He would live. He would be staring at the inside of a jail cell soon enough, but he’d live.
Her job was done. Today.
“You did good,” Juanita Brown remarked as she swiped at the sweat on her forehead with the back of her hand.
Nikki smiled, then tiredly patted the young nurse on the back. Juanita was a terrific lady to work with, her favorite on the trauma surgery team. They’d been saving lives together since Nikki had been a resident surgeon. “You weren’t too bad yourself, kiddo.”
Juanita half smiled and half sighed. “Damn, I’m beat. I’d say let’s go grab a bite to eat, but I’d rather go catch some Zs.”
“Me, too. I’ll grab a burger from a fast-food place on my way home.”
“Watch out. That stuff will kill ya.” They shared an insiders’ smile at the allusion to the man they’d saved together barely a week earlier after he’d almost choked himself to death by swallowing hamburger bites too fast. “You on call tomorrow?”
“Nope.” Nikki grinned. “I have a day off, if you can believe it.”
“Well, enjoy it. I got stuck pulling a double shift.”
“Hey, I’ve had my fair share of those. See you Tuesday, Nita.”
“I’ll be here.”
Fifteen minutes later, Nikki had changed into her street clothes, settled into her Mercedes Benz, and was driving toward the apartment she rented out in a high-rise complex that catered to doctors and other affluent professionals who worked at or around Cleveland General. Only ten minutes away, it was a logical place to live when people were depending on you to show up at the hospital on a moment’s notice in order to perform emergency surgeries.
The minute the hospital was out of sight, so too was it out of Nikki’s mind. She had learned long ago the importance of leaving her work at work, to avoid burn-out.
She doubted that most people could appreciate the stress that is inherent in playing God in people’s lives, to know that they lived or died depending upon how well you performed on any given day. There was no room for error; only for precision. An impossibility, given the fact that she was human.
Due to the nature of her occupation, it was vital to not only be a skilled healer, but also a skilled commander of people, whom her trauma team could respect. They looked to her for direction, for the ability to provide authority and leadership.
Not that she was complaining. Nikki loved her job; always had. She took a lot of pride in what she did and the fact that she did it so well. Nobody, however, can be precise, commanding, and authoritative all the time, so she looked forward to her days off as a time to recuperate, a time when she could be plain old Nikki instead of the respected surgeon, Dr. Nicole Adenike.
Exhausted, Nikki smiled as the looming high-rise complex in which she lived crept into view. She patted the grease-stained paper bag sitting on the passenger’s seat beside her.
First a burger, and then a hot bubble bath. Damn, she loved her days off.
“Another body was discovered in the early hours of the morning outside downtown Cleveland’s financial district. The victim, identified through dental records as thirty-three-year-old Linda Hughes, was a well-respected international tax accountant at the prestigious Waterson, Helman, and Pandley firm.
“Reported missing several months ago, news of her death nevertheless came as a shock to family, friends, and coworkers, all of whom described Linda to reporters as an affable, highly intelligent businesswoman and friend.”
Nikki watched from the bathtub in which she was soaking as the news report played on the flat-panel TV display that had been mounted onto a nearby wall. She absently worked soap bubbles over her breasts, then up and down her arms, as the victim’s shaken mother spoke tearfully before the cameras.
“If this can happen to my Linda, it can happen to any woman,”
Mrs. Hughes said, her voice quivering.
“My daughter was a smart woman. She never would have gotten herself into a preventable situation.”
Which meant, as the police no doubt already suspected, that Linda had trusted the man who had murdered her. It was kind of unnerving to think that this particular serial killer had ingratiated himself into the lives of so many women—so many smart women, at that. Doctors, lawyers, CEOs ... the man whom the Cleveland press had dubbed “Lucifer” was nobody’s fool, she thought.
The phone rang, breaking Nikki out of her reverie. She reached for the TV’s remote and hit the power button, flicking the box off at the same time she answered the cordless. “Hello?”
“Hey Nik. It’s Kim.”
Nikki smiled into the phone. Kimberly Cox was her nearest and dearest friend. “After sixteen years, one would think you would quit identifying yourself every time you call. I do recognize your voice, my dear,” she said teasingly . “I’ve only known you since, oh, college.”
“Hey, you never know. We’re both thirty-four now. Starting to lose brain cells and all.”
“Uh huh.” Nikki tucked a light brown lock of hair behind her ear. “What’s up?”
They chatted for a few minutes, catching up on the past seven days, neither of them having had time to phone the other at all for the past week.
“As nice as that sounds, I’m too beat to go out tonight,” Nikki said regretfully. “I feel like bumming around in my sweats and that piña colada-stained T-shirt I got when we vacationed in St. Maarten.” She smiled when Kim chuckled nostalgically. “Want to do brunch tomorrow instead?”
“Sounds good. I really need . . . I need to talk, to see you.”
Nikki’s eyebrows slowly drew together. “Is something wrong, kiddo? If there is, I’ll be right over—”
“Nothing that can’t wait until tomorrow,” Kim cut in.
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
Nikki wasn’t precisely certain she believed her, but decided to let it go. The last thing she wanted to be was a nag. “That little French bistro in the Flats. At, let’s say, eleven?”
“It’s a deal.”
She hung up the phone a minute later, the next day’s plans cemented. Whatever was worrying Kim, they would deal with it together tomorrow over crêpes, their usual method of enlightenment.
Tonight, she told herself, was for Nikki. And for her, um . . . research.
Chapter 2
Sunday, June 8 10:23 P.M.
Okay, so it wasn’t research in the clinical sense. In fact,
most people would probably chalk it up to reading porn, but in Nikki’s eyes it was still legitimate research. That it, rather than work, involved the sex life she aspired to one day have was beside the point.
Her gaze skimmed over the books sitting in her lap. The titles said it all. She nibbled on her lower lip, wondering if she was depraved or if other professional women in high-stress careers fantasized about the types of situations she fantasized about.
Submitting to the Master.
The Definitive Guide to Bottoming.
Sexual Servitude 101.
Ugh. Her mother would roll over in her grave if she had any inkling that the greatest sexual aspiration her surgeon of a daughter possessed was to dramatically submit her body as a sensual offering to a dominant man behind a closed bedroom door.
Then again, her mother would probably roll over in her grave if she knew Nikki had any sexual aspirations at all.
She sighed, deciding that, if nothing else, her fantasy life would make for an excellent edition of the Jerry Springer show.
These deviant physicians say there is nothing wrong with getting handcuffed to a bed and made to perform fellatio on the alpha males in their lives. Stay tuned as we talk to doctors who like to get down and dirty. Coming up next on Jerry Springer
. . . .
Nikki shook her head. Down and dirty indeed. She hadn’t performed fellatio on a male—or done anything else with or to one, for that matter—in over three years. She was as celibate as a saint, she thought a bit grimly. Single and celibate. She didn’t mind the former, liked it in fact, but the latter really sucked.
Moving the Domination/submission books from her lap to the coffee table, she stood up and made her way over to the computer. She absently switched on the power button, her attention temporarily snagged by the mirror suspended to her left on the wall.
She pressed her face in closer, wondering what it was that men saw when they looked at her. Did they think she was at all attractive? At least average, maybe? Or did they think she was ugly? Too serious? Too brainy? Too . . . something?
Whatever it was, she thought, it was definitely keeping her from scoring.
She chuckled at her own thoughts. “Scoring,” she murmured. “You sound like a middle-aged pervert, Nikki. And a male one at that.”
She sighed, deciding that that’s what happens to a woman when her sex life is as barren as the Sahara. She straightened her shoulders, giving her features a serious, critical evaluation.
She wasn’t ugly, she decided. Not gorgeous, but definitely not ugly. Nor was she plain. Her face was pretty in its own way, her eyes wide and green, her lips full and soft. Her nose was a bit longer than what was considered fashionable, and her smile was slightly crooked, but all in all she wasn’t too bad. Unusual-looking, perhaps, but not too bad.
Her light brown hair was long and curly and typically rolled into a neat bun at the nape of her neck for work. Her coloring was good for someone who rarely had time to see the sun, a light beige given to tanning on the rare occasion she made it outdoors.
At five foot, six inches she was neither tall nor short. At one hundred forty-five pounds she was neither skinny nor overweight. She was just average—boringly average.
The only thing that stood out about her body, she admitted, was her chest. Even she, her own worst critic, thought she had nice breasts. They were large and round, and still on the perky side for thirty-four. Perhaps not the sexiest chest in the world, but it would do.
“So why are you dateless, Nikki?” she murmured to her reflection. She absently wondered if a makeover would heighten her appearance at all. “What the heck is wrong with you?”
Nothing was wrong with her and she knew it. The average man was intimidated by her professional accomplishments, a fact she had long ago come to accept. A cliché, perhaps, where career women are concerned, but a true one nevertheless. So it was either go dateless or couple off with fellow physicians who, like her, had little time on their hands to devote to a relationship.
Truthfully, she loved her career too much to care, for the most part. It was just on nights like this, when she was overtired from a long workday and allowing herself to indulge in the occasional therapeutic bout of self-pity, that she gave her lack of a dating life any thought at all.
Otherwise she was happy. Content in who she was, happy with her life. Besides, she silently conceded to the mirror before glancing away from it and sitting down in front of the computer, the dates she had gone out on in the past year had been far from earth-shatteringly profound.
A few months ago there had been Ted. A fellow physician and a nice guy, but oh so dull. She’d dated him for a few months, deciding to try and stick it out. Then
he’d
dumped
her,
wanting to be “friends.” She hadn’t been saddened in the least.
Before Ted there had been Mike. Another physician, another nice guy, another man who put the
d
in
dull
. Him she’d gone out with three times before they’d parted their separate ways, again of mutual accord.
And, finally, before Mike there had been Elliott. A physician. A nice guy. Dull. Yada, yada, yada. Same story, different doctor.
Nikki sighed, wondering for the first time if all three of those men had really been as dull as she remembered or if the fact that her fantasy life was a bit more dramatic than what was probably considered normal could account for it. Simply put, she couldn’t imagine any of her former dates handcuffing her to a bed and then treating her body like a sexual offering to a dominant god. She blushed, mortified by the thought that she might be abnormal.
“You’re a weirdo,” she dismally muttered to herself as she brought up her email. “A definite weirdo.”
She didn’t know why she fantasized about sexual submission, only knew that she did. Perhaps it was because she was so in control in her professional and personal lives that she wanted to be helplessly out of control in the bedroom.
Perhaps it was because she knew she’d never be considered a great beauty, yet to have a man desire her in such an all-consuming way would make her feel like one. In all of the D/s books, the Dominant party spent hour upon hour lavishing attention on the body of his or her submissive counterpart, bringing them to climax over and over again. Due to the complexities required of the relationship, such as the complete trust the submissive must put into the Dominant, a D/s partnership is supposedly more bonding and emotionally rewarding than many other kinds of relationships.
Maybe her fantasies were all very Freudian in nature and somehow or another they stemmed back to her childhood, to a time when her mother’s needs had always been paramount and Nikki’s had mattered very little. Growing up, she had been a shy, chubby girl, an awkward kid with pimples and thick glasses who was more comfortable surrounded by books than by people.
Books never disappointed . . . people always did.
That was the lesson she’d learned early in life, and one that hadn’t been easy to surmount. She couldn’t count how many times she had tried to reach out to her emotionally vacant mother, how many times she had thrown her arms around her middle for a hug, only to feel her mother tense up. Eventually she had stopped trying.
A child takes experiences like that personally because they aren’t mature enough to realize that the vacancy and neglect has nothing to do with them and everything to do with the one neglecting them. All a child understands is that they want the one they love to show love back. When that love is not expressed physically, through hugs and kisses and smiles, they take it to heart. Nikki had been no exception to that rule.