10. Chapter 10
The instant my skin touched his, a shockwave went up my arm and settled low in my gut.
His expression turned carnal, pinning me to my seat.
The skin of his hand was smooth and tan, and hot to the touch.
I let my thumb brush along it, my mind taking me back to a fantasy of when I had my hands on his cock, the skin just as smooth, just as hot.
I’d started this little game of chicken and now I needed to see it through.
“So, you’re telling me this is nothing but a friendly gesture?
” My heart thundered in my chest, the ache between my legs throbbing with every beat.
I was hyper aware of Justin’s presence, the smell of him, the feel of him, the way he made my stomach hollow out with want.
His eyes had darkened to deep pools of azurite. “Yes,” his Adam’s apple bobbed.
I couldn’t help it. I smiled. “You’re such a liar.”
His lips pealed back into a mischievous grin. The expression filled with dark promises. If I hadn’t been wet before, I certainly was now. “I guess it’s something we have in common then.”
I couldn’t stop the corners of my mouth from curling, recalling the time he’d called me a liar in my room when I told him I wanted nothing to do with him.
“It doesn’t mean anything,” I refused to give this pull between us any more power than it already had.
“Of course not.”
“I still don’t like you.”
An eyebrow arched. “Was that ever in question?”
“Stop being cute.”
“Am I?”
Shit. “You know what I mean.”
His hand turned beneath mine, interlacing our fingers. We both stared down at our intertwined hands, the sight hitting me square in the chest.
Okay, this wasn’t teasing anymore.
The situation had become too serious and every defense mechanism in my brain was blaring at me.
Cue self-destruction.
“Nothing is going to change the way I feel about you and my mother.”
That snuffed the light right out of his eyes, and I regretted the words instantly. I’d gone too far, too real.
We’d reached a sort of truce and I’d fucked it up.
“Katie…”
“Dr. Kingston, I was going to head out for the evening—” Midge came around the corner.
I tore my hand away from Justin’s.
Midge paused, chart in hand, studying us.
Justin cleared his throat and got to his feet, his hands strategically placed in front of his slacks, but I could still see the bulge beneath them. “That’s fine Midge, we should all head home for the night.”
“Of course,” she smiled as Justin passed, casting one last curious glance my way before following him to the back to start locking up.
I dropped my head into my hands and let out a shuddering breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.
By the end of the week, I’d made tremendous progress with my programming.
My professor was 100% backing me and was constantly in contact over all the details. We’d even discussed the market for which I could sell it.
In fact, my professor proposed the project to my department chair who’d immediately started to email some contacts. He’d gushed that I could have a buyer by the end of the Fall quarter.
I didn’t want to get my hopes up, but the idea of taking a huge step into adulthood and independence was both terrifying and exhilarating.
All my downtime at the clinic now involved working on the program. I was feeling on top of the world, until Friday afternoon.
Midge at my side, staring at me. She’d started doing that more often than not, like I was some puzzle she needed to figure out.
I concentrated on the coding in front of me.
“You know,” Midge said, effectively breaking my concentration. “You and Dr. Kingston seem pretty close.”
I kept my gaze straight ahead. “How so?” I feigned nonchalance. This week he’d been too busy to spend any real time at his wall perch, as I liked to call it. I told myself it was for the best, but it didn’t stop the disappointment.
“He’s very protective of you, and you both seem to be very aware of the other whenever you’re in a room together. You don’t get that from someone you hardly know. We’ve also never paid an intern before; do you usually make that much?”
Sneaky, sneaky Midge. She wanted me to admit to something. Too bad there was nothing there.
Nothing, I told myself sternly.
I shrugged. “This internship is to help me with my tuition, Justin must’ve worked something out with my school because of a recent, um, loss of financial aid. Don’t worry, we’re not close.”
She didn’t believe me. Her eyes continued to burn a hole in the side of my head. I knew it bothered her when I didn’t call Justin, Dr. Kingston.
“If you say so.”
The following week I got called to a patient room.
“We’re short staffed, so you can help us,” Midge said, not sounding too happy about it.
Justin was already in the room, attending the patient. A young girl, she couldn’t have been older than me, with her face bandaged like she’d been bludgeoned in the face.
I drew back. “What happened to her?”
Justin shot me a quelling look.
Right. Bedside manner.
It was a side effect of spending a majority of my time with computers, they didn’t mind when I insulted them. Well, sometimes they did.
I cleared my throat. “I mean, how can I help?”
“Here,” Midge stuffed a bag into my hand, “hold this.”
Wow. Big responsibility.
I opened my mouth.
Justin shot me a death glare.
My mouth clicked shut.
“We’re going to remove the bandages, Stacy, to see how the swelling is. Have you had any abnormal pain?” Justin started to unwind the bandages, his motions graceful and gentle.
Stacy’s big brown eyes were riveted to Justin and my grip tightened on the flimsy plastic I held in my hands.
I felt Midge’s eyes on me and relaxed my fingers.
Stacy mumbled something to Justin that I didn’t care about because I was too busy keeping my lunch down.
The bandages were thrown into the bag I held, some of them covered in dried blood.
My stomach curdled.
But that was nothing compared to Stacy’s face. Two black eyes and so much swelling, blood crushed in the creases beside her nose.
I was pretty sure I turned green.
“Katie, I need you closer, I can’t reach the bag when your halfway across the room.” Midge shot me an annoyed look. No regard for my poor stomach.
I swallowed my bile and eased closer, holding the bag out as far in front of me as possible. I felt lightheaded.
Fake nails dug into my forearm and yanked. “Here.”
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from saying anything. I could smell the patient. A distinct disinfectant and soured copper smell.
“We’ll take the gauze out of your nose now,” Midge said to Stacy and used small pliers to grip what looked like a thin cotton ball in Stacy’s nostril. She pulled it out.
Oh god, how long was it?
I gagged.
Midge threw it into the bag I held and went to the other nostril, a curve to her lips that hadn’t been there before. Did she think my reaction was funny?
I was pretty sure smiling in the face of some girls broken nose wasn’t exactly appropriate.
The second nostril started to bleed once the cotton came out. “Oh dear,” Midge grabbed more gauze from the silver tray at her side. “Stacy keep that there. Katie, honey, are you all right? You look pale.”
Thanks for noticing now, Midge.
I clenched my teeth as Justin looked up from his inspection of the patient.
I would not vomit in front of him. But my body had other plans. My vision started to tunnel. The bag dropped from my hands and the last thing I saw was Justin lunging toward me.
“Katie!”
I came to with something cool resting on my forehead and something warm around my right hand.
My body recognized him before I even opened my eyes. Only one person made my skin feel too tight and my pulse thrum in my veins.
“Where is everyone?”
Justin’s voice was low, gentle. “Most of the patients, Midge can take care of.”
I lay on one of the operating tables, the lights overhead hurting my eyes, all the equipment neatly put away and stored along the sides of the white room, unneeded.
I sat up slowly, Justin’s hand leaving mine—probably for the best—to go to my shoulder.
“Easy,” he said. Once my feet were dangling off the side of the table he stepped back. “Why didn’t you tell me you fainted at the sight of blood?”
I rubbed my temple. “Because it’s only happened once before.” The memory was a bitter pill to swallow, one I didn’t want to relive.
“When?”
“It’s not important.”
“Damnit, Katie. When did this happen?”
“My senior year of high school,” I snapped, the memory resurfacing.
The lonely ache in my chest expanding with each breath.
“The blood donation vans would come to the schools and I wanted to donate.” I shrugged; it wasn’t a big deal.
I wanted to give back, to see the approval in my teachers faces when I had to miss class to ‘save a life’.
It was the only positive adult attention I ever got.
“Everything was fine up until they stuck me with the needle and the blood started to flow.” I swallowed, feeling queasy all over again. “I passed out.”
Justin frowned. “Why didn’t the school call your mother and I?”
I leveled him with my stare. “They did.”
Straight to voicemail. They never picked up.
The staff of the blood donation van had to help me to the nurse’s office.
It was a huge deal. Everyone staring. Pointing, whispering.
Then it was nothing but pitying looks from the nurses when my mom and Justin hadn’t cared enough to answer my school’s call.
The nurse had allowed me to sleep on the cot for a whole class period because she’d felt sorry for me.
“We never got a call, Katie.” Every line on his face indicated he was telling the truth, but I’d been there. I’d lived it.
“You did. You were both too busy to care, is all.”
“Bullshit. We would’ve come in a heartbeat. I would’ve—”
“No one came, Justin, okay? Don’t pretend otherwise to try to make me feel better now. You fucking left me. Both of you. You never cared. It’s over. Done with.”
“Is that what you think? That I didn’t care about you?”
Oh no. We were not having this conversation. I was feeling too vulnerable for that. Too unstable.
“Katie,” Justin’s arms enveloped me, “you’re shaking.”
“No,” I pushed him away.
“It’s okay to take comfort from another,” he growled.
“No, not when that person is you.”
Warm, firm fingers grasped my chin and forced my eyes to his. He stepped between my knees, his voice soft. “I didn’t know, Katie. You want to think I don’t care, because for some reason it helps you keep a barrier between us. One you don’t want taken down. Why is that?”
The air grew thick around us. “You know why.” I deflected. He would never know about the devastation he wrought when he and my mom turned their backs on me. He didn’t even remember it. It was better to have him think the barrier I kept up around myself was because of the tension between us.
The inappropriate tension.
His eyes blazed, the hum between us growing stronger. “Let me take care of you.”
The words were spoken so low I might’ve missed them. My eyes widened, my spine stiffening.
Justin’s lips curled into a smirk. “Mind out of the gutter, little girl.”
I sucked in a breath. “Maybe it’s your mind that’s in the gutter, Daddy.”
I could feel him through our clothing, hot and hard and ready. His hands moved to my hips and dragged me to the edge of the table until I pressed up against him.
My gasp echoed in the empty room.
“You test my patience, Katie.”