The Pleasure of the Dean (2 page)

Chapter Four

Sophie stood up from the desk in the resident
break room and ran her fingers through her long blonde hair.
 
She was currently assigned to the
emergency room and the shifts were physically and mentally grueling.
 
The flickering fluorescent lights made
her stress headache worse.
 
Sophie
took a deep breath and did a couple yoga stretches to ease the tension in her
shoulders and back.
 
She glanced
down at her wrinkled scrubs.
 
If she
was going to do this, she needed to change.
 
Sophie couldn’t meet the Dean looking
like she rolled out of bed.
 
Thankfully, Sophie kept street clothes in her locker at the hospital.

After a quick shower, Sophie changed into a
white tank top, loose short skirt, and flat sandals.
 
She briefly wondered if she should wear
something more professional, but Sophie knew if she went home to change she
might lose her nerve.
 
Anyway, she
knew her outfit showed off her figure to its best advantage.
 
Looking as appealing as possible
couldn’t hurt her case with the Dean.

Sophie walked over to the lone mirror in the
room and wiped away the steam with her hand.
 
She took a critical look at her
face.
 
The physical signs of her
stress and fatigue were showing.
 
Sophie banished the purple shadows under her eyes with a couple swipes
of illuminating concealer.
 
Blush on
her high cheekbones added color back to her normally golden complexion.
 
Sophie lightly lined her almond shaped
green eyes, applied mascara to her dark lashes, and finished off with a cherry
colored lip balm before grabbing her bag and heading out to the parking
garage.
 

She hopped in her car and pulled up a map
application on her smartphone.
 
Last
night Sophie was more concerned with following the Dean’s car rather than the
precise route to his home.
 
With a
deep breath, Sophie started her car and pulled out of the D-1 parking
garage.
 
This was it.
 
She was committed.

****

It was almost midnight by the time Cole
pulled into his driveway.
 
He had
spent the evening playing mediator between the Chair of Transplant Services and
the Chair of General Surgery.
 
They
were in a drawn out battle over which service took precedence when it came to
operating room time.
 
The Transplant
Services Chair argued that his surgeons should be able to bump planned
procedures since transplants were time sensitive.
 
The General Surgery Chair argued
scheduled operating room time should be protected, otherwise patient care was
jeopardized.
 
The two blowhards
argued for four hours.
 
Cole
interjected when the debate became too heated, but otherwise observed the proceedings
and tried to recall why he decided to get into hospital administration.
 

At forty-two Cole was in the prime of his
career.
 
At forty, he had made the
life-altering decision to give up his bustling practice as an Orthopaedic Spine
Surgeon in Chicago in order to become the youngest Dean of Medicine in the
history of the University of Seattle.
 
Cole continued to perform surgery, but now he had the luxury of
handpicking his cases.
 

When he became Dean, Cole naively thought he
could ride into the University like a gunslinger.
 
He imagined himself mowing down enemies,
taking no prisoners, and making sweeping changes in a matter of months.
 
Now, after a year and a half on the job,
Cole understood barriers existed to making system-wide changes.
 
He still believed the University of
Seattle could become the premier medical institution in the country, but
getting there would be a marathon not a sprint.
 
Cole needed to play the politician,
listen to complaints, and form alliances with the leadership on the faculty
council.
 
He had to do this knowing
there was a big bulls eye on his back.
 
Those without power were always looking to take those with power down.
 
But, truthfully, Cole loved the
game.
 
He relished control and
authority.
 
It was good to be Dean.
 

Cole grabbed his leather briefcase and hopped
out of his dark red Porsche Carrera.
 
He looked up at his house in the darkness.
 
It was a mid-century modern ranch-style home,
lovingly restored by its previous owners.
  
Cole bought the house for both its
clean lines and sweeping views of Lake Washington.
 
He was drawn to Seattle, in part,
because of its proximity to the Sound and major lakes as well as the plethora
of outdoor activities in the area, and the house fit his lifestyle perfectly.

 
Cole was walking up to his front door
when he noticed another car in his circular driveway. Cole assessed the vehicle
and was more curious than alarmed. The old Ford definitely wasn’t one of
Brandy’s vehicles.
 
Brandy was Cole’s
ex-girlfriend; a vapid, yet steamy Eastside socialite whom Cole had broke up
with a month ago after she started dropping marriage hints.
 
Brandy had not taken it well. Cole
hadn’t heard a peep from her until she showed up last night on his doorstep
intending to seduce him back into her bed.

Thankfully, Cole didn’t have to wait long for
his curiosity about the strange car in his driveway to be satisfied.
 
A moment later, a woman opened the
driver’s side door and got out.
 
As
the person walked towards him and into the moonlight, he immediately recognized
his late night visitor.
 
He felt a
pulse of surprise and unexpected arousal.

“Dr. Benedict,” he said in greeting, “To what
do I owe this pleasure?”

She stopped a few feet away from him.
 
Sophie’s posture was erect and confident,
but her wringing hands gave away her nervousness.

“Dean Armstrong, I need to discuss an
important matter with you,” she said.

“The normal way to set up a meeting with me
is to contact my secretary, Ms. Briar,” He replied tersely.
 
“Not show up at my house at midnight.”

“I tried that,” she said.
 
“I’ve been trying to set up a meeting
with you for the past week.
 
I even
sat outside your office, waiting for a 5-minute window or to catch you on your
way to lunch.
 
You are an impossible
man to see.
 
Your secretary told me
you are booked until late September.
 
Unfortunately, I don’t have that long.”

Cole watched Sophie silently for a moment.
Sophie’s skirt and tank top displayed her tan, lean body perfectly.
 
He usually only saw her in shapeless scrubs.
 
The only other time Cole saw Sophie in
street clothes was at the First Year Resident Retreat.
 
He dropped by to do a meet and greet and
offer the residents an introductory
rock climbing
course during their scheduled recreation time.
 

He found the female residents who purposely
fumbled with their equipment to gain his attention and assistance
annoying.
 
Cole recalled Sophie
struggling with her harness, face flushed with exertion, and assumed she was
playing the game too.
 
However,
after a minute, he realized she truly needed help but was too stubborn to ask
for it.
 
Cole walked over and
assisted Sophie with her thigh and waist straps.
 
Having his hand high on her black
spandex-covered inner thigh was torture, since Cole knew he couldn’t act on his
sudden urge to caress higher.
 
He
had accidently brushed her breasts when tightening Sophie’s waist strap and
noticed Sophie’s nipples tighten under her miniscule bra top.
 
Cole remembered his mouth watering with
the desire to taste them.

Sophie was lithe, strong, and curved in all
the right places.
 
In Cole’s
opinion, she had a body made for fucking.
 
Keeping his touch impersonal was a lesson in restraint, especially when
she needed a boost up to the first hold during their rock climbing
instruction.
 
He knew sleeping with
a resident could be a career killer for a senior faculty member, and since he
was now a Dean his behavior needed to be above board.
 
However, the thought of Sophie strapped
into a harness in her tight yoga pants and low cut workout tank still made him
hard.

In the present time, Cole gave in to
temptation and let his gaze wander up and down Sophie’s body.
 
He noticed Sophie’s nipples were
hard.
 
Cole wondered if it was from
the cold or his blatant perusal.

Cole’s gaze made its way to Sophie’s
eyes.
 
In them, he saw a mixture of
anxiety and wary interest.
 
“This
may turn out to be a very interesting night,” Cole thought.
 
Out loud he said, “If the issue at hand
is that important to you Dr. Benedict, I can spare a few moments of my
time.
 
Please, follow me.”

Sophie followed Cole up the driveway.
 
She waited patiently as he opened his
front door, set his keys on the entry table, and placed his bag on the
floor.
 
Cole looked back at her
briefly, to make sure she was following him, before making his way down the
hall to his office.
 

Cole’s office was a distinctly modern and
masculine space.
 
The
room was dominated by a mid-century style walnut desk, modernized with aged
steel legs
.
 
In front of the
desk were two black leather and wood Scandinavian style chairs.
 
Pushed against a dark gray wall was a
tufted camel-colored leather loveseat.
 
The opposite wall was taken up by floor to ceiling windows, looking out
over the lake.
 

Cole walked to the sideboard.
 
He took out two crystal tumblers and poured
a finger of scotch in each.
 

“Please, have a seat,” he said to Sophie, who
stood awkwardly by the door.
 
She
sat in one of the leather chairs. Cole sat in the other, positioning it so they
were face to face, their knees a mere foot apart.
 
Cole handed her one of the glasses of
scotch.
 
“Now tell me what brings
you to my home.”

****

Sophie stared at the amber liquid in her
glass before taking a fortifying sip.
 
She was ecstatic. Her initial plan to breach the Dean’s home
worked.
 
Now she needed to come up
with something to say.
 
Sophie was
desperate.
 
She would do anything to
stay in her residency program.
 
Sophie knew she needed to make a compelling argument as to why she
deserved to remain at the University of Seattle.

Meeting with the Dean in his home felt
incredibly intimate.
 
Sophie’s hands
were sweating from nerves and her embarrassing attraction to him.
 
Only last night she had brought herself
to orgasm imagining the Dean touching her body.
 
Just moments earlier in Cole’s driveway,
Sophie felt his slow perusal of her like a physical caress.
 
Her arousal from the previous evening
flared back to life.
 
Sophie
flushed.
 
Her cheeks felt hot, and
Sophie knew they were probably bright red.
 
Sophie thought the Dean would laugh if he knew about her schoolgirl
crush on him.
 
Over the past year
and a half, their relationship had been nothing but professional and
impersonal.

Sophie shook her head, trying to clear the
fog of arousal.
 
She came here for a
reason.
 
Sophie clenched her thighs
together, willing her arousal away, and took another sip of scotch.

“Dean Armstrong,” she began.

“Cole,” he said, interrupting.

“Excuse me?”

“Please, call me Cole.”

“Cole,” Sophie said slowly, letting his name
linger on her tongue.
 
“I hope you
forgive my intrusion tonight.
 
I
needed to speak with you by the end of the weekend, and as I explained, I was
unable to secure a meeting with you using conventional methods.”