Page 49 of The Bad Brother

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-seven,” I answer him. “I’ll be twenty-eight in September.”

“That’s young for a surgeon, isn’t it?” Instead of the suspicious accusation I’ve grown used to hearing in his tone when it comes to the subject of whether I’m really a doctor or not, all I hear is curiosity and maybe a little admiration.

Feeling myself flush with pride, I’m glad he can’t see me. “I’m a little ahead of the curve,” I admit. “I started my residency in Chicago but transferred here when they opened the trauma center and finished right before Christmas last year. After that, I gained my board certification and accepted a full-time surgical position in January.”

“Colt says you’re one of the best surgeons on the trauma team,” Jensen says, turning his head ever-so-slightly to give me a glimpse of his near perfect profile. “He’s pretty impressed by you.”

Since I’m not quite sure what to say to that or what it’s supposed to mean, I don’t say anything. Setting and clipping the final stitch, I lean away from him I sip the ends off one of his sutures. “How old are you?”

“Right now, I feel like I’ll about a hundred and five,” he tells me with a laugh. “But my driver’s license says I’m thirty. Thirty-one in July.”

Making an acknowledging sound in the back of my throat, I give him a final snip. “I thought about what you said,” I say quietly, setting the clamp and scissors aside in favor of a bottle of antiseptic and a few sterile pads. “What you asked me… about why I’dlet a lowlife asshole like you put his dick in me.”

As soon as I say it, his spine stiffens and he starts to turn around. “Sloane?—”

“No.” Laying my hands on his shoulders, I turn him back around, facing him away from me again. “Let me say it, okay? It was a good question and you deserve an answer.”

“It was a shit, asshole question,” he shoots back, pushing the words between his clenched teeth. “One I never should’ve?—”

“I’m not heartbroken.” I say, cutting him off before he can finish. “I should be, considering I was supposed to be married in a few weeks, but I’m not.”

“Married?” His spine stiffens again. “You were engaged?”

“I was…” Nodding while I pour antiseptic onto the pads before blotting them against his back, getting as close to his stitches as possible. “When I found out he was cheating on me, I was angry and sick to my stomach—but I wasn’t sad. I wasn’t heartbroken. Not like you were.” When he doesn’t say anything likeI wasn’t heartbroken eitheror maybefuck you, Sloane,I keep talking. “And now here I am, a few weeks later, looking at it all with perfect clarity. I never wanted to marry him—not really. I only said yes because it’s what was expected of me.” Setting the sterile pads aside, I reach for the roll of medical tape. “My mother never wanted me to go to med school,” I confess quietly while I pull several long strips of tape from the roll. “That I didn’t go to college, simply to find a successful husband to take care of me was something she could never understand.Such a waste of time, Sloane. Women like us don’t have to work this hard.” Pressing a clean, dry pad against his wound, Ibegin to tape it on. “So, yeah—” Suddenly embarrassed, I shake my head. “That’s why. That’s your answer. And I knew Hanna’s name because Sera mentioned her when they were here that night. Throwing it in your face like that was a horrible thing to do. I’m sorry.”

“I’d basically just called you a whore, Peach,” he reminds me, his tone low and rusty. “It was less than I deserved. In hindsight, it’d served me right if youhadzapped me in the balls with your stun gun.”

“Well, I’m sorry just the same,” I tell him quietly, attention focused on taping the bandage to his back. “Not about what happened…afterbut about losing my temper. Believe it or not, I’m usually pretty level-headed.”

Jensen laughs, turning to give me a glimpse of his profile again. “I tend to have that effect on people.”

“I’ve noticed,” I answer him with a dry chuckle. “I’m finished back here,” I say, leaning back in my chair. “If you want to turn your chair around, I can see to your hands and that cut above your eye.”

“You don’t have to do that,” he tells me while straightening his back slowly. “I can handle?—”

“I didn’t ask you what you canhandle,” I tell him, my tone going flat with exasperation. “I told you to turn around so I can finish doing my job.”

He makes that sound again, low and tight in his throat, the fluttering in my belly calling me a liar when he stands because watching him move, I’m the tiniest bit afraid of what he’s going to do next.

That’s not fear, Sloane. That’s anticipation because you’re hoping he’s about to do something you’ll both regret.

I watch, breath stalled in my lungs, while Jensenunstraddles his chair and turns it around to face me before lowering himself back into it. Suddenly face-to-face, Jensen gives me a hard look, his mismatched eyes burrowing into mine. “People don’t tellme what to do,” he says, leaning into myspace, just a bit. “As a general rule.”

“Because they’re afraid of you?” When he makes that low, tight sound in the back of his throat again, I give him a shrug. “Well, we’ve already established that I’m not afraid of you,” I remind him. “As a general rule.”

Instead of answering me, Jensen reaches out to fit his hands around my waist. Lifting me from my chair, he pulls me onto his lap, my legs straddling his hips, the move so sudden, it takes me a second or two to realize what happened. Planting the heel of my bloody, gloved hand on his pec, I try to stand but Jensen just shifts his grip on me from my waist to my thighs, opening them wider as he drags me closer. “How ‘bout now?” he asks, his gaze never leaving mine. “You afraid yet, Peach?”

Heel still dug into his chest but no longer pushing, I shake my head. “No.” It comes out ragged and thin. So soft and full of holes I can’t catch my breath because I can feel the hard bulge of Jensen’s cock pressed against the seam of my throbbing pussy and suddenly, all I can think about is how good it felt to be fucked by him. To have him inside me. “Your stitches. I just?—”

The corner of his mouth tips up in a smirk while his thumbs begin drawing slow, lazy circles on the insides of my thighs, each one taking them closer to their juncture. “I’ve been thinking about fucking you for the last week and a half. You think I give a shit about my stitches right now?”

“You should…” Gaze dropping to his mouth, I have to bite my lower lip to keep from moaning out loud when the tip of his thumb grazes over the narrow crotch of my sleep shorts. “If you rip them open, I’m going to get pissed.”

“In case you haven’t noticed,” he says on a quiet laugh before leaning in to press a soft kiss to the corner of my mouth while his thumb strokes me again. “I like you feisty, Peach.”

“Jen—” My brain scrambles when his mouth slips away from mine to scrape and nip its way across the soft skin below the curve of my jaw.

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