Chapter Thirty-Four
Libby
The party at the ranch was the loudest, happiest affair I had been at in memory. George and a few ranch hands played guitar while we danced, and I was introduced to more wives and girlfriends than I had any hope of remembering. Olivia danced with Aunt Hannah and Aunt Rachel, her new best friend, and I grinned at Kristy’s confused face and jealousy at not being the favorite of my little redheaded angel anymore.
Jackson Facetimed his brother from California just so he could congratulate me and Kristy, and his girlfriend C.J., a celebrity of some kind, ducked her face in to introduce herself, as well. She and Kristy hit it off and before the end of the call, had exchanged numbers. It made me feel old and out of touch, so I let them talk and snuck off to a quiet corner to process what had happened between breakfast and the giant celebratory barbeque.
After a minute, I realized I wasn’t alone. I looked deeper into the shadows beside me, and a man saluted me with a beer. I slid closer to him, so the moon and the hanging string of lights helped me find definition in his face. He was handsome, and looked so much like Tucker, he had to be a Hargrave.
“Are you Logan?” I asked him, and he slid into the light a little more, so I could clearly see him.
“Is it that obvious?” He scoffed and I arched an eyebrow at him.
“Devilishly handsome, rugged, chiseled features that belong in a movie western, deep, sexy voice… Yes, it is in fact, that obvious.” He laughed and tipped the neck of his beer toward me.
“You should be dancing your shoes off right now. You’re the lady of the hour.”
“Hmmm. I am waiting for the party to be over, so I can be the lady of the time alone with Tucker,” I replied. “We need to get back to reality, and I’d like to get him alone before then.” He laughed aloud and shook his head.
“Tucker!” he yelled across the terrace at his brother, “get over here and claim your woman before I do.” Instantly, it seemed, Tucker materialized, menacing his younger brother as he swept me into his arms.
“He was kidding, Tuck,” I reminded him gently as he carried me into the house.
“Not likely. Logan loves beautiful women, and I haven’t made proper claim to you yet. He’d romance you off your feet and make you blissfully unaware I existed, just to spite me.” He continued blasting his brother until we were out of earshot and I head his brother’s laughter follow us. I was shocked by the exchange, but his tone was affectionate, even while he cursed the day Logan was born.
“I’m jealous,” I confessed, “I wish I had a family like yours.” Tucker kissed my forehead and set me down on the stairs. He sat next to me and took my hand, and my heart fluttered.
“You don’t need to be jealous, Libby. My family is your family.” I scoffed. “Until I go home. Then it’s just me and Olivia. Kristy won’t need to stay with me anymore. She’s already called Veronica and offered to sell the house to her for the cost of the paperwork. For a moment, people surrounded me. Now, they’re going to go away.” I hated how pathetic I sounded. “I was just getting used to them.” Tucker laughed and yanked me into his lap, kissing me as I fell back across his legs.
“They’re getting used to having you around, too. Don’t think they let go that easily.” He paused, and held my hand up so he could slide my ring over my finger. “Don’t think I’ll let go, either.” I threw my arms around his neck and pressed my face into his shoulder so he couldn’t see me cry. “I’ve never felt anything as strong as what I feel for you, and for O, except what I felt when I realized we could make another brilliant little girl like her together. I don’t want to do that with anyone but you.” I sniffed and stared into his eyes.
“Because you like crazy?”
“Because I love brilliance, and creativity, and kindness, and strength. I loved you when I was too young and stupid and shy to know what to do with it. I won’t waste my second chance.” I slipped off his lap and stood at the base of the staircase, and held out my hand to him. We walked up the stairs that way and I felt a shyness that hadn’t ever existed between us before. We’d gone from friends to lovers, and because of me, near strangers. I wasn’t sure what this new feeling was, but it gave me butterflies and made my heart pound as Tucker held the door to his room open for me to enter ahead of him.
The door was barely shut when his hands went to my t-shirt and he yanked it off over my head. He stooped to kiss me, and my lips opened for him in a sigh of relief and need. I slowed him down by taking my time to undress him, savoring every button undone, every inch of hair that curled over my fingers as I ran them over his chest.
He followed my lead and slid one bra strap own over my arm, releasing my breasts one at a time as he pulled the bra down over my chest, pinning my arms to my sides until he undid the clasp and I let it fall to the floor, arching an eyebrow at him. He kissed me then, soft and sweetly, on my forehead, my cheeks, the tip of my nose. He moved on to brush his lips over mine and nipped along my jaw, then down my neck to my shoulder, until I was trembling and my knees buckled.
I stepped back, and he followed, picked me up and held me with my arms clinging to his shoulders, my legs wrapped around his waist as he dipped his head to my breasts, nipping and sucking my nipples one at a time, until I begged to have him inside me.
He laid me back on the bed and pulled my jeans down over my thighs and down to my ankles, whisking them off like a magician. He made me watch, refusing to let me touch him as he took off his jeans, his eyes on my face as I watched hungrily. My hands kneaded the blankets under me as I inched closer to the edge of the bed, closer to the long, hard length of his muscular body.
He knelt over me and slid me farther up the bed so my head was on the pillows, and ran his hands over my breasts to my stomach, then down to my hips. My thighs parted like water under his hands and he leaned over, sheathing himself in me as he pressed his chest against mine, his lips finding my mouth open and ready to taste him.
We moved slowly together, our bodies intertwined as he held me in his arms and turned us so he held me over him, and gave me control. I closed my eyes and focused on the feel of him, the softness of his skin and the roughness of his fingertips. At first, pleasure slid over me like a blanket, warming my body where he rubbed against me and spreading it like embers of a fire to my extremities. He lifted his hips, and the embers became flame, the heat that warmed me threatened to engulf my body before I found release.
I bit my lip to keep my moans from turning to screams of ecstasy as he thrust deep into me and held me on him, his breathing ragged. His heart pounded under my palm, and he pressed the length of my body against his chest as his orgasm pushed me over the edge and I came with him. He swallowed my screams as we kissed, and I stopped pushing up against his arms and collapsed, trembling, letting him hold my full weight as he cradled me.
“Ban lifted, huh?” I asked, my lips still half-numb from how hard I’d bitten them to stay quiet.
“Practicing my husbandly duties,” he groaned, his voice full of gravel and sated with pleasure.
“Tucker James Hargrave, you are everything,” I sighed, pressing harder against him as though I could push myself inside him and stay as safe and warm and undone as he’d made me, for the rest of time. He was my best friend, my only love, and one day, the father of my children, if Olivia would have him too. The sky grew dark, lengthening the shadows around us, but we hid away for a little while longer, as music and laughter floated up to us from the garden below. “You are my everything,” I repeated as I felt the strong steady beat of his heart. “I love you.” He kissed me gently, and I held onto the moment for an eternity. I held him inside me, and breathed him in. He wasn’t the only man I’d loved, or the first. But he was the last man that I would ever look at with love and lust and need and want and joy, all at the same time. He was everything I had always been afraid I could never have, and now that I wasn’t afraid anymore, he was mine.
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BILLIONAIRE DOCTOR
By Alexa Davis
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 Alexa Davis
Chapter One
Matthew
Early Thursday Morning – Early June
“Hello there, Mr. Smith.” I smiled brightly as one of my favorite patients entered my consult. “How are you feeling today?”
“Oh, not so good,” he shot back quickly. “I’ve had this cough for three weeks, my throat hurts like hell, and it’s affecting my bad back.”
I only half listened as he rattled off his list of symptoms, knowing it wouldn’t be anything serious. Mr. Smith had a great personality, and as a person, I got along with him, but as he descended further and further into old age, he started to develop that hypochondria many people seemed to get.
I was convinced it wasn't even about seeing the doctor, not really. I felt like a lot of it was the social aspect of hanging around in the waiting room. I almost wanted to create some kind of club for them all, anywhere but the hospital, just to give me the time I needed to see people who really needed me.
“Okay, well, let me just do some checks. Why don't you tell me how your writing is going while I take your blood pressure and run an ECG?”
I set about to work as he told me all about the book he was working on, the one he was certain would be the next bestseller. I made agreeable noises wherever needed, but I didn’t have to fully listen because he’d told me about it a million times before.
“Of course, if I’d won the lottery last night, I wouldn’t need to be fussing about with this book now, would I?”
I laughed along, but the thought of that sort of cash really tugged at my heartstrings. I always brought a ticket with the hope of being able to sort out my finances, but so far, I’d had no luck.
I didn’t harbor dreams of a jobless future with endless luxuries at my disposal. I didn’t think about holidays and mansions and God knows what else. All I wanted to do was to pay off my debts because they were dragging me down. They felt endless, like they would be with me for the rest of my life, and I really wanted to shake them off.
They had started in medical school because I’d had to fund a lot of it with credit. My parents didn’t have a lot of money themselves, and I didn’t want to pressure them and leave them in debt because of my damn dream. So, I told them I would work through college to fund myself, and that was what I thought I would do.
Unfortunately, it didn’t quite work out like that.
I tried, I did, but it just wasn't possible. I had too much course work, too many hours in placement, and I had stop and get a loan instead – a massive loan no one knew about but me.
I thought that all would be okay when I became a fully-qualified doctor. I was under the illusion that I would be making plenty of money and that I’d be able to easily put all my problems behind me, but again, my thoughts were wrong.
As soon as I started working, I found out that a lot of people didn’t have the insurance or money to pay for treatments, and I couldn't stand that. It made me angry, so I stopped charging the full amount to those who were struggling, pushing myself further into debt.
Now that I’d started that, I couldn't seem to stop. With every person, my heart kept growing bigger and bigger, and I kept giving and giving – even though I really couldn't afford it.
“Yeah, would be nice,” I said in a joking tone of voice. “I can’t imagine it.”
“Well, no one has claimed it yet – it could be you!” he laughed loudly. “Can you imagine it? You could spend the rest of your life travelling the world, getting to see what the rest of the world has to offer. It’s no good spending your entire life in Florence or even Oregon! There’s so much more out there.”
I didn’t know if this was supposed to be a dig or not, but it certainly felt like it.
I had chosen to spend my entire life in the town I grew up in, however small it was, apart from the time when I was in college. But I liked it. It was my home; it was the only place I truly felt comfortable and I didn’t want to go anywhere else. I didn’t feel like I needed to know what was out there in the rest of the world. I had everything I needed right where I had always been. I had my good job, my friends, my family, there were plenty of women that were keen to get in my pants... What more could I need?
Luckily, before I had time to answer that, Terri, the nurse, entered the room in a flurry of perfume and beauty. I sent her a sly, flirtatious smile as she handed me some paperwork, and I could instantly see that familiar spark floating behind her big, blue eyes. She was one of the hottest women I’d ever laid my eyes upon, and somehow, I’d gotten lucky enough to land a sweet friends-with-benefits deal with her.
“Thank you,” I muttered as she swung her long, blonde hair around. “I’ll see you after the appointment to discuss bloodwork, okay?”
That had slowly become our code over time, and from the way she nodded excitedly, I instantly knew it was game on. Before the day was out, I would be screwing Terri in the nearest, private place we could find. That was one of the best things about her: she was up for anything, anywhere. She might not have been a long-term type of deal, but she was a whole lot of fun.
“Wow.” Mr. Smith gazed at her as she swung her hips out of the room. “That is some woman! You are a lucky man getting to work with her all day, but I guess that’s just one of the perks of being a doctor.”
He laughed loudly at his own joke, and it took all that I had not to smirk at his remark. I couldn't let him know the truth about me and Terri; that needed to stay strictly a secret because if anyone found out about us, we could both be in serious trouble.
“I’m just in this to help people,” I told him with a mock seriousness to my tone. “I don't have time to be worrying about the nurses scurrying around here.” I put all my equipment down and stared him in the eyes. “Right, well, for now, I can’t see anything obvious, but we will go through all your test results and I will call you with them in the next couple of days, okay?”
“Thank you.” Mr. Smith smiled at me before standing up. “I appreciate it.”
We said a quick goodbye, during which time my mind was already onto the next thing. My lunch break was coming up, which meant I didn’t have any more appointments for a short while – except for the one I’d just made with Terri.
Even the thought of her – hot, sweaty, and with those heaving breasts bouncing against me – had my cock standing to attention. She really did make me so damn horny, and I couldn't wait to get my hands on her again.
I quickly found her standing next to the reception desk, talking to one of the women there, and I called her over to me. Normally, I would wait for her to have her conversation finished, but there was something needier about me than usual. I felt like if I didn’t have her right then, I might just die.
But as she walked towards me, she didn’t look quite as fired up as before. In fact, she appeared to be all business, which made my heart sink. I would just have to let her get whatever it was out of her system and do what I could to get her back in the mood – she was usually easy to rile up all over again.
“We have a new patient coming in tomorrow,” she told me in that rapid voice she always used when she discussed work with me. Sometimes it made her difficult to understand, which was just one of the many reasons why we could never become anything serious.
“Oh, yeah?” I asked, discretely grazing my hand along her side, trying to distract her from whatever she was about to say to me. “Okay, sure.”
“We’ll need to transfer the papers. I think she lived here once before... Peggy Baker. I don't know if you recognize that name?”
Peggy Baker.
My heart leapt into my throat at the mere mention of Peggy Baker, but I did what I could to keep it off my face. I was good at keeping my emotions inside, and that came into play right then. Peggy Baker was the mother of the one who got away. She knew me well, and I did her. Seeing her again was going to be incredibly awkward.
“Come with me,” I rasped to Terri, needing her more than ever. I needed to bury myself into her, to distract myself entirely. I couldn't keep thinking about Peggy and Ashlee... Not unless I wanted to drag up a whole range of emotions I was nowhere near ready to deal with.
I pulled her into the janitor’s closet and started kissing her furiously, trying to lose myself in the physical sensations. My mind was struggling now, flickering all over the place, and I needed to shut it the hell down.
Luckily for me, my lips had Terri right back in the mood again, and she panted happily, quickly dipping her hand into my trousers and underwear, pulling me free. I knew that she loved the feel of my cock, and that helped me to forget the rest of the world, if only for a second.
“You’re so big,” she groaned excitedly against my mouth, her breaths becoming raspy with desire. “Fuck, I need you.”
As she stroked me hard and fast, I tugged her breasts free from her uniform and wrapped my teeth lightly around her very familiar nipples, giving them a tug. She was keen on the pleasure, pain thing, and I was happy to indulge in that, too, if it kept her happy. To be honest, as long as I was getting the release I so desperately needed, I was keen to try anything.
She cried out far too loudly, considering we were supposed to be being quiet, and she threw her head back in ecstasy. In the heat of the moment, Terri pressed her back up against the cold wall behind her, practically begging me to take her there and then, which I was happy to do.
She liked it fast and furious – and that was exactly what I needed, so I quickly slammed myself into her and started fucking her so hard that we were practically shaking the whole damn building.
“Oh shit,” she yelled, clawing at my back, digging her nails in so deep that it felt like she could have been drawing blood. “Oh fuck, Matt, you feel fucking amazing.”
As the pleasure burst free from me, concluding our quickie in a fast and timely matter, I felt on top of the world. Was there any better feeling than no-strings-attached fantastic sex? It certainly didn’t feel like it to me. I thought this was the highest that life could get, and I didn’t understand why anyone would want anything more.