Chapter 33 #3
Ignoring Houston, she left the OR behind and barely managed to keep herself from sprinting down the hall, her breath shallow and face burning.
When she reached the locker room, she did break into a jog, and didn’t stop until she was hidden behind the last row of lockers.
Sinking down on the bench, she buried her head in her hands and let them come.
The tears of relief. Tears of panic. Tears of horror that a man could have died today while under her knife.
She hadn’t bothered to remove her gown and her hands were resting in her lap, the garment liberally smeared with blood. It had never struck her as gruesome before, but it did now. That had been a person on that table, not a patient. A person who had put his trust in her and his life in her hands.
The tears turned to sobs. What was she doing? She wasn’t cut out for this. Sara had been right. She should be making jewelry and selling incense sticks in a kitschy store on the boardwalk, not pretending to be a doctor.
“Josie.”
Damn it. Houston. She ducked her head and swiped at her eyes, choking back a sob. “Just give me a minute, please.” Her voice was shaky and high-pitched.
If he had been decent, the least teeny bit considerate of her feelings, he would have hung back until she said it was okay.
Or he would have just left her alone. Instead, Houston sat down on the bench next to her, brushing her arm with his, and setting her frazzled and tangled emotions nearly skidding over the edge.
Having to deal with him and his confident, seductive looks would be downright impossible right now. She turned away from him in irritation. “Do you mind?”
“Yes, I do.” He paused. “You did a good job in there.”
Astonished, she gaped at him. “Are you crazy? I almost killed him!”
She wanted to take the words back immediately. They revealed far too much of her fears, and Houston did not want to listen to her whining and pouting.
“No.” Houston shook his head. “That’s not true and you know it. You saved that man in there. You can’t beat yourself up over something that you had no control over.”
Really, she appreciated the attempt on his part to make her feel better, but right now she just wanted to be alone.
Houston Hayes knew nothing about how it felt to not be up to the job, how to always scrape and fight and try and never be the best at anything.
To always doubt and to wonder and to second guess.
“I was too slow. If I had been faster, he wouldn’t have arrested.”
“I’ll say it again. You saved him, Josie. I’m sure he arrested because of an undiagnosed deep thrombosis in his calf. It traveled up his bloodstream and caused a pulmonary embolism. It was a ticking time bomb. We just happened to be there when it went off.”
It made sense as an explanation for what had happened. If there was a thrombosis, the man could have arrested for any surgeon. It wasn’t her fault.
But somehow that didn’t make her feel any better. Josie wiped her damp cheeks and sat there hunched over, her heart sick.
“Patients die. That’s a fact of medicine. You do your best and that’s all anybody can expect.”
But that was the problem. That was where the doubt lay. She couldn’t stop herself from whispering, “What if my best isn’t good enough?”
Houston shrugged. “Sometimes it won’t be.”
His matter-of-fact manner appalled her. “I can’t believe you can just sit there and act like it doesn’t matter that someone dies!”
His jaw clenched, but he took her hand with his left and gave a gentle squeeze. “Of course it matters. But I’m a surgeon. My job is to fix the disease, the illness, or the injury. That’s it. Sometimes I’m not going to be able to do that. I’m not a miracle worker. I can’t fix what isn’t fixable.”
Despite trying darn hard to ignore it, Josie was finding comfort in his strong hand over hers, the familiar scent of him as he sat close to her, body touching hers.
Houston had all the poise and self-confidence that she lacked.
And when he was like this... warm and caring and personable, she found herself unable to resist him.
This was the Houston she had come to care about, admire, and respect. One who gave his very best and cared about each and every one of his patients, whether he wanted to admit it or not. This was the Houston she was fast developing feelings for that reached far beyond admiration and attraction.
“Surgery is impersonal, Josie. Not because the surgeon is cold-hearted, but because it has to be. When you’re in that OR, it’s about fixing the problem.
Doing your job and doing it correctly. Like with Mrs. Frenske.
You do a great job, but you hesitate.” He smiled a little, nudging her with his knee.
“I told you before and I’ll say it again.
You need to display a little arrogance like most surgeons and just do it.
Own it.” There probably wasn’t an arrogant bone in her body. Maybe he had her share.
“That’s easy for you to say. Just do it. Well, it’s not like that for me. I have to look in the mirror every day, and I don’t see a professional, intelligent surgeon staring back at me. I have to work harder to earn respect, I have to force people to take me seriously.”
Agitated, she stood up, wanting to get away from him and his perfection. “You can’t understand that. You’ve probably never doubted yourself a day in your life. Lately, that’s all I have.”
God, she was going to cry. Tears were hovering, threatening, embarrassing little bastards, ready to show him just how inadequate she was. He, who was always in control, watching her spin way, way out of it.
“Josie.” Houston stood, and he was going to touch her and she wanted to hide, crawl inside her own skin and get away from him.
“Don’t, please. Just leave me alone. I’m an emotional wreck and you’re embarrassing me.”
But he didn’t leave her alone. Instead he took her hands in his, spun her around until she was facing the full-length mirror between the rows of lockers.
Josie winced as she saw herself, the blood-stained gown emphasizing her roundness, making her look like Frankenstein’s goony sidekick.
She had dark circles under her eyes, mussed hair from the cap, and she wanted to ignore it all, to pretend that she was gorgeous and confident and could waltz into a surgery and take charge. But she couldn’t.
She closed her eyes against Houston staring over her shoulder with eyes that saw all of her, inside and out.
“You are a good surgeon.” His hand stroked hers, even when she stiffened at his words.
“And it’s the emotion that I like about you. The way you care is really amazing. You have a way with people that I could never have, not on my best day.”
“That’s not true,” she whispered, eyes still screwed shut, dark spots dancing behind her eyelids. “You’re brilliant.”
“No more brilliant than you.” His hand was caressing across her stomach under the gown, intimately, caring. “I’m just older, more experienced, colder. The emotion thing scares me. That’s why I’m a surgeon.”
Josie felt the gown being brushed down her shoulders and dropped to the floor. She shook her head, but his hand kept moving and his voice was low in her ear, stroking her resistance away.
“That’s why I told you to leave my condo last week. You scare me.”
Lips touched the base of her neck and Josie shuddered, feeling too weak to pull away. He was offering comfort, and God, she needed it. “I wouldn’t scare a flea,” she said, catching her breath when he brushed her nipples.
“You have more power than you realize.” A laugh tickled her ear. “Maybe it’s a good thing you don’t realize how much.”
“Stop.” They were supposed to be friends, not cross this line again, but he didn’t even pause.
Those fingers she remembered so well from their one night together slipped between the waistband of her scrubs and her panties.
She jerked back, knowing this was her last moment to halt his hand before it went any farther.
But she collided with his erection pressing hot against her backside and she couldn’t remember anymore why she couldn’t do this, why she couldn’t take his reassurance and soak in it.
“Houston ... I don’t...” She trailed off when his thumb found her clit through her panties and rolled over with firm back-and-forth motions. Reason still urged her to pull away, step forward, get out of the locker room.
But her body didn’t agree, and her heart hurt too much to pretend that they were or could ever be friends.
“Shh. Put your arms around my neck. Then open your eyes, Josie.”
It felt good, so deep-down good, the way he was touching and prodding and coaxing her body into desire, into wetness and longing.
Taking her from hurt and scared to distracting pleasure.
Muscles in her shoulders and calves relaxing, others tensing in anticipated pleasure, tightening and clenching, leaning into him.
She lifted her arms, locked them around his neck, felt her chest heaving and her breasts tingling with need, pressing taut against her shirt. Her legs spread, her hips arched, and that sound, the yes, yes, gasp came rolling out of her mouth.
“Open your eyes. See how gorgeous you look. How smart and caring and beautiful.”
Josie didn’t want to, didn’t want to face herself and all her defects, just wanted to hover in the fuzzy darkness, feeling Houston rock her into pleasure. He slipped a finger inside her panties, teased around her curls, sank in briefly, sparking a flood of moisture, then pulled out.
She gave a groan of disappointment.
“Open your eyes or you can’t have it.” Then his tongue dipped into her ear, hot and wet, making her squirm with want, making her ache to feel him inside her.
With a shuddering breath, she dragged open her eyes.
Saw her face flushed with pleasure, saw his dark look of concentration, saw his tongue retreat from her flesh, saw the bulge of his hand in her pants, the dark hairs on the back of his wrist rising from her scrubs.
Then watched her own eyes go wide with shock when his finger sank deep inside her, in and out, with a lascivious little wiggle that sent forth another rush of heat from her body.
She felt vulnerable, raw, embarrassed by her body’s quick reaction to him, the obvious soaking wetness of her desire saturating his finger.
But it paled to the other feelings Houston drew out of her.
The comfort, the want, the freedom to let go, to indulge, and to distance herself from the OR.
To revel in having saved her patient’s life, arid to appreciate all that she had.
To enjoy a stolen moment with Houston, where he wasn’t pushing her away from him.
Josie watched herself, arched against Houston, panting, biting her lip, straining forward, and damn, she was pleased with what she saw. She liked herself, her brains, her humor, her generosity, everything that made up who she was, including her less-than-perfect body.
And so did Houston.
He stroked her faster, on and on until she felt nothing but tight, hot pleasure ripping through her, urging her to abandon any reserve and just enjoy.
Then he whispered in her ear with a sort of miraculous awe, “You are so fucking sexy.”
It was all she needed to hear to send her pulsing and pressing and squeezing into his hand, an orgasm ripping through her with shuddering gasps.
She held on to him, fingers gripping his thick black hair.
He didn’t let go.
And if there was a punishment for coming in the locker room after surgery, then bring it down on her, because it was damn well worth it.