Chapter 11
Kevin
I closed the basement door behind me and stood there for a second, my hand still on the knob.
Ridiculous.
I was being ridiculous.
Lauren was downstairs with her ankle wrapped, her head healing, and enough trouble behind her to make any decent man keep his distance. I checked the swelling. Asked the same boring medical questions. Told her to elevate it and ice it again before bed.
Except my hands still remembered the warm weight of her calf.
The way she went quiet when my thumb pressed near the bruise.
The way her mouth had parted before she looked away and made some joke about me being bossy enough to bill insurance for it.
I walked into the kitchen, rinsed the glass I didn’t use, dried it, and put it back in the cabinet.
Then I did the same thing with the mug beside the sink.
The house was too quiet.
Usually, I liked that. The clean counters. The locked doors. The low hum of the refrigerator. A place where nothing demanded anything from me after clinic hours.
Now the quiet had a woman in it.
A woman sleeping under my roof.
A woman I carried out of Jackson’s bar, brought into my house, and somehow started wanting in a way that made every decent instinct in me feel compromised.
I rubbed both hands over my face.
She wasn’t my patient, not technically. I treated a cut and a sprain because I was there. Wanting her wasn’t cleaner for it.
I climbed the stairs and went into my bedroom, leaving the door open out of habit before turning back to shut it.
Better.
A closed door didn’t fix anything, but at least it gave the night a shape.
I stripped off my shirt and tossed it into the hamper. Then I stood there in the half-dark, listening.
No sound from downstairs.
No movement.
No reason for my pulse to stay high in my throat like I did something wrong.
I sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the closed bedroom door.
Lauren looked at me tonight like she knew exactly what my hands were doing to her, even when I pretended it was only care.
Maybe I imagined that.
Maybe I wanted to imagine it.
Either way, my body already made up its mind.
Later that night, I tossed and turned in bed, restless and wanting something far worse than sleep. Lauren was only a flight of stairs away, reminding me I hadn’t had a woman under my roof in a long time.
And not just any woman.
Lauren made me think about things I’d locked down years ago — dating, a family, wanting a life that looked different than the one I’d built alone.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her face. I could still remember holding her in the bar that night, carrying her up the stairs, feeling how perfectly she fit in my arms. Blood rushed to my groin with every thought of her, and I reached beneath my shorts and stroked my pulsing length.
My hand would not come close to feeling like being inside Lauren, but for now, it was all I had.
Just a fantasy and a fist.
With every image of her full lips, her slender figure, and her beautiful face, I went faster. I traced my thumb over the tip and felt precum slick my skin. I used it to quicken my strokes and sucked in a breath when the pleasure sharpened.
I had never felt this way over a woman I barely knew. Attraction, sure. That was common enough. But jerking off to someone I hadn’t even taken on a date?
That was new territory, and I didn’t know whether to love it or hate it.
I was getting myself off to a woman who said she wanted me while she was drunk, but for all I knew, that was all it was. She probably didn’t feel the same way now that her head was clear, even though she looked at me in a way that made me hot and needy all over again.
Lauren was young, attractive, adventurous. I was a boring doctor in a small town. There was no way she found that interesting.
Still, I could not ignore the urge riding me.
Right now, all I wanted was to sink deep into her warmth and fill her over and over until we both got what we needed.
All I could think about was her soft lips falling open as I thrust into her, her moans, her body moving under mine as I buried myself deep.
I wanted her to come around my cock. To squeeze me tight and milk me dry until my cum spilled from the corners of her stuffed pussy.
I wanted it all.
I stiffened as pleasure crashed into me, my hand moving faster as my orgasm hit. “Fuck,” I hissed, and cum spurted onto my bedsheets and over my fingers.
I breathed hard, slowly stroking myself until my cock softened in my hand.
Afterward, I lay flat on my back and stared at the ceiling.
The room smelled like sex and clean laundry.
I should have felt relieved. That was the point, wasn’t it? Take the edge off. Clear my head. Sleep like a grown man with a working brain instead of lying awake thinking about the woman downstairs who trusted me not to become every other man who had ever wanted something from her.
Instead, my chest felt tight.
I was wanting her badly enough that I couldn’t even call it wrong.
I hadn’t touched her, gone downstairs or said anything I’d have to take back in the morning.
Still, every image in my head was Lauren. Her mouth when she laughed. Her legs when she’d stretched them across my couch. Her voice going soft when she finally said my name. The way she looked at me like she was daring me to stop being so careful.
I got up, stripped the sheet from the bed, and shoved it into the hamper.
Then I stood there looking at it.
“Jesus Christ,” I muttered.
I could perform surgery with a steady hand. Handle blood, panic, pain, bad news, drunk men with split knuckles, scared mothers with feverish kids.
Apparently one woman in my basement was enough to take me apart like cheap furniture.
I pulled fresh sheets from the linen closet, put the new sheets on, then went to the bathroom, washed my hands, splashed cold water on my face, and looked at myself in the mirror.
“You’re helping her,” I said under my breath.
The man in the mirror didn’t look convinced.
Downstairs, the house stayed silent.
Tomorrow morning, I will check her ankle before clinic. I will ask about pain, swelling, dizziness. I will be calm, professional, useful.
I wasn’t going to lie here and think about her in my bed, her looking up at me with that smart mouth and those blue eyes.
I shut off the bathroom light and climbed back into bed.
For a long time, I didn’t sleep.