The Outcasts 5: The Nurse
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Ruth Robinson
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The protector. The joker. The millionaire. The fighter. And the girl whose world is quietly falling apart.
Gage came to town to escape his past, but his protective instincts pull him into an unlikely group of men—and toward the one woman who needs him most. Harley has lost his spark. Hugo is suffocating under secrets he can't keep buried. Kolton is slipping back into the darkness he swore he'd escaped. At the centre of it all is Erin: a failing gym, a life unravelling, and four chance encounters that just might save everything—if she can trust them with her hearts.
Chapter 1
Book 5: The Nurse
HARLEY
Murmured condolences swirl around me, sticking to my clothes and hair like the damp morning mist. The cloying scent of freshly dug soil hangs heavy in the air. I can’t remember a time when it didn’t fill my nostrils, when I wasn’t standing at this graveside.
“Harls?” A heavy hand on my suit-clad shoulder startles me slightly. I look up into the gray-blue eyes of my friend, Hugo. I’ve avoided eye contact all day, not wanting to see the looks of pity. However, all I see in his eyes is worry. “You want to come back with us?”
I shake my head. The last thing I want to do after burying my sister, the last member of my family, is go and eat finger food and make awkward small talk with people at the wake my friend Rebecca has organized.
Hugo pats my shoulder again, and I watch him join Becca and her boyfriend—his cousin, Max. The three of them give me sad looks as they traipse down the muddy slope of the cemetery and slide into the sleek black Jaguar with tinted windows and a hat-wearing driver that Hugo has at his beck and call.
I’ve brought Heather back home, to be buried next to our parents. Most of the mourners that have shown up are old friends of the family. My friends have made the trip with me, and while I’m grateful for their unwavering support, I really need to be alone right now.
I stand for another few minutes alongside the granite headstone that has my parents’ names engraved on it, and the deep hole next to it, which now houses my big sister. The cemetery workers are hovering nearby, trying to be respectful, but I know they want me to go so they can finish filling in the grave.
I give them a wave, tuck my hands deep into the pockets of my borrowed black suit—some designer thing Hugo has loaned me—and trudge through the gravestones toward the wrought iron gates of the entrance.
Without much thought, I wander aimlessly for a while, until the mist turns into a drizzle. I duck into a shabby-looking bar. Ordering a double shot of some cheap whiskey that burns my nose before I even get my lips to the edge of the glass, I sink onto a wobbly stool and start to drown my sorrows.
I’m on my third glass when she walks in. A gorgeous blonde. Tight body, pouty lips, and sky-blue eyes. She’s wearing a tight burgundy pencil skirt and a cream blouse that makes her porcelain skin look almost translucent. The black heels on her feet accentuate her defined calf muscles and peachy-looking ass.
The look of despair in those baby blues is one I recognize, even though I’ve never seen her before.
“Vodka. Straight.” Her voice is rich, as if her voice box is dipped in honey. While she waits for the bartender, her pale pink nails tap impatiently on the stained wooden bar.
“That’s mighty annoying, darlin’.” I scowl at her as I lean over and cover her hand with mine.
She gives me a scowl right back as she pulls her hand out from underneath mine. She grabs her drink, downs it without a wince, places it down, and taps the edge to signal to the bartender to pour her another one.
“I don’t give a fuck if you think it’s annoying, darling.” She pauses to shoot another vodka. “I’m having the shittiest day imaginable, and all I want to do is get drunk and forget about it all. Annoying some rich d-bag at a bar is the least of my worries. Now, be a good boy and buy me a drink.”
With one last withering glance my way, she grabs the bottle out of the bartender’s hand and sashays over to a booth. “I guess I’m paying tonight, huh?” As I hand over my credit card to the guy, he shrugs, smirking.
“So,” I start as I drop onto the seat opposite hers. “Wanna trade war stories?” She gives me a questioning look over the edge of her glass. “I’ve had somewhat of a shitty day myself. Maybe wallowing in our combined grief would be cathartic.”
I snatch the bottle from the table, taking a generous swig straight from it as she shakes her head.
“I don’t want to talk. I’m not in the mood for a heart-to-heart with anyone, especially not a stranger. If you want to stay and get drunk with me, fine, but don’t expect any deep and meaningful connection tonight.”
The corner of my mouth rises a little—the first hint of a smile since Heather died—and I clink the bottle against her glass. “Okay, darlin’, you got it. Tonight, we’re just drinking buddies, nothing more.”
***
As it turns out, a bottle of vodka can turn drinking buddies into fucking buddies.
I’m so drunk that my feet stumble over nothing as I lead Blondie down the corridor of the hotel where I’m staying. One huge benefit of being best friends with a hotel mogul is the free hotel stays. Hugo’s hotels are luxurious without being too ostentatious.
I fumble with the key card, dropping it twice to the amusement of my drunken new friend, before I finally get the door open, and we tumble inside. She falls onto the bed with a sigh, the sad look that had started to disappear from her face over the course of our drinking slowly creeping back in.
“Nope,” I say, and she slowly rolls her head my way, her eyes unfocused with booze. “Tonight was about drinking to forget, so stop forgetting…I mean remembering to forget…I mean, I’m not sure where I was going with this…” She giggles with a playful roll of her eyes and reaches out her hand.
I take it, flopping onto the soft sheets next to her and giving her a goofy grin. “Hey.”
“Hi,” she replies softly. We roll onto our sides, facing each other, and I tuck a stray strand of her hair behind her ear, gently tracing my thumb down her jaw, and over her lower lip. Her pink tongue runs slowly over the path my thumb just took, and I feel a twitch in my pants.
I lean forward, capturing her full lips with mine, our tongues dancing with each other against the soundtrack of racing hearts and heavy breathing. I sit back, looking down at her blushing face and swollen mouth. “You taste like sin and bad decisions, darlin’.”
She grabs the lapels of my suit and pulls me down into a searing kiss again. I lose myself to the familiar tussle of foreplay, the rustle of clothes being removed, the grasping of naked flesh. I grind my hard dick against the hot apex of her thighs, relishing in the moans that pour from her wicked lips. I reach down and wrestle a condom from my back pocket, rolling the rubber down my length and repositioning myself pressed back against her pussy.
She cups my face with her hands, her fingernails scratching lightly down my cheeks. Pressing a chaste kiss to my lips, she whispers, “Punish me.”
“I don’t do gentle, baby, so if you really want this, you’d better hold on damn tight.” I slide all the way up to the hilt in one thrust, and she gasps, clutching my biceps tightly, her back arching off the mattress.
By morning, she’s gone, the bed beside me cold, the room an echo of the small amount of time I let myself forget all the bullshit that my life has become over the past few weeks. I stretch out the kinks in my back, disturbing the gentle sweet scent of the girl I just spent the night inside of, the girl whose name I now realize I never even found out. That’s low even for my whoring ass ways.
There’s a thump on my door, and Hugo’s voice drifts through the wood. “Harley? It’s time to go.”
