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DARING THE DOCTOR

JESSA KANE

CONTENTS

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Epilogue

ONE

Dean

I stand in the shade cast by the stage, hands clasped behind my back, listening to the college president drone on and on about friendship and making one’s mark on the world. A recycled speech if I’ve ever heard one. Why did I agree to speak at this graduation ceremony?

I’m great at lecturing.

Explaining to hospital residents what they’re doing wrong, mainly.

Encouraging and inspiring young minds isn’t exactly my forte. Why the hell did they ask me to do this? I’m a surgeon, not a life coach. If it wasn’t for that headline-making emergency surgery I performed on the president, none of the students or faculty members of this college would know my name—and that’s how I would prefer it.

For the tenth time in as many minutes, my phone vibrates in my suit jacket pocket.

My jaw clenches at the thought of what I’m missing at the hospital, but I force myself to let the call go to voicemail. I’ve left a recording with several numbers for hospital sta to

call in my absence. I’m not the only surgeon at Chicago General, for god sakes, but I’m the only one with the stones to perform an emergency bowel resection on the leader of the free world without hyperventilating, and apparently that has put me in higher demand than ever before.

“Doctor Fletcher?”

Before I’ve even turned around, that feminine voice causes a finger of heat to drag down my spine. It’s low and conspiratorial and hushed, as if it belongs in a bedroom. In the dark. It’s a beautiful voice, really. It’s almost like one of those ASMR recordings the residents listen to when they want to destress. Close and husky. Soothing.

Something tells me to turn around with caution. Why? Why do I have a feeling whoever has called my name will be…important?

Frowning, as is my default expression, I look back over my shoulder and the words being spoken on stage grow distant, mu ed. My mouth loses any hint of moisture, my tongue growing heavy. The girl…she’s not merely beautiful.

Standing there in her black graduation gown, she’s radiant.

Her reddish-brown hair falls in long waves around her shoulders, huge green eyes shining up at me in what can only be described as unabashed hero worship.

An aspiring medical student.

I already know that’s the case without her saying another word.

Thousands of med school graduates apply to be in my program every year and I reject all but two dozen. This girl has obviously just completed her undergrad, because this is not a medical school. It’s a state university. Far in the future, however, she will almost certainly apply for her residency at Chicago General, one of the highest-ranked facilities in the country. And I find my stomach sinking with disappointment

that I’ll have to wait six goddamn years to see her in my halls. God willing, she’ll still have that sparkle in her eyes.

Although, who says I have to wait to spend time with this girl?

If she’s a medical groupie as I suspect, I could take her home after my speech.

Hell, I could take her to the parking lot. Have her bite down on the graduation cap while I pound her from behind.

My cock has already stirred in my briefs, filling with pressure. It’s been so long since I’ve wanted someone at all, let alone to this…magnitude. But suddenly, there’s an urgency to release the heavy burden between my thighs.

What is it about this girl?

“Yes?” I finally respond, facing her fully, hands still clasped behind my back.

Her full lips part on an intake of breath. She shifts right to left, visibly nervous. I’m used to having this e ect on…well, everyone. At thirty-two, I’m a man given to irritation and that shows in the deep brackets around my mouth, the indents between my brows.

“I’m not supposed to be back here,” she whispers, do ng her cap and twisting it in anxious—graceful—hands.

“But I couldn’t help sneaking just a minute of your time. I had to tell you the paper you published on machine perfusion was…incredible. Groundbreaking, really. I’ve read it six times. I think your method could save a lot of lives.”

“Thank you,” I say, surprised. Caught o guard for the first time in…perhaps the first time ever. “You’re not even a med student yet and you’re already reading surgical journals?”

“Mainly articles about transplants.” She averts her eyes momentarily and a hook tugs in my gut, telling me there is a story behind her interest in that particular kind of surgery.

And I find…I would like to know that story.

Very badly.

Before I can ask her to explain, however, she continues.

“It might be a while before I’m a med student, but… definitely someday.” Putting her cap back on, she starts to back away. “I won’t take up any more of your time. They’re going to call you on stage soon and I don’t want to miss the speech.”

Speech? Her sudden retreat has me forgetting why I’m here in the first place. Where the hell is she going so fast?

I’m usually the one doing the dismissing. “I, uh…” I clear my throat hard, removing the folded sheet of paper from my inner jacket pocket. “Right, my speech. Now that I know there’s someone in the audience acquainted with machine perfusion, it suddenly feels inadequate.”

She giggles.

All breathy and light.

Girlish.

My dick throbs, pushing against my zipper.

“If I had to guess…” she says, biting her bottom lip to temper her smile. “I would say your speech is a cold dose of reality and that never, ever goes amiss. The world is a hard place, right? At least this way, we can’t say we weren’t warned in advance.”

A few moments ago, I mentally referred to this girl as a medical groupie.

Jesus Christ. She’s far, far more than that.

In the space of a few minutes, she’s proven to be intelligent, insightful, mysterious and arousing. And I don’t like the fact that she continues to back away from me, preparing to make her exit back to the field in front of the stage. “Your name, please.”

The girl stops walking, eyebrows shooting up. “Why? Are you going to rat me out to security for sneaking back here? I didn’t mean to disturb you, Doctor Fletcher.”

You’ve disturbed me all right. “You’re not in trouble. I just want to know your name.”

“Oh,” she says on a pu of air, shoulders relaxing. “I’m Charlotte. Beck.”

“Charlotte Beck.”

She hums in a rmation and every cell inside of me responds to that sound. It’s warm. Intimate. I want to hear it against my stomach. In the fading light of my bedroom among the sweaty, rumpled sheets. This girl is ten years my junior. How is she having such an immediate impact on me?

I don’t even like people. Yet I’m worried she’s going to slip through my fingers.

Elude me.

“And…Miss Beck.” I go back to what she said earlier.

“Why is it going to be a while before you attend medical school?”

A wrinkle of confusion appears on her forehead, as if the question doesn’t make any sense. “Well…it does cost a small fortune. I definitely don’t have one of those lying around. My mother was just about able to send me to state college.” She pinkens slightly after making that admission. “But don’t worry, I’ll get to med school someday.”

The mystery of Charlotte Beck deepens. Why wouldn’t she simply take out loans like so many other medical students?

How is she going to “get there” otherwise? If this girl is already reading surgical papers as nuanced as mine, she needs to be in school now.

Money has never been an object for me. Not growing up and certainly not now.

Is it possible that, in my privilege, I’m missing something?

“Charlotte—” “Please give a round of applause for your commencement speaker, the man who singlehandedly saved the president’s

life, Doctor Dean Fletcher.”

Applause and whistles ring out over the field.

“I should go,” Charlotte says. “Thank you, Doctor Fletcher.”

“Wait.”

But she’s already slipped through a curtain and vanished.

The applause is dying down and I’m expected on stage. My surgeon side is ordering me to fulfill my obligation promptly, but I’m mostly filled—consumed—with the girl.

I want her back here standing in front of me again. It’s not until this very moment that I realize the stress I normally carry in my neck has fled. The minutes I spent talking to Charlotte are the longest I’ve gone without thinking of the hospital, the emergency room, my mounting responsibilities. I was just here, present, anchored by her voice.

I need to see her again.

No, I will see her again.

And if money is the obstacle standing between her and medical school, I’ll simply have to eliminate it.

TWO

Charlotte

I stop outside of the cleaning agency and lean back against the building, taking a moment to breathe before going inside to get my assignments for the week. The sun is beginning to dip low between skyscrapers, businesspeople rushing along the streets of Chicago to get home. Technically, I’m one of them. I spend my days working as an executive assistant to an up-and-coming tech wizard, requiring me to be hyperfocused from nine to five, and I would gladly saw o an arm in exchange for going home right now and drowning in a pint of mint chip, but my second job beckons.

Suck it up, sweetheart.

If I look hard enough into the distance, I can see the silhouette of Chicago General.

Now that is where I want to spend my days. Truly making a di erence. Saving lives. Getting people through their hour of need. Currently playing in my headphones is a medical podcast. Stu ed into my back pocket is the New England Journal of Medicine. I eat, sleep and breathe surgical

breakthroughs. But I have a long road ahead of me if I want to walk the halls of Chicago General one day in a white coat.

For me? That means working two full-time jobs.

Tech o ce during the day. Cleaning houses and o ce buildings at night.

No way am I going to graduate med school owing over two hundred thousand dollars to the government. I’d rather wait until I’m forty-five to start practicing than let them suck interest out of me for two decades. I’ve seen it happen firsthand. How easy it seems in the beginning to accept a loan. Free money that doesn’t have to be paid back for years.

It’s so exciting. And then it comes due. It crashes down on the borrower’s head like a falling piano. Paying back a loan is like tossing money into a black hole. The number never goes down. And it’s not just a number on a page. For some people, it means fear and stress and forgoing food.

My family learned that lesson, among others, the hard way.

So for the last month since graduating with my bachelor’s, I’ve been working two jobs and saving my money, keeping the faith that one day I’ll have the satisfaction of graduating medical school with zero debt attached to my name.

Every once in a while, though, I can’t help wondering what if…

What if I’d accepted the gift from Doctor Dean Fletcher?

The memory of him towering over me sends a little thrill shooting down to my toes, my pulse ticking fast in the smalls of my wrists. I have to close my eyes whenever the sensation of him washes over me, because his image demands my attention. There he is. Backstage at my graduation. Tall and fit and brooding. Rich brown eyes. A hard set mouth. Gorgeous in an old-world way. Almost like he should be walking the moors of Scotland in a wind-

whipped overcoat, a wooden cane in his hand. Instead, he wears scrubs. A white coat. Perpetual exhaustion. Lord, though, he smells like the forest after it rains.

For years, I thought of him as superhuman.

Not a typical male who falls victim to human weaknesses.

Such as sexual desire.

But if I’ve learned one thing from my mother, it’s this. A man doesn’t do anything nice for a woman unless he’s going to get power out of the deal. Power to expect sex. Power to make decisions for the woman. To overwhelm and control.

I plan to spend my life avoiding any such entanglements.

Just as I did when I received the email from one Doctor Dean Fletcher o ering to pay my medical school tuition. A succinct no thank you was sent back in his presumptuous direction and I went about my life. A life that includes working pretty much twenty hours a day.

Speaking of which…

I check the screen of my phone, seeing that I’m a minute late to report to the cleaning agency. With a blown-out breath, I turn and push through the glass door, joining the line of other cleaners awaiting their assignments. Maybe I’ll get lucky this week and they’ll sta me at a hotel. It has happened once before and I loved it. Getting my work done quickly, then pretending as if I’m a guest. Sitting down in one of the plush chairs and looking out over the skyline, as if the world is my oyster and I just need to crack it open.

“Miss Beck!” One of the sta ng agents waves me to the front of the line to the understandable dismay of everyone in front of me. “Come here, please. We’ve got a special request for your services.”

Someone snorts. “Guess she’s providing more than a clean house.”

“Listen, if it paid well…” says another woman, “I’d spread ’em, too.”

“The customer would have to want your bony ass first,” mutters the first lady.

Shoving ensues, followed by laughter. “Go to hell, Pamela.”

I stop beside the two women having the conversation. “I don’t…spread anything. Seriously. It’s not like that.”

“Nobody’s judging you, honey.” Pamela eyes my body pointedly. “Work with what you’ve got—and you’ve definitely got it.”

It’s pretty clear that I’m not going to convince them I’m not sleeping with customers to make extra money, so I continue up to the desk, accepting a piece of paper from the sta ng agent. “Congratulations, you’ve won the golden ticket. A full-time night gig cleaning a townhouse over in Gold Coast.” She leans in close. “If I find out you’re cleaning the customer’s pipes instead of their windows, I’ll fire you so fast your head will spin.”

“I’m not,” I sputter, face heating like a furnace. “I wouldn’t.”

She sighs. “Look, you’re young and very attractive. A lot of men have fantasies about this kind of thing. Porn featuring maids has its own damn category.”

With a shiver, I fold up the piece of paper and tuck it into my purse. “I’m constantly disappointed by the human race.”

“You and me both, girl.” She waves me o . “Next!”

Forty minutes later, I’ve lugged my cleaning supplies onto the red line and gotten o at the Division Street stop.

Now I’m walking to the townhouse listed on the piece of paper. There is no name on the work order, apart from a set of initials—D.D. Something about this job puts me on guard, but there’s no way I’m going to pass up the chance, in case it does turn out to be a dream gig. Coming to the same place consistently is the fervent wish of every cleaner, because it means a guaranteed income. It means you’re in one safe

place, not being moved around constantly, increasing the chance of being placed somewhere that isn’t secure. On top of the obvious benefits, I’ve always loved Gold Coast with its stately homes, greenery and proximity to Lake Michigan.

It’s near-dark now and wind is carrying o the lake, blowing my hair around. Walking down the sidewalk past two mothers pushing strollers—which easily cost more than my rent— I gather my hair into a high ponytail and brush the travel wrinkles out of my uniform. Black skirt, sensible shoes, a white, tucked-in blouse. Not exactly comfortable clothing in which to clean houses, but the sta ng agency bills itself as “cleaners to the elite.”

And this customer definitely fits the description.

I stop in front of the townhouse and whistle through my teeth.

Wow. I was half expecting it to be a fake address, but no.

It’s real—and it’s spectacular.

It’s built from white limestone. Four stories high. There are flickering carriage lamps on either side of the sweeping stoop. Vines climb up the walls, veering around windows, all the way to the ornately corniced roof. This place houses a millionaire or I’m Mrs. Claus.

With a gulp, I climb the stairs and re-shoulder my bag of cleaning supplies.

Waiting for the owner of this dream house to answer, I turn and look out over the neighborhood. Kids coming from the park, couples strolling to restaurants, yoga moms huddled over to-go cups of co ee. I’d love to give my mom this kind of security. This kind of view. Our current one is an abandoned gas station.

Someday, Charlotte.

Someday.

I turn back to the door, my stomach jumping at the sound of a lock disengaging.

It’s going to be a rich widow. That’s my guess.

But no. I’m way o .

The big wooden entrance swings open to reveal a very grim, very irritated-looking Doctor Dean Fletcher. “Hello again, Miss Beck,” he says tightly.

My mouth is hanging in the approximate location of my knees. The sudden appearance of the man I’ve been fantasizing about for the last month is a shock, to be sure.

I’m struck dumb by the utter masculinity of him. He’s a veritable god in the medical field. They literally refer to him as the Messiah. Patients have actually come out of anesthesia after being in his operating room and questioned whether or not they’re still alive, because they think—truly believe!— they are looking into the divine face of their maker. He’s that mighty and commanding and…disruptive to my woefully untouched female parts. “What…this is your house?” I manage, finally. How long have I been standing here gaping at him? “You’re DD?” He crosses his arms and leans against the doorframe, studying me beneath his dark brows with unabashed intensity. “Yes. Doctor Dean. Once I paid upfront for a month’s worth of your services, they were happy to put whatever I wanted on the order.”

“Meaning…you left out your last name intentionally so I would actually show up.”

“Correct.” A muscle pops in his cheek. “You want to play a cat and mouse game, Charlotte, I’ll play. Contacting you through proper channels isn’t working.”

My pulse flutters wildly in my neck. It has been a month since graduation and he’s made several attempts since that initial email. As tempting as his overtures have been—opera tickets, Chanel scarves, orchids—I haven’t bitten once.

“Maybe you should give up.”

Those sharp eyes trace down my body, before zeroing back in on my face. “That’s simply not an option.” Without waiting for a response, he pushes o the doorframe and steps aside, gesturing toward the interior of his house, which I can already see is magnificent. A fire roars in the rear living room. Classical music beckons. It’s decadent. I bet there are sunken tubs and walk-in closets in this stupidly perfect place. “Please come in. Dinner will be ready soon.”

“Dinner?” I sputter. “I’m here to clean your house.”

“It’s already clean.”

“Then I have no reason to be here,” I say, lifting my chin and turning on a heel, prepared to march back down the steps. Before I make it an inch, there’s an arm banding around my middle and I’m being lifted right o the ground, cleaning supplies and all, over the threshold into the townhouse. My back is pressed to a chest sculpted by the angels and his breath warms the crown of my head. I should be focused on the fact that I’m being kidnapped. I should be screaming for help. But I’m too stunned by the sinuous roll and flex of his muscles against my spine to do more than wave at the closest passerby. “H-help?” I say weakly.

Wow. You’re pathetic.

“Don’t make a scene, Charlotte,” Doctor Fletcher says briskly, carrying me through the foyer and down the pristine length of a hallway toward that crackling fireplace. “Resign yourself to the fact that you’ll be spending the evenings here and we can move on.”

“I’m not one of your residents.” Finally, I find my guts and start to struggle, not that it does any good, since he’s built like a Marvel superhero. “You can’t order me around.”

“Believe me, I know that.” His stubbled chin rasps up the side of my neck and he releases a shaky exhale in my ear.

“God help us both if you were. The temptation to order your panties o in the middle of a shift would be too much to

bear. If I had that power over you, I’d lose my license, wouldn’t I? And I’d deserve to.”

“How…” I whisper, winded by his statement. “How dare you talk to me like that.”

That’s what I say out loud. Even though I’m covered in goosebumps. Even though the idea of this man in his white coat, with his highly skilled hands, ordering me to take o my panties makes me terribly wet. My tummy is flipping and squeezing in the most disconcerting way and this man. This man is the only one who has ever aroused me. That’s one of the reasons why I try so hard to avoid him. The power he has over my body is scary. A couple of harshly delivered lines and I want to get on my knees, beg to be ordered around.

Beg for things I don’t understand.

“You’re right.” We stop in the middle of the living room.

I’m still being held in his arms, my feet inches from the royal blue Aubusson rug, the fire warming the fronts of my shins. Slowly, he lets me slip down the front of his body. And when my bottom drags over the huge bulge in his pants, I gasp, my knees turning to jelly when I try to stand. Doctor Fletcher catches me, though. Takes the cleaning supplies out of my hands and sets them on a nearby table. Then he pulls me into his arms and turns me around, so that I’m looking up into his sternly handsome face, those brown eyes studying my features with rapt intensity. “You make it di cult to be civilized, Charlotte.”

“How?” I breathe, unwisely allowing him to slide a big hand down my spine, stopping right before the curve of my backside, his fingertips tucking ever so slightly into the waistband of my skirt. “How do I make it di cult?”

“By existing,” he rasps, a line appears between his brows.

“You’re an anomaly to me. I can’t figure you out. I o er to pay for medical school and you turn down the money, in favor of cleaning houses? Your actions make little sense to

me. And you refuse to meet with me long enough to understand why. Why would you resist your calling when I’d make it so easy to pursue it?” I’m finding it impossible to answer his questions because those fingertips are sinking further and further below the waistband of my skirt, his mouth coming dangerously close to mine, his proximity holding me in thrall. As if he’s injected me with anesthesia to weaken my resistance. “You send me a brief email to decline my o er and that’s it. You cut me o . You refuse the gifts I send. You ignore my calls. And yet…” That hand continues its journey into my skirt, clutching my right cheek, pulling me roughly up against him, so I can feel his erection against my belly. And I moan. My head falls back and I let out the neediest sound ever uttered in history. “And yet, you want to be fucked as badly as I want to fuck you, don’t you, Charlotte?” His quick breaths bathe my face. “I’m not imagining it.”

Do not answer that.

As a card-carrying virgin, I don’t even know how to have sex. Or if I’d even like it. Just another reason this attraction to Doctor Fletcher is so confusing. It’s as though my body knows something that my brain hasn’t been privy to yet.

“How much…” I stop to wet my suddenly dry lips. “How much money can you possibly have? Do you just drop nearly three hundred grand on every woman you want to sleep with?” I shake my head. “That’s insane.”

“No,” he pushes through his teeth, dragging his forehead side to side on mine. “I don’t. Only you, Charlotte.”

Breathless, I whisper, “Oh.” Look. I’ve never claimed to be gifted with eloquence.

“I o ered to pay for medical school because you’re clearly remarkable. I’ve read several of your journal submissions, going back to when you were only sixteen. Spoken with your professors. You love medicine. And I want people like you in

my field.” Inside my skirt, his fingers trail up and down the strip of my thong where it’s positioned in the valley of my bottom. “The fact that I want to rail you like a dog is an entirely separate issue.”

My brain blinks.

Shakes its head.

“Aha!” I manage, unevenly, somehow managing to extricate myself from his embrace and step back, warding o his big body with a shaky hand. “You see, that is impossible.

To keep those two things separate. Sex and financial obligations. I’m not a fool.”

“I’m well aware.”

“Then don’t expect me to believe you would o er me full tuition if you didn’t also want to sleep with me.”

“You believe my o er was a bribe. So you would go to bed with me.” A muscle pops in his cheek. “Quite simply, that is utter bullshit, Charlotte. I met this beautiful, gifted girl by chance and…” He rakes a hand through his hair. “Jesus, she fucking bewitched me. That’s the truth. And I can’t help it—I want to take care of her in all ways. In bed and out. I never intended it to be coercion.”

Weirdly, I…sort of believe him.

There was a crazy live wire of attraction between us that day at graduation. If he’d kissed me behind that stage, there’s no way I would have been able to resist. A kiss, maybe even a lot more. I definitely didn’t give him the impression that he would need to pay to have me. He made that o er unprompted. And when I turned it down, he continued to pursue me. There is no mistaking the fact that he wants me. Physically. Looking into his eyes, I can also see clearly he didn’t intend to bribe me.

Why do I have an even more compelling urge to run for the exit now?

Because of one thing he said.

I want to take care of her in all ways.

If I was in a relationship with this man, he wouldn’t let me clean houses. He wouldn’t let me work a day job that I’m overqualified for. He’d wear down my resistance until I accepted the tuition money. He’d spoil me in this cushy townhouse. I’d get comfortable—and then he’d have me. I’d be stuck, controlled, desperate to keep the status quo because I’m suddenly reliant on his good nature, all of my independence sucked out through a straw. In a way, men are a lot like the loan companies. They’re the only option.

They’re all a person has got to keep their apples in the air.

And they do you dirty with interest. Well, not me.

“Very well,” I say. “I believe what you’re telling me. That your o er wasn’t a bribe.”

“Good,” he says, his relief evident. “Now—” “But I’m still only here to clean your house. That’s all‚” I manage, my body still smothered in awareness. Staunchly, I ignore the desire prickling every nerve ending I possess and pick up my cleaning supplies. “Where should I begin?”

THREE

Dean

This girl is going to be the death of me.

She’s stubborn as hell. Hard working. Gorgeous.

Intelligent.

It will be a cold day in hell before she scrubs my fucking floors.

Over the last four weeks, I’ve learned everything I can about Charlotte Beck. There is little available on the internet, since she rarely posts anything on social media sites.

Nothing but articles from medical journals about breakthrough transplants, more than a few of them written by me. I’d be lying if I said that didn’t please me. After a month of her avoiding me like the plague, my ego needs all the boosting it can get.

I fell for her that day at graduation. Hard.

But over the course of the last month, Charlotte has become an obsession.

God help me, I’ve become a certified stalker of this beautiful, brainy girl who is a full decade younger than me.

On my rare breaks from the OR, I find myself wandering

toward her o ce building, watching from the restaurant across the street as she runs in and out with trays of co ee.

This brilliant mind is an errand girl—and it’s galling. I lose sleep every night over the fact that she’s not living up to her potential. I need to help. To repair the problem with money, of which I have plenty, and she refuses to take it.

Refuses to give in to this animalistic attraction, too. Even though one squeeze of her tight ass turns her pliant and horny. Makes her moan like I’m balls deep.

This girl denies herself everything she wants. Everything she needs.

Every time I come close to unlocking the mystery of her, there’s a new twist.

And she’s not leaving this house until I have answers, so help me God. Traditional approaches aren’t going to work with Charlotte Beck. She wants nothing to do with long stem roses. Has no interest in three hundred grand worth of tuition. My phone calls were never going to be returned. And maybe an ethical man—I used to be one—would cut his losses and walk away. But there’s no way I can do that. My head is consumed with her, day in and day out. Through the night, she stars in my dreams. I fuck my fist to fantasies of taking her. Behind that graduation stage, still wearing her cap and gown, long legs wrapped around my jackhammering hips. Christ. I’ve never needed anything so badly in my life.

I’m not imagining that she needs it, too.

Needs me.

So there’s no choice but to double down. If my traditional pursuit of her isn’t going to work, we’ll go unconventional.

Knowing what I do about her iron will and fascination with medicine, maybe this is what I should have done all along.

“You want to clean, Charlotte?” I say, clamping a hand on the back of my neck to keep from throwing her down on the

couch and shoving that skirt up to her hips, so I can taste the pussy I’ve been dreaming about for weeks. “Fine. My o ce is in need of organizing. Follow me.”

Her green eyes narrow warily, but she follows in my wake up the stairs to the second floor of the townhouse. When I open the door and walk inside, I turn, so I can watch her reaction. Desperate to see any form of pleasure on her face.

She stops just inside the door, her attention landing on the stacks of files.

“What are those?” she asks, breathlessly, inching closer.

“Those are my personal records. I keep notes on all of my procedures, separate from the hospital. Sort of my own long-hand observations.”

“Oh…” I wonder if she’s aware that she’s dropped her bag of cleaning supplies. “Whoa.”

I don’t quite manage to subdue my smile. Or the racing of my heart. Lord, this girl is so goddamn special. Why won’t she just let me give her a boost? Doesn’t she realize it would be an honor? “I’d like them catalogued in alphabetical order, according to the type of procedure. You do know the proper medical terms for every form of surgery, do you not?”

“Yes, sir,” she whispers, blissfully unaware that she just turned my cock to steel.

Sir. I like that word out of her mouth far too much.

I’m going to hear it again tonight, in the form of a strangled feminine moan, if I have to move heaven and earth for the pleasure. Apparently we’re starting with filing, however.

I drag a hand down my face.

“One hour, Charlotte.” I close the distance between us to stand in front of her, taking her chin in my hand and tipping it up. “One hour of cleaning. That’s all I’ll be able to stand.”

Her eyelids flutter, pupils dilating amongst the vivid green of her irises. “And then what?”

“And then…” I drop my mouth down on top of hers. But I don’t kiss her, no matter how badly I burn for a taste. No matter how many hours I’ve dreamed of stroking her tongue with mine. Impressing my will on her isn’t going to work until I manage to break through her defenses. Then, I have an intuition she’ll welcome my will. Something about the way she sways on her feet, her pulse flying o the handle, simply from me tipping up her chin. Like a father figure. Like a man in charge. Does she need that? “And then, I figure out your truth.”

That pulse of hers travels faster. “If you’re getting my truth, what do I get from you?”

“What do you want?”

“I don’t know,” she whispers.

“I think you do know.” Again, I slide our wet lips together, listening to the resulting whimper in the back of her throat. “But I’m starting to see that anything physical between us will need to be on your terms. At least to start. So while I’m gathering your truth, Charlotte, why don’t you dare me?” I trail a finger down the buttons of her blouse, stopping at her belly button to tease the indentation with a knuckle. “Dare me to do anything you want to this naughty little turn-on of a body, hmm? That way we’re clear on the fact that there’s no coercion. You are doing the asking.”

“So…” She tilts her beautiful face, going up on her toes to press closer to my mouth—and with that move, refraining from kissing her becomes complete torture. “So you’re going to let me snoop through your medical files. And then we’re going to play truth or dare?”

Our mouths are right on top of each other now. So close that my words are mu ed when I say, “It’s the best sleepover you’ve ever been to.”

“I never said I was sleeping over,” comes her muted reply. “Anyway, aren’t you on call? Or at least need to be at the hospital early in the morning?”

With an e ort, I pull back to look Charlotte in the eye, dragging my thumb across the seam of her mouth. “If getting to the bottom of you means I’m late, so be it. And figuring you out is exactly what I intend to do.” I slide my thumb into her mouth, pumping it in and out, watching a glaze steal over her eyes as I mimic intercourse with my thickest digit. “One hour, darling.” I push my thumb as deep as it can go, her sob vibrating up my arm. “Say, yes sir.”

My thumb pops out of her sensual mouth, continuing to spread moisture left to right. “Yes, sir,” she whispers, pink appearing on her cheeks. “One hour.”

Harnessing every ounce of my willpower, I remove my hand and back toward the door. “Transplants are in the left stack.”

She’s already dropping into a kneel, reaching for the file on top. “Thank you.”

THE HOUR PASSES BY SLOWLY. To say the least.

I drink co ee in the kitchen. Put dinner on plates for later and stow them in the fridge, covered in plastic. Switch the music from Chopin to Beethoven.

Quite ridiculously, I stare at the ceiling, wonder if she’s finding my notes as interesting as she hoped. Which is ludicrous. Of course she is. I’m being considered for an operation on the Pope, for crying out loud. There’s no one better than me.

She could be, though. Someday.

I don’t know how I’m so positive of that fact. But I am.

The medical community needs her and if nothing else is

accomplished tonight, I’m going to find out why she chooses to fetch co ee and clean houses instead of fulfilling her vast potential.

Throughout medical school and my career, I’ve found very few surgeons willing to help pull someone up to their level. My mentor was cutthroat—and he was also my father.

A controlling, egomaniacal prick that still practices medicine in New York City. Sometimes I was even positive he tried to hold me back, so I wouldn’t surpass him. I’ve vowed not to be like that. Like my father and so many surgeons of the same ilk. Bitter toward anyone whose talent comes close to theirs. As far as I’m concerned, the more skilled hands on deck, the better.

My phone beeps, signaling the end of the hour, and I abandon my co ee immediately, taking the stairs two at a time. I throw open the door to my o ce, expecting to find her kneeling in front of the files. Instead, she’s sitting at my desk with her feet propped up. She glances up from the file in her hands and wrinkles her nose at my intrusion.

And that does it. That fucking does it.

I fall irrevocably in love with her.

Chains wrap around my pounding heard, shackling me permanently, turning me into her prisoner for life. A totally willing one.

“Read anything interesting?” I manage around the knot in my throat.

“Yes!” she exclaims.

“All this research on xenotransplantation. How did I not read about it in any of the journals?” She flips several pages, wide eyed. “And the way you treated this allograft rejection.” She falls back in my chair, visibly flabbergasted. “It shouldn’t have been possible once the CD4 or CD8 T cells were activated.”

I raise an eyebrow. “I thought you were already aware that I’m brilliant.” My deadpan response makes her giggle in

that girlish way—and just like that I’m thinking of her face down over my desk, her hips gripped in my hands. “There’s plenty where that came from. You can read more tomorrow when you come back to…” I survey the scattered files.

“Clean.”

Charlotte purses her pretty lips at me. “You knew I wouldn’t be able to tidy these up without reading every single word.”

“Guilty as charged.” I circle around the back of my desk chair, watching awareness take hold of every inch of her body. Standing behind her seated form, I reach down and cup her chin, tilting her head back, exposing her throat and giving me a cock-hardening view down the front of her blouse. “Will I start the game now, Charlotte?” I rasp, starved for the taste of her nipples. Any part of her, really.

“Nothing you tell me will leave this room. I just need to get inside this beautiful head.”

“Fine. But…please don’t use a scalpel.”

That surprises a laugh out of me. The sound, the feeling of laughter feels completely foreign, I haven’t done it in so long. What this girl inspires in me isn’t something to squander. It’s something to be coveted and protected at all costs. “Why are transplants a specific area of interest for you?” I ask. “That’s the first truth I want. Then you get to dare me.”

For long moments, she just breathes, her chest rising and falling quickly. “My father. His body rejected a liver transplant. I was twelve. I didn’t know how to save him, but I’m going to learn. So I can save someone else’s dad.”

It’s hard for me to speak, my throat is suddenly so crowded. I’m so unused to experiencing this depth of emotion, that I can’t meet her eyes for several seconds. “I’m sorry. I didn’t find that information anywhere.”

“You wouldn’t, since my father and I had di erent last names. My parents never married and I took my mother’s.”

She closes her eyes. “But we were a family. And I loved him.”

My chest feels as though it’s being drilled. Everything inside of me is demanding I pick her up out of the chair, hold her, rock her. Be angry at the world with her. “I don’t want to tell you how to spend your dare, Charlotte, but I’d appreciate very much if you dared me to kiss you right now.”

Her throat works. A few beats pass. Then she whispers, “I dare you to kiss me, Doctor Fletcher.”

I’m already moving. Already spinning the leather desk chair around and kneeling in front of her. With our height di erence, even standing on my knees puts my mouth several inches above hers, making it necessary to lean down, breath against those soft lips. And one look at the twin pools of moisture in her eyes and I’m diving into her. I’m spearing my fingers through those long, thick locks of hair and sealing our mouths together. Kissing her. Drawing her tongue to mine with a coaxing lick, then possessing that delicious cavern with a thorough, sweeping taste.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m so sorry.”

“If you’d been the one to operate on him, he would have lived,” she whispers against my mouth, her fingers curling in the front of my shirt. “For so long, I’ve been dreaming I could go back in time and find you earlier.”

God, she’s ripping me to shreds. “Charlotte…”

“You’d have been my hero, wouldn’t you? Until I could be my own?”

Her eyes on mine are so earnest, so imploring, that I can’t do anything but tell her what she needs to hear. To give her this dream she’s woven. A dream I’m just arrogant enough to believe might have come true. “I would have done everything in my power.”

She makes a short sound and our mouths lock together once again, wilder this time. I loom over Charlotte, her face tipped back to receive my kiss, my hands drawing her to the edge of the chair, wedging my hips between her thighs. I’m going too fast. I know that. I’ve barely begun to unravel her inner workings, but Jesus, she tastes like eternal life.

Sweet. So goddamn sweet.

When I feel my fingers close around my zipper, on the verge of letting out my rigid cock, I order myself to slow down, as much as it pains me. There’s more I need to know, dammit. And I can’t shake this sudden intuition that she needs to be understood. By me. In order to be loved properly.

Touched in a way that she can feel in her soul—and that’s what I’m after with Charlotte. Everything. Every single facet of her.

Instead of freeing my erection, I cup the sides of her face instead, my lungs laboring to inhale and exhale. “You can be your own hero, Charlotte. That’s why I need to know why you won’t take the money. Why?” Our kiss suspends itself, but the connection between us seems to intensify. She’s openly vulnerable, her hands unsteady where she settles them on my shoulders. “After my father passed away, we were broke. He left all this medical debt behind and no matter how many hours my mother worked, we never could get that huge number to go down.

The payments were taking everything we had. And she got desperate.” Charlotte rubs her lips together. “Eventually, she met a man and he swept into our lives like a knight in shining armor, paying bills and buying us new furniture. But after a while, he wasn’t a nice person—I didn’t realize that. I was young and a lot of his cruel treatment was happening behind closed doors. She kept it from me. And she stayed with this person who was treating her terribly because she

felt like she owed him after all he’d done. He…squeezed the life out of her.”

It’s a relief that the big picture of this girl is finally coming into this place. Making sense. In addition to the relief, however, I’m also pissed as hell that she went through any of this. I’m helpless to do anything about the loss of her father. I can’t go back in time and fix what happened to her mother. Not being able to repair something doesn’t sit well with me. It’s what I do. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.” I kiss her forehead, her cheek, her mouth. “That does give you the right to be wary of me. My intentions.”

“I won’t be in someone’s debt. I refuse,” she says quietly.

“When I found out this man had been hurting my mother, I found a women’s shelter for her. I moved in with my aunt for a while until the man stopped trying to terrorize my mom.

And when we were finally back living together, we made a promise to each other. To pay our own way, no matter what.

To get ahead through hard work. No shortcuts. No tangled webs spun out of promises.”

“I would never use the money against you, Charlotte,” I say, my voice vibrating.

She studies my face for long moments. “I can’t take the money. Please don’t ask me again, okay?” Her fingers slide into my hair, her nails dragging along my scalp and I have to trap a moan in my throat. “I’ve wanted to be near you so badly. I still do. But you represent this…trap. If you keep pressing me to take the tuition, I’ll just find ways to avoid you.”

“You’re telling me I can have you. But I must endure you cleaning houses and throwing away years of time you could be practicing medicine?”

Her chin turns stubbornly firm. “Yes.” “Charlotte,” I growl, drawing her o the chair, turning us and laying her down on the soft carpet of my o ce. Pressing

my body down on top of her. Gathering the hem of her skirt in my right hand while I drag our lips together, side to side.

“I want to give you everything.”

“I know,” she whispers.

“I want to watch you take my profession by storm.”

“I know that, too. But you can’t have it. You can only have me.” She reaches between us and starts to unbutton her blouse. “If you can do that, I’ll dare you to…”

“What?” I ask hoarsely, watching her reveal the softest skin in existence, the twin swells of her tits, pushed up in a black satin bra. “Tell me.”

Her shyness is made obvious by the flush climbing her cheeks. Finished unbuttoning her blouse, she trails a finger down the center of the opening, over the front clasp of her bra. “Kiss me…here.” She adds in a whisper, “Please?”

Need is pumping roughly in my balls, my dick like iron against my fly. This is not how I pictured myself fucking her the first time. On the floor of my o ce. But nothing with this girl goes according to plan. I’m too captivated by her to do anything but follow the whims of my body. My heart.

“You’re daring me to take o your bra, Charlotte? To kiss and lick those little nipples I’ve made so sti ?” My fingers go to the clasp, preparing to twist it open. “But if I do that, I’m agreeing to drop the subject of money. And medical school. Is that right?”

She nods, watching my face closely.

I’m damning myself. I know it. I’m not a man who concedes anything. Ever. There is no limit to what I would do to have Charlotte Beck, though. At this moment, looking down into her beautifully flushed face, the hem of her skirt halfway up her thighs, I would sell my fucking soul to be inside of her. It’s that simple. I can’t go another day without listening to her cry out in pleasure and know I’m the reason.

I can’t keep this powerful hunger contained. It’s growing more impossible by the second.

How long will I be able to endure the hell of her being broke, though? When I have so much to give her? It’s going to drive me insane, that lack of control— That’s when I realize she’s right. At least partially. I want her to succeed professionally, more than my next breath. But I also want to put a claim on her. So very badly. Supporting her financially was one of the ways I’d planned to make Charlotte mine. Permanently. I’ve never had a serious relationship. My skill in the operating room is what defines me. Money is what I have to o er, but she’s rejecting it— possibly very wisely, since I’m now realizing my intensions aren’t totally pure.

But I can’t deny the animal instinct to lay claim to her.

It beats inside of me like a second heart, awoken only by her.

Pounding. Making demands.

Without money as an avenue to being her man, I find another way. A way to conquer. My gut is telling me this is something we both want, too. Although she might not yet realize she wants to be physically dominated, she’s given me the signals. I’ve never felt the need to rule anyone’s body.

Never felt this kind of possessiveness. Ferociousness.

If she can grow accustomed to being taken care of physically, to give me that trust, maybe I’ll eventually convince her to trust my intentions outside of bed.

Maybe eventually she’ll allow me to pay for school.

“Very well,” I say, snapping open the front of her bra, making her breath catch. “The subject of tuition money is o the table.”

For now.

I pull aside the satin cups to reveal two very perky tits, raspberry-colored nipples standing at attention in the center

of each pale globe. Heaving. Needy. Jesus Christ. My mouth waters at the sight of them—and I can’t deny myself a lick of each bud, my desire heightening at her reaction. At the shuddering arch of her back, her lips forming an O. “You called me ‘sir’ earlier, Charlotte…” I suck her nipples lightly, smoothing my thumb over the damp peak while her breath begins sawing in and out. “Have you ever dreamed of calling me that while I’m nine inches deep?”

FOUR

Charlotte

Did I hear him correctly?

You called me “sir” earlier, Charlotte… Have you ever dreamed of calling me that while I’m nine inches deep?

That’s an understatement. I’ve fantasized about this man for years while lying in my bed at home. I’ve imagined myself walking into his o ce, him looking up at me from behind a desk, pausing in the act of making notes in a medical file. Sunlight spilling over the shoulders of his white coat. I imagined him being struck dumb by the sight of me, because we both know right away there’s something magical between us. He would strip me, pin me down.

Rule me.

Hard.

Like he’s in charge and I have to follow the rules.

These fantasies are a hard pill to swallow, since I’ve sworn never to be kept under a man’s thumb. But the shame only makes me want to revel deeper in those terribly wonderful dreams. They’re a departure from the standards to which I hold myself. An escape.

Dean’s question lingers in the air between us.

There’s no lying. Not here. Not between us. Definitely not while he’s worrying my nipples between his chiseled lips, dragging his tongue over them in long, slightly obscene licks. “Yes, I’ve thought of it,” I whimper, my sex constricting in time with my confession.

His mouth pauses momentarily, his gaze sharpening on my face. “Charlotte,” he breathes, brushing a thumb back and forth over my right nipple. “I’d sensed that, but I wasn’t sure.” He moves higher on my body, his mouth snagging mine in a long, drawn out kiss that has my toes curling into the carpet. “I’ll be your sir, sweetheart. I’ll be your ruler,” he says in between bouts of devouring me. “You trust me to know exactly what you need?”

“Physically, yes. Only.”

This is dangerous.

There’s a whisper in the back of my mind telling me so.

Telling me that surrendering my body to the doctor is a gateway drug that will lead to places I didn’t anticipate. But my need to be dominated by him overrides that voice.

Smashes it to smithereens. He wants my trust and there’s an unfamiliar calling inside of me to give it to him. This man, only. Completely.

“But…” I say when he allows me to come up for air. “I don’t…I don’t even know what I need, Dean. I’ve never done this before.”

At first he seems confused, but after a few seconds there’s a dawning understanding. Followed by what can only be described as a predatory satisfaction. “You’re a virgin.” He runs his eyes down the front of my body, as if seeing it again for the first time, his chest rising and falling at an increasing pace. “You’re my virgin.”

“Yes, sir,” I whisper, on instinct.

And it’s like being dragged into a flood, carried o down a street in a wild current. My acquiescence in this moment changes everything. Dean’s muscular form seems to expand with purpose, his jaw hardening. My body becomes this small, fragile plaything. A sacrifice to the Messiah. Whereas I spend every day holding on tight to my power and independence, right now I’m at a man’s mercy. And the shame of how much I love it makes me wet. Makes my nipples harden even more. To the point of pain. I’m breathing hard, sucking down oxygen, but I can’t seem to keep my lungs filled. I’m aching and powerless and Dean is watching the change overcome me with animal hunger, his hands going to work. Like he can no longer stand the fact that I’m wearing clothes—and neither can I. My shirt is untucked from my skirt. I arch my back slightly so he can take it o completely, casting it aside, along with my bra. And then he’s on top of me, his mouth ravenous on mine, yanking up my skirt in demanding hands, leaving it bunched at my waist, his entire hand immediately delving into the front of my panties to cup my sex roughly.

So roughly and with such ownership that I gasp, breaking the kiss. Whimpering against the hard lips he keeps pressed to mine, his eyes drilling into me.

“This is mine. Are we clear on that?”

“Yes, sir,” I say, brokenly, my heels scrabbling on the ground when he tightens his hold. Gripping me in that invaluable hand. Hard. “Yes, sir. Yes!” “It’s mine and I’m going to raw dog it any which way I choose.”

Oh God. I’m going to have an orgasm. I’ve only had one in my entire life and it happened while I was half asleep, a function I couldn’t figure out how to perform again. Maybe because when I tried a second and third time, I was too awake, too present in the constant clatter of my mind. Right

now, I’m solely focused on this man and his grip. I’m existing for him. I’m narrowed down to just this. Just us.

“Yes,” I push past lips numb from kissing. “Please.”

Slowly, very slowly, he loosens his hold and parts my folds with that long middle finger, sliding it through the drenched valley of my womanhood, his eyelids growing heavy with male arousal. Nostrils flaring. “We’re going to leave the stain of your virginity on my carpet, so I can see it when I’m working.” Without warning, he pushes two fingers inside of me and I scream without a sound, my fingers clawing at the floor, sparks dancing at the edges of my vision. “So I can remember you came to me a good girl, not a single fingerprint on this tight little cunt. You waited. You knew Daddy would pop that cherry just right, didn’t you?”

A sob nearly rends me in two.

Daddy?

If I was being carried away in a flood before, I’ve just been sucked down into a lost city at the bottom of the ocean. It’s gloriously unfamiliar. There’s no one here who recognizes me, so I can do whatever comes naturally. Whatever feels right. I’m free.

“Daddy,” I whimper, pressing my sex into his hand, bringing those gently pumping fingers deeper. “Your hands.

Your hands. I love them.”

Brows drawn, he looks down into my eyes, sweat glistening on his upper lip. “The one procedure I’ve never performed.” He lets out a shuddering breath. And then he speaks to me in his doctor’s voice. That low boom that no doubt causes residents to whisper with reverence as he passes. “Lie still, Miss Beck. This will only hurt for a moment.”

I dig my teeth into my lower lip and feel him sink in, hesitate, then push.

His stern countenance slips at whatever he feels, his curse mingling with my soft cry. And for a few seconds, there’s a pinching pressure, but he keeps his fingers high and tight, that square jaw ticking, eyes hot, until the pain recedes.

And I’m left with nothing but a restless ache.

An emptiness that only he can fill.

All I have to do is shift my hips and whine a little and he’s moving his fingers. Faster, faster, until he’s mimicking intercourse. Fast, filthy intercourse, his fingers squelching in and out of me. “Open your thighs,” he instructs thickly.

“Need to watch this tight thing getting fingered. It’s so wet and tiny, isn’t it? I’ll be lucky to get halfway home.”

“N-no,” I complain, my head thrashing side to side on the carpet. “I want all of you.”

“Oh, don’t worry. We’re going to try. I’m going to pump over and over again until you forget what’s it’s like not to have my cock lodged in this pretty baby.” He leans down and kisses my breasts in turn, then licks a path down to my stomach, swirling his tongue in my belly button. “First, I’m going to give it a nice, warm bath. You kept your cherry safe so I’d be the only one to know the flavor, didn’t you, Charlotte? Let Daddy lick it up now.”

I’m struck momentarily blind.

There’s the sight of his broad shoulders wedging in between my thighs, the flash of pink traveling upward, through the center of my sex—and then I’m blacked out.

Lost in space. The stars are right there within my reach, but I’m almost too paralyzed at the pleasure to move. Almost.

My thighs move of their own accord, writhing on the floor, as wide as I can get them, because oh my God, oh my God, he uses his tongue to wiggle a small section of flesh out of the way and then he’s laving my clitoris. Groaning gutturally as he does it, his fingers working in and out of my channel. I regain my sight at the same time I recapture the ability to

move, my hips rolling upward, attempting to grind that almighty pearl of flesh against his tongue.

“Please don’t stop,” I pant, ripping at the strands of his hair. “Please!”

A second passes. Two. Pleasure courses through me, gathering, pulling, and then it explodes.

My femininity clenches and a screaming sob flies out of me, Dean burying his face against my juncture, his tongue pressed hard to that throbbing button. And it goes on and on, the never-ceasing pulses of gratification that rattle my bones and make me want to give in. To anything he wants. In bed. Out. I’ll curl up on a silver platter and acquiesce to his whims. My Daddy is so powerful. So perfect. Look what he can do to my body. Turn it into a vessel of sex and sin and decadence and relief. I’m his.

“Time for your fuck,” he growls, prowling up my body while unzipping his pants.

“Y-yes, sir.”

I’m only given a split second of time to register the thick, heavy trunk he fists in a shaking hand, before it’s being pressed against my entrance. Dean’s grunts color the air as he works it in, his warm breath bathing my lips. “I’m getting it in. God knows you can’t get any wetter, you sweet, perfect girl. Dripping in your own come.” His body goes rigid, a moan catching in his throat when he finally manages to sink in a couple of inches, his hips thrusting slowly, slowly, gaining ground little by little. “Jesus Christ. You couldn’t sink a dime into this thing, let alone my cock. I’m going to hurt you, goddammit.”

And he doesn’t want to. It’s obvious he’s eager but conflicted.

I won’t lie, there’s a definite pressure that builds every time he sinks deeper, but I meant what I said about wanting

all of him. I need him satisfied to be satisfied myself. The only way to give us what we both need is to tempt him into inflicting temporary pain on me.

I slide my arms up over my head, lifting my back in a teasing arch, drawing his hungry attention to my breasts. I smile at him, opening my legs slightly wider. “It’s so big, Daddy.” I drop my voice to a whisper. “I want to feel it in my tummy.”

Dean makes a hoarse sound.

His hand seems to move on its own, coming up to close around my throat. He watches it happen almost dazed, but when his erection throbs all the harder inside of me, I know he likes the control it gives him. To have me by the throat.

And I like the helpless power it gives me. Being under his physical direction while also using my body to make him snap.

“Who owns this little cunt?” he asks, his upper lip curling.

“You do, sir,” I whisper.

He thrusts the remaining distance, dropping down on top of me, just in time for me to scream into his shoulder. That hand remains around my throat, squeezing o and on, while he begins to buck. It’s sweaty mating, what he does to me.

He uses me to tend his need. To relieve himself. And I love it.

I love that I’ve brought him to this, sent him over the cli and into a sea of raw, beastly lust. His member is massive, slapping in and out of me, his huge body—still fully clothed, just like in my fantasies—raking up and down my mostly bare one, his hips rifling forward and back, relentless, my moans battling to be heard over his growls of possession.

“Fuck. Me,” he grunts in my ear, the drives of hips beginning to grow disjointed, erratic. “This right here is pussy worth chasing all over Chicago. You’re a tight little girl, aren’t you? Running around, slipping through my

fingers. Not anymore. When the sun goes down, you open these pretty legs and welcome my come. Or I track you down and pry them open myself.”

I hiccup, panicked by another rush of pleasure. It catches me o guard and batters me, squeezing my flesh around Dean’s and turning him into a flat-out monster. A beautiful one. He roars my name and bears down, pumping a final time, his hand gripping my jaw hard. He presses his mouth there, to my turned cheek, growling through his orgasm, his body rutting in fits and starts to rid itself of each hot spurt of moisture.

I gasp and gasp and gasp because this is nothing short of a baptism.

I’m holding him tightly, renewed in his pleasure. In mine.

It’s a dark purpose like I’ve never known and I never want it to end. Tomorrow I’ll go back to being self-governing and stubborn, but when I’m underneath this man, I’m nothing but his downfall. I’m bent to his will. And I already know there will never be a time when I’ve had enough. I’m lost and found.

In Dean. In Doctor Fletcher.

In my Daddy. My sir.

“Did I hurt you?” he pants, scanning my face with concern as he rolls us onto our sides. “Charlotte?”

“No,” I whisper, turning into his arms. Letting him herd me closer until his heart is rapping against my ear. “I can’t…

I can’t put into words yet what I felt.”

He swallows hard. “Me either.” He lifts my chin and looks me in the eye. “But we have forever to figure it out. Don’t we?”

Forever.

The look in his brown eyes says this is non-negotiable.

His body just took complete ownership of mine, there’s no denying it. And my heart…it was his from afar. Now that I

know him, witnessed his compassion and willingness to compromise, I’m falling even deeper. Saying no to forever with this man is a pipe dream, but I’m not totally convinced he can give me the autonomy I hold onto outside of bed.

After finding so much pleasure under his command, it’s already growing more di cult to tell him no. To keep him at enough of a distance that I can fulfill my promise to myself of making it on my own.

“Let’s start with tomorrow,” I say, settling my mouth over his, dragging my tongue across the seam of his lips, hoping to distract.

His hand tightens on my hip, his frustration evident.

“Tomorrow, then, Charlotte,” he says tightly. And before I can respond, he rolls me onto my back again and drives his thickness into me, taking me in a snarling frenzy while I hold on for dear life.

Physically and emotionally.

FIVE

Dean

I brace my hands on the rooftop wall and fix my eyes on the building where Charlotte works at the tech company, shaking my head in dismay, as I’m wont to do these days.

Water droplets from the pool where I’ve been swimming laps for the last hour roll o my back, my chin and hair. My attempts to rid myself of this restless energy have been fruitless, but at least the view is more satisfying than the one from inside the harsh white hospital walls.

Charlotte and I have o cially been seeing each other for three days and each one is part struggle, part paradise.

Struggle because I spend every single fucking hour resisting the urge to show up at her o ce, get my hands on her and alert any male co-workers that she’s o the market. And paradise because I know she’ll come to me at night.

Oh, she’ll make me su er before letting me under that skirt.

Inevitably.

My Charlotte holds tight to her principles, insisting on “cleaning” for at least an hour before she’ll let me feed her.

Before she’ll let me throw her down on whatever surface is available and orgasm her until she’s speaking in gibberish. I guess I should be relieved that her cleaning only includes perusing my old medical files. If she ever tried to scrub my shower, I think I’d finally lose my temper.

I drum my fingers on the wall another moment, squinting at Charlotte’s building, as if I’ll be able to see her through the steel and glass and concrete. Having this girl in my life is a constant exercise in self-control. I want more. I want all of her. Every second of her time, every ounce of her trust, all manner of promises. Commitments. Everything. But she keeps me at arm’s length—and hell, she has good reason, considering what happened in her past. Not to mention, my ultimate goal is to wear her down, little by little. Make her give in, realize I’m not a tyrannical asshole (most of the time) and accept the help I so desperately want to give her.

That’s going to take a lot longer than three days, however, so here I am. Swimming laps at the rooftop pool, trying to hold on to my sanity that hangs by a very thin thread.

When I remember the other reason I’m here, the muscles in my shoulders bunch tight and I shove o the wall, pacing the edge of the secluded pool. I’m preparing to dive into the cool depth of water to swim more laps, but I stop short when my phone beeps.

It’s probably the hospital, though I don’t have a surgery scheduled until two o’clock and it’s only verging on lunch time. When I pick up the phone and look at the screen, I’m surprised to find it’s Charlotte texting me instead. My pulse skips and turns thick, my loins tightening. She’s never initiated a text conversation with me before and my ridiculous heart is pounding in an erratic rhythm, wanting to believe this is a sign of progress.

CHARLOTTE: Hi there. Cut anyone open today?

LIPS TUGGING, I respond.

DEAN: Not yet. Lung transplant at two.

C: Dreamy sighing.

D: I’d like to see that dreamy sigh in person.

C: You will. Tonight. But…major confession. I miss you. A lot.

It’s kind of annoying.

JESUS, my ribcage is closing in on my heart, choking it. She misses me. It’s such an unexpected gift, my arm has a hard time holding up the phone momentarily. There is no way in hell I’ll be able to wait until tonight now that I know she’s thinking of me, too. Enough to admit it, which is nothing small for Charlotte. I should probably take this blessing, this proof of progress, and be happy. But contentment with half measures is not in my DNA, so I take a picture of the secluded pool where I’m swimming and send it to her.

D: I’m here for the next hour. Come meet me. Only a few blocks from you.

C: It’s never been more obvious that I’m seeing an eccentric millionaire.

C: I can’t just ditch work to come swimming…can I? D: Yes. Doctor’s orders. I’ll write you a note.

C: I don’t have a bathing suit.

D: Good.

I SEND HER THE ADDRESS, along with the keypad code for the lobby elevator, so she’ll be able to reach the rooftop— and then I wait, my appetite for her growing more ravenous by the second. The butler emerges from the glass door at the far end of the roof to ask if I need anything and I order champagne for Charlotte, seltzer for me, since I have a surgery this afternoon. It takes her twenty minutes to arrive, but my God, she’s worth every second of the wait. Dressed in a tight, red top and jeans with high heels, it’s a wonder she made it to me without being stolen right o the street. The best part, though, is the way she smiles and flushes when she sees me.

“You didn’t warn me that you’d be in a bathing suit.

European cut and everything,” Charlotte says, tucking her long hair behind one ear. “Wow. It’s just…I haven’t seen you without clothes on.”

“Yes,” I respond, approaching my girl. Cupping her jaw and tilting her face up, the simple act of authority making her eyes glaze over. “I’m too impatient to bother with them when it’s time to be inside you.”

“Well…” She wets her lips, drawing my rapt attention.

“Maybe you could try bothering next time, sir? I like the wway you look.”

Slowly, I press my thumb into her mouth and she moans, sucking on the digit, swaying slightly in her heels. The butler chooses that moment to return with our drinks and Charlotte starts, trying to pull back, but I advance on her, keeping my thumb in her mouth, pulling her close with the opposite arm around her hips. And after a few seconds of wide-eyed shock, the tension ebbs from her body and she lets me draw it in and out, in and out, her complexion growing more and more rosy, her tight body rubbing against mine.

“It’s just you and me,” I murmur, absorbed by the plumping movements of her lips. “There’s never anyone

else.”

When the butler has gone, I remove my thumb and replace it with my tongue, kissing her the way I might if we were fucking on the floor of my o ce. Deeply. Possessively.

A halting mewl comes from her throat and I’ve already learned over the last three days, that’s the sound she makes when she gets wet. My hand trails down the front of her body, over her young tits, gripping her pussy through the jeans. “This is what I’m having for lunch, Charlotte.”

Her eyelids flutter. “Yes, sir.”

Satisfied beyond words by this dynamic that has developed and flourished between us, I squeeze her perfect little cunt one more time and step back. “Undress.”

Setting down her purse, Charlotte looks around, clearly nervous. We’re on one of the highest buildings and there’s more than enough privacy to ensure she won’t be seen.

Furthermore, there is no one else at the pool, apart from the occasional butler. But in broad daylight in a place unfamiliar to her, I suppose there is a slight wickedness to getting completely naked. I can’t seem to help pushing her boundaries, though. It started with her calling me sir, manhandling her in bed, referring to myself as her Daddy.

These are things I never could have expected from myself.

My only explanation is the intuition that she needs to have her boundaries pushed. That it satisfies her body as well as something deep inside of her mind. Charlotte is one of the strongest people I’ve ever met. If she didn’t want these things I do and say and command of her, she’d stop me.

She’d leave. The fact that she keeps going means she wants to explore this power exchange as badly as I do.

“So…” she whispers, drawing the red shirt over her head, lobbing it onto the closest lounge chair. Why is the fact that she’s wearing a black and white polka dot bra making me so hot? At the same time, it floods me with a ection. So much

that I struggle to swallow. “Is this a club…” Reaching back to unfasten the bra, she scans the rooftop. “Or do you own an apartment here?”

“A good friend owns the penthouse. This is his pool.

Exclusively. He travels a lot and rarely makes use of it.” I tilt my head. “So I do.”

Charlotte’s lips twitch, her chin lifting. “Let me guess, you saved his life and unlimited pool access is his way of repaying you.”

“It was his son’s life,” I admit, my jaw clenching when she drops the bra.

Fuck. Those bratty little tits.

They haunt my dreams with their sexy raspberry nipples.

The fact that I’m wearing a nylon swimsuit leaves little doubt how much I enjoy the sight of them. Of her. Christ, merely being around her makes me harder than sin.

Next, she steps out of her heels, toes them aside and goes to work unzipping her jeans. “And you come here just for exercise?”

There’s a dull kick inside of my throat, followed by a ripple of discomfort. I study her closely, a line forming between my brows. “Why do you ask?”

She shrugs one sun-drenched shoulder. “I don’t know… when I walked in here, before you saw me, I noticed some… tension. You seemed locked up.”

Why am I suddenly winded?

My throat is parched and there’s a slight twitch behind my right eye. Hoping to disguise the reaction to her question, I sidestep and pick up my seltzer, taking a long sip and setting it back down. “Locked up” is the perfect description for what I was experiencing before she graced the rooftop. Do I tell her why? I don’t confide in people. It’s simply not done. Especially not about a weakness of mine.

This girl, I only want her to think of me as strong, invincible.

But I’ve asked her to give me all of her trust—and to a degree, she has. She’s given me enough that I have command over her body. Don’t I owe her my confidence as well, after she’s been brave enough to allow me hers?

“Lung transplants,” I finally respond, clearing my throat hard. “They tend to make me second-guess myself. A little.

I’ve only had one failed surgery and it was lungs.”

“Oh.” She draws back a little. “Well that seems…”

“What?”

“Totally human. And healthy.” She hesitates a moment, then pushes down her jeans, stepping out of them, leaving her in polka dot panties to match the bra. Then she closes the gap between us, settling a hand in the center of my chest.

“If you were doing surgery on me—” “Jesus, don’t say things like that,” I rasp, growing momentarily dizzy at the horrible thought of her on my operating table.

“If you were,” she persists. “I would want you to secondguess yourself.”

I raise an eyebrow, trying to temper the flare of hope kindling inside of me. “You would?”

“Of course. Medicine is a constantly evolving animal. One day, the method you think you’ve perfected will change. A successful surgeon stays aware of new possibilities. Even the possibility that he’s wrong. That’s the most important one.”

She goes up on her toes and plants a kiss on my chin. “I’m even more positive now that you’re brilliant.”

She tries to move away from me, but I catch her around the waist and pull her up against me. Into a hug. Out of pure necessity, because I’m being flooded with gratitude and it’s not a feeling I’m familiar with. People are usually showing me their gratitude and I never pay it much heed. I’m just doing my job. But I can see now that they’re expressing

something that’s truly profound. And I’m going to pay much more attention to it now. Because of Charlotte.

“Thank you,” I say into her hair. “I needed to hear that.”

Charlotte turns her exquisite face up to mine, lips pursed.

“Look at me, pep talking the Messiah of Medicine.”

My expression turns momentarily sour. “I hate that nickname.”

Her giggle warms me, right down to my feet. “If that was my nickname, I’d have it put on T-shirts. Bumper stickers, even!”

“You’ll have a better one someday.”

Fuck. My chest is twisting, the words I love you trying to leap out of my mouth.

This girl is bringing me to life and it’s almost as painful as it is beautiful.

Maybe I should just tell her. That I would walk through hell for her. That I would give up medicine and go live in a shack on the other side of the world if she just looks at me like this every single morning. But Christ, this is not the boundary I should be pushing. Today was the first time she texted me, admitted to missing me. I need to be pleased with that—for now.

“Yes,” she says, echoing me. “Someday.”

The way she emphasizes that word reminds me of the silent battle taking place between us. Once again, through what she said about medicine evolving, she’s proven how ripe she is for the medical field. And part of me wants to shake her, demand she let me facilitate her education. Her expression wards o the sentiment quite handily, though.

I’ll choke down the words for now. Maybe I can’t easily change her mind…

But I can manipulate her body.

There are zero physical barriers between us and I burn to be that close to her now.

Now. Reaching forward, I wind her hair around my fist. “Why are your panties still on?”

It’s like watching someone be submerged. She goes from playful to overwhelmed in the space of a second, her breath stuttering out. “I…I…” “Maybe you wanted me to take them o for you.” Letting go of her hair, I bring both hands to her hips, molding them once, then roughly yanking down her underwear, exposing her bare pussy to the sun, leaving the garment around her trembling knees. Though my instinct is to surge forward, get my hands all over her and tongue fuck her mouth, I lean sideways instead and pick up her champagne, holding it to her lips. “Drink, little girl.”

She takes one sip and averts her eyes, breathing hard.

Several seconds pass while she obviously toys with something in her mind. Based on her glazed expression, that something is…new. “Is this drink going to make me more… agreeable, Daddy?”

Those words are an erotic punch to the stomach.

She’s hinting that she wants to play a game. A dark one.

A twisted one.

As if I could deny her anything when she’s naked, golden and glowing in the sunlight, her eyelids heavy with arousal.

As if I could put a stop to this when she’s looking up at me with earnest, green eyes, her nipples puckered. I want it, too.

I want anything that turns her on.

“Why don’t you swallow every drop and let me worry about that?” I rasp, tilting the glass to her lips again, watching her throat work as she takes down the liquid. Then I set down the glass and lead her to the shallow end of the pool, guiding her down the steps.

“Oh my gosh, it’s heated,” she moans, gliding down into the glassy blue water, her thighs vanishing under the

surface, followed by her delectable rear end. I follow her, memorizing her sounds of pleasure, every movement she makes. I can feel the obsession inside of me taking hold and it’s a physical struggle not to roar like a possessive beast.

Doesn’t she understand my insides are being clawed to hell every second I’m with her?

Sex is what I can have right now.

This game.

And I’m damn well going to make it count.

Swimming up beside Charlotte, I guide her into the deep end, remaining along the edge of the pool. Her movements are languid, a little slow, exaggerated. The alcohol has turned her cheeks slightly rosy underneath her usual glow.

The deeper we get, the more she has to kick to stay afloat, though my feet easily reach the floor, thanks to my height.

“I can’t touch the bottom here,” she gasps.

“I can,” I say, reaching for her. “Come here.”

She loops her arms around my neck and breathes a sigh of relief. “Thanks, Daddy.”

“Put your legs around me, too,” I say, pressing my open mouth to the pulse at the base of her neck. “We have to be careful, don’t we?”

“Yes…” Hesitantly, she settles her inner thighs on my hips, her pussy brushing my erection and she sucks in a breath. “Shouldn’t we go back to the shallow end?”

“Why don’t we stay here awhile. I’ve got you.”

She nods, but she’s frowning. “I feel funny.”

“Funny how?”

“Kind of sleepy.” She giggles and lays her head on my shoulder. “You’re so warm.”

“Mmmm.” I drag my palms up the outsides of her thighs, circling around to take tight hold of her ass, urging her closer to my hard cock. “So are you. Warm and tight, I bet.”

“Daddy,” she whispers, lifting her head quickly, trying to wiggle free of my hold. “What are you doing? What is that —” I shhh against her lips. “Anything that happens underneath the water isn’t real, little girl. It’s just pretend.”

She chews on her lip. “Like…play time?”

“Exactly.” Aroused beyond my wildest dreams, I back her slowly to the edge of the pool, pinning her between me and the concrete wall, tilting my hips crudely against her little cunt, rubbing myself shamelessly as her gaze begins to lose focus. “You just close your eyes and let me do what I have to do.”

“Have to…?”

“Oh yes. Have to.” I snare her mouth in a lewd kiss and she kisses me back, confused, whimpering every time I hump her—and I get rough about it. So rough that her neck starts to lose power, her eyelids beginning to droop. I heft her a little higher against me and her tits slap up and down on the surface of the water. “Good girl,” I grit out into her neck. “Such a good girl for Daddy. I know you’re sleepy, but keep your legs up for me.”

“Uh-huh,” she murmurs, head lolling. “Tired…”

This started as a game, almost a flirtation with the darker side of our lust, but there’s nothing funny about it. Not now.

If I don’t get inside of her, I won’t live to see the next minute. I’m grappling with the waistband of my suit, pushing it down just enough to extricate my dick and then I’m shoving it up into her snug fuck hole, ramming it deep and banging her without mercy against the side of the pool, my grunts echoing o the surface of the water. Slowly, she kind of melts forward, resting her cheek on my shoulder, as if passed out, but I can feel her accelerated breaths against my neck and know she’s horny, loving it, lost in the terrible/wonderful act. The telltale clench of her cunt tells

me exactly how much she enjoys being a little girl, wronged by the man she should trust.

And if that’s wrong, so be it. I’ll get her o however she needs me to.

“Hurts,” she whines into my neck.

“Poor baby. Just a few seconds longer,” I pant, fingering her asshole. Raking my middle finger up and down the back entrance and slipping in the tip, pressing hard. Making her jolt and moan. And then her littlest muscles seize up, catching her o guard, and she grinds on me desperately, side to side, whining, digging her claws into my shoulders.

“Ahhhh fuck,” I growl. “Even tighter now. Goddamn it. Here comes Daddy,” I grunt, bucking her hard against the pool wall and gritting my teeth, releasing a mu ed shout as my come begins to flow, filling up that o -limits pussy to the brim, the rest of it getting lost in the water, but still I hump and hump, my jaw unhinged, the perfection of her sex keeping me hot, teasing me into one more thrust. One more.

One more. Until my balls are finally depleted and I slump against her, my body shaking against her smaller one. I’m shaken, period.

When she lifts her head and smiles at me, perfectly lucid and bright eyed with satisfaction, it’s very obvious that I’m shaken by a lot more than the monstrous need she inspires in me. It’s love. It’s obsession. It’s tangled and irresistible and forever. So help me God. Now if Charlotte would only agree to that and make me the happiest man alive, I might be able to rest. Until then, I’m going to be a man possessed.

SIX

Charlotte

I’m sitting at my desk at work, inhaling the scent of my freshly delivered roses.

Old Charlotte would have sent these back to the florist without a second thought.

New Charlotte? Not so much.

The sight of them on my desk makes me think of Dean.

Everything makes me think of Dean. It has been a week since I met him for the lunch break of the century at the rooftop pool. And if I thought the intimacy between us was running wild before, I now know it was only on the brink.

I’m not myself anymore.

Sitting in this chair, I feel naked. Exposed. Sensitive.

Every single nerve.

There is one word on the card that came with the flowers.

Behave.

When I read it, I stopped being able to breathe. My pulse is still thumping and they arrived an hour ago, as soon as I set foot in the o ce. He dominates me, this man. Yet I sit

here feeling like a powerful goddess with the world at her fingertips. Exultant. Cherished.

Looking around the o ce, I notice a group of my coworkers whispering, looking over their shoulder at me, and I can’t say I blame them. These days, I stumble into this o ce in a sexual stupor, my bottom lip indented with teeth marks, my hair wild from having the life kissed out of me on my way out the door of Dean’s townhouse. I’m hyperaware of my body every second of the day. Even my hair brushing over my collarbone can make me shudder. Make me think of him.

Dean. Doctor Fletcher. Sir. Daddy.

I catch my reflection in the monitor of my computer, which has gone dark as I’ve been daydreaming—and my God, I barely recognize the sex kitten staring back at me. I’m wearing a gray strapless pencil dress that goes all the way to my knees—but it looks painted on—and boosts my breasts up like a sultry o ering. There’s a slit running up to my thigh and I’m already imagining the doctor’s hand trailing up that exposed skin, dragging it higher, higher.

I’m already imagining how he’ll command me. How roughly he’ll enter me.

Staring at my reflection, I have no choice but to acknowledge that I’m slipping.

Fast.

I’ve started spending the night. Yesterday I didn’t even make a pretense of cleaning, as I’m being paid to do. I’m accepting gifts. When he calls me an Uber so I don’t have to take the train to work, I go willingly. Gratefully.

It’s a slippery slope and I’ve already tumbled halfway to the bottom.

Through the window of my o ce, I can see the hospital looming in the distance—and I know that’s where I’m supposed to be. Reading through Dean’s personal files has ignited an even more powerful burn inside of me, made me

chomp at the bit to put the words into practice. To learn more and become a surgeon, like I’ve always dreamed of doing. It would be so easy to accept the gift Dean wants to give me. If I’m starting to cave after such a short period of time, where will I be in a year? Living in his house? Spoiled out of my mind and attending medical school?

Letting out a worried breath, I lean back in my chair, ordering myself to get started on my tasks of the day. But just as I open the required reference file, another delivery is made to my desk. This time, it’s an orchid. It’s beautiful.

Vivid. Still sprinkled in moisture.

My heart is back to flying o the handle.

Because I love him. I absolutely, one hundred percent, am in love with Dean Fletcher.

I’ve always been infatuated, but this? This is the real deal.

I know him now. I’ve let my guard down and he’s done the same with me. We’re…joined. Fused. Attached.

An image occupies my brain suddenly. Dean’s head tipped back on the pillow, laughing at something I said. Peppering me with questions about myself while I do the same, in reverse. Sometimes we talk until the darkest hours of the morning, whispering as if we’re going to get caught. I think of how he pulls me into his arms when I start to yawn, tucking me into his body protectively, stroking magic fingers up and down my spine until I fall asleep. And I’m not sure how I was living without him before. I’m under his spell and I don’t want to come out.

Lips pressed together, I reach for the card attached to the orchid, reading it with stunned breathlessness.

Liver transplant surgery at 11. I’ve put your name down for the viewing gallery.

Come watch. D I’m already surging to my feet, my hip knocking into the desk and nearly upsetting my co ee. I open the bottom

drawer of my desk and take out my purse, hanging it on my shoulder, trying to calm down as I approach my boss’s o ce.

Surgery. I’m going to watch a live surgery. And not just any transplant. This one will be performed by the Messiah himself. I read online once that Dean only allows an audience of medical students once a year—and they have to enter a lottery to win a seat. There’s no way I can pass this up. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime shot.

I tap lightly on my boss’s door and open it, stepping inside.

He leans sideways to see me around his computer monitor, giving me a blatant once-over that makes me want to gag. He’s a child compared to my boyfriend. A twentyone-year-old kid who made millions on an app that deletes unused apps and wears shirts that say “Iconic” or “Byte Me,” and he’s generally just snarky and sarcastic to anyone who engages him. Normally I avoid him like the plague unless I’m being given an assignment, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

“I’m not feeling well,” I say, rubbing at my throat. “Achy.

Shivering.”

With a smirk, he pushes up his glasses. “I have that e ect on women.”

Inwardly, I cringe while he laughs at his own joke. “It’s my period,” I lie.

He melts back behind the screen, as if I’ve just summoned the devil. “Go.” Coward.

“Thanks!”

I grab another co ee downstairs, needing something to do with my hands in all the excitement. It’s a beautiful day, so I decide to walk to the hospital and I’m still slightly early when I arrive, the crisp sterility of the surgical unit giving me a sense of homecoming. A sense of belonging. There is a

group of medical students waiting to enter the viewing area for the surgery and they are clearly very curious about me, the girl dressed to seduce her boyfriend. One of these things is not like the other. And being here, seeing them in their scrubs, I’m hit with yearning so fierce, I have to focus on my breathing to get through it. I want to join them.

Slipping. You’re slipping.

Desperately, I try to remember why I promised my mother I’d never allow a man to support me. It’s only a matter of time before they lord it over you. Make you believe you’d be nothing without them and their money. They want you to be weak, so they can feel strong, but they’ll also punish you for that weakness.

Repeating those words to myself usually helps, but I can’t seem to apply them to Dean anymore. They don’t fit. But my mother also fell into a trap like this, didn’t she? Making excuses for her boyfriend? Do I have blinders on because of our intense physical relationship?

The door to the viewing gallery opens and the medical students file inside, me taking up the rear. I find a spot to the right, one row back, and try to absorb everything at once.

The surgical team preparing the patient, making sure their tools are lined up, each one accounted for. And then Dean strides into the OR, hands gloved and raised in front of him, so he won’t touch anything and contaminate the latex. The lower half of his face is hidden by a mask, head covered with a scrub cap, dark hair sticking out at the back.

He towers over everyone. A presence.

“That’s him,” one of the male medical students whispers.

“The Messiah.”

“Holy shit, he’s intimidating,” says a student with a red scrunchie.

“I couldn’t believe it when the notice went out about the lottery—the second one this year. He usually only does one.

Wonder what changed?”

“Maybe he got a girlfriend who softened him up,” suggests red scrunchie.

“He did,” I say, automatically—then promptly flush to the roots of my hair.

And that’s when Dean looks up at me through the gallery glass, sharp brown eyes climbing the length of my thigh, so thoroughly exposed by the slit. It dances along my bare shoulders, dipping to my breasts. His head shakes slightly, just a slight tilt, and my entire body grows enormously warm. Because I know what that tilt means. It means I’m going to pay for wearing this dress later. It’s probably going to end up in tatters.

For the next four hours, I’m pretty sure I don’t move a muscle, my eyes focused on Dean’s hands, the methodical movements of the scalpels and clamps.

This is the surgery that should have given my father another fifty years of life.

This is the reason I want to be a surgeon.

I can achieve that dream, sooner rather than later. Is that what he’s trying to show me?

That question fades as I become more engrossed, along with the students. And I’m not just riveted by the surgery, but by the man. His authority, his confidence, his focus. A genius. The man is a genius, a saver of lives. He’s my lover.

The power he exerts in the OR is detailed and focused, whereas he’s unleashed when we’re together. As he stitches the donor recipient up, completing the surgery, all I can think about is Dean’s harnessed energy. His control.

I listen to the students whisper about him in awe…and God help me, I’m turned on—in this longing, worshipful manner that I feel everywhere. In my throat and chest and loins. He’s the Messiah and I’m his girlfriend. I’m the one who is free to reward him, praise him, like he deserves. My

body is already preparing to do so, growing damp and pliant at my core, every inch of my skin feverishly warm.

A hospital intern arrives to clear out the gallery and the medical students file out first, still giving me curious looks.

Before I can walk out the door, I’m stopped by the intern who says flatly, “Please follow me, Miss Beck.”

“Oh…” There’s a wild fluttering in my veins. “Thank you.”

There’s no doubt in my mind that I’m being brought to Dean—and I’m correct.

His spacious o ce is empty when I enter, the intern closing the door briskly behind me. I run a finger along the polished edge of his desk, over the golden nameplate that proclaims its owner. On the other side of the window, the Chicago skyline is a silhouette against an orange-pink sunset, casting the o ce in a dreamlike glow. Slowly, eyes closed against the inundation of lust coursing through me, I tug down the bodice of my dress until my breasts are almost popping out and I lean back against his desk to wait.

Five minutes later, the knob turns and Dean steps inside, freshly showered and wearing street clothes, his jaw rigid with tension.

Hunger.

With deft movements, he closes the door with a click and engages the lock.

And I wasn’t planning on this. I wasn’t. But I obey my instincts when it comes to my relationship with Dean. My lust gives me no choice. So I drop to my hands and knees, crawling to him, the breath sawing in and out of my lungs.

When I reach his legs, I change to a kneeling position, my fingers fumbling eagerly with his belt buckle, his zipper. He cups the side of my face a moment, then fists my hair with ownership, eliciting a sob from my mouth.

“What is this, Charlotte?” Dean rasps.

“I don’t know,” I whisper, leaning in to rub my cheek against his erection through the black cotton of his briefs. “I want to serve you. I n-need to.” I kiss the thick curve of him.

Obscene, open-mouthed kisses that dampen the material of his underwear. “My Daddy is so mighty,” I whisper, trembling. “Let me worship him.”

Dean’s head falls back on a strangled moan, his erection pulsing against my lips. “God yes, little girl. Look at you.

You’re dying to suck it, aren’t you?”

“Yes. Yes.” “Go on. Nurse yourself on it. Mouth fuck me. Please.” He pants. “But don’t do it out of gratitude over the viewing. I don’t need you to do that. I just want you happy.”

“I know,” I whisper, meaning it. “No gratitude.” I kiss his arousal. “Just devotion.”

His chest heaves, his fingers working the buttons of his shirt quickly, taking it o , his pecs and abs taut with anticipation. I exhale a warm breath along his happy trail, teasing that dark hair with my tongue. And keeping my eyes on him, I peel down the sides of his briefs, whimpering at the enormous sight of him, running my lips up and down the smooth, vein-riddled sides, sipping at the tip. Kissing.

Licking. Just eager to please him in any and every way. I scoot as close as possible on my knees, until they reach the toes of his wingtips.

Then I slide him into my wet mouth, moaning, stroking him with my hands. I taste the menthol of his soap and the distinct saltiness of Dean when he’s ready for sex. I’ve never taken him in my mouth before, but I’ve tasted the flavors elsewhere on his skin and if I could wear them like perfume, I would. I’d spray it inside my panties, on my nipples, on the insides of my thighs. I’d luxuriate in the essence of him as I’m doing now, bobbing my mouth up and down his sti ness, struggling with little choked sounds to get him

down my throat, so I can give him the gift of my awe, my admiration, my surrender.

“Jesus, Charlotte,” he grits through his teeth, fist twisting in my hair. “Ahhh Christ, you’re…you’re throat fucking me. I can’t last like this.”

I blink up at him innocently, then take him an inch further, his growl loud in the sunset-lit o ce. I’m in the middle of absorbing the vibration of his pleasure when I’m picked up and tossed down on his desk. On my back. My head hangs over the lip of the smooth wood closest to Dean, my knees open to the skyline. And he’s back in my mouth, driving his pulsing member between my lips, his fingers tracing the bulge he creates at the front of my throat.

“Oh my God,” he rasps, his breath coming in short bursts. “Look how much you love Daddy. Look at what a good girl you are.”

I cry out around the invasion of him, the heel of my hand pressing down on the mound of my sex, trying to combat the hot clenching sensation. It hits me over and over and over until I’m positive I’m going to have an orgasm from having Dean in my mouth. From the glorious taste of him, the way he grunts like an animal every time that knot appears in my throat. The way he creates a pumping rhythm, having a filthy sort of intercourse with my mouth, his balls tight, pressing snugly to my face.

I’m seconds from climaxing when Dean pulls out with a strangled roar, storming around to the other side of the desk like a furious God. “If you think you’re not going to be worshipped in kind, Charlotte, you haven’t been paying attention.” He yanks my backside to the edge of the desk, drawing me up into a sitting position by the neckline of my dress, bringing our mouths less than a centimeter apart.

“You want to feel what happens when you come into my OR dressed to make my dick hard?”

“Uh-huh,” I push through tingling lips, my eyelids heavy, all of me pulsing hotly. “Please. Please.”

Dean guides his shaft between my legs, shoving aside my panties and impaling me with one rough drive, making me scream with a closed mouth, my eyes tearing from the sheer completeness of him inside me. There’s no pause between his first thrust and the next. I’m quite simply having my brains fucked out on the very edge of his desk, my bottom squeaking up and back on the polished wood, my high heels dropping to the floor one at a time.

This is not the carefully controlled surgeon from the operating room.

He’s an aroused predator and I’m his prey.

His medical degree from Harvard is the last thing I see before my head falls back, eyes closing, back arched. I whimper when he yanks down the bodice of my dress, allowing my breasts to bounce free for his enjoyment. And somehow, at the appearance of my bare breasts, he goes harder. Faster. Rougher. Snarling into kisses and bites of my neck. I’m going to have marks all over me and I don’t even care.

“I want them. Mark me,” I whine. “Hurt me, Daddy.”

And he does. So sweetly. So perfectly.

He jerks me o the desk, turns me around. Pushes me face down, yanks me up onto my tiptoes and reenters me from behind. After one groaning pump, he kicks my ankles wider and goes for broke, pounding me into the desk. He rakes his teeth down my neck and back up. He bruises my hips with those world-renowned fingertips. He changes me from the inside out, my heart flying, soaring, alive for the first time. Pounding with intimate understanding of this man while my body pays homage.

“Do you know what it does to me? Knowing my girlfriend’s wet, horny cunt is halfway across town where I

can’t tend to it?” He shoves a hand beneath my hips, finding my clit with his middle and ring finger, stroking the bud with breathtaking precision. With such accuracy that my eyesight wavers, breath clogging in my throat. Oh God. My legs are already trembling with the approaching release. It’s going to kill me this time. It’s going to decimate me. “The sooner you are here with me the better, Charlotte. The tuition will be handled. I’ll find a special internship. Make sure you’re close to me all through medical school. I can’t stand being away from you. I need you here at all times. You obsess me. You and this tight pussy make Daddy crazy. Can’t you see that?”

As he says these words, he bucks in and out of me, his touch intoxicating on my bundle of nerves, drugging me, narrowing my thoughts down to finishing. That’s all I can think about, despite the tingle of warning on the back of my neck. I just need to dull the lust. Now, now, now. Or it’s going to slash me to ribbons.

I grip the edge of the desk and sob his name, the almighty ripples finally starting in my lower stomach and spreading like wildfire, choking o my air, tensing my muscles, on again, o again, my body trembling like a leaf. I drip around the shaft that continues to tunnel in and out of me, a squelch echoing in the room when Dean drives deep one last time, grinding upward and flooding me with liquid fire, both of us moaning through our climaxes, hands groping and grasping and clutching for purchase.

“Charlotte, Charlotte, Charlotte,” he chants into my neck, eventually drawing me o the desk, my back to his chest, his strong arms wrapped around me. I’m still coming down from the enormous height he propelled me to, but his words come back to me in pieces, tensing my muscles for a totally di erent reason.

The sooner you are here with me the better, Charlotte. The tuition will be handled. I’ll find a special internship. Make sure you’re close to me all through medical school. I can’t take being away from you. I need you here at all times.

Instead of treasured inside of his arms, I’m inflicted with the sensation of being trapped. On purpose. And indignation, hurt, betrayal speed through my vulnerable system, cutting me o at the knees. This whole time, he’s only been pretending to respect my aspirations of earning the money for medical school on my own. He never really intended to put up with my reticence forever, though. Did he?

“You know…” I tug my dress back into place, knocking his arms free. “You can play God with your patients, but not with me, Dean.”

He turns me around, his expression turning wary. “What are you talking about?”

“What you said. About the tuition being handled. Me being here sooner than later.” I stare at him through a veil of tears. “Were you just pretending to care about my wishes?”

He hesitates a split second before issuing a denial. “No.” “You’re lying,” I whisper.

And he doesn’t bother denying it. “I thought once you realized you can trust me, we could open the discussion again.”

“Why? You planned to get your way no matter what.”

“Charlotte,” he says, reaching for me, visibly worried.

Shaken by the hurt in my tone.

I dance out of his reach just before he can touch me, putting the desk in between us. It took so much trust to do the things we’ve done together in bed. The power I’ve given him over me, the control of my body, even the titles I refer to him by. All of it seems stolen now.

He never respected my feelings.

He was just humoring me.

If I let this continue, I’ll end up broken like my mother after her painful relationship.

“I don’t think I want to see you anymore,” I whisper, groping blindly for my purse. “I’ll have the cleaning agency refund your money. Don’t send me any more gifts. Please.

It’s going to be hard enough—” I break o on a sob.

As I’ve been speaking, Dean has gone very still, but his eyes are another story. They’re like a structure fire, entire cities burning to ashes in their depths. “You don’t mean that, Charlotte. You aren’t really ending this.”

“Yes, I am,” I say shakily, swiping the moisture from my cheeks.

“No,” he says firmly, coming around the desk slowly. A god descending from the heavens to address his subjects.

“The answer is no.”

I put some steel in my spine. “You aren’t the one deciding. I am. Just like I get to decide my own future. Not you.”

A beat passes. “I admit that I had plans to persuade you —” “That’s what you’ve been doing this whole time. Being in charge of me. Being my Daddy.” His eyes flash wildly at that word. “You were positioning yourself as my decision maker so you could use our relationship against me.”

“Bullshit,” he grinds out. “Our unique relationship has nothing to do with my refusal to let your potential be wasted.

It never has.”

I raise an eyebrow. “So if I wanted to practice at a di erent hospital once I graduate?”

Dean starts at that, grinding his jaw.

“That’s what I thought. This is about control. Just like my mother warned me about.”

“No,” he breathes, his chest rising and falling faster.

“Charlotte, it’s about me being insanely in love with you and

dying for the chance to make you happy. And yes, to keep you close. I would never use money against you. And if you think I would, you don’t know me.”

“Maybe I don’t,” I whisper, winded.

He loves me. He said he loves me.

More than anything, I want to get back on my knees and crawl to him. My body craves him even now, mere minutes after we were together. My heart is wailing pitifully in my chest, needing to be close to the man who makes it beat. But I can’t. I can’t. He broke my trust. If I give in this time, he’ll only do it again. It’s a pattern. Isn’t that what my mother always says?

Holding back a fresh sob, I break for the door, but he beats me there, wrapping his arms around me. Pulling me close and rocking me. “Stay. We’ll go home together. I’ll read you my medical files in the bath again,” he murmurs, seducing me with brushes of his mouth over mine, his beloved eyes imploring. Coaxing. “I’ll use my belt to secure you to the headboard of my bed and fuck you slowly for hours. Remember how much you loved that? Remember I had to wipe us down with a towel twice we were sweating so much?”

I moan, pitching forward, because my knees simply turn useless.

But I was born stubborn. I have that quality in spades, so I call on it now, summon it through the lust fog in which I’ve been caught for weeks. “No.” I push out of his embrace, keeping my eyes averted so I don’t look at him and cave.

“It’s over.”

He takes a rasping breath and tips up my chin, giving me no choice but to meet his eyes—and they are destroyed.

Ruins of their former selves. I’ve slayed him and it makes a new helping of tears well up in my eyes, guilt spearing me in the stomach. “I’m going to let you take some time to think,

but understand me, little girl, it’s going to be a very short window of time. My sanity can’t stand much more than that —if at all. I’m only allowing you to walk out of here right now because my marks are all over your gorgeous body.

You’re taken—by me—the bites and bruises are right there to prove it. You’re covered in me.” He backs me against the door, hard, making me whimper. “You go straight home and think about how much I fucking love you. How I live for you.

And then you come back home to Daddy for good. Is that clear?”

I can’t answer that.

I can’t.

I reach down and fumble with the doorknob, escaping into the hallway by the skin of my teeth, Dean’s eyes burning into my spine until I turn at the end of the hospital corridor and break into the run, tears tracking down my cheeks.

SEVEN

Dean

I don’t know what to do with myself. Don’t know how to keep myself from following Charlotte, so I go to the rooftop and swim. My arms pound through the water, creating a current with the urgent momentum of my body. I swim so long that my muscles begin to scream, my throat raw from breathing so heavily. But nothing, nothing, can rid me of the panic. Or the memory of the betrayal registering on her face.

Her loss of faith in me.

And she had every right.

She had every fucking right to leave me—that’s the hardest pill to swallow.

I’m not going to allow her to go, but her actions were justified. I can see that now with some space and the stark clarity that comes from having one’s heart ripped out of his chest. One of the many million reasons I’m in love with Charlotte is her astuteness. Her intellect. Yet somehow I thought I would get away with humoring her. Letting her play what I considered hard to get until she finally caved and let me support her. How utterly foolish of me.

be.

I’ve become the exact kind of doctor I swore I would never

I do have a god complex, don’t I? All through medical school and my entry into the surgical field, I silently sco ed at the arrogance of my colleagues.

Their superiority was only surpassed by my father and his contemporaries. Their egos were massive. They could never admit to making mistakes. I told myself I would never be like them. That I would see each case individually, that I would maintain my humility. All along, I thought I had. But I was wrong.

I thought I knew what was best for Charlotte. Even more than she did.

I’m going to keep her. I can’t even think straight during my days unless there is a plan to see her, touch her, hear her voice at night. That being said, if I want her to be happy with me, I…I think I have to change. I have to be a man who is comfortable with his stubborn girlfriend doing things her own way. Even if that means she cleans houses at night to save money—which frankly, might kill me. It’s a noble profession, but it will drive me absolutely insane to see her exhausted. Scraping by when I can so easily remedy the situation.

Nonetheless, that’s what Charlotte wants.

I pretended to accept her conditions for a relationship and that arrogant mistake has left me bereft. Without her.

Desolate. So now it’s time to put my money where my mouth it. There’s no choice. There’s no other way to keep the person who puts breath in my lungs, purpose in my step. The girl who makes me burn hot twenty-four hours a day.

Goddammit, how can I miss her to the point of pain already?

My ribs are on the verge of caving in.

I stop at the edge of the pool and cross my arms on the ledge, my sides heaving from exertion. It has been two hours since she walked out of my o ce and my head is pounding. I feel seasick. Like my heart has been tossed into a fucking woodchipper. Has it been long enough for her to realize I made a mistake, but that I’m not going anywhere? Probably not. She’s probably still pissed as hell, but I can’t take this anymore. My fate hangs in the balance and it’s not in my nature to sit back and let events unfold. To be passive.

But I’m not showing up empty-handed.

That’s right. I’m doubling down.

She breaks up with me? I’ll propose marriage.

Because where this girl is concerned, there is very little logic involved. How I love her can’t be reasoned with or explained succinctly. It’s an unbroken stallion that rips across an open field, no hope of being caught. I just have to pray like hell she feels an ounce of this undiluted obsession. I just have to hope she’ll give me another chance to live up to her expectations. I won’t fail her again. I refuse. But can I make her believe that?

Charlotte

I WALK through the front door of my apartment, my legs weighing two tons each. As soon as I close it behind me, I slump back against it and slide to the ground, staring ahead dully.

All the way home, I’ve been a ghost. A transparent, slow moving entity just haunting Chicago’s public transit system.

Every few seconds, I have to reach up and touch my throat to make sure the hole I feel there isn’t real. Nor is the one in my chest. I only feel riddled with bullet wounds, they’re not visible. This pain. I can’t handle it. People can’t really survive with this much hurt occupying their veins, can they?

I drop my head forward onto my raised knees, a keening sob coming from my mouth.

Oh God, I miss him. Already I miss him, even after everything. How am I going to stay away? How am I going to keep myself from giving in and showing up on his stoop, begging him to make me feel better? Please, please, cure me.

Swallowing hard, I shake my head. No, I won’t do it. I won’t.

I’ll throw myself into work. I’ll get a third job. I’ll focus so hard on saving money and contributing to the household that I won’t have time to feel this terrible— “Charlotte?”

I jump to my feet when my mother walks into the room, my next sob getting stuck in my throat. “Mom. I didn’t know you were home.”

My mother, Priscilla, comes toward me with a look of concern. “Tonight’s appointment for a cut and color got rescheduled.” She hesitates a moment, studying me, then comes forward to take my elbow, guiding me toward the couch. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

I hate burdening my mother with problems. She’s had enough of her own to last a lifetime and doesn’t need to add mine to the list. “Nothing. Really, everything is fine.”

“Char.” She tilts her head, a small smirk playing around the edges of her mouth. “You’ve been spending the night somewhere. Now, you’re a grown woman and you can do whatever you want. That’s not the issue. I’m just speculating that…this crying jag has to do with a man.”

“He’s not a man. He’s the Messiah. Haven’t you heard?” I say bitterly, swiping at my cheeks. “Sorry I’m being a jerk.

I’m just hurting…everywhere. Everywhere.”

Priscilla makes a sympathetic sound and begins to rub circles onto my back. “Oh honey. I’ve never seen you like this. Please talk to me.”

I look down at my hand where it claws at the center of my chest and drop it down to my side, sighing shakily. “You’re right. I’ve been seeing someone…” If that’s what you call pretending to clean his house, before spending the rest of the night on a sexual and emotional high. “He’s a surgeon.

You remember him—he spoke at my college graduation.”

My mother starts a little. “Not…Dean Fletcher? The man who operated on the president?”

“The very one.” Even though I’m angry at him, I can’t help but feel a squeeze of pride in him over that. “We met backstage that day at graduation and he pursued me. To put it very lightly. After some twists and turns, I eventually agreed to see him and…” I blow out a halting breath. “I fell in love with him, Mom.” She presses her lips together, visibly torn between sympathy and interest. “Then it was him that broke it o ?”

I have to laugh at that. “If you ask him, nothing has been broken o . But he’s wrong.” Saying those words makes the nerve endings behind my eyes throb. “He’s wealthy. Family money, plus the income he makes as an in-demand surgeon.

And he wanted to use some of it to send me to medical school.”

My mother slowly draws her hand away from my back, shrinking into herself. “I see.”

“I refused to take it,” I say quickly. “Just like I promised.

I’ll never let a man hold money over my head. Never let myself owe a man. I wouldn’t do that, Mother.”

It takes her several moments to speak. “Charlotte, tell me about this man. Dean.”

“I did tell you. He’s a respected surgeon. People part like the Red Sea when he passes. They talk about him like he’s the second coming and really, he is…he’s just so brilliant.

And thoughtful and passionate.” My face heats at that, but I force myself to continue, because talking about him is lessening the agony slightly. It’s a reprieve from having to forget him. “He’s protective and…generous. In a lot of ways.” I think of what he confided in me about lung transplants when we were at the rooftop pool. “He internalizes his stress, but he opens up to me when we’re alone. He’s determined and ambitious and compassionate,” I finish in a whisper when I remember how he held me, kissed me so sweetly when I told him about my father. “Really, he’s such a good man. He’s just too used to getting what he wants and—” “He’s stubborn.” My mother leans into my line of sight to catch my eye. “I know someone like that. When she formulates a plan, the plan is set in stone.”

“I’ll own that,” I sigh. “But I wouldn’t try and interfere with someone else’s plan.”

“No, my girl wouldn’t do that,” my mother says, patting my hand. She seems pensive for a moment. “Why did Dean want to pay for medical school, Char?”

I lift a shoulder and let it drop, suddenly feeling a tad jumpy. “He thinks I’m gifted. He’s read some of the papers I submitted to the medical journals and…well, we have a lot of conversations about various methods and clinical trials and procedures. I can keep up with him and even challenge his theories. And well, he just can’t stand that I’m putting o becoming a doctor when it’s something I’m clearly suited for, I guess.”

“Is that what he said?”

“Only a dozen times or more.”

Priscilla leans back against the couch cushions. “When I first came out of the only relationship I’ve had besides your father, I didn’t have my guard up. It was shattered. I didn’t notice that all of the praise that second man gave me was… directly related to his requests. If he liked an outfit on me, it was only because he picked it out. If he liked a meal, it was one he’d requested I make. And so on. He never encouraged me—God no. Never built me up or made me want to believe in myself. I was nothing without him.” She pauses. “Does Dean make you feel like that?”

“No,” I gasp, shaking my head vigorously. “No, he tells me the medical field needs me. He makes me feel like I’m not an imposter. Like I’m important with him or individually. He even said…once he even said I could surpass him.” I say that last part dully, because my chest is starting to feel odd. Achier than before.

“These men are very di erent, it sounds like,” my mother murmurs, watching me closely. “Char, it wasn’t my intention to disillusion you about all men when I asked for that promise. It sounds like Dean has pure intentions. And honey, you are in a far stronger state of mind than I was after your father’s death. If you start to feel controlled by money, you will find a way out. You won’t stand for it.”

I stare at her in shock. “You think I should let him pay for medical school?”

“That’s up to you.” She brushes my hair back. “I just think you should consider a couple of things. One, he should believe in you. You deserve that confidence. If he thinks the medical field needs you, maybe he’s right, Char.” A beat passes. “And two, if you love him, he must be a good person.

Otherwise you wouldn’t feel such a way for him. Not you.

You know, I never loved anyone but your father. That second man…my gut never settled around him. My heart remained

guarded. If you were able to let the love happen with Dean, there’s a reason. It’s hard to let ourselves trust, but when it’s the right person, there’s nothing to fear. Weirdly enough, trusting another person can often be the ultimate freedom.”

As soon as she says those words, the clouds in my head part and a light shines through. Of course there is nothing to fear. Not from Dean. Not from this man who has helped foster my love of medicine every step of the way. This man who wants so badly for me to be happy and reach my potential. I can relate to his stubbornness. His inability to let go of the idea that he would pay for school. I’m still mad at him for pacifying me, but…my anger is nowhere near the magnitude of my love.

Is my mother right?

Would trusting Dean be the ultimate freedom?

God knows I gave him total trust with my body and that decision has a orded me pleasure like I never knew was possible. What if my heart could experience the same euphoria?

Isn’t it more than worth a try?

Trembling and out of breath, I stand up, wetting my parched lips. “I…think I need to go see him. I think I was really hasty breaking things o . W-we should have talked about it more. I should have…”

“Trusted him?” finishes my mother with a knowing smile.

“Yes,” I whisper. And that’s when I realize I already do.

I already trust him. Implicitly. I let this pact with my mother and yes, my stubbornness, get in the way of my happiness with Dean. God, he makes me so happy. What am I doing?

“I have to go,” I mutter, starting for the front door.

Picking up my purse where I left it on the floor and pulling the handle—

Dean is standing in front of the door, taking up every inch of daylight with his big frame, hands propped on either side of the entrance. His hair is wet. “Charlotte,” he says raggedly, devouring me with a head-to-toe look. “I’m sorry.

I was a goddamned idiot. Having an ulterior motive was inexcusable—” “I love you,” I blurt. “I love you, too. That’s what I should have said instead of leaving.”

He doesn’t seem to be breathing, but I hear the doorframe creak in his grip. “You love me? After what I’ve done…”

“What did you do?” I step close and wind my arms around his neck, aligning our bodies, making him moan low in his throat, his huge hands settling on my hips. “Believe in me? Build my confidence and encourage me? Want to give me everything under the sun?”

His eyes close, his mouth an inch from mine. “I can’t help what I want. But I need you. Just my Charlotte. You’re my requirement. I’ll do whatever I have to do to keep your love.

To keep you in my life. I’ll accept your wishes, I’ll stand guard outside of the houses you clean and drive you home at night. Anything, sweetheart. Anything.” He groans, dropping his mouth that final inch, interlocking our lips without kissing me. “God, I love you so much.”

“I love you, too,” I whisper, playing with the ends of his hair. “And…I think, just as importantly, I trust you, Dean.” I take a deep breath, looking him in the eye. “I’ll let you put me through medical school. I’ll accept that you want what’s best for me. Because I believe it.” Moisture blurs my vision.

“And I believe in us.”

Dean presses his forehead to mine, exhaling unevenly.

“Thank God. Thank God.” I think he’s going to kiss me, but he steps back and goes down on one knee instead. There’s a loud gasp behind me, reminding me that Priscilla has been an audience to this entire reunion.

I give a watery laugh when Dean raises an eyebrow, looking past me and giving my mother a lopsided grin that turns my heart to mush. “Ms. Beck, I’m guessing?” My mother must be nodding, because his smile broadens. “Is it okay with you if I ask your daughter to be my wife?”

“Anyone who can tie my girl up in knots must be a worthy soul.” Priscilla’s laugh is wobbly. “Yes, you have my permission.”

“Thank you.” Dean’s intense gaze captures mine once again and he takes a ring box out of his pocket, opening it in front of me to reveal a jaw-dropping diamond. And oh, my jaw does drop, both knees turning to jelly. “Charlotte, I’ve had a glimpse of losing you and I won’t let it happen again.

You, sweetheart…you’re my other half,” he rasps. “You’re a beautiful dream I never want to wake up from. Coming home to you, waking up to you, being with you any way I can…will be the greatest honor and privilege of my life if you take me as your husband. Marry me, Charlotte. Say yes.”

Throat constricting, heart rejoicing, I nod. Emphatically.

“Yes.” With a hoarse sound, he slides the ring onto my finger and surges to his feet, wrapping me in a desperate hug. Our mouths meld together, my head tipped all the way back and resting on his bicep, his powerful body bending over mine. Vibrating with need. My thighs itch to wrap around his hips, my skin beginning to pebble with goosebumps, awareness thickening inside me like humidity.

Need him, need him.

But he breaks the kiss, his breath pelting my mouth.

“Charlotte, your mother is—” “Don’t mind me.” With a jangle of keys, my mother walks out the door. “I’m heading to the store to pick up ingredients for a celebration dinner. Shouldn’t be more than an hour.

Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” she calls, her voice fading as she steps into the building elevator.

Dean wastes no time picking me up and carrying me into the apartment, my legs slung around his waist, fingers plowed into his hair. Clinging with no intention of letting go.

“My room is on the right at the end of the hallway,” I whimper, sinking my teeth into his earlobe and tugging.

“Faster, Daddy.”

Dean lets out a guttural grunt and throws me up against the hallway wall. “Not going to make it.” He jerks down his zipper, shoves a few layers of material aside and pumps into my ready sex, my scream of satisfaction bouncing o the walls. “Besides, little girl. Your room is at my house now, isn’t it?” He drives into me. Savagely. Teeth bared and pressing to my ear. “You eat, sleep, bathe, study and fuck with Daddy now. Don’t you?”

“Uh-huh,” I wail at his increased pace, his leather belt chafing the insides of my thighs. “I want to do everything with you,” I say breathlessly. “Everything.”

“That’s a very good thing, because I’m going to be your husband.” He drives home, grinding the trunk of his shaft against my clitoris, looking me right in the eye as he does it, watching me come apart, as if memorizing my gasping climax. “And you’re going to be my wife. My smart, beautiful well-fucked wife. Every day for the rest of your life.”

“Every day,” I agree, bucking my hips, working him closer to his own release, my buttocks flattened between him and the wall, creating a friction that has us both in a frenzy, fucking and humping and writhing and biting. “Every single day. With you, Dean…”

He sti ens, his heat blooming inside of me, groaning his pleasure into my ear. “With you, Charlotte.”

EPILOGUE

Dean

Seven Years Later

From one end of the hospital corridor, I watch my wife instruct a group of residents, my chest packed full of pride.

Their open adulation of her is not surprising to me. I’m pretty sure that’s how I stare at her—stars in my eyes, tongue thick in my mouth. She’s a fucking miracle and I say a prayer of thanks every day for her coming into my life.

Infusing it with color and love and happiness. Not to mention…awe. As I suspected, Charlotte is a wunderkind. A genius with an incredible intuition for medicine. A surgeon whose fame has nothing to do with mine.

At least, that’s the case now.

In the beginning of our relationship, as she traversed the di cult landscape of medical school, she was known as Dean Fletcher’s wife—and that was it.

Not anymore. Now we’re both Doctor Fletcher. The Chicago Sun Times ran a story on us recently under the headline “Medicine’s Hottest Power Couple” and since then, Charlotte has been mobbed in between surgeries. Everyone is still properly scared of me, thank God, so she gets the brunt of the attention. Which is fine by me. Unless it comes from a too-eager male. At which point I’m definitely not okay with the attention. After I address whatever idiot tried to pick up my wife, I’m further placated by her riding me slowly in the o ce we now share, our scrubs in a heap on the floor, whispers of Daddy filling my ear.

Watching her now, she makes the group of idolizing residents laugh and her smile spreads, turning my heart into a snare drum. Christ, she’s so beautiful. She’s my life. My wife. My colleague. The one who challenges me and keeps me in check. She’s my little girl when she’s naked. I’m so fucking fulfilled, it’s hard to imagine my life before she came into it. It terrifies me to think what dull, gray existence I would be leading if she never came behind the stage that day to meet me.

Her eyes meet mine from the other end of the hallway and her expression heats, her lips parting slightly. And I know she’s thinking about this morning. How we made it to the hospital for work, parked in the underground garage. When I helped her out of the passenger side, her tits looked delicious in the neckline of her top and I got hard as a rock. Let her feel it by pinning her lower body to the car. We fucked in the parking garage like horny teenagers, damn the cameras or anyone who might drive by.

Jesus, that’s what she does to me.

What she has always done to me and always will.

We still live in the Gold Coast townhouse—while her mother is now in a nearby apartment where Charlotte can easily visit—but we also have a vacation home in the

Bahamas and we’re scheduled to leave for a two-week trip tomorrow. Both of us are eager to get on the plane so we can spend time together without one of our pagers going o .

Lately, I have this fantasy I can’t get out of my head. My fantasies star a naked Charlotte taking my cock and they run in my head all damn day. But these days, I’ve been imagining her with a pregnant belly. In all stages. Early to late. Small and big and everything in between. The mere thought of her carrying my child makes my balls seize up tight, my dick standing on end. While we’re in the Bahamas, I’ve decided to broach the possibility of having a child. We’ve always planned to start a family, but she needed to complete school and establish herself first. She’s done that in spades now.

It’s definitely time to revisit the idea and I’m eager as hell to know what she thinks. And if she wants to get started while we’re laid out in the sunshine.

Free to play. As long as we want.

Finally, she excuses herself from the group of residents who gaze after her with starry eyes. I scowl at the men until they gulp and scurry away. After that, I’m able to give Charlotte my full attention, which is where I prefer it.

“Hello Doctor Fletcher,” she purrs, adjusting her new pink-rimmed glasses.

“Doctor Fletcher,” I growl back under my breath. “When the hospital renews my contract, I’m going to make it a condition that none of the male residents are allowed to speak to speak to my wife.”

“That sounds like a fun lawsuit.”

“I’ll gladly represent myself in court. My defense is foolproof.” I make sure the hallway is relatively empty, before leaning down and kissing the curve of her neck, letting my lips linger there. “Your honor, when clearly interested men flirt with my wife, I get a little homicidal. So

really, I’m just saving their lives by forbidding them to speak to my woman. That’s the vow I took as a doctor, after all.”

She giggles. “Nice how you twisted that oath to suit you.”

I run my mouth up to her ear. “I wish it was tomorrow. I want you in a bathing suit and all to myself for two weeks.”

“Same goes,” she breathes haltingly, tilting her head to accommodate my mouth. “I’m not sure I can wait until tomorrow to, um…” A shudder runs through her. “I can nnever wait.”

Using our white coats to shield my hand, I slowly grip her pussy. “You want a little game of truth or dare?”

Her eyelids flutter over my suggestion, her breath quickening. “Yes.” It’s our favorite pastime. It reminds us of the first night she came to my home, dressed as a maid and prepared to clean. How I asked for her truth and she dared me to touch her.

Kiss her.

Our lives were never the same.

Thank God, I think, pulling Charlotte into the closest unoccupied room. A quiet space with two beds, no lights to greet us, except for the late afternoon sun peeking through the blinds “What’s your dare, little girl?” I rasp, closing the door behind her. I turn her around and crowd her up against the entrance, tugging down the waistband of her blue scrubs and snapping the black thong against her gorgeous ass. “Tell Daddy.”

“You go first,” she pants, laying her palms flat on the door. “I choose truth.”

“Very well.” I rake my open mouth up and down the nape of her neck. “Tell me who you love beyond reason. Who is the only man you’ll ever open these thighs for?”

She moans softly when I tug down my own pants and briefs, slapping my cock against the full swell of her

backside. “My husband. My Dean.” She tilts her head back and we engage in a filthy kiss over her shoulder. One that makes precome drip from the tip of my shaft. “I love you beyond reason.”

“I love you even further than that,” I say, dragging her into another kiss, twining our tongues until her butt grows restless in my lap. “Now give me my dare.”

“Very well,” she whispers. Echoing me. Looking up into my eyes with an a ection that leaves me choked, shaken. “I dare you to make me pregnant, husband.”

THE END For a list of Jessa Kane’s full backlist, please visit: https://www.jessakaneauthor.com OUT NOW Making Their Vows The moment Grace Foster locks eyes with the brutally beautiful underground fighter, she knows her life is never going to be the same. There is something about North Whitlock that makes her temperature rise dramatically, her scruples vanishing into thin air. They are drawn together like magnets, despite their obvious di erences. Grace attends a wealthy prep school while North must fight to survive. They don’t make sense as a couple—and her father would never, ever approve of the dangerous brawler. Trying to stop North from seeing his Gracie, though? Not a chance. Staying away from each other when every touch sets them aflame is an

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