Off Duty

by Ellie Masters

  “We all have pasts, darlin’,” he said, pulling me from my thoughts.

  “Not like that,” I snapped.

  He arched a brow. “Look, there’s no reason to bite my head off.”

  “You don’t get it.”

  “Get what? You’re fucking hot, Dr. Peters…”

  “Laura! Dammit, my name is Laura. Use my fucking name!”

  I’d danced in his lap, I’d ground my pussy against his cock. I’m certain he came. I might have too. It happened sometimes, if there was a connection with the guy. My inhibitions had been much looser back then.

  “Don’t take that tone with me,” he said. “Or, you’ll find yourself over my lap and my hand raining down on that fine ass.”

  Shit. Shit. Shit. Don’t react!

  I needed to not respond to the fire those words lit inside of me. He was only teasing. The man was an insufferable flirt, and meant nothing by it. He’d never do something so viciously hot. An ache settled at the apex of my thighs and I bit back a groan. If he only knew how much that turned me on.

  Crossing my arms, I turned my back to him. I couldn’t let him see the flush in my face, or the tightening of my nipples. A quick glance down and I breathed out a sigh of relief. My nipples might be tight as fuck, but they were buried beneath my sports bra, a tee-shirt, scrub top, and my white coat. Thank goodness for small miracles.

  “You’re insufferable,” I said, staring out the window. Yet again, I contemplated taking that plunge.

  “What? Never had your ass spanked?”

  I spun around. “How dare you!”

  “A good swat might just unfreeze some of that bitchiness...Dr. Peters. Heat thaws, right?”

  “Oh my God,” I screeched, curling my fingers into fists. I stomped off, stopping at the door. “Forget what I said. I must have been confused. I’m tired and not thinking. I hate you.”

  The corner of his mouth lifted in a smirk. “You don’t hate me. Said so yourself, got a little crush on me, and now you’re wondering what it might feel like if I do smack that ass.”

  “I’m not—”

  The smirk turned into a full-bodied grin. “Oh, I’m pretty sure you are, but you’ll have to wait to find out. Let me get out of this bed...unless, you’re thinking of joining me in it.”

  “Ass!”

  I left him then, stormed right out. Hot tears pricked at my eyes. I made it to the call room before the tears began to fall. Bastard saw right through me. There was only one thing to do. I needed to quit and move far far away. No way in hell would I ever speak to him again.

  CHAPTER 12

  I chuckled as she stormed off. I don’t know how I knew about her submissive desires. I chalked it up to long street experience, that knowledge I learned from dealing with hundreds and thousands of people under God knew how much duress. I was confident she’d return, probably even later this day. Just then, there was a knock at the door and Lieutenant Mike Samuels entered, with Tom in tow.

  “First and foremost, how the hell are you?” Samuels greeted me.

  “Ready to get the hell out of this loony bin,” I said.

  “Second, a loony bin is right where you fucking belong.” Samuels’ tone changed to an authoritarian note loaded with imperious bluster. “What in the red, white, and blue bleeding fuck is wrong with you? Do you think you’re fucking Superman, asshole? Goddammit, how many people were you about to put at risk with a fucking bullet in you?”

  “Look, I pried the thing out,” I said, annoyed and in no mood for Samuels’ crap.

  I didn’t like the son of a bitch in any event, and was sure the reverse was true. But I was on good terms with the captain, a Marine vet with a fondness for former corpsmen. Samuels would make a bunch of sound and fury, but it meant nothing. He was toothless and could only recommend discipline.

  Captain Abe Briggs wasn’t going to do shit to me, nor let shit happen to me at this schmuck’s hands, and I knew it. Samuels had to have been aware of it too. By Tom’s sheepish look, I also knew Samuels pressured him to rat me out. I decided on the spot that I’d ask for a new partner when I went back on-duty. I damn sure wouldn’t have a partner I couldn’t trust with everything, and Tom had ridden off that range.

  “You think that’s the example to set?” Samuels asked.

  “Mike, get the fuck out of here before I come off this bed and turn you into a patient,” I said. My tone was mild but carried plenty of menace. “Nothing would give me more fucking pleasure. And take this moron with you. I’m putting in for another partner. This is your official notification, Lieutenant.”

  “He deserves better than you, anyway,” Samuels sneered. “At least he’s loyal and understands good sense and the chain of —” His lecture ended when I flung my water pitcher at him, missing him by about three inches. The pitcher, plastic, broke into shards, as I swung my legs from the bed, my IV yanking out in the process.

  “Both of you get the fuck out of here and as far from me as you can get,” I said. “Even here with a hole healing in me and stoned on whatever drugs they gave me, I can whip both of your asses so bad you’ll cry for your mommies. Scram!”

  Tom fled the room and Samuels looked wide-eyed at me. “You … I’ll have you fired,” he blustered.

  “Roll the fucking dice,” I returned. “Now, get lost.” Samuels left, and I sat heavily at the edge of the bed. My IV pump was chirping like 90 and my arm was bleeding from the hole when the nurse came in.

  “Oh, damn,” the nurse said. “What happened?”

  “I should think that’s obvious,” I replied. “My IV came out, and unless your Doc Simmons has a good reason to put one back in me, I’d as soon go without one. In fact, put gauze and tape on this so I stop bleeding all over the place, then call him and get me kicked out of here.”

  The nurse looked at me with wide eyes and fled while I smirked. In a moment, the nurse came in with Laura and another distinguished looking alphabet soup in a lab coat embroidered Karl Simmons, M.D. and beneath it Chief of Cardiology. Just the man I wanted to see.

  “What happened?” Laura demanded.

  “I had unwelcome guests and invited them to leave,” I told her.

  “By hurling a pitcher at them?” she pressed, glancing down at the shards and puddle.

  “I felt the need to be emphatic,” I told her, then looked at Simmons. “What’s it going to take to get the hell out of here, Doc?”

  “I want to run an EKG on you, and listen to your chest,” he said. “C’mon, give me the chance to doctor, dude. Don’t tell me I sobered up to see you and you won’t let me work my magic?”

  I snorted. What can I say? I liked this guy. “Okay, fine,” I agreed.

  “If that looks good and sounds good, I think the next thing you’ll need is a ride,” Simmons said. He poked his head out the door. “He seems less emphatic now, so it’s safe to come in,” he said to someone. Two women entered, one pushing an EKG machine, and the other, my mother.

  “Hi, Mom,” I said.

  “Jesus, when your captain called, he scared me out of my mind,” my mother said.

  “Ah, I’ve cut myself worse shaving,” I told her.

  “Your Captain Briggs told me you were shot, kiddo,” she said. I darted a glance at Laura and saw amusement in her eyes at me being called kiddo, but I cut my mom a lot of slack.

  “I wish he hadn’t called and scared you,” I said. “That was impolite of him and I’ll challenge him to pistols at 20 paces to learn him a lesson about not scaring you.”

  “He was always a smartass as a kid,” Mom told the audience.

  “Lay your ass on the bed like a good boy and let the nice lady run the EKG on you,” Simmons said. “With a spot of luck I can boot you to the curb in 20 minutes and she might be kind enough to drive you home … kiddo.”

  At this, Laura made a high-pitched squeak, red-faced and obviously struggling not to giggle at my discomfiting moment. Jesus H. Christ. I knew when I wasn’t going to win, so I laid on my back while the respira
tory therapist quickly and efficiently ran the EKG. Finished, she handed the sheet to Simmons, then departed, and Simmons listened to my ticker for a moment.

  “Okay, if you can keep your silly ass from getting shot again, I think you might live to be a hundred,” he pronounced. “I’m discharging you, kiddo. There’ll be orders to do a follow-up with me in a week, and you should probably be able to return to work in two weeks. Certainly at least two weeks.”

  “Jesus, I’d rather go back today,” I said, but really didn’t mean it. Two weeks off the streets, on worker’s comp, sounded great to me. Probably wouldn’t sound too cool to the local bass and catfish population, I considered, but God knew I could stand the downtime.

  “No, I don’t want anything hitting your chest until that contusion heals,” Simmons said. “Two weeks, unless you’d like me to up the ante to four weeks, which might be in the cards anyway … kiddo.”

  “Okay, okay,” I said, and winked at Laura. “Maybe I can convince some pretty nurse here to be my fishing buddy.”

  Surprising me, Laura rolled her eyes and left the room without a word. Forty minutes later, I had a bunch of discharge paperwork in an envelope, was crammed into a wheelchair, then rolled to the lobby, where my mother waited in her car. She announced she was going to stay overnight then head home in the morning.

  That night, I took her to the roadhouse, a place called Louie’s, to treat her to dinner. I ordered the big ribeye and iced tea, somewhat to mollify her uber-Baptist temperance attitude, but as much as anything because I still felt a bit woozy from conking my head on that desk, as well as the Norco I’d been prescribed. She’d already frowned enough at the wet bar off my parlor at home and I wasn’t in the mood for a temperance lecture.

  Never really comfortable in crowded places, my eyes searched the roadhouse from time to time, peeled for trouble. I can deal with this roadhouse or with the big beer joints with garage doors, but I simply can’t go to bars. I spend all my time wondering where’s the knife, who has the pistol, and what’s the quickest point of egress, so I can’t relax.

  My eyes settled on Laura, again at a table alone with a bottle of wine before her and a plate of salad. Her eyes met mine, and I figured the ball was in her court. She could accept me as-is and approach, or reject me. Probably she was out of my league anyway. I couldn’t imagine she didn’t have her choice of a dozen rich suitors.

  She was attracted to me. Of that, I was certain. But the harsh reality was that I was a lowlife paramedic, just a worker bee in a hive where she was queen. That hateful look told me the tale, though. I was no longer confident she’d come around. In fact, I was confident she wouldn’t.

  CHAPTER 13

  Alcohol. It was the great anesthetic. That property was one I capitalized on now. After the hospital, I needed to seek the bliss of becoming numb.

  Weeks! I’d gone weeks without a sip, and yet one day around Keith and here I was sucking down more wine. I was only one glass in. Okay, I was one huge ass glass in, but I’d told the waitress to only let me order one bottle. While I saved that fucker’s life, he unraveled mine. He tugged, and teased, and pulled on the threads I’d long since cut out of my life. That bastard uncovered the secrets of my past, and now that knowledge threatened my future. That wasn’t allowed.

  And I still couldn’t get him out of my head. One moment, I wanted to shove an ice pick in his chest. The next, well, in those vulnerable moments, I imagined him shoving something else inside of me. I ached for him in the worst possible way, which made me hate him even more.

  It wasn’t fair either. He knew my secrets, but I’d preserved his. When they’d cut him out of his clothes, I hadn’t looked. Every young thing in the ER had got an eye full of his goods, but I’d averted my gaze. Why?

  That answer bothered me the most. It felt intrusive and wrong. Like I needed his permission to gaze upon what lie...well, what lie down there. In my line of work, clothes were a hindrance. Male or female: no one cared what you looked like. Small boobs. Big boobs. Shaved pussies or not. We saw it all. I’d seen long cocks. Small cocks. Thin cocks. Hell, I’d seen massive cocks. What I hadn’t seen was Keith’s cock.

  But I imagined everything about his cock, and the things he might do with it. Those thoughts had brought me to Louie’s Roadhouse, because I refused to drink alone. It was a country western bar. On the weekends, they had a live band. Line dancing was a big thing. The two-step was, too. My plan was to drink until I forgot, maybe shuffle my stuff on the floor. Line dancing wasn’t stripping, but I still loved to shake my ass.

  Here I was again, me alone at a table, drowning my sorrows at the bottom of a glass of wine. Who the hell was I kidding? After what had happened with Keith, I should’ve been smarter about it, but I hated drinking alone. Somehow, downing a bottle at home made me feel like shit. Downing a bottle at a bar? Well, I was surrounded by people. I guess that made this okay. Technically, Louie’s wasn’t a bar, so that was good too.

  Except, wouldn’t it be my luck, but that shit showed up here as well? What was it with Keith? When I was at my lowest, wallowing in my deepest sorrows, he had this uncanny knack for showing up. It wasn’t that he was under my skin. The bastard had crawled his way deep inside.

  Spank my ass? Oh no, not that. And how dare he suggest I might like it? Except I would. I craved it with a desperate hunger. Not the playful lover’s taps going around these days after that craptastic movie. What I needed delved much deeper.

  The joke was on him though. He’d brought his mom, and I was just drunk enough to have a little fun with the kiddo. Images of him inviting me into his hospital bed invaded my thoughts. Well, I would give him something to think about.

  Our gazes snagged and tumbled across the crowded restaurant. The band was beginning the next set. The dance floor had its fair share of eager players. With a lift of my glass, I saluted the jerk who invaded my dreams. Years ago, a lifetime ago, I’d ground my ass against his cock. Well tonight, I’d show him that ass, and he’d know it would never again be his. The first notes of a song rumbled through the house. Climbing to my feet, I tested my balance. Not too drunk, and tipsy enough to really let loose.

  I joined the line of eager dancers, taking my position two rows back, somewhere off center. Keith could see me, but he’d have to look close. My heels kicked up. I shuffled to the side. When everyone jumped, I followed suit. It took a few rounds before I learned the steps, but I had it down in no time flat. That’s when I started shaking my ass and rolling my hips.

  Not once did I look at him, but I did glance at the chap in line beside me. He had his eyes on my tits and ass. I shook those for him, making a show. Really, this was the most fun I’d had in months.

  When the steps turned me around to face Keith, the scowl on his face brought a smile to mine. Then I noticed how the other dancers began to hang back, giving me more room.

  Keith gripped a knife in his hand, and tore at his steak. Beside him, his mama nibbled at her salad, oblivious to the war we waged, and I hadn’t even begun to strut my stuff.

  I reeled in the guy beside me. He was tall, skinnier than I liked, but moderately decent with his steps. He made his move, and I let him grab me around the waist, a bit more familiar with his hands than I liked. I’m not even sure what I was trying to prove. Keith hated me, so this wasn’t about making him jealous. Perhaps, I was simply trying to prove I wasn’t so achingly alone? Not that it mattered, because I was kind of having fun.

  The tall guy and I broke the line and danced our steps. He pulled me close. I stepped away with a sashay of my ass, rocking my hips. I couldn’t help the moves, or my dance. A freedom overcame me when music played. Dance had always been my escape. My partner’s hand slipped from my hip and settled on my ass. He tugged me up tight against his groin, letting me know exactly the effect I was having on him.

  That’s when the fists started to fly.

  Keith didn’t even waste time with words. He clocked my partner in the jaw and ripped me out of his arms.

/>   “Get your fucking hands off my girl’s ass,” he growled to my makeshift dance partner.

  My guy didn’t even fight back. What ever happened to staking a claim? He rubbed his jaw, then back-pedaled off. “Hey man, didn’t know she was your girl.”

  “I’m not—” I protested.

  “Shut up,” Keith growled, as he grabbed my waist. Before I knew what was happening, the music kept playing, and I was two-stepping with a neanderthal.

  Keith took me for a spin. Not once did he speak to me. I’d expected him to have two left feet, but he surprised me on that dance floor. I tried to take the lead, but he put me in my place, turning my back to the flow of our dance. I gripped his shoulder, as hard or harder than he gripped my waist.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I said.

  He brought me back to my table and sat me in my chair. With a scowl, he pulled out his money clip and set five bills down. “You’ve had too much to drink, darlin’, and I’m buying your dance card for the night. Sober up and head home. You’re done dancing here tonight.”

  With that, he left me sputtering. Keith grabbed the remainder of my bottle and stalked off towards his mom.

  CHAPTER 14

  “What the hell was that all about?” my mother demanded as I returned to the table with a half-bottle of white wine.

  “Leave it. Just … let it go, Mom,” I said, as I watched Laura dropping money on the table and marching from the roadhouse.

  “She’s beautiful,” Mom observed. “Spill, kiddo.”

  “She is a beauty,” I agreed. “She’s a trauma surgeon at that hospital. Truth is, she’s one of the best. We have … God, I hate saying ‘it’s complicated,’ but it is. Let me cover the tab and we can get out of this loud-ass place.”

  “The tab is mine, kiddo, and I don’t want to hear any guff from you, but it is loud as an airport here.” She flagged down the waitress and handed the girl a hundred, which would’ve covered our meal twice over, and we left, getting into her car.