Chapter 3

Three

Dean

This girl is going to be the death of me.

She’s stubborn as hell. Hard working. Gorgeous. Intelligent.

It will be a cold day in hell before she scrubs my fucking floors.

Over the last four weeks, I’ve learned everything I can about Charlotte Beck. There is little available on the internet, since she rarely posts anything on social media sites. Nothing but articles from medical journals about breakthrough transplants, more than a few of them written by me. I’d be lying if I said that didn’t please me. After a month of her avoiding me like the plague, my ego needs all the boosting it can get.

I fell for her that day at graduation. Hard.

But over the course of the last month, Charlotte has become an obsession.

God help me, I’ve become a certified stalker of this beautiful, brainy girl who is a full decade younger than me. On my rare breaks from the OR, I find myself wandering toward her office building, watching from the restaurant across the street as she runs in and out with trays of coffee. This brilliant mind is an errand girl—and it’s galling. I lose sleep every night over the fact that she’s not living up to her potential. I need to help. To repair the problem with money, of which I have plenty, and she refuses to take it.

Refuses to give in to this animalistic attraction, too. Even though one squeeze of her tight ass turns her pliant and horny. Makes her moan like I’m balls deep.

This girl denies herself everything she wants. Everything she needs.

Every time I come close to unlocking the mystery of her, there’s a new twist.

And she’s not leaving this house until I have answers, so help me God.

Traditional approaches aren’t going to work with Charlotte Beck. She wants nothing to do with long stem roses. Has no interest in three hundred grand worth of tuition. My phone calls were never going to be returned. And maybe an ethical man—I used to be one—would cut his losses and walk away. But there’s no way I can do that. My head is consumed with her, day in and day out. Through the night, she stars in my dreams. I fuck my fist to fantasies of taking her. Behind that graduation stage, still wearing her cap and gown, long legs wrapped around my jackhammering hips. Christ. I’ve never needed anything so badly in my life.

I’m not imagining that she needs it, too.

Needs me.

So there’s no choice but to double down. If my traditional pursuit of her isn’t going to work, we’ll go unconventional. Knowing what I do about her iron will and fascination with medicine, maybe this is what I should have done all along.

“You want to clean, Charlotte?” I say, clamping a hand on the back of my neck to keep from throwing her down on the couch and shoving that skirt up to her hips, so I can taste the pussy I’ve been dreaming about for weeks. “Fine. My office is in need of organizing. Follow me.”

Her green eyes narrow warily, but she follows in my wake up the stairs to the second floor of the townhouse. When I open the door and walk inside, I turn, so I can watch her reaction. Desperate to see any form of pleasure on her face.

She stops just inside the door, her attention landing on the stacks of files.

“What are those?” she asks, breathlessly, inching closer.

“Those are my personal records. I keep notes on all of my procedures, separate from the hospital. Sort of my own long-hand observations.”

“Oh…” I wonder if she’s aware that she’s dropped her bag of cleaning supplies. “Whoa.”

I don’t quite manage to subdue my smile. Or the racing of my heart. Lord, this girl is so goddamn special. Why won’t she just let me give her a boost? Doesn’t she realize it would be an honor? “I’d like them catalogued in alphabetical order, according to the type of procedure. You do know the proper medical terms for every form of surgery, do you not?”

“Yes, sir,” she whispers, blissfully unaware that she just turned my cock to steel.

Sir.

I like that word out of her mouth far too much.

I’m going to hear it again tonight, in the form of a strangled feminine moan, if I have to move heaven and earth for the pleasure. Apparently we’re starting with filing, however.

I drag a hand down my face.

“One hour, Charlotte.” I close the distance between us to stand in front of her, taking her chin in my hand and tipping it up. “One hour of cleaning. That’s all I’ll be able to stand.”

Her eyelids flutter, pupils dilating amongst the vivid green of her irises. “And then what?”

“And then…” I drop my mouth down on top of hers. But I don’t kiss her, no matter how badly I burn for a taste. No matter how many hours I’ve dreamed of stroking her tongue with mine. Impressing my will on her isn’t going to work until I manage to break through her defenses. Then, I have an intuition she’ll welcome my will. Something about the way she sways on her feet, her pulse flying off the handle, simply from me tipping up her chin. Like a father figure. Like a man in charge. Does she need that? “And then, I figure out your truth.”

That pulse of hers travels faster. “If you’re getting my truth, what do I get from you?”

“What do you want?”

“I don’t know,” she whispers.

“I think you do know.” Again, I slide our wet lips together, listening to the resulting whimper in the back of her throat. “But I’m starting to see that anything physical between us will need to be on your terms. At least to start. So while I’m gathering your truth, Charlotte, why don’t you dare me?” I trail a finger down the buttons of her blouse, stopping at her belly button to tease the indentation with a knuckle. “Dare me to do anything you want to this naughty little turn-on of a body, hmm? That way we’re clear on the fact that there’s no coercion. You are doing the asking.”

“So…” She tilts her beautiful face, going up on her toes to press closer to my mouth—and with that move, refraining from kissing her becomes complete torture. “So you’re going to let me snoop through your medical files. And then we’re going to play truth or dare?”

Our mouths are right on top of each other now. So close that my words are muffled when I say, “It’s the best sleepover you’ve ever been to.”

“I never said I was sleeping over,” comes her muted reply. “Anyway, aren’t you on call? Or at least need to be at the hospital early in the morning?”

With an effort, I pull back to look Charlotte in the eye, dragging my thumb across the seam of her mouth. “If getting to the bottom of you means I’m late, so be it. And figuring you out is exactly what I intend to do.” I slide my thumb into her mouth, pumping it in and out, watching a glaze steal over her eyes as I mimic intercourse with my thickest digit. “One hour, darling.” I push my thumb as deep as it can go, her sob vibrating up my arm. “Say, yes sir.”

My thumb pops out of her sensual mouth, continuing to spread moisture left to right. “Yes, sir,” she whispers, pink appearing on her cheeks. “One hour.”

Harnessing every ounce of my willpower, I remove my hand and back toward the door. “Transplants are in the left stack.”

She’s already dropping into a kneel, reaching for the file on top. “Thank you.”

* * *

The hour passes by slowly.To say the least.

I drink coffee in the kitchen. Put dinner on plates for later and stow them in the fridge, covered in plastic. Switch the music from Chopin to Beethoven.

Quite ridiculously, I stare at the ceiling, wonder if she’s finding my notes as interesting as she hoped. Which is ludicrous. Of course she is. I’m being considered for an operation on the Pope, for crying out loud. There’s no one better than me.

She could be, though. Someday.

I don’t know how I’m so positive of that fact. But I am. The medical community needs her and if nothing else is accomplished tonight, I’m going to find out why she chooses to fetch coffee and clean houses instead of fulfilling her vast potential.

Throughout medical school and my career, I’ve found very few surgeons willing to help pull someone up to their level. My mentor was cutthroat—and he was also my father. A controlling, egomaniacal prick that still practices medicine in New York City. Sometimes I was even positive he tried to hold me back, so I wouldn’t surpass him. I’ve vowed not to be like that. Like my father and so many surgeons of the same ilk. Bitter toward anyone whose talent comes close to theirs. As far as I’m concerned, the more skilled hands on deck, the better.

My phone beeps, signaling the end of the hour, and I abandon my coffee immediately, taking the stairs two at a time. I throw open the door to my office, expecting to find her kneeling in front of the files. Instead, she’s sitting at my desk with her feet propped up. She glances up from the file in her hands and wrinkles her nose at my intrusion.

And that does it. That fucking does it.

I fall irrevocably in love with her.

Chains wrap around my pounding heard, shackling me permanently, turning me into her prisoner for life. A totally willing one.

“Read anything interesting?” I manage around the knot in my throat.

“Yes!” she exclaims. “All this research on xenotransplantation. How did I not read about it in any of the journals?” She flips several pages, wide eyed. “And the way you treated this allograft rejection.” She falls back in my chair, visibly flabbergasted. “It shouldn’t have been possible once the CD4 or CD8 T cells were activated.”

I raise an eyebrow. “I thought you were already aware that I’m brilliant.” My deadpan response makes her giggle in that girlish way—and just like that I’m thinking of her face down over my desk, her hips gripped in my hands. “There’s plenty where that came from. You can read more tomorrow when you come back to…” I survey the scattered files. “Clean.”

Charlotte purses her pretty lips at me. “You knew I wouldn’t be able to tidy these up without reading every single word.”

“Guilty as charged.” I circle around the back of my desk chair, watching awareness take hold of every inch of her body. Standing behind her seated form, I reach down and cup her chin, tilting her head back, exposing her throat and giving me a cock-hardening view down the front of her blouse. “Will I start the game now, Charlotte?” I rasp, starved for the taste of her nipples. Any part of her, really. “Nothing you tell me will leave this room. I just need to get inside this beautiful head.”

“Fine. But…please don’t use a scalpel.”

That surprises a laugh out of me. The sound, the feeling of laughter feels completely foreign, I haven’t done it in so long. What this girl inspires in me isn’t something to squander. It’s something to be coveted and protected at all costs. “Why are transplants a specific area of interest for you?” I ask. “That’s the first truth I want. Then you get to dare me.”

For long moments, she just breathes, her chest rising and falling quickly. “My father. His body rejected a liver transplant. I was twelve. I didn’t know how to save him, but I’m going to learn. So I can save someone else’s dad.”

It’s hard for me to speak, my throat is suddenly so crowded. I’m so unused to experiencing this depth of emotion, that I can’t meet her eyes for several seconds. “I’m sorry. I didn’t find that information anywhere.”

“You wouldn’t, since my father and I had different last names. My parents never married and I took my mother’s.” She closes her eyes. “But we were a family. And I loved him.”

My chest feels as though it’s being drilled. Everything inside of me is demanding I pick her up out of the chair, hold her, rock her. Be angry at the world with her. “I don’t want to tell you how to spend your dare, Charlotte, but I’d appreciate very much if you dared me to kiss you right now.”

Her throat works. A few beats pass. Then she whispers, “I dare you to kiss me, Doctor Fletcher.”

I’m already moving. Already spinning the leather desk chair around and kneeling in front of her. With our height difference, even standing on my knees puts my mouth several inches above hers, making it necessary to lean down, breath against those soft lips. And one look at the twin pools of moisture in her eyes and I’m diving into her. I’m spearing my fingers through those long, thick locks of hair and sealing our mouths together. Kissing her. Drawing her tongue to mine with a coaxing lick, then possessing that delicious cavern with a thorough, sweeping taste.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m so sorry.”

“If you’d been the one to operate on him, he would have lived,” she whispers against my mouth, her fingers curling in the front of my shirt. “For so long, I’ve been dreaming I could go back in time and find you earlier.”

God, she’s ripping me to shreds. “Charlotte…”

“You’d have been my hero, wouldn’t you? Until I could be my own?”

Her eyes on mine are so earnest, so imploring, that I can’t do anything but tell her what she needs to hear. To give her this dream she’s woven. A dream I’m just arrogant enough to believe might have come true. “I would have done everything in my power.”

She makes a short sound and our mouths lock together once again, wilder this time. I loom over Charlotte, her face tipped back to receive my kiss, my hands drawing her to the edge of the chair, wedging my hips between her thighs. I’m going too fast. I know that. I’ve barely begun to unravel her inner workings, but Jesus, she tastes like eternal life.

Sweet. So goddamn sweet.

When I feel my fingers close around my zipper, on the verge of letting out my rigid cock, I order myself to slow down, as much as it pains me. There’s more I need to know, dammit. And I can’t shake this sudden intuition that she needs to be understood. By me. In order to be loved properly. Touched in a way that she can feel in her soul—and that’s what I’m after with Charlotte. Everything. Every single facet of her.

Instead of freeing my erection, I cup the sides of her face instead, my lungs laboring to inhale and exhale. “You can be your own hero, Charlotte. That’s why I need to know why you won’t take the money. Why?”

Our kiss suspends itself, but the connection between us seems to intensify. She’s openly vulnerable, her hands unsteady where she settles them on my shoulders. “After my father passed away, we were broke. He left all this medical debt behind and no matter how many hours my mother worked, we never could get that huge number to go down. The payments were taking everything we had. And she got desperate.” Charlotte rubs her lips together. “Eventually, she met a man and he swept into our lives like a knight in shining armor, paying bills and buying us new furniture. But after a while, he wasn’t a nice person—I didn’t realize that. I was young and a lot of his cruel treatment was happening behind closed doors. She kept it from me. And she stayed with this person who was treating her terribly because she felt like she owed him after all he’d done. He…squeezed the life out of her.”

It’s a relief that the big picture of this girl is finally coming into this place. Making sense. In addition to the relief, however, I’m also pissed as hell that she went through any of this. I’m helpless to do anything about the loss of her father. I can’t go back in time and fix what happened to her mother. Not being able to repair something doesn’t sit well with me. It’s what I do. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.” I kiss her forehead, her cheek, her mouth. “That does give you the right to be wary of me. My intentions.”

“I won’t be in someone’s debt. I refuse,” she says quietly. “When I found out this man had been hurting my mother, I found a women’s shelter for her. I moved in with my aunt for a while until the man stopped trying to terrorize my mom. And when we were finally back living together, we made a promise to each other. To pay our own way, no matter what. To get ahead through hard work. No shortcuts. No tangled webs spun out of promises.”

“I would never use the money against you, Charlotte,” I say, my voice vibrating.

She studies my face for long moments. “I can’t take the money. Please don’t ask me again, okay?” Her fingers slide into my hair, her nails dragging along my scalp and I have to trap a moan in my throat. “I’ve wanted to be near you so badly. I still do. But you represent this…trap. If you keep pressing me to take the tuition, I’ll just find ways to avoid you.”

“You’re telling me I can have you. But I must endure you cleaning houses and throwing away years of time you could be practicing medicine?”

Her chin turns stubbornly firm. “Yes.”

“Charlotte,” I growl, drawing her off the chair, turning us and laying her down on the soft carpet of my office. Pressing my body down on top of her. Gathering the hem of her skirt in my right hand while I drag our lips together, side to side. “I want to give you everything.”

“I know,” she whispers.

“I want to watch you take my profession by storm.”

“I know that, too. But you can’t have it. You can only have me.” She reaches between us and starts to unbutton her blouse. “If you can do that, I’ll dare you to…”

“What?” I ask hoarsely, watching her reveal the softest skin in existence, the twin swells of her tits, pushed up in a black satin bra. “Tell me.”

Her shyness is made obvious by the flush climbing her cheeks. Finished unbuttoning her blouse, she trails a finger down the center of the opening, over the front clasp of her bra. “Kiss me…here.” She adds in a whisper, “Please?”

Need is pumping roughly in my balls, my dick like iron against my fly. This is not how I pictured myself fucking her the first time. On the floor of my office. But nothing with this girl goes according to plan. I’m too captivated by her to do anything but follow the whims of my body. My heart. “You’re daring me to take off your bra, Charlotte? To kiss and lick those little nipples I’ve made so stiff?” My fingers go to the clasp, preparing to twist it open. “But if I do that, I’m agreeing to drop the subject of money. And medical school. Is that right?”

She nods, watching my face closely.

I’m damning myself. I know it. I’m not a man who concedes anything. Ever. There is no limit to what I would do to have Charlotte Beck, though. At this moment, looking down into her beautifully flushed face, the hem of her skirt halfway up her thighs, I would sell my fucking soul to be inside of her. It’s that simple. I can’t go another day without listening to her cry out in pleasure and know I’m the reason. I can’t keep this powerful hunger contained. It’s growing more impossible by the second.

How long will I be able to endure the hell of her being broke, though? When I have so much to give her? It’s going to drive me insane, that lack of control—

That’s when I realize she’s right. At least partially. I want her to succeed professionally, more than my next breath. But I also want to put a claim on her. So very badly. Supporting her financially was one of the ways I’d planned to make Charlotte mine. Permanently. I’ve never had a serious relationship. My skill in the operating room is what defines me. Money is what I have to offer, but she’s rejecting it—possibly very wisely, since I’m now realizing my intensions aren’t totally pure.

But I can’t deny the animal instinct to lay claim to her.

It beats inside of me like a second heart, awoken only by her.

Pounding. Making demands.

Without money as an avenue to being her man, I find another way. A way to conquer. My gut is telling me this is something we both want, too. Although she might not yet realize she wants to be physically dominated, she’s given me the signals. I’ve never felt the need to rule anyone’s body. Never felt this kind of possessiveness. Ferociousness.

If she can grow accustomed to being taken care of physically, to give me that trust, maybe I’ll eventually convince her to trust my intentions outside of bed.

Maybe eventually she’ll allow me to pay for school.

“Very well,” I say, snapping open the front of her bra, making her breath catch. “The subject of tuition money is off the table.”

For now.

I pull aside the satin cups to reveal two very perky tits, raspberry-colored nipples standing at attention in the center of each pale globe. Heaving. Needy. Jesus Christ. My mouth waters at the sight of them—and I can’t deny myself a lick of each bud, my desire heightening at her reaction. At the shuddering arch of her back, her lips forming an O.

“You called me ‘sir’ earlier, Charlotte…” I suck her nipples lightly, smoothing my thumb over the damp peak while her breath begins sawing in and out. “Have you ever dreamed of calling me that while I’m nine inches deep?”