by Gina Kincade
“Yeah, it is.” I nod. “But that doesn’t dismiss the fact that someone was trying to make you feel inferior.”
“Do you ever get treated like that?” She makes a scoffing noise. “You don’t. I can tell you don’t.”
I sigh. When I was young, I was treated like shit. A lot. Try being dirt poor. There’s a reason why it’s called dirt poor. It’s because much of where I lived was literal dirt. Dirt in the cellar, dirt for my playground, dry dead dirt as my companion. There’s not a lot of sympathy for people of my caliber. Even if I was a kid, I felt the sneers. I knew the look of contempt very early in life.
But I don’t want to tell her about my childhood. I’ve got a small ounce of pride, and I don’t want to tell her how poor I was, how some days we’d hardly eat, and if Zoe or I complained about being hungry, we’d get a beating then belittled that we were children born from sin who shouldn’t whine.
Besides, this is about Asha and the harassment that women receive from men who feel attracted to females yet can’t stand the fact that they are intellectual equals. Or in Asha’s case, smarter than Dr. Murphy could ever hope to be.
“Men are pigs,” I say, trying like hell to sound like her friend.
She laughs and pulls on my hand. “Not all of them.”
Oh, Asha, yes, we fucking are, because if you knew the things I think about you, how I’ve fantasized about being inside you and what you would look like naked, then I’d only confirm my position.
She sighs, her lips drooping again. “Honestly, I don’t know why I brought that up. I mean, that’s life—guys, some guys, being assholes. I—I guess—”
“Tell me.”
Her long, long black lashes flutter while her eyes fill with moisture. She swallows as she tries to fight her tears.
Oh, fuck. I can’t see her cry. I’ll do anything to make her feel better. I’ll fight epic battles. I’ll humiliate myself. I don’t fucking care just as long as she doesn’t cry, making me feel like an impotent asshole.
But wait. If I’m her friend, then I should listen to her, like I do for my sister. I could give her advice. Or try to.
“I—I—” she stammers, swallowing again.
“What is it, baby?” And I’ve just made it awkward. I’ve never called anyone baby. I don’t know where that came from. I didn’t know there was a part of me that called anyone baby. And I hold my breath, hoping she didn’t notice the term of endearment.
“Mr. Goodall…I couldn’t save him.”
That’s fucking it. I snake an arm around her, looking for a place where we can have more privacy. The janitor’s closet. Perfect. Rushing her in, I close the door behind me, kind of amazed it was unlocked and that the closet is actually a room with a lot of cleaning supplies in open cabinets and, thank fuck, no one is inside.
This is something I can actually help with. Hopefully.
“You know you can’t save them all.”
Her eyes water all the more. I’m not helping with statements she’s probably heard thousands of times.
“I know.” Her voice is small, and she places a hand on my chest, which I suddenly focus on.
Her tiny hand has used a sternum retractor to open a breastbone today. She’s so small but so strong, and I admire the fuck out of her. So when her warm hand is on me like this, in this intimate way, probably only because I’ve cornered her against a wall of sanitizer, I can only think of her touching me, of seeing if she’ll touch me more. If she’ll glide her hand lower.
Snap out of it, asshole, some rational part of me internally yells. I need to be her friend. Not think about her hand on me.
“I know I can’t save them all.” She swallows. She’s fighting her tears so much that it almost brings me to my knees. I will do anything for her. Anything. As she continues, I have to battle the small rational part of me from the ass who wonders if stripping her naked would comfort her more than talking. “I just…I don’t know…Mr. Goodall’s wife was so sweet. But she…it all got to me. And Dr. Murphy after…he gives me this lecture, makes sure I feel like I’m an inferior doctor, then has the fucking nerve to tell me how good I look in my scrubs. Can you believe that?”
I wonder if this is the real her—the swearing, vulnerable woman in front of me. I wonder if she’s showing me something she doesn’t expose to other people. And I can’t help but feel honored down to my toes, my heart slamming against my ribs all the more.
“He’s a dick,” I manage to say. “I can make sure he slips in one of the hallways, if you want. I could make it look like an accident.”
She laughs. Her hand on my chest stretches, presses into me slightly. “No…well, maybe. No.” Her smile slips from her gorgeous face yet again. “I just…Mr. Goodall was married to his wife for more than forty years. I could tell they were close. And now—” she sniffs, “—Mrs. Goodall has to face life alone.”
This is the difference between Army life and being a civilian. Now, I have to deal with next of kin. Or point in fact, Asha does. I’ve had a hard time dealing with this part of the job myself. I mean, sure, when I was in the military, I could send a letter, maybe even visit a buddy’s family when I was back stateside. But actually being the one to hold someone’s hand and tell them their loved one is dead…is tougher than anything I’ve ever done before.
I don’t know what to do, what kind of advice to give her. So out of my blabbering mouth comes some kind of shit I hadn’t planned for. “Hit me.”
“What?” Her delicate dark brows knit together, and her hand on me grips into a fist.
“In the Army, after a bad case or we lost one of our own, we’d…you know, fight. Smack each other around a little.” Jesus, do I sound like an idiotic man or what?
“I’m not going to hit you.”
“Or we’d target practice.”
“With guns?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t have a gun.”
“You can borrow mine.”
“You have a gun?”
I shrug. “I’ve thought about hunting but never got around to it so far.”
She slowly nods, the fist on my chest isn’t loosening. I’m not helping. Shit.
I inhale, thinking of a slightly different tactic. “What you do, how you care for your patients and their loved ones, isn’t easy on you. You give everything you can. And sometimes to compensate you need to do something physical. Maybe not target practice or fighting. But we could—I don’t know—we could do a Pilates class or something.”
She snort laughs and smacks me a little with her tiny fist. “I don’t do Pilates.”
“Yeah, I don’t know where the Pilates came from. I’m a shit.”
She smiles widely, shaking her head. “You’re not a shit.”
“Kickboxing class?”
“What about—” her smile slides off as her gaze lowers. To my lips. “What about kissing?”
Everything in my body lights up. It’s as if every damned atom is responding to what she just said, as if I’ve never been fully alive until this very second. I’m also very hot suddenly. Too damned hot. I’m molten and scared I’ll burn her hand that’s on me.
I want to ask if she means kissing me, but I won’t. I want her to be talking about kissing me. Only me. I want it so bad I stop rationalizing, stop thinking. I stop everything and just react.
Placing a hand on the stored sanitizers behind her and one on her hip, I cage her in, not about to let her rethink what she’s just asked.
She can push me away, and I’ll stop and probably be embarrassed as hell, but I’m going in.
I’m going to kiss sweet little Dr. Asha Whitetail.
Asha
I can’t believe I said that. I can’t believe Ryder, the Ryder, has his hand on my hip. He’s so big that I feel the warmth from his palm take up a huge amount of space on my body, like he’s covering half of my hip. And I can’t believe I’ve been bold enough to have my hand on his chest this whole time.
I don’t know what’s gotten into me
. I’ve never asked a man to kiss me. Sure, I’ve kissed before. However, usually it’s done a little reluctantly on my half, and after so many minutes I always feel like someone has wrapped barbed wire around my lungs and is pulling harder and harder until I won’t be able to breathe at all.
But I don’t feel like I’m going to suffocate with Ryder. God, I want him to kiss me, and I keep replaying that one word he whispered to me, baby. Baby. Baby. Can you believe he said baby?
His gaze lowers to my lips and I can’t help but lick them, wondering if they’re chapped or dry or ugly in any way. His warm brown eyes flare with something. I watch his pupils dilate. I know what that means, and I’m not panicking. I’m not scared that Ryder likes my lips. I want him to.
He bends his neck, his face close to mine. He’s slow, as if asking for permission every aching second of the way, readying himself to stop if I say so. Which…oh god…is making the apex of my legs ache.
I’ve been turned on before. But not by a man, as odd as that sounds. I’ve never really liked kissing or being touched. However, I love my romance books. In those novels, I live vicariously through characters who are okay with being touched and fondled and caressed. Me? I can’t stand it. Usually.
But with Ryder, I’m excited. My breath is spastic, yes, but that’s because I’m…electrified. My heart is beating fast but not in the pained way it does when a man wants to kiss me. For Ryder, my heart is wild and free. And I’m not sure what to make of that.
He slides his nose against mine, not touching my lips yet, but he’s so close I have to close my eyes and savor this feeling. The air we breathe is mingled, becoming one. His warmth invades me, makes me shudder with how good this feels.
Good. This feels good.
For once, a man touching me isn’t triggering my panic, my fears.
Oh god.
Wow.
His lips feather against mine. It’s a light touch, so light I almost can’t feel it, other than the fact that I’m highly aware of him and everything he’s doing. He feathers against me again. Only this time with a little more pressure. I feel him now. Something warm and wet licks against my bottom lip. His tongue.
I release a gust of a shaky breath, maybe even moan too.
At that, he growls and slams his lips against mine. His chest is suddenly against me too and he’s pushing himself closer and closer.
God, I like the way he kisses, as if he’s becoming unhinged. And normally, I’d be so intimidated by that. But with Ryder, I have a sense of power. I’m the one making him unhinged. Me.
I’m the one with my tongue against the seam of his lips. Me. Which leaves me wondering who I’ve become. But it’s just me. I’m still in my body. I’m not dissociating. I feel everything. The way Ryder opens for me and lets me into his warm mouth, pushing me against the wall of hospital sanitizers behind me even more. His chest is hot and covers all of me, my breasts love the impact of his hard flesh. My nipples are beading. When I wrap my arms around his neck, he makes a very male sound of approval. And when I feel him start to harden against my stomach, I…I…I like it.
I love it.
His tongue tangles with mine, sweeping in and slowing extracting out. Sweeping in. Slowly out. Again and again. Lulling me into a trance where he’s building a steady rhythm. There’s a beat to this dance, this kiss. It makes me want to do anything he wants.
The hand that was resting on the cabinet clutches onto my waist. His other hand slides up from my hip to the opposite side of my stomach. He’s holding onto me, gripping me, angling his body so we’re more in contact. One of his legs somehow parts mine. His knee is moving, opening my legs a little more and a little more. He releases my lips only to kiss my cheek, my jaw, the shell of my ear, and then the leg that’s between mine moves. His thigh rubs against my sex and I moan. Loudly.
This—this feels good. Everything feels so good. The caress of his hard leg against my clitoris augments this wonderful lush feeling inside of me. I know I’m getting wet. I can feel my body responding to him.
He licks my lobe then whispers, “Asha.”
My name, said like that, so reverently, so sweetly, as if he’d been dying to say my name like that, is sweetening the already amazing feeling buzzing through my body. My breasts…the press of Ryder against me makes them…I don’t know how to explain it. At the same time, his touch is exactly what I need, but it’s also not. I want more. I’ve never wanted physical intimacy. I resigned myself to a life where I’d feel these kinds of things through my novels. And there are some amazing books out there, so I was okay with that kind of life.
But right now, I’m feeling everything.
And it feels so…good.
He bites my lobe, surprising me, making me gasp. Which seems to make him growl and press his body even more against mine. His hands reach behind me, right to my ass and he pulls me up, up, and up. My toes aren’t touching the ground, but I like floating. My physical being matches how I feel inside—I’m soaring. Then my clit brushes against his hard length.
Oh.
My.
God.
When we touch like that, white stars shine behind my lids. Electricity circuits through my body, but not a painful jolt. It feels fucking incredible, making me moan yet again, amazed I’m making these kinds of noises, but I can’t seem to control myself.
My legs begin to wrap around his hips when a loud noise erupts outside of this make out session. Ryder sets me down quickly and turns around, his body protecting mine from whatever the noise was.
“What are you doing in here?”
I cringe and realize that’s the voice of Bart, one of the day-shift janitors.
“I was, uh—” Ryder’s voice cracks and sounds rough. I love it.
“Got a girl in here?” Bart asks as I peek out from Ryder’s big warm body.
“Hi, Bart. How are you?” I try to sound cheerful, like it’s not a big deal to get caught kissing in a closet. Which makes Ryder glance down at me, a smile crawling across his lips, lips that are slightly swollen and darker than usual. Because of me.
Fuck, yeah! I did that! I made that gorgeous man kiss me.
Yikes, I made him kiss me.
Did he want to kiss me?
I mean, what if everything that just happened was because he felt obligated?
Okay, yes. I know Ryder was erect. But I’m a doctor. I know male anatomy. I know men get erect when talking about sports. They can get erect for no reason at all.
Or they can get erect when attracted to someone they like.
Could Ryder be attracted to me?
Should I start calling him Ian now?
And what about the fact that we work together?
“Dr. Whitetail,” Bart says, sounding surprised I was the girl behind Ryder. He looks it too. His eyes are wide for a split second, then they soften, looking like my dad when he’d caught me in junior high, planning to help a friend cheat on a test. The disapproval is palpable.
“Should get back.” Ryder’s voice is even more gruff. But this time I sense agitation within him.
Oh god.
He didn’t want to kiss me.
Or did he?
Am I a sexual harasser, forcing my coworker into something he felt uncomfortable doing?
“Yeah,” I feebly say, my heart sinking, my stomach bottoming out. Oh, I might vomit.
Ryder grabs my hand and pulls me toward the exit, rushing past the janitor.
“I hope you have a good day, Bart.” I can barely manage the words as Ryder’s hurrying out of the room.
“You too, Dr. Whitetail.” Ryder and I are already in the hallway when Bart yells, “And that nurse of yours too.”
“Did you hear Bart?” I ask, holding onto Ryder’s one hand with both of mine to try to keep up with him.
He slows slightly, which helps so I can catch my breath. Looking down at me, he sighs. Heavily. I might die from my embarrassment. The way he’s looking at me—no smile, only seriousness in his dark gaze—feels too he
ady for me to handle. I don’t think he wanted to kiss me. I might have made him. Although nurses and doctors are technically equals when it comes to care—we just have different expertise when it comes to the kind of care a patient needs, there’s still this feeling that doctors have more authority. That I have more authority. Oh god.
“Are you okay?” he asks. “You look pale.”
I shrug and nod, my voice leaving me. Besides, even if I could think of something perfect to say, I doubt I could say it without sounding like the humiliated woman I am.
“I went too far.” He shakes his head, pulling me farther along the hallway, out of earshot of a family rushing through, talking about where the gift shop is. Past the family and he shoves me in a little alcove, where daguerreotypes hang, displaying the hospital’s first nursing staff of the early 1900s. He sighs heavily again. “I’m sorry. I went too far.”
“Did you?” I ask, uncertain if anything is making sense because I’m not sure if Ryder wanted to kiss me.
He blinks, probably wondering about my meaning because I’m not sure either. His eyes skim down my face, focusing on my lips. “Your mouth…it looks like you’ve been kissed.”
“You too.”
He touches his bottom full lip, the one that had been pressed against me, the one that had kissed my cheek and ear. I’m a little in love with his fingers. When we first started working together and I saw his hands in blue latex, I grew fascinated. He has these very masculine hands, complete with a few scars—wide palms, wide fingers that are somehow long too. I even like his nails, that are always clean and short.
He sucks in a breath, as if it might be his last. “I’m sorry I pushed things so far.”
“Pushed things so far?”
“Yeah, I—”
“I don’t want you to be sorry,” I say, sounding a tad irked.
Something within him breaks. I see it in his usually somber face. Something close to happiness breaks free. But he reins it in quickly.
“Did you want to kiss me at all?” I ask, even further humiliated because I sound like I’m going to cry. God, I hate feelings. And feeling those feelings. I sound like a little kid, I know, but I’d much rather stick my nose in a book where someone can feel for me.
