Some of her muscles relaxed. “Just stitches? No surgery?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say just stitches. He’s got them internal and external. The knife cut through some muscle as well.”
“He’s got enough of those.” She breathed easier knowing that no lung had been punctured or any other vital organ. With a glance at the woman’s name tag, Zara said, “Thanks, doc, for sewing him up.”
“You’re welcome. Nearly sent him to the surgeon, but once I realized he had so much meat on him I knew I could do it here. However, that’s why you need to convince him to take the pain medication.” They reached a glass wall with a curtain behind it and the doctor called out, “Sergeant Kelly, you’ve got a visitor.”
“About time.” By the gruffness of his voice, Zara guessed Jameson was in a lot of pain. She recognized the short syllables and tight voice from her days near wounded soldiers. Heck, she’d given off the same terse voice for the same reasons.
Zara plastered on a smile as she pulled back the curtain. His normally ruddy face had paled, making his blue eyes stand out. The hospital bed made him look huge. His neck sported new stitches. She wondered what his side required. “They do have rules, Jameson. It’s not bad to follow them.”
“Damn rules are keeping me from seeing you. I don’t like those.” He reached out his right hand to her. She didn’t miss his wince as he held her gaze. “Let me touch you. I’ve been worried.”
“I’m fine.” She looked down at the rusty stain on her shirt when his eyes shifted lower. “That’s your blood.” She’d put it back on once the paramedics got to him.
“No injuries?”
“Well, I busted my knuckle when I hit him.” She lifted her hand to show him. “I might be slightly sore tomorrow from the tackle, but I don’t care. It’s you who took the knife in the side. I would have shoved him in another direction if I knew he had that.”
The doctor gestured to a nurse holding a syringe. They both lifted their brows at her. Zara brought up the subject of the pain medication. “Hey, tough guy, will you do me a favor?”
“Anything, unless it requires me to roll onto my back.” He winced again as he shifted.
“Nothing that hard.” She kissed his forehead dampened by the cold sweat of pain. “Just get some morphine for the pain. Doc told me she had to stitch up your muscle, and that has to hurt. You having so much of it and all.”
“I don’t want it to knock me out. I need to know you are safe. Did we get the guy? Did they arrest Marcus?”
She hadn’t heard them read him his rights, but she wasn’t sure Marcus was conscious when the police and medics arrived. After Jameson had slumped over, she focused solely on him and getting him to the hospital. For all she knew, Marcus could be getting medical attention in the same ER, except there weren’t any police hanging outside any of the curtained spaces that she’d passed. Maybe he was already in central lockup. “Yes. They dragged him away. I saw that much.”
He kissed her knuckle and lay his head down on the thin pillow of the hospital bed. “Shoot me up, but go easy. I don’t want to pass out.”
The nurse said, “I’m going to give you this. It’s not much, sergeant, but we’re setting you up with a pump. When you need it, you press the button. That way you control the level.”
“Can she stay with me?” Jameson squeezed Zara’s hand. He had a lot of strength left for someone who’d been through a knifing and emergency medical attention.
The nurse shot a questioning look at the doctor, who answered the unsaid query. “Mrs. Kelly is welcome. The private room is already being prepared. Just call up for a cot to be put in there.” With a look in Zara’s direction, the doctor reassured her. “It’s professional precaution for a cop. We keep them overnight so they can rest. Plus, who’d want to kick this man out their building?”
“I told you, doc, I’m taken. For good.” Jameson winked. “Look at that. It doesn’t hurt to wink.”
The doctor shook her head. “I heard that, sergeant, but for tonight, you’re mine.”
A grin spread his wide face and brought back some sparkle to his blue eyes. “You might have to wrestle Zara for me. She’s very good.”
The doctor laughed. “I think we can come to an arrangement.”
“You can have me just for the night, but can you put it down somewhere that I’d prefer to be snuggled up with this lady right here?”
The nurse snorted. “There’s not a place in our notes for that kind of information.”
“Too bad.” Jameson’s shoulders relaxed and the grip on her hand loosened. Zara hoped that the pain medication now flowing through his veins gave him some relief from the stab wound. It certainly seemed to have an effect on his thinking. He didn’t even pause at the title Mrs. Kelly, and she’d never heard him be this jovial.
With a pat on his arm, the nurse reminded him of the next actions. “Rest some, and I’ll be back with that push pump unless you get up to the room before that. Then, they’ll set you up there.”
“Fine.” His breath left his lips in a long slow exhalation. His beautiful, crystal blue eyes closed in a relaxed way. The man needed rest.
Zara didn’t want to bother him while his body needed to heal. All the things she wanted to say to him pounded in her head, but she bit her lip and forced them to retreat. “I’ll just sit on the edge of your bed and let you rest.”
His eyelids snapped open. “No. I mean, yes. You can sit, but don’t let me rest.” He squeezed her hand again. “Talk to me. Tell me how you found me.”
“No.” She wouldn’t get caught up in that again. He could debrief her for days, but this moment should be about the two of them.
“No?” He struggled to his elbows, but pain kept him prone. “What do you mean by saying no?” The scowl on his face made her giggle. “Why are you laughing?”
“I don’t know.” She covered her face. “Relief, happiness, dodging danger successfully.” She shook her head. “Yes, success. It makes me happy. You’re alive.”
“Only slightly successfully. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have this thing.” He maneuvered his arm to point at the back of his waist.
“Fine. It’s like the Air Force, any landing you walk away from is a good landing.”
“I didn’t walk to the ambulance.”
“You could have.”
“Didn’t I pass out?”
She laughed again. This was what she loved about him, his ability to go toe to toe with her verbally and physically. And, she’d noticed that something came alive in him when he felt challenged by her case. That enthusiasm he had filled him with such a presence. “I like you like this.”
“Injured and enjoying a morphine high.”
“No. Happy.” At this moment without the hospital staff around, he was more himself, or the Jameson she knew.
“End of a case. All solved, unless the creep gets off on some technicality.” He shifted and winced. “I wish I had been the one to arrest him. I wouldn’t have made any procedural errors.”
She rolled her eyes. The man had such confidence. “Jameson, the perfect person.”
“Aw, hell. I’m not perfect. No woman has seen fit to deal with me on a long-term basis.”
“That only means they are idiots. Even I have my stupid moments.”
“Glad you didn’t have one earlier today.” He kissed her hand and held it to his lips. His breath warmed her hands in the cold, sterile atmosphere of the emergency room.
Her heart warmed with her hands. He cared about her. “You could say I didn’t use my brain at all, but I am glad I tackled the kid.” Here she had the perfect time to say it. “I’m sorry I trusted him and his cousin. If I hadn’t, you might have figured it out earlier.”
“Don’t beat yourself up about that. We figured it out in the end, but I had the wrong one.”
“I should’ve trusted your instincts. Hell, I should have just let you do your job.”
“You did.”
“I distracted you with sex.” Guilt spread over her and twisted her gut.
His whole chest rose with a sigh. “Zara, let me tell you what motivated me.”
“Okay.” She nodded and sat on the side of the bed as he pulled her toward him.
“Your strength, the toughness that mixes with the soft part of you that befriends Ida and skinny kids who don’t get attention. I can hardly move with these stitches, but it’s not keeping me from wanting you beside me, keeping me grounded in this messed up city. I’d get discouraged that we didn’t have enough evidence, and I’d get this image of you waiting for me. The way your eyes get filled with lust and need when you’re happy with me makes me hard.”
“You don’t need to exaggerate.” Her skin had to be a thousand shades of red. Anyone could hear what he was saying, and, clearly, the drug that the nurse had injected into his arm loosened his tongue.
“Honest. I’m thinking about it now.” He guided her hand beneath the thin sheet covering the lower half of him. His cock had a definite firmness. “Keep your hand there longer, and I’ll be fully awake.”
She wanted to be honest and open about her feelings, and here he was distracting her with sex. “Jameson, I’m trying to tell you how I feel.”
“I’d rather you show me. I like evidence. See?” He lifted the light blue gown and rubbed her hand along his cock. “I’m showing you what I’ve got, because I can’t show you my thoughts. All I have are the results of thinking of you.”
Instinctively, she wrapped her hand around the soft flesh covering his hardening shaft. Her thumbed rubbed the ridge beneath. Warmth flooded through her, and she winced that she, too, was turned on simply by thinking of his cock. Except, here she was in a very public place giving Jameson a hand job. “You’re such a man.”
His eyes closed again, and his head drooped to the pillow. “Last time I checked, you liked my man equipment.”
“Very much. I might even love it.” His cock hardened more. She longed to lower her mouth to the tip that she knew would have a drop of pre-cum on it. What were words when an action would mean so much more? When he got to his room, she’d suck him off, letting him come in her mouth or on her chest. Wherever he wanted, whenever. She’d do that for him as much as he needed while his stitches healed.
He opened his eyes and stared into hers. “Could you love the rest me?”
Her breath caught. “Yes.”
“Good, because I’m pretty sure I fell for you the first time I saw you.”
He deserved a shove for that comment, but she’d wait to do that. Even she knew that his first thoughts of her had to be about a tightly wound bitch. “You’re full of it.”
“I’m serious. That day I saw you jogging. Babe, you had me right then. Drive, determination, and a smoking hot body. You are my dream woman. I didn’t even know then that you tackled so well.”
“Did that seal it for you?” She smiled as she spoke. “My body and tackling?”
“Fearlessness.”
“Some might call that dumbass moves.”
“Not me.” Jameson swallowed. “Zara, I know I’m high on whatever they gave me, but I’m going to feel this way when it wears off. I want you with me, jogging beside me, kicking my ass when we wrestle, as long as I get access to your ass afterwards. Let’s just stay out of mortal danger together.”
She couldn’t keep a smile away. How she wished she had a recorder so he could hear what he said in public while hopped up on morphine. “I don’t have any plans to be in danger again.”
“Good. Do you have any plans regarding a future?” His eyebrows lifted, expectant.
So easily she could give him what he needed, and through doing that she would get what she sought for since leaving the Army—long-lasting companionship. “I hadn’t really thought much further than making sure that you’re in it.”
“That one sentence just took away all my pain.” A grin spread wide across his face.
She loved making him happy, seeing bliss wash across his face. It made her feel more like a woman than ever. Tomorrow, she’d tell him how good he was for her and how he was the best man that she’d ever met. She once thought that she’d drawn the short straw when the captain assigned Jameson to her case. Being wrong hadn’t ever felt this amazing. Her heart might burst with all the love that she felt growing between them. “I guess I’m good for you, Sergeant.”
“Babe, you’re not just good. You’re the best.”
About the Author
Ursula Whistler transplanted to New Orleans four years ago from central Virginia. The culture shock wasn’t too terrible since she spent most of her life in northwest Florida, which everyone considers lower Alabama. She’s got two degrees that have nothing to do with literature or writing, and she’ll tell you more than you want to know about that if you ask her.
While pregnant with the second of her three children, she had a recurring dream that she dutifully wrote. We all know how dreams go, thin plot and lots of
deus ex machina
. She learned to not show that manuscript to anyone even after she edited it. She continued to write paying closer attention to plot, and she joined RWA and the Southern Louisiana Romance Writers. That has made all the difference.
She’s published with The Wild Rose Press Scarlet Rose Line with
Behaving Badly, Risqué Poses,
and
Man of Few Words.
Visit Ursula at
www.ursulawhistler.com
To chat with Ursula Whistler and other Wild Rose Press authors of erotic romance, join us at www.groups.yahoo.com/group/thewilderroses.
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Also Available
Man Of Few Words
By Ursula Whistler
Marine Pilot John ‘Duff’ Duffy was always good at following orders, even when it meant having to leave the woman he loved. Her father, then his superior, dictated it was the best thing for Kirsten’s future and Duff’s career. Good soldiers followed orders, no matter what the heart felt. It had been for the best…back then. But when he sees her years later across a crowded bar, he has one burning desire—to have her back in his life and bed again.
With a new job and her father’s estate to settle, Professor Kirsten Tanner wants a peaceful existence. The return of the handsome flight instructor who broke her heart and lit a fire to her desires challenges that. She’s determined not to fall victim to his quiet charm again, but the need to show him she too can love him and leave him is much too tempting. But one touch from Duff and Kirsten begins to wonder if maybe they can have more than one night of ecstasy.