Chapter 12
LIZZIE
When he reached for the buckle on his pants, I held my breath. Was he really going to do it? To be honest, I didn’t think he’d take me up on the offer.
But when his pants sluiced to the ground, down his legs, my breath flew out from between my lips in a huff.
My God, he was beautiful.
Each piece of clothing he dropped revealed more of the hard planes on his body.
I swear to hell on high, people in Greece would erect statues of him just to look.
He was all long lines and chiseled definition.
The moonlight sparkled in those steel gray eyes of his, creating a stormy look across those high cheekbones.
He was the definition of a beautiful man.
I suddenly found myself very unappealing in his presence.
I sank a bit more into the water as he stepped in. I wasn’t even trying to hide how I stared. I couldn’t. So I didn’t. But when he turned around?
I caught an eyeful of the massive back tattoo he had.
“Wow,” I whispered as I gravitated mindlessly toward him.
He chuckled as he sank into the hot tub, turning to face me. “What?”
I paused in the middle of the hot tub. “Could I see your tattoo again?”
His grin warmed my gut. “You like it?”
I shook my head softly. “I didn’t even know you had tattoos. You don’t—”
His chuckle washed over me. “I don’t look like I have tattoos?”
My cheeks blushed. “Sorry. I just—”
He just held up his hand before he shook his head, and he turned around in the water for me. I got a good look at it, the blackened outlines and the painstaking shading. I didn’t have the balls to get a tattoo. Needles freaked me the fuck out. However, looking at other people’s tattoos?
Loved that shit.
I didn’t even realize I picked up my hand to trace the lines of the tree that sprawled his entire back until his skin twitched beneath my fingers.
“Sorry,” I whispered as I yanked my hand away.
“You’re fine, Miss Elizabeth.”
It took me a second to put together what I was looking at. There were dates and names. They were written in such curly-cue writing that I almost couldn’t interpret it. But eventually, the names started popping out. Lieutenant Bradley. Private Muckerson. General Jackson.
“Doc?” I asked softly as I traced over the dates beneath their names.
They weren’t full dates.
Just years.
Birth and death.
“Doc,” I whispered softly as I splayed my hand against the trunk of the tree that ran up and down his spine.
“It’s everyone I lost at my own hands in the military,” he said as he turned his back from me and faced me in the hot tub. “So they aren’t forgotten.”
“Oh, Doc,” I whispered as I reached up and cupped his face.
My body moved with a mind of its own, but he didn’t swat me away. He didn’t flinch back, or glare at me, or demand that he not be touched. If anything, his cheek almost…nuzzled… against my hand when it cupped his jaw.
I felt the smallest bit of stubble roughing up his cheeks.
“It’s important,” he said as he swallowed hard. “To me. To never forget. To know that I’m not infallible. My brain, it can…”
I cupped the other side of his face and brought those stormy eyes to meet mine. “It can convince you that you’re amazing, because you are.”
His gaze searched mine. “It can convince me that so long as I’m right, I’ll always come out the victor. And that isn’t always the case.”
The jets bubbled, slowly gravitating us closer to one another, until the hot tub practically settled my body in his lap.
My legs spread, encompassing his thighs as I just continued cupping his face.
I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to hold him.
I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to tell him to get that fucking thing off his back and to stop torturing himself.
I also wanted to kiss every line.
Hear the story behind every scar.
“What is your name?” I whispered softly.
His smile was soft. Kind. “Daniel. Daniel Lockhart.”
I returned the smile in kind. “I’m Elizabeth Packston.”
“Hello, Miss Elizabeth Packston. It’s lovely to meet you.”
“Why do you do that?”
“Do what?”
I tilted my head as my hands settled against his chest. I was only vaguely aware of his arms draped behind my back. “Put ‘miss’ in front whenever you address me. I don’t hear you do it with anyone else.”
“You’re my patient,” he said as his hands settled against the small of my back. “Respect is always given from doctors to patients.”
“Marla’s still your patient. As is Jasmine, at least a little bit. But you don’t address them like that.”
His eyes searched mine for a while. “If you do not like the term of respect, I can drop it.”
I shook my head. “It’s not that. I just…”
He waited patiently while I gathered my words.
“I just don’t like being treated differently than others without knowing the reason behind it.”
He reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “That’s fair.”
I waited for him to continue. I waited for him to elaborate. But the silence hung heavily between us. I almost had half a mind to lay my head on his shoulder and simply bask in his presence.
I felt a twinge at the base of my back.
“Mmph,” I grunted softly.
His body stiffened. “What was that?”
I shook my head softly and shifted a bit on his lap. “Just need to change posi—”
His hands gripped my waist, and he maneuvered me like I weighed nothing. The jets battered against our bodies, and I wanted one of those suckers right against my back.
“Tell me where it hurts, Miss Elizabeth,” he said as he put on his doctor’s voice.
“Doc, I’m—”
“Tell me where,” he commanded.
My eyebrows hiked up. “Lower back.”
“Stand.”
I sure as fuck did as he asked.
I shivered a bit as the cool of the evening lapped at my steaming skin. I wanted to plunge back into the hot water and stay there until I fell asleep. Maybe I could take a nice, hot shower after all this. Wash all of the chlorine—”
“Mmph,” I grunted when his hand pressed against the small of my back.
“The bruising here is getting worse, not better,” Doc muttered, almost to himself.
“I did back into a doorknob the other day,” I said.
His hand froze against my skin. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
I shrugged. “It didn’t hurt for very long. Just a sting before it dissipated. I just didn’t think to, I guess.”
His voice was clipped as his fingers palpated. “What started the pain just now?”
“I think it was the jet,” I said, trying to take a stab in the dark. “But it could’ve just been the way I was sitting.”
“Come here,” he said simply.
I moved with him until we were near one of the jets.
He had it pounding at my side before he settled behind me, his hands massaging around the aching spot on my back.
I was familiar with this particular form of treatment.
Doc had these movements that he did to get blood moving from just beneath the skin.
It didn’t feel the best in the process, but I knew I’d wake up feeling a thousand times better.
“Thanks,” I said through a strained voice.
“Don’t thank me yet,” he muttered.
I grunted and groaned a bit, wincing whenever he pressed down particularly hard.
But eventually, his hands moved away. Well, not so much moved as ‘smoothed.’ He smoothed them up my back and massaged my shoulders.
I practically melted back into him. At some point in time, he settled down, and my body tucked right in his lap.
“Sorry,” I whispered as I went to move.
But his arm banded around my waist. “My body will block the jets. Just sit.”
I eased my body back down into his lap before his hand eased my head back. He petted my forehead, down across my hair, as I gazed up at the moonlit sky. The moon hung heavily above us with stars twinkling in what felt like the thousands. I’d never seen it so dark with so many stars out.
I shivered at the way his stubble brushed my shoulder.
His hands continued their massages, though instead of against my back, it was up and down my thighs.
His thumb, tracing faceless patterns that made the heat pool in my gut.
I swallowed thickly, trying not to pay attention to his mindless, wandering hands until his hot breath pulsed against my skin as he whispered into my ear.
“You should relax,” he whispered.
Goosebumps skittered across my shoulders. “I thought I was relaxed.”
He reached down and locked my toes behind his calves before he slowly opened my legs with his own. My eyes widened, but I didn’t dare protest.
I didn’t dare stop the train that I hoped was chugging.
God, I wanted to not be alone for a moment.
“Relax,” he whispered, holding out the ‘x’ just a bit too long in my ear before his fingertips brushed up the insides of my thighs.
“Oh,” I moaned softly as my head continued to rest against his shoulder.
His lips found the crook of my neck.