Rough Edge (The Edge #1)(23)

“It depends on what kind of wooing you’re talking about.”

“Professional wooing,” Greyson said.

“Did they legalize that?”

Tina laughed. Greyson slapped my arm playfully then looped her hand inside my elbow. The Thing felt good about that but couldn’t find a way in through the fabric.

“I hope you don’t have to work as hard as I did,” I said. “She drives a hard bargain.”

Tina clicked my glass. “Thanks for the tip.”

“I’m sure no one will have to work as hard as he did,” Greyson said.

“Sounds like quite a story.” Tina sipped her water.

“Not really,” Greyson said. “My unit went to Balad to assist the combat support hospital. I had to assess their fitness—”

“She decided I was unfit.”

“I did not!”

“You did.” I looked down at her, checking her status. Raised eyebrows. Relaxed mouth.

I wanted to fuck her everywhere. Hard. Later. I would have to. Nothing was getting starved tonight. Not my hunger for her and not the Thing.

She smiled. If I wasn’t fooling her into thinking I was all right, I was at least charming her into believing it. Good.

I turned back to Tina. “She said I was overworked. She said I needed rest or I’d make a mistake.”

“Which did you do? Rest or make a mistake?”

“Neither.”

“Of course,” Greyson chimed in. “He beat the odds. It’s what he does.”

I nodded, satisfied that she thought that. Winners had an easier time winning.

Danny came by. I shook his hand. He kissed my wife in an appropriately platonic manner. “It’s like a fucking hospital reunion. I try to get away from you people at night.”

“Do your patients know you have such a potty mouth?” I said.

Greyson slipped her hand into mine. I took it away.

“Half of them can’t figure out how to use a potty. So no.” His orbicularis oris tightened slightly above his left lip. A sneer of a smirk so faint I would have missed it if I wasn’t paying attention so coldly. Or maybe that was the reason for the sneer in the first place.

“We’re going to look at some masks, if you don’t mind,” I said.

“Have at it.”

I took Greyson to the side where we could see a mask painted blood red and clamped with a vise. The patient’s story was typed onto a framed piece of paper next to it, but I was sure I knew it. We slid sideways to the next one. It had been painted by a skilled hand in Islamic geometric patterns.

“This is nice,” I said, but had no follow-up. I usually had reasons to like things. I couldn’t find one.

“You should see this one over here.”

Again, she tried to hold my hand, and again, I took it away.

“Caden.”

“Which one? This one?”

“What’s happening?”

She had a hand on each of my elbows, but I couldn’t look at her. She was too earnest. Too honest. And all I wanted to do was rip that black dress in two and shove my dick inside her. I wanted to fuck her mouth so deep she choked. Get my cock so far up her ass I— “I think he used a stencil—”

“To us,” she said. “What’s happening to us?”

All I had to do was say, “nothing,” but I still couldn’t lie.

Both hands in my pants pockets, I bent so only she could hear me. “I want to be fucking you right now.”

“No. No, that’s not true.” Her eyes filled. They sparkled so brightly when she was about to cry. She blinked. One fell.

Reaching inside my jacket, I snapped my handkerchief open and handed it to her.

She didn’t take it. It was poison. Electrified. A pat on the shoulder from a clinician. A slap in the face from a stranger. I didn’t have the sense or the will to hold her or whisper reassurances, because the Thing was punching through again, and resisting it took everything I had.

She brought her right toe behind her left heel, spun on the balls of her feet for a clean about-face, and forward marched out the door.



* * *



I caught the cab door before she closed it and slid in next to her, barking the 87th Street address to the driver.

“Greyson, listen to me.”

“Why were you assisting on a surgery you’ve led a hundred times?”

I looked at her as if she was crazy, but she wasn’t. Not even a little. “Kate was out sick and Eleanor needed me.”

“Bullshit.”

“You can ask her.”

“Are you having an affair?”

“What? With Eleanor?”

“With anyone.”

“No!”

“So what is it then?”

I needed to know what she was perceiving without me dropping hints. “What is what?”

“You’re the same as you were at the fundraiser, but worse. You’re so cold. You won’t touch me. It’s like you’re somewhere else and I can’t take it. I can’t take it.” The last three words rumbled deep in her throat. It was sexy as hell.

I let my desire for her out of its cage, and it filled me like a balloon. I thrust my body in her direction, leveraging myself on the window behind her.