Free Syria's Seduction: A New Adult Introduction to the Boudoir Sessions Series by Starla Cole

1: Stilettos and Grass

    If Syria had to stick one more needle into one more vein, she was going to shove an enema bulb up somebody’s back end.
    Nurse Calhoun frowned beneath her curtain of black bangs. Syria sighed. If there was anything she hated more than practicing phlebotomy, it was Nurse Calhoun. She took a deep breath, picked up the hypodermic needle from the metal tray, and pricked the skin of her friend and fellow student Jennifer, who stared intently at the ceiling so she wouldn’t have to look.
    “Work with confidence,” the nurse said. “You can’t dig around in there.”
    Syria withdrew the needle, too nervous with the beastly woman standing over her. Jennifer gave her a sympathetic look. No one else in Syria’s class had offered to allow her to practice a real blood draw. They had all seen the mess Syria made on the lab arms. But they were supposed to start clinicals in a week, and Syria was going to flunk out if she couldn’t get a proper draw.
    She took in one more deep breath and moved the needle toward the obvious blue line bulging inside Jennifer’s elbow.
    “Angle in!” the nurse snapped. “You can’t take it straight down!”
    Syria tried to adjust, but a bead of blood welled up and she could see she had already caused a bruise to form. She pulled the needle out again, tears pricking her eyes.
    “I think we’re done here.” Nurse Calhoun unwrapped the rubber tie from Jennifer’s arm and stepped back to let her out of the chair. “Perhaps your next choice of study should be outside the field of medicine.”
    Syria bit her lip as she dropped the sharp into the biohazard container. Her mother was a 911 operator and had been so pleased when Syria enrolled in junior college to be a medical assistant.
    But classes hadn’t worked out so she’d switched to phlebotomy, hoping the simpler focus would mean she could finish her twelve hours of coursework, pass her clinicals and start a real job. Everyone else she knew was halfway through four-year degrees, but Syria couldn’t afford that, and her grades hadn’t been good enough for scholarships. Learning a trade had seemed her only hope to avoid waitressing until she was too old to hold a tray.
    Jennifer taped a cotton ball over her own arm and squeezed Syria’s hand. “I’m sorry, Syria. You’ll figure out something. Let’s go out later, okay? Burn off some steam.”
    Nurse Calhoun led the smattering of students out of the clinic space and back to the classroom. Syria picked up her bag and headed the other way to the parking lot. More money wasted on a program she couldn’t finish. She didn’t want to face her mom yet, so instead of going home, she drove over to the park. The day was breezy and cool, a perfect spring afternoon, and she might as well go sit in the grass before the Oklahoma summer came along and fried it all into a dead brown carpet.
    She parked near the picnic tables and tucked her purse under her seat, carrying only her keys and an old blanket she used to cover the cracking seats of the ancient Pontiac her mother had given her when she graduated high school. With classes still in session, the main fields were deserted. Only mothers with small children were about, and they were all across the lot near the playground.
    Syria topped a small rolling hill, planning to spread her blanket on the other side, facing a line of trees, but stopped short when she saw a photographer shooting a woman wearing only her underwear not twenty feet away.
    She couldn’t suppress her, “Oh!” The man with the camera looked up, and Syria could see he wasn’t so old, maybe early twenties. The woman was closer to forty. “Sorry,” she said and whirled away.
    “Hey!” the man said. “Can I get your help for a second?”
    Syria turned back around, trying to avoid looking at the woman splayed out in a lacy black bra and matching thong. “Me?”
    The man held up a large flat silver disc. “My assistant couldn’t make it, and it’s too