"Alright. Let's get everyone back to the clubhouse," Fallon said, making a circling motion in the air.
"I have patients," I reminded him, wondering where they'd relocated the ones who must have already been in the waiting room.
"This is more important," Fallon said, shrugging.
"My career is important too."
"You're really going to be stubborn about this? After he got in here?"
"Yes, I'm really going to be stubborn about this," I told him, my chin inching up even if my insides felt like they were shaking. I'd never been any good at confrontation, at standing up for myself. I don't know what had gotten into me, but I had a sneaking suspicion it had something to do with the man standing at my side like a sentry.
"Fine," Fallon said, waving at Niro. "You stay. And Adler. Pagan. Finn, come back with me," he demanded of a brother who clearly didn't want to be ordered around, but fell into step behind his brother anyway.
"I didn't mean to inconvenience everyone," I insisted when they were gone.
"Rather be here than anywhere else," Niro insisted.
"And I get to spend my day making pussy jokes," Adler decided, giving me a wicked smirk. "I'm happy with that."
So I went ahead and went back to work, barely able to contain my amusement when Niro came back into an exam room while I looked over an elderly cat, wearing a pair of the light green scrubs the techs all wore. It was meant for our male tech—a guy about four inches shorter and fifty pounds smaller than Niro, making his top stretch so tight over his chest that I was sure if he so much as flexed a single pectoral muscle, the thing would tear like some cheesy pro wrestler's when he got in the ring. And the pants? It looked like he was expecting a flood at any moment.
"You look ridiculous," I declared when the patient left the room.
"You're just jealous because that lady was eye-banging me," he declared, lips twitching.
"She was eighty-three years old," I told him, laughing. "And here with her high school sweetheart that she's been married to for sixty-two years."
"Regardless, her eyes were on my cock the whole time," he told me, making my gaze move in that direction.
"Oh," I said when I realized you could pretty much make out the whole shape of him.
"Hey, baby?" he called, voice rumbling, but teasing at the same time. "Any chance you're going to stop staring at my cock? Because if you keep looking, I'm going to be testing the stitching on these pants. And I don't think they're going to hold," he added, making my gaze slip upward, finding a mix of amusement and desire in his eyes.
"Well, if you are going to walk around like that, what do you expect?" I teased.
"Are you slut-shaming me?" he shot back. "Because I might be okay with that," he decided.
"Stop looking at me like that," I demanded when his smile went far too wicked for both our good.
"Can't help it."
"I'm a mess," I told him, waving at my blue scrubs that I'd managed to spill my tea on three times, a fact I was actively trying to hide with an enamel pin I'd been gifted from my Uncle Cyrus for my last birthday that said It's all fun and games until someone ends up in a cone with a picture of a beagle in an Elizabethan collar. It wasn't quite big enough to cover the stain but I was not going to wear the other one he'd gotten me that had a dog scooting and said Sorry I am dragging ass today.
I hadn't bothered with a stitch of makeup, and my hair was in a messy knot on the top of my head because I found puppies liked to try to tug it, cats liked to bat it, and on the rare occasion we had a bird in the office, they liked to preen it.
"You're beautiful," he countered, coming closer, sliding his hands around my back, slipping them down to squeeze my butt. I'd learned that, apparently, Niro was an ass man. Which was not something I ever had reason to know about him before. But he was constantly grabbing and smacking mine whenever he got a chance.
"You need to stop," I told him, pressing a hand to his chest, but making no actual attempt to push him away.
"Do I?" he asked, leaning down to press his lips into the side of my neck. "Looks like we have a closed door, and a room all to ourselves."
"There is a full office out there," I reminded him. "Including Adler. And your father."
"Guess you'll have to be real quiet then, huh?" he asked, smiling against my neck as his fingers slipped from my butt and between my thighs.
"There are patients."
"Not for another twenty minutes. How many times do you think I can make you come by then?" he asked.