by Radclyffe
At the first touch of Pearce’s mouth against her neck, Wynter turned molten inside. Patti roared, the crowd raged, and Wynter soared to a place she’d never been. She arched her back and, without a single thought, pivoted and wrapped her arms around Pearce’s neck. She fisted her hands in Pearce’s hair and feasted on her mouth as if she’d been starving for years.
Pearce kissed her back, unable to do anything else. She’d wanted this for weeks. Wynter’s mouth was hot, soft, and demanding at the same time. Wynter’s tongue raced over the inside of her lips, and her stomach twisted with urgency. When she heard Wynter groan and felt the telltale rocking of Wynter’s hips, some part of her mind separated itself from her wildly demanding body. She found herself looking down at them as if from a great distance, saw Wynter carried away on a wave of abandon, and she suddenly knew she had to stop. She had to stop it, because she understood the consequences.
“Hey,” Pearce gasped, turning her head away from the kiss and brushing her lips over Wynter’s ear. “I’m losing my grip here.”
“Oh God, me too,” Wynter moaned, nipping lightly at Pearce’s neck. “I’ve been wanting to do that since Match Day.”
Pearce fished in her pockets for her keys, and pressed them into Wynter’s hand. “Take my car home. I need to take a walk.”
Uncertain, Wynter searched her face. “Why? What is it?”
“This isn’t Match Day anymore.” Already slipping into the crowd, Pearce shook her head. “I gotta go, Wynter.”
Wynter leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes. Her body was in turmoil, her mind incapable of rational thought, but somewhere, deep inside, she knew Pearce was right.
Chapter Twenty
Pearce cut across the small lobby, ignoring the curious stares of the staff, and shouldered through the door. She carried her jacket hooked over her shoulder, not slowing for even an extra second to shrug it on. The heat from the simmering crowd and the unrelenting arousal chased her, propelling her as if she were besieged. It was nearly 11:00 p.m., and the biting cold never even registered in her mind as she strode west, forcing her way through the teeming streets. Even now, in the dead of winter, the nightlife pulsed along the twelve-block stretch of South Street extending from Penn’s Landing on the Delaware River. Boutiques, bars, tattoo parlors, and fast food kiosks jammed every available inch of real estate. Packs of teenagers jostled and preened, taking their first steps in the age-old mating rituals. Curious out-of-towners gawked and the locals strolled. And Pearce ran.
She had only one goal in mind, and that was to put distance between herself and Wynter. She needed some space to resurrect her shattered defenses. She’d known that going out with Wynter tonight was a risk. She’d known for days, weeks in fact, that she’d been pretending. Pretending that her attraction was controllable, her desire containable, and most dangerously of all, that Wynter was available. But she hadn’t had the strength to walk away, and now she had to run. She wondered how far and how long it would take to run from the memory of Wynter’s hungry kisses, the firm hot pressure of her body, the small sounds of pleasure that had cut through her with the deadly precision of surgical steel. Farther than she had yet, she knew that.
She weaved unseeing through the oncoming Friday night crowds, barely aware of crossing the streets with or without the lights. Her thin shirt stuck to her chest, drenched with the sweat of desire and despair. She almost expected it to be blood.
The University Hospital was thirty blocks west, and she covered the distance in just over thirty minutes, arriving weak-limbed and panting. She fumbled for ID in her wallet, although it wasn’t necessary. All the guards knew her. If the two at the main entrance were surprised by her appearance, they didn’t show it. She went directly to the elevators and rode up to the locker room. It was empty, as it usually was in the middle of the night. The residents were either busy on the floors or operating, and the only OR personnel around were occupied with the nonstop flow of emergency cases. Pearce opened her locker with trembling hands and methodically stripped off her boots and clothes. She pulled on clean, soft scrubs, stepped into her shabby, blood-spattered clogs, and went in search of forgetting.
Her first stop was the ER, where she perused the whiteboard that covered one wall. It was divided into a series of rows and columns with the cubicle numbers on the left-hand side, followed by the patient name, attending ER physician, and a shorthand chief complaint. She studied the list. Back pain, cough, earache, painful urination, abdominal pain. Abdominal pain. Bingo.
“Hey, Henry,” Pearce said when she found the ER attending putting on a cast in the treatment room. “What’s the story with the abdominal pain?”
The heavyset African American didn’t even look around as he smoothly rolled the three-inch strip of plaster of paris around the soft padding he had applied to an elderly woman’s wrist. “Sixteen-year-old basketball player who said he thought he pulled a groin muscle during practice two days ago, but today he lost his appetite and spiked a temp.”
“White count?”
“22,000.”
“Ouch. X-rays?”
Henry Watson straightened with a grimace but smiled at the white-haired woman in the wheelchair. “All done. How does it feel?”
“Much better. How long will I have to wear this thing?”
“That’s going to be up to your orthopedic doctor,” he said, “but I imagine about six weeks.”
“Oh my. That’s going to make it difficult to shovel if it snows again.”
He pressed his lips firmly together, apparently trying not to laugh, and nodded seriously. “You might need help with that.” He patted her shoulder and motioned to Pearce to follow him back into the hall. When they moved a few feet down the corridor, he said, “I hope I’m worrying about shoveling when I’m eighty-seven.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
“So what are you doing down here? I called for a surgery consult, but I didn’t expect to see you.”
Pearce shrugged. “I happened to be in the neighborhood.”
“Uh-huh. Well, while you’re passing through, why don’t you go lay your sainted hands on that boy’s belly so I can get him out of here. We’re backed up until next week.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
Henry grunted his thanks and walked away, and Pearce went in search of the chart. When she found it, she skimmed it quickly to make sure there wasn’t anything else she needed to know and then went to see the patient. She introduced herself to Rodney Owens and explained that she wanted to take a look at his abdomen.
All one hundred ninety pounds of Rodney Owens turned bright red as he clutched the thin hospital sheet to his chest. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with my stomach.”
“Really? Your chart says you came in complaining of abdominal pain.”
“It’s not exactly my abdomen. It’s more…like…lower.”
“Lower. Lower like in your groin?”
He nodded vigorously. “Yes. My groin. That’s it.”
Pearce leaned her hip against the side of the stretcher and tucked the chart under her arm. “Groin as in the inside of your leg or groin as in your testicles?”
“Those,” he said faintly.
“Ever had any problem there before? Like a hernia?”
He shook his head.
“Any recent trauma? Maybe during the workout a few days ago?”
Another headshake.
“Swelling?”
“No,” he whispered.
“So is it one or both that hurt?”
“Just the right one.”
“Okay. Let’s have a look at your belly first.”
Rodney let go of the sheet, and Pearce pulled it down to his hips. She lifted the stethoscope that was draped over the blood pressure apparatus and put it on the upper left quadrant of his abdomen, then moved it until she had covered the entire surface.
“Quiet in there,” she said as she tossed the stethoscope onto the counter. “I’m going to press, and you
tell me if it hurts. Okay?”
“Okay.”
She followed the path she had previously traced with the stethoscope, probing deeply and letting go rapidly. Rodney showed no evidence of direct or rebound pain until she reached the right lower quadrant, where she felt an infinitesimal tightening of his muscles. She looked up. “Does it hurt here?”
“Just a little.”
She didn’t feel a discrete mass, but there was a suggestion of fullness in that area. “I’m going to take a quick look at your groin just to make sure there’s no problem. If anything hurts, tell me.”
Rodney stared resolutely at the ceiling while she palpated each testicle.
“Doesn’t seem to be any problem here.” She pulled the sheet up and turned to wash her hands. “Are your parents here?”
“Just my mom. I think she went to get a soda. What’s wrong with me, do you think?”
“I think you’ve got appendicitis.”
“Then why does it hurt…you know.”
“Probably because your appendix is irritating the structures on the inside of your abdomen, some of which lead down to that area. We call it referred pain.”
“So I’m going to need an operation?”
“I think so. But it won’t be a big deal, and you’ll be as good as new in a week or so.” Pearce dried her hands and tossed the paper towel into the wastebasket. “I’m going to go find your mom, and then I’ll be back.”
Thirty minutes later she was wheeling Rodney to the operating room, doing what she did best, and hoping that the challenge of fishing Rodney’s appendix out through the laparoscope would be enough to keep her mind off Wynter. She hurt down deep, a little bit like Rodney, but her referred pain struck straight to the heart.
*
“God, wasn’t that fabulous,” Rose crowed when Wynter finally found her and Wayne in the lobby.
“It was great,” Wynter agreed.
Rose looked around. “Where’s Pearce?”
“She had to leave.” Wynter tried to sound nonchalant, but she could tell by the expression on her sister’s face that she had failed. When, murmuring something to Wayne, Rose took her by the arm and dragged her a few steps away, Wynter steeled herself. The last thing she wanted to do was talk when her mind was a jumble of questions and her body felt like it belonged to someone else. She’d never reacted to anyone that way before. She didn’t want to talk or think until she recognized herself. Maybe then she could make sense of what she’d done.
“What’s going on?” Rose asked.
“Nothing. Really. Pearce just needed to leave. I have her car, so I’m fine. You two go on home.”
Rose pulled Wynter farther into the corner out of the way of people streaming toward the doors. “Did you have a fight?”
“No.”
“You work with her, right? I wasn’t paying all that much attention when you said you were bringing a friend.”
“Look, Rosie—”
“So why are you so upset if nothing happened?”
“Can we talk about this some other time? I’m really beat. I worked all night last night, and now—”
Rose folded her arms and looked as if she were settling in for a siege. “I never see you, and you’re always too busy to talk on the phone. You and Dave get divorced, and then you show up here two months ago without even telling me you’re coming. We get together for the first time in forever and you go from being on top of the world to looking like…” Rose squinted and peered into Wynter’s eyes. “You look like you’re going to cry. Jeez, what did she do to you?”
Wynter’s throat burned and she was terrified that she would cry. She never cried. “She didn’t do anything. But I think I might’ve done something stupid.”
“Like what? God, you didn’t do drugs or anything did you?”
“No, nothing like that,” Wynter said, her voice edging upward toward what she feared might become an hysterical laugh. “I’m a mess. I kissed her. She was upset.”
“You kissed Pearce? As in a serious kiss kiss?”
Wynter nodded.
“Is she gay?”
Wynter nodded again, but she was thinking about the kiss. About the way Pearce’s body had tightened against hers, about the scrape of teeth over her lips and the hungry plunge of tongues, about the possessive hands that had cupped her butt and tugged her close. She shut her eyes, hoping it would stop her head from swimming.
“Holy. Holy holy holy. So what…are you gay?”
Wynter opened her eyes. “I haven’t thought past her. I can’t seem to think about anything except her.”
“Jeez, Wynter. Maybe you should.”
“Yes,” Wynter said wearily. “Maybe I should.”
*
Rosie made Wynter’s excuses to Wayne, and Wynter walked to the car, hoping against hope that she would see Pearce somewhere along the way—tucked into a doorway, her ankles crossed and that grin on her face that was an irresistible combination of amusement and cocky self-assurance, or leaning against the Thunderbird, waiting as she had been just the previous evening. Thirty-six hours that felt like forever. Her life was divided into thirty-six-hour segments, it seemed, a repetitive cycle from which she could not shift back into the routine that most of the world followed. She’d never been able to explain her work, or what it demanded of her, to anyone who hadn’t experienced it. Now, that sense of alienation extended to the very core of her. She could say the words. I kissed her. It was simple enough. She even knew why. She’d done it because every atom in her body had been drawn to Pearce from the instant they’d met.
There was no one waiting at the Thunderbird except a couple of young men who stood on the sidewalk admiring its sleek lines and dazzling chrome.
“Yo, lady,” one of them said. “Some fine ride.”
Wynter unlocked the driver’s door. “It is, isn’t it.”
“Your old man do the restoration?”
“Not exactly.” Wynter slid in and took a few seconds to acquaint herself with the gauges and gears. Fortunately, she wasn’t intimidated by anything mechanical, and although she hadn’t driven anything quite like this before, she knew that she could. She pulled out carefully at the first sign of a break in the traffic that crawled down the two-lane, one-way thoroughfare and quickly headed for one of the less populated streets to return to West Philadelphia. She didn’t want anything to happen to this car.
Once she felt comfortable, she fished around in the deep pocket of her leather coat and found her cell phone. She had Pearce’s cell programmed in, just as she had the numbers of all the other residents on the service, and they had hers. She tried the number, her heart hammering. When she got voicemail, she didn’t leave a message. What could she say? What had she intended to say if Pearce had answered? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to kiss you? No, because that wasn’t true. She hadn’t thought about it, she hadn’t made a conscious decision to do it, but she’d meant it.
She disconnected and pushed one on the speed dial for the most important number in her life, the hospital operator. When the call was answered, she identified herself and asked to be put through to Dr. Pearce Rifkin’s home number.
“I can do that, Doctor, but Dr. Rifkin is here in the hospital. Would you like me to page her for you?”
“Yes, please,” Wynter said. She wasn’t surprised, now that she thought about it. Pearce rarely spent any time at home even when she wasn’t on call. She felt a surge of irrational relief that Pearce hadn’t gone to O’Malley’s or some other place looking for a diversion, then laughed at her own self-deception. Pearce could find all the company she needed in the hospital if she wanted it.
As if to prove the point, a woman came on the line. A woman who wasn’t Pearce.
“Are you paging Dr. Rifkin?” the woman asked imperiously.
Wynter tried desperately to place the voice. She thought she would recognize Tammy’s, because they ran into each other a fair amount in the OR lounge. Andrea she wasn’t too sure of. She snapped, “Yes I a
m. This is Dr. Thompson.”
“Dr. Rifkin is scrubbed in the OR. Would you like to leave a message?”
“No. Thanks.” Wynter disconnected and put the phone back in her pocket.
She rubbed her eyes, feeling them burn with frustration and fatigue. Whatever she was going to say, she had to say in person. Pearce deserved that.
Chapter Twenty-One
Wynter slept fitfully. The new house was too quiet with Ronnie gone. With just the two of them now, Wynter kept both of their bedroom doors open to monitor the small sounds her daughter made in the night. The bedroom was hot, stuffy, and she irritably kicked off the covers in a light doze. Her skin burned, despite the damp film of stress sweat. She was used to this anxious half sleep from being on call, when every night resembled this one; but usually when she was home, she slept like the dead. Tonight, her mind wouldn’t stop racing, replaying every minute of the evening until she was once again in Pearce’s arms, their mouths and bodies cleaved. Each time she relived the memory she grew aroused, her thighs tight and her stomach twisting with need.
At 5:00 a.m. she finally got up, showered, and went next door to Mina and Ken’s. She let herself in and crept quietly up the stairs to the room where Ronnie slept with Winston when she stayed overnight. When Wynter peeked in the room, she saw what she expected: Ronnie was awake, carrying on an earnest and animated one-sided conversation with a stuffed rabbit. Winston, apparently used to Ronnie’s early-morning monologues, slept on. Stepping carefully over toys, Wynter scooped Ronnie up and tiptoed out. She left a quick note in the kitchen for Mina, writing one-handed while she balanced Ronnie on her opposite hip.
