Second Time Lucky (Club Decadence Book 5) (2 page)

To have the entire team in San Antonio, working security together would be incredible. Having lived and fought side by side, they were close, like brothers. They also shared common interests, like BDSM and the club scene. In fact, he and Dex had spoken often about opening one of their own, after discharge.
The thought of playing in his own club had his thoughts turning more carnal. An image filled his head of a hot blonde dressed as a naughty nurse in white leather and sheer white stockings, hands bound behind her back. He’d tip her rounded, bare ass over his knee for a sound paddling, then when she was warmed up, wet and crying out for him to take her, he’d flip her on her back for a good hard fucking. Just as the fantasy was leading him into dreamland, his leg slid off the pillows and landed with a heavy thump on the mattress.

“Son of a bitch,” he hissed at the jarring pain.

“Let me help you with that,” a soft voice offered, as efficient hands adjusted his stacked pillows and eased his leg up on top once again. Gentle, confident fingers ran over his foot, pausing on top to check his pulse, then gliding around to the back of his ankle to check the other. Last, she pinched his toes, observing the nailbeds closely. He knew the drill of a circulation check.

Glancing up, he met the sparkling green-eyed gaze of Mara Westbrook, his evening shift nurse every day since arriving at Walter Reed Army Medical Hospital in Washington D.C., a few days ago.

“Thanks, beautiful.”

Her long black lashes fanned across her cheeks as she looked down, wrapping a blood pressure cuff around his arm. She put her stethoscope in her ears and pumped him up. While she worked, his eyes ran over her delicate features. Her perfectly arched brows, a shade or two darker than her platinum blonde hair were narrowed in concentration and her slightly upturned nose wrinkled as she listened. Her mouth, with her full pink lips parted as she let out the air in the cuff, as if exhaling along with it. Her long hair was pulled into a high ponytail at the back of her head, falling in a loose wave over one shoulder as she bent toward him. It gleamed under the bright fluorescent lights of the hospital ward and gave off a light scent, something floral with a touch of vanilla, as she moved. She always smelled great. It was no wonder his kinky fantasy starred an identical blonde, her spitting image. Mara had been the only bright spot in his long, pain-riddled past few days.

Unwrapping the cuff, she glanced up at him before making a note on the paper she pulled from her pocket. He grinned at her. Remaining all business, she ignored him, picking up his wrist to take his pulse. Sean didn’t think he mistook the slight twitch of her lips as if suppressing a smile while she stared at his chest, counting respirations. He couldn’t fault her professionalism, although he’d give anything for a flash of her perfect smile. She turned to pick up the portable electronic thermometer.

Sean knew this drill too. In fact, he was very familiar with most of this medical crap, except from the other end of the stethoscope. He was the medical Sergeant for their unit. Working in the field, he administered emergency aid and stabilized injured for transport. Ironically, the times he’d been injured occurred during triage and rescue of an injured teammate. He’d seen some shit in his day and tried his best not to think about the gore and guts that tended to keep a man up at night if he couldn’t lock it away.

“Under your tongue, Sergeant.” Obediently, he opened and after she inserted the probe clamped his lips around it. As Mara held the heavy end with the coiled cord, she gave him a sidelong peek. Despite his discomfort, he winked at her. As usual, she began to crack, her lips twitching more and curving up ever so slightly as she tried to stay focused. When the machine beeped, signaling it was complete, she glanced at the display before popping the probe cover into the bedside trash.

“100.8,” she murmured, studying him.

From his lying position, he returned her regard, eyeing her slightly above average height, five-feet-seven or eight, by his best guess. He didn’t have to speculate about how she’d fit against his much taller frame, he knew it would be perfect.

“You always spike a temp in the evening. I’ll get you some Tylenol. How’s your pain today, Sergeant?”

“Before you came in I’d say twelve and a half, since you’re here, smiling at me, I’m pain free.” His hand came up, a long finger extended as he trailed it lightly down her arm. “I believe I told you to call me Sean, darlin’.”

“Feverish, yet charming, with a side order of bossy, I see.”

His smile broadened as he shrugged, not denying.

“I’ll make you a deal. I’ll call you Sean, if you answer truthfully about your pain level.”

He grimaced. Preferring to talk about anything other than his throbbing leg, but wanting to be on friendly terms with his pretty nurse, he reluctantly admitted, “Seven.”

“Did you push your button?” she asked, peering up at the PCA pump. Without waiting for an answer, and obviously not expecting one, she began punching the buttons as the machine beeped. Her flawless face took on a stern demeanor, hands finding her hips as she frowned down at him in disapproval. “You haven’t taken a bolus in four hours, no wonder you’re hurting.”

He couldn’t keep from smiling. She was too cute to be effective at intimidation.

Apparently realizing her scold was getting her nowhere, Mara dropped into the molded plastic chair at his bedside, laying her hand on his forearm. “Don’t be a martyr, Sean. You’re a medic and know better than anyone that until the shrapnel comes out of your leg, which should have come out before you ever came stateside, it’s going to hurt. Be a tough guy after they get it out in surgery tomorrow or when you start your rehab.” She took the controller and pressed it into his palm, wrapping both of her smaller, much softer hands around his larger, rougher, scarred one.

“I hate the way the morphine makes me feel fuzzy headed and out of it.”

“One more night, Sean, then the metal that’s causing your pain will be gone and you can go back to being a badass Green Beret.” She leaned forward and added, “You need it to rest, honey.” Flexing her hands around his, she squeezed him tight. “Do it for me, please?”

Despite his pain, the way she gazed up at him with those big eyes, begging him in her sweet lilting voice, made him think of inappropriate things, like her in club gear, pink leather to be exact and prettily begging for his cock. As if on cue, his dick twitched. He was glad for the wad of sheet tangled around his hips. Not wanting her to think he was another lonely—and horny—G. I., he rolled forward, hiding his erection deeper in the linens just in case.

Clearing his throat, he posed a question he’d asked before. “If I cooperate, do I get the date I’ve been angling for?”

“That’s blackmail, Sergeant.”

“So is gazing at me all soft and sweet while batting those long lashes.”

She smiled with a little laugh, inclining her head as if to say, “Touché.”

“So, about that date?”

“I don’t know. We’re not supposed to fraternize with patients. I don’t want to get in trouble.”

“I won’t be a patient when we go out, Mara.”

When her eyes twinkled and she bit her bottom lip, he knew he had her.

“Okay, you push the little red button and I’ll go out with you, Sean.”

His thumb barely moved, though the beep that followed indicated a dose of morphine had been delivered.

She grinned as she ran her hand up his forearm to his shoulder and squeezed. “Sweet dreams, big guy. I’ll check back in a bit.”

“If I dream of you, nightingale, they will be very sweet.”

She shook her head as she moved away. While she did, his gaze dipped to the ass of her pale blue scrubs. The sight of the snug cotton hugging her round cheeks was better than any narcotic. He followed the sway of her hips as she walked to the door. No doubt she’d go through the same routine with her next patient. Lying back against his pillows, he wondered if the next poor slob got the extra touch, the caress or the squeeze he foolishly hoped was reserved solely for him. At the door, she glanced back and smiled, before moving on down the hall. Out of sight, though certainly not out of mind, he closed his eyes and had a wonderful sex and morphine-laced dream about his favorite nurse.

* * * * *

So happy she wanted to skip through the parking garage, she dialed it back to a brisk walk, trying to show some decorum as she entered the employee entrance and clocked in for her shift. Her thoughts weren’t focused on work, rather on the tall, muscular and devastatingly handsome Sergeant, who’d been in her care for the past week.

Arriving on her unit, she locked up her purse and jacket, and rather than going to say hi to Sean, as she wanted to, she went to the conference room to listen to the off going shift’s report. Most of the team was already assembled. In turn, they took notes on their assigned patients and left one by one. She had the 800 hall on 5E, the surgery ward, as always, so her patients came last. Beginning with Corporal Evans in 801, Mara scribbled pertinent information on the patient in each subsequent room. Waiting expectantly for 810, she stiffened when it was skipped. Stopping the recording, she hit rewind, thinking that maybe she’d missed it. Again 809 was followed by 812. Her nurse manager was posting notices on the bulletin board before going off shift.

“Nancy? Do you know what happened to Sergeant O’Brien? Rosemary skipped him.”

“No, she didn’t. He was discharged today.”

Like a pin in a balloon, she deflated. “I thought it wasn’t planned until tomorrow.”

“His team came to visit and he insisted. Dr. Bryson agreed, so they took him home. You should have seen them. Each one was like Sergeant O’Brien: drop dead gorgeous, six feet something and two hundred pounds plus of rippling, bulging Green Beret muscle. All the nurses were drooling, some of the male nurses too, and nothing got done on the unit until they were gone.”

Disappointed didn’t begin to describe how she felt. He didn’t have her phone number or address and hadn’t offered her his. Maybe it was merely flirtation with the nurse on duty and he hadn’t ever intended to take her out. Heaven knows it happened all the time. She couldn’t count the number of times she’d been proposed to in the six years she’d worked there. Dejected, she finished up and with a much heavier tread, walked out on the ward to start her shift.

It was after her supper break, during which she hadn’t eaten, having no appetite whatsoever, when she was called to the nurses’ station. As she walked up, the unit secretary grinned and pointed to a huge bouquet of flowers.

“What’s the occasion, lucky girl, and who’s the lucky guy?”

A few of the other nurses were hanging around waiting for her to open the card. She could only stare, never having received flowers before—ever. Mixed among the dozen classic long-stem red roses were five exquisite white calla lilies and some sort of greenery all in a crystal vase. With a trembling hand, she reached for the card.

My beautiful nightingale,

Thank you for the tender care. You brightened each day with your smile and eased my pain with your laughter, making it all more bearable.

My team came for me, so I took the out and ran. Okay, I hobbled out on my crutches, I’m only sorry I missed you, though I didn’t need to say goodbye because we have a date.

You’re off on Tuesday. Geri the day shift charge nurse confirmed it, so no excuses. Marcel’s in the west end. 7 o’clock.

Wear a pretty dress and I’ll consider myself a very lucky man.

Sean

A lucky man, she sighed. Rereading the card, she noticed he’d included his phone number. Relief, excitement, giddiness all ran through her at once, as well as underlying fear. It all seemed so normal, well, to other women her age surely. Could it be possible, just once, she could be like a normal twenty-six year old woman and have a normal relationship with a man? Filled with hope, she read the sweet note yet again.

“Well?” Wendy and Pen demanded simultaneously.

Beaming, Mara put her nose to one of the roses and inhaled. She folded the note and slipped it in her pocket, then mimicked zipping her lips and turning a key before she went down the hall to make her rounds.

“Hey, no fair!” Wendy called after her.

Pen added, “We’re old married ladies who have no life. If we can’t get romance vicariously through you single girls, what hope do we have?”

She smiled over her shoulder, staying quiet as a mouse, except for the silly tune she whistled as she turned down the 800 hall.

Chapter Two

The cab fare from her apartment in Hyattsville was $28, her dress from the consignment shop in town was $40 and the almost new shoes nearly as much. The sum total cost of her date with Sean would be half her grocery money until payday. As she stood outside Marcel’s, a renowned five-star French restaurant, butterflies danced in her stomach, not from excitement, but from unease. It appeared exactly as she remembered. Would anyone recognize her after eight, no, nine years? She was older, needless to say, and a few inches taller, more filled out—womanly—and her natural medium brown hair had been long ago replaced by Nice and Easy 10CB, Natural Ultra-Light Champagne blonde. She’d only been a girl when Victor—

“Mara?”

Her heart nearly stopped at the sound of her name. With a tentative sideways glance, she sighed with relief when she saw Sean slamming the door of his cab a ways down the block.

Turning, she greeted him with a smile and a little wave. Even from this distance, she could see the warmth in his blue eyes. As he maneuvered on his crutches amidst the busy foot traffic, she had the chance to study him. The light gray suit coat barely contained his broad shoulders. Underneath, the black dress shirt was open at the collar, exposing his strong neck and a hint of smooth muscled chest. Further down, she saw his pant leg was split up the inseam to allow for his cast. He’d secured it with two rubber bands to keep it from flapping. As he approached, she admired how graceful he appeared gliding like an old pro on his crutches only a week after surgery. He looked good, strong and healthy, his color returned, and the ear-to-ear grin on his handsome face told her he was happy to see her.