Jamison (Beautiful Mine #3) (11 page)

I leaned up, Sophie still in my lap, and ripped her t-shirt off her body, my fingers on fire against her soft skin as I worked to unhook her bra. She gripped the back of my hair, tugging and pulling in tandem with every movement as I nibbled her ear. Her soft lips pressed into my shoulder as she rocked back and forth, impatient for the inevitable.

She pulled back, leaning away and looking into my eyes, her brown eyes searching mine. As I cupped the underside of her delicate jaw, my thumb traced her full bottom lip. She smiled, uncharacteristically vulnerable for a moment, and covered my hand with hers.

She climbed off me, slipping her leggings down and tossing them to the floor as she sprawled out, naked as the day she was born, and flashed me a smile and an eyebrow raise as if to say it was my turn.

The floor-to-ceiling windows of her loft were uncovered, and Sophie was on full display as always. She followed my gaze to the windows.

“Don’t be like that,” she said. “Who cares if anyone can see in here?”

Her fingers fumbled with my belt buckle, brushing against my contained hardness and trying her damnedest to unleash my erection. I pulled a condom from my pocket and tore the package, sheathing myself quickly as her dark eyes pled for me to touch her.

She reached an arm back behind her, clicking off the bedside lamp and creating a dark cocoon of night around us. The glow from her studio lamp across the room and the trickle of moonlight from the windows cast just enough light for me to make out the curves of her body.

She crawled toward me on all fours, the swell of her ass showcased by an arch in the small of her back and marked by two slight dimples. My hands reached out, searching the darkness to grab onto a piece of her.

Her thighs parted as she crawled over top of me, lowering herself onto my hardness and sliding down, as if we were made to fit together perfectly. A soft sigh fled her lips as her head dipped back. Her hands braced on my stomach, she rocked her body back and forth, circling her hips and bouncing on her knees as if she’d waited her whole life to feel this way.

I watched as she bit her lip, scrunched her eyes, and relaxed her face each time she’d press herself onto me. I wasn’t just inside her—I was consuming every fiber of her, igniting her soul.

She leaned forward, her wavy hair spilling across her chest and tickling my face, and leaned down to taste my mouth.

“My turn.” I grabbed her by the hips, flipping her onto her back as I crawled over top of her. Grabbing the base of my cock, I inserted it into her, reconnecting our souls once more. Her thighs slid up the sides of my hips, squeezing with every insertion. She arched, raking her hands up and down the sides of my back, mumbling and moaning soft sounds of intense pleasure.

My lips searched in the dark for hers, and every place our bodies touched lit with fire. I burned for her. My soul needed her. She was the only girl who could make me forget about all the bullshit and all the assholes. She never asked for a damn thing from me, except for me to save her life.

In the darkness of her apartment, in the tangled mess of sheets with my face buried in her soft hair, I vowed to do whatever it took to save her.

God have mercy on the poor soul who tries to stop me.

SOPHIE

I woke in a tiny post-op room with a gray-haired nurse recording my vitals. With tubes and IVs and wires hooked up to every part of me and a thick blanket weighing me down, I couldn’t move an inch.

“She’s awake,” the nurse said. She turned to me with kind eyes, and her quaint smile reminded me of my sweet grandmother. “Your procedure went well, sweetie. Just rest, okay?”

A quick knock on the door brought me my Jamison. A week ago he’d told me I was scheduled for surgery with one of the top neurosurgeons in the nation, Dr. Jim Fowler. Jamison walked me to the hospital that morning dressed in his green scrubs and had stayed with me until he had to scrub in for his first surgery of the day.

“How’re you feeling?” he asked, peering over the nurse’s shoulder and reading my vitals on the computer screen.

“Good,” I said groggily. The oxygen they’d had me on during surgery had dried my lips and made my throat scratchy. “Thirsty.”

He smiled, reaching down and warming my hand with his. His concerned eyes washed over me and his body seemed to relax ever so slightly.

“Everything went well,” he said. “They’ll bring you in for monitoring. There’s a slight risk of re-bleeding with this procedure, but we’ll keep a close eye on you.”

By “they,” he meant other doctors on his team. I cleared my throat. “When do I get to go home?”

“Not for another day,” he said. “Dr. Bledsoe will monitor you for the time being, after Dr. Fowler leaves.”

“Sweetie, you didn’t put down any emergency contacts,” the nurse said, interrupting us. “Do you have any family?”

I felt Jamison’s eyes on me, and I swallowed the lump in my dry throat. “No.”

The nurse hesitated, taken aback, but didn’t push it.

“Can I see Dr. Fowler again?” I asked Jamison. “I want to thank him for flying in to do this surgery. It was really nice of him.”

Pain flashed across his face. “I’ll see what I can do.”

He slipped out the room, leaving the door half open. The soft trail of two men talking floated into my room and I strained to make out the words.

A moment later a white-coated Dr. Fowler stepped in, Jamison behind him. I’d seen him earlier, just before the surgery, but my mind had been too preoccupied to process everything that was going on. The nurses had been prepping me and Dr. Fowler had been explaining the procedure, but at the time, all I could do was look across the room at Jamison, taking refuge in the comfort of his pale blue eyes.

Standing side by side, the resemblance was uncanny. Dr. Fowler was an older, darker-eyed version of Jamison with gray in his temples and an air of upper crust arrogance that oozed from every pore of his smug face.

“Thank you, Dr. Fowler,” I said, offering an appreciative smile. “I know you didn’t have to fly here to do this. I’ve heard you’re the best in the country, so it really means the world that you’d take time from your busy schedule to operate on me.”

His face morphed into a warm smile, the arrogance dissipating as I praised his good deed. I’d recognize a man who loved a good ego-stroking anywhere. Men like him lived for that sort of thing.

“How do you two know each other?” I asked, searching both their faces.

They exchanged looks, each waiting for the other to speak before Jamison finally offered, “He’s my father.”

“Oh,” I said as he confirmed what I already assumed. “I could see the resemblance. I just wasn’t sure.”

Neither of them seemed too thrilled. A trace of a bittersweet smile crossed Jamison’s face, and I could see the pain in his eyes.

“Jamison is the top neurosurgeon in the city,” I said to his father. “And the youngest. But you probably already knew that.”

Dr. Fowler offered a tight-lipped smile, his hands crossed at his hips. “I did.”

An awkward silence came between the three of us, interrupted only by the faint beeping of one of the monitors connected to me.

“Well, I’ve got to head back to Mayo,” he said, directed at the both of us as if it were just a formality. For being Jamison’s father, he sure as hell didn’t act like it. A quick nod and a moment later, Dr. Fowler was gone from my room, taking all the strained tension with him.

Jamison eyed the clock on the wall. “I have to scrub in for another surgery.” He gripped my hand as if he didn’t want to leave me. “I’ll check back on you later, okay?”

I nodded.

“We’ll be moving her to the eighth floor, Dr. Garner,” the nurse said to him. “They’re preparing her room right now.”

“I’ll see you tonight,” he said, slipping out of the room, his white coat floating behind him. My heart raced and was acknowledged by the fast beeping of a machine. Even post-op, I couldn’t help but think of all the things I wanted to do to him when I got better. He was my hero. My lover. My everything.

***

Twenty-four hours later, I was crawling out of a cab with Jamison reaching for my hands, ready to escort me up to my apartment.

“Easy now,” he said, his hands strong and steady as they held mine. A day of lying flat in the hospital left me feeling lightheaded and uncoordinated, but he was there to guide me.

We climbed the two flights of stairs one at a time and landed in my apartment, where Mia had everything all ready to go. Her shop was closed that week for the big renovation, so she promised to dedicate her free time to taking care of me during the day.

“There she is,” Mia said, cautiously watching me as if I were a fragile China doll about to topple off a shelf. “Your bed’s all ready.”

Jamison escorted me there, helping me in and covering me up before propping and fluffing the pillows behind me.

He and Mia stood at the side of my bed, both watching me with careful gazes until Jamison pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and turned to her.

“This is my cell,” he said. “Call me immediately if anything happens. Anything at all.” He slipped a second piece of paper next to my bed. “This is my pager number. If I don’t answer my cell, have me paged. Enter the code 121, and I’ll know it’s for Sophie.”

121?
My hazy brain tried to figure out why he’d pick that random number.
December 1
st
. That’s when we met. 12/1.

“Got it,” Mia said, pressing the precious lifeline against her chest. “I’ll program your numbers into my phone.”

“I need you to watch for fever, chills, pain, headaches, numbness, tingling…” Jamison rattled off a list of symptoms as Mia listened diligently.

He cemented himself in place, not wanting to leave, but he’d only taken a break from work to run me home. Patients waited and appointments piled up, and the longer he stalled, the longer he’d be working that night.

“I need to get back,” he said, glancing outside where the Yellow Cab waited for him, meter still running. “I’ll come by tonight.”

I nodded. He wasn’t even gone yet, and already I missed him so much my chest ached. I watched from my bed as he showed himself out, the clicking of the door echoing through the vast open space.

“He’s amazing, isn’t he, Mia?” I sighed.

She perched on the side of my bed, her blue eyes softening as she nodded. “You’re very lucky to have found each other. Talk about timing, right?”

I glanced over to my nightstand where my Nori and Rossi necklaces laid next to one another, and I couldn’t help but wonder if in some weird, cosmic sort of way they sent him to me.

Pain sliced through my heart. I’d have given anything to have one more giggling sleepover with them, to mother-hen them with relationship advice or to feel the way their gorgeous, flaxen locks slipped through my fingers when I braided their hair. I’d have given anything to stare into their big brown eyes, the very same ones they shared with me, and wrap them up in a warm embrace.

“You thinking of them again?” Mia asked sweetly. She knew them too. We all went to the same college. I’d lived with Mia all four years, and she was the one who had told me my parents were on the phone that fateful morning. I still got sick to my stomach when visions of the look on her face crept into my mind.

“Always,” I said.

Mia grabbed the necklaces and scooted closer to me, securing each one around my neck. “Better?”

I nodded.

“Get some rest, will ya?” She floated to the big windows, drawing the blinds one at a time and darkening the loft. She returned to my side, running her hand across my cheek the way a mother would comfort a child. “He’ll be back soon.”

***

I’d slept for hours, and I only knew that because when Jamison left it was broad daylight, and when I awoke to the sound of his voice it was pitch dark out. Disoriented, I leaned up in my bed. Across the room, Jamison and Mia whispered about me, softly discussing how the day went and what time she’d be there the next morning.

“I’m awake, you guys,” I said, startling them both as they whipped their heads toward me. Jamison rushed to my side as if he’d been counting down the hours all day.

“How’re you feeling?” he asked, clicking on the bedside lamp.