Romance: JADEN: An MMA Fighter Romance (Bad Boy Tattoo Romance) (New Adult Pregnancy Short Stories) (33 page)

“Megan?” She was shocked out of her reverie by the voice of the doctor—Andrew. The tone suggested that this wasn’t the first time he had spoken her name, and she blinked up at him blearily. “You can move now.”

She nodded and tried to lift herself up. He was there in a second, fingers wrapping around the fleshy part of her upper arm. It sent a zing of something up her body, something that reminded her of little sparks and firecrackers. She jerked her arm out of his grasp out of reflex, sitting up on her own with a renewed vigor. The blood rushed to her head, and her vision went black around the edges for several moments before she was able to blink it away and look around the small office.

It was well worn but up kept very well. It was obvious Dr. Andrew cared for his equipment; it was shiny and for the most part, new-looking in the mess of woodwork that was probably as old as the town and the cobwebbed ceiling rafters. There was a desk cluttered with various objects and papers just outside of the partially open door. She squinted back up at Andrew, who had taken a few steps back to allow her the space she had non-verbally requested, yet still hovering close enough to catch her if she fell.

It was rather endearing; like a high school shy boy who was trying to decide whether or not he should approach his crush, and she felt a bit bad for wrenching her arm out of his grip. He was just so… electric. She needed to stay away from him if he was going to affect her like that every single time he touched her. It did funny things to her brain and other parts of her anatomy.

“Any lightheadedness?” Andrew asked Megan after a few moments when she simply sat there and attempted to tell her brain to stop taking such dirty paths into the gutter.

“It’s passing,” she said. It was, truthfully. She finally felt as if her head belonged on her shoulders and the blackness had receded, leaving her with ultra-clear vision that she had been lacking a few moments ago. Ah, there, everything was back to normal. Megan clenched her fist in her lap to test her brain’s reaction times and was satisfied with an immediate response.

Her father had been a doctor. She knew how to take care of herself. Andrew didn’t need to know that. “Good,” Andrew said, going over to the desk and picking up a clipboard. “Can you read the poster over the window?” he asked.

Megan turned from watching him, realizing that she was once again admiring the way his muscles shifted underneath the cotton of his button-down blue shirt that did wonders for making his eyes look nearly violet and squinted at the sign over the wall.

“If you can read this, you’re too sick to be in my office. Lovely decorations, Dr. I’m sure that they keep all of the patients coming back for more,” she said dryly. Andrew turned to her, a smile quirking up half of his generous lips. Damn, that smile nearly rivalled Michael’s. She glanced over at the cowboy and saw that he was looking out the window. She studied his profile for a few good heartbeats before he glanced over and caught her staring, letting her know just what he thought of her visual administrations with a cocky grin.

Damn, but if Megan didn’t like her men cocky.

“It tends to get them out and ‘better’ faster,” Andrew said, interrupting her stream of thought once more. He came into her line of vision once more and extended the clipboard. “Here, you can fill out as much as you want tonight. If your vision starts blurring or you feel as if your eyelids are drooping, just holler and we can continue this tomorrow whenever you’re feeling better.”

“Thanks, doc,” Megan said, flashing him a quick smile. Was it just her, or did he pause, giving her a very thorough once-over before escaping the room rather quickly?

She grinned at him, though he wasn’t even in the room to receive it. Perhaps he wasn’t all that immune to women, as she had originally thought upon hearing his business-like tone and the way his frank gaze refused to travel down her body unless he was assessing something.

Michael moved to her side and sat down on the edge of the table. He glanced over at her, for once his face completely serious. “I apologize for having gotten you into this mess,” he said. She could almost hear the way it bent his pride to stoop the level of apologizing to anyone.

“Oh, no it’s my own fault,” Megan said instantly, waving a hand in the air and wincing as her bite marks twanged. She saw the way his shoulders instantly relaxed, as if a huge weight had been lifted off of them at the words, even though they were only partially true.

“Once the swelling has gone down,” Michael continued, running a hand alongside her leg until his fingers hovered directly beside the bite marks that decorated the outer side of her calf, “we can put some antiseptic on that and get it bound up. It should help with the pain, just a bit. We can also get you some pain killer if you need it.”

“For not being a doctor, you sure do know a lot about medicine,” Megan commented.

“I suppose I picked up on Andrew’s lingo,” Michael said and shrugged in the easy way that had the eloquence of it being very easy to talk about Andrew and his relationship with him.

“You’ve been friends for how long?” Megan asked, elevating her foot above her heart as her father had taught her.

Michael laughed. “We’re not friends,” he said. “Something more like friendly rivals. That’s how it’s always been between Andrew and me. We’ve always had this competition thing going where we try to always outsmart and out-brawl the other.”

“You act like friends,” Megan commented after a few moments of taking this in. She supposed that could be the case, but the two seemed to genuinely like each other underneath all of the irritation.

“Don’t let Andrew hear you say that,” Michael said, and Megan wasn’t sure if he was joking or not.

“Don’t let Andrew hear you say what?” the said doctor asked as he reentered the room with a glass of water and blankets. He shot Michael a frown. “I hope you weren’t touching her bite.”

“Of course not, doc,” Michael said. “You should know that I don’t touch when the items are damaged.”

Andrew scoffed and didn’t reply. Instead, he handed the glass of water to Megan. She only then realized that her tongue felt like cotton in her mouth; dry, oversized and utterly disgusting. As he draped the blanket over her shoulders and shooed Michael away so that she could lay back down if she so pleased, he finally said, “You never change, do you?”

“Never,” Michael agreed. “I’ll go get us some dinner,” he added, putting his cowboy hat back on and nodding to Megan. “You rest up, honey. I expect you to go on another ride with me.”

Megan let out a sigh, but made sure to include a smile so that the cowboy knew that she was joking. “If you insist.”

Michael shot her that captivating and utterly undeniably handsome grin. “I do insist, darlin’.”

Megan couldn’t help the blush that flamed across her entire face in the splotchy manner that it so loved to do as she realized that he hadn’t included the word ‘horse’ in his ‘ride.’ Coupled with that smile, she was sure that he had implied it sexually and that she had been too out of it to notice.

Not just out of it; out of practice as well. Megan hadn’t been the recipient or giver of flirtation for years, now. She would need to brush up her skills quickly if she was to keep up with this alluring, beautiful man; and she found that she wanted to. She hadn’t bothered to make the effort for quite a long time because the long line of men that she had gone through had all been the same type of asshole breed that she didn’t want to expend the energy on to attempt to improve.

This day had certainly turned out very interesting. Megan moved herself over to a chair with Andrew supporting her and began filling out the paperwork. She would think about the stressful things tomorrow, but right now, she just needed to fill out the basics. Things she could handle. Her name, date of birth, social security number, medicare provider… it was soothing, almost; as if she could remind herself of who she was simply by proving it on paper.

Luckily, she started to feel sleepy before she got to the payment part. That would be part of tomorrow, when she could deal with it. Yes, tomorrow…

###

Megan hardly noticed when Andrew slid the clipboard from her lax fingers and draped the blanket over her. She was already out cold. Andrew was envious of her ability to sleep, but then he was always jealous of anyone’s ability to sleep.

He pulled out a medical textbook he had been meaning to read for the past few weeks and settled into the chair across from the sleeping woman and waited for Michael to return with their food.

It seemed like only moments later that the door opened and Michael stomped in, spurs making metal clacks against the hardwood floors of Andrew’s office. He hung his hat on the coat rack and set down two bags. “I hope the little lady likes brandy, because I got enough to drown the world,” he said as he carried the bottle into the room.

Andrew put aside the textbook and glanced over at Megan. She was still asleep—not surprising—since her body was still focused on ridding itself of the poison. “I’m not sure brandy would be a good idea…”

“Come on, doc. It’s the best medicine,” Michael said, flashing Andrew his trademark grin. “For anything.”

“Can’t agree with you more,” Andrew said. “Let me bind up her wound before we start drinking, though. I don’t want to do that drunk.”

Michael laughed. “I’ve had the pleasure of being a recipient of your drunk bandages,” he said, shaking his head slightly. “That gash never really did heal up quite right.”

“Because you didn’t keep it clean,” Andrew said, trying to put enough offense in his voice for it to actually sound serious. He failed miserably. It was true, he had been drunk the night he had bound up Michael’s arm from when he had cut it on some piece of machinery from the ranch that he could usually be found on. But then again, he hadn’t been expecting someone to come to his door with an injury such as that at midnight.

Michael shook his head and went into the tiny but functional kitchen to pick up shot glasses. “Two or three?” he called. It should have irked Andrew that Michael knew where he kept the shot glasses, but in this moment when everything was at a peaceful lull, he found that he didn’t mind it at all.

“Three,” Andrew said easily. “I don’t reckon any of us will want to get up after we’ve had a few drinks.” There was no response, not that he expected one. Instead, he set aside his book and got up. He’d had the presence of mind to set the bandages out before and simply started cutting them into suitable lengths.

“Megan,” he said, touching her shoulder gently. She really was pretty, especially now that she had some color in her cheeks. She stirred, blinking open her serene grey eyes. She looked around for a few moments, as if trying to remember where she was, and then her gaze fell onto him.

“How long have I slept?”

“Not long. I’m going to patch you up and then we’re going to have some drinks,” Andrew said, holding up the Ace bandage and cotton strips. “Would you like one? Or three?”

“Maybe seven,” Megan groaned, shifting slightly in the chair. She winced as Andrew touched her leg, and he paused.

“This will hurt,” he said. “Do you want to have a few before?”

“Just get it over with,” Megan said, tilting her head back. Andrew found his gaze dipping along the curve of her neck, the juncture of shoulder and graceful swoop of collarbone, and suddenly his mouth was exceptionally dry.

He wanted her in the way a man wants a woman, and there was no denying that. It didn’t matter that he didn’t even know where she was from or what she did as a living. She could have worked for the Italian mafia, or been a stripper and he would never know any different. It wouldn’t have mattered either way. He would have taken her whenever or wherever she deemed fit if there wasn’t the little problem of the cowboy in the next room who was practically secreting a pheromone labelled ‘she’s mine.’

Who would she choose, if either of them? This beautiful woman probably had someone back home waiting for her to come back from… whatever she was doing here. She may not find them attractive, either. Some girls didn’t go for the cowboy, and some of them hated the doctor type.

Andrew blinked and firmly told himself to stop thinking like that. He was a man, after all and a well-rounded one at that.  Only women were allowed to obsess so much. That didn’t do a damn thing to stop his fingers from shaking as he bandaged her wound. He was acting like a nervous teenager on his first date, which managed to piss him off and completely throw him off all at once. What was it about this girl that was so alluring? Was it the way she glanced up at him from underneath her thick, full lashes, lips curving up in a knowing smile? Was it the fact that she had been the only exciting thing that had happened to him all day?

No, it was more of something else. Something he couldn’t explain; didn’t want to explain. It couldn’t be expressed in words, not completely. Some might call it love at first sight. Doctors weren’t supposed to believe in that. It was all just a rush of chemicals to the brain and whatnot.

But something about Megan made him doubt it all.

Michael came into the room shortly after Andrew stood up and returned to his seat, watching Megan out of the corner of his eyes. He handed out the shot glasses and they all downed their first shot without hesitation.

“So, Megan,” Michael said, leaning forward in his chair. “What brings you to the West? You have an Eastern accent, New York, I’m guessing, so I know that you aren’t from around here.”