Chapter 16 Lizzie
LIZZIE
I couldn’t help myself.
Not just with the shower, but with my career.
Being declared AWOL was a death sentence in the military.
I counted the days in my head that I was gone.
Been off the grid. Nine days spent searching for my best friend, only to be captured by those buffoons.
Almost two weeks, twelve days, spent with the crew.
I dug the heels of my hands into my eyes as dread filled my gut.
Were they searching for me? Was I labeled ‘suspected as desertion’? I drew in a broken breath as the hot water battered my body. Parts of me were still so sore that the water hurt, but I didn’t care.
The hurt reminded me that I was still alive.
I was pulled out of my racing head when I heard a knock at the bathroom door, though.
“Miss Elizabeth,” Doc asked through the door. “Can I come in?”
The air rushed from my lungs. “Sure, yeah.”
I heard the door creak open and the steam in the shower undulated a little bit toward the shower door. I stepped back under the water, moving away from the cool air that whooshed its way into the bathroom.
A click of the door told me that he closed it.
I tilted my head toward the showerhead, relishing the way the hot water sluiced down my body. I heard a pile of clothes dropping to the floor. The small plots and little ‘flooshes’ of sound had me tilting my head toward the door.
Doc’s frosted outline appeared at the shower door.
“Just tell me ‘no’, Miss Elizabeth,” Doc said.
I didn’t care, though.
“Yeah, you’re fine,” I said breathlessly as I turned my back to the shower door.
I couldn’t bring myself to care that we were naked, alone, again. I heard the shower door pop open, the frosted glass giving way, before his feet touched down onto the wet shower floor. They plopped a bit with every step until I felt the heat of his presence at my back.
Hotter than any shower could have been.
“You’re crying,” he said as his arms slid around my waist.
I jumped for a moment, but only for a moment. “Yeah. And?”
His lips dropped to my shoulder, pressing the softest kiss to my collarbone. “Wanna talk about it?”
I shook my head, but my lower lip quivered, and my jaw was much too weak. “They’re going to arrest me, Doc.”
I felt a pressure at the top of my head before his puckered lips graced my hair. “Who is, Miss Elizabeth?”
I groaned as I shoved him away. Well, as much of a shove as I could give with my body still feeling the way it did.
“I swear to god, you fuckers don’t care about shit other than what’s staring you in front of your fucking face,” I hissed, the anger pouring out of me in waves as I tossed my hands into the air.
“AWOL, Doc! The thing I’ve been chirping about in everyone’s ear!
? They’re going to arrest me for being gone this long.
I’ve probably been labeled a deserter! They probably have a warrant out for my arrest right fucking now! ”
My legs buckled as the tears fell, and if I hit the shower and busted my knee, then so fucking what. I should have known that Doc wouldn’t let me fall, though, because his arms scooped me up. And before I knew it, my cheek was pressed to the chiseled plane of his chest.
His hands rushed softly through my hair.
I sobbed. I openly sobbed. I wasn’t sure I’d done that with anyone but Marla. However, Marla had been a bit…occupied lately. Not that I hated Ranger or what was happening or anything. It was just… weird. It was always me and Marla against the world.
Now it just felt like me.
“You’re gonna be okay,” Doc whispered as he pressed another soft kiss to the top of my head. “I won’t let anything like that happen to you. Ever.”
My words blubbered out. “It won’t matter if they come for me.”
He didn’t shush me. He just held on tighter.
“I worked so hard.” It came out ugly. Angry, almost. Not the soft kind of crying I’d seen other women do. Mine felt like something ripping. “My whole career. Every single day.”
He pressed his lips to the top of my head and stayed there.
“I don’t do this,” I gritted out, swiping at my face with the back of my hand. “I don’t — I’m not —”
“You don’t have to be anything right now,” he said quietly. “Just breathe.”
I hated that it worked. I hated that one sentence from him and my shoulders dropped an inch. My next breath came out shaky but slower, and I pressed my face harder into his chest like I could disappear into it.
“You are not weak,” he said. Not soft. Certain. Like he was reading it off a chart. “I want that on record.”
“Bullshit,” I sobbed out.
“Never,” he muttered as he scooped me up against his body.
He urged me to wrap my legs around him.
I didn’t give him any fuss as my face fell to his shoulder. “My career is gonna be over, and that’s if I can even survive the court-martialing. What if they throw me in a holding cell? What if it’s months before—”
“Sssshhhh,” he hushed softly as his hand rubbed up and down my back. “It’s okay. Nothing like that is going to happen to you. You have my word, Miss Elizabeth.”
His hands gripped my ass, holding me against him as if I weighed nothing.
And for a while, he just allowed me to cry.
My throat grew raw from the ragged breathing.
My nose was stuffed because of all the puffiness from the tears.
My body felt achier than it did in days, and that spun my mind down a million different tracks.
Was I getting worse? Were there more injuries I didn’t know about?
Was I not taking it easy enough? Did I do more damage?
Doc’s lips at my ear pulled me out of my anxious-ridden mind.
“Both Cap and King were important figures in the Navy, Miss Elizabeth. I know they have connections. I’ve witnessed Cap’s firsthand.
And when all of this is said and done, when I know without a shadow of a doubt that you are safe, I am going to have them reach out to their contacts.
We’ll have all the proof we need by that point, and if we do this right, we’ll also have the DOJ on our side.
No one will prosecute you for anything.”
My crying calmed down with his words, but my breathing still hiccupped. “P-p—promise?”
“Oh, Miss Elizabeth,” he said as hiked me a bit closer against his body, “I more than promise. When this is all done, we will all be at your back, defending you to whoever needs to hear it. We’ll have pictures of your injuries.
We’ll have our contact at the DOJ filling out paperwork on your behalf.
It’ll be as easy to get out of as it was to get into, I assure you. ”
“But—but—what if—”
“No harm will come to you, Elizabeth,” he said, his voice dangerously low. “You have my word as a man, and as a physician.”
I sniffled softly and picked up my head, gazing up into his beautiful eyes. “You sure?”
His forehead seated itself against mine, and it made me close my eyes.
“I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life, Miss Elizabeth.
You were taken. You went on a mission to find your best friend during your leave time after a deployment, on your own downtime, and you were taken.
That is not the same as being AWOL, and you know it.
Cap, King, and I will make sure that nothing happens to you. Or your career.”
His words were so relieving and so genuine and so protective that I couldn’t hold myself back. I girded my thighs against him as much as I could, pressing myself up from the palms of his hands, and I cupped the back of his head.
I crashed my lips to his.
A growl rattled my teeth before we moved like lightning. I gasped against his lips as his tongue licked into my mouth, invading me to the back of my throat as he pinned me to the shower wall. The tiles were cool against my water-heated skin, and I felt him unraveling my arms from his neck.
He pinned them over my head.
“Tell me no,” Doc snarled as his forehead pressed against mine once more. “Tell me to stop.”
“Why?” I whispered, unable to help myself.
His shoulders seemed to almost slump. “I can’t control myself around you. And you’re hurt. And you’re bruised. And I’m your doctor. And—”
My eyebrows rose with every word. Seemed like I wasn’t the only one with a lot on my mind. “Doc.”
He lifted his gaze. “Yes, Miss Elizabeth.”
I smiled. “Shut up and kiss me.”
Another growl slipped from those lips of his before he crashed them back to mine.
His hips undulated, grinding against my naked folds as he sucked on my lower lip.
I whimpered as I bucked against him. I felt his cock already rising for the occasion, slipping between us and pulsing, like it wanted to let us know that it was ready to go whenever we wanted.
The low, rough moan that fell from his throat when I rubbed myself against it sent a bolt of lightning straight to the space in between my thighs.
“I won’t be able to hold back this time,” he snarled as his teeth grazed down my neck.
Goosebumps skittered across my skin. “I never told you to do it the first time.”
He reached between our bodies and pushed his cock in between my legs.
He rubbed against me slowly, watching me.
Intently. With every buck, my back slid up the tile wall.
And every time he did it, I did my best to hide my face.
I still had some rough bruises on my back, but I wasn’t about to let that deter us.
My eye twitched when he moved me to the left.
“Your bruises on your back still hurt,” he said as he pulled me away from the wall.
I shook my head quickly and clung to him, worried that things were about to stop. “They’re not that bad, Doc. It’s just a little—oo!”
Doc gripped my ass cheeks and raised me up until the tip of his cock caught at my entrance. “You’re so moldable for me, you know that? Such a good girl.”
I shivered at his compliment as the tip of him breached my body. “Your good girl, Doc. All yours.”
His hands gripped my ass tighter as he eased me down his length. “All mine.”
My eyes rolled back. “Oh holy fuck.”
He bottomed out and used my ass as leverage to pull me back up.
“Every. Single. Inch of you. Is mine,” Doc rumbled.
He slammed my body back down his girth.