Challenge (30 page)

“No, Specs. I’m not that good of an actor. Did it feel like an act?” She remains silent. “Did you want it to be an act?”

Her face sparks with anger. “Yes! This was supposed to be casual, Camden. We just met. I’ve never even been with another man. This isn’t how this was supposed to go.”

“Well, sorry for mucking up your plans,” I snap. “I didn’t exactly plan for this.”

“But you can stop it!”

“No, I bloody can’t, Indie! It’s not a fucking valve I can shut off.”

I stand up, no longer giving a shit how much space she needs. I yank the other dining chair from its place and slam it down in front of her. When I sit, my knees graze her toes. In response, she squeezes her legs to her chest like a shield of armour.

Ready to lay all my shit bare, I pierce her with my eyes and say, “I want you, Indie. For more than five days. I want what I feel when I’m with you.”

“Camden—”

“Bloody hell, I’m falling for you!” I yell. My breath sputters out fast and ragged as the words tumble out and suspend in the air, floating…and then drifting…and then sinking as her eyes blaze fire against them.

“You hardly know me.” Her tone is contrite and it enrages me.

Through clenched teeth, I rebuff, “I know enough to know that I’ve never cared about anything like this in my life. Nothing, Indie. Nothing has felt like this. Do you hear what I’m saying? Because it takes a lot for me to admit that right now. I feel like…I feel like…” I rake my hand through my hair, trying to find the right words.

“Like what?” she snaps, losing a chink of her armour.

“Like I’ve been playing pretend my whole life!” I throw my hands out and slide closer to her. My hands shake from the ache I feel to hold her. To embrace her. To make her understand. To break down this unapologetic wall she has built around her. I reach out to touch her but stop myself. My voice is low and urgent. “When I compare my feelings for you to my feelings for
everything else
, they’re so different.”

As if completely oblivious to the insanity coursing through my veins, she groans, “No, Cam.”

“Yes, Indie.”

“No.”

“YES!” I shout and make a move to kiss her. The heels of her hands slam against my chest, stopping my momentum. Cupping her face, I look at her pleadingly. “I’ve given you the tools to juggle, Specs. Just juggle already.”

Her eyes are wide and accusing as they flick back and forth between mine. “That is
not
what my pun meant. And stop calling me that!”

“Puns can have all sorts of meanings. That’s the beauty of them.” Her defensive hands soften when I lean in. “Why can’t you consider, even for a second, that you might like me, too?”

“Because I don’t, Camden. Not like that.”

“Indie,” I exhale, pulling my hands from her face and clutching hers to my heart. “I’m wide open on the table, bleeding all over the bloody place. Stop holding back and feel this.” My heart pounds beneath her touch, drumming away with anxiety.

With desperation.

With hope.

“
Feel me
,” I croak, my shaky voice revealing how anguished I am.

Her brown eyes are wide and watery. Her cheeks are warm and flush. Every part of her face screams indecision, giving me a tiny ray of hope that perhaps I’m getting through to her after all.

When I move to kiss her again, she shoves me back. Then, without warning, her body climbs on top of me. Her legs wrap around my waist as she straddles me in the chair. With a throaty sigh, she slams her mouth to mine. Her hands greedily slice through every strand of hair on my head, tugging at the length on top. It’s unrestrained and ravishing, and I’m completely overcome. She thrusts her tongue so deep into my mouth that I close my eyes and wince in shock but also in victory.

Her hand reaches between us and frees me from my boxers. I’m rock-hard in her grip as she positions me between her slits and falls down on top of me all in one motion. Squeezing me inside of her, she breaks our kiss and screams out
.

My head falls to her chest as I utter her name over and over and over. She clutches me to her and rides me like I didn’t even know she could. Bobbing and bucking, squeezing and releasing. Frenzied, I free one of her breasts and suck so hard on the nipple I’m sure it’ll leave a mark. With every plunge, she takes me deeper inside of her. So deep I can’t hold on much longer. The desperation in her body is alarming. I hold her as tight as I can because, even though I’m inside of her, I still feel like she’s pulling away.

With only a few more thrusts, she screams out my name with her climax and I roar with her, emptying every part of myself inside her. Bare and wet, pulsing and kneading. She cradles me to her like I’m the only thing keeping her upright.

Our breaths are hot and ragged as the rest of the world slowly comes back into focus and we both realise what just happened. She finally pulls away from me, and what I see before me is a statue version of Indie Porter. Gone is the soft, beautiful girl whom I made love to last night, or even the one who climbed on top of me just a few minutes ago. Now she’s hard and cold, without a trace of emotion on her cherubic face.

She stands up, pulling her shirt down and crossing her legs while she looks away from me. “See? That’s what we are.”

My mouth falls open as I tuck my limping dick back inside my boxers. “What?”

She looks at me with a flat expression on her face. “Sex. Fucking. That’s all we are, Camden. That’s all we can ever be.” A spark of determination now invigorates her eyes. “I’m sorry, but you knew what I wanted from you. And you were using me just as much as I was using you.”

“How did I use you?” I croak.

“To get you through this recovery,” she states, her jaw taut with determination. “I’ve turned into a codependency for you. I’m like a painkiller you’re hooked on. I see it all the time with athletes recovering from injuries. You’re using me to make yourself feel better, and you’re turning this into more than it is.”

“Bollocks!” I stand up and move toward her. “You think you’re nothing more than sex to me?”

“No, I think I’m more.” She raises her chin. “I’m your doctor…your surgeon. You are my patient. You said you didn’t want a girlfriend and this was all temporary.”

“I don’t want a girlfriend,” I snap. “I just want you. I want you in ways that supersede labels.” I pause, waiting for my breathing to slow but then growl out, “Stop holding back.”

“I’m not holding back.” Her tone is verging on manic.

“You are! Bloody hell, Indie.” I turn and kick back the chair that mocks me with memories of passion. Ramming my hands through my hair, I grip my neck so hard I can feel the vertebrae. “I’ve done things with you that shows another side of me to you. Let this happen.”

“There isn’t another side to me. Our original arrangement is all I’m capable of, and we’ve already gone way too far.”

“We haven’t gone far enough, Specs.” I move to reach for her face but she pulls away, forcing me to clutch my hands into fists of frustration. She’s like a bloody football I can’t touch.

She’s going to ruin me.

“I thought you could handle this,” she states coolly, and I hear a deafening finality in her voice.

“So did I,” I whisper and huff out a pathetic laugh. How could I have gotten this so wrong? The one time I open myself up and allow myself to care about something more, it all implodes in my face.

“You can’t change the rules on me,” she adds stiffly, barely making eye contact with me despite my close proximity. “I have a plan and I’m sticking to that plan.”

“Oh, your precious fucking cock list,” I huff, leaning in, my voice visceral. “It’s ridiculous, Indie. Your plan is a child’s idea to solve the problem of being a virgin. You don’t fuck like a virgin, so stop acting like one.”

I don’t even feel the impact of what just happened until seconds later when the heat of her strike spreads across my cheek.

“Get out!” she growls, clutching her hand like she hurt herself more than she hurt me. Her face and voice are riddled with so much emotion that I can’t bear to look at her.

My jaw muscle ticks as I walk around the room and grab my clothes up off the floor. Steeling myself to look at her one more time, I pause at the door and say, “The irony of all of this is that you are still the one doing the cutting.”

T
HE DOOR SLAMS AND
I wait for the tears to come. I wait to feel bad about what I said or did. I expect regret and remorse to consume me. I wonder when what he said will begin to bother me.

Instead…I get nothing.

The fire in my palm turns to ice.

I’m numb.

I’m a rock.

I stare at myself in the bathroom mirror and looking back at me is a blank canvas. Nothing to connect to. Nothing to interpret. Absolutely zero symbolism in the curves of my face. If I was to say a pun about myself, I’d say, “‘Much ado about nothing.’”

This…is me.

As the days pass by back at work, the same four words continue on repeat in my mind.

I’m charting.

“I’m falling for you.”

I’m setting a bone.

“I’m falling for you.”

I’m eating lunch.

“I’m falling for you.”

I’m having a conversation with Prichard.

“I’m falling for you.”

Speak of the devil. I feel my mobile vibrate in my pocket while walking out of the post-op room where I was checking on a patient, whom I did a shoulder replacement on earlier this morning.

I answer my mobile and adjust the iPad chart in my hand. “Hello, this is Dr. Porter.”

“Indie…Prichard here. I just realised that I’m going to be in the OR for the next four hours with a double knee replacement.”

“Okay,” I reply, hearing the buzz of the OR behind him and realising he’s probably operating as we speak.

“That Harris footballer is coming in today for another MRI. I want to make sure his graft is looking perfect, so I’d like you to be the one to take him to radiology. Not an intern. Got it?”

My chest feels tight. “The radiologist will be doing the scan, so I don’t know why it matters who takes Mr. Harris to the room.”

“Indie,” he warns. “Harris is a VIP and I want you on it. We’re representing the hospital here. I shouldn’t have to explain myself.”

His tone is final, and I know I’ve already argued more than I ever would have regarding any other patient. “No problem, Dr. Prichard.”

“Cheers.”

He hangs up and leaves my stomach swirling. I knew Camden was coming in today because I can read a schedule. But my hope of avoiding him until his surgery was just thwarted by the man who’s supposed to be my mentor.

It’s been ten days since I screwed Camden Harris on that chair in my flat. That stupid, stupid chair. My stupid, stupid brain.

I thought I could fuck away the feeling. I only had intercourse a handful of times and I suddenly thought I could use it as a dagger through the heart? What’s wrong with me?

I’m not ready to see him. I can’t even cope with everything that was said between us that morning in my flat or the night before in my bed. Now I’m being forced to pull my big girl knickers on and face the man who touched me in a way no one ever has.

Bloody hell.