Wanting to pull him off her the minute his hands touch her, my hands clench. Deciding for his own health that it’s time to make my presence known, I ask as I move to stand beside Gia, “And you are?”
Yeah. She’s with me you asshole.
I smile not letting my thoughts show through.
“Um.” The doctor clears his throat in nervousness and takes a step back. “I’m Doctor Samuel Hodges. I’m a friend of Gia’s. A good friend.”
“Well, I’m Hunter. Her very good friend,” I reply while wrapping my arm around Gia’s shoulders. I want the creep to get on his way so there isn’t any chance of him touching my woman again. My woman! What the fuck?
“Oh, well. I’ll see you around Gia. Maybe when you’re alone.”
I watch him turn tail and run off in the opposite direction as I feel an elbow hit my mid-section.
Chapter Six ~ Gia
What the hell is Hunter doing scaring Sam off? Sam is kind of a friend. We’d been good friends once-upon-a-time, but we’d gone our different ways until recently. Every time I’ve bumped into him apart from this morning, I’d started to feel it was more of an “arranged” meeting.
Although I’m angry with Hunter for chasing Sam off, I feel relieved. He doesn’t need to know that though. I like the fact that he’s acting jealous. I’d never had anyone act jealous over me before, and I kind of like the feeling. Especially when it’s the delicious guy standing, lost in his thoughts, next to me.
Hunter ushers me into the elevator so I press the button for the third floor before I settle back against the opposite wall to Hunter.
I haven’t been able to get him out of my head since we danced Saturday night because it had turned me upside down. The feel of his body against mine had released something inside me that I haven’t felt before, and I’m desperate to feel like that again. If only he’d co-operate.
I’d snooped around a bit and found out some things about him. He’s thirty-five years old—not as old as my father but a lot older than me. I also learned that he isn’t just a bodyguard, he’s a US Marshal. To be more precise, his boss is my Uncle Colin and it looked like he was damn good at his job.
The fact that he’s hot is evident to everyone but he has an air of love ‘em and leave ‘em about him. It’s a mixture that I find both exciting and scary since I’m so different. I know I’m young but I didn’t want the one-night stand. I want a guy to call my own. A guy I can share things with. A guy to rely on to always be there for me. My father has always been there, sometimes too much, but that’s a different kind of care. I want to be touched—set alight with passion—the way I’ve been feeling with Hunter…but I didn’t want that one kiss…I want more.
As I study him, he casually leans against the wall with his ankles crossed, sunglasses shoved up on the top of his head and his eyes fixed on me.
I feel a blush creep up my neck and into my face as I hold his gaze. He looks at me like he wants to eat me for dinner—intense.
Very slowly Hunter uncurls himself from the elevator wall and prowls closer to me. My heart feels like it’s about to jump out of my chest—not in fear—in excitement. With just one look he makes my toes curl, my pussy wet and my core throb.
“I’m supposed to be protecting you,” Hunter leans down to whisper into my ear as heat licks through me, “but all I can think about is being buried so deep between your thighs that neither of us can think. Only feel.”
He slides his hands around my waist, and lets them rest on my bottom. He presses down, which brings our hips together.
“But then I remember our ages. I remember that you’re just an assignment.” I flinch at his words, and hope he doesn’t notice. “No matter how badly I crave to touch you—to give you pleasure—I can’t do that. I shouldn’t even be touching you now, but fuck, you smell so good.”
I moan when Hunter nibbles along my neck and buries his face in the curve between my shoulder and neck. He breathes in where I’d lightly sprayed my favorite scent before leaving the house.
Unable to just take, I raise my hands and caress down his back to his butt. My hands slip beneath his tee shirt. He shudders under my hands; his cock hardening against my hip.
“Well, what a good morning you’re having, Gia,” Ella one of the nurses comments.
My first instinct is to separate from Hunter, but he keeps me in his arms, which feels good. It feels so good that I don’t want to face my friend because I know the interlude in the elevator will be over the minute one of us opens our mouths.
Ella clears her throat. “You two do know the doors have opened and you have an audience, right?”
As I slowly pull away, I make sure Hunter’s tee shirt covers his erection because he isn’t exactly small. This move causes Hunter to hiss between his teeth as he pushes me out of the elevator into Ella who has one of my favorite patients, Summer, in her arms.
“Hi Ella. Hi Summer, I was coming to visit with you today.” I say, with a light cheerful note in my voice.
“Did you bring me…a new…friend…today?” Summer asks between deep breaths through her oxygen mask.
“I did. This is Hunter.” I grab hold of Hunter’s hand and am relieved when he slips his fingers between mine, giving my hand a gentle squeeze. It helps me focus. “Hunter, I’d like you to meet Summer and my friend, Ella. Summer’s nurse.”
Hunter gives Summer a megawatt smile, which makes my heart flutter.
“Hello Summer. It’s a pleasure to meet you. And Ella.”
Ella doesn’t bother to hide her curiosity as her eyes go back and forth between Hunter and me with a grin on her lips and laughter in her eyes.
Ella has recently married the man of her dreams and has been on at me like no one’s business about finding “the one.” It has started to become annoying though with all the blind dates she wants to send me on. I really hate blind dates.
But then my troubles seem so trivial when I look at Summer. The bright, little girl with all her hopes and dreams but we all know the truth—Summer doesn’t have much time left. It breaks my heart and recently, I have trouble keeping my emotions in check around her. It’s so unfair, but I’ve learned that life is rarely fair.
“I need to get Summer back to bed. Why don’t you come and read her a story in ten minutes,” Ella suggests knowing I can’t handle watching her be put back into her bed because of the pain she’s in.
“Bring…Hunter,” Summer adds.
“I will do. We’ll go and wash up and will see you soon.”
As Ella walks away, Hunter tugs on my hand and pulls me around to look at him. “Hey. Are you okay?” Hunter asks as he leans in and wipes a tear from my cheek.
I ignore him and dash off in the opposite direction to Ella, and push into the locker room. I just need a minute before I lose it completely. But as I should have expected, Hunter follows and unexpectedly, wraps me up in his arms from behind, burrowing his head into my neck, giving me time to pull myself together.
“She’s one of the children you were talking about outside.”
Hunter’s statement doesn’t need an answer, as he continues to hold me against him. He’s starting to get too familiar with me—too close to my heart. I don’t want to depend on someone who will be out of here the minute I’m safe. And that’s exactly what Hunter will do. He’s just there for the moment and then he will go back to his old life.
Enjoy him while you can. Have fun for a change.
I pat him on the arm and step from his embrace. Without looking at Hunter, I open my locker and grab a set of sealed scrubs from the shelf along with my bag of shower things. Because the children on the ward have life threatening illnesses all staff have to shower and change before entering the patient’s room. Walking to the end store cupboard, I grab an extra-large set of scrubs along with two clean towels.
“We have to shower before going on the ward.” I pass the spare set of scrubs and towel to Hunter. “I’m sorry. I should have told you. But the children are seriously sick o
n this ward so it’s just an added precaution.”
“It’s fine, but you need to stick close.”
My eyes widen, which causes a chuckle to burst from between Hunter’s lips. “I wasn’t suggesting showering together, although I wouldn’t be opposed. I meant—”
“I know what you meant.” I blush. “The showers are through that doorway. Each cubicle has room to undress as well.”
That being said I dash into my cubicle, and the minute the door shuts behind me I drop back against it with a heavy sigh of relief.
I need to pull myself together because how I’m acting toward Hunter is stupid, and based on hormones—nothing else but hormones. How can someone get under my skin so quickly when I’ve known him less than forty-eight hours? Ridiculous.
When I hear the shower switch on next door, I decide enough is enough and that I need to use these few minutes to get him out of my head and back to the bodyguard status, which is safer for me.
Standing under the spray of the hot water, I listen to the shower in the next room. I can’t help wondering what he looks like, naked, while the water runs down his body over the large dick that I’d felt on more than one occasion. Would he harden thinking about me naked in the shower next to him? Would he touch himself?
I moan.
Having wicked thoughts about Hunter hasn’t done my libido much good because I’m now left frustrated as hell. My breasts have swollen with my nipples begging for attention and my clit throbs.
My hands reach up and touch my nipples, which causes another moan to escape from between my lips—louder than before.
Chapter Seven ~ Hunter
I freeze shoving my legs in to the scrub pants. There is no mistaking the moan I can hear from the room next door. The first time I heard it I thought it was my imagination playing tricks on me, but that, just now, had been a moan of pleasure. Even my cock knows that sound because it’s jutting out, long and thick—raring to go.
Once the scrubs are up, they tent with my raging hard-on, which I try to ignore. Fastening the harness for my gun to my chest, I drag the scrub top over my head. Unable to resist I shove my hand inside the scrubs and stroke down my shaft a couple of times. Pre-cum glistens on the tip…and then I hear her again…and nearly come.
What the fuck is she doing in there? Whatever it is I want in on it.
That is not going to happen. Inhaling I press my cock against my stomach and pull the waistband down to hold it in place because I sure as hell don’t want Gia getting an eye full. I quickly fold my clothes; check my aching cock is hidden beneath my top and exit. But I know I’ll lose it if she moans again so I bang on the door. “Gia. You nearly done?”
The shower switches off. “Yeah. Give me a minute.”
Sighing in relief, I make my way back to Gia’s locker to store my clothes.
On the shelf she’d retrieved the extra scrubs from, I spot a couple of boxes full of plastic shoes, which I presume I have to wear as well. Pointless having a shower before going on the ward and wearing the same shoes you came in with.
As I slip my feet into a pair, Gia comes out of the shower with a rosy blush over her cheekbones. She really does take my breath away and every time she looks at me in that unguarded way she has about her the reason for not being with her flies right out of my head.
“Okay, I’m about ready,” Gia announces fastening up her locker. “I’m usually here until lunch, then I’ll go eat and,” she pauses and nibbles her lip. The lip I want to be nibbling, “onto my afternoon volunteer job. And before you ask it’s at Rosalind Retirement Village.”
I don’t know what to say to her. The spoiled princess has turned out to do nothing but help others who need it. Part of me feels bad for judging her when I’d known so little about her. I should have known better, not just because of my job, but because I haven’t gotten to thirty-five without making a few bad calls.
“You seem shell shocked.”
“You’re full of surprises. Anything else I should know about.”
Gia opens the door to exit the locker room and looks at me over her shoulder, winks and replies, “Hmm. I don’t like wearing panties—much prefer thongs. I can’t go without a bra because my breasts are too big.” I gulp and stare at her wondering if she’s saying one thing and I’m hearing something else when she continues, “I can’t stand anchovies and I absolutely love pancakes and syrup. And I love my father even though he has a habit of interfering in my life all the time. I think that about covers it.”
Watching her walk through the doorway, I shake my head. I need a cold fuckin’ shower and wish she’d stayed the spoiled princess so I’d be able to control the lust running through my body.
Gia sticks her head back into the locker room. “You coming?” she questions before disappearing again.
“I will be,” I mutter.
With a heavy sigh, knowing I’m in for a day of it, I follow her out into the corridor wondering where the fuck my balls have gone.
~*~*~*~
Three hours later and I can see the strain that working on the ward with sick children causes Gia. I can see how much each and every child means to her. Not one child is left feeling that she preferred one of the others more. She made sure equal time was spent with each. She read. She sang. She colored. She painted. She even held one child in her arms as they danced around the room to a Brittany Spears song or at least that’s what they said the song was. And as big and hard assed as I like to think I am I’d felt a lump in my chest watching.
I glance up at the clock and realize that lunch is quickly approaching—I’d lost track of the time, which is surprising. From the way Gia has started to wind down her activities with the children, it’s clear that she hasn’t. Standing up, she begins to gather up the art supplies.
If she hadn’t already been under my skin, she would be now. I’ve never met anyone like her and every time I think about my initial assumption, a slice of guilt hits me. She has certainly opened my eyes.
“Hey,” she speaks softly to me with her hand on my chest. “I’m nearly finished.”
She looks exhausted.
For the first time, I want to comfort someone. I reach up with my hand and move a piece of hair behind Gia’s ear. Following it with a caress along her jaw and back to her ear, I start to massage her neck.
She lets her head fall forward on to my chest and moans in pleasure. My dick springs back to life with the sound, which causes my scrubs to tent.
There is no way she can miss my reaction considering her eyes are facing down, and by the stillness I feel in her, she’s noticed.
All the air leaves my lungs when she lifts her head, steps into my space and brings our hips together. Gia wraps her arms around my waist while she moves back and forth against my throbbing cock. This is so inappropriate. I move both my arms to push her away, but find them wrapping around her as I feel the dampness through my top.
Is she crying?
My arms tighten. At least my cock has shrunk with her tears.
“Gia. What the hell? You have me worried.”
She sniffles into my top.
“I’m okay.”
She carries on crying so how can she be okay?
“Gia—” I hate it when women cry, and it’s usually the sign for me to walk away, but with Gia, I want to hold her close—to comfort her.
What the hell is going on?
Lifting her head, Gia looks at me, sniffles and pushes out of my arms looking embarrassed. “I’m sorry.” She won’t meet my eyes. “I don’t usually do that.”
I have no idea how to handle her now so I ask, “You ready to get outta here?”
Gia nods.
Taking her by the arm, I lead her back to the room we’d showered in earlier knowing I won’t be having a shower this time. No way can I shower with a thin wall between a naked Gia and me again.
“Here.” Gia passes my clothes to me before grabbing my arm. “I’m sorry about out there. I don’t usually get so emotional…while I’
m here anyway. It just hurts knowing Summer and some of the others won’t be here by Christmas.” Her eyes fill with tears again, but she shakes it off this time.
“I’m going to dress. I suggest you do the same so we can get you some fresh air. Do not leave this room without me.”
“I won’t.” She smiles. Her first full faced smile directed at me. My heart drops to my knees.
“I thought you were going to get dressed.” Gia walks past me and enters a stall.
“I am,” I reply moving my ass into the stall next to Gia.
She has me acting like an idiot. One smile. One touch and I lose my objective. Gia is a beauty—my wildcat.
Fully dressed, I slip my feet back into my boots and step out of the stall only to catch sight of a tattoo peeking out from the top of Gia’s waistband as she’s stretching up to a high shelf.
Caught staring, I smirk as Gia pulls the band up, concealing the tattoo again.
I wonder what kind of tattoo she has. How big it is? What area it covers? Is it just over her hip, or does it go near her butt or pussy? Licking my lips, I meet her gaze again and grin at the flush on her face.
Walking over to Gia, I lean close to her ear and tease, “I was wondering whether or not your tattoo goes close to your butt or pussy.” I bite her earlobe and feel her shiver as she slips her hand into the back of my jeans, and presses me close to her.
All the blood rushes straight to my cock, which springs to life with her nearness. I’m surrounded by her scent—her touch, but fuck, we’re still in the hospital and I can’t do what I want to her. I inhale and cup Gia’s face in my hands.
“You’re driving me crazy.” I rest my forehead against Gia’s. “I can’t think straight when I’m close to you, and I need too. I’ve never been as distracted on a job as I am now. Your life depends on me being focused.” I bring her in for a hug and place a kiss on her forehead.
I know what I have to do, but I’m not all that sure I have the strength to follow through—to trust someone else with her safety.
Gia Page 4
