“Ah, right.” She scribbled it down on a yellow post-it, just as an insurer returned to the call.
I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and dialed the number, walking to my office. The second I stepped inside, I heard it vibrating and spotted it hiding beneath a stack of folders.
Grabbing it, I headed back toward Emily, but I glanced down at her screen and everything stopped. Everything in me was certain that this had to be some type of joke.
The words “D-DOCTOR calling ... Answer? Decline?” were front and center, and the second the call ended, I called her phone again to be sure I was seeing this shit correctly.
Sure enough, her screen lit up again with “D-DOCTOR” as the second call came through.
Needing further proof, I went to her call log and deleted my last two calls so she’d never know I was on to her. Then, against my better judgment, I sifted through her apps, just to confirm the things that were running through my mind.
I pressed the familiar, mini Brooklyn Bridge cartoon icon that led straight into the NewYorkMinute dating app, and the second it opened, the words, “Welcome back, JERSEYGIRL7!” popped up onto her screen.
What the fuck?! She’s been here? All this goddamn time ...
“Dr. Ashton!” Emily called from the reception desk again. “I’ve still got Natalie on hold at the payphone out here! Did you find what you were looking for?”
“Yes.” I stared at her phone and logged out of the app. “I found exactly what I was looking for ...”
THE RESIDENT
New York, New York
Natalie
“So, you’re saying that you’re never going to tell him it was you who stood him up?” Shannon sat across from me at our favorite coffee shop. “I really don’t think it would be that big of a deal, and maybe he’d laugh about it. You know?”
“No, I don’t see a point anymore.” I sipped my latte. “We have a really good working relationship right now, and I actually like working in a private practice, way more than I thought I would. It’s been great.”
“Well, good for you. Is he a good boss?”
“Yeah, actually. He’s been nothing but nice and patient with me when it comes to all the charting I have to do, and I really don’t want to mess that up. I can’t afford to mess that up.”
“I guess. So, by working alongside him are you any less attracted to him?”
Hell no ... “Yeah, a little bit.” I lied because I couldn’t bring myself to admit the truth about Dr. Ashton. The man was basically walking, breathing sex and everyone in that office knew it. Hell, even his patients knew it. In fact, I was pretty sure twenty percent of his patients were perfectly normal and only booking his three-hundred-dollar per hour therapy sessions so they could flirt and stare at him.
I thought I could handle it at first. I honestly believed that his simple gestures of buying me coffee in the morning, offering to buy me lunch, or allowing me to sit in on sessions would eventually wane on me, but every night when I lay alone in my bed, my fingers found their way beneath my panties and all I could think about was him.
I was doing my best to avoid being around him one-on-one because it didn’t take much for him to turn me on, but with every second glance he gave me and every bite of his prized Twizzlers, I was reminded that I truly, truly wanted to feel him deep inside of me.
“Whoa.” Shannon stood up from the table as her pager beeped. “This is one of my interns. I’ve got to go.”
“See you at home later,” I said. “But wait. Tell me, is the residency at Manhattan Medical everything you thought it would be? Is it as great as we used to dream about?”
“Absolutely not.” She smiled, lying like a good best friend. “It’s absolutely awful and I think you’d totally hate it.”
“Thank you.”
She gave me a hug and left the café.
I took my time drinking the rest of my latte, deciding to head into work an hour early to do some additional work for Dr. Ashton. The second I walked into “our” office, I immediately noticed the set up was different.
He’d moved my desk into a corner, and he’d placed two bookshelves next to it that were filled with files. Not only that, but he’d installed a folding screen that separated my side of the office from the area where the patients sat on the chaise. Oh, and he’d taken away the two vases of “Thank you for being a great resident” Twizzlers he’d just given me yesterday. He’d moved them to his desk, giving him six candy stashes to my zero.
What the hell is going on?
“Good morning, Dr. Madison.” He hit the lights as he walked into the office seconds later. “You’re here early this morning.”
“Yeah, I wanted to come in and do some work on the Letterman chart before we met with him today.”
“We won’t be meeting with him,” he said, his voice clipped. “It’ll only be me. You’ll need to leave my office when he comes and do your work in the break lounge until the session is over. You’ll need to leave my office whenever I’m meeting with a patient for the rest of the week.”
I blinked, utterly confused.
“Also,” he said, pointing to the bookshelves. “Do you see those files that I’ve placed over there?”
I didn’t answer. I just nodded.
“I need all those categorized by the end of the week, so I suggest you get started with the patients who are the most current on sessions. It’ll make your job a lot easier. Any questions? It looks like you have something to say.”
Are you bipolar?
“Um ... Did you by chance forget to take any med —” I hesitated to continue when I noticed him narrowing his eyes at me, daring me to complete that sentence. “With all due respect, Dr. Ashton, I need to practice something. That’s kind of the whole point of a residency. I can’t just file papers all day.”
“That’s exactly what you’re going to do all day.”
“No ...” I crossed my arms, hating the fact that even in the midst of him being an utter jackass, he still had the ability to turn me on. “The program that you and your team graciously put together said my first three months would be spent working directly with you and learning about better ways to handle cognitive therapy. It didn’t say anything about reading over charts and files all day.”
“Are you defying me?”
“I’m warning you.” I wasn’t going to let him push me over, no matter how wet my panties were right now. “I don’t mind doing the files in order of importance, and I don’t mind working overtime hours to get them done.”
“I’m not paying you overtime hours.”
“Regardless,” I said, narrowing my eyes right back at him. “I don’t mind doing those files in order of importance, but if you think that you’re going to hinder my career in any way because you’re having a bad day and haven’t taken your meds, you have another think coming, Dr. Ashton.”
“Is that so, Dr. Madison?”
“Yes, that is so.” I looked right into his gorgeous blue eyes. “That is very so.”
“Hmmm ...” A slight smirk crossed his lips, but he didn’t let it stay. “So, what you’re saying is that you were promised a certain type of outcome for the residency and you expect me to show up and honor exactly what you were told, correct?”
“Yes. That’s precisely what I’m saying.”
“So, the idea of me suddenly changing my mind at the last minute and not honoring what you originally agreed upon would be, how can I put this ... Fucked up?”
“Um, yes ...” I wasn’t sure where he was going with this. “Yes, I guess you could say it would be ‘fucked up.’ Does that mean you understand where I’m coming from?”
“No.” He glared at me. “No, the fuck it does not. It means that you are indeed a resident. That means you report to me for this part of your program and you do exactly what I tell you to do, whether you think it’s important to your career or not.”
I bit my tongue before the words, “Who the hell do you think you are?” could leave my mouth.
r />
“I even did you a favor,” he said, pulling a small sheet of paper from his pocket and handing it to me. “I wrote down the most important files for you. The top twenty I need completed by tomorrow morning at nine o’clock — specifically the Yarbrough family files. No exceptions. Are we clear?”
I didn’t answer him. I remained standing there with my teeth clenched, with the words I really wanted to say tucked tightly beneath my tongue.
“Dr. Madison?” He stepped closer to me, closing the gap between us. “I said, are we clear?”
“Crystal clear, Dr. Ashton.” I forced a smile. “I understand you completely.”
“Good.” He looked me up and down and then he headed toward the door. “Oh and by the way,” he said, looking over his shoulder. “Everything you’re probably feeling right now is more than justified. It’s exactly how I felt when you stood me up, JERSEYGIRL7.”
My jaw immediately dropped to the floor.
“Too bad I didn’t get to test how wide your mouth could open the night we were supposed to meet,” he said, looking far more upset than he was minutes ago. “If your shocked expression is any indication, your mouth is quite impressive.”
THE DOCTOR
New York, New York
Garrett
I took sixteen flights of steps to my floor early the next morning, needing to clear my mind and find a way to apologize to Natalie. Well, I was only going to ‘somewhat’ apologize for everything I’d said to her yesterday. I was still going to make her do more paperwork than was necessary because she needed to be punished in some type of way for ruining our perfectly good online friendship. But I wasn’t going to prevent her from sitting in on sessions with me.
She was more than right about needing to get as much practice as possible and I wasn’t going to hold her back. That, and she was actually quite impressive when it came to analyzing the sessions afterwards. I found her insight and intellect quite refreshing.
“Good morning, Dr. Ashton!” Emily greeted me as I emerged from the stairwell.
“Good morning, Emily. Anything I need to know before I lock myself in my office?”
“Your three o’clock canceled, so I moved up your five o’clock session to four. Dr. Laurel just signed a new book deal, so be sure to tell her congratulations. Dr. Anderson just found out his wife is pregnant, so same thing. And I’ll need you to sign off on those lab results you sent for when they arrive around noon today.”
“Thank you very much, Emily.”
“My pleasure.”
I walked to my office and unlocked the door. Then I hit the lights and blinked several times to make sure that what I was seeing in this moment was real.
Natalie was sitting at my desk. In my chair. With my Twizzlers.
She was leaning back with her red heels perfectly perched atop a stack of books, and it looked as if she’d rearranged everything in my office to how it was when she first started here. Looking even sexier than she did yesterday, her lips were coated in a bright pink and she was raising her eyebrow — looking at me as if she were waiting for me to say something.
I didn’t.
I hit the lights and walked out of my office altogether, knowing I had to be imagining this shit.
I had better be imagining this shit ...
I’d fantasized about her wrapping her tempting mouth around my cock while she sat at my desk mere hours ago, so I figured this was just a vivid, real-world projection of that. Besides, what reason would she have to be at work four hours early?
I returned to my office, hitting the lights once more, but Natalie was still there — looking as bold and brazen as ever.
“May I help you with something, Dr. Ashton?” she said. “Is there a problem?”
“You know damn well there’s a problem.” I set my briefcase on the floor. “But you know what?”
“What?” She crossed her arms.
“I’m not going to reprimand you for sitting at my custom-made desk that I paid a fortune for, nor am I going to reprimand you for rearranging my office without my permission.”
“Sitting down and moving office furniture around isn’t a crime, Dr. Ashton.”
I rolled my eyes, sticking to the subject at hand. “I’m going to hit these lights again, and then I’m going to go for a fifteen-minute walk. Fifteen. Minutes. The second I get back, I’m going to turn on the lights once more, and you know what will happen then? You won’t be sitting at my desk. You won’t be smirking at me, and you also won’t have a stolen Twizzler dangling out of your goddamn mouth.”
I looked over at her desk and saw that she’d returned two vases of Twizzlers to her desk.
“Speaking of Twizzlers,” I said. “Those vases don’t belong to you anymore. They’re only for people who show up when they’re supposed to.”
She didn’t say anything, she just glared at me and took another bite of one.
“Fifteen minutes, Natalie,” I said, hitting the lights. “Or else.”
THE RESIDENT
New York, New York
Natalie
Dr. Ashton walked into his office fifteen minutes later, stopping dead in his tracks once his eyes met mine.
“You’re still in my goddamn chair,” he said.
“I am.” I crossed my arms. “I’ll happily get out of it when you apologize for your rude and unprofessional behavior yesterday.”
“If you have to beg someone to apologize, then the person probably isn’t sorry.”
“I have a feeling you are.”
“I’m not.” He picked up his briefcase and set it on his desk, right next to where my feet were propped on top of the books.
He muttered a few words to himself and I was pretty sure I heard him say, “I wish I would’ve made you come on my mouth that night ...” but I wasn’t sure.
“Did you complete those Yarbrough charts, Dr. Madison?”
“No, I did not.”
“No, you did not?” He raised his eyebrow. “Did you at least start them?”
“Not at all.” I shrugged. “I was pretty emotionally distraught after leaving work yesterday, so I figured you’d understand if I didn’t get to them. If not, I can kindly explain this situation to Human Resources.”
His eyes widened and he looked like he was on the verge of losing it.
“I can get started on them today, if you’d like,” I said, smiling. “But as you can assume, I’ll probably need more time to finish them since I’ll be starting a day late.”
“Cut the shit, Dr. Madison.” He walked around the desk to where I was. “I’m giving you five seconds to tell me that you’ve done those goddamn files because I told you just how important they were to me yesterday.”
I held up my hand and counted down from five on my fingers one by one. “Now what?”
“Now, I tell all of my partners here that I think we need to consider firing you, but I have a feeling you’re just fucking with me right now. Where is the work?”
I stood up from his chair and he immediately moved closer to me, pinning my ass against the edge of his desk.
“Don’t make me ask you again ...” he said.
“Stop attempting to intimidate me and just apologize so we can go back to how things were,” I said. “I know you’re upset because your ego was bruised, but I am not going to stand for your twisted version of sexual harassment.”
“I haven’t even begun to sexually harass you, Dr. Madison.” He leaned close and his lips nearly brushed against mine. “When I do it, you’ll know. Trust me.”
“Do you have any idea what you just said?” My panties were soaked. “I don’t think you meant for it to sound that way.”
“I meant it exactly how it sounded.” His mouth immediately covered mine and my arms went around his neck, clawing at his skin as he slipped a hand under my dress.
As he controlled my lips with his — slipping his tongue deeper and deeper into my mouth, he pushed my panties to the side and rubbed his thumb against my soaked slit.
He groaned when he felt how wet I was, and I sucked in a breath as I felt his cock hardening against my thigh. I didn’t have to look down to know it was huge, and the fact that I felt it through his pants and his lab coat made my cheeks turn bright red.
“Unbuckle my pants,” he whispered against my mouth. “Now.”
I didn’t hesitate. I moved my hands down to his belt buckle, rushing to free his cock, but before I could even get the leather through the first loop, his phone rang.
We both froze immediately and then we slowly pulled away from each other.
“Please do the Yarbrough files,” he whispered, still panting. “And for the record, this never happened, and it can’t happen again.”
“I agree it never happened.” I touched my swollen lips. “And I did complete the Yarbrough files. I’ll happily give them to you when you apologize for pulling a Dr. Jekyll and Hyde on me yesterday ...”
For a second he actually looked as if he was about to say the words, “I’m sorry,” but he took a seat at his desk and picked up his phone before it could go to voicemail.
“Dr. Ashton speaking ...” He kept his eyes on me. “Yes, yes. Okay, fine. I’ll sign them right away.” He hung up the phone, and then he plucked a red candy from his vase. “Dr. Madison, I think you and I need to redefine how this employee-boss relationship works. You are beneath me. I am above you. Therefore —”
I didn’t give him a chance to finish that line of thought. I opened the left drawer of his desk and took out the Yarbrough files, plopping them all on top of his desk.
“You’re right,” I said, upset at how crazy he made me. “We do need to redefine how this so-called employee-boss relationship works. Let’s just send emails whenever we’re not sitting in front of a patient.”
I stormed back to my side of the office, but not before knocking every goddamn vase of his prized Twizzlers to the floor.
THE DOCTOR
New York, New York
Garrett
“Natalie, did you finish reading that new study I emailed you earlier this morning?” I poured myself a cup of coffee in the break lounge one morning. “If you’re interested in learning more, I can pay for you to take the course online, if you’d like.”