Chapter 6
brOOKS
“ S he shouldn’t be walking . Never mind flying down mountains. Delta needs to take this season off. We’ve run out of feasible treatment options, and giving her another injection so soon isn’t possible?—”
“Out of the question.” River scowls at me, eyes flashing with the ever-present, unspoken threat that he can and will walk the hell out of here, taking his daughter and dozens of my other patients with him.
“The cortisone injections are working. You clearly fucked up the last one, which is why she?—”
I have to bite my tongue to keep myself from yelling.
It wouldn’t be productive. We’ve been going in circles since I walked into the exam room, River and I hashing it out while Delta sits silently on the table beside him.
They came here at the end of a long day at the mountain, and I’ve felt cold with shock from the moment I laid eyes on her.
It’s only been a week, and Delta has changed. She’s lost weight, her expression is set and emotionless, and she’s barely taken her eyes off the floor since I came in here. Anyone else might think she’s tired or spaced out, but I know better.
She’s in pain.
I watch River’s mouth move, arguing his case, but I’m not hearing him. All I want is to throw him out of my office, gather up Delta in my arms, and beg her to stop .
“Enough.” I cut sharply across River’s rant, unable to listen to another word out of his mouth.
I see his shoulders tense and know I’ve pissed him off, but I’m so far past giving a damn that I can’t even see it anymore.
How can he care about her career more than her?
How can he look at her right now and not see the damage he’s doing? “I’d like to speak with Delta. Alone .”
River snaps back immediately, the vein in his forehead pulsing.
“And let you convince her that she needs to sacrifice everything she’s worked for?
I don’t think so.” He turns to his daughter.
“Mind over matter, DJ. If he won’t do it, I spoke to a doctor in Denver who will.
He says it’s perfectly safe, but some doctors ,” he shoots me a filthy look, “are too scared of a lawsuit to do what’s best for their patient. ”
Delta barely blinks. “Okay.”
I think I’m going to be sick. “It isn’t safe,” I hiss for what must be the tenth time.
“She’d be risking bone death, infection, or worse.
Any physician who tells you otherwise is a hack, and I’ll personally report them to the medical board if they do it.
” Murder also seems like an appropriate response, but one step at a time.
River, unsurprisingly, ignores this. “So you’re telling me that her only option is a new hip? At twenty years old . Do you have any idea what’s at stake, the opportunities she’ll be sacrificing if she walks away now?”
“Delta.” Slowly, like it takes an inordinate amount of energy just to lift her eyes, she looks up at me.
“I’d like to take some blood to check for infection and any other issues, and we need to do an ultrasound to see what’s going on.
There are multiple complications you could be experiencing, and until we know if this is a result of the medication or your underlying condition, this conversation is moot. ”
A tear tracks down her cheek, and I would give up every single thing I have to cross the distance between us and wipe it away.
River opens his mouth to voice yet another protest, but Delta beats him to it. “It’s okay, Dad.”
“DJ—”
“Seriously, Dad. Please . Doctor Harrison is right. We don’t know what’s going on yet.” She offers him a tight smile that isn’t even a little convincing. “It’ll just take a few minutes. I’ll meet you at home and we can talk.”
River stares at her, and for the first time since I’ve known him, I see a flicker of uncertainty behind those cold shark’s eyes. He’s not sure , and the fact he still isn’t backing down is somehow more chilling than if he was utterly convinced he was right.
“Fine,” he finally agrees, snatching his jacket off the chair in the corner. “Call me when you’re done here, DJ.” His eyes flash to me, an unspoken threat hanging in the air between us.
I nod tersely, the closest I can offer to an olive branch.
The moment the door closes behind him, Delta deflates. “You don’t need to say it.” Her fingers tear at the paper sheet covering the table beneath her. “I know.”
“You’re fucking up your body.” I don’t bother mincing words or being professional.
Professionalism flew out the window a long time ago with this woman, and I’m too raw from walking into this room and coming face to face with a shadow of who she was a week ago.
“Even if you manage to qualify for the games, and that’s a big if Delta, there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to compete.
Whereas if you take the year off and get this surgery, you might come back. ”
“In four years? With a hip replacement?” she scoffs, raising her eyebrows like she’s daring me to say this is possible.
I don’t reply, because I can’t.
Four years is a long way off, and athletes who compete at her level rarely last until they’re twenty-four, especially not with existing injuries like Delta’s.
To the best of my knowledge, there hasn’t been a professional snowboarder with any kind of joint replacement, and not a world champion.
I might despise the man, but River is right about this.
Forcing her to stop now, asking her to get the surgery, means her career is almost certainly over.
“Let’s just take a look, and we can go from there. I don’t want to speculate, Delta.”
We stare at each other, and finally, she nods, her bottom lip trembling. “Okay.”
I swallow the lump in my throat, fighting the urge to cross the room and pull her into my arms. She’s scared, I’m scared, and the lines between us have become so unbearably blurred I don’t know if I should be comforting her or diagnosing her.
I’ve let this go too far, and in my heart, I’m sure this is the last time she’ll be here as my patient.
This is precisely why physicians aren’t supposed to treat family members. It’s impossible to think clearly when someone you love is in pain.
I turn away before I can do something I regret, crossing to the portable ultrasound machine we keep in the corner and unwind the cord to wheel it over to the table.
When I look back at Delta, she’s slipped down to the floor and is trying to shimmy out of her yoga pants, wincing even at that small movement.
Fuck.
In a trance, I move to her side, my mouth suddenly dry.
“Here.” I kneel, my thumbs slipping under the waistband to pull them over her hips and down her legs, all while fighting to not to let the sight of her bare skin or the tiny blue panties she’s wearing affect me.
This situation isn’t supposed to be erotic.
She’s in pain for fuck’s sake , and I hate my inability to separate myself from my attraction to her, even now.
When I straighten up, I realize too late that our bodies are only inches apart. We’re so close I can feel the heat rolling off her skin and smell the coconut shampoo in her hair. The air in the room seems to have gone unnaturally still around us.
Her breath catches when my hands reach out, settling on her waist. “Let me help you back up.” I have no control over how strained my voice sounds, or how her breathless little nod sends molten heat down my spine.
There are procedures for this, proper ways that medical professionals are supposed to lift a patient with limited mobility, and possessively digging your fingers into their waist isn’t one of them.
Delta’s hands find my shoulders as I lift her back onto the exam table, and despite the fact I have no earthly excuse for it, I still don’t let go.
Her inner thighs are pressed against my hips, and I don’t dare look down, terrified at what the sight of myself standing between her bare legs will do to me.
The alternative, though, staring into her wide-eyed face and seeing that she’s just as affected by this as I am, might be worse.
I can’t pretend she doesn’t want this too.
My cock throbs painfully .
“Do you—” I have no idea what I’m going to say. “Do you like this?” , “Do you want me?” , “Do you need me as badly as I need you?”.
Delta’s hands slip from my shoulders down to my chest, her breathing ragged, and I know she must feel my heart hammering beneath my skin.
Tension crackles like electricity between us, and there’s no excuse for holding her this way, no justification, no way to call this anything other than what it is.
We’re suspended in time, hurdling toward the edge of something impossible, and all it would take is the slightest nudge to send us over into oblivion.
I thought I knew what desire was, thought I knew what it was to want another person, but those instances were nothing but feeble imitations of what I feel for her.
I’m drowning, and she’s oxygen. Kissing her isn’t a choice, it’s instinct.
I’ll never know who moved first, but it doesn’t matter. I’ve imagined kissing this woman a thousand times. It’s kept me up at night, picturing it slow and teasing, hot and desperate, but my imagination is obviously shit because all those fantasies pale in comparison to reality.
There’s nothing hesitant or sweet in the way our lips crash together.
It’s frantic and all-consuming, an explosion of want .
Within seconds, I’m dragging her into my arms, crushing her body against mine as I devour her.
Delta moans into the kiss, her hands tangling into my hair, pulling.
The pinch of pain sends my lust impossibly higher and my hips jolt forward, grinding the length of my erection into those cock-tease fucking panties, feeling the unmistakable slickness through the material.
She’s wet.
She’s fucking wet for me.