Bound to the Fallen (Prophecy #2) (12 page)

It was a risk. Never had I taken a risk, for when you have nothing to lose – when life can’t be taken away from you – what risk is there? Brooke, she was my risk. A beautifully tempting, prohibited, dangerously delicious risk. Innocence in mortal flesh that I wanted to devour in the worst way.

Sighing, I made my decision. I knew I should just leave her alone as I read over the email regarding training for a new study we were opening in our department. Brooke would be the coordinator who handled all of the regulatory and administrative aspects of it, so it would only make sense that she go to Boston with me. I’d been hesitant to take her for fear of how difficult it would be to curb my desire to have her. The temptation to seduce her would be overwhelming.

G
iven the opportunity, I could be brutally forward and I most certainly didn’t want to scare her. I knew she was attracted to me, but I was uncertain if she’d be able to handle me. My thoughts wandered off to seducing her, pulling her into my hotel room and slowly undressing her; feeling each curve of her body with my hands, grasping the soft tendrils of her hair within my fingertips. I could imagine the powerful feeling I’d have while I disrobed her, as I forced my want to overpower her deep inside.

It’
d been so long since I’d had to do that, so long since I’d had to restrain my wants, and the thought of it seemed so erotic to me, causing a fire to flame through me at a furious pace.

I ran my hands down my face, ashamed at the
complete loss of control I was experiencing over this girl.

Damn it
.

Brooke

July 7, 2014

Monday morning came more quickly than I’d wanted. I got dressed, but at this point had lost all will power to look nice. All I’d managed to do was get attention from the pervert of the year, my dressing up hadn’t even gotten a second glance from Dr. Hunter, which I wasn’t even sure why in the hell I wanted him to think I was attractive because I wouldn’t do anything about it. I couldn’t even talk to the man without stammering over my words.

I decided, on that
day, that I was done trying to look nice.

I took a shower, only because I
couldn’t handle the feeling of skipping one. I put some mousse in my hair and let it air dry. I pulled on some gray pants, a plain blue top, and some black flats. No jewelry. The only makeup I put on was some powder, and of course my red lipstick. I drug myself down the steps, and sunk down into the seat of my car.

Dejected!

The rush hour traffic didn’t even get me amped up, because honestly, I didn’t give a rainbow-sprinkled shit if I was late.

I walked into the office munching on my
Poptart, dropping little crumbs all along the hallway, when I heard Nicole bitching about something not being done correctly. She seemed like she was in a foul mood, and I really wanted to go suggest she get Dr. Knight to pipe her down and bring her bitchiness down from a level nine to a level two.

On my way into
my office I flipped the light switch. I stared at that damn switch and thought about Peggy. I wanted to work in the light, damn it! I grabbed my tape dispenser and furiously pulled out a long piece of tape. Tromping over to the wall, I slapped several long strips of tape over the switch, securing it in the ON position. I was tired of being nice and cheerful. I’d decided I would stay in this job for the year I was required and then transfer somewhere else. Peggy was annoying, Dan was creepy; the only thing that kept my job from completely sucking was Ashley.

K
icking my purse over to the side of my desk, I pulled my chair out. I sat down with a huff, thinking about how creepy Dan had been at the bar.

My phone beeped.

Dan: Good Morning. Did you come to work today?

My blood pressure shot up. Why
in the hell was he texting me good morning and why was he asking if I was at work? He was really starting to get on my last, thinning, fragile nerve. I jerked the receiver to my desk phone up and called Ashley to vent.

“Well, hello there
, Brookey,” she giggled.

“I want to beat him,
” I snarled, furiously tapping a pencil on my desk.

“Has he already started?”

“He just texted me telling me good morning and asking if I was here. Why in the hell wouldn’t I be here? He’s so annoying and creepy. I just want to hurl something at him!”

“Uhhh,
yeah. I can’t believe he came to the bar the other night. That’s some stalker shit right there. I mean, who does that? He just lurked over in the shadows staring at you.”

T
hinking about the entire situation made me shudder. “I don’t even want to deal with him today.”

“Man, the more I’
ve thought about it, the creepier it seems. It was like he was pissed that you had a ‘boyfriend.’ He got a crazy, psychotic glazed-over look in his eyes when Adam started talking to him, and all of those texts he sent you. He’s not sane, Brooke.”

“I know
.” I paused and heard the door to the hallway open. Dan’s voice carried down the hall as he sang good morning to Sherry. “He’s here, I’ll talk to you later,” I mumbled into the phone before slamming the receiver down.

At that moment I would have paid money to be back in the restaurant dealing with rude
-ass people.

I heard his f
ootsteps stomping down the hall and I hoped that he’d just take his disgusting self into his office and leave me alone.

There was
a knock on my door and I turned around to see Dan lurking in my doorway, smiling.

“Good morning
, Brooke.”

“Hey
, Dan.” I quickly turned back around to my computer and pretended to work. I could see him still standing in my doorway out of the corner of my eye.

“So,
I forgot to ask you if you have a good time the other weekend?” He waddled into the office and took a seat in Peggy’s chair.

I kept my eyes
focused on my screen. “Yeah, it was fun. I always love watching Adam play.”

I wanted to drill in his head that I
was not
available.

“You looked nice. You’
re a pretty good dancer.” His lips twisted up into a painful grin.

Just hearing him talk made me feel like I had a thousand tiny spiders crawling all over me, pricking me with their creepy, hairy arms
. I swallowed the saliva that was starting to pool in my mouth from disgust and took a very deep breath.

Dan glanced around my office and then said,
“So, you don’t have a picture of your boyfriend up, must not be that serious.” He leaned the chair back and stretched.

I was really hoping that damn chair would fall backwards
, causing him to hit his head on the doorframe and knock him unconscious.

“No, it is. We’ve been together for a while. I’ve been meaning to bring some pictures in.”

Dan fiddled with his waistband before coming over to me. “You should lose him. He’s not good enough for you. You need someone who can take care of you.”

I
jerked my head around and glared at him. I was afraid my heart was going to burst through my chest. My voice had a noticeable tremble as I said, “You know, I don’t think you should really be giving me advice about my personal life.”

His smile turned and his lips lay straight ac
ross his face, one eye narrowed to look at me as he straightened himself up. “Brooke, you really need to watch the tone you take when you speak to me. I’ll have you remember that you’re on a probationary period for your first few months here.” He gave me one final stern, disappointed dad look and walked into his office.

I was livid. I
rested my elbows on the edge of my desk, placed my head in my hands, and massaged my temples with my fingertips.

Surely to God I’m
taking things too seriously. There’s no way this man could possibly be so deranged. I’ve got to go talk to Ashley about this creep.

I was going over every possible profane word I could think of in my head
while I walked towards Ashley’s office. Gavin passed me in the hallway just as I stopped at her door.

“Brooke, can you come to
my office when you get a moment? I need to go over a new study we’re about to initiate,” Gavin asked, continuing to walk down the hallway.

Fuck him and his sexy voice! Arrogant ass wipe!

“Sure,” I snarled.

The unexpected hostility in my tone
caused Gavin to stop and turn back in my direction. I took a deep breath.

“Sorry.”

He didn’t say anything. He just shook his head and made his way into his office.

As
hley’s face wrinkled up. “What’s wrong? You look sick and pissed. Poor Dr. Hunter. You were just a total bitch to him.”

I threw my hands in the air.
“What’s wrong with the fucking people in this office? Dan just told me that I should dump Adam, that I should be with someone who can take care of me. I’m assuming he’s implying his stupid ass because you know he’s made the comment that he’s loaded.” I huffed loudly. “Peggy’s just — shit — just — ” At this point I was so angry I couldn’t even think of words to put together and just let out a very agitated grunt. I sat down in the chair and slammed my head back against the wall.

Ashley twirled her hair around her finger and laughed.
“Man, you’re breaking a little earlier than I thought. It usually takes people about a month and a half to get to the point you’re at right now. I mean, the whole thing last weekend definitely accelerated it.” She dropped the strand of hair and looked stunned. “I’m just saying, Dan must
really
have it for you. He’s really taking things to the extreme.”

I glared
silently at her before I banged my head against the wall several more times. “This can’t be real life,” I mumbled.

After
a minute I managed to regain my composure. “Let me go see what Dr. Hunter wants,” I said. “Of all the damned days for him to need to talk to me. I have on no makeup, not that it really matters, but who wants to go sit in front of some hot guy knowing they look like crap? This day’s just getting more amazing by the minute.”

Ashley laughed
. “You don’t look like crap. You just look like you don’t feel good.”

“Gee, thanks.”

I got up and walked to Gavin’s office. His door was slightly open. I peeked in to find him leaned over his desk looking at some papers, one hand on a coffee cup, the other tapping a pen on his desk. I knocked on the door. “Dr. Hunter?” I said softly as I pushed the door open.

Gavin looked up
and grinned. “Come in.”

T
he phone rang just and he glanced down at the caller ID. “I have to take this, it’ll be brief. Go ahead and have a seat.” He pointed to two sleek, modern-looking white leather chairs across from his huge wooden desk.

Sitting
down, I looked around his office while he took his call. There was a huge window behind his desk that overlooked the downtown area. A bookshelf in the corner was filled with medical journals. The wall to the side of his desk was covered with diplomas, various certificates, and medical awards. The wall behind me had an autographed piece of sheet music with hand written notes and the title “Imagine” written across the top of the page. At the bottom was John Lennon’s signature. I could definitely see him listening to that kind of music.
I faced his desk as he hung up the phone.

“Sorry about that,” h
e paused. “So, it looks as though we’ll be participating in a new study investigating therapies on stage four neuroblastomas. It should be a very interesting study and I feel it’ll be very beneficial to our patients. There’s a training seminar next week in Boston. Our coordinators usually attend these and seem to find it very helpful.” He glanced at me, pausing to give me a moment to ask any questions if I had them. “The training goes over enrollment criteria, specifics about the study and the different forms and tests you’ll be completing with the patients and their families.”

“That sounds exciting
,” I said, giving what I felt was the appropriate professional response. “I’ve never been to Boston before. How many days will I be gone?”

“We’
ll leave this Sunday and return-on Wednesday. It’s not usually such short notice, but we were up in the air on whether or not we’d be participating. Dan will take care of booking the travel.”

As he was talking I kept thinking, “
He said we,” which meant he’d be going as well. I was drifting off into a daydream and I guess it was apparent to Gavin that I’d momentarily checked out because he said my name pretty loudly.

“Brooke?
”

I
redirected my gaze and he continued to speak. “I just wanted to check and make certain you’d be able to go? You don’t have any plans that would conflict with the travel dates, do you?”

T
he sun was shining in from the window behind him, the bright rays making it seem like he was glowing. I cleared my throat. “Nope, those dates will be perfectly fine with me.”

“Grea
t! I’ll send Dan an email and let him know to book two flights and hotel rooms.”

My deviant mind
somersaulted, and although I absolutely loved to fly I said, “I’m embarrassed to admit, but I do have some anxiety when it comes to flying. It just makes me nervous being in a closed space with that many people I don’t know.”Gavin gave an understanding look and said, “Okay. I’ll see if he can get two seats together, that way you won’t be sitting alone. Maybe that’ll make it a little less anxiety provoking for you.”

After the meeting ended I went to my office.
I sat at my desk, completely ecstatic that I was going to be away from this place for a few days. I could only pray that Gavin would turn out to be a complete ass so this inner conflict I was having over wanting him could just vanish.