After Hours (InterMix)(112)
“I got that same streak in me,” he said, “and I want it in my life. In a woman. I want to fill in the gaps, fight all the battles you can’t, because of whatever—your size or your gender. Maybe that’s sexist, but it’s what I want. I just want to feel needed by somebody who deserves whatever I got to offer.”
I laughed, looking down to hide my reddening face. Kelly tipped my chin back up with a crooked finger. “I’m not afraid of your tears.”
“I am, maybe.”
“Don’t be.”
My lips felt swollen, nostrils stinging. I cleared my throat. “When this all started, I thought you saw me as some little woodland creature, one who’d give you a good chase before you eventually brought me down and tore me to pieces. Sex-wise.”
Kelly laughed.
“Maybe we were two dogs all along, and all you wanted was to get in the pit with me.”
“Maybe. Even if I wasn’t, that’s what I got.”
I slid my hand down his arm to stroke his knuckles. I paused, one of his fingers feeling odd. I rubbed the spot—a strange, smooth divot—and pulled back to examine it. “You got your ring off.”
“I bit the bullet and took a pair of clippers to it when I got home from the hospital.”
“Oh, what a shame.” Such a personal inheritance, marred forever.
He shrugged. “I’ll get some jeweler to weld it back together someday, should the need arise.”
“I guess it’ll wind up with a scar,” I mused, tracing my fingertip along the mark on his neck. “Why’d you bother?”
“It just felt like something I ought to get around to. Like maybe it was keeping me from considering myself fully . . . I dunno. Open to stuff.”
“Stuff?”
“You know. Letting somebody in or whatever.”
I took a deep breath and asked, “Do you think there’s enough of this ‘something’ between us to actually be, you know . . . something more? For us to be a couple?”
“Would you like us to be?”
I pursed my lips and nodded.
“Okay then.”
“Jeez, that was easy. What about work? We don’t work in some office where we can afford to be distracted.”
“You really think I give a f*ck about some HR clause?”
I smiled.
He kissed my forehead, a gesture fast becoming my favorite thing. “We’ll keep our mouths shut about it. But someday, if somebody catches us speaking too closely in the parking lot or the break room, f*ck what they think. By then they’ll have seen us both doing our jobs perfectly well for who knows how many weeks or months. No one’s really going to fire us, not if us dating isn’t threatening the residents’ care. Certainly not Dennis or your number-one fan, Dr. Morris.”
After a pause, he said, “When you asked before, why it is I like you, I left something out.”
“Oh?”
He grinned down at me, eyes narrowed and sinister. “You are f*cking attractive.”
I blushed. “I’m okay, I guess.”
“I think you’re sexy. Real sexy.”
“Usually if I get called anything nice, it’s ‘cute.’”
“Nah. You got this way of pursing your lips at work, when you’re thinking about shit . . .” Kelly fake-shuddered with arousal, eyes rolling up. “All that you got going on with the big eyes and the pink cheeks, I can see through that act. You’re a raccoon underneath that bunny costume. I like your claws as much as your whiskers.”
I laughed.
He flopped down beside me with a sigh. “Can I crash here? I’m f*cking exhausted.”
“Of course.”
Settling in, he pulled me tighter against him.
“You’re not even going to try to take advantage of me?” I asked. “You really must be wrecked.”
Eyes shut, he smirked.
“Here,” I said, turning in his arms. “Let me guarantee you a good, deep sleep.”
His eyes opened just as my fingers found the waist of his pants, and his lips parted. I thought for a second he’d stop me, but the hand he reached out merely stroked my arm, making all its tiny hairs rise. When I got his button open he did the rest, lowering his fly and wrestling his pants away. For a minute or more I fondled him through his shorts, until he was stiff and thick and his breaths had grown sharp and hungry. He pushed his waistband down, releasing his bare length into my palm. He felt just like he should, big and powerful. Only this time I got to wield it. I got to be the one doing.