Dueling Drs: A Small Town Hospital Romance

Recognition flashed in her eyes. “I’m always amazed and I hope that never goes away.”

Damn, she wasn’t just beautiful, sexy and likable. She was a kindred spirit. “It hasn’t gone away yet.”

“Good to know.” She smiled at me as she chewed the bite of meatball. “Tell me about Sarah.”

I frowned. “This feels like a trap.”

“Why?” Zola laughed and shook her head. “I’m just curious what she was like, the woman who captured your heart.”

I thought about not answering, but she asked. “Sarah was an orthopedic surgeon, probably because she loved to break bones and to fix them.” I laughed just thinking about how excited she got for surgery, more than any other resident. “She was smart and fun. A little too adventurous for my liking, but we balanced each other out in that way.”

“So you did adventures with her?”

I smiled. “I did. Sky diving. SCUBA. We swam with sharks together. I refused bungee jumping because it seems ridiculous.” Sarah had helped me get out of my comfort zone, even when I did it kicking and screaming. “I was going to go helio-skiing too, before the avalanche.”

Zola nodded and let me sit with my sadness for a long moment, and I was grateful for it. “So you used to be like a real person. Not just a grump. You must have really loved her.”

“I did.”

“Good. She sounds pretty wonderful.”

“She was,” I agreed. “She was.”

I did not want to think of Sarah today. Not now, when I had the one person who made me feel normal again here.

“I’m sorry you lost her.”

“Thanks.” I looked up and found Zola staring at me, a small coy smile on her lips. “What?”

“Nothing. I was just thinking about how much you like caramel.”

My blood heated in my veins, my nostrils flared and I was on my feet in a hurry.

Zola stood and met me, staring up at me, daring me to make a move. She arched a brow, issuing the challenge.

I grabbed her in my arms just as she reached for the jar of caramel, and carried us upstairs to my room, where I laid her out and licked caramel off as much of her body as I could before the erotic torture became too much. Just when I was poised to slip inside Zola’s heat, she pushed me down and took her turn, licking caramel off the length of me.

She took one finger and rubbed caramel all over me, licking it off slowly. She repeated the move, three or four times before she took me deep and brought me to the brink of madness before soothing my ache. Stroke after stroke, I touched the back of her throat, ready to explode at any moment. Then Zola stared down at me as she lowered herself onto my cock, legs shaking and eyes rolling back, and I was lost.

Completely lost to the sensations that zipped and zinged through me, I held her hips while Zola found her pleasure in my body. Every time she found a spot she liked, a low growl escaped that had me hard enough to pound nails. I could hardly breathe, never mind think as she rode my cock, scratched her nails down my chest, dug her fingertips into my thighs as she did her best impression of a beautiful cowgirl.

“Drew,” she panted a moment before she was lost to the siren call of pleasure. Her body jerked and twitched while I pounded up into her, prolonging her pleasure while seeking out my own. “Oh, Drew!”

My pleasure hit with the force of a Mack truck and Zola fell twitching on top of me while she rubbed sensuous circles on my chest. “Wow.”

“Right?” Zola laughed, the sound sweet and sexy. “So, so good.”

Our bodies separated and a moment later, I had her curled in my arms, lush backside tempting my cock back to life even as my body gave in to exhaustion. My mind, however, didn’t claim sleep quite so easily. Instead of curling into Zola and melting into dreamland, my mind wandered to Sarah.

Everyone always said she would want me to move on, but would she? It was a ridiculous assumption, that a dead person gave a damn one way or the other what the living did. Sarah wasn’t here, and if I owed her anything, it was to live the life that she was deprived of when that avalanche tumbled down the mountain.

Why does it even matter?

That’s the question I kept coming back to. But I knew why.

Zola.

Zola

No good deed goes unpunished. It was a selfish thought to have, I knew it, but I needed some other emotion to grab onto in this moment. When you couldn’t save a life, when no matter what you did, something else went wrong and nothing worked for very long, those were the hardest, longest days of a surgeon’s life.