When One Night Isn't Enough

“Nah.” She looked down at her watch. “The hospital pays me to be kind and compassionate. Lucky for you I’m still on the clock.”

“Good.” He leaned in close to her ear. “Maybe we can go someplace private and you can give me a little more of your commm … passion.”

She pinched him.

Good for her. The girl had spunk. “Ouch.” He rubbed his upper arm. “Where’d the kindness go?”

She looked up at him, her light blue eyes narrowed.

“I’m on the verge of breaking down.” He wiped at his dry lashes. “I think I feel some tears coming.”

She turned and walked back toward the E.R. without giving him a second glance. And she looked just as fine from the back as she did from the front, her lavender scrub pants hugging her perfectly shaped rear, her long brown hair up in a loose knot and sensible little gold hoop earrings curving under her kissable earlobes.

“Don’t women like it when a man shows his emotions?” he called after her.

She stopped. “Lust is not an emotion, Dr. P.,” she answered over her shoulder.

“It sure is. Come over to my place after work and we’ll do a Google search. Whoever’s right gets to choose what we do next. You wanna know what I’ll pick?”

Ali hit the button beside the electronic doors.

As they started to open he called out, “Time’s running out, Ali.”

She hesitated before walking back into the E.R.

Jared waited a minute, trying to contain his smile. He knew she wouldn’t bite, but provoking her was so much fun. No one entertained him like Ali. For the first time in the two years he’d worked as an agency physician, traveling from hospital to hospital throughout New York State, Jared might actually miss someone when an assignment ended. A sure-fire sign it was past time for him to move on.

Relationships, loving someone, getting married, weakened people, made them dependent and vulnerable. His father’s death had crushed his mother’s spirit, left her brokenhearted, angry and unable to find joy. His wife’s deceit, desertion and the resulting legal problems that had him fighting to stay out of jail had almost done the same to him.

No. He preferred to go it alone. No attachments, no expectations, no one for him to disappoint and no one to disappoint him.

Ali took the patient chart her coworker held out to her. “I’m heading down for break,” the other nurse said. “I put a D&D in Exam Room One.”

A drunk and disorderly isolated in a private room at the far end of the inverted T-shaped hallway. “Thanks,” Ali said with mock appreciation.

“His friends are helping him change into a gown.”

Super-de-duper. A bunch of rabble-rousers to egg him on. She glanced at her watch. Four-twenty-two in the morning on the night shift that would not end. Opening the folder, she reviewed the Reason for Visit: patient injured at strip club. Attacked by bouncer during lap dance. Pain in left eye, left cheek, jaw, abdomen and right ribs.

Ali listened outside the door before knocking. All was quiet until a male voice called out, “Come in.”

“My name is Allison,” she said as she pushed the wedge under the door to keep it open. “I’ll be your nurse.” Before entering, she evaluated the room’s four occupants—three visitors with their dress pants and button-down shirts disheveled, two of whom were slumped in chairs, one leaning with his back to the wall. They looked tired. Sedate.

Good. She placed the patient chart on the counter by the sink and walked toward the dark-haired man sitting with his bare legs hanging over the side of the stretcher, his head hanging low, both arms braced at his hips, not quite holding him steady. “Can you tell me how much you’ve had to drink tonight?”

She placed her hand on his wrist to take his pulse and began her assessment. AOB—alcohol on breath.

He looked up. “Enough to make you the most beautiful woman in the world.”

“Gee, thanks.” Left eye swollen, partially closed, mild bruising, dried blood in the outer corner. Left cheek swollen and red. Dried blood noted to the left nostril.

He blinked as if trying to clear his vision. “Ali?” He lowered his eyes to her name badge. “Well, hot damn.” He turned to his friends, swayed and latched on to the bedrail for support. “Looks like my chances of getting lucky are on the rise, my friends.”

Hell. A guy she knew from high school. His face battered, she hadn’t recognized him. “Your pulse is fine.” She snapped the plastic covering over the thermometer probe. “Hold this under your tongue.”

“There are other things I’d rather do with my tongue.” He stuck said body part out and flicked it rapidly from side to side. His friends snickered.

“And as soon as you leave the E.R., you can do them all,” Ali replied. “But right now I need you to lift it and hold this thermometer under it.”

He smiled and slid the probe between his closed lips. Slowly.

Ali took a moment to return to the chart to document his pulse rate and learn his name. Robert Braylor. Oh, no.

Bobby “B.B.” Braylor.

A beep sounded. Bobby’s sojourn into silence ended. “Ali here is my favorite backseat cowgirl,” he said. “She likes a hard ride. Isn’t that right, Cream Cheese?”

Cream Cheese. Bobby’s high school nickname for her. Because her thighs were so easily spreadable. As a stupid teenage girl she’d found it amusing. As an adult she recognized it for what it was, a shameful and humiliating moniker for a girl so desperate for affection and love she’d tried to find them in the arms of boys who’d doled them out in ten-minute increments. Usually while half dressed, in the backseat of a car, in the woods, or, if she was lucky, in a bed when no grown-ups were around. Good for sex and nothing more.

Ali considered walking out of the room, letting someone else deal with Bobby. But no. She was a trained professional, skilled at handling every type of patient. So she ignored his rude comments and proceeded with her evaluation. The sooner she finished the quicker she could leave, without shirking her duties.

Removing the blood-pressure cuff from the metal basket on the back wall, she fastened it to Bobby’s upper arm. “After I take your blood pressure I’ll get Dr. Padget. He’ll probably want some X-rays.”

Ali tightened the cuff around Bobby’s arm, ignoring a twinge of dread at the thought of Bobby meeting Jared, the two of them discussing her, Bobby reinforcing Jared’s opinion of her. Instead she listened through her stethoscope, focusing on the beats while she watched the mercury in the sphygmomanometer drop. One eighteen over seventy-four. Ali removed the cuff and placed it back in the basket.

In the few seconds it took to reach over the head of the bed, Bobby stood, grabbed her by the waist and ground himself against her butt. “I’ve got another pressure that needs tending before you go.”

Ali swung her upper body around. They were alone—the visitors had left, closing the door to the room behind them. “Stop it, Bobby.”

“Come on, Ali.” He ran a hand up her belly to her chest and squeezed her breast. Hard. “For old times’ sake.”

“No.” She tried to pull away, did not want this. She was a different person now, didn’t sleep around anymore.

He turned her to face him, pushed her back into the wall, forced his body against hers, making it difficult to expand her chest to take a breath. He jammed his erection between her legs. She tried to move. Couldn’t. Alcohol had not affected his strength one bit. When had he gotten so tall? Aggravation turned to fear.

“I know I was one of your favorites,” he said.

Because ten years ago he’d had a car, a fake ID and a never-ending supply of money for beer and cigarettes. For a wayward fifteen-year-old girl looking to escape her life, he had been the perfect date.

“I need you so bad,” he said, moving one of his hands to the back of her head, crushing her mouth to his so hard she tasted blood. His other hand fumbled with the drawstring of her scrub pants.

“Get your hands off of me,” Ali yelled. She tried to twist away, to lift her knee. Neither worked. So she bit his lip. When he jerked back his head she screamed, “Help! Dr. P. Anyone. Help!” She prayed someone would hear her.

“Quiet, Ali.” He clamped his hand over her mouth. “You know you want it. You always wanted it.”

CHAPTER TWO

JARED was on the computer behind the front desk of the E.R., checking a patient’s lab results, when Ali cried out for help. Without hesitation, he closed down the confidential screen, jumped to his feet, his chair rolling into the file cabinet behind him with a loud bang and ran in the direction of her scream.