After Hours

by Melinda Di Lorenzo

  “What’re you wearing under here, honey?”

  “Keep. Going.”

  “You being bossy isn’t exactly a turnoff.”

  “I’m not going to say please.”

  Stifling a groan, I grabbed the fourth button. Now I was rock hard, straining against my zipper. The way the inside of her knee brushed the outside of mine didn’t help at all. I tore the button free and spied a sliver of something lacy.

  “Aysia.” Her name came out as a growl.

  She opened her eyes, the heat in them washing over me. “Did I tell you to stop?”

  “Christ.”

  I undid the rest of the buttons in quick succession.

  Five-six. Seven-eight-nine. Ten.

  The jacket fell open on its own, and this time I couldn’t hold back the groan. What she had on was strapless. It pushed her breasts to high alert, pooling them over the stiff edge of black lace. A ribbon criss-crossed the front of it, cinched tightly over torso and ending in a little bow just above her belly button, which was exposed. Below that, she wore a pair of low-cut panties. Black, too, and as sheer as the stockings on her legs. They were stay-ups, I realized then, rather than full-blown nylons. Capped in stretchy lace and pulled up devastatingly high.

  My eyes traced the ensemble back up again, then came to rest on her face.

  “See?” she said softly. “I’m not exactly dressed for dinner with your family.”

  “What the hell are you trying to do to me?”

  “You mean what was I trying to do to you?”

  “I’ll tell them to leave.”

  A tiny smile lifted her lips. “Flattering. But unrealistic.”

  I put my hands on her thighs and ran my thumbs over the stretchy lace. “I’m sure they’ll understand.”

  One of her heels came up to press into the back of one of my calves. She leaned back a little, too, widening her legs for a tantalizing view of the diaphanous strip of fabric between her thighs.

  “What excuse would you give them?” she asked.

  I bent down and dragged my mouth from her chin to her ear, then lifted her up to the desk. “That I need to be alone with you so we can chat.”

  “And when they want to know why they can’t be a part of the conversation, too?”

  “I’d explain that it’s a private, work-related matter.”

  “Work, hmm?”

  Her heel dragged up to the back of my knee, then pulled me forward. My erection pressed into her, and her hips rocked up. I pulled her earlobe between my teeth and tugged hard enough to make her whimper, then soothed away the sting with a suck and a kiss. I eased back just enough to slip my hand in between us, my palm against her damp panties and my knuckles against my own thick cock.

  “I really need to go, Marc,” she breathed.

  Her actions told a different story; that same heel was on my ass now, holding me tight against her.

  “Actually, Aysia,” I said, “I think you really need to come.”

  “We’ve already been in here too long. Your family’s going to get suspicious.”

  “Maybe we had some trouble finding the work file.”

  “Maybe.”

  It was my turn to rock, sliding my fingers back and forth as I did. “Do you really want me to stop?”

  “No,” she admitted.

  “I won’t, then.”

  I pressed a little harder, and she moaned. I cast a quick glance toward the door. Why hadn’t I thought to close it all the way?

  “It pains me to say this,” I told her, “but I want you to be quick, and I want you to be quiet.”

  “Who’s bossy now?” she retorted. “I don’t think I—”

  I silenced her with kiss. Hard and thorough, and I accompanied it with a finger slipped under her panties. She was wet and butter-soft, and I wished like hell it was more than hand giving her the attention. And apparently the feeling was mutual. Still locking her mouth to mine, she fumbled with her coat, and I heard the telltale crinkle of a metallic wrapper.

  “Take this,” she gasped, handing over the condom.

  I released her—only so I could comply—and as I ripped open the package with my teeth, she made short work of my belt and jeans. She pushed them down just far enough to give me enough space to unroll the latex.

  “Quick and quiet,” she tossed back at me, a wicked glint in her eyes.

  In reply, I slammed into her hard enough to make the desk rattle.

  * * * *

  Aysia

  Marc filled me completely, the length of his erection driving so far inside me that I could feel it in my toes. In my fingertips and my scalp. Everywhere. And it was so good. I knew I wouldn’t have any trouble with the quick part of his request. The quiet on the other hand…I was struggling with it. More than a bit.

  “Oh, God,” I groaned. “Marc.”

  “Shh, honey.”

  “I can’t—oh!”

  “Shh.” But he didn’t slow his rhythm, didn’t ease back at all.

  “Please,” I whispered.

  “Now?”

  “Yes! Before I—seriously. Please.”

  He slid his hands up the back of my neck and dug his hands into my hair. His mouth dropped to my throat. His lips were all I needed to send me soaring. Feeling porn-star-esque, I tossed my head back and dropped my mouth open in a silent cry. I felt him jolt and throb inside me, and just like that, we climaxed in unison. Pulsing in time. The everywhere-ache became an overall tingle. I might even have said it was damned near perfect in spite of the quickness and the quietness. Except for one little thing. As the last little shivers wracked my body, my hand came down and slammed into one of the wine glasses and sent it flying.

  I watched in slow, post-orgasm horror as it lifted into the air, hit the wall beside the desk, then split into pieces. The noise echoed through the small room. But that was only my biggest concern for a few moments. As the glass cracked, the shards scattered. And one very large, very sharp piece ricocheted from the wall to the desk then back into the air. Finally, it took purchase in the part of my thigh that wasn’t covered by my stockings. It hung there, kind of quivering. A thick, crimson pool formed around it, and my leg twitched involuntarily, dislodging the glass.

  “Shit,” I said, a little stunned by both the pain and the sight.

  Marc leaped into action, pushing himself away from me and talking at the same time. “Sit really still, honey. I’m going to—shit. It’s getting worse.”

  He moved across the room, buckling his pants as he went. He pulled a piece of white cloth from somewhere—I didn’t know if it was a towel or a T-shirt or something else entirely, but whatever it was, he folded it up, lifted my leg and pushed it firmly against the bleeding. The white went pink immediately, then red.

  Marc met my eyes. “Honey—Aysia—I think that’s going to need stitches.”

  “But…”

  “What?”

  “My outfit. I can’t go anywhere in this.”

  “Your… Christ.” He ran his hand over his hair. “It’s hardly an outfit. And I seriously think we need to go to the hospital. Like, now.”

  “But…” I trailed off, feeling a little woozy.

  “Okay. Hang on. Ten seconds. Count them for me and push down on that wound.”

  “One…” I trailed off as he darted out the door, then tried again, mumbling to myself as both my eyes and hands stayed fixed on the reddened fabric. “One. Two…One. Oh, god. Three. Four.” Did I miss something? “Four. Five.”

  Before I could hit six, he was back, a plaid shirt slung over his torso, a black shirt and a pair of boxers in one of his hands, a piece of gauze in the other.

  “We’re going to wrap that thing up to help keep the cloth in place,” he stated. “Then I’ll help you slip these on. And don’t wriggle around too much in case it hit y
our femoral fucking artery.”

  “It didn’t hit my—”

  A voice in the hall cut me. “Marcelo? Is everything okay in there?”

  He pushed the shirt over my head as he answered. “Just a little accident, Mom. Stay there.”

  “What kind of accident?”

  “Hang on.”

  He slid my legs into the boxers, careful not to disturb the makeshift dressing, then tightened the waist using an elastic band.

  “I’m going to lift you up now,” he announced.

  And before I could protest, he had me cradled in his arms and was carrying me out into the hall. His mom stepped back, her gaze going from mildly concerned to deeply worried as she caught sight of my leg.

  “Oh, God,” she said. “Should we call 9-1-1?”

  Marc shook his head. “I don’t think it’s as bad as that. I’ll take her myself.”

  “What about my femoral artery?” I interjected.

  Mrs. Diaz’s expression grew alarmed. “What?”

  “She’s fine, Mom.”

  “Fine?” I repeated.

  Marc ignored me and slid past his mom, too. Snagging his keys from the counter, he instructed his dad on how to set the alarm, told his sister to save him some dinner, then carried me straight out to the elevator.

  “Which is it?” I asked as the doors slid open. “Am I dying, or am I fine?”

  He breathed out. “Riding the line closer to fine, I hope.”

  “So what was this…your ploy to get me away from your family?”

  “You stabbed yourself, remember?”

  “I hardly—”

  For the second time in the last twenty minutes, he shut me up with a kiss. This one, though, was fiercely tender rather than just fierce. When he pulled away, he pushed his lips to my forehead then tucked me even closer to his body. He said nothing else as we reached the parking garage, and nothing as he settled me—carefully—into the passenger seat, or when he plugged in the hospital address to his GPS. His hands were tense on the steering wheel, and his jaw was locked. I swallowed nervously, a little jarred by his sudden intensity, and focused my attention out the front windshield. The familiar bits of city flicked by quickly, and we reached the emergency room in far less time than the speed limit should’ve allowed. As he parked, I bit back a question about what would’ve happened if we’d been pulled over by a cop, and just let him lift me out again, his warm hands gentle on my skin.

  Thankfully, the hospital was slow, and we moved from triage to a treatment room quickly. And it wasn’t until Marc saw the sign on the door—Minor Trauma, it read—that at last his face relaxed. Even then, it was only a marginal change.

  “You okay?” I asked cautiously.

  “I’m not the one waiting for stitches.”

  I flinched at his tone, and opened my mouth to say something back. But an aging doctor stepped into the room then, temporarily silencing me.

  “Good evening, Ms. Banks,” the white-coat-clad man greeted, nodding at me, then at Marc. “And, uh…Mr…?”

  “Diaz. Ms. Banks’s boyfriend.”

  My pulse jumped. “Boyfriend?”

  Marc met my eyes. “What did you want me to say?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Illicit lover?”

  The doctor cleared his throat, and I felt my face warm.

  “Boyfriend is fine,” I said.

  “Good.” Marc faced the doctor. “So?”

  The gray-haired man smiled and snapped a pair of gloves onto his hands. “Helps if I take a look.”

  Marc stepped away, his expression slightly chagrined. “Right.”

  I leaned back on the examination table and closed my eyes as the doctor unwrapped the temporary bandages that the triage nurse had put down. If he noticed my now-shorn stockings, he didn’t say. But the air did sting a bit, and in spite of the way I fought them, tears threatened. I drew in a breath. It did nothing to steady me. But when Marc’s hand landed on my shoulder and squeezed, I felt better immediately.

  “It’s all right, honey,” he said. “The doc’s just gonna clean it up a bit, then put in a few stitches.”

  “Twelve or so,” the doctor confirmed.

  My eyes flew open. “Twelve?”

  “Did a pretty good number on yourself,” he replied, dropping a few sharp and dangerous-looking objects into a metal pan. “I’m going to inject a little painkiller to make you more comfortable, then I’ll get to work.”

  I swallowed nervously, fighting an urge to ask if the needle really had to be that big. “You know what I hated when I was a kid? That game… Operation.”

  “This isn’t an operation,” Marc said. “More of a procedure.”

  “Mr. Diaz is right,” the doctor agreed. “Won’t take more than a couple of minutes. Why don’t you focus on your boyfriend so that I can focus on you, hmm?”

  Boyfriend.

  Yes. It was a distracting enough thought. It made me warm and cold at the same time, and filled my stomach with butterflies that could’ve been excitement just as much as they might’ve been from nerves. I didn’t need a boyfriend. I really didn’t need a future-boss slash career-ending slash turn-my-brain-to-mush-with-a-look boyfriend.

  Really, Aysia? said a little voice in my head. Aren’t you past being that wishy-washy? You might not need a boyfriend, but you can’t pretend the idea isn’t straight-up appealing.

  As the doctor stepped near my leg again, I made myself study Marc’s face. His eyes were on me, too. And his handsome features were pinched with worry, and even though he had a smile on his lips, I could tell it was forced. I started to ask him what was wrong, then stopped and shook my head instead.

  “Oh. My. God.” I broke the words off like an eighties sitcom heroine.

  “What?”

  “You’re just as chicken shit as I am. This totally grosses you out.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “You don’t like blood and guts and gore.”

  “Of course I do.”

  I snorted. “Do you even like action movies for real?”

  “Yes, Aysia. I like action movies for real.”

  I thought about it. “What about doctor movies?”

  “Doctor porn? Fine with that, too.”

  My face burned and I cast a quick glance toward the real-life doctor at my side. But he seemed thoroughly immersed in patching me up. He was even whistling a little under his breath.

  Relieved but no less embarrassed—it was his attempt at payback, I was sure—I shot Marc a dirty look. “How about real doctor shows? Like the one where they removed the rebar from the guy’s stomach?”

  He winced, just barely. “Not my favorite.”

  I laughed. “You’re squeamish.”

  “Your attempt to unman me isn’t going to work.”

  “Oh, I think it is.”

  “And I think that if you keep teasing me, I’ll feel an ape-like need to prove just how manly I am. Right here. Right now.”

  “I’m sure the doctor would appreciate that.”

  “The doctor definitely would not,” added the man in question, leaning away and dropping a wickedly curved needle into his bin of horrors. “But the doctor is also done.”

  “That quick?” I asked.

  “Said it would only take a few minutes, didn’t I?” He patted my knee. “Lucky thirteen, by the way.”

  “That’s a lot stitches,” I said.

  “Seen worse. But I’m still going to give you a prescription antibiotic to ward off possible infection, as well as a mild oral painkiller. You can grab the medication at the twenty-four-hour pharmacy near the exit, and I want you to take it easy for the next few days. Very easy.” The doctor smiled at me, then directed a stern eye Marc’s way. “Nothing strenuous. Got it?”

  Marc’s lip curled with
amusement. “Got it.”

  “Good.”

  He issued a few more instructions about changing the gauze, airing out the wound, and wrapping it with plastic to bathe. Finally, he told Marc he’d get me a wheelchair rather than suggest he carry me out, and at last turned to go. But at the door, he paused.

  “By the way…” he said. “It never happens the way they show it in the movies.”

  “What doesn’t?” I asked.

  “The doctor porn. It’s never two sexy nurses and a hot young doctor. Every time I’ve caught someone going at it, it’s been a really hairy intern of some kind and a woman with a penchant for clown-covered scrubs.”

  My mouth worked silently, and I heard Marc let out a choked laugh. Then the doctor slipped out, and a nurse—dressed in clown-themed scrubs, no less—slipped in.

  Chapter 14

  Marcelo

  I pushed Aysia along in the wheelchair provided by the woman I’d silently dubbed the Circus Nurse. We’d filled the prescriptions quickly, and we were already back on our way back to my car. I’d even managed to convince her to take one of the painkillers, and I was still chuckling over the Circus Nurse as I swung open the Quattroporte’s door. My amusement died quickly, though, when I started to help Aysia from the chair to the car and spotted a tiny, crimson mark on the gauze. I tried to push her back down into the seat.

  Her hand came up and batted away my attempt. “What are you doing?”

  “Taking you back in so that Dr. Not-So-Useful can redo his shoddy stitch job.”

  “I don’t need to go back in,” she said.

  “We haven’t even left the hospital yet and you’re already bleeding again.”

  “I’m not bleeding.”

  “The blood on your bandage begs to differ.”

  “What blood?”

  I pointed. “Right there.”

  She frowned. “That’s not blood. That’s not even a smudge.”

  “It’s a drop.”

  “I think your fear of all things medical is getting to you.”

  “Aysia…”

  “Unwrap it and have a look.”

  “I’m not going to unwrap it!” I said.

  Before I could protest, she was unwinding the gauze. Three layers. I was sure there should be more like thirty.