“Dr. Keating your man?”
Maude looked at that woman with alarm on her face. Was shethatobvious? “No. Of course not! Why would you even ask such a thing?”
“Because he’s so mean and ornery all the time. Because he’s never treated anybody with anything but disdain all the time. Except for you.”
Maude didn’t know how to take such a statement. She knew Edmund could be brutally blunt and she could see how people could take that the wrong way, but she never viewed him as mean and disdainful. “No,” she repeated. “He’s not my man.”
“Uh-hun,” said the sister.
She wasn’t buying it. Not for a second.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
By the time nightfall rolled around and she still heard nothing more from Edmund, she couldn’t stay awake a moment longer. She finally dozed off to sleep. By the time he finally arrived at her suite a little over an hour later, she was fast asleep.
Don was also asleep in the connecting room that was specifically designed for the security staff of those dignitaries who were forced to remain overnight at the hospital. Security, however, from Don’s security firm, were on the door rotating in and out for the remainder of the night.
The suite was always locked. To enter, an individual code was given only to those who needed it. Edmund, still in his scrubs, entered his code and walked on in. Only he bolted the door behind him. No one could enter without him, or Maude, letting them in.
When he saw that she was fast asleep, a part of him was relieved that she was able to get some rest. But he was just exhausted. Dead on his feet. He sat in the chair, kicked off his shoes, and then just leaned back, partially slumped down in that chair, and sat there.
It had been a long day. Two long, drawn-out surgeries back to back and then an additional one that was not on his schedule, but life-threatening complications arose that the surgeons could not handle. He had to be called in on that one too. Then there was a bad bus accident in the E.R. that required all hands on deck. It wasn’t necessarily an unusual day for a chief of surgery, but for some reason that day felt heavier. He could barely pull himself to get up and get in the shower.
But he did it. He got up, removed all of his clothing, leaving them on the floor where he took them off, and got in the shower. By the time he got out, he expected Maude to have awakened from the sound of the shower water running alone, but she was still asleep. Like she hadn’t a care in the world, he thought as he stood over her drying off his cold, wet body.
He still had so many questions in his mind about her. Including why he was so attracted to her. But something was there. Something powerful that kept drawing him to her. Even during all those surgeries, when his mind was usually so tuned in to what he was doing and tuned out to everything else, a part of him was thinking about Maude. Was she okay? Did Don stay with her all day or turn her over to the security team early on? Did they run all the tests he ordered them to run? Did he chew up Dr. Mills sufficiently enough as he was rushing to his next surgery?
It was so unlike him to allow any distractions when he was in the operating theater. Now he was looking at the biggest distraction he’d ever had in his life. And in the embodiment of a young lady he could not even explain why he was so drawn to. And incredibly, she was adistractionhe was glad had entered his life.
But what he did next was so not like him that he even surprised himself.
He tossed his towel in a chair, walked around to the opposite side of the bed, and then he eased his naked body in that bed beside her. She wore a hospital gown that opened in the back, and her back was toward him.
But as soon as he laid down, it was as if her sleeping body sensed his body heat and she backed up against him, slamming her ass right into his penis. And it immediately reacted and got hard as a rock. Which she apparently felt because her head suddenly looked up, and then she looked back at him. Whenshe saw him lying there, and then smiled that beautiful smile he adored, it warmed his heart. Every woman he’d ever known wanted something from him. But all she seemed to want in that moment was the warmth of his body heat. Because it was quite cold, even to him, in that suite.
And he gave her what she wanted because he wanted it too.
He placed his arms inside of her gown and wrapped them around her naked body. Then he pulled her even closer against him and began massaging her breasts. And then rubbing her stomach. When he moved his hand between her legs, she moaned. He moaned, too, and moved her thighs slightly apart so that he could place his penis to rest between her legs. It wasn’t an entry. He wouldn’t do that to her in her still-sleepy state. But it was as close as it came.
“How was it?” she asked him.
Her question puzzled him. Did she think they had already done it? “How was what?”
“Surgery.”
“Oh!” He was so unaccustomed to somebody caring enough to ask that he had forgotten how she asked him every time she saw him. “They all went well,” he said.
“Good,” she said. “That’s real good, Edmund. You’re a good doctor.” And then she fell asleep.
But not before making his day. Medical publications the world over often referred to him as one of the greatest surgeons of his generation. But when Maude said he was a good doctor, that meant far more to him than any worldly accolades. Because her pronouncement came from a place of pure innocence, with no hidden agendas. And that was refreshing in the extreme for Edmund. And his tired body actually relaxed. And he fell asleep too.
And sleeping with her, with her body blended with his body in a way that wasn’t just sensual for a change, was so sweet and different and pure to Edmund that it warmed his heart. It was the best night’s sleep he’d had in ages.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The next day, when Edmund finally woke up, he was laying on his back and Maude was laying on top of him. His arms were wrapped tightly around her body and he quickly realized that his big hands had a hard squeeze on her small butt. He also realized that Maude’s gown was gone. That was when he saw it at the foot of the bed, as if it had been tossed there.
And that was when he remembered what happened. As the night progressed, he remembered sweeping her peacefully sleeping body up into his arms and laying her on top of him. He even remembered removing her gown. But he thought it had been a dream. When he realized it most certainly was not a dream and that he purposely pulled her on top of his naked body and removed her gown, he quickly attempted to correct his audacity.
