Chapter Fourteen
THATCH
She was waiting for me.
She had been waiting for me for the last five minutes.
But I literally couldn’t get my own body under control. I’d been staring at the door, thinking about the same horrible things for what felt like an hour.
Puppies being murdered.
Whiskey shortage.
Riding a bike.
Frogs.
Death.
And still, still, I was hard as a rock and ready to make sure everyone in the hallway knew it.
“Damn it.” I shut my door and turned toward the closed window, then grabbed myself as visions of Austin’s perfect body surged to the surface, making it almost painful to touch myself.
“What are you doing?” a voice said from behind me. A familiar voice. Her voice. Swear my dick all but leaped out of my hand in search of that voice and the body it belonged to.
“Nothing,” I lied. My body straight up hated me for that one, while my brain screamed, Turn around, bend her over the table, lift the skirt, just lift the skirt!
The sound of a door shutting should not at all be erotic. Or the buzzing of a computer.
The tense silence.
But all of it—was killing me.
Austin made her way around to face me, hands on hips. “Nancy said since I wasn’t a real patient and just doing this for research, that I could come find you.”
“Did she?” My hand was out of my pants, thank God.
But I had guilt written all over my face, and I knew it.
Austin’s eyes lowered.
While I prayed for control that would keep my cock from meeting her halfway.
“Someone can’t keep things professional, hmm?”
“It’s been a while.” Good, Thatch, that really sounds professional, that you hadn’t had sex in a while, and you suddenly got a boner the size of Texas when you touched a woman’s boobs—at your workplace.
Good thing Austin had never been a real patient.
My ass would have been fired so fast.
“So.” I stepped away from her; it was uncomfortable as hell trying to move in my black slacks. “The next appointment is a pre-op appointment. Our finance people talk to our patients about options, and once you pay the deposit, we schedule the surgery.”
“Wow.” Her eyes darted from my cock back up to me. “That’s really fast.”
“Yeah.”
Her eyes narrowed. “How many times? Be honest.”
“How many times, what?”
“How many times have you jacked off to a patient?”
The question cooled my lust immediately as I locked eyes with her and said, “Zero. I don’t count this time, since I was caught quite literally with my pants almost down.”
Her expression couldn’t be any more stunned. “Seriously?”
“Yes. Seriously,” I grumbled, and my body finally went back to normal, though it screamed at me to stop being an idiot and just screw her into next week.
“So, right now, had I not walked in . . .”
“Can we just drop it? Please?” I sat in my chair.
She leaned over my desk. “What happens when I leave?”
“Nothing.” Liar.
“Uh-huh.” She plopped on a chair across from me and then very slowly leaned over so I could see her cleavage through the V of her shirt, and just like that, my body was back on board. She continued to lean forward, until I was worried her breasts were in danger of spilling out of her top, and then she stood, grabbed her purse, and started walking toward the door. “Do you need me for anything else?”
Well, if that wasn’t a loaded question.
“Actually”—I glanced at my computer to keep myself from staring at her breasts—“I have one augmentation this afternoon. If it’s okay with you, I’m going to talk to the patient and see if she’d be willing to let you scrub in.”
Austin’s face lit up. “Seriously?”
“Of course. She’s really sweet, and now that her husband has passed, she’s been hell-bent on starting over—she has an incredible attitude and is probably one of only a few patients I’ve worked on who would probably vote to stay awake so she could watch her own surgery.”
Austin made a face and paled. “I think that would be traumatic.”
“She used to be a nurse,” I said, then added, “She finds the human body fascinating.”
“I just bet she does,” Austin said in a huff.
Frowning, I stood and checked my watch. “Why don’t you go grab some lunch and meet me back here at three. I’ll double-check to see if she’s comfortable with you standing in. If she says no, I’ll text you.”
“I’m a bit shocked.” Austin tilted her head, pressing her lips together like she was trying to keep herself from smiling.
“About?”
“You still have my number.”
Sighing, I tucked my hair behind my ears and shrugged. “We broke up. That doesn’t mean I’m going to completely cut you from my life.”
“Huh.” She grabbed her purse from the chair and didn’t say anything else. “I’ll see you in a few hours.”
What the hell did that “huh” mean?
And why did I care?
Mia was at my door again, ready to knock, when Austin walked out and waved good-bye.
“Dr. Holloway, your next appointment is in exam room three.”
“Right.” I had a job to do. And now that Austin was gone, hopefully I would be less distracted and horny and able to get through the rest of the afternoon without wanting to blow my head off.
“I’ll be right in,” I mumbled, glancing back at my computer.
The computer that still held the screen saver of me and Austin at dinner.
The dinner when I had asked her to move in with me.
She was wearing a red dress.
It was one of the best nights of my life—when I decided to take a leap, and she leaped with me.
It didn’t last long.
Not with the Ghost of Christmas Past staying in my same building—not with his inability to keep his head out of my life, or his demands to himself.
Sometimes I hated my own family.
And the fact that when I needed my father the most, he was drunk.
And when I wanted him to stay the hell away from my personal life, he refused to leave—and ruined the best thing I’d ever had.