Chapter 6
ROWEN RUBBED THE SIDE
of his face. He’d forgotten to keep his food on the left side of his mouth, and with one chew, he had a scorching pain slice through the right side of his head.
But that wasn’t the truly horrifying part.
“Hey, man,” His cousin Gavin waved as he pulled his truck into the parking lot of Heather’s office.
Rowen rolled his orange peels into a napkin, before stuffing it in his lunch bag and tossing it in the truck. His eyes stung from exhaustion. It had been another long night of call after call at the fire department, with the last one being a three alarm, meaning a bad fire.
No one was injured, but the building was toast.
He loved his job, but after a shift like that, all he wanted to do was sleep, and if he didn’t get home soon, his body would realize it was eight in the morning.
“Thanks for coming.” He gave Gavin a slap on the shoulder.
“No sweat.”
He and Gavin, at times, were more like brothers than cousins, being they were only a few months apart. They grew up ten doors away from each other and gave their parents a fair amount of grief. Gavin also worked as a fireman for the same station, but he also helped run LockDown, a local security system company. How he managed both jobs, Rowen would never know. Even when he’d been young and energetic, he valued his spare time. Of course, Rowen had always been the kind of man to have a girlfriend.
Gavin, on the other hand, preferred to be single.
“I told her you wouldn’t charge to diagnosis the problem.” Rowen rolled his neck. He wasn’t going into Heather’s office to be seen as a patient. He was going in as a friend, giving her a hand with a problem.
A quick jab of pain shot to his eyeball.
Heather’s office had been built inside an older, three-story house with dark blue paint and accented with white trim. A big tooth chair sat on the porch next to a sign that read: Dr. Heather Holbrook, DMD.
It didn’t matter how welcoming she made her office, it was still a chamber of pain.
He ignored the bolt of agony shooting to his brain.
“MiMi says you’ve got it bad for the good doctor.” Gavin glanced over his shoulder with a smirk as he opened the front door. “She also said you’ve been behaving like a toad.”
“Both statements are only partially true, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t act like an asshole once we get inside.”
“I can’t promise anything.”
Rowen rolled his eyes. There were no secrets in his family, and your entire life was fair game at any given time.
They stepped into the reception area. A cute blonde girl glanced up over her computer screen. “May I help you?” she asked.
“We’re here to check out the fire alarm. Dr. Holbrook is expecting us,” Rowen said. Calling her doctor
not only felt weird, but it reminded him of the constant dull-ache in his mouth.
He liked calling her Heather better.
“Great. I’ll show you to her office.”
Rowen and Gavin followed the cute blonde up a flight of stairs and into a large room, turned office.
“Wait here, she’s with a patient,” the woman said.
Rowen glanced around the room. A built-in bookcase lined the back wall behind a mahogany wood desk. A laptop and a stack of folders had been placed neatly in front of the chair. A couple of picture frames sat proudly on the wood surface. Heather’s tastes were simple, but elegant.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Heather’s voice bounced off the walls and landed in his ears like smooth jelly being spread over bread.
“No problem,” he said. “This is Gavin, he’ll assess the situation.”
“I really appreciate it.” Heather sported a white lab coat over her dark slacks and yellow, mock-turtleneck top. Her breast filled out the shirt, leaving little to the imagination.
“I’ll need full access to everything, if that’s okay,” Gavin said. “Where is the main circuit breaker?”
“It’s in the basement.” Heather stepped behind her desk and opened a drawer, pulling out a folder and handed it to Gavin. “That’s everything I have on the system left from the previous owner.”
“You own the building, not rent?” Rowen asked.
“The bank owns most of it, but yes.” She rested her hip against the desk. “Do you need me to show you anything?”
Gavin shook his head as he studied the documents. “I’ll need access to patient rooms.”
“My receptionist can give you the schedule. I have a light morning and I know one room is free now.”
“Great,” Gavin said, tucking the folder under his arm. “I’ll get to work.”
“And I’ll take a look at Rowen’s broken tooth.”
“Like hell you will,” Rowan said a little abruptly. He cleared his throat. “It’s fine. No pain at all.”
“Just because it’s not sensitive doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be looked at. Eventually, it will get infected if you leave it like that.”
Gavin laughed. “Good luck with him,” he said as he strode out of the office.
“Really, I’m fine.” Rowan hadn’t seen Heather since the barbeque, after her ex had showed up, he’d barely spoken to her. Instead, he watched her mingle with the neighbors, getting to know everyone. She had a confidence and ease about her…except there were times, around men, she’d bite her nail, or step back.
His heart ached for what she had suffered, but the rest of him wanted to pummel Jeff.
“Sit.” She waved to a chair across from her desk as she sat down in hers. “When I bought this practice, I bought access to the patients, which means I have your file.”
“I feel violated,” he said with a playful tone, only he really did feel like it.
By the way she furrowed her brow, she knew he wasn’t being overly funny.
“You’re due for a cleaning and it was noted in the chart by a previous hygienist that you have a major aversion to dentists, something about a childhood trauma, but there’s no notation of what happened.”
He lowered himself in the chair, avoiding her gentle gaze. “It’s kind of stupid, actually.”
“I doubt that, considering you sneak out after your cleaning just to avoid your dentist, and
the hygienist notes she doesn’t do as good a job as she could in fear you never returning again.” Heather rested her hands on the top of her desk. “Tell me what happen. Maybe I can help you get past it. Because, to level with you, if you don’t take care of that tooth, whether by me, or another dentist, you’re going to end up at an oral surgeon’s office having the tooth extracted. Or worse, in the hospital with an infection that could spread.”
Rowen raised his hands to his temples and rubbed, hard. His childhood dentist had been pure evil. A rotten man in general. After the incident, his parents took him to a different dentist, but he still hated going, and went only when forced. As an adult, he learned to suffer through cleanings, but the idea of a dentist putting instruments that looked like the tools right out of a horror movie near his mouth gave him hives.
“When I was eleven, my dentist numbed the left side of my mouth, where a cavity was, only he drilled on the right.” He rubbed his jaw, remembered every second of wiggling in the chair while they held him down, telling him to relax. When the doctor finally took the drill out, and Rowen screamed out they chiseled the wrong tooth, it was too late.
“That would make anyone terrified of the dentist,” she said in that sexy, raspy voice of hers.
He nodded. “They had to numb the other side and fill both teeth. But by then, the Novocain had started to wear off and I felt that sharp pain on the other side.”
“That is a hellish experience,” Heather said as she rose with grace and waltzed around her desk.
He couldn’t keep his eyes off her and when she stood in front of him, all he could think about was pulling her into his lap.
“I can’t promise it won’t be uncomfortable, but I can give you something to help ease your anxiety, and if you have any pain at all, we can find ways to manage it.” She leaned over him, her breasts dangerously close to his mouth. “Let me take a look, okay?”
“Okay,” he whispered. What the hell had he just agreed to?
“Come on.” She took him by the hand and led him down the staircase and into the torture chamber. The white chair looked more like a piece of furniture from the future, and it certainly didn’t appear comfortable. A big light hung over it, ready to pounce on the person below. Next to the chair, a tray of long metal torture devices, lined neatly in a row, taunted him.
“Nope.” He put his hand on the doorjamb, but Heather stood in his way.
“I’m just going to look inside your mouth, okay? One step at a time. I promise I won’t do anything but look.” Her warm hands curled over his biceps. Her smile made him weak and distorted his ability to think straight.
He swallowed as he eased back into the chair. She put a thing around his neck, then hit something with her foot, and the chair moved. Bringing the light closer to his face, she sat on a stool and took out one of those metal little mirror things.
He stared at her, trying to focus on how turned on she made him, but that died the moment he got in the chair.
Well, fuck. He’d been hoping... Thinking about her naked might help the situation, but talk about shrinkage?
“Open your mouth.”
He shook his head.
She arched a brow.
Closing his eyes, he opened his mouth. He flinched when the cold, metal object touched his the inside of his lip.
“Just taking a look. I’m going to move this around a little, pushing the side of your mouth. No pain.” Her raspy voice glided over his body, but it didn’t help him relax.
Only confused the crap out of him.
The hot chick he wanted to date, who tortured people for a living, and he’d just become her next victim.
It seemed like forever that she peered into his gaping mouth.
“Okay,” she said softly, touching his leg with a gently pat. “You can open your eyes now.”
He blinked a few times.
She smiled at him and he figured anyone who sat in this chair could be mesmerized into allowing her to violate their mouth ten different ways.
“We’ve got two things going on here. The root canal is inflamed, which could be the start of an infection, so we need to do a root canal and then I’ll put a crown on, that way we can save the tooth.”
“Nope. Not happening.”
“If we don’t, I’m sending you to an oral surgeon who will remove the tooth.”
“Nope. Not happing,” he repeated.
“One or the other. You chose.”
“Is drilling required in either scenario?”
She nodded. “We have a couple different ways we can deal with your anxiety and numbing the pain.”
“You want to do this now?” He bolted up right.
“I’m not joking when I say an infected tooth could kill you.” Her fingers curled around his wrist as she glanced at her watch. “I can get you good and relaxed and you won’t feel a thing. Have you ever had anesthesia?”
“Never.”
“Alright, I’m going to give you a pill that will help bring your heart rate down and make you groggy.”
“I didn’t agree to this.” He watched her move about the room, opening and closing drawers. “I’m fine. No pain. People live with broken teeth all the time.”
“If they do, they suffer.” She dug in her pocket and pulled out a piece of chocolate. “Bit down on that where your broken tooth is. If you have no pain, you walk. If you even twitch, you take the pill and let me fix your tooth.”
All he could think about was the onion bet.
He stared at the sweet, mouth-watering piece of chocolate, knowing if he put that anywhere near his broken tooth, he’d been screaming bloody murder.
He shifted his gaze to Heather. She’d pushed out one hip and draped one arm over her middle while she held out the candy, giving him her best, ‘I double dog-dare you’.
He wasn’t sure how he felt about the bossy, confident, in-control doctor, except he liked her more than he should.
Without saying a word, he eased back into the chair.
He swallowed the pill she gave him without water. No point in inflicting pain on himself since the sexy doctor would be doing that shortly.
This wasn’t one of those times where the saying, hurt so good
, should be used.
“If you feel any pain at all, raise your right hand and I’ll stop.”
He raised his right hand. “Practicing.”
“Do you have music on your cell? I can give some earphones. It might be a good distraction.”
He nodded. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get those lids to rise above half-mast.
“I’m going to numb your cheek with a topical before giving you the Novocain.”
He tapped the right side of his face.
She turned on the overhead light, adjusted her stool, and snapped on a set of latex gloves. He put the headphones on and cranked up some good old classic rock.
When she told him to open his mouth so she could give him a shot and that it would pinch a little, he squeezed his eyes shut. He fisted his right hand, ready to shoot it straight up in the air, but it was barely a pinch.
He kept his eyes closed while she kept his mouth pried opened. Throughout the entire procedure, his mouth vibrated, but all he felt was a slightest of pressure. His favorite tunes belted in his ears and he did his best to ignore everything else.
Everything except her dainty, soft hands caressing his arm every once in a while, and the way she whispered in his ear how great he was doing.
When it was all over, she told him he couldn’t drive, and when he tried to stand, he understood why. The room spun and his legs felt like overcooked spaghetti. He grabbed her shoulders to steady himself.
“Come on, big fella,” she said, wrapping her arm around his middle. “You can sleep this off in my office.”
Ahhhhh, sleep.
He managed the stairs without tumbling down them, though a few times he wobbled like those old wooden toys called weebles, where they wabble but don’t fall down. He fell back on the sofa staring at Heather as she put a blanket over him.
Her lips moved, but he couldn’t quite make out the words.
He blinked, trying to keep her focused, but the world went black…