by Peter Styles
“That would be—” Jason glanced at me. “Well, maybe I could take some lessons from you before I go out with Mark. Just so I don’t slow him down too much.”
Kaden’s smile got impossibly brighter. “I’ve never taught a doctor before. That would be awesome. I’ll even give you a couple of lessons on the house.”
“Will I have to have my own clubs?” Jason asked.
“Just a driver for the first lesson or two.”
“I told you I’d let you use mine,” I said irritably. “I’ll go with you to your lessons. Maybe I’ll pick up some pointers by watching.”
Kaden’s smile faded a bit, but he recovered quickly. “Okay. When would be a good time for you? I’m on the course every Saturday and Sunday.”
“Let me think about it,” Jason said. “I work a lot, and I’m not sure what the schedule looks like next week.” He glanced at me. “We work a lot of weekends.”
“Tell you what,” Kaden said. “Let’s exchange numbers, and you can text me when you know your schedule. I may be able to fit you in during the week.” He bit his lip.
Fucking Christ, the kid was really going for it. What he didn’t know is that Jason was private as hell, and he wouldn’t dare give his number out. Besides, why did Kaden need his number, anyway? It didn’t even make good sense. Jason was the one who was supposed to call.
“Okay,” Jason said, pulling his cell phone out of his duffel bag as Kaden hurried to the other side of the room to fish his out of his locker.
“Really?” I said where only Jason could hear.
A blush crept up Jason’s cheeks. “What?” he mouthed silently just before Kaden returned with his cell.
“You first,” Kaden said, thumbing the number into his phone as Jason rattled it off. “Gonna text you now.” His thumbs flew over the keyboard at a speed only androids and teenagers could pull off.
Jason’s phone chimed, and I couldn’t help looking over his shoulder at the message. It said, I’d love to let you use my driver, but it’s really long. He followed it up with a winky face.
Oh my God. Why hadn’t he just gone ahead and added an eggplant emoji? It took every ounce of control I had not to jump on Kaden and start swinging. He had three inches of height and at least thirty pounds of muscle on me, and he would have beaten my ass into the ground, but I wanted so badly to knock that cocky smile off of his face.
Jason smiled, suddenly looking shy, and if I’d thought he’d been blushing before, it had nothing on the red stain his cheeks were sporting now. “Thanks for the offer, but I’m sure Mark’s driver will be adequate. I’m only an inch shorter than him.”
Adequate. Could he possibly have chosen a less sexy, more emasculating word?
I chuckled darkly and headed to the showers, needing to get away from this weirdly insulting innuendo fest. I stripped down and turned on the water, checking the temperature with my fingers before stepping under the spray. Goosebumps broke out over my skin then faded away as I settled into the bone-heating bliss only a warm shower could bring. I dispensed a puddle of my two-in-one body wash and shampoo into my hand and ran it through my sweaty hair.
“I guess our golf thing is on,” Jason said as he entered the shower room.
I peeked over my shoulder and watched as he unveiled his perfect body. The tight muscles honed from hours on the tennis courts, firm pecs with a light sprinkling of chest hair, flat abdomen with just the right amount of definition to hint at a six-pack, and enticing bubble butt. His soft cock lay nestled in a bed of brown pubes the same color as the lowlights in his dark blond hair.
Before he could step into the shower space beside mine and start the water, I turned to face him, soaping my hair. My cock had just begun to stiffen I could feel it hanging thickly between my legs.
“Jason,” I said.
Jason’s gaze shifted to me, and I saw his eyes eating up every inch of my body before he got himself in check. “Yes?” he asked, his voice strained.
“Just for the record, my driver is more than adequate.”
And finally, I was able to draw the same blush to his cheeks that Kaden had. Jason’s eyes flickered involuntarily down to my heavy cock, and a strangled laugh escaped his throat. He hurried into his own shower and didn’t look in my direction again until we were fully dressed.
“So, are you going to the New Year’s party?” he asked on our way out of the building.
“Of course,” I said. “Are you going? Last year, you told me you’d go, and then you never showed up.”
Jason shrugged. “I was the new guy last year, so I was a little nervous about going.”
“You weren’t that new,” I pointed out. “You’d already been working with us for six months.”
“It takes me a while to warm up to people, I guess.”
“Well, you’re plenty warm this year, so there’s no excuse. I expect to see you there, or else.”
Shock and amusement warred on Jason’s face. “Are you threatening me?”
“Maybe.” We had reached my Porsche in the parking lot. I pulled open the door and slung my duffel bag into the passenger seat, then turned back to Jason with a grin. “Just go to the party, Jason. I don’t think you want to risk incurring my wrath.”
Jason kept walking toward his old Toyota, which was parked two spaces down. “Wrath,” he repeated with a chuckle. “I might skip the party just to see what kind of punishment you come up with.”
As Jason climbed into his Toyota and started the engine, I couldn’t help thinking how sweet it would be to exact a certain kind of punishment on my favorite resident.
3
Jason
The hospital New Year’s Eve party was being held in one of the large conference rooms at the Marriott Hotel. I’d spent the early part of the evening at a small get-together in my apartment building, then rushed off at ten thirty to ring in the new year with my co-workers. The room was pretty crowded when I got there, and I had to wonder how the hospital was functioning with so many of us absent.
“Jason, you finally showed up!” Jolene Starr tottered up to me on ridiculously high heels, a plastic champagne cup clutched in one hand. Her blue party dress contrasted beautifully with her long red hair, which she’d worn loose instead of twisted into her usual braid, and flecks of silver glitter sparkled on the pale skin of her chest.
“Hi, Jolene.” I ran my thumb across her smooth forehead and wiped away a rogue speck of glitter. “You look nice tonight. Very festive.”
About six months after I’d started working at Vanderbilt, Jolene had confessed that she’d worked as a stripper to put herself through nursing school. She’d come from a family with even less money than mine, and her father had been an alcoholic and abusive as hell. I wasn't sure of the exact nature of the abuse, and I hadn't wanted to push for such personal information.
Needless to say, Jolene had wanted to put as much distance between herself and her father, so she'd left home the day after her high school graduation and hadn't looked back. But she soon found out that her grocery store cashier job wasn't going to pay her Bill's. Stripping was the only way she could afford the exorbitant tuition fees and the rent on her tiny studio apartment.
It had been hard for me to reconcile the image of Jolene as a stripper with the no-makeup, hair-in-a-braid picture she presented at work but seeing her this way—all sparkling and vivacious—I thought I understood. If she had any moves at all, she would have made a hell of a stripper.
Jolene grinned and spun around in a circle, giving me the full effect of her outfit. “Thanks. I have a date.”
“Oh, yeah?” I said absently. “That’s nice.”
I scanned the room and found Mark, and a tension I hadn’t even known I was holding inside of me loosened at the sight of him. He’d been wrangled into one corner of the conference room by a gaggle of tipsy nurses who were trying to put one of those party favor crowns on his head. He tossed his head around to shake the crown loose, and a lock of glossy dark hair fell across his fore
head.
Jolene continued talking as if she had no idea how distracted I was. “My date is right over there,” she said. “His name is Steve, and he’s a bartender. Well, right now he’s between jobs because the bar he was working at had too many people, and they had to cut him. But he’s put in a bunch of applications around town, and he thinks he’s got a good shot at a couple of them. Bartenders make killer money in tips. I know that from my dancing days. Isn’t he just the hottest thing you’ve ever seen?”
In the corner, Mark was laughing and holding a bottle of beer high above his head to avoid spilling it. Even from across the room, I could see the sparkle in his dark brown eyes. It looked like he was having fun, whereas I was just stalking him from across the room like a loser.
“Are you listening to a word I’m saying?” Jolene demanded.
“Huh?” I peeled my gaze away from Mark and focused my attention on Jolene.
She followed my line of sight, eyes settling on Mark, and gave a knowing smile. “I said, isn’t he just the hottest thing you’ve ever seen?"
I gulped, worried that maybe after all this time, I was being called out on my infatuation for Mark. “Who's hot?”
“My boyfriend, Steve. He’s over there getting drinks.” She gestured gracefully toward the bar.
A young man with shoulder-length black hair was pushed up to the bar, talking with the female bartender. At first, I thought I must be mistaken because he looked awfully cozy with the pretty blonde behind the bar. But there was no one else it could be.
“The guy with long black hair?” I asked just to be sure.
“Yeah,” Jolene sighed. “He is so damn fine he makes my panties go up in flames every time I look at him. Don’t you think so?”
“He’s very…” Flirtatious? Rude? “Uh, good-looking. He's got that whole bad-boy vibe going on.”
Jolene beamed. “I know, right? I met him online. He’s a Gemini, and he likes strong, independent women. I’m strong and independent, right?” For a moment, she looked uncertain. "Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking. Am I strong and independent?"
Fondness for the woman welled up inside me. Something about her clueless honesty triggered something inside me. Something warm and protective. “Yes, Jolene. You are very strong and independent. Stan is a very lucky man."
"Steve," she corrected.
"Well, whatever his name is, he's lucky to have you."
She smiled, and I thought I saw a blush creep across her skin beneath all of the glitter and makeup.
"So, what's your New Year's resolution?" She asked. "Mine is going to the gym twice a week. Gotta get rid of this gut." She pinched her nearly-flat belly. "Steve won't stick around long if I let myself go. A guy like that… He could have any girl he wants."
I glanced back to the bar, where Steve was very clearly getting his flirt on with the blonde. I wondered if Jolene was just ignoring that fact, or if she didn't care. Either way, it was none of my business.
"So, what's your New Year’s resolution?" she asked.
I waved a hand dismissively. "I'm not really the resolution type."
“But there must be something you want to do. Something you’ve been thinking about but haven’t done.”
Yeah, I thought. Kiss every inch of Mark Johnson’s body.
“Not really,” I said. “I’d like to buy a house, but that’s not in my budget right now.”
She tapped one of her long red nails against the side of her cup as if it would help her think. I knew they were press-ons because our nurses weren’t allowed to wear nails that long. Too easy to tear gloves. “A smaller goal, then,” she suggested.
Usually, I would be all about talking to Jolene, but right now I was too distracted. My obsession with Mark was only getting worse, and tonight it was nearly unbearable to watch him flirting and partying and knowing I could never have him.
“Look, Jolene, I really don’t—”
“Getting out more,” she interrupted with a triumphant smile. “That would be a great resolution for you. I know how much you residents work, and you’re always saying you don’t have time for a social life. It makes me feel so bad for you. Everybody needs to get out sometimes. Maybe you could make a resolution to set aside a few hours one day a week or something.”
“I really don’t have time for any more of a social life than I already have, and no New Year’s resolution is going to change that. Maybe when I finish my residency, but until then, my social life consists of playing tennis once or twice a week and curling up on the sofa with my cat and a good book.”
“Oh, you have a cat?” She seemed thrilled at this new bit of information.
“Yeah, I just adopted him last month. I went to the mall to get some shoes, and the Humane Society had a booth set up. Bill—that’s the cat’s name—just looked so damn pitiful I couldn’t resist. He’s blind in one eye. Got it messed up in a fight, I guess. It’s all scarred up, but it doesn’t seem to bother him too much.”
“Oh, that’s so sad. You’re gonna make me cry.”
“What’s sad?” Mark had somehow extracted himself from the crowd of admirers and was now standing right in front of me. He swigged his beer and looked expectantly at Jolene, probably hoping for some juicy gossip. Jolene was the gossip queen of the Emergency Department, a title she wore with pride.
“Jason was just telling me that his cat is blind in one eye. Isn’t that sad?”
“I didn’t know you had a cat,” he said. “You never mentioned it.”
I shrugged. “It’s a new development. The Humane Society guilted me into adopting him.”
That wasn’t exactly true. The Humane Society hadn’t done a damn thing except bring the cat to the mall. The guilt and the decision to adopt was all me. In fact, the girl I’d talked to had tried to show me another cat—one that wasn’t so worse for the wear—but I’d only had eyes for one-eyed Bill.
Mark grinned. “You can’t fool me, Dr. Whitham. I know you, and you have a soft streak a mile wide.”
Heat suffused my face, and I had to look away. Mark’s dark eyes were far too perceptive, and I didn’t want him to see how his words had affected me. How they always affected me. The slightest bit of praise from him, and I was blushing like a school girl.
Tonight, it was worse than usual. Something about him, about his appearance, had my heart doing backflips. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, though. He was always the picture of masculine perfection, all pressed and polished and buffed to a high sheen. Rich and beautiful and confident to a fault.
Like a politician, I thought. Mr. Perfect.
He scrubbed a hand over his jaw, and suddenly it hit me what was different about him. He hadn’t shaved. There was at least two days’ worth of dark stubble on his face, and it gave him an air of wildness I’d never seen on him before. He was always handsome, but tonight he was absolutely heart-stopping.
No wonder the women had been all over him in that corner. If I could have gotten away with it, I would have joined them there, bouncing up and down and trying to put a crown on his head, vying for his attention like a love-starved fool. Because that’s exactly what I was, a love-starved fool.
“The cat’s name is Bill,” Jolene was saying.
“Bill?” Mark’s voice was loud—the kind of loud that comes from drinking too much beer—and I realized he was drunk. And drunk Mark was very different from sober Mark.
I’d seen him smile plenty—and flirt, good God the man could flirt a blue streak—but this wasn’t his usual movie star smile. This one was open and almost innocent, as if some invisible weight had dropped from his shoulders for just one night. As if he could finally relax and be himself. It made me wonder how much of the doctor’s confident demeanor was just a facade. If he was really as put-together as he seemed.
“Yes, Bill,” Jolene said. “Isn’t that a funny name for a cat?”
I was glad she was picking up the slack in the conversation because that drunken smile of Mark’s had me speechless. And the
stubble along his jaw, that dark scruff I hadn’t seen before, had my fingers itching to touch.
“Your fan club is missing you, Dr. Johnson.” Jolene gestured in the direction of the nurses in the corner. A couple of them were still casting furtive glances in Mark’s direction.
“They’re probably looking at Jason,” he said, his slur confirming once and for all that he was definitely buzzed. “He’s a good-looking guy, and available, too. Aren’t you, Jason?”
I laughed. “I’m gay. I thought we already covered this.”
“I know that,” he slurred, and his lips curled into a salacious grin. “I probably know it better than most because I’ve spent time with you in the locker room.”
The locker room?
For one terrifying moment, I thought maybe he had noticed me sneaking glances at his body when he wasn’t looking. That maybe he had caught me staring at the monster cock that always hung low between his muscular thighs. That maybe he had noticed the color rising to my cheeks as I contemplated how long that thing could possibly get when it was hard. It was like an anaconda lying in wait, and sometimes I fantasized about what it might take to get it riled up.
Had he noticed that? Did he suspect I had a crush on him?
He put my fears to rest with his next words. “I’ve seen you checking out Brad Mitchell’s ass. Don’t try to deny it.”
I looked at Jolene, who had gone wide-eyed and silent.
“And that tall kid with all the muscles,” he continued. “What’s his name? You know who I’m talking about. The jack-of-all-sports who follows you around all the time. Mr. Long-Driver.”
“Kaden? He does not follow me around.”
“Does, too.” Mark tapped his index finger against his temple and grinned. “I pay attention. You think I don’t, but I do.”
“He offered to give me golf lessons, but he does not follow me around. That’s absurd.”
“Wait up, Jason,” he said, making his voice go high and silly in a very inaccurate imitation of Kaden. “Hey, Jason, what kind of racket do you use? Did you play tennis in college? You have excellent follow-through.”
