Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 45768 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 229(@200wpm)___ 183(@250wpm)___ 153(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 45768 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 229(@200wpm)___ 183(@250wpm)___ 153(@300wpm)
I’m glad to return to some familiar territory. I make this speech every time I speak with a potential new patient, and it’s true.
I’ve had high-powered couples in here desperate to conceive, but I could tell they would be terrible parents.
I didn’t tell them that, of course.
I make the right excuses and send them on their way. And perhaps they went on to have kids.
But it was without my help.
She interlocks her fingers, pressing her hands close together, letting out a trembling breath that goes right to my core, doing crazy things to me. It’s just a breath, but it almost turns me into a beast.
Or lets the caged beast inside of me out to play.
She bites her lip for a moment, something she wouldn’t do if she knew how feral it was making me.
My whole body is thrumming at the sight of her.
“I’ve always wanted a family, I guess. My parents and my little brother… died in a car crash when I was very young. I hardly remember any of them, truthfully. My aunt took me in after their deaths and—the only reason I wasn’t in the car was that I was sick, staying with my aunt, who’d insisted they go on their day out anyway. They got into an accident shortly after dropping me off with my aunt. Isn’t that crazy? So my aunt either saved my life or I killed my family.”
I grip the edge of the desk, staring hard at her, wondering if she feels comfortable enough to open up like this because she senses the closeness between us as powerfully as I do.
“I’m sorry,” she murmurs. “I didn’t mean to overshare like that.”
“You were a child,” I growl. “You can’t blame yourself.”
This is something I rarely do, offer judgment based on my patient’s life. My job is to stay impartial, and yet there’s a note of desperation in her voice that tugs at parts of me that were dormant before she stepped into my office, parts of me I find impossible to ignore.
“Maybe I shouldn’t,” she says, with a shrug. “But if I wasn’t sick, they would’ve gone directly to the activity center – it was this place with mini-golf and rides and a movie theater, stuff like that – and they wouldn’t have been on that road at that specific time…”
I know it’s a mistake even as I do it, reaching across the desk and taking her hand.
I squeeze hard, staring firmly into her eyes, feeling the shock rioting through her body, watching it cascade across her features.
“You can’t blame yourself,” I snarl firmly, with the beast thrumming inside my voice, telling her that I’m giving her an order she better not ignore. “Do you hear me, Macie? It isn’t your fault. I don’t want to hear you say that again.”
Chapter Three
Macie
His hand is firm on mine, hot, his touch burning into me as he squeezes me tighter and his stark eyes gaze into me. I feel my body setting alight with even more flaring passion, with even more shivering need than has already taken possession of me at simply being close to him.
I didn’t mean to blurt everything about Mom and Dad and Jimmy, but it came spilling out as though I’d known this man my whole life, as though the crazy buried-deep pulsing inside of me wouldn’t seem ridiculous to him if I voiced it aloud.
And yet his hand is on mine, his touch hot, hotter than it was last night when I imagined him stroking up and down my body with possessive pressure.
He clears his throat, seeming to realize what he’s doing as he withdraws his hand.
“I… I’m sorry for oversharing,” I murmur into the ensuing silence, as his features turn grim again, his jaw tight, his eyes narrowed. “I know you probably didn’t want that much detail.”
My hand tingles where he just touched it, my mind bursting with thoughts of how sweaty I am, praying he wasn’t disgusted with the streaming sweat. But he makes me so freaking nervous, so aware of my own body, my nipples rubbing achingly against my bra, my panties attacking my clit with friction.
“There’s no need to apologize,” he says, his voice deep and gruff. “So you want a family because you never had one?”
I wonder if I imagine the note of rage simmering in his voice, but why would he be angry?
This is his job.
“Yes,” I murmur. “And I know how that sounds, could sound. I’m not going to be giving this child the sort of family that was taken from me. But I can give them love. I can give them a home.”
He nods shortly, staring hard at the desk like he’s finding it difficult to meet my eyes like I’ve annoyed him. “And do you work?”
“Not right now,” I say. “But I’m trying to get my career started. And I have money to start a life… my aunt, she passed away recently, and she left me plenty.”