbeat speeds up, in spite of myself, reacting to his words even though I’d give anything not to show any hints of unease right now. “There are about a million reasons why we shouldn’t,” I breathe, then snap my mouth shut as Lionel passes, offering a stink eye for me. I glare right back until he passes down the hall.
Russ is temporarily distracted from his seduction. “What was that all about?” he asks, glancing over his shoulder at Lionel’s retreating, slumped shoulders.
“Dad gave him and the other nurses on my rotation all extra work because he wanted to punish me. Now they all think I’m being given special treatment because I’m the director’s daughter, a lighter workload than anyone else. Meanwhile, the opposite is true…” I groan with frustration.
Russ’s hand comes to rest on my shoulder, and he draws me to a stop. For a second, I pause, and all I can focus on is the heat of his hand on my body. Even through the fabric of my scrub shirt, I can feel how warm his hand is. I step toward him, unable to resist, and there’s that familiar scent again, the one that makes me want to stop protesting, find the nearest empty room to drag him into and let him fuck me until I forget about everything else. About Lionel and the othe
r nurse’s anger, about my father. About everything except the way Russ makes me feel when he touches me.
“They shouldn’t blame you,” Russ murmurs. “That’s not right. They know what your father is like. Or at least, they should have noticed by now, if they’ve been working here this long.”
“Yeah, well.” I cross my arms, frowning. “Not everyone notices who they’re working for, I guess. Or if they do, they don’t care, because he still signs their paychecks, no matter how he treats his employees. It’s easier to blame me than someone with real power.”
Russ frowns too, and his hand slips down my arm. “I could talk to him for you. See if it would make a difference.”
I jerk back from his touch as though stung. “No,” I blurt, my breath coming short. I shake my head to clear it. “I mean, thank you, but… you can’t.” Whereas yesterday, I started flirting with Russ specifically so Dad would find out and get angry about it… now I don’t want Dad anywhere near this. “I told you, I can’t risk your job here.”
“And I told you, Maggie, you’re worth the risk.” He takes another step closer. He’s close enough now that the heat from his body radiates through mine. It’s hard to breathe. Hard to remember what I need to do, or why. It’s so damn hard to walk away.
“Well, I disagree.” With an enormous effort, I force my foot to move backward, and draw myself away from him.
He follows me, a small smile on his lips, just for me. “Are you saying you don’t want me to touch you ever again?” His hand hovers next to my cheek. An inch to the side and he’d be touching my skin. I could let him draw me back in. I could cave now, let him have me again. Let him fuck me like yesterday, let him touch me until I lose control again, until I have another orgasm like the one that made me cry out in that empty stairwell.
My whole body feels like one giant blush. I clear my throat, hard, to make it stop. “We can’t.”
“Yes, we can.”
I push past him, beelining up the hallway. But his voice follows me, long after I’ve disappeared around the far end of the corridor. “I’ll find a way to convince you, Maggie Owens. Mark my words.”
Oh, I do. And I can’t stop thinking about them, all day long.
5
Dad picks me up outside to give me a ride home after work, the same way he does every day. Or rather, the same way he insists on doing every day, as if I’m a child who can’t be trusted to take care of herself. I finish picking up the rest of my stuff from the staff room and trudge out to the parking lot, my shoulders slumped. All day I dodged sideways comments and openly hostile glares from my coworkers. The word has gotten around by now, that I only have 3 patients on my rotation, while everyone else has upwards of dozens.
It’s not fair, they say, over and over, whenever I’m within hearing, and probably even more when I’m not. What I don’t say, what I can’t say back, is that I agree with them. It’s not fair. I wish Dad would come around on this.
But as I slide into the passenger seat, ready to argue with him again, the look on his face stops me dead. He’s wearing his serious, prepare for battle face. “Who died?” I ask grimly, buckling myself in.
Dad’s eyes narrow. “Nobody. Your mother called. She’s hosting a party tonight, so I’ll need you to continue to be on your… well, clearly not your best behavior, but better behavior than you’ve been on for the rest of the day thus far,” he grumbles.
I roll my eyes. “You can control my schedule and my job and my life, Dad, but unfortunately for you, you cannot control my emotions. I know you’d really love to be able to. Tough break.”
“It’s part of your job to provide a welcoming and enjoyable atmosphere for your patients at the hospital. I spoke to the Hartford boy you’ve been assigned to look after. His parents are not happy with the attitude you’ve been bringing along with you whenever you visit his room. If that’s an indicator of how you plan to handle these three patients for the rest of the week, then maybe I shouldn’t have even given you this miniscule of a job.”
I groan. As if taking away the real work wasn’t bad enough. “Dad, everyone already hates me for getting special treatment from you. They think I asked to be given a lighter workload, that I’m enjoying this.”
“Well, it’s up to you to turn your own prospects around. Now, about dinner. There will be about ten people coming over. Your mother wants barbecue, so we’re going to stop at the butchers on the way home. If you have any other requests, we can make a grocery store run as well…” He trails off, muttering under his breath. I know he’s going into over-planning land.
My dad even likes to micromanage things like parties. It’s why my mom gives him specific tasks, like dealing with the BBQ and the cooking. Not only does she know he loves grilling, but she also knows he’ll focus all his OCD tendencies on the dinner and leave her alone to prepare the drinks and the decor and the music—you know, all the fun parts of a party. Dad’s not exactly great at the whole letting loose and having fun thing.
A thought strikes me, as he’s rambling through his dissection of the dinner plans and side dishes we can prepare to go with the main course of ribs and steak. “Hang on. Who all is coming?” My heart leaps into my throat.
“I assume the usual crowd. Drew and Dorine, the Crowells, Russ of course…”
My breath comes short. I go tense, and I have to actually turn away from Dad to face the window, so he won’t see the visceral reaction on my face. Russ. I haven’t seen him since earlier, in the hallway at work. But I can’t stop thinking about the last thing he said to me. I’ll find a way to convince you, Maggie Owens. Mark my words.
Knowing Russ, I don’t doubt that he will. And that’s what scares me. Because I know how easy it would be, honestly, if he really set his mind to it. As it is, I can barely keep myself away from him. All day at work, he was on my mind. When I took my afternoon break, I locked myself in the break room and just pictured him in there with me. I imagined the way he’d pin me against the door and touch me, bold and demanding. He knows exactly what he wants, and he’s the kind of man who will stop at nothing to get it.
It sent a thrill through me then, as it does again now. It made me check the lock on the door, and then slip a hand down the front of my scrubs, unable to stand it, needing a release. I pictured his face in my mind, pictured him kissing his way down my body. I imagined the way that sexy, sculpted jaw of his would look between my thighs. I could imagine the scrape of his stubble against the soft, sensitive skin of my inner thighs as he dipped between them, pressing his face up against my pussy. I imagined the way his lips would feel against my pussy lips, as he kissed me slowly, carefully. His tongue would slowly part my slit, patient and teasing, the same way he touched me that first time, teasing me as he held me against the wall with my hands pinned over my head.
I pictured how it would feel to look down at him, to have him grin up at me, his dark salt-and-pepper hair falling across his even darker eyes as his tongue dragged along my slit, all the way up to graze my clit, and then back again. He would draw it out. He’d tease and lick and suck at me until I was almost screaming with desire, ready to lose my mind. Only then would he finally bear down and lap me with long, hard strokes, to make me come with a scream under his tongue.
I came on my own hand in the break room earlier today, just imagining that. My orgasm was so strong, I had to tug my panties back up, or I was going to get too wet for my own good. I’d gone about my rounds that afternoon afterward, shifting uncomfortably on my feet, knowing I was still wet because I kept picturing him and getting turned on all over again.
Now he’s coming to my parents’ house. Tonight. For an impromptu dinner that my mom decided to plan at the last minute. Something that, I have to admit, is pretty out of character for her. It makes me frown, wondering what’s really going on. Did she have a plan for this all along, or did Russ—who’s a close friend of my father, yes, but who’s also just as close with my mother, too—text her to suggest it?
Is this part of h
is plan to seduce me? I’ll find a way to convince you, he said, and I don’t doubt that he’ll stop at nothing. I’ve seen Russ work before. I know how he rose through the ranks at this hospital, as almost meteoric a rise as my father’s. They were two of a kind, at least when it came to their ambition and to chasing after what they knew they wanted.
Now I’m what Russ wants, and I can’t help but wonder… what lengths will he go to to win me? And will I really be able to hold out the way I’ve promised to? Or will I cave in, unable to fight the desire I’ve had building inside me for years?
I bunch my fists in my lap as Dad pulls in front the butcher’s shop, and promise myself that whatever happens tonight, I will stay strong.
By the time we get home, Mom’s already in full planning swing. There are cute fairy lights strung up throughout the pool area, to add ambiance to the little greenhouse area Mom and Dad splurged on so that we could have pool parties all year round, even in the winter.
If I’m going to live somewhere with crappy weather for the majority of the year, she always says, then I’m going to at least be able to throw some damn pool parties.
But tonight looks like it will be decent enough, the sky bright and clear overhead, clear enough we can even see a few stars, despite the constant light pollution of Manhattan. It’s still a little chilly, but it warmed up throughout the day, which means that the pool area feels even more heated than usual when we step into it.
Dad goes straight to work, beelining for the grill, already grumbling about how Mom should have warmed it up before he got here. But she stops him halfway to his job, and his worried look softens for a moment. They trade a slow, easy kiss, one that makes me regret not having dated anyone seriously up until now. Watching them together, I’m always reminded of the magic of the right pairing. As infuriating and bossy and controlling as Dad is, with Mom, he’s a completely different person. She softens all his edges, and she’s always been the only one who can talk him out of a bad idea or bring him around to a new point of view.
