Authors: Margaret McHeyzer
“You ready to order?” She shifts her gaze and looks over her notepad to me.
Instantly I see the familiar gaze I tend to get from women in her age group. They glance away but look back at me and try to size me up.
I’m not interested.
I used to fuck them when I wanted the relief, but I now only want relief from Mason.
Or Stella.
What the hell?
Stella.
Her eyes. The green is so hypnotic and the fierceness and depth they harbor just makes me want to dive into them and become lost forever.
“Sir?” The waitress’ nasally voice snaps me out of the Stella dream I was having.
“Yes, she’ll have a Mac and Cheese, and I’ll have Marsala Mushroom Sirloin, steak well done please. And just a tap water.” I close the menus and hand them back to her.
“Sure, I’ll just get your drinks,” she says as she turns and leaves. But before she’s too far, she throws me a little look over her shoulder. I roll my eyes and turn my head to look at Lucy.
“I think she likes you.”
“I think you may be right.” I run my hand down her cheek and notice she’s gotten a little hotter in the last few minutes.
“Are you going to ask her out?”
“You, Lani, need to stop trying to be older then you are. No, I’m not going to ask her out because I’m not interested in her. What I am interested in, is you. You feel a bit warmer then you should. So if you start feeling sick, you need to tell me,” I say as I move over to be closer to her on the bench seat.
“Alright.” She folds her arms onto the table and puts her head down to rest on them.
Our water arrives and I pour Lucy’s, but she barely takes any sips.
When dinner gets to the table, she lifts her soft face from her folded arms and eats only a few bites.
Now I’m becoming concerned for her, it’s been 45 minutes since we came here and she’s rapidly becoming feverish.
When I touch her forehead again, she’s burning up.
With only half my dinner eaten, I decide to leave and get Lucy home and into bed.
Driving home, Lucy leans her head up against the passenger side glass window.
“Daddy, I don’t feel well,” she says as I see her starting to shake.
When I pull into the drive way of home, I run to her side of the car and sweep her up in my arms. Her entire body’s alight with a scorching heat, it’s radiating through her clothes and it feels like I’m touching a fireball.
I place her in my bed and take her shoes and sock off, trying to cool her body down.
“I’m cold,” she says as she curls into her side trying to get warm.
“I know, Sweetheart. I’ll get you some medicine, that’ll make it better.” I lean down and kiss her forehead, but the heat’s intensifying every time I touch her.
I go into the kitchen and get my medicine box out, I find the children’s Tylenol and see there’s enough for two possibly three dosages for Lucy. When I pour out what she needs, I take it to her.
“Lucy, you need to sit up to have some medicine.”
She leans up on one elbow and reaches for it. Her eyes are blood shot and her face is ghostly white.
“I’m sorry I’m sick, Daddy,” she says as she takes the medicine and drinks the allocated amount.
“No need to be sorry. Everyone gets sick.” I take the medicine cup from her and place it on the bedside table that wasn’t destroyed last night.
“Night,” she whispers as she falls into a deep sleep.
I sit beside her on the bed and just watch her.
Her fever’s come on rather rapidly, so I just want to make sure she’s alright.
I go into the bathroom and wet a wash cloth for her forehead, and when I go back into my room, Lucy’s entire body’s shaking so hard she looks like she’s convulsing.
Shit.
A panic washes over me because in less than a couple of hours she’s deteriorated so quickly.
I place the wash cloth on her forehead trying to cool her, but her skin soaks the moisture up like a sponge to water.
So I get two more washcloths, and place them on her feet.
“No!” she screams as her body’s involuntarily shaking.
Heading back to the medicine box I find the thermometer. I place the digital thermometer to her forehead and the readout says 102.6.
Fuck.
The wash clothes have been sucked dry again, so I repeat the process trying to cool her down.
As the minutes tick by, and I try to remain calm, I notice Lucy’s stopped moving as much.
I keep repeating the wash clothes and hope that combined with the Tylenol, she’s cooling down.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbles.
“It’s okay,” I say as I smooth her hair with my hand and kiss her forehead.
Her body’s completely covered in sweat.
When I check her temperature again, it’s gone up. Now it’s 103.1.
I’m thrown in a flurry and need to get her to the hospital, and quickly.
Stella.
Mason told me Stella’s a doctor.
I pick my phone up and hit speed dial one.
“Ryan, now’s not a….” Mason begins saying.
“Lucy’s really sick,” I breathe into the phone. I can hear it in my voice, I’m panicking and totally stressed.
“Ryan’s daughter is sick,” I hear Mason repeating to someone, most likely Stella.
“What’s happening?” Stella’s taken the phone and is now addressing me.
“Um, my daughter’s gotten really sick. Her fever came on rapidly. Within an hour and a half it’s already 103.1. I gave her Tylenol about forty minutes ago, but it’s not helping.”
“Ryan,” she starts but my stress wins over her.
“I’ve got to get her to the hospital,” I start pacing.
“Ryan, listen to me. Mason and I are on our way over. Just wait until I get there,” Stella says in an authoritarian no-nonsense tone.
Calm embodies me and I know once Stella gets here, Lucy will be fine.
I look at my alarm clock.
7.01pm. I wipe Lucy’s forehead with a fresh wash cloth.
“I don’t want a dog,” she mumbles.
That makes me panic even more because she doesn’t have but always wanted a dog, and now she’s hallucinating.
My heart elevates and my mind’s going crazy with ‘what if’ scenarios. My breath’s coming out in short gasps and my stomach’s begins to spasm just thinking about how worthless I feel because I can’t help Lucy.
I fall to my knees beside her bed and smooth her hair back from her petite and colorless face.
“The doctor will be here soon, Lani,” I whisper to her.
“Can I go to the beach?” she moans as she turns over to face away from me.
I look at the clock and it’s 7.14pm.
Shit, they’re taking too long to get here. If Mason and Stella aren’t here in the next few minutes I’m taking Lucy to the hospital.
I jump up and grab my keys and Lucy’s bag, just preparing myself for the moment I need to get her there.
I open the front door to put her back pack in the car, and I notice a very sleek red Lexus pull into my driveway behind my truck.
Mason leaps out of the passenger side and he opens the back door and gets a black medical bag out.
Stella is out of the car and walking toward me with haste.
“Where is she?” Stella wastes no time in asking for Lucy.
“She’s in my room, her fever has reached 103.1 when I last checked, and now she’s hallucinating.” I lead Stella into my room, and for one selfish moment I wish that I was leading her there for a totally different reason than to help Lucy.
As I step aside and let her in, I can’t help but rake my eyes over her body. She’s dressed in fitted jeans that hug her ass so tight that my cock twitches against my boxer briefs. I follow her leg line all the way to the floor, and notice she’s wearing a pair of pink ballet flats.
I wish that her legs were wrapping around me as I push her up against the wall.
“Ryan?” I look over to Stella and half her mouth is curved up in a smile.
“Sorry, what?” I ask ashamed for being caught with images of Stella fucking me.
“I said, how quickly did her fever come on?” Stella asks as she takes her stethoscope out of her bag that Mason’s brought into the room.
Stella keeps watching Lucy shivering on the bed.
“It happened really fast. She was fine when I picked her up from her mom’s and by the time we got to dinner she said her throat was hurting. It’s really only been a couple of hours.”
“Her body’s shaking like this because the fever came on so rapidly. She’s having febrile convulsions because her body’s gone into shock and trying to fight the onset of the fever. She’ll be okay but we need to lower the fever fairly quickly,” Stella says as she turns her body back to my incredibly ill daughter that’s lying still on my bed.
I step closer to watch Stella, but Mason puts his hand on my shoulder.
“Let her work, Lucy’s in good hands.”
I step back and go to the opposite wall and watch as Stella exams Lucy.
Lucy moans and mumbles a little, but nothing that’s audible.
“She’s a pediatrician,” Mason whispers in my ear as I watch Stella work.
Standing next to me, he entwines our fingers together and steps closer to me, closing the gap between us.
Stella looks over and smiles but lifts one eyebrow to us.
“Ryan, is Lucy allergic to penicillin?”
I shake my head no.
“Mason, take my car and go the pharmacy. Here’s a prescription, and get some Tylenol, too.” She carries a certain tone of dominance as she speaks with Mason.
He let’s go of my hand and walks over to Stella and takes the prescription.
When he’s out of the room Stella stands from the bed and in a few steps is in front of me.
“Ryan, Lucy has tonsillitis. They’re really quite inflamed, which is what’s causing the fever. Ordinarily I would be saying that I’d just let her body fight the infection with the prescription that Mason’s bringing back. But she’s quite bad and I need your permission to give her a shot of penicillin to get her started toward recovery.” She puts her hand on my shoulder and instantly my body calms under her touch.
“Yeah, of course,” is the only thing that stumbles out of my mouth.
“Her fever is what has me concerned, so the quicker that we can get pain relief and antibiotics into her, the better it’ll be for Lucy.” She starts back toward the bed.
“Do what you have to, Stella,” I say, but Stella falters in her steps.
She turns her body around to face me completely.
“Sorry?” she asks as she places a hand on her hip.
“Do what you have to, please.”
“That’s not what I want from you.”
Shit, what’s she after from me?
I look at her hoping to get some sort of read, but all she does is lift her eyebrows and bring her lips together into a thin line. She looks pissed off at me.
That’s when I remember our brief interaction at the awards ceremony.
“Do what you have to, Ma’am,” I say and look to her for approval.
“Better,” Stella says with an air of confidence as she sits down on the side of the bed. “But still not good enough.” She takes out of her bag a small vial and a needle and prepares it for Lucy.
When Stella’s finished administering the injection, she gets up and walks out of the room. Her bag’s left open beside Lucy and her gloves tossed on the floor. She capped the needle and placed that in her bag, but she left everything else open.
I don’t want Lucy near those things, so I pack everything up and close her bag taking it out to go find where she is.
Stella’s in my kitchen standing beside one of the dining chairs.
I walk in and put her medical bag up on the kitchen counter.
“Thank you for coming out here to care for Lucy,” I say as she continues to stand.
“You’re more than welcome, Ryan.”
There’s an uncomfortable silence in the kitchen as I avert my eyes but can feel the intense stare she’s giving me.
“Would you like a drink?” I finally ask after a few moments of silence.
“What I would like is for you to treat me like a lady. At Mason’s ceremony, you were offering to please me. Now you stand before me and won’t come close. Is there a problem, or have I misread the signs?”
“What signs?” I ask perplexed by her answer.
“Do you want me to be pleased with you?”
Shit. Fuck.
My heart rate accentuates and my palms suddenly become sweaty. I want her so badly, and I want her to be happy with me.
“I….”
“You what?” She takes a step toward me.
I feel like I’m about to pounced on by someone that I have no idea how to control.
“I…” Fuck, Ryan. What am I trying to say?
“Look at me and not the ground. I’ll tell you when I want your submission, but for now I want you to look at me.”
“I can’t,” I say as I keep my gaze to the ground.
“Why? And the truth, Ryan, I never want to hear a lie from you.”
I hesitate. I try to put my fears into a comprehendible thought, but I can’t.
“Your eyes,” I mutter in the smallest of voices.
“What’s wrong with my eyes?”
“Nothing, but…..”
“Don’t make me angry. Tell me what you want to say, and lift your head to look at me,” she says in a tone that undeniably shows her strength.
“I’m terrified.” I glance up to see her features intensify.
“You shouldn’t be terrified of me, you should know that I’ll free you from the devil within.”
I gasp and take a small step back to lean on the kitchen counter.
She takes a step closer to me, and closes the distance between us.
“I can’t look into your eyes, Stella,” I say as she leans into me.
“Address me properly or I’ll leave.” She cages me to the kitchen bench and I’m fighting with every ounce of myself not to flip her around, push her down and kiss her.
I feel a rumble leave my chest with a huge expulsion of air.
“I said,” she starts as she pushes her body into mine. “To address me formally.” She places a light kiss on my lips.
Christ, I want her.
I’ve wanted her from the first time I saw her.
“Ma’am,” I sigh the word as I lean in to kiss her again.
“That’s not the word I want,” she says as her tongue peeks out and traces my lower lip. Her breasts are pushed into my chest, and I’m sure she can feel my hard-on pressing into her lower stomach.