Free Pulse by Liv Hayes Page B

Cait. I'm not going to dredge
up old bullshit.”
    She got
quiet again, then just said:
    “Okay,”
quiet as a mouse. “I'll see you in an hour.”
    When we
hung up, I flung the phone onto the counter, walked into my bedroom, and
undressed. I was annoyed, and still tired, and unhinged by the constant,
clinging reminder that everything was different now.
    I felt
something, too .
    What had
I done? I had screwed Mia on the desk of my office, where any orderly with the
proper key could have walked inside, and what was sexy about that? I had sex
with a patient. I had broken perhaps the biggest rule in all of my years spent
meddling and training and losing countless hours of sleep. Countless days and
months and what felt like decades, for what? So I could throw it all away?
Throw it all away on a university student with a pretty face and infectious
smile?
    I thought
about the consequences. I thought about the nature of how people meet, and how
nuanced and layered and impossible some things felt. I thought the teachers
that ended up getting caught fucking around with their students, and how they
were disciplined, but most of the time it was a slap of the wrist. If the
student was legal, they might not have the most desirable record, but they
could still teach if they had a car and were willing to relocate. And if the
feelings are true, they can make it through the gamut with just a few
scratches.
    As for
doctors? Weisman might have been fucking a student, but she was not his student,
and also not a patient. And the nature of forbidden liaisons, when considering
the realm of occupations, were also riddled with different repercussions.
    I knew
that a doctor fucking his patient was among the ranks of 'biggest fuck-up of a
lifetime' in the area of poor decision making. Age didn't matter. Doctors were
not privy to the Romeo and Juliet law. If discovered, I could lose my license
entirely. I would be black-listed, potentially sued. And the $400,000 I spent
on my schooling? I couldn't wrap my head around that. All that debt. All that
debt for nothing. A life-long dream, dissolving like a cyanide tablet in a
water glass. Drink up.
    I would,
in short, lose everything I had worked for. So why would I risk a decade spent
gradually clawing my way to this point, only to let it slip between my fingers
so quickly?
    I looked
down at my hands, feeling a mix of help me and I can't be helped .
I knew, as much as I knew that I would suffer loss at some point in my life,
whether it was a colleague or a loved one or even myself. I knew that I should
have felt not just remorseful, but afraid of what I had done. I should
be fearful, and suffocated by guilt, and left with no desire to ever see Mia
again. Because even if I were to walk away, have her assigned to another
doctor, and never speak to her again, what was had already transpired.
The deed was done, and there was no going back.
    Nausea
spread over me. I should have never given her my phone number. I should have
never called her any of those silly pet names, or smiled at her in that
deliberate way I reserved for...
    Who had I
reserved it for? No one, I realized. No one.
    My
little fox.
    Fists
clenched, I stood, resisted the urge to punch a wall, and forced myself to
shower. I was so wrapped up in my own slippery understanding of potential
demise that I couldn't even enjoy the memories: Mia, on her back, her legs
around my waist, her eyes closed. The way she gripped my shoulders, or the way
she moaned.
    The taste
of her skin, the tangy smell of her shampoo. Mango, maybe. How she kissed me,
looked at me, gasped my name.
    Let go .
    I touched
myself, panting, frantically clinging to the vision of fucking Mia, this time
harder, more desperate, as she begged me to come inside of her. As I begged her
to come for me.
    I didn't
even know what she looked like underneath the clothes. All I knew was how she
felt, tight and wet, and how she sounded. So sweet, like a little pixie. A
little water sprite.
    I came