Book Boyfriends Wanted 7: His Curvy Nurse

Nico

Fucking hell. I closed my eyes and took a breath for the first time since I walked in and saw her flirting with the patient. A fucking patient. Red. It was all fucking red.

Lighting into her—I couldn’t stop myself. As soon as the words were out, I knew I said the wrong thing. What the hell was I thinking exposing that much? I thought for sure she would call me out, but she didn’t. She just about crumbled. I wanted to reach for her. To comfort her. To hold her. Thank fuck my desk was between us or I might have done it. But then her face, that beautiful, heart-shaped face that I saw in my every fantasy, it turned again. To anger. Hatred. And that turned me on even more.

Except for the fact that those emotions were directed at me.

I thought about chasing her down, but what was the point? I didn’t want her fucking the patients. I didn’t want her fucking anyone. And after overhearing about her dates over the weekend, for months, and then listening to her flirt with a patient, I lost it.

I took a deep breath and thought about calling for an emergency session with my therapist, but I could handle it. Usually I talked to her about work, but lately I’d been sharing more and more about Laura. She was becoming more of an issue for me, and it needed to stop.

I turned my thoughts to other things, like another new patient I had coming in shortly, and managed to push Laura from my mind. I took a deep breath and focused on work. I had to compartmentalize. I was an expert at it, and it came in handy now.

The consultation went well. The patient was understandably upset, but she was joking and talking instead of crying. She was ready to fight, and she had the support system in place to do it. She would be one of my success stories.

I spent the rest of my day catching up on paperwork and meeting with the remaining clients. My schedule was getting busier than I could handle, and I really needed to put plans in place to hire another doctor. That also meant finally going through with the plans I had to remodel the second floor of the building into a dedicated infusion center.

The Margaret Allison Memorial Clinic.

My mother would have adored Laura. Laura was exactly the kind of woman my mother wanted me to find. Kind, compassionate, tough. She also would have loved that Laura didn’t fit the definition of conventional beauty, although I couldn’t fathom why. She was stunning. Her curves, her smile, her long blonde hair that begged for my fingers to run through it.

I cleared my throat and adjusted myself. I couldn’t let my mind wander when I was still at work.

“I’m heading home, Dr. Allison,” Ally said with a knock on my open door. “Is there anything you need before I go?”

I shook my head. “No, Ally. I’m all set. Is everyone else gone?”

She nodded. “I think so. I haven’t seen anyone. I was just getting the paperwork ready for tomorrow. It’s another busy day.”

“Unfortunately, yes. Cancer doesn’t stop.”

She smiled sadly. “We’re all lucky you’re willing to fight it. Have a good night.”

“You, too. See you tomorrow, Ally.”

“Bye.”

I waited until I heard the solid metal door swing closed behind Ally to get up from my desk. I walked through the offices and made sure the place was empty, then I turned off the lights and headed upstairs.

The open space echoed with my footsteps. Ceiling panels dangled from the spots they should have filled. Wires snaked across the vinyl flooring. Overturned chairs and broken desks were scattered around haphazardly, as though tossed there in a fight.

The abandoned office space had seen better days. There were times I thought the entire town had. I loved MacKellar Cove, but it was a little rough around the edges. A little worn in, or worn out depending on how you looked at it. I never felt like I fit in, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave.

I heard my mother’s laugh in my head. She was always laughing, up until the end. She told me I didn’t fit in because I never gave others a chance. I told her it was because no one wanted to get to know me. She would have chastised me for the way I treated Laura, for embarrassing her. She would have said it was proving her point. Maybe it was. Maybe I wasn’t fair to her. But I couldn’t help it.

From the first day she showed up in my clinic, she captivated me. So much so that I could barely speak to her. She was stunning. And the way she treated patients, even before her training was complete, made me wonder who she’d lost that she understood their pain so acutely.

Ally told me more about Laura than Laura ever did. Laura’s mom died of lung cancer when she was younger. She knew the pain the patients felt. And she knew the pain their caregivers felt. It was a unique skill set. One I wish didn’t exist.

I walked through the space and laid it out in my head. Three times as many beds for infusion. Four private rooms for patients who needed spinal access or couldn’t sit upright in a chair. I wanted to add large windows along the west wall so patients could look out over the water while they received treatment. Something beautiful so they weren’t left feeling trapped.

I finally had the money to do it all and was putting it into motion. I hadn’t told a single person about it except Veronica. She knew everything about me, but that was her job as my therapist. She helped me see things I couldn’t see, and one of those things was that not doing this meant I was holding myself back. I needed a new challenge, a new goal. Something to keep my mind off all the things I was missing in my life.

Like a woman to share it with.

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes once more. I could see it, and I held on to that vision as I left the office and went home for the night. Alone, as always.

* * *

I’d come to dread Thursday as much as Monday, but this Thursday was especially painful. Laura wasn’t speaking to me, not that I blamed her. She wasn’t even speaking around me. When I walked in the room or even near, she closed her mouth. I missed the sound of her voice. The sound of her laugh.

She was working with me for the afternoon. Each nurse saw patients with me one morning and one afternoon every week. They handled infusion of those same patients so their care was consistent. It worked for me, until I had to spend the time with her. Then it was torture.

My morning went by quickly with a few new patients and a few who were done with treatment. That was the cycle. We had patients at every stage along the way. It was always good to see some move on, but there was never a shortage of more waiting to start.

I ate lunch in my office, grabbing a frozen meal from the mini freezer below my desk. It burned my mouth when I took the first bite, and the second was barely warm enough to not be frozen. I hated the things, but I didn’t take time to cook most days so I suffered through them. Another thing my mother would chastise me for if she were around.

The alarm on my phone went off, and I used my private bathroom and brushed my teeth, then went to the exam room to see our first patient of the afternoon.

“Good afternoon, Robert,” I said as I walked into the room. “How are you today?”

“Feeling good, Dr. Allison. Hoping for some good news.”

I nodded and accepted the tablet from Laura. Our fingers brushed when she handed it over. A jolt of awareness burst through me, but she pulled back so quickly we almost dropped the device. I scowled and righted it, clearing my throat before I turned the screen to face Robert.

“This was your last scan. We talked about it a few months ago. We weren’t sure what kind of improvement we would see in the first two rounds, but this…” I flipped to the second picture, “is your newest scan.”

Robert looked up at me with tears in his eyes. “That’s good, right? It looks good, but I don’t really know how to read these.”

“It’s very good, Robert. The treatment is working. Nurse Kempis is taking excellent care of you.”

“Thank you, Dr. Allison. And you, Laura. Thank you so much.”

“Of course. Now, we’ll keep you on the same treatment plan and keep going. We’ll do another scan in two more months. I’m very happy with how things are going, though. How have you been feeling?”

“Good. As good as can be expected. I’m tired the day of treatment and I have a rough day on day three, usually. My wife is always trying to make me rest, but I feel the need to move. We go for walks every day just so we can get some fresh air.”

“That’s always a good thing to do. Jump up here and let me do a quick exam and then we’ll get you on your way. Laura will get you set up with your appointments for the next month. I’ll see you soon.”

Robert laid back on the exam table and followed my instructions. When he was done, Laura picked the tablet up again and held it in front of her chest like armor. She didn’t look at me. I wasn’t surprised.

The rest of the day went pretty much the same. She handed me the tablet when I needed it, but practically threw it at me so our hands didn’t touch again. As the day wore on, so did my patience. By the time our last patient was walking out, I couldn’t hold back another second.

“Can I speak to you, please?” I asked, my voice letting her know it was not a request.

She looked up at me, her eyes narrowed and angry. She nodded once, still not speaking.

I walked into my office and stood behind my chair. She closed the door and stayed directly in front of it, barely inside the space I spent most of my time in. She stared at me, waiting for me to speak first.

“I would like to apologize for the way I spoke to you the other day.”

She continued to glare at me.

“Are you going to say anything?”

“Was that your apology?” she asked.

“You realize I’m your boss, right? And that I could fire you for insubordination?”

She stiffened and straightened. “I apologize. I will go back to refraining from speaking so I don’t say anything inappropriate again.”

“Dammit, Laura, that’s not what I want!”

She simply stared at me.

“Fuck. I’m screwing this all up. I’m sorry for the way I spoke to you the other day. And I’m sorry for making you feel as though you can’t speak freely. That was never my intention.”

Again, she just stared.

“Do you have anything to say?”

“No, sir.”

I growled. “I’m not a dictator.”

“Just the first part,” she mumbled, low, but loud enough that I could hear her.

I raised an eyebrow, and she had the decency to look ashamed. Her cheeks pinked, and the flush sank to her neck and below her scrub top. Her breasts rose with the sharp intake of her breath. My cock rose at the imaginary sight of her nipples pressing against her clothes.

Too bad I couldn’t actually see them. And I never would.

“Have a good evening, Nurse Kempis.”

She nodded and left my office in a hurry. She probably figured I’d fire her, but then I wouldn’t see her anymore. I could handle her hating me better than I could handle her not being in my life.

The only thing I couldn’t handle was her with another man.

* * *

“How many dates do you have this weekend?” Ally asked.

I was on my way past the break room and would have kept going, except I heard Laura’s voice. It had been another day without her speaking to me, and I was desperate for anything I could get from her.

“Three, maybe four. I have been talking to this one guy who said something about meeting up, but we haven’t set a date yet.”

Her casual tone tried to have me believe these dates were no big deal, but this was Laura. My Laura. And she was going out with other men. Men who weren’t me.

“Three or four?” Liz said. “Where do you meet all of them? When I was single, I was lucky to find one guy to go out with.”

“Book Boyfriends Wanted,” Laura said simply, like that explained everything.

“The app? Seriously?” Bonnie asked.

“Yep. There are definitely a lot of duds on there, but I’ve met some that were sweet enough that I keep trying. It’s a numbers game. I’m too old to wait forever for a relationship. I love my work and I love my friends, but I’d love to have an orgasm that involved another person once in a while.”

I choked on my breath. I could hear the panic in the break room at being overheard, and I could feel the tension from Laura. I needed to get the hell out of there before someone walked out and saw me standing there like a creep.

I turned the corner and went into an exam room. I had no reason to be in there, but it didn’t matter. I could not look Laura in the eye after what I just heard. Not without offering to give her all the orgasms she wanted. She didn’t need to try online dating. She just needed to drop her pants for me and I’d make sure she never had to touch herself again.

My head spun with need. My cock was so hard I was sure it was going to split my zipper. Even my lab coat did nothing to hide the bulge tenting my pants. I just needed to wait until everyone was gone so I didn’t have to face them for a few days.

Not that it would make the desire go away.

“I don’t know where he is. Usually he’s in his office by now,” Ally said. Her voice was right outside the door. “I always check in with him. There’s no way he left already.”

I slowed my breathing so they didn’t hear me. Maybe they would just leave.

“Let me text him. Make sure everything is okay,” Ally said.

I scrambled to dig my phone out of my pocket and made sure it was still on silent. I never turned the ringer on in case I got a call when I was with a patient, but I still checked. It buzzed in my hand a second later.

“He said he’s good. I still don’t know where he is, but he replied so at least we know he’s okay. Let’s go grab that drink. You can advise us all on how to snag dates,” Ally said.

“You don’t need a date. You’re married,” Laura argued.

“Yeah, but it never hurts to have ideas for dates with my husband. After all…”

Their voices faded as they walked away. I stayed hidden until the back door slammed closed behind them and I knew I was alone.

“Fucking hell,” I breathed.

I finally left the exam room and headed back to my office. I spent another hour going over patient records and reading reports of the chemo sessions from the day. My phone buzzed with an alert and I turned it over. An appointment reminder for a call with Veronica. She suggested we try phone calls instead of asking me to drive down to Syracuse when we had a session. I agreed to try it.

I added the meeting to my calendar on my work computer so Ally didn’t schedule something else in that time slot and was about to put my phone away when I paused.

“Book Boyfriends Wanted,” I said out loud as I typed in the words. I read through the reviews and was surprised by how many of them were positive. They raved about the ease of use, the success of matches, and the creativity of the app.

“Am I really signing up for a dating app?” I grumbled to myself.

I tapped Install and sighed. Yep.

It was official. I’d lost my damn mind. And it was all because of my beautiful, curvy, infuriating nurse.

What were the chances we’d end up matched? High, I hoped.