His Bidding (The Best Medicine #1) (2 page)

Just as she’d expected, her dreams had featured the good doctor, but most of the time he was not in a tuxedo. She pulled the covers up over her head, blushing despite not even being fully awake, as she remembered the many delicious scenarios her unconscious mind had cooked up for her, all finding some innovative way to have Dr. Hitchens in various stages of undress, doing things to her body that she imagined only the most skilled anatomists could possibly pull off.

Dreamily, Brynn rolled onto her back, sprawling out across her apartment’s one luxury – her beloved queen bed – and kept her eyes closed as she let one hand slide down her body. She had a few spare minutes, after all, before her infernal alarm clock started blaring again or before Chester caught on to her being awake, and she had a very insistent throb between her legs that was begging to be satisfied before she got up. Her short nightshirt gave her easy access. Keeping the image of a half-naked Dr. Hitchens – her favorite of the moment being him kneeling on her bed as she tugged him toward her by his necktie – in the front of her mind, her fingers quickly found what may as well have been her “on” button, and she began to massage herself gently, letting her entire body wake up to the sensation. As she spread her legs further apart, she felt her exploring fingers get wet with the juices that had obviously started flowing well before she’d come to. Her hips began to move slightly, increasing the friction between her fingertips and her clit.

“Mmm...Sam...” she breathed, her imagination not letting her down as she rubbed herself. Hearing herself moan his name, as though he were actually here, served to turn her on even more. She slipped her free hand up inside her nightshirt, pulling it up far enough for her to play with one of her erect, sensitive nipples. She wanted to savor this, to really let herself build up to a proper, body-numbing orgasm, but the longer she took, the more the specter of her damned alarm clock was beginning to distract her. It felt so good...but, damn it, she thought, I’m going to get interrupted at the worst possible second.

Moving her hands away from her places of pleasure, she threw her duvet off her body and sat up, glaring at her clock. She really needed to invest in one that had a fifteen-minute snooze option, she decided with a sigh.

A meow greeted her from the side of her bed, and Chester, who had obviously been disturbed by his owner’s moans and groans, leapt up to nuzzle her chin with his head. She scratched his ears as he purred. “Don’t make me get too comfortable again, mister,” she chided, giving his nose a quick smooch before returning to her day’s preparations.

One tug and her nightshirt was removed, and she left it crumpled in a ball in the corner of her bed before rising and switching her clock to “off,” much the way she felt she’d just done to her body. But as she walked naked toward her bathroom, she realized there was a compromise to be had here.

Despite living alone, aside from Chester, she sometimes closed the bathroom door behind her before hopping into the shower...and it was usually for the same reason she did it this morning. Having an audience of any species wasn’t an option. She’d be getting lathered up in more than just the traditional sense. There was no way she could possibly go to do her shift at Dr. Hitchens’s private clinic today unless she got this out of her system, and the only way not to be late was to multitask.

She stepped into the deep antique tub, closed the shower curtain behind her, and twisted the faucets until the temperature and pressure were just right. With a few quick scrubs she’d washed her hair, and managed to shave her legs in record time, allowing her to use the rest of her shower for fantasizing about her boss.

Propping one foot up on the edge of the bathtub allowed her to part her legs enough. She reached up and brought the shower head off its mount, switching it over to a gentle pulse before moving it between her thighs. She gasped as the hot water hit her in such an already sensitized place, and immediately her eyes closed again, the same images of Dr. Hitchens shirtless, in boxers, crawling towards her on her bed, his tie in her hand, that smile on his lips, all leapt back to mind. The pulsing water was getting her going quickly. Keeping her balance, Brynn reached for her favorite body wash and managed to squeeze a bit out with one hand, which she then used to resume the massaging circles she’d been doing to herself in bed. Combined with the water’s warmth and pressure, the slippery, sweet-smelling rub of her fingers made her begin to shiver with pleasure. Her foot slid over just a little more, leaving her fully open, letting the shower hit every inch of the tender flesh between her legs, and she moaned, rubbing harder now, loving the feel of how slick the body wash was between her fingers and her clit. She felt her hips moving in a thrusting motion, and she imagined what it would be like if it was Dr. Hitchens’s cock invading her instead of a jet of water...

It was that thought which pushed her over the edge. Brynn felt her limbs warming as her body was flooded with orgasmic pleasure, and she slipped a finger inside herself, moaning more loudly at the sensation. It was easier to picture herself being penetrated by her boss this way...and that vision helped her along as her climax continued to ripple through her.

Finally, out of breath and feeling at least satiated enough to get on with her preparations for work, she rinsed herself off and turned the faucets until the water stopped flowing. “Whew,” she breathed, squeezing her blonde hair into a loose bun before putting it up in a towel. “That must be how people wake up on the right side of the bed.” Hearing Chester mewing in reply on the other side of the bathroom door, she nudged it open and let him come in, where he sat and watched her from the back of the toilet. She let herself drip-dry on the mat in front of her sink, wiping the steam from the mirror and grinning bashfully at how flushed she looked. It wouldn’t be obvious to anyone else, she knew, but to her own eyes her appearance screamed “freshly fucked,” especially once she’d let her still-damp hair down around her shoulders. She supposed, in a way, she had been. Even if it was only by a fantasy of her big shot boss, and her own hands.  And the world’s best shower massager, she thought with a laugh.

She managed to get herself together quickly after that – teeth brushed, hair dried, scrubs on – and on days she knew she wouldn’t be seeing Dr. Hitchens, like today, she didn’t waste much time on makeup or her hair. A ponytail was good enough, and a touch of lip gloss was all the color she needed thanks to her complexion. Well, today she also had her post-orgasmic blush to thank for her healthy appearance. She sighed, thinking it a pity the subject of said orgasm wouldn’t even be there to appreciate it, even if he couldn’t know what was going on behind her innocent smile.

“Be good, mister,” she instructed as she made sure Chester had enough food and water for the day. He meowed as though insulted at the implication, and she laughed, smoothing his pretty grey fur. “I’ll see you later, okay?” Off sauntered the cat to his own little kingdom, a carpet-covered climbing house she’d bought for him when he was just a kitten, and from there he gave her a look of permission, as though he’d deemed it acceptable for her to depart. Brynn blew him a kiss and grabbed her purse as she closed her apartment door behind her.

Attending to her sexual needs, she realized as she drove through the busy downtown core, had done wonders for her mental state. She felt clearheaded and ready to tackle everything that needed to be done at the clinic today. Her memory even managed to impress her, as she was able to call to mind the first several patients and their concerns from the last time she’d seen the schedule, a full week ago now. She supposed that was part of what made her good at her job, and why, out of all possible candidates, she was among the very few that Dr. Hitchens had chosen to work alongside him so much more closely than one did in the hospital. But even she had to admit that an early-morning orgasm had given her an extra boost in recall. She grinned at herself in the rear view mirror as she thought she might have to add “getting self off” to her daily wake-up to-do list, no matter which shift she was working.

Brynn was so much in the zone as she pulled into the clinic parking lot and walked from her car to the side entrance that, for once, she didn’t engage in one of her usual rituals: normally, even on days when she knew for certain Dr. Hitchens was scheduled at the hospital instead, her eyes would scan the staff lot for his deep blue Audi. It was impossible to miss, even if one didn’t already know to whom it belonged. A joke gift from some of his colleagues when he’d been named Chief of Staff a few years ago was the license plate that now adorned the beautiful sports car: HITCH MD.

But today she had focused so much on her day’s patient load that she didn’t bother with the silly survey of the sea of cars around her. He wasn’t due in, and she was, which meant there would be business to attend to as soon as she had her first armload of charts handed to her. And that moment came almost immediately, when the secretary – a young, timid high school girl whose name Brynn had somehow forgotten in seven days – stood upon Brynn’s entrance to the main office. The poor girl looked stressed already, more than any sixteen or seventeen year old ought to on a Sunday morning, and she offered the young woman a sympathetic smile. She remembered those not-long-ago days of first jobs in the medical field, and how nerve-wracking it often was to be the first person in the office, not to mention what a huge relief it was to see the first person of any authority whatsoever arrive.

“Tough morning already, huh?” Brynn whispered conspiratorially, nodding toward the sprawling, plush waiting room that housed four edgy-looking patients. The girl gave a grateful smile in return as Brynn hung up her jacket on the coat rack behind the main desk. She then took the stack of charts from the student’s arms and began leafing through the tabs of names, silently impressed with how many she’d prepared herself to see.

“Um...miss...Nurse...?” The girl, whose plaited braids and pink-framed eyeglasses made her look even younger than her slight age, clearly had less of an idea what to call Brynn than vice versa, which was a bit of a relief to the adult of the pair. Brynn laughed and shook her head as she looped her stethoscope and her trusty pen-on-a-rope around her neck.

“Just call me Brynn. Most of us don’t stand on ceremony around here, especially when the boss isn’t around.” She winked, a theatrical and over the top gesture that made the young girl laugh, too. “So what should I call you when we’re being totally informal?” Brynn added, not missing the opportunity to brush up.

The girl shrugged and smiled, cementing her adorably innocent image. “Maureen is fine, but my friends sometimes call me Mo for short.”

“Well, once I’ve taken some of these patients out of your hair and earned myself a place in the friend ranks, I’ll give that some thought.” They exchanged another grin before it was down to business. Brynn was turning to call out the first two patients’ names, which always made everyone who was waiting loosen up a bit – it felt like things were moving more quickly than they were, even if the doctor on call hadn’t even arrived yet, which was what Brynn suspected – but Maureen cleared her throat, as though trying to catch the nurse’s attention. Brynn’s head swiveled to meet the girl’s gaze, and Maureen opened her mouth as if to speak, but they were interrupted.

“I’ve been here for half an hour,” a male patient’s voice complained. He had risen from his seat when he saw Brynn with charts in hand, a not-uncommon thing to happen with the most impatient patients she’d ever dealt with. She forgave them, usually, because getting in to see Dr. Hitchens – the best of the best – and his associates always took a long time if you weren’t someone with strings to pull, and nobody came to see his team if there wasn’t something of major medical concern happening. Even so, this man’s physical proximity to her was irksome, and Brynn forgot about Maureen as she tried to respond in a calm and measured way.

“You must be Mr. Lindstrom?” When the man nodded, his face set in a grim frown, Brynn held up his chart. “I was just about to call you in. And...Mrs. Whittaker?” A heavyset woman who’d been sitting on the edge of her seat in the corner rose as well. “If you’d both like to follow me...?”

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Maureen still trying to catch her attention, but now that these two patients had been temporarily placated and the others felt closer to getting their turn, Brynn wasn’t about to interrupt the progress toward a less stressful day for the entire office. She led both patients down a long, dark wood-paneled corridor, the antithesis of “clinical” despite the building’s purposes, and ushered Mr. Lindstrom into exam room number one, which was attached to Dr. Hitchens’s private office. She spared herself only a split second to eye the closed door with longing before directing Mrs. Whittaker a few feet farther down the hall into a similar exam room. Both were gleaming white examples of cleanliness and the most expensive technology and design one could hope for, which she imagined was the intention of the decorators when they’d revamped the building a few years back at Dr. Hitchens’s behest. It was warm and homey in the public areas, sterile but comfortable in the exam and procedure rooms, and not a single thing showed anything less than the highest quality and attention to detail.

“The doctor will be with you as soon as possible,” Brynn fibbed to Mrs. Whittaker, offering a magazine which the lady took quite placidly. Fib successful, Brynn thought. It was never a good sign when one of the Clinic’s three partners didn’t meet her in the front office to do a quick rundown of the day ahead upon her arrival, so heaven only knew who was on today for consults, or how long it would be before the doctor in question showed up.

Dutifully Brynn returned to room one, tugging at the pen around her neck and trying not to entangle her stethoscope as she prepared to distract Mr. Lindstrom – and make the on-call doctor’s job easier – by taking a full patient history while the man waited. Her pen wasn’t making anything easier on her, and she was lucky she knew the layout of the rooms so well. She’d have bumped into something as she fiddled with the string otherwise.