Back To You (A Remington Medical Contemporary Romance) Page 17

  “Accept defeat, buddy,” Kellan said, shaking his head with a grin. “The doc beat you, fair and square.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” As disappointed as he was to have missed out on scrubbing in on those surgeries—and as much as he wasn’t looking forward to being Charlie’s scutmaster during their next shift together—he knew Kellan was right. “Well played, Dr. Becker.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Drake.”

  Parker gestured toward a pair of ladder-backed bar stools at one of the nearby tables, and Charlie nodded, sliding into one and propping her elbows over the table. “Thanks,” she said, waving to Kellan as he excused himself and began to move toward the spot where Isabella stood on the other side of the softly lit room. “I’d forgotten how much fun it is to just spend a night hanging out and having fun.”

  “What, they don’t have bars in Nashville?” Parker asked, spinning his gaze over the alcove. The crowd had thinned considerably, with some people, like Natalie and Luke and Quinn, opting to head home early, and others—Mallory and some of the guys on Station Seventeen’s rescue squad—leaving in favor of trendier clubs. Jonah had long since given up trying to beat Charlie at darts, setting his sights on something he could actually win—namely, the curvy brunette he was chatting up at the end of the bar—and even Kellan and Isabella looked like they were winding down for the night.

  “Oh, there are plenty of bars in Nashville,” Charlie said, taking a sip from the water she’d traded for her beer a good forty minutes ago. “I just don’t go to any of them.”

  Parker shook his head in confusion. “Okay, I get why I don’t come out as often as I’d like.” He’d been eating, sleeping, and breathing all things medical for the past five months. “But you’ve already become one of the most skilled general surgeons in the region. I don’t mean to be dense, but doesn’t that buy you a little breathing room?”

  “Not really,” Charlie said. “I mean, I guess I could take more time off. I’m actually using my vacation time from Nashville Gen to cover Tess’s maternity leave.”

  Whoa. “All ten weeks?” Parker asked, his jaw unhinging.

  Charlie laughed. “Yeah. But the work doesn’t feel like work to me. I get to help a lot of people, and I’m good at what I do. It’s worth it.”

  “I know,” Parker said, because damn, he really did. “It was the same for me on ambo. But I still spent some downtime with these hooligans.” He gestured to the space where all of his friends had gathered earlier, and the last few who remained were saying their goodbyes for the night. “Do you really not do that at all?”

  “I FaceTime with Tess and we text pretty regularly. But being social with the people I work with? It’s just not a priority for me.” Her shrug was suddenly stiff, but oh, no. Parker wasn’t about to let anything crash the good mood they’d cultivated.

  “Well, I’m extra glad you came out tonight, then, since you seem to have enjoyed yourself.”

  Just like that, she relaxed again. “Me, too. Your friends are really nice.” After a beat, she added, “Have you always been so close?”

  “Pretty much. I mean, some of us are a little closer than others, and then there are Luke and Quinn, who are in a relationship, but overall, we all put our lives on the line together. As a team. When you rely on people like that, you tend to be tight.”

  “It’s so different at Nashville Gen,” Charlie mused, and he probably shouldn’t be surprised that she was clearly analyzing it in her head. “I mean, everyone is polite and professional, of course, and there are a few people who socialize. But that’s mostly work functions—charity dinners and seminars and stuff like that.”

  Parker fought his urge to make a face and lost. “That sounds boring as hell.”

  “Oh, it is,” she agreed. “But medicine is pretty cutthroat. When you’re an intern or a resident, you’re competing for the best procedures and the highest scores on your boards. Then, when you’re an MD, you’re vying for the best jobs. Some doctors will do anything for good placements. It’s survival of the fittest on crack. And sometimes with backstabbing.”

  “But you and Tess are close, and Kendrick and Sheridan are best friends,” he ventured. “Exceptions to the rule?”

  Charlie nodded, shifting back against her bar stool. “Maybe. The dynamic does seem pretty different around here. And not in a bad way.”

  They settled into silence then, but it wasn’t the awkward sort of pause that Parker felt some burning need to fill. They people-watched and sipped their waters, and after a minute, Kellan and Isabella made their way over to the table, arm in arm.

  “We’re headed home,” Kellan said, clapping Parker on the shoulder and offering Charlie a handshake that turned into a hug. “Charleston, it was really nice to meet you.”

  “Oh, my friends call me Charlie,” she said, and the words rekindled the earlier heat in Parker’s gut, bringing it right back to the surface.

  Isabella smiled, and hugged her, too. “Okay. Charlie, then. Are you two good to get home safely?”

  Parker nodded. “Well, I’m not a badass cop, like you,” he told her, then swung his gaze to Kellan to continue with, “or a former Army Ranger, like you. But I’ll do my best. And I’ll make sure Charlie gets to her car, too.”

  “There’s safety in numbers, my friend,” Kellan said, giving up one last wave. “See you guys later.”

  Charlie watched them walk toward the door, then polished off the last of her water. “I should probably get going, myself. I know it’s not terribly late, but I’ve been up since the crack of dawn.”

  “Okay,” Parker said, although he couldn’t deny the pang of disappointment moving through his chest. “Just let me settle my tab and I’ll walk you out.”

  Her copper-gold hair brushed over the shoulders of her sweater as she shook her head. “I’m parked a block away, and it’s barely eleven. You really don’t have to do that.”

  “Oh, yes I do.”

  “Are you suggesting I’m not capable enough to walk one well-lit city block to my own car without assistance?” The question arrived with more oh really amusement than actual challenge, and Parker laughed.

  “Charlie, please. I watched you stabilize a patient with a partially severed femoral artery barely two weeks ago. I know damn well that you’re capable of far more than getting yourself to your car. But I also know that if I don’t deliver you to said car, safe and sound the way I promised Isabella I would, then she will absolutely make it her mission to seek me out for a swift ass-kicking. So, yes. In the interest of safety and self-preservation, I really have to walk you out.”

  She seemed to think about it, but only for a beat before allowing a small smile to escape. “Well. I guess I can stipulate, then. For the sake of you not getting your ass kicked twice in one night.”

  He shook his head. “I’m never living this down, am I?”

  “Not even if you live to be a hundred,” Charlie confirmed, and Christ, her smile was so sassy and so sweet that Parker was almost glad she’d beat him.

  They walked over to the bar, where he quickly settled up with Kennedy, then turned to usher Charlie through The Crooked Angel’s main dining room and out into the night. The cool air and soft shadows met them simultaneously, and Charlie fell into step beside him.

  “My car is this way,” she said, gesturing up Marshall Avenue, which was lined with parked vehicles and mostly closed shops.

  “Okay.” Parker made an after you gesture, and they began to walk together, side by side, their strides finding a perfect tandem within seconds. He was close enough to smell her shampoo, some coconut and pineapple affair that did all sorts of wicked things to him as it brought back thoughts of her hair spilled out over his pillows, her mouth curved in pleasure as she moaned his name. Beside him, she shivered, and before Parker’s brain had registered the motion of his instincts, he’d already put his arm around her to pull her in close.

  “Oh.” Charlie froze to a stop in front of a darkened bakery, swinging to face him. The movement knocked her off balance, and Parker had no choice but to wrap his other arm around her shoulders to keep her from stumbling to the pavement.

  “Shit, I’m sorry. I…”

  Parker realized two things in that moment. One, was that Charlie had thrown her arms around him in return, their bodies now flush, and she wasn’t pulling away. The other was that he wasn’t sorry in the least.

  He’d blown past simple want ages ago, and he was tired of fighting it. He fucking craved her, just as he had from the minute he’d seen her in the emergency department.

  And even more than that, he wanted her to know it.

  “You know what, I lied,” Parker murmured, loving the way her chest hitched against his as her breath caught, and how her fingers tightened over the fabric of his shirt, just below his shoulders. “You shivered, and I reached for you out of instinct, but I’m not sorry.”

  “You’re not?” Charlie’s whisper was warm as it coasted over his mouth, and the heat of it dared the words right out of him.

  “No. You wanted an honesty policy? Well, here’s the truth. I want to take you back to my place and do all sorts of dirty, delicious things with you, and I don’t want you to leave until tomorrow.”

  A sound drifted up from her throat, the flare of her pupils in the streetlight making him even more reckless.

  “I want one night with you, Charlie. No past. No drama.” He lowered his mouth until it hovered an inch over hers, his lips parting in a smile as she tilted her chin up, just slightly, to cut the already scant space in half. “No strings. Just me”—Parker slid his index and middle fingers over the curve of her cheek, the sigh that it drew from her making his cock go instantly hard—“and you.”

  “I want that, too, but…we work together,” Charlie said softly, and Parker
lowered his fingers from her chin, adding a few inches of breathing room between their mouths.

  “Temporarily,” he said, part agreement, part argument.

  She looked up, eyes glinting in the low, golden glow of the streetlight on the corner. “It’s still enough to get both of us in deep trouble if Langston were to find out.”

  Ah, hell. Playing it safe might not be Parker’s default, or anywhere in his wheelhouse, really, but he knew it was in hers. Plus, as tempted as he was to say screw the rules and give in to the impulse screaming at him to kiss her, even he couldn’t deny that she had a point.

  “Okay.” He shifted, lifting both hands in concession. “If you want to keep things professional, I can respect that. I’ll see you on Sunday.”

  Parker stepped back with every intention of giving Charlie enough room to finish the trip to her car and head back to her apartment.

  But she stepped forward to reclaim the space between them. “I don’t.”

  “You don’t.” His heart hammered in his chest, a hot, constant pulse of yes, yes, yes. Still, there had already been so many regrets between them. The last thing he wanted was for her to be less than one hundred percent sure. “But you said—”

  “I said we’d get in trouble if Langston found out,” Charlie murmured. “But we’re not at the hospital right now, and God, I want you, too. No past, no strings. Just tonight. Me and you.”

  She pressed up to kiss him, then, a soft, simple brush of her mouth, like a whispered promise. But oh, no. Fuck, no. Parker wanted more.

  Wrapping his arms back around her, he swung her around, walking her backward and letting her shocked burst of laughter warm him completely until her shoulders met the bricks of the bakery’s storefront.

  “Christ, I’ve missed you,” Parker said, his voice as loaded with want as the rest of him. He slanted his lips over Charlie’s. She opened for him easily, her tongue meeting his with eagerness that made his cock jerk, and he thrust his hands into her hair to hold her in place as he re-learned her mouth with his. He teased and stroked, tasted and took, and the more he kissed her, the more he wanted. Try as he had for the last six years, he’d never stopped wanting her.

  “Parker,” she murmured when they finally parted for breath.

  Fucking hell, he didn’t care that they were on the corner of Marshall Avenue. He wanted to be inside this woman more than he wanted air inside his lungs.

  “Say it again.” He slid his lips to her jawline, placing the demand just shy of her ear.

  “Parker.”

  His name rose from her throat, all honey and velvet, punctuated with a seductive smile that he heard more than he saw. His cock was at full attention now against the fly of his jeans, and he closed his mouth over her earlobe for a hot, decadent taste.

  “Charlie.” He sucked, searching for the spot that made her breathless. Her fingers dug into his shoulders, and ah, there it was. As if it had been waiting for rediscovery, a treasure buried in plain sight. “If we don’t get in your car and start driving, right now, I’m going to be tempted to take you into that alcove, right over there”—he paused to turn his chin toward the small, bricked archway leading up to the bakery’s side door, cloaked by just enough shadow to keep it hidden to anyone passing by on the street—“undo this infernal sweater of yours, and put my mouth on you until you come so hard, you can’t stand up. So, please. Can we get out of here?”

  “Mmm.” Charlie arched against him for just a split second before using the leverage of her hands on his shoulders to swing him around. But rather than head toward her car, now a dozen paces from where they stood on the sidewalk, she turned in the other direction, away from the street.

  “Where are you going?” Parker asked, his confusion turning to shock a beat later as her destination became clear.

  Charlie paused in front of the archway leading into the shadows. “I’ve been dying for you to make me come all night,” she said over one shoulder, a sweetly wicked gleam in her eyes. “If you think I’m going to turn down a promise like that, you’re out of your mind. Now, are you going to give in to that temptation of yours, or are you really going to make me wait?”

  17

  To anyone who knew her, Charlie was certain it looked as if she’d lost her mind. In truth, the invitation she’d just issued felt as brash and forbidden as what Parker had promised to do to her, there in the shadows. But when he followed her past the archway without hesitation, taking her hand as the darkness enveloped them, she felt something else, too.

  She felt awake. She felt alive.

  “Be careful,” Parker whispered, his fingers tightening over hers. He edged farther into the alcove, which—although well-shielded from the streetlight beyond—turned out to be smaller than Charlie had expected. They were hidden from the sight of anyone passing by, but only just. And if anyone strayed from the sidewalk and past the archway, it would only take a few seconds and some decent eyesight for Charlie and Parker to be discovered.

  The thought should’ve been a warning to play it safe, she knew. But instead, it sent a hot thrill deep between her legs. Daring her. Demanding more.

  If they were only going to have one night together, she wanted it to start. Right. Now.

  Charlie turned to pull Parker close. But he was already there, his body hot and hard as he pressed against her, guiding her back one step, then another, until her shoulder blades made contact with the farthest corner of the hidden space.

  Parker tilted his chin down, his lips brushing the base of her neck. “Be sure,” he murmured, and although she managed to quiet her laughter to a level just above a whisper, she couldn’t quell it entirely.

  Reaching to the narrow ribbon holding her sweater in place, Charlie gave it a tug. The thin cotton fell open, exposing the even thinner satin of her bra, and she reached for his hands, sliding them up her rib cage until they rested just below her breasts.

  “How’s this for sure?” Now, she did whisper, the sound catching hard in her throat as Parker’s lips parted over the skin of her neck, forming a wicked smile she couldn’t see, but felt everywhere.

  “Perfect.”

  He let one hand slip behind her shoulder blades and flipped it palm-out, his arm creating a buffer between her body and the bricks. Charlie arched into his touch, her spine bowing as she searched greedily for more, and Parker didn’t pause or disappoint. His opposite hand moved up, cupping her firmly at the same moment his mouth moved lower, over the top of her chest. Charlie’s fingers brushed over the short hair at the back of his neck, knotting in the longer strands higher up, and oh, God, she didn’t care that they worked together, that there would be consequences if they were discovered, that there were people—strangers—out in the night air and less than a block away, right this second.

  She wanted him. More than she ever had before.

  “Parker.”

  His name slid past her lips, barely a sound. The way his muscles tensed against hers told her he’d heard it, though. Want pooled between Charlie’s thighs, her clit throbbing from the glide of the panties and jeans that covered the needy skin, and she arched higher, seeking more.

  Parker gave it. With a firm stroke of his tongue, he traced a line over the border where her bra met her breast, curling his fingers around her just long enough to pull the satin aside and bare her nipple to the night shadows.

  Charlie’s mouth opened on a soundless gasp, pleasure rioting through her as he worked the hard, hyper-sensitive peak, first with his fingers, then—oh, God, yes, please, fucking yes—his mouth. She dropped her chin to look at him. The faint outline of his firm, full lips on her nipple, now tingling enough to blur the line between pleasure and ache, sent a matching curl of desire right to her pussy. Charlie made a sound, part guttural cry, part plea, and for a fleeting second, she considered embarrassment.

  Right up until he whispered, “Christ, that’s hot,” and then her boldness felt beautiful.

  Dropping one hand from his hair while still holding him in place with the other, she reached between them to let her fingers find his beneath her breast, tightening them in encouragement. Parker licked and sucked, testing a few motions with his lips and teeth and tongue before quickly finding one that sent sparks through Charlie’s blood. Her breaths grew shallow, faster and ragged, and he met each panting exhale as if he could taste the need on her skin. Release stirred, deep and hot between her hips—God, it had been too long since a man, this man, had made her come, that she could get this close, this fast. But then something slid past the lust-driven haze in her brain, unusual enough to grab her attention.