Chapter 14
14
Morse
F OLLOWING AMELIA BACK to the examination room, I didn’t miss the flicker of panic that swept across her features when the nurse pulled her into an alcove and gestured at a scale. Amelia looked down at herself as if trying to decide which layers of clothing to remove but ultimately shook her head and let out a mirthless chuckle. Something about the sound told me I wanted nothing to do with this conversation, so I stayed back.
“I’m just here for my leg,” Amelia said. “We can do the weight thing at my annual checkup.”
The nurse eyed her clipboard before leveling a stern look at the uncooperative patient. “Your annual checkup is about three months past due, and we need to note any significant changes.”
“Well, there’ll be a significant increase today, that’s for sure. We rode his motorcycle.” Amelia hooked a thumb at me as if our mode of transportation wasn’t evident by our attire. Of course, how we got here wasn’t any of the nurse’s business. “I’m wearing layers. Several of them.”
The nurse looked her over. “We can subtract a few pounds for clothing.”
Amelia frowned but stepped onto the scale. The screen let up, and she groaned. “Oh. My. God.”
I snuck a peek at the screen as the nurse started reading the glowing digits aloud.
“Whoa!” Amelia jumped off the scale like it was quicksand. “There’s no need to announce it to the world. I can see that horrifying number perfectly fine, thank you very much.”
Subtracting the weight of her gear, her weight seemed healthy to me, but when she glanced in my direction with a smile so forced she looked manic, it was clear she felt differently.
She was upset, and I didn’t know what the fuck to do. Did I smash the scale? Rip the clipboard out of the nurse’s hand so she couldn’t record the number?
The receptionist who’d checked Amelia in walked past and offered me a friendly smile, but my expression wiped it from her face. Or perhaps it was the fists balled at my sides. She quickly averted her eyes and headed back toward her desk, and I made a conscious effort to chill the fuck out.
The nurse led us into an examination room, where she asked a handful of questions before stepping out to get the doctor. Posture ramrod straight, Amelia perched on the foot of the examination table, staring at the door as though she wished she could bolt. Gone was the flirty glint in her eyes and the smile that had danced across her lips in the waiting room. Now, she looked defeated.
It fucking killed me.
“The body armor is heavy,” I said.
She let out a strangled sound. Outrage colored her cheeks, telling me I should have kept my goddamn mouth closed and not engaged, but seeing her like this made me want to fix the problem.
“You’re wearing well over ten pounds of gear.”
“Yep.”
The hard “P” she added to the word should have encouraged me to drop the subject, but I couldn’t.
“I can hack into their system and change the number to whatever you want. Just say the word.”
She stared at me.
I swallowed, wishing I could take it back. That wasn’t the type of shit normal people said, but I couldn’t seem to help myself. Some sick, twisted part of me wanted to be real with Amelia… to see what she thought of the man I’d become.
“I…. No. I don’t want to talk about my weight.” Her voice shook as she fumbled with the cut that marked her as mine, struggling to remove it.
“Here. Let me help you with that.”
Without thinking, I crossed the distance and wedged myself between her knees, reaching for the cut. A startled gasp drew my attention to her face, now inches from my chest. I realized my mistake as the seductive scent of sunshine and rainbows sucker-punched me for having the audacity to slide into her magnetic field. I tried to step back, but now that I was here… this goddamn close… her pull was way too powerful to resist.
Her gaze dragged up my body, but she looked away before reaching my eyes, and fuck if that didn’t destroy me. She’d always had a thing about eye contact, and her unwillingness to meet my gaze now spoke volumes about her headspace. I bit back a curse. She swallowed. I took hold of her cut before she could refuse my help, sliding it over her shoulders while trying to avoid getting high off her scent. It had been one thing to help her don the gear in the club’s entry hall, where Tap and Hound were likely scrutinizing our every move from the security room like the nosey bastards they were. But this…. We were utterly alone, and removing her layers was proving to be surprisingly intimate. Her breath hitched when I unzipped her rain jacket, and I knew she’d gotten caught up in our proximity, too.
“The doctor will likely need to see your spine,” I reasoned, my voice rough like I’d gargled with gravel.
She nodded, and I tugged her jacket sleeves down one arm and then the other, knowing this much exposure was dangerous but unable to do a damn thing about it. She was a computer virus specifically designed to infect and fuck up my system. I’d gotten too close, she’d gained access, and now she methodically invaded my hard drive. She would destroy me, but there was no way to stop it or minimize the damage. I needed to interact. I had to fix her code. To undo whatever damage that motherfucking scale had inflicted.
“I know you own mirrors,” I said, setting the jacket on top of the cut behind her and eyeing the exposed body armor. “You should look into one sometime and see how fucking beautiful you are.”
She blinked. “I… I know perfectly well what I look like.”
“Then why do you care about something as insignificant as your weight?”
“I….” She swallowed. “I don’t really want to talk about that with you. Or anyone, for that matter. I appreciate your efforts to boost my confidence, or whatever this is, but no?—”
“Dammit, woman, you’re driving me out of my mind.” I hadn’t meant to admit as much out loud, but it was the truth, and there was no taking it back. Watching her on a screen every day had been a necessary purgatory. Sleeping down the hall every night had turned out to be the sixth dimension of hell. “Having you on the back of my bike with your arms wrapped around me and your hands inches from my….”
I forced myself to stop talking before I dug myself in deeper. Her hand stilled on the side zipper of her body armor, and her gaze finally crashed into mine. A question—or possibly a denial —formed on her soft, supple lips. She still wasn’t convinced. Wondering how she could doubt herself, I leaned back and let my appreciation show as my gaze gobbled up every curve of her body, enjoying the hell out of the view. Her cheeks reddened, but when she didn’t push me away, I slid my fingers beneath hers. Taking control of the zipper, I slowly lowered it to her hip before tackling the opposite side. I pulled the front flap over her head and reached past her to set it on the examination table, bringing our faces way too damn close.
“W-what are you doing?”
Her breath caressed my cheek like warm satin, forcing me to close my eyes and battle the urge to reach for her. If I had a white flag, I’d wave it and beg for mercy because no thoughts of baseball could save me now. Ted’s wife was depending on me to keep her safe, and all I wanted to do was push her back onto that table and worship every inch of her body with my tongue, showing her exactly how little numbers on a goddamn scale mattered.
No, asshole, back the fuck up. She’s not for you.
Making one last-ditch effort to do the right thing, I stepped back, but my gaze snagged on her big hazel eyes. Enormous and dilated, it was impossible to distinguish her pupils from her irises.
“Jesus, Angel.” She wasn’t supposed to want me, too. How was I supposed to resist her now? “You don’t even know what you do to me. Nobody has ever measured up to you.”
Stop talking, idiot.
The tip of a small, pink tongue darted between her lips and swept across the seam, obliterating what was left of my restraint. I ducked as she raised her chin to meet me. Our lips crashed together. She let out a gasp, and I froze, afraid I’d misread the situation, but before I could analyze the sound, arms wrapped around me and tugged me closer. Her back arched, pressing those perfect tits against my chest. Needing her even closer, I snaked my arms around her torso, settling my hands against the small of her back to pull her into me, deepening the kiss. Her lips parted, and I plundered her mouth, determined to bathe my tongue in her taste. She moaned, and the sound shot straight to my cock, which tried its damnedest to split the seams of my zipper to get to her.
Never in my life had I wanted anything as bad as I wanted to be inside Amelia.
Soft hands burrowed their way past my layers of clothing to press against the bare skin of my back, only adding fuel to the fire raging between us. Assured of her interest, I pressed into her, lowering her back on the examination table.
Two quick knocks on the door brought me back to my senses. Recalling where we were, I sprang away from Amelia and crossed half the room in one giant step, putting all the distance I could between us. Cursing the interruption, even while thanking my lucky stars for it, I planted my ass in the chair and tried not to watch the way her chest heaved from her labored breathing. What the fuck had I been thinking to go after her like that?
More importantly, why the fuck hadn’t she pushed me away?
“Come in,” Amelia called out, the husky tone of her voice screwing with my resolve.
A middle-aged man dressed in scrubs entered the room and introduced himself as PA Mark Pratt. Amelia’s lips were red and swollen, her cheeks flushed, and there was enough electricity zinging between us to start a fire. Pratt looked from her to me like he knew exactly what we’d been up to. I couldn’t care less what the judgmental son-of-a-bitch thought, so I returned his assessing stare. Then the motherfucker said the worst possible thing he could.
“You must be the husband.” His gaze didn’t even meet mine before he glanced down at his clipboard. “Ted?”
Amelia’s face went white. “No. Oh, no. He’s, uh… just an old friend. Ted’s friend. Who I haven’t seen in years. Morse.”
“Morse? That’s an unusual name.” He extended his hand.
I shook it, even as her dismissal sliced through my gut, maiming me. “Yep.”
He waited for me to elaborate, but I didn’t know this man from Adam. My road name was the only information he was getting. The bastard was lucky I didn’t hack into the system right then and email anime tentacle porn to everyone in his contact list. Extreme? Possibly, but he’d basically summoned Ted into the room.
Right after I’d made out with his wife.
In a goddamn examination room.
Which she fucking blew off.
Suppressing the urge to squeeze the shit out of his hand, I released it. Guilt. Shame. Anger. My emotions couldn’t seem to figure their shit out. All I knew was that kissing her like that was wrong. Worse, the depraved shit I wanted to do to Amelia would make what we’d just done look downright chaste.
She called me Ted’s old friend .
Not hers, but Ted’s.
Message received.
PA Pratt asked his own questions before examining Amelia’s back. Then he had her lie back and raise her legs one at a time. Pain flared in her eyes, and her left leg shook with the effort. He helped her sit up and instructed her to stand and bend forward to touch her toes, which she struggled with.
“Sciatica is a common issue for a woman of your age and condition,” he said, typing into the computer on the desk.
I didn’t miss how her shoulders drooped at his dismissive tone or the self-deprecating chuckle she released.
Pushing his wire-framed glasses up his nose, PA Pratt studied the screen. “The best course of action is physical therapy. I’ll write you a recommendation.”
“What about tests?” she asked. “I don’t need any x-rays or anything?”
PA Pratt shook his head. “Sciatica is a nerve issue, so an x-ray won’t tell me anything. I can reach out to your insurance company and request an MRI, but they’ll likely require you to try PT before they’ll authorize the expense.”
Just an old friend .
The truth of her declaration echoed in my chest, pinging off all the hollow places inside me in an endless cycle. She was right. Of course, she was. Who the fuck was I to think I ranked high enough to kiss someone like Amelia? I sure as shit would never measure up to Ted.
“That’s okay,” Amelia said to the physician’s assistant. “I’ll start with PT, but can you give me something to help with the pain?”
“I can request an appointment with pain management.” He clicked a few more keys. “There. Someone will be in touch to set up an appointment.”
“Great. Thanks.” She hesitated, her gaze almost drifting to me before she focused on her hands. “But I have a road trip coming up, and sitting for more than an hour at a time kills me. I was hoping to get a handful of pain pills to help me get through the drive.”
Since when? I wanted to know what the hell kind of trip she thought she was going on, but I held my tongue. I was nobody, and it was none of my damn business.
PA Pratt sized her up like she was a drug addict, begging for her next fix. “Will you be the one driving?” he asked.
“Yes, but I would only take them at night. And only if the pain gets so intense, I can’t sleep.”
He clicked more keys. “What kind of trip? How far will you be driving?”
“Idaho,” she said with a grimace, making me itch for more information I had no right to want. “Moscow then Caldwell, to be exact. Spring break is next week, and my daughter wants to check out two colleges before making her final choice.”
“That’s a significant distance.” He frowned, doubtless preparing to deny the request, so I stepped in, finished with this bullshit.
“I’ll drive.”
It was a stupid thing to say, considering I had no desire to leave the fire station, let alone the state. I sure as hell couldn’t handle a road trip with her, not after what had just happened, but the likelihood of us going anywhere was scant. Besides, it didn’t matter who I was to her. She was important to me, and I didn’t appreciate him giving her shit for needing pain relief.
They both spun to face me, but I doubled down.
“I’ll do all the driving.” Assuming the threat to her life had been neutralized, but I kept that last part to myself.
I couldn’t tell if she believed me or just knew better than to question me and fuck up her chances of a prescription. Color flooded her cheeks as she shyly dropped her gaze and said, “Thank you.”
In the end, PA Pratt handed over a prescription for five measly pain pills and a physical therapy recommendation before leaving us in suffocating silence. The bastard had clearly never experienced the type of crippling pain he judged his patients for.
Elenore, Rabbit’s ol’ lady, was a scientist working on alternative pain relief. I was making a mental note to question her about options when Amelia reached for the body armor. Setting the problem aside for now, I rushed over to help her. Without saying a word, I helped her back into the vest, rain jacket, and cut, avoiding the questioning glances she shot my way as she nervously rambled about physical therapy and the trip she hadn’t wanted to tell me about. All while I was thanking the stars above that she didn’t bring up the kiss.
Of course, she shouldn’t bring up the kiss.
But why the fuck didn’t she?
Had it not knocked her on her ass like it had me?
Had PA Pratt’s mention of Ted made her feel like a piece of shit, too?
You’re just a fucking old friend, dumbass. Ted’s friend .
The ride back to the fire station was even more torturous now that I knew what she tasted like, but it gave me time to grow accustomed to her proximity. I could learn to resist this pull like I’d fought the urge to physically see her over the years. Put firmly back in my place, I parked, and she climbed off the bike, hands shooting to her helmet.
“Leave it on until we get inside,” I instructed as Prospect pulled in beside us.
I didn’t believe Amelia was in danger this close to headquarters—especially not with Tap and Hound monitoring the feeds—but I wasn’t taking any chances. Besides, I needed as many layers as possible between us right now. Prospect covered our backs, then went to check in with Link once we were all in the building. Amelia and I continued to the lockers. The crew that worked for the club’s bar next door was milling around, drinking coffee in the common room. I waved to them as we walked by, but didn’t stop. I needed to get away from Amelia before I did something stupid like kiss her again.
This time, when we removed her gear, I kept my touches detached and clinical, avoiding her eyes.
“We should probably talk about what happened at the doctor’s office,” she said in a hushed voice.
“No need. I’m sorry about that. It was a mistake. Won’t happen again.”
Her lips parted, but like a coward, I waved to Flint, effectively cutting off whatever she was about to say.
“I need to get back to work, Amelia.”