Forever: A Lobster Kind Of Love (22 page)

“I will accept that as a thank you,” she giggled. 

“Thank you? You don’t have to make me pie for me to kiss you. I will kiss you all day long…and then some,” I breathed into her neck as I finally got my kiss. Then the realization hit me.

Lydia couldn’t seriously think this is about pie, could she? 

“Ryan, I can’t. I’m your nurse. I…I just can’t.” And the nurse was back. She stood and scurried back into the safety of the kitchen, the only place I couldn’t get into with my chair. 

Dammit, I didn’t know what to do. So, I headed over to the bar and did the only thing I knew to clear my head: work out. Maybe if I got my blood pumping, it would take it away from my raging cock and clear the heavenly sounds of Lydia’s moans out of my head. 

I wasn’t imagining things. He really was attracted to me
. All doubts that I had been imagining this were gone now. He’d kissed me. Not a peck on the cheek or kiss your grandma gave you, either. That was a panty-melting prelude to sex kiss.

As I hid in the kitchen, since it was the only room I had exclusive access to, I had to think about what I was going to do. I didn’t want to lead him on, and I didn’t want to push him away either. Hell, I was so confused. What was I going to do?

So I did what I always did when I was mad, sad, or didn’t know what else to do…I scrubbed. I scrubbed the oven, the stove, mopped the floor, and cleaned out the fridge.

I had my headphones on but my phone was dying. I went out to the dining room to plug it in to charge and found Ryan grunting furiously pulling up on the bar in the bedroom doorway.

My arms burned, my stomach wrenched, and I was pretty sure I had new blisters on my hands. Lord knew how many pull-ups I’d just completed and I still couldn’t empty the energy coursing through my veins.

Uncertainty gripped me and plagued my brain for the first time. Things had never been this complicated with a woman before, when I’d had useful legs, that is.

Everything else worked. I woke up with morning wood every day, mostly with the remnants of dreams filled with Lydia’s laughter. In my recent dreams, I tickled her, just to hear her laugh, just to touch her.

My dreams used to be filled with jagged returning memories of the storm. Each dream a clip, a sound, a fragment haunting me with what might have been. When the damn mast came swooping down and had taken me out, I thought I was a goner. I never thought I would make it out of the sea. The waves were raging and my boat had been rocking so hard I thought she might capsize, but she stayed. My good girl stayed upright, but the lines couldn’t hold the booms.

The Coast Guard had the choppers in the air looking for boats in distress and my rescue was quick. Those divers saved my life. The doctors said I was lucky. Lucky? I guess I was since I was alive, but I had legs I couldn’t use and my life, the only life I had ever known, was over.

One more rep, I pulled up again and hung from the bar. One more…

“What are you doing?” Lydia shrieked, running from the kitchen.

Crap
! I plopped down in my bedroom chair and held my head in my hands. She had never seen me work out. I did it early in the morning before she got here and on the weekends when she was off.

“Ryan, are you trying to hurt yourself?” She started feeling my shoulders and arms, checking for injuries.

“I’m not hurt, Lydia. I’m fine.” I let her look at my hands. Yup, just like a thought, a blister across my left palm.

“You’re not fine! Look at this. You have a huge blister. What were you trying to do?”

I yanked my hands from her and rolled backward, farther into my bedroom.

“I was trying to clear my head. I’m fine! Not anything I haven’t done before.” I came across a little harsher than I’d intended.

“What do you mean? Clear your head? What did you do before?” She asked.

“Of you, trying to clear my head of you, and get all these thoughts out of my head.”

Her face changed from concern to confusion. “Me? I don’t understand.” Before she could get away, I grabbed her wrists and pulled her down to her knees.

“Yes, you! Look at me!” She looked into my eyes but I could see I was scaring her. I had to make her see.

I toned my voice down. “Look at me, Lydia”

“I am looking at you,” she said in a quivering voice.

I crushed my lips against hers and she squeaked. I pulled away and leaned my forehead against hers. “But do you see me?”

She was trembling in my grasp. I kissed her again, longer this time. Licking her lips, nipping at her bottom one, tugging, begging her to open herself to me. “See me, Lydia. See me for who I am, not your patient, but as a man.”

She shook her head and with that, I dropped her hands and pushed myself off my chair onto the floor. Quickly, I rolled on top of her before she could react. Grabbing her wrists again, I held them on each side of her head, and my body naturally rested between her legs. I ground my erection into the apex of her sex and her eyes widened as she stared at me in disbelief.

“Now do you see me? This is what you do to me. I’m a grown ass man, Lydia. I’m a man who wants to fuck you out of your thoughts until there are no doubts of my intentions. I want you with me all the time. Not because it’s your shift, but because you want to be. So yes, Lydia, I was trying to clear my head. Clear my head of thoughts of you and me because I want it so badly, it hurts.”

I rolled off her, releasing her wrists, pulled myself upright, and sat against the wall. Scrubbing my face with my hands, I tried to rub my frustrations away. She continued to lie still on the floor, probably in shock. I had a feeling I'd need to look for a new nurse now. I had fucked this up royally.

After a few moments, Lydia stirred. She got up on her knees and crawled over to me, taking a seat against the wall next to me. She leaned her head against my shoulder and placed her hand on my thigh. I let out a deep breath and placed my hands over hers. “I will call your agency tomorrow.”

She stiffened, sat up, and turned to face me. “What? Why?”

“I’m sorry. I was out of line. I will call them tomorrow and you can get a new placement.”

“I don’t want another placement,” she said softly.

I opened my eyes, turned my head to face her, and drew her hand in mine. I kissed the back of her hand gently, and then guided her hand to my crotch. “Then what am I going to do about this?”

Her eyes widened and her cheeks flushed but she hadn’t pulled her hand away. “I guess we will just have to work on that after 6:00.”

Now it was my turn to be shocked.
Did she just say after 6:00? God, my cock is hard, I must not have enough blood going to my brain, but it sounded like she said after 6:00
.

“Come again?” I asked just to make sure I’d heard correctly.

“I said we will just have to deal with that after 6:00...when I am off the clock,” and she gave my cock a gentle squeeze.

“I need a cold shower,” I said with a laugh.

“Need some help?” she asked as she stood up.

I looked over at the clock on the dresser and it read 5:03. I looked up at her. “Nope. One more hour before the help I need is available, so I am going to go take an ice cold shower now.” I swiveled onto my stomach and crawled back over to my chair. I grasped onto the outer edges of the seats and hoisted myself into it. My arms were aching and burning, seeking energy as the lactic acid built up in my muscles.

“But first, do you think I could have a slice of that pie? It was really good.” I asked quietly.

Lydia beamed. “Absolutely, you want it à la mode?”

“You’re killing me, woman! You know damn well that’s a yes and I want you, but I will take just the pie, for now.”

She laughed and walked to the kitchen.

A slice of pie, a cold shower, and half an episode of a random cooking show later, it was nearing six, and my palms began to sweat. Lydia hasn’t said one word as to what her plans were, but she’d made it clear she didn’t want to leave.

We needed to talk, but I had no idea about where to begin. She had flitted in and out of the kitchen, but had kept her distance from me the last hour, busying herself with cleaning and prepping food and such. She probably thought I was going to attack her again.

I wouldn’t, not unless she wanted me to!

Stop shithead! That’s what got you in this hot mess to begin with. What happened if she left? Say goodbye to awesome company, her beautiful smile, peanut butter, and good eats. It would be back to meals on wheels
. Just the thought of those dismal TV dinner packed poor excuses for meals made me cringe. My luck I would get another awful self-absorbed nurse like that Stephen guy too as a replacement.

All of a sudden, music blared from Lydia’s phone on the dining room table carrying the boy band’s voices across the room. She was in the bathroom so I rolled over to silence it. ALARM flashed on the screen. She’d set an alarm? She never set an alarm. I click close and set her phone back down, but not before her wallpaper catches my eye. A redheaded man and a little boy filled the screen before it went black again.
That must be her husband and her son. Fuck, I’m such an asshole
.

Lydia came out of the bathroom and apologized, “I’m sorry; my phone was almost dead. I thought it was on vibrate.”

“No worries. Didn’t take you for a boy band fan though?” I said with a grin.

She sighed. “Busted. I love boy bands, have ever since the days of New Kids on the Block.”

“Are you kidding me? Wow, I didn’t see that one coming!” I laughed whole-heartedly and held my stomach. I was still sore after my impromptu workout earlier.

She grabbed her phone off the dining table and watched as she packed up her nursing notebook, her charger, the med boxes, and then she closed and stacked everything neatly on the corner of the table. She took her long burgundy hair out of the messy bun it was in and took her scrub top off revealing a 69 Bottles Concert tour t-shirt.

“Did you get your scrub shirt dirty?” I asked mesmerized by her beauty.

“It’s 6:00; I’m off duty,” she said quietly.

“Lydia, come here. Please?” I patted the seat on the couch cushion next to me, unclicked my seatbelt, and transferred to the sectional. I was nervous, but she had revealed herself to me in street clothes. That had to be a good sign. Moment of truth, here it comes.

She walked toward me hesitantly, and I patted the cushion again making it clear where she needed to be. She sat down on the edge of the seat.

“Lydia, please. Get comfy. I promise, I won’t touch you. Just talking, okay?”

Her eyes gave me a once over, and I saw doubt in her raised eyebrows as her eyes glanced back and forth between my hand on the seat and my face, constantly assessing. “Are you firing me? I finished all my nursing notes, everything is in order,” she said as she wrung her hands in her lap.

I put my hand over hers to stop her from fidgeting and she quickly sat straight up. I pulled my hand away and put both in the air in surrender.

“Sorry! I’m sorry! I said no touching. Dammit, I’m sorry. You were just all twitchy.”

I crossed my heart like a Boy Scout, “I promise, no touching. I’m sorry.”

She exhaled with a whoosh and I tucked my hands under my legs, more for me than for her, to remind me to keep my hands to myself.

“Are we good, now?” I questioned, raising a brow.

She nodded, and I relaxed slightly.

Here goes everything
. “Lydia, I am not firing you. Firing you is the last thing on my mind.”

“Then where do we go from here, Ryan? Please, tell me what to do,” she pleaded.

“Lydia, you are more than just a nurse to me. You are a part of me. Please don’t go.”

“I don’t know what else to do. I can’t be your nurse and kiss you, I will lose my license.”

“Who said anything about losing your license? That’s like sexual harassment. It’s only harassment if you feel offended. Have I offended you?” I asked firmly.

“No,” she replied meekly.

“Then tell me how to proceed because I can’t live without you, I don’t want to stop touching you and I definitely don’t want to stop kissing you.” She stared at me, peering into my eyes, looking for answers. I wished I could show her every part of my soul since my words were obviously failing me.