Chapter 7
CASH
Thad…fuck…Dr. Vale led me down the hallway of his sleek, swanky office to the front desk. I fought the urge to pinch myself with every step. The knee brace I hadn’t put back on after Thad had me remove it during the exam swung from my fingers, brushing against the outside of my leg.
He stopped outside a door. The name plaque—Davina Devenport, Business Manager—gave me pause, but Tha—Dr. Vale waved me into a chair in front of a large, dark wooden desk, set before a wall of bookcases sitting atop cabinetry with doors and drawers.
The bank of woodwork matched the desk perfectly. It oozed sophistication and money.
Once I sat, he did as well—in the chair next to me. He gave me a soft smile, then said, “Davina, Cash needs to be set up with the treatment team to prep him for surgery.”
Those words cemented themselves in my mind and took possession. They were the last thing I really processed. Between the realization that he was actually setting me up with his team and the way he splayed his legs wide, his knee pressing against my good leg, my brain short-circuited.
Their lips moved. The room hummed with their words, but none of them got through. Thad handed me the binder Davina pushed across the desk. I flipped it open, hearing but not hearing what was being said around me.
My eyes lit on the pre-op regimen. The list, a year ago, would’ve scared the shit out of me. Now, the highly regimented days and weeks detailed in the tabbed binder only energized me. It gave me a game plan. No different from training camp.
I turned pages and flipped tabs, growing more and more excited until…I flipped another page…motherfucker. I stopped. The words at the top of the page pulsed: Patient Financial Obligation Agreement.
And farther down the page: Patient Insurance Information.
Fuck.
Goodbye, good mood.
I stared at the words. The number in my bank account shoved its way into my head. Halo House had stopped the hemorrhaging. Thank fuck. But sweet Jesus, this would cost a fucking fortune.
And I hadn’t asked.
How the hell had I not asked?
I’d spent months counting every goddamn dollar. Rideshares. Rent. Utilities. Food. I’d counted every single thing that took a bite out of the money I’d saved while playing for the Breakers.
All of it had whittled away at the number, but nothing like losing my health insurance.
Then the best orthopedic surgeon in the fucking country told me there was a surgery that might give me a chance, and apparently, Cash Benjamin’s last remaining brain cell had packed its shit and gone on vacation.
I’d said, “Yes, let’s do the surgery.” Not once had I asked what the motherfucking thing cost.
Brilliant, Money. Absolutely fucking brilliant.
I flipped the page, hoping removing the words would shut down the looming panic attack.
Only the next page smacked me in the face.
Listed there was something even worse than the veiled hint of financial ruin thanks to financial responsibility obligations and insurance coverage I didn’t have.
Numbers upon numbers stacked together and tallied up with words like estimated costs, possible reimbursement, and patient liability.
Panic, the likes of which I hadn’t felt since cold seeped through my sweat-soaked gear as I lay on the ice, realizing my future was no longer a guarantee, seized my heart.
Not even the attack that grabbed hold of me during that last consult when I was told my health insurance had lapsed could compare.
“I don’t have health insurance.” The words exploded from me with no regard for who sat in the room with me. Or that Davina was speaking.
My word vomit stole my vision. Everything whited out and my breath grew short.
A hand—Thad’s hand unless Davina had large manly hands—wrapped around my thigh just above my knee and squeezed.
More monotone words hummed around me unintelligibly.
The only thing that stood out was the low, rumbly voice and then the sound of a door opening and closing.
The chair moved, startling me, but that low rumble began again along with the squeezing of my thighs.
Both of them this time. The squeezing changed to a massaging rub.
The big, strong hands moved from knee to upper thigh.
The higher they moved, the more aware I became until my eyes caught sight of the sexy silver fox doctor kneeling between my splayed legs.
“There you are,” he whispered, his voice soft and comforting.
Unable to deal with the emotions, I cut the tension by coming onto the man. “You look good on your knees before me, Doc. I could get used to this sight.”
“Fuck,” he swore through a burst of laughter. His forehead dropped to my knee. The good one. As if he knew exactly which knee could handle the added weight. He probably did, but it still struck a chord.
And if his head being close to my dick while the man knelt between my legs didn’t already have me hard as a rock, the kiss he pressed to my knee would’ve. I groaned, my head falling back on my shoulders while I threaded my fingers through his thick, wavy, dark-brown hair.
He froze in place. Several heartbeats—a shit ton of heartbeats really, given how fast my heart thundered—later, he lifted his head, propping his chin on my knee to look up at me. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
“I have to disagree. I’d like you to do it again and again and again, only I want us both naked with you kissing a whole fucking lot more than my knee.”
He stood, leaning back against the desk behind him.
His dick, hard and pressing against the fly of his dress pants, put on a show and made my mouth water.
All I would have to do was scoot forward, open his pants, and I could have him in my mouth.
His flavor painting my tongue. The smell of him filling my nose.
Impulse overtook common sense, and my body followed the thoughts playing on repeat. I slid forward and my hands lifted to grip his belt buckle. His hands covered mine, his eyes meeting mine while he held my hands in place, right above the outline of his hard cock.
A knock sounded at the door. “Dr. Vale?”
I lifted my brow, and he swore softly under his breath before calling out, “Give us a minute, Davina.”
“We’re heading out to lunch. I’ll finish going over Mr. Benjamin’s paperwork—”
He moved away from me to open the door. “It’s all right, Davina. I will get him up to speed. He’s a friend of a friend.”
“If you’re sure—”
“I am. Take everyone to lunch on the office. We don’t have anything pressing this afternoon.”
She thanked him profusely, and he shut the door.
“Hmm…I like this. A secret rendezvous with a sexy doctor in his business manager’s office after he sent them out to lunch,” I said, rising to my feet, carefully picking my way around the furniture between him and me.
“Jesus, fuck, kid.”
“Yes. Doc. Jesus wants you to fuck this kid. Just tell me how and where and I’ll drop trou.”
“You’re a fucking brat.”
I stepped closer. The pressure of his warm open hand over the center of my chest did nothing to deter me.
I gripped his neck, pulling him closer. His mouth hovered, his eyes dropping.
My cock fucking throbbed at the thought of how this big, sexy silver fox could take me apart and put me back together.
With a growl, our mouths met. I couldn’t say who made the decision or the move, but the man kissed me without hesitation.
He took ownership of my mouth—teeth, tongue, lips—they all worked together perfectly to rob me of thought and sense.
Instinct, lust, or a combination of the two, had me pressing into him, one hand buried and fisted in the thick, soft hair on the back of his head while the other wedged between our bodies to trace the outline of his cock.
Thad’s rock-hard shaft jumped under my hand, and I moaned.
My fingers found the zipper pull. I wanted him in my mouth.
I needed him gagging and choking me with his impressive length.
I needed to taste and smell him. I tugged on the zipper.
The sound of the metal separating filled the spaced between us, along with the ragged breaths as we panted. My hand slipped inside the open—
I stumbled back. Thad’s hand was in the center of my chest. He’d pushed me away, wrenching our mouths apart.
He stood before me, gulping air, reminding me of a guppy I’d once seen at a pet shop where my dad bought the mice he fed the terrifying snakes he’d kept before he’d gone to prison.
Refusing to let the terror of my childhood enter the conversation or my already fucked-up equilibrium—thanks, word of the day app for that one—I gave myself a mental shake and focused on the here and now.
His outstretched palm pressed into my chest as I closed, or tried to, the space he held between us.
“We cannot—”
“Nuh-uh, Doc. Nope. We’re not going there.”
He zipped his pants and dragged his hands through his hair. “It’s unethical.”
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“Because you’re my patient.”
I rolled my eyes. “And I have a buddy who fucked his coach, who happened to be his dad’s best friend. I’m a fucking adult. And so are you. We met and were attracted to one another before all this, Doc. We get to choose—”
“That’s not how medical licensing boards look at it,” he said, interrupting me.
“What are you talking about?”
“There are ethical issues around doctors dating or fucking their patients,” Thad said, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed, the fucking seeming to get hung up in his throat a little.
I stepped away with a sigh, my arms crossing over my chest. “So you’re telling me I can have you in my bed or I can have you in the operating room but not both?”
“Yes.”
His hand slid into the front pockets of the dress pants he wore. The material stretched tight over his groin, highlighting that he was just as hard as I still was.