by Amy Marie
I straddle his lap and rub my pussy over his length, coating his cock in my cum. Then I guide his cock inside me and start riding him.
It’s a completely different sensation being on top. Bouncing on Ryders cock, he firmly takes both breasts into his hands and squeezes before biting and sucking them. “I love your tits, Z. I’m going to fuck them soon. I’m going to paint them with my cum.”
I pick up the pace, spurred on by his words. “Your cock fits me perfectly, Ryder. I love being on top. I love fucking. This is so, so good.”
He holds onto my ass and begins slamming into me, bringing us both over the edge. Ryder presses his forehead to mine. “I love you, Zelle. I’m going to be by your side for the rest of our lives, Princess, and I’m going to show you everything this world has to offer.”
Looking into his eyes I tell him I love him, too and then giggle. Throwing my hands into the air, I yell, “Best. Birthday, EVER!”
Ryder laughs and then kisses me. “Happy birthday, Zelle.”
Chapter 10
Happier – Marshmello, Bastille
I wake up with Ryder’s mouth between my legs, giving me amazing birthday orgasms. When we’re done, we shower and catch up on what happened overnight. Mother was caught trying to enter Canada. It turns out that she heads up an international sex trafficking ring. I have no idea why she spared me from that life, but I’m thankful all the same.
My biological parents are due to land within the hour. Agent Hook briefed us before leaving to pick up my parents and siblings from the airport.
“There’s more I need to tell you, Zelle. I planned on doing it last night in the bath but we never made it that far. My parents and your parents were once best friends. I was at that New Year’s Party with my family. I was one of the kids being watched. I was only seven, but I remember your blanket. I remember how hurt your parents were after your abduction. Our parents lost touch about five years later. They never stopped loving your family but gave them the space they needed to heal. My parents will be here today, too. They lost a piece of themselves when you disappeared.” Ryder blinks back tears. “You don’t remember, but I was your protector when we were kids. I don’t know what happened that night, but I’ve always regretted I couldn’t stop them from taking you.”
Overcome by his admission. “From the moment we locked eyes in the gentleman’s club, I felt connected to you. You make me feel safe and protected. I love you. And knowing our history makes me love you that much more. Thank you for rescuing me from the tower and thank you for making me yours.”
“We belong to each other.” Dropping to one knee, Ryder asks, “Will you marry me?”
I drop to my knees before him, “Yes, Ryder. I’ll marry you.”
My parents and siblings walk into the conference room. My mother looks just like me, blonde hair and lavender eyes. My dad is a handsome man who looks like he has battled ghosts for the last twenty years. My siblings both have my father’s dark hair and mom’s lavender eyes. They watch me with rapt curiosity.
Both my mother and I have tears in our eyes. “We never stopped looking for you.” She holds her arms out for me and I step into her embrace.
“We found you and we’re never letting you go. We’re so glad to have you back... Rapunzel.”
Play List
Body Say - Demi Lovato
True Colors - Cindy Lauper
Best Day Of My Life – American Authors
Body Party – Ciara
Morning – Teyana Taylor and Kehlani
Ride – Somo
Skyscraper – Demi Lovato
The Voice Within – Christina Aguilera
Sex With Me - Rihanna
Happier – Marshmello, Bastille
Part Six
Paging Dr. Winkler by C.G. Burnette
A Rip Van Winkle Retelling
Dedication
To Allie, Tiffany and Tina…
Beauty and Brilliance
You three make one incredible team
I love you.
Chapter 1
Kai
The smell of burning rubber, acrid smoke, and whirl of heavy machines roused me from what felt like a deep, dark dream. Rain was falling with a steady ping on the roof, and something heavy was pressing on my chest. I couldn’t seem to take in a lungful of fresh air. Where was I? I tried to move, but nothing seemed to work. Why couldn’t I feel my legs? I slowly opened my eyes and witnessed the chaos all around me.
The windshield was a spider web of broken glass. The airbags sagged over what was left of the dashboard of my Outback. The firefighters and EMTs spoke in raised voices, efficient and precise. The sound of grinding metal was so loud in my ears. I tried to move my head, but couldn’t because something was around my neck. A collar to stabilize me?
Where the fuck was I, and why couldn’t I move? I couldn’t breathe. Nothing made sense. I just wanted out. Someone, please get me out! I felt the panic rise in my throat and swallowed a scream full of hysteria. I grunted as loud as I could, trying to get the attention of the man holding me. I made another attempt to move my legs, and I still couldn’t feel them. Why can’t I feel my legs? Jesus Christ, why?
Then the pain. The horrible searing pain. It prickled under my skin and raced over my arms. My head pounded as zigzags of light flashed in front of my eyes. Too much pain. I tried to scream, but nothing came out. I blinked my eyes and felt the tears well in them and roll down my face. I wanted it to end. Maybe if I closed my eyes, I could fall into a sweet dream again. Surely all of this was a very bad dream.
“Guys, she’s coming around. Ma’am? Can you hear me? Can you feel my hand, miss? Lex, she’s fading fast! We have got to get her out of this damn car!”
Lex was here? I roused a little at hearing his name being called. Lex Thornton was one of the best EMTs in town, and he was also one of my best friends. He would take care of me. I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore. I was so cold, and everything hurt. Just going to close my eyes for a moment. Only a moment and surely this will be over.
“Kai? Kai, can you hear me?! If you can hear me, I’m getting you out. I promise!” I heard him making that promise to me. He sounded so far away. The machines seemed to fade away too, and the wonderful looming darkness enveloped me. It moved at the edge of my eyesight and slowly made its way around. My cramped muscles relaxed, and the searing pain ebbed away.
All the anger from my overbearing father and the desperation from my mother to keep me in line. To be a Florian and take my place in Savannah society, representing our family and carrying on their outdated traditions. All their insistence to save our name, knowing what they wanted me to do. Years and years of cold, cruel demands…the threats to disown me, ultimatums to derail the funding for my research…on and on. The weight slid from my shoulders as the worries began to ease away.
The dream began again, and I welcomed it with one person on my mind...
Chapter 2
Damien
As much as I prayed for a quiet night in the ER, I knew it was wishful thinking. For one, it was Friday night, and all of us knew what that meant. It meant chaos and broken limbs. It meant arguments ending in gunshots and too much partying with drinking involved. Add to that it was pouring down rain and it was a sure thing.
We were in for a long shift.
It was par for the course for me here at Savannah General Hospital’s ER and Trauma Unit. But this hard rainstorm really worried me. People were going to be even more reckless tonight. Reckless, distracted, and careless. It was only going to make the night even longer. I wanted job security and to enjoy medicine, but never like this.
I’ve seen way too much in the time I’ve been here.
I took one last look at the sky from the ambulance bay and headed inside. I needed a few minutes of quiet but not too long. Too long, and I knew where my thoughts would lead to. They always led to her, and then I wondered and agonized over what could be if we simply had the chance. Stupid me, I should have just told her. Her fami
ly had plans for her entire life, plans she never, ever wanted. I wanted to believe she wanted me.
I’d settle for being her friend, her colleague. It’s better for us to be friends than to wish for something I knew we couldn’t have, right?
Hell no. It wasn’t fucking right at all.
My steps dragged as I headed for the control board at the main nurses’ station. The patient beds were full but manageable for now. Lucky for me, I had the best emergency crew at SGH working with me tonight. With Carris Campbell in charge of the nursing staff, the night had been moving like a well-oiled machine. The cases so far had been typical.
For as long as I can remember, it’d been the four of us. Carris, Lex, me, and her. Carris became a nurse and thrived in emergency and trauma. Lex became an EMT after he completed his service as a medic in the Army. We all decided to go into medicine. We were four best friends, determined to make a difference in this world. The money, or lack of it, never mattered to us. We never cared about designer clothes, expensive cars, and mansions on the right side of Savannah. We wanted to let our work speak for us.
I was most proud of her. The researcher. Looking for a cure to the disease that stole her grandmother from her. From all of us. I had such good memories… great memories. To this day, to watch her deteriorate and not remember all of us devastated me. Carmen Florian had fire and spunk until the very end. She was graceful and stylish—and never without her bright red lipstick. I recall so many moments with her and the advice she always had ready for me before I left her at the nursing home, but one piece of wisdom stood out the most.
“She’s loved you since the day you said hello to her at that mixer of the college, Damien. You saw her and not this name and image we are stupidly trying to hold on to. You saw her, the real her. Her father is bitter and her mother is weak as water. I’m getting sicker, sweet boy. Take care of her. Love her, Damien, and don’t let her give up on herself.”
I could almost guarantee Mrs. Carmen was not happy with me right now. While I watched her beautiful granddaughter pursue her dreams, I’d never told her how I really felt. There never seemed to be the right time, the right moment, alone. For a man so sure of himself in the face of trauma and death, I haven’t had the guts to admit to her what I wanted.
With a shake of my head, I looked up at the boards again and had just grabbed the clip with the notes for a new patient when Carris came running to the station and skidded to a stop.
“Whoa, Carris. Where’s the fire, girl?”
But I tell by the stricken look on her face and the tears welling in her eyes something was wrong. Very wrong.
“Carris, talk to me.”
After several heavy breaths, she said, “I just got off the radio with Lex. He’s coming in fast with a trauma. Oh my god. D, it’s Kai.”
I felt the blood drain from my face and heard my clipboard fall to the floor.
I watched in a daze as Carris rounded the station and called the code to get the trauma team in place. To get ready for one of our own. Kai may be in research now, but she started here with us as an emergency doctor.
“Trauma level one! I repeat, trauma level one!”
The sound of pounding footfalls and nurses getting prepped for the incoming trauma patient jolted me from my daze. “What do you mean, it’s Kai? Kai was at the lab tonight! Why the fuck would she be out in this mess?”
“Damien, I don’t know, but from what Lex has said, it’s bad. Very bad. What if we lose her? We cannot lose her.”
No way. No way in hell was I losing her before I told her the truth.
I shut it all off. Everything. My training and knowledge fell into place. Right now, I had to treat this trauma as any other critical patient and not the woman who meant more to me than the next breath I took. I had to set those feelings for her to the side and save her life. That had to be the priority. It was my damn job. I was going to save my patient.
With my stethoscope around my neck and Carris next to me, running toward the ambulance bay, and my game face in place, I looked to my head nurse and one of my very best friends, and stated calmly, “Tell what you know. Everything.”
As we entered the bay and before she had a chance to update me, the ambulance carrying Kai rolled in with lights flashing. My nerves flared, and I knew in my heart we were in for a very long few hours of trying to save Kai.
I watched Lex and his partners roll the gurney into the trauma unit. I looked at his face and saw absolute devastation but a fierce determination to see Kai through this and have her to survive her injuries. He had lost friends in combat overseas and had probably seen worse cases than this as a medic, but it’s an altogether different situation when it’s someone you’ve known and loved for most of your life. I understood the pain I saw in his eyes. But we weren’t going to lose her. Not today. My team was ready, and it was time to move.
“Thornton, talk to me!”
“The patient is Kai Florian, age thirty-two. Patient is presenting with two broken legs, with trauma to her head and torso and possibly her neck. BP seventy-eight over forty-five. Possible internal injuries. The patient crashed in the field and was intubated for airway protection,” Lex shouted at me as Kai was rushed to the bay. My team was rushing to do their jobs, and Carris had full command of her nurses. Still, I heard some of the staff murmuring to themselves. They knew who they were treating, and they could see how grave her situation was.
I looked back at Lex as he stepped back from the bay. With one last look at Kai, he turned to me with a plea in his eyes. “D, I did everything I could. I swear, I did. I stabilized her as much as I could in the damn field. Her GCS is hovering between eight and nine. Any lower, and there’s nothing I could have done to save her. She’s in and out of consciousness.”
I was in a rush to get to work and do the assessment, but I assured him. “I know you did. Do you have any idea what happened?”
“The rain is horrible, man. There is very little, if any, visibility. She must have been coming out of the lab, trying to turn. The other driver was speeding in this shit, hydroplaned, and came at her head-on.”
I ran my hand over my face and with a weary sigh, asked the inevitable question. “The other driver?”
“The other driver is DOA.”
“Fuck, this just keeps getting worse.”
Lex shook his head, and his shoulders dropped. The sadness of the situation seemed to settle on him, and I had to wonder if he was reliving parts of his time in Iraq. Remembering his brothers, who didn’t come home with him from their last tours. He knew me well, and I saw his eyes hardened to an angry steel gray.
“You don’t have time to worry about me, Dr. Winkler. I’m fine. I’m not going to fall back into the flashbacks. All I see is someone I love who I don’t want to lose. I’m going to go back out, finish my shift, and be right back here, waiting. Save her. Please.”
“I will.”
With a pat on my shoulder, he headed back toward the ambulance bay. I turned on my heel and headed for the bed holding Kai. The nurses were cutting away what was left of her clothes and removing her shoes. For a moment, I looked at her. I just simply stared and was shocked by what I saw. Her skin was so pale, her lips turning blue. Her beautiful chestnut hair was matted with blood from the long gash across her forehead.
Carris was looking for other visible wounds and injuries but was being very cautious because of possible spinal injury, gently log rolling Kai while shouting for her team to begin IVs and to start drawing additional blood for labs. The neck brace the EMTs had put around her to keep her stable was still in place. The machines monitoring her heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration all began to sound. The voices of nurses and technicians rose in a symphony for which I was the conductor.
“Campbell, talk to me! What are you seeing? I want this assessment completed now!”
Chapter 3
Kai
“Kai! Kai! Come on, Dr. Florian!”
So heavy. The dark is so warm, and I want to sta
y. Don’t want to wake up. Floating feels so free.
“I know you can hear me, Kai. I need you to wake up and stay with me!”
Why was Carris in the car with me? She’s on shift tonight at the hospital. Isn’t she? She’s not supposed to be in the car with me.
“I want a full-body scan. Get the ultrasound set so we can check for any internal bleeding.”
Damien. Damien is here with me. His voice sounds so close. I just can’t open my eyes. Still can’t move. I have so much to tell you, D. So much you need to know before I go back to sleep. I think Grandma Carmen is here.
“Kai? Kai, you’re at SGH. You were in an accident but we’re going to take care of you, you hear? You’re going to be okay.”
Carris again. She sounds so scared. I don’t want her to worry about me. As soon as I talk to Damien, I’m going back to sleep. My grandma is here, and she remembers who I am. I need to tell him, though. So much happened at the lab. I struggled to open my eyes one last time. The lights hurt my eyes. Everything hurts so much.
I groaned from the pain.
“Kai! There she is. Stay awake, Dr. Florian,” I heard from one of the nurses surrounding me. I tried to move my head but felt the collar. I opened my eyes more and looked for Damien. My eyes darted back, and I tried to call for him. The machines began to beep louder as I attempted to wiggle my hands and moan to grab his attention.
“She’s getting agitated. Calm down, Kai.”
Then I saw his beautiful eyes. The ones I could stare into and lose myself. He was so strong, so incredibly strong. His voice was confident and clear. He was in doctor mode. His head lowered to mine, and he held my gaze, then his big hand grabbed hold of my smaller one and squeezed. Trying to assure me, trying to comfort me. I wasn’t scared, though. I wasn’t alone. His smile was small as he spoke to me.
