Long Shot: An MMA Stepbrother Romance (7 page)

She pushes open the front door and leads me out to the car. If she sees the outline of my cock, she doesn’t say anything. She’s too classy for that anyway. And besides, she probably doesn’t want anything to do with a guy like me—a guy like I used to be, anyway.

When we pull out of the clinic parking lot, the rain is pouring down hard again, and I know her Civic will have a tough time on the bridge. For one night, though, I’ll be in the same space she’s in, and I won’t have to wonder where she is.
 

I might be used to living in hell, but it doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate heaven right when I’m in it.

Halfway across the causeway, the storm lightens up, and I feel like I can see again. Of course Josh would choose a night like this to come barreling back in my life with a dislocated shoulder and two nasty, bleeding gashes. I pull up to the stoplight at the end of the bridge and look over at him. He’s still not wearing a shirt, and the dampness of the rain makes his suntanned skin shine like burnished bronze under the glowing streetlights. I take a deep breath and turn back to focus on the road. Looking at Joshua’s lean, muscular body isn’t a rabbit hole I need to fall into right now. He’s six feet of perfection, broad chest and shoulders, his green-gold eyes framed by the thickest eyelashes I’ve ever seen. His chestnut hair was thick and perfect before, hanging over his forehead. But now it’s shaved close. It makes him look hard. It makes him look like someone I don’t know.

    
He’s always been my blindspot. But here we are. I’m doing the same damn things all over again, just for a crooked grin and a pair of beautiful eyes.

No, Natalie. You do not need to think about Joshua McRae. Not now, not ever.
It’ll be dawn soon, and I’m due back at the hospital in another twelve hours. By that time, I’ll need Joshua McRae back out of my life for good, no matter how pitiful he is. I’ll fill him a scrip for painkillers and drive his ass back to Nags Head where he can settle back into his questionably legal “job.”
 

Josh’s eyes are closed, and he’s probably drifting into the sweet sleepiness of the meds I gave him back the clinic. True to form, he didn’t stop to consider the effects his choices would have on others. He just showed up and got what he wanted. Like an idiot, I took him right in and stitched him up. I sigh and turn onto my street. I could lose my license to practice medicine before I get a chance to actually practice medicine. Typical. My stepbrother hasn’t ever been one to consider the feelings of others before acting.

I pull in the driveway and turn off the car. The rain comes in thick, fat drops. It’s better than it was before, but there’s still the occasional crash of thunder, and I know there’s a damn surf warning. I wonder why he couldn’t have invaded my space when there wasn’t a fucking tropical storm.
 

“Wake up,” I say.
Wake up sleepyhead
is right on my lips, but I fight the urge to say anything sweet. “Wake up,
dick bag
,” I add for good measure. I resist the temptation to poke at his left side. Instead, I put my hand on his thick forearm and rest my hand there for a moment. Even the muscles here are tensed and hard. There’s a jagged, pink scar that runs up to his elbow, breaking up the smooth surface of his skin like a twisting river on a map. Gently, I run one finger over the scar, and Josh wakes up with a jolt. I pull my hand away and hold it to my chest—I barely realized I was touching him. That’s what got us in trouble before, that first simple touch. It’s what threatened to destroy me at the dawn of my career, and I don’t need to get sucked into that shit again. Not with all I have to lose. Josh yawns and stretches with his good arm. The simple movement is languid, powerful, like the movement of a lion.
 

Like a predator. Remember that, girlfriend.
 

“Can I go back to sleep when we get inside? Pretty please don’t kick me out just yet?” His voice is full of sleep and somehow sexy, even at this godawful time of morning. His eyes are hooded and half open, and I think for a moment that this is what he might look like waking up next to me. It feels like there’s a lump caught in my throat when I think it, but I can’t shake the image this time.

“Whatever, Josh.” My voice sounds more like a croak, and I’m hoping he’s so high that he doesn’t notice. “I guess you’ll be needing help getting up those steps, won’t you?”
 

“Hold me, Nat, I’m so weak.” He grips the saline bag still, his knuckles white. I know he’s in a good amount of pain, but he grins broadly. I throw the car door open and go about helping him out of the car. When he leans his weight into me, something like an electric shock makes its way through my body. It’s true that my stepbrother is drop-your-panties on the floor hot, but I’m a professional woman. And I’ve spent the whole of the last three years working to forget him. Now, if he would just
stay
forgotten and stop making me have intrusive sexual thoughts. I help him up the steps and put him on the sofa in the living room. I move my coat rack over to the sofa and hang the saline bag on it, squeezing it a few times to get it adjusted.
 

“It’s almost empty. I’ll start another,” I say. I flick my eyes over his body and note that there’s no redness around the wound on his side. The tattoos on both of his shoulders probably cover a vast network of fighting scars, and maybe that’s why he got them. They weren’t there when I saw him last, but I think better of asking him what they mean. I don’t need to get sucked in any more than I already am. Like he’s been reading my mind, he catches my hand in his before I can walk away.
 

“I know this is hard on you, Nat. I know what you did for me back there.” I let my hand rest in his for a moment, the tiredness in my body mixing with an undeniable wave of desire.

“You got no idea, Josh.” Taking my hand back, I go to work putting in another bag of saline and a good dose of morphine. It’s the last bit I have, but it’ll get him through the night before I can get to the drug store for more proper painkillers.
 

“You put your job on the line, and I appreciate it.”
 

Not really. But I won’t disabuse him of the notion.
He can afford to keep a little gratitude in his mind.

“Quit talking like that, or you’ll lose your rep as a dirty-talking bad boy.”
 

“I wasn’t that person with you, Nat.” He closes his eyes and falls down onto the pillow in a state of bliss. I shouldn’t have wasted my batch of morphine on this asshole, but I know it’s the only way he’ll be able to sleep. I touch his left shoulder and gently run my fingers over his tattoos, wondering just what he did to get his damn shoulder out of joint in the first place. “Keep petting me, Nat,” he says. “It feels so nice.”
 

“I was just checking your shoulder. The morphine’s got you all kinds of out of it, Josh.” It’s hard to keep my hand from touching him, from exploring the chiseled nooks of his muscles. But instead, I go back into my nurse-doctor mode and pull off his shoes and cover him with a light blanket. I try to ignore the heat beginning in my thighs as my hands hover near his body. Even in his pathetic state, my body cries out for his, probably responding to some primal need that I haven’t filled in far too long. If I were getting laid on a regular basis, I wouldn’t be standing over my stepbrother right now, my eyes drawn to the line of his abdominal muscle, the one that leads down lower.
 

“Enjoying the view?”

My eyes go wide for a second, and my heart beats fast. I look away even though I know his eyes are still closed, swallowing hard.

“Just making sure you’re okay, Josh. You’re an asshole, but I need to make sure you’re okay.”
 

“That’s good to hear,” he says and yawns, rolling over onto his right side. I glance at his shoulder, at the bandages over his stitches. I know he’s going to be okay after tonight—if not okay, at least passable. And if he’s passable, he can
go
, for the sake of my sanity. He’s taken advantage of me, being here like this. And I’ve let him. He knows I won’t turn away someone who’s hurt—I just don’t need him to convince me that he
needs
to be here for more than a couple of nights. I keep staring at him, and there’s an almost physical pain that rises in my gut.

That’s just old memories, Nat. Don’t pay a damn bit of attention to how he makes you feel. Just bandage him up and ship him out.
 

“Go on Nat,” he says. “You gotta go to bed. Stop fussing with me.” He takes his hand in mine again and raises it to his lips for a moment. “Not that I don’t like beautiful women fussing with me.” I jerk my hand away. Beatrice jumps up on the arm of the sofa and walks gently over Josh’s legs.
 

“I’m sure you’ll survive the night without my attention,” I say. My cat has always been a traitor when it comes to Josh. She liked him more than she ever liked me—right now, she’s staring at him like he’s her lord and savior come to rescue her from the boring doctor woman.

“Bee’s gonna take care of me.” He pets Bee, running his fingers between her ears and down her back. The cat curls up next to his ass and starts purring mightily, pawing gently at his shorts like she’s about to die and get lifted away to heaven.
 

“There’s no accounting for taste, Bee,” I say to the cat. “But he’ll run off with another pussy by the end of the week.” Josh snorts, and I check his IV bag one last time. The morphine I’ve given him should be enough to knock him into bliss for the rest of the night.

And a good thing too. He won’t come knocking on my door.

“Don’t be nasty to me, Natty. I’m in pain.” He lets out a dramatic groan and pets the cat with his good hand. “Another pussy. Ha, that’s a good one.” There’s a goofy smile on Josh’s face, and I can see his chest start to rise and fall slower. I pause for a moment, my eyes roaming over the carved muscles of his chest and abdomen. But this isn’t a road I want to go down, and I need some damn sleep.

“Goodnight, asshole. Remember, you’re out of here as soon as possible.” I march off to my bedroom and turn off the lights without giving him another look. How could it be that a man could give me so many conflicting emotions? I’d always known I was a helper, that I took in whoever needed me without thinking. Daddy said it was because I needed to feel worthwhile, that helping people made me feel better since I’d come from such shitty stock. And since Josh had always been right there, well, I helped him first of all, even before myself. I’ll be damned if I fall into that same damn thing all over again, but I felt myself slipping into it tonight. Those old roles follow us wherever we go.
 

I step out of my maxi dress and fall into bed again, this time for keeps. The sun is coming up over the sound now, and the light is filtering into the room. I try closing my eyes against it, but all I can think of is Josh lying out there on my goddamn couch, using an IV that I lifted for him from the Outer Banks Urgent Care clinic. Each time I find myself sinking off into sleep, I jolt awake. There have been so many nights I’ve spent worrying about Josh, so many unwanted dreams—both good and bad. I’ve lost sleep over him, and he’s out there, never once considering what he put me through.

***

“You’re better than everyone here, Nat. I’ve always known that,” Josh had said. “You’re prettier, smarter—”

“Since when did you care about someone having any kind of a brain, Josh McRae?” I picked up the plates that people had left scattered over the dining room table and dumped them in the trashcan. The wake had been a joke. No one had ever liked my daddy, and I was willing to bet they’d just came for the food and the booze.
 

“Since I met you. I just didn’t understand that’s what I wanted till I got to know you.” A flush ran over my body, rising over my chest, making me feel hot and uncomfortable in the black chiffon dress I’d gotten from Penny’s for the funeral. Avoiding his gaze—which I knew was on me—I kept wiping the same spot on the table over and over.

“You never acted like that’s what you wanted.” I paused. If I said another word, I knew I’d be getting myself in too deep. Josh wasn’t like me. He didn’t take life the same way I did, serious and true. All he did was fight and run after women who were obsessed with his MMA persona, the way he acted on that big stage. I lifted my eyes and met his. The hazel of his irises, ever changing, looked gold in the evening light.

“You have no idea what I want, Natty.” He stepped toward me, and acting on instinct, I backed up, my ass colliding with the hutch behind me. Before I could dart out of his way, Josh pressed himself into my arms.

“What the fuck are you doing, Josh?” We’d spent so long running in circles with each other, both of us dancing back and forth around that undeniable spark of attraction that blazed between us. “Why the fuck are you—”

“Maybe I just like to hear you curse,” he growled. He covered my mouth with his before I could even think, biting and nibbling on my lower lip, then lifted my hips and sat me on the edge of the hutch. His mouth was warm, powerful, overwhelming. I’d kissed boys before, and I’d even gone all the way once or twice. I wasn’t a saint. But this kiss, it knocked everything before it out of the water.