15. Sophia
15
SOPHIA
I had to admit the simulation software Jack had me working with was pretty cool. I had done an appendectomy, a cholecystectomy, a trauma surgery, and even a gastric bypass. The system had every surgery imaginable broken down into categories for everything from orthopedic, to internal medicine, to neurological and cardiac. I was fascinated with it even if I had to use a mouse for everything and the extension remotes that paired with it weren't available. Jack said they were too expensive.
"What's that?" Leah asked me, leaning on the coffee table where Jack's laptop sat. She had been "helping" me with my practice while Jack cooked dinner for us, and now that dinner was over and he was cleaning up, she was here at my side again, distracting me.
"Uh, that's a lung," I told her, trying to focus. Jack walked in with a towel in his hands, drying them, and I could hear his scowl as he spoke to her without even having to see his face.
"Leah, I asked you to leave Dr. Chen alone. She needs to do her studying." His shift from calling me Sophia back to calling me by my title and surname felt like a slap in the face, but after our conversation this afternoon, I knew why he was doing it.
What happened between us should never have happened and we never took time to talk about it. Maybe we should have, but that night, I knew he had left his daughter in the on-call room with a nurse who had a job to do. We didn't have time right then. Then we got bombarded by a very busy week and an even busier weekend last weekend. I had plans on Saturday and my family thing on Sunday while Jack was on call all weekend.
Now, Wednesday night, and an odd night for Jack to have his daughter, we'd finally squeezed in time to do more intensive studying together, but having that conversation in front of his seven-year-old wouldn't work. Not to mention the fact that the damage was done. I could tell he was affected by the sex too, whether he cared to admit it or not. He was nicer to me, harder on Dr. Briggs, and then there were the times he just sat and checked me out so obviously.
"But she's playing a game I like to watch," Leah said innocently. "It's my favorite."
"Your favorite, huh?" Jack asked her, flipping the towel so it hung over his shoulder. Then he picked her up and tickled her. "When do you play this game?" he asked as she giggled and squirmed. Then he dropped her on the couch next to me and she sighed.
"I play at Mommy's house all the time." Leah crossed her arms over her chest confidently, and my God, I wished I had half the confidence of this child who was clearly lying.
"Now, baby, what have I told you about lying?" Jack lowered himself onto the couch beside her, and I sat back and watched the interaction. He was such a good father, not scolding and harsh like mine. His gentle correction helped coax the lie right out of her.
"I know, Daddy. I'm sorry. I just want to watch." Leah climbed onto his lap, and I smiled at the sweet interaction.
"Well, how about we read you a bedtime story instead?” I offered, glancing at the bookshelf across the room. Jack had a big collection of books, some novels, some textbooks. But there was a shelf dedicated to children's books, and Leah's eyes lit up as I said that.
"Yeah?" she said, looking at her father.
"I like that idea," he told her, and she scrambled off his lap and ran across the room. "We don't have to do this. You should be studying. Let me take her into her room and I'll read to her."
"Nonsense. I love kids. I told you that. Besides, she clearly likes me, and it's good for her to have positive role models." I waved off Jack's concern knowing I could come back and use this software any time.
Leah chose the book, The Hungry Caterpillar , and this time climbed onto my lap. I noticed Jack feign jealousy, but he was joking. He scooted closer to me as I opened the hard cover and started reading. Leah got so into it that she was making funny voices and reciting things the insects were saying, and I realized she had the book memorized. We moved on to another book, then another, and when she asked for a fourth, Jack drew the line.
"Bedtime, little miss." He took the books from her and set them on the coffee table, and she pouted.
"But just one more," she whined, and he was firm.
"Go put on your pajamas and brush your teeth. I'll come tuck you in." He chased her off, but before she ran out of the room, she gave me a big hug.
"See you later, Sophia," she said sadly and then ran away.
Jack chuckled. "Oh, the drama," he whined in even more dramatic tones and said, "I'll be right back.
Without skipping a beat, I dived back into the simulation. The technology was incredible. I found myself so engrossed in it that I hardly noticed that he came back into the room. Then he left again, and I heard the dishes clattering as he finished cleaning up from supper. When I finished two more quick surgery simulations, my eyes were tired. I didn't want to just leave without saying goodbye, so I decided to tidy up while waiting for Jack to come back.
I closed his laptop and turned the Bluetooth mouse off. Then I picked up the stack of books and walked over to the bookshelf to replace them, quickly finding Jack had alphabetized the whole lot. It made me grin at how organized and meticulous he was. Then my eyes scanned the towering shelf loaded with so many good titles. He had psychology books, surgical books, smutty romance novels, and one with the title, " Addicted to Cheating ." I started to get the idea that maybe his divorce really was as unhappy as he claimed.
"Lots of good ones," Jack said, almost startling me. "You can borrow anything you like." I never heard him come back into the room, let alone walk up behind me.
"These are really great, Jack. I don't know how I'd even have time to read them all." I grinned at the odd collection and tried to just soak in the titles. He really did have similar interests and tastes as me.
"Ah, you'd be surprised. A few pages a day equates to a whole book in a few months." He reached up and pulled one off the shelf called Abnormal Psychology . It had a picture of a woman holding her head on the cover and just the title appealed to me. "I loved this one when I took my psych classes. So interesting how the brain works."
"But you didn’t become a neurologist?" I was joking, but Jack took it more seriously.
"Not even on the cards. I was more fascinated by the internal organs and how they cooperate to make the body function." He slid the book back into its spot on the shelf and pulled another one down. " The Basics of Saving a Life ." He tapped the cover and said, "This one is a good one. You should read it."
I scrunched my nose and took it from his hand. "It's a military book?" I asked, not understanding why he'd even have this one.
"Yes. I enlisted for a single tour, twenty-four months. After reading this in basic training, I knew I wanted to be a surgeon. Back then, it would have been a field surgeon, but they aren’t given the same title or licensing as someone who went to college and graduated from med school. I left the army when my time was up and went back to school."
I looked up from the cover of the book as I heard the nostalgic tone in his voice. "Which is why you're only just chief resident at what, forty?" My honest stab at his age made him wince and press his hand to his chest as if I had mortally wounded him.
"I look that old?" he asked, chuckling, but before I could answer and feel stupid, he continued. "I'm thirty-eight, and yes. That's part of the reason I got a late start. When you don't start your bachelor’s until you're twenty-one, it makes eight years of schooling and five of residency delayed."
I thought about it for a second and asked, "But then you'd only be thirty-six.” I let my statement hang in the air, and he pressed his lips into a line as if he didn't want to respond, but he coughed up an answer as he moved toward the couch.
"Well, it would have been perfect if my marriage wouldn't have been what it was. Add to that a child, and well, life got in the way." He slumped onto the couch, and I thought of how my delayed start had me starting my residency only one year earlier than his. It wasn't all bad. He knew what he wanted and he was being successful. And being older while learning probably was what had given him the edge he had, what had made him that much more successful than the other residents in his rotation.
"Would it be so bad?" I asked, sitting gingerly next to him on the couch. I placed the book on the coffee table next to his laptop and angled my body to face him.
"Would what be bad?" he asked, seeming confused. So I helped him out.
"If there was a spark here." I pointed to him, then to myself. "If we hit it off. If we found that we have a lot in common and we like each other."
I'd been waiting to ask that all evening. I thoroughly enjoyed every second I spent with him now, especially when his daughter was around. He was kind and compassionate, despite my first impression of his being stodgy and a bit cocky. In fact, he wasn't at all cocky or braggadocious. He was humble and confident.
"Think about your studies, Sophia." My name on his lips was heaven. He hadn't said it in ten days, and I was aching to hear it. It soothed a deep need in my mind. "You'll be distracted. The board and HR will hound us. We'd have to sneak around. It would cause problems at work. We just can’t.”
"Jack, I've never felt a connection like this with anyone in my life. You’re easy to talk to. You know what I’m going to say before I say it. We have all the same interests and hobbies, yet we're both independent enough to not demand each other's attention. It makes sense. I know you feel it too." My body felt on edge all of a sudden, hoping he didn't react negatively. Rejection would suck so badly.
"Sophia, you're right. I feel it, but I know hospital policy, and I am in the middle of this messy custody thing. I just don't have the wavelength to do this." The way he said that only made me want him more, to help him with the custody thing, to give him the capacity to open himself for how amazing this could be.
"No one has to know. We can be super professional and if something develops, I can have my father get me an internship somewhere else. Or if it works out, we can just keep it a secret.” I inched closer to him on the couch, and he seemed to notice but didn't shy away.
"And when one or both of us lose our job? What about my ex?" His eyebrows rose, but I still wasn’t deterred.
"Let's give her something to talk about," I told him, rising up to come closer. I knelt on either side of his hips and straddled him, this time much more comfortably than in his office. "Judges like a dad who moves on and finds a good woman to be a role model for their daughter."
I had no idea if that was true, but at that point I'd have done just about anything to convince him. The need growing inside me was consuming me like a forest fire.
Jack's hands rested on my hips and he asked, "Are you sure you're willing to take the risk?"
"No risk, no reward." I leaned down and kissed him softly. At first he was hesitant and the kiss was shallow, but when I rocked my hips, he seemed to get the point that I wasn't going to back down. If I could stand up to my father and refuse to leave this city just so I could see if Jack and I had what it took to do this, I could definitely make my desires for him known.
Jack's hands became greedy and impetuous, taking their liberty across my body while I held his face in my hands and kissed him hard. When he gripped me by the ass and pinned my body against his as he stood, I gasped and shrieked quietly.
"Shh, unless you want this ruined by a curious seven-year-old.” His hiss was caution enough. I wrapped my arms and legs around him as he carried me into the dark hallway. The kissing continued as he burst into a room and shut the door behind him. He dropped me on the bed and then returned to lock the door and turn the light on.
His room was average sized, but he had a king-size bed, upon which I was sprawled. Jack returned to disrobe me in under twenty seconds as his hungry lips placed fiery kisses everywhere he bared my body. I tore his clothes off equally as fast, but he managed to snag his wallet out of his back pocket and produce a foil-wrapped condom.
"Not planning on that happening again, huh?" I asked. After the last time and no condom, with the mishap I had even come prepared, though the condom I brought was in the living room in the recliner where I dropped my purse.
"You know what? You keep being snarky like that and I'll tie you up so I can have my way with you." He smirked at me as he dropped the condom on the bed next to me and crawled across my body.
"I think I can live with that," I purred as he started nipping along my throat and collarbone. "Is that a challenge, Mister?" His mouth attacked my neck, sucking, biting, and licking. Everywhere he went, a trail of fire followed him. I couldn't wait for him to stop teasing me and just take me already.
"Oh, Honey, you have no idea," he growled against my ear before claiming my lips with his own again.
"Shit,” I managed to gasp out between kisses. He kissed his way down my body, stopping at my breasts and then continuing southward until he reached my core. His hands gripped the backs of my thighs and he pushed until my body slid upward on the bed. Then he dived in, lapping at my silken folds, sucking and nipping my sensitive skin. “Ooh.” My moan was probably a bit louder than it should have been, but I caught myself and laced my fingers in his hair as he devoured me.
Jack placed two fingers inside me, curling them upward, searching for that spot which he knew would make me scream his name. He found it, and I bucked my hips against his mouth and his fingers, moaning louder this time. He slipped in a third finger, stretching me, preparing me for what was to come. I whimpered and clenched, and he started thrusting his fingers. All I could do was claw his scalp and hang on for the ride as his tongue circled my clit and drove me wild.
"Fuck, Jack!" I screamed as he sucked me into a mind-blowing orgasm. I convulsed and writhed, forgetting my grip on his hair as I grabbed one of my tits and squeezed while I clawed at the mattress below me. He continued his movements until I was shaking and spent, then he crawled over me.
“Condom,” I managed to mutter, but he was already on it, tearing it open with his mouth and rolling it onto his rock-hard dick.
He grabbed my thighs again, and with one swift motion, he entered me, filling me to the hilt. We both groaned in unison, savoring the overdue reunion of our bodies. He started off slow, kissing me deeply while thrusting in and out, his tempo increasing desire by desire. I wrapped my legs around his waist and met every thrust he gave me, moaning into his mouth.
I could taste myself on his tongue, the sweet yet savory flavor of my juices coating his lips and chin.
He growled and picked up the pace, slamming into me over and over, his body slapping against mine. My back arched with every thrust, my fingernails digging into his shoulders as pleasure built deep inside me.
"Fuck, Jack, I'm gonna…” I panted, barely able to speak coherent sentences.
"Squeeze that hot little pussy around me," he managed to grunt out before he tilted my hips upward and drove himself even deeper into me than I thought possible. He hit that spot again, sending me over the edge into another intense orgasm.
"Oh, God, Jack… Yes!" I whimpered out as quietly as I could. He continued to pound in and out of me, his own release imminent. His face contorted with ecstasy, and a second later he joined me in climax, slowing his thrusts then collapsing on top of me in a sweaty heap.
The relaxation that sank into my body was sheer bliss. I hardly noticed when he rolled out of bed to remove the condom, but there was no mistaking his intention when he came back and pulled me to his side of the bed and held me, then covered my body.
"I should…” I reached as if I were trying to get up, and he held me more tightly.
"Stay," he whispered, then he nipped my ear. I had a feeling this could be a long night. I sank back onto the bed and let him wrap himself around me as his hand slid between my legs and rubbed.
I had to be assertive more often. I liked what it got me.