Fake Marriage (Contemporary Romance Box Set)

by Ajme Williams

  I started to say something, but his grip loosened. I rocked and he groaned. Then I started to ride again. Quickly I was back up, riding him hard. My pussy throbbed as each slide of him pushed me closer to the edge again.

  “Oh God, Nick.” My fingers dug into his shoulders as my climax rushed toward me. I sank down, knowing next time, pleasure would fill my body. His hands squeezed again, holding me in place, preventing me from taking that one last ride. I groaned in frustration. “Nick.”

  His thumb slid between my thighs and rubbed over my clit. I tried to rise, but he held me there, so all I could do was rock over him.

  My breath was harsh as I sought my pleasure. “Don’t stop, don’t stop,” I chanted, worried he’d tease me again. Fortunately, he didn’t stop. I tilted my pelvis, his dick hitting that one exquisite spot, just as his thumb stroked over my clit. My orgasm roared through me reminding me how much better they were when they were given from someone else instead of alone by myself.

  He growled against my chest, as my pussy convulsed in pleasure. Finally, I was done. I looked down on him, as I gulped in a breath. Why was he denying himself pleasure?

  “What’s going on?” I asked. He wanted sex to help him forget someone under his care had died, and yet he wouldn’t let himself enjoy it.

  He ignored my question as he also took in a couple of deep breaths, and then encouraged me to move over him again. He was hard as a rock and thicker and longer than I remembered. I rode him again, watching him as brought him up and up, only to have him stop me again when he was on the brink. His expression was pained. Was that what he was doing? Torturing himself? He was letting himself get to the edge of pleasure but not taking that final leap.

  Was this how he liked sex now, or was he punishing himself?

  I pressed my hands on his face. “What are you doing?”

  His expression was lost and helpless. “This is wrong.”

  “What the hell, Nick.” I started to pull away, feeling angry and humiliated.

  “No. Not you, baby.” He held me to him, his hand moving to cup my cheek. “You’re not wrong. This is. It doesn’t seem right that I should be enjoying something so life affirming after what happened today.”

  “Why? It seems like a good time to appreciate life after seeing how fleeting it can be.”

  He closed his eyes. “I feel guilty.”

  My heart broke for him.

  “I don’t deserve this.”

  This whole thing was wrong before it started, and clearly it had gone off the rails. “Then maybe I should go.” I started to move off of him again.

  “Mia.” His hands held me to him. “Don’t go.”

  “Then come.” I took his hands and held them so he couldn’t stop me as I started to ride. Out of the gate, I bounced up and down fast and furious, not giving him time to think. He’d wanted only to feel, so that was what I was trying to make happen. For him to stop thinking and just feel.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck …” he chanted. I could feel my own pleasure start to build again.

  I pressed his hands on my breasts, and fortunately he didn’t fight his instinct. He pinched my nipples, sending white hot lava rushing to my core.

  “Fuck I’m coming,” he growled as his body arched back and his hips jerked up.

  I rode him harder, not wanting him to be able to stop himself. My pussy gripped him as it seized and pleasure shot through me.

  He groaned again, and this time when his hands went to my hips, it was to help them rock over him and draw out his orgasm.

  The minute he was done, I was off of him. “Don’t you ever use me to punish yourself again.”

  1

  Nick, One Week Earlier

  Working in the emergency room of a small mountain hospital was a far cry from my residency in San Francisco. Here in Goldrush Lake, we rarely had gunshot or knife wounds, and the ones we had were nearly always hunting related, not an attempted murder. We had heart attacks, strokes, and car accidents, especially in winter during the ski season when out-of-towners who didn’t know how to drive on slick roads would pile into town. We had quite a few outdoor accidents, such as breaking a leg skiing, or falling on a hike. Each summer, we had more than a few near drownings from boaters and swimmers on the lake.

  Did I ever lose a patient? In the four years I’d been here, there were a few times that I was unable to save a patient. Twice, it was a heart attack that was too severe for medicine to fix. Last winter, a skier fell and hit his head, but didn’t seek medical help. By the time the headache brought him to the emergency room, it was too late. Internal bleeding in the brain led to his death. Those stood out, but there were others.

  All deaths were difficult, but the one that haunted me was a car accident just over a year ago. Although she wasn’t my patient, being that we were a small town, I’d known her and felt the loss deeply. In fact, I’d known her all my life, so it had been like losing a member of my family.

  Today, I hadn’t had any life-threatening ailments so far in my shift. I diagnosed eczema in a toddler and I stitched up a construction worker’s hand.

  “Joyce is here to see you again, Dr. Foster,” Peggy Shoals, one of the nurses on duty today said.

  I rolled my eyes. Joyce was my age, thirty-three, and a pretty woman, who either suffered from hypochondria or was trying to get a date with me. Since having moved back home four years ago, she was fairly regular in the emergency room. I’d checked her for ticks at least twice before, along with various sprains, migraines, and, my favorite, concerns that her breast implant had broken.

  I made my way to the area where Joyce was waiting for treatment.

  “Dr. Foster.” Her blue eyes lit up and she sat up straighter, showing of her store-bought tits in a tank top.

  “Ms. Maynard, what seems to be the trouble today?” I asked, going to the computer to see what had been entered in the electronic medical record, or EMR, we’d been forced to adapt to several years ago. In theory, it was supposed to make treating patients easier, but in truth, it was a pain in the ass.

  “I’ve got terrible stomach pains,” she said, lifting her shirt to expose her belly. She rubbed her hand over it.

  “What have you had to eat today?” I pulled up her file on the computer.

  “Nothing. I woke with a stomach ache.”

  I motioned for her to lay back. I was sure she didn’t have a stomach ache, but I couldn’t dismiss her on the off chance she really was sick. “Any diarrhea?”

  She made a face. “God, no.”

  “Vomiting?”

  She shook her head.

  “When was the last time you had a bowel movement?” Maybe she was constipated.

  She made another face. “Why are you asking about my shit?”

  I took a breath to hide my annoyance. “Clues to the reason for a stomach ailment can sometimes be determined by … your shit,” I said using her term.

  I did my exam, checking for anything unusual in her abdomen. She pushed her shorts down far enough for me to see that she waxed.

  I ignored that as I pressed the soft tissue. “Any pain or discomfort?”

  “No.”

  I ruled out a variety of possibilities including appendicitis.

  I pulled up prescriptions on her chart and noted that she was on birth control. Even so, I asked, “Any chance you’re pregnant?”

  Her eyes widened. “No.”

  “You haven’t missed any pills?” I looked again at the medications and didn’t see antibiotics, which could sometimes lower birth control pills’ effectiveness. “Have you been on any antibiotics?”

  “No.” Her hand rested on my forearm. “The pills work great. Maybe we could test them.”

  I tried not to roll my eyes. “You probably have a little bug. Have some broth soup, and maybe a few crackers, then see how you feel.”

  She nodded. “Why don’t you come to Dina’s Diner with me for lunch. To make sure I don’t faint or something.”

  “Have you fainted or felt l
ightheaded?” I asked, typing in the information into the EMR.

  She hesitated and I turned to look at her. “Well … maybe a little.”

  For the most part, I was amused by Joyce, but the truth was, she was wasting hospital time and resources each time she came in with a bogus ailment.

  I turned my full attention to her. “Have you ever read the story about the boy who cried wolf?”

  It took her a moment to grasp my meaning. “My stomach really does hurt.”

  “Take some bismuth subsalicylate, it’s the pink medicine. Have a little soup and maybe a few crackers. If it continues, we can arrange to have a sample of your bowel movement brought in and tested,” I said, mostly to figure out how real this stomach ailment was. Anyone willing to gather a sample of their shit to bring in was likely feeling poorly.

  She made a face. I suspected the next time she came in, it wouldn’t be for a stomach issue. She held her hand out so I’d help her down from the exam table. Since I was a gentleman, I did. And as usual, she jumped down in such a way as she bumped into me.

  “Oh, sorry,” she said, her coy eyes showing she wasn’t sorry at all.

  I gave a short nod as I stepped back. “Have a good day, Ms. Maynard.” I started to leave.

  “Dr. Foster?”

  I looked over my shoulder. “Yes.”

  She bit her lip. “Maybe we could get together sometime.”

  “I’ve got to get to work.”

  Instead of getting to work though, I headed to the lounge. I laughed inwardly as I poured myself a cup of coffee for a mid-morning pick-me-up. I wondered how long before Joyce would get the hint or give up. I wasn’t interested in her. Even if Joyce wasn’t annoying in her attempts to come on to me, I wouldn’t be interested her. Not that I didn’t like women, because I did. A lot. I tended to like down-to-earth woman, over store bought, although I had to admit, Joyce got her money's worth on those implants.

  Maybe a few years ago, I might have taken her up on her offer if it wasn’t already unethical for me to do so since she was a patient. Today, I was more discriminating in my women. In a small town like this, a young bachelor is a target of every mother wanting to marry off her daughter. But I’d found that the women who are more interested in my perceived wealth (I’m paid pretty well, but I’ve got student loans up the wazoo) or small-town prestige, aren’t very interesting. Oh sure, they’re quite agreeable, but so much so that they’re boring.

  The few women who were interesting got annoyed at me quickly when I was called away to work. As a small town doctor, I’m on call a lot. Sometimes I’m called in when I’m not on call if one of the other few doctors here can’t make it. Other times, it’s clear they’re looking for a husband. I had nothing against marriage. At one time, I’d considered asking a woman to marry me. She was the proverbial “one that got away.” She was probably why I had trouble with relationships now.

  Despite the fact that our relationship didn’t make it, she was the one that all women were compared to intellectually, personality-wise, and even physically. She was the woman I conjured up if the woman I was with wasn’t going to get me off. She was the woman in my fantasies when I was home alone with my hand to jerk me off.

  Mia chose a life as a big-city lawyer in Los Angeles instead of returning to our childhood home with me after we finished our advanced degrees. Her brother, Eli, was here in Goldrush Lake, running the family’s outdoor store. He’d been my best friend growing up and in college. Now he hated me. He hadn’t taken it well when he learned about my more-than-friendly relationship with Mia. The fact that I’d loved her didn’t matter. I’d fucked her and he found that to be a betrayal.

  Their mother, Jane Parker, had been the woman who died in the car accident just over a year ago. I hadn’t treated her, because she was like family to me. But I was with her while she was in the emergency room. She’d made me promise to look after her husband, Jim, who’d been diagnosed with Parkinson’s the year before. She’d known, as did her husband, that I’d been in a relationship with Mia, but didn’t hold it against me like Eli did. She and Mr. Parker had been like a second set of parents to me. More so when my own parents retired and decided to leave cold winters behind and moved to San Diego.

  In some ways, I was like another son. I hadn’t treated Jane when she was brought into the emergency room after her accident, but I’d held her hand in the hospital as we waited for Jim and Eli to arrive. She was wheeled into surgery before they got there. She died on the operating table. Eli blamed me for that as well, even though I wasn’t her doctor.

  I shook my head at the memory. It was so fucking sad, and made me wonder why medicine could fall so short. But thinking of Mia, Eli and Jane reminded me that I should check in with Jim. Because Eli hated me still, my friendship with Jim was on the downlow, but we did get together at times to play chess or I’d take him fishing.

  “Did Joyce succeed in getting a date?” Peggy Shoals, an emergency room nurse asked, getting a cup of coffee after me.

  I laughed. “Not with me.”

  “Do you think her insurance has raised her deductible for all the trips she makes here?” Peggy sat with me at the table.

  “Not so much that she stops coming.” I sat at one of the three tables to relax for a few minutes.

  “What are you going to do when she comes in worried about a lump in her breast?”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m going to have Alice examine her,” I said of Dr. Alice Kramer.

  “That’ll teach her,” Peggy laughed.

  I finished my coffee, and rose from my chair to rinse my cup out. “Back to work.”

  “I’ll be right behind you.”

  I walked out of the lounge and headed back to the emergency area. Before I could reach the corner, Dick Waterson, the hospital administrator walked around the corner. Following him, a woman also rounded the corner. I stopped in my tracks and my heart made a hard thump in my chest.

  She stopped, too, and stared at me.

  “Ah, Dr. Foster,” Dick said to me. “I’m glad we caught you. I’d like to introduce you to the new hospital lawyer, Mia Parker.”

  Continue reading Nick and Mia’s story here (FREE in Kindle Unlimited)

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