Costars (New York City Bad Boy Romance) (40 page)

“What?” I ask, taking the condom from him
and opening the wrapper.

“Nothing,” he says. “How are you doing
over there?”

I raise an eyebrow and put the reservoir
tip in my mouth, making sure not to get my teeth anywhere near the latex in the
process. He slides up the mattress a little, giving me better access to bend
down and put the condom over him with my mouth.

I can’t get it all the way over him — he
is a bit bigger than what I’ve had in the past — but it only takes a moment to
work it the rest of the way down with my hand.

Now, I’m climbing back over him, guiding
his cock toward my entrance and, just as soon as his tip is inside me, I stop.

“You know what I think?” I ask, leaning
forward so I can rest my head on my elbow, my elbow on his chest.

“What’s that?” he asks with a thick rush
of air.

“I think you’re nervous,” I tell him. “You
shouldn’t be.”

“
Why’s
that?”

“Well, it
has
been a while for me, so who knows? Maybe it won’t matter if
you’re good or not. I probably won’t be able to tell the difference.”

“Why do I get the feeling that you’re
fucking with me?”

“Because I am,” I tell him. “I’m trying to
undermine your confidence so you’ll work that much harder to give me the kind
of earsplitting, mind-blowing, face melting orgasm we both know I deserve.”

“You have some really strange dirty talk,”
he says, lifting his hips and, as a result, putting himself a little further into
me.

“Eager, are we?” I ask.

“A little bit,” he says.

“Good,” I tell him. “Blow your load before
I’ve had a chance to quiver like a dying fish and I’ll kick your ass.”

“Seriously, I don’t know what to do with
any of that.”

“Just making sure you’re aware that I’m
raising the stakes,” I tell him, and without warning, I push myself all the way
over him.

His upper body comes up, and I’ve got both
hands on the bed now, one on each side of him, and I’m just grinding myself
against his base, feeling every inch of him inside me.

I move my hands from the bed to his chest,
supporting myself with his body and pressing my breasts together in the
process.

It’s been a while since I’ve been with
someone, and I’ve lost some weight due to the last few rounds of chemo, but I
still have the strength to hold him down against the bed while I ride his thick
erection.

“Not bad,” I tell him, almost breathless.

“Lean back,” he instructs.

I raise my eyebrow to him again, but I
lean back, positioning my knees a little further up the side of his body as I
do.

Now, what I’m hoping for here — yep, he’s
massaging my clit.

“Good boy,” I utter, closing my eyes and
just taking in the feeling of him in and against the most sensitive parts of
me. He’s drawing little shapes over my clit with the pad of his thumb, and I’m
just trying to think straight as I’m catapulted into the kind of ecstasy I’ve
been without for so long.

“You’re beautiful,” he tells me, his voice
soft but eager for more.

“Thanks,” I whisper, and I rest my hands
on his upper thighs, leaning back further and giving him even more access to my
clit.

His hand is still now as I flip my hips
back and forth, faster and faster as that feeling grows inside me, taking me
over from the inside out. In what feels like an instant, the levee breaks and
my whole body’s quivering at his continued, masterful touch.

I’m hardly aware of the fact that, when I
can catch a modicum of breath, I’m moaning to the point of a near scream, the
sound ricocheting off the walls of my room. My arms nearly give out beneath me,
and I’m moving my hips now only in jagged movements as I continue to come so
hard. When the feeling starts to recede, I’m only that much more determined to
get it back again.

“Damn,” he says, smiling.

“That’s what I say,” I answer, nearly out
of breath. “You’ve got quite the cock, there.”

“Why thank you,” he says, laughing.

I’m sweating and I can feel my skin flush
as I rest my body against his now. His arms move around me and he pulls me so
close to him as he pushes himself in and pulls himself out of me with renewed
vigor.

I kiss his chest and try to think of
something witty to say as he lifts his knees, getting his feet under him for
more leverage as he fucks me in the sweetest way.

The only problem is, I’m losing energy
fast.

I’ve been off the chemo long enough to
have regained most of my strength, but going through round after round has
taken a lot out of me, and that’s not the kind of thing that just comes back
after a couple of weeks.

I want to keep going, but my body’s gone
as far as it can go right now.

“I’m sorry,” I tell him. “I’ve got to
stop.”

He stops and pulls himself out of me,
asking me if I’m all right.

“I’m fine,” I tell him, “just out of
juice. Tell you what, though.”

“What?” he asks as he runs his fingertips
over my back, looking with sweet concern into my eyes.

“If you give me ten minutes and a cup of
yogurt, I’m pretty sure I can hand pop your top, no problem,” I tell him.

He smiles and kisses my forehead, and even
though I’m starting to see spots, I couldn’t be happier.

Chapter
Twelve

The Trial

Jace

I’m sitting in my office, telling a
patient of mine, Robert Wilson, that his kidney cancer, against all
expectations, is in remission, but my mind is somewhere else entirely.

I thought she was kidding, but after ten minutes
and a cup of yogurt, Grace did exactly what she said she would do.

Today’s the first day of the clinical
trial, and if I had any objectivity before that morning in her apartment, it’s
gone entirely now.

“That’s good news, right?”

“I’m sorry?” I ask.

Mr. Wilson asks again, “That’s good news,
right? Remission means it’s gone.”

“Unfortunately, the cancer isn’t
completely eradicated,” I tell him, “but your tumor has begun to shrink. We
still have a way to go before we can call it a total victory, but this is great
news. You’re back near the top of the transplant list, and I think we’ve got a
really good shot of knocking this thing out. With that said, I do want to
impress upon you the importance of managing our expectations here. Renal cell
carcinoma is very serious, as you know. Still, I think there’s cause to be
optimistic.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” he says. “I can’t
tell you what a relief it is to have you as a physician.”

So far, at least, crossing the line with
one patient — Grace — hasn’t caused me to lose sight of my work in general.

“Talk to Yuri and we’ll get you in
sometime next week,” I tell Mr. Wilson. “And it’s okay to smile.”

He gets up beaming, and he leaves the
room.

So often I have to tell people the worst
news they’ll ever hear. It’s nice, every once in a while, to be able to give a
little bit of hope instead.

It’d be even nicer if it wasn’t just once
in a while, but I’ll take what I can get.

Yuri comes to the door and says, “Grace is
here; should I send her in?”

“She’s here?”

I told her that I’d walk her down for her
first day of the trial, but we were supposed to meet in the lobby.

“Yeah,” I tell Yuri, “send her in.”

Yuri turns and walks out of the room.

A few seconds later, Grace comes in and
closes the door behind her. “We’re really doing this, aren’t we?” she asks.

“Yeah,” I answer. “We’re really doing
this.”

“It’s not that I’m ungrateful or anything
like that,” she says, “but I don’t know. Do you really think this is a good
idea?”

“You’re having second thoughts?”

“It’s not that,” she says. “It’s just
that, well — I’m nervous. I don’t really get nervous, so it’s kind of a big
thing for me.”

“Everybody gets nervous,” I tell her.
“Don’t worry about it. You’re going to do great.”

“I guess,” she says, “only…”

“Only?”

“I don’t want to lose you as a doctor,”
she says. “I mean, the other part of our relationship is pretty great, but
you’re still my doctor, and I don’t want to be the reason-”

“Don’t worry about it,” I interrupt.
“Nothing’s going to happen except that you’re going to get into that drug trial
and we’re going to do everything we possibly can to get you better.”

“I’ve been looking at the statistics,” she
says. “Okay, I’ve been looking at the statistics ever since you told me I had
oligodendroglioma
, but I’ve been looking at them again
recently, and it’s not like I don’t have time to live a good life. If I had my
way, I’d live to be a hundred and sixty, but I don’t think that’s really in the
cards for me.”

“A hundred and sixty is probably a bit on
the optimistic side,” I tell her with a smile. “But if this trial can extend
your life by a year or even a few months, I think it’s worth it, don’t you?”

“Well, yeah,” she answers.

“Look,” I say, “this is totally up to you.
If you don’t want to do this, we won’t do it. I just want to give you every
opportunity that I possibly can, okay?”

“Okay,” she agrees.

She must be scared. I’ve never seen her go
this long without making some sort of wildly inappropriate joke or observation.

“You’re supposed to be there in what,
twenty minutes?” I ask.

“Yeah.”

“Let’s just get you down there, and if
it’s not something you want to follow through with, you can always quit. People
drop out of clinical trials all the time.”

“It’s just,” she says, but doesn’t finish
the sentence.

“Don’t worry about it,” I tell her. “This
is going to be a good thing. I promise.”

That may very well be the first time I’ve
used the words “I promise” outside the phrase “We’re going to do everything
that we can.”

I know she’s scared, but I really believe
this is her best shot. I don’t just want her to live for another ten or twelve
years, I want her to have a full life.

“Okay,” she says. “There’s someone else
out there; do you have to see them before we go?”

“Yeah,” I tell her. “If you want to, you
can wait out there with Yuri while I finish up and I’ll walk you down and
introduce you to Dr. Willis. She’ll be the one in charge of the trial.”

“Okay,” Grace says, but hesitates. She
quickly makes her way over to me and gives me a quick kiss on the cheek before
she turns and walks out of the office.

“Yuri?” I call out.

She comes to the door, saying, “You know,
we
do
have an intercom.”

“Yeah,” I answer. “Would you send in Mrs.
Probst?”

“Sure thing, boss,” Yuri answers and
leaves the room again.

Mrs. Probst has stage four small cell lung
cancer. She doesn’t have much time left, and there’s not a whole lot that I can
do for her.

We’re past the point of treatment now and
we both know it. Today’s appointment is to discuss how best to make her
comfortable over the remaining week or so that she has left.

The hard part with Mrs. Probst is that she
refuses to be admitted to the hospital, though by all rights she should have
been in a bed here weeks ago.

Her son, Brian, wheels her into the office
and guides her to the far side of my desk before taking a seat next to her.

“How are you doing, Brian?” I ask.

“I’m doing,” he says. “I think it’s time
we get Mom to come to the hospital, though. I don’t know how much longer she’s
got, and I don’t want her to have to spend her last days in so much pain.”

I turn to Renee. “How are you feeling?”

It’s a stupid question, but one that still
needs asking.

Right now, Renee is in a great deal of
pain. I’ve given her prescriptions for painkillers, but she refuses to take
them. Every breath for her is a struggle, and it’s one that she never fully
wins.

With a heavy wheeze, she lifts her oxygen
mask enough to say, “I don’t want to be admitted. If I’m going to die, I want
to die in the house my husband built.”

“Mom, you’re in pain,” Brian says.

“That’s life, dear,” she says and puts her
oxygen mask back over her mouth and nose.

“It
is
her decision,” I tell Brian and then turn to Renee, “although there is a lot
that we can do to make you more comfortable, even if you choose not to stay in
the hospital.”

She shakes her head slowly.

She’s already resigned.

In my business, in her progressed stage of
small cell, resignation isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The five year survival
rate is about two percent, and unfortunately everyone sitting in this room
right now knows that’s not going to be her.

Still, there’s no reason she should suffer
any more than she has to.

“Would you consider a morphine drip?” I
ask. “We have buttons that you can use to give yourself a dose, within limits,
of course. That way, you can still be in control of-”

“I’m not...” she wheezes, lifting her
oxygen mask slightly, “in control…of anything… anymore…”

“This can give you control over your
pain,” I tell her. “There’s always going to be some discomfort, but you might
be surprised how much a little relief can help.”

This seventy-five-year-old woman is,
without a doubt, the toughest person I’ve ever met in my life.

For an oncologist, that’s a hell of a
statement.

The fact that she’s even sitting up in her
power chair is a small miracle. She shouldn’t even be out of bed right now and
it’s astonishing that she’s capable of doing it. I’m not exaggerating when I
say that I’ve never seen anything like it.

Renee just says it’s the only excuse for
her to leave the house that anyone will accept anymore.

For her, as painful and exhausting as it
must be, this is the closest thing to a vacation she’s likely to know from here
on out.

“No,” she says, not bothering to lift her
mask this time. “I’m tired…I’m weak…I’m ready…”

“You’ve got to talk to her,” Brian says.
“There’s got to be something you can do.”

“There’s nothing more we can do at this
point,” I tell him. “Other than manage her pain and try to make her as
comfortable as possible…” I sigh. “There’s just nothing else for us to do.”

“Why isn’t she on the transplant list?” he
shouts, startling me and his mother.

“Her cancer’s metastasized,” I tell him.
“There’s nothing more we can do. I advocated getting her on the list, but the
transplant committee denied it. I’m sorry.”

Brian turns to his mother, tears in his
eyes. He’s young. He can’t be more than thirty-five.

“You’ve got to do
something
,” he says.

“I’m ready,” Mrs. Probst breathes and,
with that, her head droops forward.

I’m on the other side of the desk and
crouched down next to Mrs. Probst in a second, feeling her neck for a pulse.

“What’s happening?” Brian asks.

Shit.

“I’m sorry,” I tell him.

I’m not feeling a pulse and she’s DNR. I
try to find a pulse in her wrist, but there’s nothing.

“You’re sorry?” he shouts. “Why the hell
are you sorry?”

I look at my watch. “Time of death, eleven
forty-seven,” I pronounce.

“What?” he cries. “No, you can bring her
back. You’ve got to bring her back.”

“She signed a do not resuscitate order,” I
tell him.

“I don’t give a fuck what she signed!”
Brian yells in my ear. “You need to give her CPR.”

“I can’t,” I tell him. “Legally, I can’t.”

“She’s dying!” he yells and the door to my
office opens.

Yuri’s in the doorway, waiting for some
kind of instruction from me, but I really don’t think now is the time for me to
tell her to call the morgue.

“I’m going to need a little help in here,”
I tell her. “Mrs. Probst just passed away.”

“Why aren’t you doing anything?!” Brian
screams at me.

“Mr. Probst,” Yuri says. “You need to come
with me.”

“Fuck you!” he shouts. “I’m not going
anywhere. This is my mother, and you’re just letting her die!”

“Brian,” I say in as calm a voice as I can
muster given the situation, “you need to come with me.”

“You’re just going to leave her here?” he
asks, his anger turning to grief and confusion.

“No,” I tell him. “A couple of doctors are
going to come in here and help me move her to a gurney, all right? I’m sorry,
but this is what she wanted.”

Brian’s in tears now, clutching his
mother’s hand.

I’ve had patients die before. I’ve been in
the room when it’s happened, but it’s never happened in my office.

After a few minutes, a couple other
doctors and a few nurses are in my office and we’re lifting her as carefully as
we can onto the gurney. Brian’s just standing off in the corner of the room
now, watching us in silence.

For now, we leave the gurney where it is.
I’m not about to tell Brian that he has to leave his mother’s side.

“If you want,” I tell Brian, “we can give
you a few minutes with her.”

He’s wiping his nose with his sleeve and
doesn’t say anything.

“We’ll just be right outside whenever
you’re ready to come out,” I tell him.

With that, the other doctors, the nurses,
and I exit the office and I close the door behind us.

Most of the nurses leave, and all but one
of the doctors go, as well.

Yuri’s sitting at her desk, looking at the
grain of the wood in front of her.

“Are you all right?” I ask. “That was
pretty hard in there.”

“It’s okay,” she says. “I’d probably be
doing the same thing in his shoes.”

“Okay,” I tell her. “Let me know if you
need anything, will you?”

This isn’t what I expected of today, but
something like that is never out of the realm of possibility.