Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Trevor
“Go on,” Leah says, eyeing the smears of blood on the floor. “I’ve got this.”
She shoos away straggling customers and locks the front door.
Patrick hands me a towel and I wipe up the blood the best I can. “I should wash up, but… fuck…” I can feel the smile overtake my entire face. My stomach warms like I’ve just eaten a big meal. My body is electrified. I’m overwhelmed by what just happened, but in a good way.
He follows me to the back where I thoroughly wash my hands and then lean against the counter.
“I can’t even describe what I’m feeling right now.”
“You don’t have to describe it,” he says. “I get it. The same thing happens to me after every good save.”
My head shakes back and forth, over and over. “I don’t even know how I did it, man. It’s like my body was just on autopilot.”
“Fucking incredible is what it was.” He waves an arm around. “I get this is your business and all, but dude, you’re wasting your talent here. Have you considered doing the doctor thing again?”
“I didn’t until just now. But I’m not sure I can. I don’t know if it’s allowed. If it is, there’s bound to be a shit ton of red tape.”
“Well, while you’re cutting through all that tape, how about re-joining the department as a paramedic?”
It sounds like heaven, getting to do things like what I just did every day. Anything but slinging coffee. “I’m not sure I’d be allowed to do that either.”
“I wouldn’t have brought it up if you couldn’t do it.
After what I just saw, re-certification should be a breeze.
You’ll have to take a refresher course, some continuing education credits, get your CPR-BLS certification, and pass the cognitive and psychomotor sections of the NREMT Paramedic Certification Exam. ”
My heart starts pounding at the thought of being able to do something that matters. “Seriously? How long would all that take?”
“I’m as serious as that tracheotomy you just performed. The majority of it is done online at your leisure. If you have the time to dedicate to it, it won’t take long at all.”
“Patrick, all I have is time.”
He grips my shoulder like a proud father even though we seem about the same age. “Then I’ll get started on the paperwork.” He goes for the back door. “I’ll text you later with details.”
“Thanks, man.”
He leaves, and my head is reeling. My pulse is racing.
I can’t ever remember being so excited. Then I laugh at myself.
Because surely I’ve felt this way before.
Maybe when I graduated med school. Or performed my first surgery.
I have so much adrenaline rushing through my veins right now, and there’s only one person I want to talk to about it.
I look up at the ceiling then rip open the door to the stairwell and race up the stairs.
I contemplate knocking, but surmise it is my apartment, so I walk on in. “Ava?”
When she doesn’t answer, I go in search of her. Hopefully she’s not having a panic attack or being sick over what happened downstairs. When I walk through the doorway to the master bedroom, I stop dead in my tracks. Ava is standing in front of the bathroom mirror towel drying her hair.
And she’s completely naked.
Holy.
Fuck.
Logically, I know I’ve seen her naked before.
But there is nothing logical about what’s happening to my body right now.
If I thought I was running on a hundred-proof power downstairs, that just doubled as my eyes work over her creamy skin.
Her perfect teardrop breasts. Her small waist leading down to a triangle of brown curls that are a shade darker than her hair.
I don’t actually know how many naked women I’ve seen in my life. Surely my fair share as a doctor. But there’s no way any of them could hold a candle to what I’m seeing right now. She’s pure perfection.
She looks up, catches me watching her, and gasps. Instinctively, she pulls the towel across her middle to cover up. And I can’t help myself. I’m high on life right now, and I’m afraid if I don’t take this chance, there might never be another opportunity.
I stride across the room, hoping she won’t have a problem with what I’m about to do. We’re married, after all. She did kiss me a few weeks ago. And there have been touches. Feelings. Glances.
This is okay… isn’t it?
Before I allow myself to answer that question—to second guess my motives or talk myself out of what I’m about to do—I’m standing in front of her. “Ava.” My eyes connect with hers. “Jesus, what happened down there, and now you… this…”
I grip the towel and gently tug on it, hoping she’ll let me take it from her. Because seeing her naked is almost as exhilarating as cutting into that guy’s trachea.
“Trevor.” She slackens her hold on the towel but doesn’t outright release it. “I have to tell you—”
“Ava, I fucking want you.”
She swallows hard.
The towel drops to the floor.
And my lips crash down on hers.
I know we’ve likely kissed a thousand times before.
But all I remember is the one. I have no other frame of reference.
For all intents and purposes, this is only the second kiss I’ve ever experienced.
And my god, it is an amazing one. All the pent-up energy I’m harboring from the events of the day comes out in this kiss.
And maybe all her wants and needs are reflected in the way she responds.
She seems as hungry for me as I am for her.
There’s no reluctance. Not a hint of hesitation as her hands grip my hair and hold me close.
She tastes like mint. She smells like flowers.
Her hair starts dripping all over my shirt, so in one fell swoop, I pull it up and over my head and fling it across the room.
I put my hands on her back and press her naked chest to mine.
Then I pick her up and carry her to bed.
I toe off my shoes and remove the rest of my clothes. Her eyes go straight to my stiff cock and her tongue comes out to sweep across her lower lip. Damn, that’s sexy.
Climbing on the bed, I let my hand graze across the soft skin of her stomach and ribs.
Part of me wants to just drive into her.
Re-experience my first coital orgasm. But with the way she’s looking at me now, her eyes laser focused on mine, I know I have to take my time with her.
A minute ago, I was sure she wanted to devour my cock.
Now she seems more like a delicate flower.
But that’s how it’s been with her this whole time. Since the day I came to Calloway Creek, it’s like she can’t decide if she loves me or hates me. If she wants to pull me close or push me away. If she wants to fuck me or toss me to the curb.
I must hesitate way too long for a naked guy who’s staring at a naked girl, because she pulls a blanket over her. Does she think I don’t find her attractive? That her body doesn’t turn me on in ways I can’t even remember?
I move the blanket off her. “Do you know how goddamn beautiful you are?”
Her eyes close briefly at my words. Did I never tell her she was beautiful? Or was it the curse word? And again, I have no clue if I’m attracting or repulsing her.
When she opens her eyes to find me staring intensely into hers, her face softens. This is a new look, and I wonder if this is the way she used to look at me.
“Trev—”
Before she can get out my full name, my lips are back on hers and I move on top of her. She arches into me, pushes her tongue into my mouth, grabs the globes of my ass. And suddenly, this delicate flower is becoming a ravenous beast.
My body responds instantly, push for pull, lick for suck, tit for tat.
My lips blaze a trail from her mouth to her neck, then lower.
She moans when my tongue swirls around one of her nipples.
I honestly have no idea when we had sex last. I assume it was in the fall, when I’ve been told was the last time I was home.
I’ve masturbated of course. I had to make sure the plumbing was still working after the accident.
But this is entirely different. This is…
damn… It’s as indescribable as the euphoric feeling I had saving that guy.
I shift to her side and work my hands down her body. When my fingers find her pussy dripping, my cock turns to stone. Somehow, just like how I knew the way to trach that guy, I know how to pleasure a woman even though I have zero memory of ever doing it.
She inhales sharply as I push two fingers inside her. “Oh… god… Trev…”
Her breathy words have my fingers working harder, jackhammering in and out and then searching for her g-spot.
With my mouth back on one of her breasts, I graze my teeth across her nipple.
I must do something right, because her hips buck wildly, she fists the sheets, and then she comes spectacularly, falling apart right before my eyes.
And, holy shit. If I thought she was beautiful a minute ago…
I’m about to blow my load all over her thigh. Talk about emasculating. I don’t even consider letting that happen.
Before she even stops shuddering, I’m hovering over her, elbows on the bed, driving myself deep inside her. “Fuuuuuuuuck,” I mumble into her shoulder.
I know I’ve done this before, but it honestly feels like the first time. I might as well be my sixteen-year-old self discovering all the magical qualities of the female body. Was it this good back then? Could it have been? Not a chance in hell.
“You feel so damn good.” Pump. “The way your pussy squeezes me.” Pump. Pump. “Fuck, Ava, this is amazing.” Pump then bite her nipple. “How you came when my fingers were inside you.”
She mewls loudly and her legs wrap around me so tightly I’m lifting her off the bed every time I pull my hips back. She makes more sexy noises, digs her nails into my biceps, and drops her head back. Is she going to come again?
In an attempt to make myself last longer so I can have an answer to that question, I go over the tracheotomy in my head. Oddly, though, the thought of it doesn’t seem to wane my sexual excitement. It does the opposite, amping up my adrenaline.
When Ava shouts beneath me and her walls pulsate against my cock, I thrust one last time then stiffen, coming hard inside her.
I collapse onto her, breathing heavily into the pillow under her head, knowing that in the last thirty minutes I’ve figured out exactly what I want to do with my life. Practice medicine and fuck Ava.
When I roll off her and brush aside a chunk of sweaty hair covering her eyes, I’m surprised by what I see. I thought she wanted me. Wanted this. But her gaze is a bit thorny, as if I’m a stranger in her bed.
“Ah, shit.” I rise on an elbow. “Tell me I didn’t just take advantage of you.”
“I wouldn’t have let it happen if I didn’t want it too.”
“Well, it was amazing. Were you always that responsive?”
She shrugs and tugs the blanket over her despite still being sweaty.
“Ava? Everything okay?”
She pastes on a smile I’m not sure is genuine—there’s no dimple—but I try to accept it at face value. Is this how women react after having sex? Is this how she’s always reacted? How can I not be sure?
I settle back into the pillow, not wanting to just get up and leave. “Patrick is going to help me re-certify as a paramedic. And I’m going to look into what it will take to be able to practice medicine again as a surgeon.”
Now she’s the one perched on an elbow. “So that’s what this was all about? You were on some kind of high from cutting that guy’s throat open and you needed an outlet for the fire that ignited inside you?”
She looks sad. Upset that maybe she wasn’t the catalyst for our lovemaking.
I feel about two inches tall. But I’m not sorry it happened. Maybe this needed to happen. Like Carter said, we needed to rip off the Band-Aid.
“I have to know,” she says with eyes that have become distant. “If you’d walked in on some other naked woman, would you have reacted the same way?”
“Of course not.”
“Are you sure?”
I blow out a long, distraught sigh. Because I want to be sure. But all of a sudden, I’m not sure. Because I’m still trying to figure out who the hell I am. And until I do, I can’t be sure of anything.
She climbs out of bed and pulls a robe off the chair in the corner, wrapping it around herself and tightly securing the tie as if it’s a barrier between us.
“You need to figure out if this is what you want, Trevor.”
“I do want it. I mean, I think I do. Ava, it’s not that cut and dried. Until my memory comes back, I just don’t know. But I want to try.”
“You want to try what?”
I wave a hand around. “To figure this out.”
She laughs. “While living at Chuck and Dawn’s and being a paramedic?”
“Fine. I’ll move in here. I’ll sleep in the office for now if that’ll make it easier.”
Surprise crosses her face. I just can’t tell if it’s good surprise or bad surprise. “You want to stay here?”
“Yeah. Like you said, we’re not going to figure anything out if we’re not around each other.”
“We?” She scoffs. “I’m not the one who needs to figure things out, Trevor.”
“That’s bullshit and we both know it. You need to figure your shit out just as much as I do, Ava. What if I don’t get my memory back?” I motion to myself. “Is this a man you can live with? Be with? Because I hate to disappoint you, sweetheart, but what you see is what you get.”
To make a point, even though I know I’m a dick for doing it, I jump out of bed, pull on my clothes and shoes, and walk out the door.