Page 29 of The Doctors Will See You Now

She shrugged helplessly. “Easy access?”

Immediately, unbidden and uninvited, my motherfucker of a male mind flashed to an image of sweet Melody, my nurse, bent over in this very supply closet, hands on the shelf and her ass out and inviting, a skirt pulled up around her perfect round hips. Easy access.

Danger, Will Cummings. Motherfucking danger. I’d managed a spotless record of not fucking my actual employees since getting the practice up and running, but that record currently felt like I might run it off of a cliff into a catastrophic explosion scenario. Back away slowly.

“Ha…ha.” I forced a laugh. Jesus, I sound crazy. Wrinkles formed at the corners of Melody’s hazel green eyes and sucked my focus in like little tributary rivers.

What am I supposed to be doing again?

“Will,” she called, her lips so close I could practically taste them. Okay, a good foot away, but still, they were good lips.

“Yeah?” I asked softly, mesmerized completely.

“Are you…um…”

“Yeah?” Two more seconds like this and we were going to kiss.

“Are you gonna—”

“Yeah.”

Are we going to kiss?

“Oh, yeah.”

“You’re going to rat me out?” she peeped, her voice rising a full octave in despair.

Wait…rat her out? What?

“Wait. No. Rat you out?” My mind struggled to pull the blood back from my dick quickly enough to catch up. Not kissing. She’s not thinking about kissing at all, you fucking schmuck. “For the tongue depressors?” I managed around the knot of would-have-been embarrassment clogging my throat.

“Well, yeah.”

Despite the disappointment of circumstances being considerably different than I’d been imagining for the last two minutes, I smiled.

“No, Load-y. I’m not going to rat you out for stealing the tongue depressors.”

She smiled and exhaled a breath of relief.

“Rat you out? No. Tease you mercilessly until the end of time about it? Yes.”

“You tease me? That’s rich.”

I crossed my arms over my chest and settled into a grin. For the first time ever with Mel, I thought I might actually manage something other than acting like a bumbling idiot.

“Right? Seems like it might be refreshing, though. You know, spreading some of the office ridicule around.”

“Uh…Load-y? I think Melissa’s got that covered.”

“She’s just jealous because she’s the lesser Mel.”

Her breath caught a little, and I knew I had to get out of there. If I didn’t, I’d end up doing something I’d regret. Or she would. Because, yeah, I probably wouldn’t regret it.

I forced myself to move away and over to the door. The cardboard in my hand flexed under the overall pressure running through my body and reminded me to turn around.

“Hey,” I called. “Think fast.”

I tossed the box of tongue depressors, and she caught it adeptly.