The Doctor's Pet (3 page)

She glanced over her shoulder, making note of how close the door was in case she had to make another break for it.

“Are you alright?” He stood as he asked the question.

Tessa nodded.

“See, usually, a spanking would end with me inspecting your bottom, rubbing in a little cooling gel if needed,” he said. “But I didn’t get a chance with you.”

“You didn’t get a chance to keep spanking me either,” she said, lifting her chin.

“No, I didn’t,” he agreed. “I’m glad to see you’re still your defiant self. I was worried I might have seriously scared you, or hurt you. I really didn’t get a chance to take care of you properly.”

He seemed genuinely concerned about that, which came as a surprise to Tessa. It struck her that he’d actually been spanking her for a reason. Not just because he was annoyed at her for giving him attitude, but because he genuinely believed there was some point to it.

“Well, uh, that’s okay,” she said. “Because, as it turns out, I’m fine.”

“Are you?” He stood up and closed the distance between them slowly. “You look a little heated.”

Tessa looked at him wordlessly. She didn’t know what to say; there weren’t words really. He overwhelmed her senses. She found herself almost hoping that he would take her in hand again and start swatting her bottom, just to feel him touch her again.

“I’m okay,” she managed.

“Good,” he said. “Then we can talk about your employment. I’m afraid I can’t have someone on my team who doesn’t have proper down time or who is distracted by a second job like this one.”

Her heart sank. So much for having hope.

“Well, sorry,” Tessa sniffed. “It would have been nice to work on your team.”

“I hope you still will,” he said. “That’s why I’m going to make you an offer. It’s quite irregular, and I make it in the strictest confidence, understand? This is just between you and me.”

Tessa nodded, curious.

“I would like for you to quit this job,” he said. “To make up for lost income, I’ll offer you a stipend in return for your presence on my team—and your submission.”

Submission? What the hell? “You want me to be your…” she lowered her voice further to a scandalized whisper, “whore?”

“No,” he snorted. “I’m not offering money for sex. I’m offering money to keep you on track while I train you as I see fit.”

Tessa looked at him askance, unable to believe what he was putting on the table. Few men would have the nerve to make such an offer. But Kirk wasn’t like most men. Kirk was a law unto himself.

“Are you actually serious?” She gave him an incredulous look. “We… doctor… you spanked me.”

“I did,” he agreed. “And under the terms of this agreement, I will do it again, I imagine.”

“You…” Tessa trailed off, not knowing what to say. “Huh?” She screwed her face up, trying to get her head around what he was really saying to her.

Kirk smiled. A nice, warm, reassuring smile. “I’m going to sharply decrease your instances of disciplinary write-ups by applying my palm to your bottom whenever you need it.”

“But you said you were sorry for that!”

“I said I was sorry for mishandling the situation. Not for spanking you. You need it, Tessa. Your hospital disciplinary record speaks to that. Multiple instances of inappropriate communication. You’ve been getting into trouble for a long time and it has made career progression almost impossible for you. That’s why you’re working two jobs now. You should have been promoted to a higher pay scale, but that hasn’t been signed off on.”

“The hospital has had some funding issues,” Tessa muttered. “They said…”

“Forget what they said. You’ve been nursing for what, seven years now? I’ve seen your work. It’s excellent. And I know your remuneration isn’t at that level. You know I’ve seen your file, Tessa. There are some first-year nurses earning as much as you do. And the reason for that is that you’ve actually received a drop in salary after an incident where you told a doctor to shove an ultrasound wand in his rectum and see if he could detect any brain matter.” Kirk’s cheek twitched with repressed amusement as he recounted the entry in her personal record.

“Better than actually calling him shit for brains,” Tessa shrugged.

“Hardly,” Kirk said. “That incident is on your permanent file—along with a great many others. You’re fortunate I run my trials before looking at the personnel records. If I’d seen what I saw there before I met you…”

“You would never have let me try out for your team,” Tessa said. “Yeah. I know.”

“…I would have spanked your butt before you even got in the room to try out,” Kirk finished his sentence. “Tessa, you’re an incredibly smart, capable woman, and I want you on my team. But you’re going to have to learn to curb your temper and your tongue and show some respect.”

Tessa didn’t know what to say. Kirk’s thorough analysis of her shortcomings and strengths left her without much in the way of reply. He was a lot of things—arrogant, commanding, demanding… and right. Her current financial issues were partially related to the fact that she couldn’t get a promotion and nobody else in the area would hire her. The night shift at the rest home was pretty much all she could hope for.

He reached out and gently cupped her chin, rubbing his thumb along her cheek in a soothing caress that was somehow intimate. Tessa felt a flutter in her belly as she looked into his eyes.

“What do you say, Tessa?”

“Do… I have to decide right now?”

“I think you’ve already decided,” Kirk said. “I think you know precisely what you’re going to do, what you need to do for yourself. You can let me know tomorrow.”

“O-okay.”

Kirk bent down and brushed a gentle kiss to her lips. “Next time,” he murmured. “I’ll tie you down so you can’t run away.”

With that he turned and left Tessa standing there with her mouth agape.

Chapter Five

The doctor’s proposition left Tessa with a difficult decision to make. On the one hand, he was offering her the career opportunity that she had been passed over for many times. On the other, his offer came with strings—and spankings. And god only knew what else. There had been a certain gleam in his eye when he’d mentioned tying her up. She didn’t know if he was kidding.

Her shift at the rest home ended at six in the morning and she made her way home to catch three hours of sleep before her next shift at the hospital was scheduled. The moment she got to her apartment, she was greeted by a fresh pile of bills. They seemed to be multiplying by the day, each bill generating its own little nexus of other correspondence from collection agencies.

In spite of the daunting task of collecting a significant stack of financial demands, it was nice to come home. Her apartment was only two rooms and a bathroom, but she had put a lot of effort into making sure it was decorated nicely. She’d hand-picked the art that hung on the walls at the local market, and put real thought into the functional yet decorative knickknacks and thingies that adorned the top of bookshelves and her kitchen counters. Every part of the place reflected her taste and loves in some fashion or other.

Tessa took a moment to straighten the flowers on her coffee table before looking at her mail. Among all the depressing envelopes were two pre-approved credit card applications. That was something anyway. Running seriously low on energy, Tessa stuffed all the envelopes into her handbag, pulled off her clothes, and dropped into bed wearing nothing but panties.

Sleep didn’t come. In spite of her heavy eyelids and exhausted body, she couldn’t get Kirk out of her head. She found her phone in her fingers, his card in her other hand. Call him? No. She couldn’t do that. And yet her thumb was already drifting over the screen, composing a text message.

Hello, doctor.

She stared at the screen a moment, her eyelids drifting down as she lost the battle with consciousness. A buzzing in her hand bought her back.

You should be asleep, nurse.

A smile spread across her lips. She could imagine his slight frown as he replied, his handsome face taking on that stern mask he so regularly wore.

You have no jurisdiction here, doctor.

She typed the message out on the keyboard and hit send.

There was a tightness in her belly as she waited for his response. None was forthcoming and once more her eyelids began to close. She was almost asleep when a knock at the door roused her. Muttering about awful people who thought seven in the morning was a good time to knock on other people’s doors, Tessa put her slippers and robe on and scuffed her way out through the lounge to the front door.

She peered through the peephole and was thoroughly shocked to see who was standing on the other side. Kirk. He was minus his white coat, in a black sweater and slacks, civilian clothing that somehow didn’t make him any less intimidating a figure.

Tessa opened the door and looked up at him in surprise. “Doctor?”

“No jurisdiction?” His thick eyebrow was raised as he walked into her home, forcing her to walk backwards as he entered and shut the door behind himself. “Is that what you think, Tessa?”

“Uh.” She did not know what to say. His appearance was a complete surprise. How did he have her address? Of course, he had access to her personal file. He knew everything about her, including her blood type.

Kirk smirked gently. “Didn’t expect me to respond to your little taunt?”

“Well, no,” Tessa admitted.

“I won’t stay long,” he said. “I know you’re scheduled to work in a few hours, unless… you’ve decided to take my offer?”

“I’m not sure,” she replied. “It’s a complicated decision.”

“Not really,” Kirk replied. “It’s a very simple one. You want this job. If you take it, you’ll benefit not just professionally, but personally.”

“And I get my butt spanked if you see fit.”

“And more,” he nodded. “Quite a lot more, actually.”

Tessa sank down onto her couch and tucked her tired legs up underneath her. “What do you mean, more?”

Kirk sat down next to her, his arm along the back of the couch in a pose that gave him a casually commanding air. “You need someone to take care of you.”

“What makes you say that?”

“It’s written in your eyes,” he said. “And it’s sticking out of your handbag. How much do you owe in late bills, Tessa?”

Tessa swore and reached over, stuffing her overdue bills further down into her handbag. “A couple,” she lied.

“Show me.”

“It’s not any of your business,” she replied defensively. “Just… I can’t…” She didn’t know what to say. Obviously she wanted the job. She just didn’t want to become an open book to Kirk. She didn’t want him finding out what a mess she really was. He seemed to like her. He wouldn’t once he found the skeletons in her closet, that much was for sure. What had attracted him in the first place was that she was pretty good at her job. Kirk was the sort of man who liked competence. He wasn’t the sort of man who wanted to be involved with a mess.

He reached out and smoothed his hand over the back of hers. “Look at me, Tessa.”

She raised her eyes to his and found them surprisingly warm. For the first time he looked more kind than terrifyingly stern.

He crooked his finger at her and beckoned. “Come.”

She slid across the couch toward him and he put that finger beneath her chin, keeping his eyes locked on hers.

“You don’t have to hide anything from me,” he said. “What I’m offering isn’t just a professional relationship. It’s a very personal one.”

Tessa didn’t believe him. He might have thought that she didn’t have to hide anything, but she knew better than him what she had to hide.

“Okay.”

“Okay nothing,” he said. “Let’s be honest. You want to take the job. I want you to take it. You’re afraid of what taking it will mean, so let me show you.”

He leaned in and kissed her, softly at first and then with more urgency and passion. Tessa felt a warm dizziness as Kirk took control of her, his arms sliding around her body, pushing her robe down off her shoulders. He exposed her slowly, running his fingers over her skin with circling touches, her nipples hardening as he caressed and massaged her breasts.

“You’re going to be more than my nurse,” he murmured against her mouth. “More than my lover. More than my submissive, if you know what that means.”

Tessa searched his eyes, not knowing what he meant at all. “What am I going to be?”

“My pet,” he said, curling his fingers in her hair. “I’ll train you to obey me in everything and in return you’ll be cared for in every way imaginable. No more worrying about overdue bills, or anything else for that matter.”

“Your pet?”

“Mm-hmm. And I will be your master. I will own you.”

His words made butterflies erupt in her belly. “You’ll own me?”

“Not legally of course,” he said with a devilish chuckle. “But in every other way. You’ll know in your heart who you belong to.”

His fingers slid through her hair and curled at the base of her neck, holding her firmly in place as he looked down at her with a burning gaze.

“What do you say, Tessa?”

“Yes.”

The word slipped out in a desperate breath. It wasn’t her rational mind that had answered; it was the deeper part of her, the part that was making her wet, the part that had turned her nipples into twin hard peaks.

“Good.” He pressed a hard kiss to her lips, then drew his head back and looked down at her. Something in his gaze had changed, become possessive. “The first thing I’m going to do is put you to bed. You need some sleep.”

Tessa let out a little whine. She didn’t want to sleep. Arousal and adrenaline were flooding her body, making her alert in spite of her tiredness.

“You need your rest, pet, no complaints,” he said, sliding his arms underneath her thighs and back. He picked her up from the couch and carried her to the bedroom where he deposited her on the bed. Her robe had fallen by the wayside in the course of the journey, leaving her just in her panties.