Escalation Clause (2 page)

“I’ll take her myself,” he declared, brushing past the woman’s teary-eyed husband.

Matthew stared at Beth over the unconscious woman, before the elevator doors slid shut, cutting Beth off from the patient. Even though desperately in need of sleep, she stayed around to find out how the baby and mother fared. She nodded off in a chair in the fifth floor break room, startled awake by a hand on her shoulder. Matthew briskly pulled her up to her feet, and to her complete surprise, swept her into his arms.

“Mom and baby are fine. Her BP is down, the bleeding stopped. They are alive, thanks to you,” he whispered into her hair.

She shivered, both at the shock from being woken so suddenly and by his sheer physical presence. She struggled away from him, uneasy but already reacting in a way she wanted very much to reject. His strong arms wrapped around her, lips hovered near her ear. A brief vision of her fiancée flashed through her brain. Ethan Macintosh, the man whose proposal she’d just accepted was a young, smart, romantic guy and completely in love with her. He was finishing his residency in neurosurgery in Ohio. But Dr. Thornton, the notorious, brilliant, handsome, charming chief resident was holding her in his arms and was, if she were not mistaken, about to kiss her. Scarier still—she wanted him to, badly.

“That’s great, um, glad I could help,” she broke away, stammering. “You know, I’m really tired, so….” He grabbed her before she could finish and kissed her deeply, forcing her lips open to accept him, holding her head in both of his hands. What small reserve of will power she possessed faded like fog in direct sunlight.

He broke away just as she was allowing herself to enjoy it. “I have been wanting to kiss you since you stepped into this hospital,” he whispered into her neck. She propped herself against the counter, willed herself to remain calm and in control, and tried to find anything like a real answer to that news tidbit. Giving up on that, she ran her fingers through his hair and brought her lips near his once more.

They jumped away from each other when the staff room door was opened by a couple of interns. Beth felt herself flush up to the tips of her ears. She knew everyone was used to Dr. Thornton cornering women all around the hospital. Shit, she’d been in on the jokes and innuendo herself. The two men paid them no attention, pulled stuff from their lockers, and made their way out.

Matthew didn’t take his eyes from her the entire time. She tried to look casual, as if she were not yet a few moments away from becoming another conquest for the infamous ladies’ man. Once they were gone, he pulled her into the adjoining staff women’s restroom, flipping the door locked behind them. She backed up into the sinks, “I can’t do this. I’m engaged,” she told him as he advanced, realizing the stupidity of the statement the second it left her lips.

“Yeah, I know,” he said, pulling the rest of the pins out of her hair as if it were the most natural thing in the world, allowing it to flow down over her shoulders. “You are a gorgeous, incredible woman, Beth. Don’t waste yourself on him,” he said, his eyes dark with lust.

 She made a half-hearted attempt to push him away. “You don’t even know him, Matthew,” she protested.

“Don’t need to,” he whispered, as he reached out to pull her close again. “Let me show you what you’re missing,” he whispered into her ear. “Then you can decide for yourself.” He pulled her close again, pressing his lips against hers, hard and demanding.

His voice, his words, the closeness of his lean strength set off something deep inside her that she hardly recognized. She reached up, pulled him to her. Their tongues collided. His hands moved down her back and then up to her breasts, pulling her bra up to get at her nipples. She was no virgin, but Ethan’s attentions had left her lukewarm at best. She had never, ever felt anything like the urgency claiming her now.

Matthew bent down, grasped her nipple between his lips making her arch up and her leg move of its own accord, finding its way around his waist. She gripped the sink behind her to brace herself as he continued to suck on her aching flesh. She shuddered, recognizing a throb in areas she had previously viewed clinically, all modestly lost in her body’s search for release.

He made his slow way back up to her neck and then to her lips once more. She sensed his smile against her skin. Anger rose in her throat. She grasped his shoulders, pushed him back, still on fire with need but determined to stop this before it was too late. “I am not in your fan club you know,” she hissed at him, breathless, as she attempted to reassemble her shirt.

“My what?” He said, voice hoarse, his eyes dark with desire. He took a step back, arms crossed.

“You know, the groupies, the nurses, the ones who worship you night and day,” she held him off with one arm. “Actually, I really don’t like you…
doctor
. I think you are an arrogant asshole,” she declared.

He grinned, melting what remained of her resolve. “Good. I like a challenge.” He grabbed her waist and plopped her up on the sink. “And the name’s Matthew.” He was gentle but firm, and watched her through hooded eyes. She could smell her desire, his cologne, the disinfectant tang of hospital she had grown used to. She gave into it. Closing her eyes, loving his touch, she spread her legs further, her brain screaming at her to stop but the rest of her ignoring the orders.

“Open your eyes, Beth. Look at me,” his voice was barely a whisper.

She obeyed, her breathing now in gasps as she maneuvered to allow him better access. He lowered his lips to her nipple again. She threaded her fingers in his hair, crying out as she rode out an orgasm more intense than anything she’d experienced in her short sexual history.

She stared at him as he put the fingers he’d just had inside her between his lips. A strange sense of shock overtook her. He seemed to radiate heat—burning and chilling her at once. Her brain did a final yelp of dismay, then gave up the ghost. She let her body lead, used her legs to pull him back to her, reached down to unbuckle his belt. All of this in a haze of confusion and lust that had her skin blazing and her teeth chattering.

He closed his eyes as she rubbed his shaft from base to tip, slowly, loving its heft and wetness on the tip. “Please. I…I want you inside me.” She shut her eyes, hoping he wouldn’t zip himself back up and push her out of the room for sounding like some kind of slut.

He chuckled low in his throat bringing any of her remaining dormant nerve endings to strict attention. “I have every intention of doing that, Beth,” he said, as he slid her hips back toward him, inexorable, and perfect. She suppressed her initial groan of satisfaction as he filled her with a long, deep stroke. She reached around for his ass, pulling him inside faster. “Slow down, slow down,” he insisted, leaning down to kiss her again.

Her entire universe coalesced around the moment. The sensations of his tongue in her mouth, his lips tracing hers, and his cock buried deep inside her were almost too overwhelming. She wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck. Her entire being flexed, grabbed his length, pulling him ever deeper, as a primal noise built in her throat.

 His thrusts had purposeful energy now, hard and strong. She met him halfway, needing more, faster. She tilted her head back, letting her hair fall. He grasped her there, threading fingers through it, his lips burning the skin of her neck. “Beth,” he groaned. “Jesus…I’m ….” As the orgasm lifted her up and carried her off he reached his own climax, their bodies intertwined, their breathing ragged.

“Kiss me, Matthew.” She blurted out, wanting nothing more at that moment but afraid she’d ruined it by talking.

He smiled, and did as she asked, then broke away first staring at her so intently she felt even more exposed. When he spoke his voice was hoarse. “Damn, Beth, I never thought…,” she put her fingers over his lips.

“Our secret, okay?” she insisted as her brain woke up and resumed its clamor for better decision-making. “I’m engaged, remember?” Her brain short-circuited, picturing this scene, his trousers down around his ankles, her skirt hiked up, as he leaned into her on the sink in the staff bathroom. She pushed him away. “I gotta go,” she muttered, completely mortified by her behavior. He backed away from her, zipped himself up.

He ran his hand across his face seeming to regain his composure. “Okay. Do you need a ride home, or can I buy you a drink, or I don’t know, something?” His eyes darkened as he watched her put herself back together, hands stuffed in his trouser pockets.

“No!” she yelled out, making him raise an eyebrow at her vehemence. “I mean, sorry, but I have a car. I really should go,” she brushed by him, face burning with embarrassment and body humming with satisfaction.

When Matthew arrived the next morning for rounds, he learned that Beth had requested a transfer out of his group. The compulsion to see her, kiss her, hell, just stand beside her made him antsy. That in and of itself pissed him off. Women were nothing to him. Nothing more than a bit of challenge and some physical pleasure. While he’d admit to being struck by Beth Bishop when he saw her. Those deep green eyes and classically beautiful face, the strict way she conducted herself—all combined to intrigue him more than he cared to admit. She was something he wanted to explore, to loosen what he sensed innately was a wildly sexy woman. The fact that she was in the damn building, yet had managed to avoid him, made him insane.

He ran a hand down his face as he listened to yet another idiot resident spout shit he knew nothing about. “Really,” he spit out in his accepted angry manner. “Well, then doctor. You have just managed to kill this woman and her baby. Well done.” He patted the alarmed looking pregnant woman’s foot. “Don’t be afraid dear. I won’t let him near you.” He glared at the sorry excuse for a medical school graduate and stomped out of the room.

He needed to see her. Badly. Instead, he let himself be distracted by a nurse who’d been an eager partner several times already. By the time he’d relieved his stress between her willing legs, he’d convinced himself he didn’t care about Beth Bishop anymore.

It was a solid five weeks before he caught sight of her again. And he’d worked himself into a strange, needy frenzy by that point. Her eyes, lips, body all haunted him nightly. He’d shaken off the annoying nurse and had found himself going home alone, mainly to stare at walls and think about her. The whole stupid thing was frustrating to the point of maddening.

 When she cornered him in the staff room, her face flushed, her thick brown hair framing her face, he’d been thrilled and more nervous than he’d been in years. “Gee Beth, long time no see,” he smirked, folding his arms over this chest. His heart pounded; his mouth was dry as a bone. He shook his head at himself, trying to shove away the jittery boy and recover his inner alpha male, the one who didn’t give a shit about any individual woman. But, that guy remained elusive, leaving him nearly panting with the urge to grab and kiss her.

Her deep green eyes were haunted. He stood up straighter and really studied her. She looked like she had the flu or some sort of …. “Shit,” he launched himself off the counter and grabbed her upper arms. He stared at her until she broke eye contact. She trembled, but it felt more like anger than any other emotion. He led her to a chair and brought her a cup of coffee.

“We have a problem, Matthew,” she began. The strange whooshing noise in his ears got louder. A wholly unfamiliar possessive feeling stole over his nerve endings. He tried to keep his voice calm, nonchalant.

“Do we?” he asked her. “Sure it’s my problem and not what’s-his-name’s?”

She stood up quickly, but he pulled her back down to the chair. “Sorry, Beth, I have to ask, I mean, surely I’m not the only one…,” he heard his voice trail off and cursed himself for being such a shit.

She glared at him making him feel about two feet tall. “Let me repeat myself because you are obviously hard of hearing.
We
have a problem, Matthew,” she said between clinched teeth.

Beth stared hard at the man she’d married a year ago whose disheveled hair and shirt told her all she needed to know. He was so devastatingly handsome, charming, and loving when he put his mind to it. At times, she felt like she’d married ‘Dr. Jekyll,’ but her personal ‘Mr. Hyde’ was a cheating asshole. She shifted eight-month old Blake to her other arm and glared at him. She’d long suspected that his bad habits would not die, and this truly was the last straw.