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.

The door to Exam Room One, where Ali had gone to admit a new patient, was closed. Jared slammed it open. A tall man, the back of his hospital gown flapping open, exposing his red and blue plaid boxer shorts, had Ali pinned to the wall, one arm clamped around her waist, holding her, while his hips jabbed in her direction and a hand behind her head crushing her lips to his while she fought to turn her head and push away.

“Get your hands off my nurse,” Jared said, keeping his voice deadly calm, trying not to escalate the situation.

“Easy, Doc,” the assaulter said with a minimal slur. “Ali and I go way back. We were just getting reacquainted.”

Ali struggled in his hold. “We were not. Let go of me, Bobby.”

“I’d listen to the lady,” Jared said, walking into the room, one careful step at a time, letting the door close behind him. “Or you’re going to find yourself flat on your back on that stretcher, in four-point restraints, with a garbage bag full of ice on your groin.” He walked up next to Bobby, close enough to smell the booze on his breath and see the lust in his bloodshot eyes. “Here in the emergency room, that’s the only treatment we offer for swollen genitalia.”

“Come on. Give me a break,” Bobby said, still holding on to Ali. “I’m getting married in a few hours.”

“Lucky girl to score a winner like you,” Jared said, hoping the patient would come after him, provide justification for him to fight.

It worked. Sort of. The patient turned to Jared, must have loosened his hold because Ali broke free, stumbled toward him, into his waiting arms. Eyes locked with the sexual predator, he held her and murmured, “You’re okay.”

She nodded against his chest and inhaled a shaky breath.

The second she moved to step away from him, Jared released her, not wanting her to feel at all restricted. And as if she hadn’t just been attacked, she gave him her report. “Twenty-five-year-old intoxicated male involved in an altercation with a bouncer at a strip club. Suffering from facial trauma, abdominal and rib pain. Vital signs within normal limits, documented in his chart.”

“I’ll take it from here, Ali. Go take a break.” Jared didn’t want any witnesses when he “helped” his patient onto the stretcher.

“I’m fine,” Ali said. But her voice trembled.

Jared wanted to take her back into his arms, to hold her, comfort her, let her know she was safe, that he wouldn’t let anyone hurt her. But he needed to deal with the deviate first. “Can you climb on to the stretcher alone, or do you require my assistance?” Jared asked, more than willing to “assist.”

In what was probably his first good decision of the early morning hours, the man climbed on to the stretcher.

Jared walked over to Ali, keeping the man in his sight. “Your lip is bleeding,” he whispered, lifting her chin to get a better look, hating that a remnant from her altercation marred her beautiful face. “Go clean it. You don’t know where his foul mouth has been.”

With a surprised look, Ali reached up to touch her swollen lower lip.

“I’m guessing in your condition …” he looked at the man’s tented hospital gown “… you’ll have a hard time giving me a urine specimen, which means I’m going to have to insert a catheter into your bladder to obtain a urine toxicology screen.”

Nah. He winked at Ali. Let the idiot sweat for a few minutes.

“Like hell you will,” Bobby said. “Where are my clothes? I’m getting out of here.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” Jared said, channeling composure. “Not until the police get here. You see, I have zero tolerance for men who mistreat women.”

“Let’s not make this into a big deal,” Ali said.

“I’ve treated too many sexual assault victims to let his behavior slide.”

“Sexual-assault victim?” Bobby piped up. “Are you nuts? It’s only Ali. She was playing hard to get. No harm.”

“He’s right, Dr. P.” Ali looked defiant, but he’d seen the flash of hurt at Bobby’s cruel words, the glitter of tears in her eyes as she turned to leave. “It’s only me. No harm.”

“You …” Jared pointed to the drunk “… stay put. Do not leave that stretcher.” Then he followed Ali. “Ali, wait.” Halfway to the staff lounge she stopped, but didn’t turn to look at him.

When he caught up to her she said, “We knew each other in high school. Leave it alone, it’s over.”

“You need to teach that man a lesson. He needs to know the way he treated you is not okay.”

“What I need,” she said wearily, “is to clean my lip, shake this off and get back to work. And what Bobby needs is to be examined, treated and discharged so he can go get married.”

Like Jared would let him off that easy. “You don’t want to stand up for yourself, fine. I’ll do it for you. I’m calling the police.”

Fire blazed in her eyes. Good. With all of her negative energy directed at him, she wouldn’t focus on how vulnerable she’d been, on how that punk had disrespected and degraded her.

“Tomorrow you’ll be gone, Dr. Padget. I, on the other hand, live in this town. If you call the police, I’ll be stuck dealing with the fallout, the questions, the rumors and people dredging up Bobby’s role in a past I’m not all that proud of.”

“Your past has nothing to do with what happened tonight. A man tried to force you.” His voice cracked. He couldn’t say the words, wouldn’t consider what might have happened if he hadn’t heard her scream. “If you don’t want to press charges, fine. But I can’t overlook this. I have to report the incident. I’m sorry.”

“Yes, you are.” She looked up at him, not a tear to be found in her angry blue eyes. “A sorry excuse for a man I thought wanted to be my friend.” And she stormed down the hall into the lounge.

He’d made her mad. Nothing new there. But deep down it bothered him. He didn’t want her to hate him, didn’t want to leave on bad terms. Huh. Never bothered him before. Why did she matter when no one else did? “No. More. Tequila,” Ali insisted that evening when their waitress walked over with her second, no, third tray of the Sunday night special: Watermelon Margaritas. “I have a nice buzz going. Next stop sloppy drunk.”

“Says the woman who rarely orders anything stronger than seltzer with lime. What’s going on with you?” asked Victoria, Ali’s best friend since eleventh grade and the head nurse on 5E. Short dark hair and makeup flawless, her taste in clothes impeccable, she looked more ready for dinner at the country club than a night out with the girls.

The waitress set each of the four drinks she carried on the table then cleared off the empty glasses.

“Come on, Ali,” her friend Polly, a fellow E.R. nurse, slurred. “We’re shelebrating.”

“Soon you’re going to be puking if you don’t slow down,” said Roxie, a nurse from 5E, a medical surgical floor, as she wiped up the spillage when Polly wobbled her glass on the way up to her mouth. Roxie was tan, tall and thin to Polly’s pale, short and chubby. Roxie was loud and outgoing to Polly’s quiet and shy. Roxie was the bad girl to Polly’s good girl. The two couldn’t be more opposite, yet they’d been best friends since Ali, who floated between the two units, had introduced them last year.

“We didn’t order these,” Victoria said, always the pragmatic one.

“Maybe we did and we don’t remember,” Roxie rationalized. “I say we drink ‘em.”

“They’re from him.” The waitress pointed to a man at the far side of the bar.

O’Halloran’s Tavern, a favorite hangout for Madrin Memorial Hospital personnel, served delicious food and trendy drinks in a casual atmosphere that offered something for everyone. Small groups of onlookers crowded around both pool tables in the back, where a mini-tournament was in progress. A few guys she recognized from work guzzled beers while throwing darts in the corner, thankfully in the opposite direction from where Ali and her friends sat listening to the jukebox. A football game played on a large television screen beside the bar.

From their spot along the side wall, all four women scanned the bar, glasses raised in homage to their mysterious benefactor.

Dr. Jared Padget. Who, with a cunning grin, raised his beer mug in their direction.

Ali almost broke the stem of her glass in two. He picked a bad night to make his final move. She sipped her cocktail as she watched him, doing nothing to hide her blatant perusal. His black leather jacket gave him an air of bad-boy toughness that attracted her even more than the tight-fitting scrub pants he wore at work.

The hairs on her arms lifted, her body softened, remembered how it felt to be wrapped in his arms, to feel the solid wall of his chest against hers.

As the ten-year anniversary of her mother’s death, the other reason for girls’ night out fast approached, she could barely control the tumultuous feelings churning inside her. Prior to her second drink, she’d actually considered a screaming run through the streets to release the building pressure.

Sadness that her self-absorbed mother had been so consumed by trying to find a man she could love as much as Ali’s father, she had spent little time tending to the unplanned result of their dysfunctional union. It hurt that she had never been able to earn her mother’s love, and now it was too late.

Anger at her playboy father for getting her mother pregnant and, despite claiming he’d loved her, refusing to marry her. Rage that he flitted in and out of their lives when it had suited him, giving her mother false hope that each time he’d returned he’d been there to stay.

Thanks to Dr. P.'s arrival she added lust, frustration and disappointment to the unstable concoction. Lust for his body, frustration she couldn’t knock that cocky grin from his face and disappointment, in herself, for wanting him even though he was the worst sort of man.

She felt on edge, needed an outlet, a way to vent.

“Ignore him,” Victoria said.

“And he brought you these.” The waitress returned to their table and placed a white bakery box in the center.

Roxie pulled open the top. “Cannolis! I love cannolis!” She picked one up and took a bite of a chocolate dipped end.

I want to fill your cannoli …

Damn him. Ali gulped down the rest of her drink in an attempt to stop the smoldering desire she’d been battling for weeks from engulfing her in flames.

“Try one. They’re delicious.” Roxie passed around the box.

Ali locked eyes on Jared. He gave her a wicked smile, ran his fingers through the condensation accumulated on his mug and brought the tips to his lips. His full, sexy, perfectly puckered lips.

And Ali lost it. An uncontrollable lust like she hadn’t felt in years surged inside her. He’d pushed and pushed, pursued her with a relentless focus, wore her down until she craved the release he offered. She hated him for it. Hated herself for not being strong enough to resist him.

“I know that look.” Victoria leaned close to her ear. “Don’t do this, Ali. You’re going to hate yourself in the morning.”

“She’s right, Ali,” Polly said. “Don’t let him get to you. Tomorrow he’ll be gone and you’ll never think of him again.”

Wrong. He’d invaded her thoughts and dreams. She needed to exorcize him from her brain and knew only one way to do it. Take sex between them from abstract to reality. Take control, take what she wanted and be done with him.

She called out to the bartender. “A parting shot. Tequila for my friends.” She narrowed her eyes and pointed to Dr. Padget, whose surprised expression indicated he sensed a change in the dynamic between them. “And him.” Ali turned and smiled at the irony. A parting shot. That’s what she was about to give him.

The waitress delivered their shots.

Ali tossed hers back, swallowing it in one gulp, not wasting time with salt or lemon. She slammed her empty glass on the table and stood. “I’ll see you all tomorrow. There’s something I need to do.”

“Ali, please,” Victoria said.

She forced a fake smile. “Don’t worry about me, Vic. I always come out on top.” Again she smiled at the irony, because on top was where she planned to be in a few short minutes.

Her body throbbed, part tension, part arousal, as she started to cross the bar. Posture erect, shoulders back, she feigned a confidence she didn’t feel. With each click of her heels on the hardwood floor, each step closer to her destination, Ali’s nervousness doubled. She’d never propositioned a man before. In her youth, they’d always come looking for her. Palms sweaty, she stuck them, one at a time, into her jacket pockets to wipe them off.

About ten feet away from him, she hesitated, considered ordering a drink from the bar instead of continuing. Was Victoria right? Would she hate herself in the morning? She glanced in his direction. Their eyes met. Locked. She drew power from his stare, gave in to the pull of attraction between them, taking the final steps toward him without a second thought.

Ali slid in next to his stool, making sure her breasts rubbed against his arm as she did, and dropped a cannoli on the bar in front of him. A few crumbs scattered. It would have been more impressive to drop the entire box, but Roxie had refused to relinquish it. “This is about sex, right?” she asked, maybe a little louder than she should have. “Okay.

Let’s go.”

Jared didn’t move, actually looked a touch shocked by her boldness. Good!

“Come on, Doc. Time’s running out. You said so yourself. You want to have sex or not?”

Someone tapped Ali on the shoulder. A deep male voice behind her said, “If he doesn’t, I do.”

“Thanks for the offer,” Ali answered, without looking at who spoke, refusing to be mortified despite a full-body heated flush of embarrassment. “But I’ve got my sights set on this one.” The first man in years to rattle her self-control, to make her want to say yes to anything. Everything. She leaned in close and said, “Come now or don’t come at all.” Pun intended. She swallowed a laugh. “This one-time offer is about to expire.”

For a few seconds, after the front door closed behind her, she thought he hadn’t followed. Her bravado wavered. Maybe he wasn’t interested in her after all. Maybe it had all been an act, a game. When the door opened again, she glanced back and smiled. After making sure he saw her, she darted down the alley to the small parking lot behind the bar.

“You are in no condition to drive,” he yelled from behind her.

No. She wasn’t. But adrenaline pumped through her system, making her feel capable of anything. It felt so good. She sidestepped the shadow of a garbage can and pushed off the brick wall on her right to avoid crashing into it. “Come on, Dr. P. There’s something I want to show you.” A good time. She giggled to herself, running past the cars into the dark, down the grassy incline to the bench tucked in behind a bunch of trees. Moonlight guided her way. Her limbs feeling loose and floppy, how she didn’t trip and fall was a mystery.

Out of breath, she plopped onto the old wooden bench, lost herself in the moonlight swirling on the slow moving river while she waited.

“Ali,” Jared said as he burst through the trees, his shadowed form looming above her. “Let me take you home. It’s late. It’s cold.”

If it was cold, she didn’t feel it. “Sit,” she said.

He hesitated but did.

“This is where I bring the guys I pick up at the bar.” Actually, it’s where she and her gramps liked to feed the ducks. Gramps, who’d taken her in when her father hadn’t, who’d nurtured and encouraged her, taught her about respect, for herself and others. Gramps, the person she loved most in this world, his heart attack the reason she’d returned to town after college. Gramps who would be so disappointed if he knew what she was about to do.