Coming ine box set, p.139
Coming in Hot: Rescue Me Box Set, page 139
He glanced at me before pulling into the heavy, end-of-workday traffic around the hospital complex. “How do you think?”
“I…um…well, I’ve been here almost seven years, and I’ve never seen you so…” I winced. God, I was shitty at small talk.
“That makes sense. I left my job as head of OB/GYN about eight years ago. So, what sounds good? Beer? Martini? Wine?”
My stomach chose that moment to roar so loud that Ian chuckled. “Or maybe a burger or salad or whatever?”
But I couldn’t hear him anymore. Because I now realized who he was. I stared at his amazing, movie-star-worthy profile. “You’re that guy,” I said.
He sighed, signaled left, and pulled out onto Fuller Road. “Guilty,” he said, his voice soft.
The hospital gossip machine was well-oiled and reliable, at least when it came to doctors who’d fucked up, or otherwise brought the University bad press. I gave a low, semi-admiring whistle. He half-grinned before turning onto Huron Street, heading into downtown.
“Mexican,” I said, settling back into the rich leather, already tasting the top-shelf margarita.
“You got it,” Ian said.
“We will talk about this, though.”
“Whatever you want, Dr. Zane.”
“Do not flirt with me,” I insisted, not meeting his gaze as we sat at a red light.
“I’m not.”
I faced him then. Our eyes locked. A spike of lust shot down my spine and settled between my legs, making me squirm in my seat. “Yes, you are,” I said.
“Guilty,” he admitted, repeating himself in that sweet—hot—brogue.
I sighed, closed my eyes, and accepted what was happening to me—I was falling for a doctor, shamed long ago by a malpractice lawsuit by the family of a woman who’d come into the emergency department in early labor who’d been sent home by him, with instructions to “wait a while.” She’d reappeared in the ER three hours later, bleeding, in shock, and had died within minutes of her child’s emergency C-section delivery.
A shitty outcome. An experienced but exhausted doctor’s basic error—not running a test to ensure that she wasn’t spilling proteins into her urine which would be a clear marker for preeclampsia. He’d fought the suit at first, which only allowed the broken-hearted widower to parade his motherless infant around in the press, bemoaning the poor treatment his dead wife had been given at our world-class facility.
“I ran the test,” he said once he’d snagged a rare street parking spot and had turned the engine off. “I ran the bloody test.” He gripped the wheel, white-knuckling it, truth be told. “The lab fucked it up, mishandled the results. The ones I got didn’t indicate anything wrong. I figured out later that they were from the wrong patient.” He looked at me, his blue eyes bright again, the lines around them somehow deeper in the dusk. “But I knew staying on would only make things worse.” His hands dropped into his lap. He stared at them as if they were supposed to do something. “I’d always wanted to brew beer, so now I’m part owner of a brewery and work at a methadone clinic at nights.”
“Oh,” I said, speechless at his preemptory explanation. And at the fact of the facts. “Why didn’t that come out in the trial or the press?”
“Because I was already miserable in my job…and with my marriage. A massive change seemed pretty logical, considering I blamed myself anyway, regardless of what actually happened. So I left medicine, my wife, and my daughter behind, moved to Denver for a year and to intern at a big brewery. Pretty stupid, in hindsight.”
“Oh,” I repeated, like a dork. My stomach saved the day, gurgling and burbling and breaking the tension. “Let’s eat.”
“Yeah. Let’s.” He grinned at me, then ran around to open my door.
Chapter Three
“Wow,” Ian said after I’d more or less inhaled my first margarita and a dish of chips with salsa.
“Haven’t eaten since this morning,” I said, rattling the ice in my glass to get the waiter’s attention. My date was sipping a dark-looking beer, picking at the few chips I’d left, his expression pensive. “I’m sorry for bringing up…you know.”
He shrugged and leaned back, which provided a breathtaking stretch of his soft gray T-shirt across his chest.
Lord have mercy.
I shook my head and attempted to peel myself back from the lusty ledge. “I’ll have another,” I said when the waiter materialized. “And I’ll take the carnitas tacos with a side of street corn.” We both waited for Ian to order, but he seemed lost in thought. I nudged his foot under the table. The intimacy of this move almost did me in as he startled out of his trance.
“Uh, mushroom quesadilla, side of rice. Thanks.”
“Don’t tell me you’re a vegetarian.” I leaned forward on my elbows, the double shot of tequila in my drink loosening my typical tension. “Guess that’s what’s kept you so…hot for your, you know, maturity.”
“Despite the crappiness of that comment, I’m going to take it as a compliment.” He ran a hand through his hair, down his face, and across his lips. “Jesus. What a day.”
“Now that you mention it, why are you here with me and not at Megan’s bedside?” I smiled my thanks at my drink and the chips refill.
“It’s a little crowded what with Megan’s mom, stepdad, and brother around.” His shoulders slumped forward. I wanted to take the man in my arms and soothe him so badly that I didn’t know quite what to do with my hands right then. I sat on them, in lieu of anything embarrassing. “It’s fine. He’s a good guy. Takes care of Megan like she’s his own.”
“Oh.” I sipped, determined to slow down lest I get shit-faced and throw myself at the sad man across the table from me. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. It was all my choice. I made the decision to leave them. Seemed like the right thing at the time, anyway.” He finished off his beer and held up a hand for another. “I’m going back in the morning, so they can all go to work. If I know Lynn, she’ll stay overnight. She was…she is…a good mom.”
We sat in silence. But it wasn’t my typical, awkward, we-should-be-talking-but-we-aren’t silence. I sipped. He dug into the refreshed chips.
“So you live…?”
“Detroit,” he said. “Cheers, mate,” to the waiter for the beer.
“Cool.”
“I suppose. It’s equal parts cool and depressing.”
“I don’t know much about it really. It’s kind of this big mystery town, once bankrupt, now vibrant.”
“I don’t know if I’d use the word vibrant. I liked it because it wasn’t crowded when I moved there six years ago. Now it’s getting a little congested. But it’s not like Chicago or anything.”
“Hmmm,” I said.
“So, Lil, Lillian, Dr. Zane…” He fixed me with that blue gaze. I tried not to melt into a puddle of tequila infused gelatin where I sat. “Where did you come from anyway?”
I blinked at him, taken aback at first. “Oh, where did I go to school you mean?”
“That too.” His smile was easy, gradual, and something I thought I could never get enough of right then.
“Is this how this works?” I asked, downing half my drink and almost choking on it. I waved a hand in front of my eyes. Ian waited, his full lips twitching in amusement. “Jesus Christ, man, it’s a good thing you gave up medicine. I could have died right there while you watched.” I wiped my streaming eyes with a napkin.
“Ach, I could tell you were fine.” He sipped. “And yeah, this is how this works. I ask questions, you answer. You ask a few. I answer. We drink and eat.”
“And then?” I raised an eyebrow, unsure where my boldness had come from, unable to stop myself.
He grinned around the rim of his beer glass. I tried not to faint. Seriously. It took some effort.
“And then, I guess I’m driving you home since I can’t allow you drive now.”
I drained my second ‘rita, never taking my eyes off his. Our food arrived, which allowed us to stop the ramp-up or whatever the hell was happening. I ate a few bites, then wiped my lips and watched as he demolished his disgusting veggie quesadilla. Propping my elbow on the table, I gave into the sheer pleasure of watching him enjoy his food. He licked his fingertips, drained his beer, and plunked the empty glass on the table. His eyes were flashing.
“You never answered my question.”
I blinked, confused for a hot second. “Oh, right.” I took a small bite but could barely swallow it. “I grew up in a small town near Lexington, Kentucky. I went to medical school in Louisville. I’m a Southern gal, kinda, I guess. But I was a little, um…unmoored so I don’t really consider it home. I don’t consider anyplace home, I guess.” He tilted his head, questioning me without words. “I don’t want to talk about my bullshit backstory. It’s boring.” I looked down at my plate.
“Okay, no problem. You going to finish that?”
I frowned at him. My head was buzzy from the booze and general lack of food, but I was afraid if I ate, I’d puke. Not too sexy.
“No, I’m…full.” My voice had gone squeaky. I cleared my throat. Way to be the strong female here, Lillian, Jesus. I met his gaze. “Why did you invite me out tonight, anyway?”
He leaned away from the table, arms crossed over his chest. “You intrigue me.”
“Intrigue? That’s poetic.”
“No, not really.” He drank some water. The realization that he was as nervous as I was flashed in my head like the proverbial lightbulb. The thought—on top of the booze—hit me hard. Before I could render a clever response, he was waving down the waiter and pulling cash out of his wallet. I watched, speechless and dry-mouthed, as he went through motions, rejecting the offer of a box for my nearly full plate of food. “Well?” He was standing now, holding out his massive hand for me to take. I shook my head. “What’s wrong?”
My vision reduced to a pinprick. Weird, since I wasn’t so drunk as that. I was tired, yes, but I’d been a hell of a lot more tired in my life as a medical student, intern, resident, fellow, and now attending ER doctor. I wiped my eyes. His hand remained in my line of sight, unwavering. It was one of those Rubicon moments, I could tell. Something that, once I crossed it, there would be no coming back.
Shoving that aside, I put my hand in his, ignored the near electric shock that hit my nervous system at his touch, and rose, my body mere centimeters from his. So close, I sensed his warmth, the heat of him, something I’d come to treasure, I figured, if it came to that.
“Nothing’s wrong, Ian,” I said, more or less into his clavicle since that was what was level with my eyes. “Nothing at all.”
“Good,” he declared, his voice gone gruff, giving him away. I let him put his palm on the small of my back, allowed him to guide me from the crowded restaurant as if I needed his assistance. It was a small price to pay for the pleasure of his touch. I could sense eyes on me, jealous eyes, as we made our way to the door, then out into the now chilly night. I shivered, but not because I was cold.
When he took my hand and threaded his fingers through mine on our way to his truck, I got the oddest sensation—surreal, and yet, somehow, right in its way. Considering I had met this man mere hours ago, in the hospital where his daughter was in surgery after a tragic, terrifying bus accident. Considering I’d more or less found him in the parking lot by sheer accident or stroke of luck. Considering his hand, warm in mine, was the most perfect thing I’d ever experienced.
I must have made an out loud noise thanks to the brain load of disgusting clichéd bullshit I was thinking because he stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, forcing the busy Friday night Ann Arbor foot traffic to flow around us. He took the hand he was holding and put it to his lips. Embarrassed by the spectacle we were making, I tried to tug myself free, but he wasn’t letting go of me. “I like you, Lil, Lillian, Dr. Zane.”
“Great, but if you keep using all my names, I’m gonna place you somewhere on the autism spectrum.”
He chuckled. A sound that seemed to originate deep in his chest. “I believe we’re all somewhere on that spectrum if you know what I mean. And I think that you do.”
I flushed hot and yanked my hand out of his, not because I wanted to but because it felt like the right thing to do. “You just met me,” I whispered, willing him to take another step closer to me. “You don’t know me at all.”
He took that step, and then another one. His hands rose up my arms to my shoulders, and then he was cradling my face in both his hands, just like on TV or something. It was odd. No, it was silly, really. It was what the books I read did—“insta-love,” and I wasn’t falling for it. He might want to fuck me, but this? This was too much.
I shook free of him. He stood, motionless on the sidewalk in front of me, his eyes narrowed, his head cocked to one side as if studying me.
“You’re weird,” I declared, even as all the muscles and nerves in me urged me forward again. I took a step back. “This whole thing is weird.” I pulled my phone from my purse. “I’m calling for a Lyft.”
Ian took the phone from my hand, draped an arm around my shoulders in a friendly way, and got us back to his truck without another word. He opened my door and handed me into the cab again. He climbed in behind the wheel and sat a few seconds, staring out into the dark. “I haven’t had sex in …” He paused, held up a few fingers, then turned to me, his expression dead serious. “Five and a half years.”
I whistled, determined to keep this on a friendly-funny level. I didn’t trust myself to think of it any other way. “Well, a man of your advanced years—”
Before I could finish, he’d turned to me, grabbed my arm and yanked me halfway across the center console. To claim that our first kiss was perfect would be a lie. It wasn’t. It was all clicking teeth, and noses in the way, and the console digging into my ribs so hard they ached for a day after. But the second his lips touched mine, all thoughts of imperfection were eclipsed.
He knew to hold back, to not shove his entire tongue into my mouth and expect me to find that appealing. When I sighed and leaned into him, further bruising my ribs, he licked my upper lip, then my lower one, as if asking for permission. I gave it, opening myself to him in a way I honestly had never experienced before in my somewhat sordid past.
Okay, not sordid, but I was no virgin and hadn’t been since my junior year of high school. I suppose that I wasn’t hard to look at, and my innate disinclination to flirt or otherwise engage with other people turned me into this elusive, mysterious, hard-to-get chick. But I’d lucked into a few excellent sexual experiences in college and found my libidinous appetites to be, as they say, healthy. Or maybe overwrought was a better word for it.
Bottom line was—I liked sex. A lot. And I’d missed it since Nick had gone soft on me, wanting to “take it to the next level,” which had forced me to dump him.
Now, all my nerve endings were firing double-time. My skin burned hot. I wanted this man so badly it was like a physical pain, centered more or less where you’d expect it to be.
He pulled my hair from its messy ponytail and slid his fingers through it, giving me a split second of worry that it was still damp from the shower. He got even more serious with the kiss, leaning towards me, exploring all the corners of my mouth with his probing tongue. I met him halfway, eager, and horny as hell.
I broke the kiss and pressed my forehead to his. “You’re pretty good at this part, for an old guy. I’m guessing the rest will come back to you.” He grinned, kissed my nose, then settled himself behind the wheel again with a wince and a quick adjustment in his zipper area. I smiled at him, utterly smitten with the guy I’d just met.
“Maybe,” he said, finally, as we pulled into the night traffic.
“Not much of a conversationalist, are you, handsome?”
He glanced at me. “Takes one to know one, I’d say.”
“Touché,” I said, reaching over to put my palm on this thigh. He covered my hand with his.
“So. This is how this is going”
“This is definitely how this is going. The sixty-four-thousand-dollar question is where will we go…you know, to get it going?”
“My place, I think,” he said, relieving me of the burden of suggesting it. One of my rules in my early days as a healthy, sexually active woman was to keep my space sacred. I went to boys’ dorm rooms, apartments, basements, back seats, tents, dressing rooms. They never, ever came to mine. I don’t know why or when I developed this rule, but it worked for me. It allowed me to inhabit my own world without annoying memories of guys.
Ian glanced at me. “You have an early shift tomorrow?”
“Nope,” I said, thanking the gods of awesome timing. “You’re looking at a forty-eight-hours off-trauma doc.” I raised my hands and stretched, wincing at the various soreness within my arms, my lower back, and my hips.
“Forty-eight hours, eh?” He turned his attention back to the road. “Something tells me I might regain my memory during that period of time, despite the disadvantage of my age. I might just reecall how this whole thing is done.”
“I’m guessing you never lost it. I’m certain your powers of recall are vast.” I let my hand slide inwards and up. He put both his hands on the wheel and let me stroke what promised to be a spectacular prize for me to unwrap once we got to his place. “That’s not the only thing that’s vast,” I quipped, pressing my hand against his denim-covered erection. “Seriously, Doc, that’s quite a tool you’re sporting.”
He covered my hand again, pressing it along the length and girth and heat of him without a word. Which, I was discovering, made him even more appealing to me. We pulled onto Interstate 94, pointing east toward Detroit. “Make it snappy,” I said, settling back into my seat, more wound up than I’d been in my life but somehow, also, relaxed at the same time. As if we’d already had sex, and I was on the downward spiral nap end of that equation.
“Sleep, Lil,” my dream man said as my eyes drifted closed in spite of my body’s ongoing clamor for more. “Sleep, sweet Lillian.” He rested his right hand on my shoulder.
