Chapter 6 #2
I’m out of control, drunk on how good this feels, and I need more.
Without stopping to think, I hook my thumbs under the hem of her t-shirt and sports bra, shoving them up out of the way.
Her tits are slightly more than a handful and perky as fuck, and she moans, arching forward for me to touch her.
I rip my lips away from hers, ducking to draw one pebbled nipple into my mouth, teasing it with my teeth as she writhes against me, panting.
“ Oh! ” The breathy, shocked little noises she’s making above my head send blood rushing to my already throbbing dick, and while I could happily spend hours kissing, licking, and biting every inch of her body, in the back of my mind I know we’re acting on borrowed time.
Reality is coming. Any minute now, I’ll have to face what I’ve done, and I need to take as much as she’ll give me in whatever time we have left.
I drop to my knees, running my nose over the sexy-as-fuck damp spot on her panties. Delta’s fingers tighten in my hair, and I can tell she’s trying to keep quiet, holding back so nobody hears what her doctor is doing to her behind this door.
Getting caught with my head between my patient’s legs seems like a fair trade-off for making her scream my name.
“Delta,” I groan, nipping at the sensitive skin of her inner thigh, greedily inhaling the scent of her arousal. “I want to eat your pussy, baby. Say yes.”
She doesn’t hesitate, her lips parting in shock and desire. “Yes ? —”
Outside in the hall, a door to one of the neighboring exam rooms closes and we both freeze, the hot, heavy air that had filled the room so suddenly is gone in an instant.
I lurch away, almost sprawling on the floor in my haste to put some distance between us, and the guilt churning inside me doubles when I see Delta’s crestfallen expression .
“ Doc ,” she whispers, her hands fumbling as she pulls her shirt and bra down over her chest, hiding herself from me.
“I’m sorry, I...” I don’t have words, and I dare look at her as I get unsteadily to my feet.
Turning, I fumble with the ultrasound machine, staring at the device without really seeing it as I try and fail to break free from the fog of lust that is still clinging to my every thought.
“Lay back, Delta. Thank you.” My voice is crisp, strained, and leaves no room for discussion.
“I want to eat your pussy, baby. Say yes.”
I would have done it, too, would have ripped her panties aside and made her come on my face on my own fucking exam table with my staff and other patients walking the halls just outside.
My head spins, and I stare hard at the grainy black-and-white ultrasound screen as it flickers to life.
This makes sense to me. I’m good at this, and I know the answers.
Delta doesn’t say a word, and I still can’t bring myself to look at her directly.
Wordlessly, I squirt a generous glob of jell onto her hip and press the wand to her skin.
Even the comforting familiarity of my job doesn’t help quiet the turmoil twisting inside me.
Months of holding myself back, months of telling myself I’d never touch her, and I did it anyway. What the fuck is wrong with me?
When I get the angle I want and adjust the resolution, my already-battered heart plummets through the floor.
“Do you see that?” I turn the screen toward her and point to the area that alarmed me.
“That’s your joint, where the head of your femur is supposed to fit into your pelvis.
The free space there? It means your cartilage has worn away, and this section here?
” I point higher, willing my hand not to shake.
“That’s where we’ve been focusing the injections.
It’s inflamed, possibly infected. You’ll need to come back for bloodwork on Monday morning when the lab is open. ”
I shove the ultrasound wand haphazardly into the holder on the machine and pace to the computer in the corner, panic and fear rising inside me.
I can’t let her keep training on that hip, I just can’t .
Her pain level has to be so much worse than I predicted, and the dangers of snowboarding with that kind of injury aren’t the only factors at play here.
If this goes on, she’ll be doing permanent damage to the joint, damage that a hip replacement can’t repair.
She’ll be in pain for the rest of her life.
I close my eyes, bracing myself for what I know I have to do. “I’m pulling your medical clearance.”
Silence.
“You can’t do that.” Delta’s voice shakes, and I feel sick. I would take every bit of this pain for her if I could. I would take a crowbar to my own hip if it meant hers was healthy again, but I can’t . The closest I can get is protecting her from herself and River.
Now more than ever she needs me to be her physician, not her friend, and not the man who just rutted against her on the table where her entire world is now crashing down around her.
I can do my fucking job.
“Yes. I can.” Turning, steeling myself against the effect she has on me.
I can’t allow my feelings to cloud my judgment anymore, not about this.
“The US Snowboarding Association accredited me as a screening physician when I started working with River. Every six months, I sign off on your ability to compete, and I can revoke that at any time.”
I’m being a bastard. I believe in what I’m doing and know it’s the best thing for her, but it doesn’t have to be like this. I’m being cold, hurting her, because I’m too much of a coward to face the consequences of my actions.
An almost savage pleasure fills me when it works.
Delta tilts her chin up, staring at me with her face ridged in cold fury, her lips still swollen from mine. “You don’t care what I think?”
“No. I don’t.”
I find my brother waiting for me at the bar when I enter the Merry Monk, the pub halfway between his house and mine, where we’ve made a habit of meeting for drinks a few times a month.
Despite being two years younger than me, Elliot has always felt like my older brother.
While I was busy with medical school, residency, and building my business, Elliot was living.
He’d been married, divorced, traveled the world, and started the most well-respected motorcycle repair shop in the city before I was even a fully qualified surgeon.
He gets people in a way that I don’t, and he can read me like a book.
Coming here, I expected him to take one look at my face and know I had shit on my mind, and my brother doesn’t disappoint.
“Oh no, did someone fuck with your supply organization system again?” he grins, nudging me with his elbow as I take the stool next to his.
Elliot is wearing the same patched leather jacket he always does despite the freezing temperatures outside, and as I turn to look at him properly, I see there’s a fresh tattoo on his neck.
“I never should have told you about that.” I raise a hand to signal to the bartender. “Never mention it again, and I won’t tell Mom about that .” I jerk my chin toward the neck tattoo.
My easy going, amiable brother is unaffected by the threat. “Mom’s given up on me. She has you and Phoebe to maintain the esteemed Harrison family reputation, and I’m free to be a degenerate. Thanks for that, by the way. So, are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”
I hesitate, my stomach churning. I’ve never admitted the way I feel about Delta out loud before, to anyone , and I don’t see how I could give my brother the entire story without breaching doctor-patient confidentiality as well.
I can either say I have worries about a patient and leave it at that or admit I have feelings for a woman I can’t have. Not both.
I drum my fingers on the bar, looking anywhere but at my brother, but my lack of response is enough for him to make some assumptions.
“Is this about a lady , Brooksie?”
“Don’t call me that,” I snap, feeling about ten years old the moment the words leave my mouth.
“And yes, there’s… someone. She’s a complication.
Nothing can happen.” The bartender appears, dropping fresh coasters and beer in front of both of us.
I wait until he’s gone before elaborating. “She’s too young for me.”
Delta being too young for me is the least of my worries, but it’s interesting enough to throw my brother off the chase.
Elliot’s eyes widen gleefully, “Shit, there really is someone? You never date! Mom’s going to be fucking overjoyed. Also, it would take some heat off me if you got married and had a few kids. Make that happen, would you?”
Unbidden, an image of Delta’s hand resting on her pregnant stomach blooms in my imagination and I shove it away just as quickly.
No. There will never be a time when it’s okay for me to have her, no magic end date when all the barriers between us will fall, and I can freely want her.
Not to mention that after tonight, I’ll be lucky if she ever speaks to me again.
Wrong person, wrong time, wrong everything.
The sooner I accept it, the better.
“She’s too young for me ,” I remind him cooly, staring at the multicolored bottles lined up behind the bar.
My reflection stares back at me from the mirror above them, stony-faced and unsmiling as ever.
I take a sip of beer, just for something to do besides sit there like a fucking robot waiting for activation.
Elliot frowns. “She’s eighteen, right?”
I almost choke on the beer and glare at him, my eyes streaming. “Of course she is! What the fuck!”
He holds up both hands placatingly. “I was just checking! Christ, I haven’t seen you this bent out of shape in… ever. Your shirt is wrinkled, for fuck’s sake. What did she do to you?”
Exist.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” I drain the rest of my beer and set it back on the bar top with a dull thud. I’m hardly the type to overindulge. The last time I got drunk was over a year ago, but numbing the hell out of my emotions sounds ideal right now.
She wouldn’t be stubborn enough to ignore that scan, would she?
The cold, hard truth is that I don’t know .
She has to be in a tremendous amount of pain, and I have no idea how she’s walking around, never mind training eight hours a day.
If she’s able to power through that, I’d be a fool to discount anything .
The only comfort I can offer myself is that no doctor could ever justify clearing her with a hip in that condition. Even risking the wrath of River Jacobs isn’t worth losing your medical license.
“Can you drive me home?” I ask Elliot, my voice hoarse with exhaustion.
“Of course.” His worried gaze burns into the side of my face as I stare down at my fists clenched on the glossy wooden bar. “Brooks?—”
I shake my head. “Don’t.”
“I’m just going to say this once, and then I’ll shut the fuck up until you ask for my opinion.
” His hand finds my shoulder, gripping it bracingly.
“Some rules are worth breaking, big brother. I know you like doing everything the right way, but right isn’t always black or white.
Some of the best things in life are gray. ”
My heart wrenches as my mind wanders to the memory of Delta’s wide, gray eyes, gazing into mine in the moments before I kissed her tonight.
I love her eyes.
Raising a hand to signal the bartender, I lean back on my stool. “You sound like you’re speaking from experience.”
My brother laughs. “My whole life is shades of gray. I’ll let you know when I find my best things, though.”