“Why do you still have those textbooks? This one has so many dicks in it.”
“I was originally going to go into the family trade. I haven’t managed to part with them, I guess. And a lot of them are my mother’s. They’re pretty old, but she wanted me to have them.”
He flips to the flyleaf and traces his finger across her handwritten name. I want to ask about his parents, but if I know Josh, he’s on the verge of shutting down.
“Doctor Josh, MD. You would have been a sexy doctor.”
“Oh, definitely.” He discards the book and clicks around with the remote.
“All your lady patients would have had pounding heart rates.”
He takes my empty bowl. He kisses the little hinge of my jaw until I gasp, and then finds the pulse point in my wrist expertly.
“Let’s see. Think about me in a white coat, sliding a stethoscope into the neck of your blouse.”
I can almost feel the freezing cold disc pressed against me. I shiver and I feel my nipples begin to pinch.
“You’re giving me a brand-new kink.” I say it like a smartass, but he smiles.
“I could probably work with that.”
My mind leaps to what our theoretical sex life would be like. We’re playing games with each other all day; it stands to reason they’d carry on in bed. The image hits me so powerfully I feel my body squeeze, empty and wanting.
His voice against the back of my ear as we stand in the doorway to his beautiful bedroom.
What shall we play now?
“I’d pretend to be sick every single night.”
“Every night?” He’s still checking my pulse, staring at his watch, his lips moving as he counts. It’s so sexy I know it beats faster. Eventually, he releases me.
“Quite a pounding little heart you got there. And a raging case of Horny-Eye. I think it’s quite serious.”
“Will I die?”
“I prescribe complete couch-rest under my supervision. But it’s touch and go.”
“I’d make a sleazy joke about your bedside manner but it would be a little redundant at this point.” I snuggle back down under my blanket.
“Can you even imagine my bedside manner? I’d be the worst. I’d scare people into health.”
“Is that why you didn’t want to be a doctor? Because you hate people?”
“It didn’t work out.” His voice gets hard.
“Was there anything you enjoyed about it?”
“I enjoyed most of it. I was good at the theory component. I’ve got a good memory. And I don’t hate all people. Just . . . most people.”
“What about the practical component? Did you have a bad experience? Did they make you put your finger up someone’s butt?”
He laughs even as his nose wrinkles in distaste. “You don’t start on live people. And you don’t start on butts. What kind of mind thinks of that?”
“Cadavers! I bet you saw cadavers. What was it like?” I think of all the autopsy scenes in Law & Order.
“This one time, my dad . . .” He hesitates, looking away, considering.
I don’t push him, and after a long silence he continues.