“I expect you to call me once he leaves. I’ll come pick you up and look after you this weekend until the boys come home.”
Devy flushed and shook her head. “You don’t have to do that.”
“No, I don’t. But I want to.”
“Why?”
Some people fished for compliments but he didn’t think Devy was one of them. And hell, even if she needed to drop some bait in hopes of snagging something? He’d let her land a whopper. It had clearly been too long since anyone took care of her or even said nice things to her. Except Chase, of course. He was a sweet kid. And when Logan could pull his head out of his teenage self-centered ass, he was a kind person too.
“Because I care about you. Because even though we hadn’t discussed it when I told Carter we were dating, I’d like that to be true. Because I like caring for my special little patient and I think you liked it too—save the whole hellish migraine thing. You know, the women I date…”
He paused for a second, not knowing how Devy was going to take this. She’d already experienced some of his predilections, may as well tell her the whole truth before he let himself wander too far down this path to happily ever after he’d conjured out of thin air.
“I like them to be my special patients even when they aren’t sick.”
Devy blinked at him, her head cocking like a curious little bird’s. “I don’t understand.”
He could punt this talk until later and maybe he should because if she freaked out she wouldn’t be spending the weekend here where he could attend to her. On the other hand, he didn’t want her trusting him under false pretenses. That wasn’t right.
“Basically, I like playing doctor. You’d think I’d be sick of it since it’s what I do for a living, but in a very different context and with consenting adults, performing certain real and also more fantasy-based medical procedures is something I really enjoy.”
Picturing Devaney strapped down and spread out for a pelvic exam, or on all fours and being filled up with a large volume enema made his cock start to swell and that wouldn’t do at all.
“Oh.”
She didn’t seem upset at all, more pensive than anything. He’d take it.
“I would love to talk to you about this more, and I will, but we both have to get to work, yeah?”
“Oh, yes. Can’t be late and I have to run home and get changed first.”
He pinched her chin between his thumb and knuckle and tipped up her head. Didn’t miss the way she inhaled and her pupils dilated.
“You will call me when Carter has picked up the boys. You will call me if you feel too sick to be at work. You will call me if you don’t feel well enough to drive. Are we understood, little girl?”
Devaney, eyes gone saucer-wide and her teeth sinking into her bottom lip, nodded.
“What do you say, Devy?”
“Yes, Eric.”
Well fuck, he was going to have the breathy-sweet sound of her voice in his head for the rest of the day. Luckily, he was usually so busy his mind wouldn’t have time to linger and his dick wouldn’t get ideas. It was easy to dispel sexy thoughts when you were faced with ear infections, strep throat, stomach bugs, all kinds of rashes, and those jam hands. Every fucking day, some kid would come in with jam hands.
But he’d think of her in the in between times and that would get him through a long day. At the end of it all, she was going to be his. He knew it.