Chapter 22
Twenty-Two
My lust for shenanigans is eternal.
—Coffee cup
Hux
“Would you mind?” she begged.
“Would I mind what?” I teased, trailing my lips down her spine.
“Giving me my orgasm,” she keened, pushing her butt up against me. “I’m almost late. I have to meet with everyone early, and you’re teasing me.”
“Teasing, or loving?” I nipped at her ass. “Because it feels like loving you.”
“Then make love to me,” she ground out, pressing backward into me again. “You’re killing me.”
I did.
I made love to her until we were both panting.
She reached for the inhaler on the end table and brought it to her lips.
I waited to pull out of her until she was once again breathing normally.
“Do you think that this will forever be a thing?” she asked.
I thought about it for a long moment before I said, “You’re the medical professional here. But if I had to guess? No. Maybe not as often as you’re having to do it now. Maybe your body will just get used to it?”
“Yeah, right,” she grumbled. “Now, let’s get the shower done so I can fix my hair.”
“You sound very enthusiastic about this,” I found myself saying.
I didn’t pull out of her, though.
I just lifted her into my arms and walked her into the bathroom, still seated on my cock.
My cock that never seemed to go down when she was in the vicinity.
“The new nurses are here today, and one of them gives me the creeps.”
“Then why are y’all hiring him?” I asked.
“Because we’re in desperate need of more staff,” she said.
“We’re drowning, and we need the support staff.
The one man seems okay. We had a phone interview with him.
But the other? His job as a nurse doesn’t make sense.
He’s a doctor, for Christ’s sake. Why would he be willing to take a job as a nurse?
I mean, yes, he holds both licenses. He went from a nurse to a doctor after he realized that that was where his passion lay.
But then to go back and utilize your nursing license when looking for a job in a new state? That doesn’t track. It seems fishy.”
“Someone else will come along,” I said. “This is just an in-person interview, right?”
“Right,” she confirmed.
“Then tell Odin you don’t like him after. Odin’s more interested in getting you to stay than this random man that gives you the creeps.”
She sighed. “You’re probably right.”
The shower was sadly fast and to the point.
She wasn’t the only one who needed to be at work.
I’d taken the day off with her earlier in the week where we’d binged shows again and hadn’t gotten off our asses the entire day.
The rest of the week I’d played catch-up on all my orders.
Now, it was the following Monday, and I was finally caught up. But I’d had to work through the weekend to do it.
Being an adult sucked sometimes.
She dried her hair while I got dressed.
When I was done, I fed Benz and did a load of laundry before cleaning up the kitchen from the night before. Then I was hitting the auto-start on my truck to make sure that it was warm enough for her by the time she was ready to go down.
When I finished, she was coming down the stairs with her hair in a sleek ponytail at the top of her head.
I whistled at her, and she blushed.
I caught up to her at the coffee maker and rubbed the apple of her cheek with my thumb, then went to grab our jackets.
By the time she was done getting herself a refill, I had her jacket ready and waiting for her.
She slipped one hand, then the other, into the jacket.
I zipped it up for her since her hands were full of coffee, then we hauled ass out of the house.
“You know I can drive myself, right?” she asked as we settled into the truck.
“Yeah, but if you take yourself, I have no reason to get done early and come get you.”
She smiled, and we talked about the snow and the wildlife we saw along the way to her office.
When we got there, she blew out a breath. “He’s here.”
I squeezed her hand, then got out of the truck. “I’ll walk you inside.”
I walked into the office with her hand in mine.
I caught the door when it threatened to slam on us and held it open so she could walk inside without being beaned in the head with it.
The bells over the door jingled, and I stopped at the large mat and stomped my feet off to rid my boots of most of the snow.
Bernice did the same, then dropped my hand as she started to divest herself of my large parka that seemed to dwarf her small frame. The one that she’d commandeered sometime last week and had no plans on giving back.
I helped her along, throwing the parka over my arm.
I’d keep it in the truck for her for when I picked her up later.
“Hey, Magnolia.”
The woman behind the reception desk smiled and waved.
Magnolia was a professional soccer player with Boone’s wife, Nettie, on Beau’s women’s team that his family and he owned. Apparently, though, playing professional soccer didn’t pay all the bills, and Magnolia was in desperate need of some health insurance for her child.
She’d started there the Friday before, and according to Bernice, was a godsend.
“Are they here?” Bernice whispered.
Magnolia widened her eyes. “They are. Wait until you see the one that everyone’s iffy about. He’s got these weird eyes.”
I cleared my throat. “Ladies. Y’all are way louder than you think.”
Bernice covered her mouth with her hand.
Magnolia choked on a laugh. “You’re right.”
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s get you to your meeting.”
She practically dragged her feet as she walked back to the breakroom where the meetings were being held.
They all got here an hour and a half early so that they could have a joint meeting with both men.
I heard Odin’s voice as he spoke in a low tone, but there was something off about it the closer I got.
Odin looked up as we made it into the room, his eyes blank.
Sage had her arms crossed around herself as she stood in the corner, her hips against the counter behind her.
One man looked bubbly and open from where he sat at the staff room table sipping a coffee and picking apart a muffin.
Meanwhile, the other one?
The man who stood in the corner of the room was watchful as we came inside.
His eyes were dead.
Like, literally dead.
It instantly had my hackles up.
“Odin,” I said. “You got a second?”
Odin stood, abandoning his coffee and his muffin, and came my way.
We stepped out of earshot, and I opened my mouth to say “you’re not hiring this guy” when he said, “I’m not hiring him.”
I blew out a relieved breath. “Good.”
“He gives me the creeps, and that’s pretty hard to do seeing as I’ve been to prison with some of the worst men imaginable,” he said. “I should’ve listened to Bernice’s gut in the first place. He hasn’t even been here twenty minutes, and I already dislike him.”
I nodded. “I’ll stay in the office to make sure that he leaves okay.”
He nodded. “Good.”
It took them thirty minutes of “fake interviewing” to get him out of the office with the promise of giving him a call to let him know by the end of the day.
As he walked out the door, his eyes came to meet mine, and I saw something there that I hadn’t seen before.
Smugness.
I continued to jiggle my leg on my knee and watched him go.
“Here’s hoping to never see that one again.” Magnolia echoed my own thoughts.
“Here’s hoping.”