Exhilaration surged through my body, holding onto Jake tightly while he maneuvered the bike up the coastline. He was an excellent rider, and I could quickly tell that with how he rode at high speeds.
I’d ridden multiple times with my dad before, but that paled in comparison to molding my body tightly to the driver and becoming one with them and the bike while moving at speeds that sent adrenaline spiking in my system.
I screamed in the helmet more than once, enjoying this spark of energy that I can now say had been extinguished by despair for far too long. I had been suffocating for so many years, and now it felt like I was retaking my first breath.
We were on a long stretch of road that went on for a while, and I leaned my head against Jake, resting it on his upper back and enjoying the views of the ocean this part of the highway had to offer. The white foaming waves that crashed into the shoreline felt like they were rolling into the shore to greet my liberation and welcome me back home.
I sucked in a breath, letting tears slip out of the corner of my eyes in delight that this weight I’d been carrying around on my shoulders was suddenly lifted. Everything was remarkable, and to see the ocean sparkle beneath the sun was like staring into the brilliance of a diamond under magnification and bright lights to enhance it.
I was falling in love with life all over again after death had controlled me for too long. Getting back to work was the hardest first step to getting my life back, and it felt like Jake taking me out on this ride just catapulted me back to where I once was before tragedy broke me.
I owed this man in so many ways. Who would’ve thought a motorcycle ride could jolt my ass back to life? I smiled through my tears, letting each one that streamed down my cheeks continue to cleanse my soul and help me swiftly return to the Ash everyone remembered.
Jake brought the bike toward a parking area where people could walk out on the bluffs and sit under the large trees that were in a grove along this part of the coast.
He helped me off the bike, and in some crazy act of smooth speed, he had his helmet off and was helping me to ease mine off my head next.
His expression changed, and his hands came up and stopped mine from smearing the trace of tears from my cheeks. “I feel like a total asshole for not knowing I’d scared you to tears while on the ride.” He framed my face with his hands, blue eyes raptly studying mine. “Why are you crying, Ash? Are you okay?”
I sniffed and smiled. “I’m just happy,” was all I could say before I impulsively hugged him. “Thank you for doing this.”
“Anytime,” he said, his voice riddled with confusion. “Give me a second to walk over there.” He pointed to a small restaurant nestled in the mountain ridge across the street. “I’ll grab lunch, and we’ll head out and have a picnic.” He winked and smiled. “There are tables out there. Would you please try and grab us the best view?”
“And if I don’t get the best view?” I challenged, loving to go back and forth with him.
“Well, then, it’s going to suck for you.” His lips pulled up on one side. “All I need to see is you, and my best view is handled.”
He brushed his finger over my nose, a cute mannerism I adored in this side of him. It always seemed to come out when he was soft and sweet—dare I say, when he was possibly thinking about me on a higher level than just someone he’d had mind-blowing sex with?
I found the perfect table at the end of the ridge under the shade of some trees. Because of the few cars that were parked here, there were no people to compete with for picnic tables. It was complete solitude and the lovely sounds of the ocean below.
Jake joined me about fifteen minutes after I sat down, placing a large paper bag on the table with two bottles of water. “Are you cold?” he asked, eying the leather jacket I wore.
“Well, I know I’m not wearing a bra, and my nipples are hard.” I glanced around. “With the way you sounded earlier, I didn’t think sex in public would be a good look for the fancy doctor.”
“Good look or not.” He arched an eyebrow at me, pulling sandwiches and containers of fruits and raw vegetables out of the bag. “I wouldn’t give a shit.”
“Get your smart brain out of the ditch, Mitchell.” I stood. “I’m stuck in this damn thing.” I laughed, trying to fumble with the zipper that practically crisscrossed my body. “Hopefully, you didn’t pay too much for this. It might be broken already.”
He smiled and eased the zipper down. “It’s tricky, but I paid for your protection, not the ease of taking it off.”
I smirked at him. “Um, so if we did get my butt into a life-threatening situation, how would I get the thing off to save my life?”
“First of all.” We sat together. “It would save your life, yes. Second of all, if you needed out of the jacket, I’d gladly rip it off of you if we had a zipper malfunction.”
I rolled my eyes as I bit into the sandwich. “Wow.” My eyebrows rose with surprise. “Chicken salad? It’s delicious.”
He swallowed the bite he took and popped a carrot into his mouth. “I noted your choice of sandwich for dinner one night after doing my rounds and checking on your dad. You had only taken a bite out of the hospital’s chicken salad sandwich. So, in learning that was your favorite item on the menu for lunch, I easily could determine what to order from the menu for us today.”
I swallowed the raw broccoli I’d just eaten. “What would make you think that chicken salad was my favorite sandwich after noticing I only took one bite of the disgusting one from the hospital?”
His face was alit in humor as he devoured his sandwich and moved on from the raw veggies to the fruit. “You’d already had me fascinated by everything you did by that point. I took note of the sandwich, and it concerned me that you weren’t eating well, so I mentioned it to your dad, who was wide awake at the time. I questioned the dreadful situation of the abandoned sandwich.”
He tipped his head back, gulping down some water, and I was the one becoming fascinated now—with him. “I could only imagine that and how many other conversations you and Dad had while I snored in the room.”
He looked over at me through his dark, square aviator glasses and smirked. Damn, he was so sexy. I couldn’t find a fault in the guy if I tried. “Well, that particular conversation alerted me to the fact that you hated the sandwich, so I had one of the nurses order your next favorite meal for when you woke up.”
“Wait,” I said, remembering that whole scene. “I woke up to a strawberry milkshake and an In-N-Out burger. Dad said he ordered it, but he did have a look on his face like he wanted to say more but couldn’t.”
“A cheeseburger, no tomatoes, if I remember correctly?” He arched his eyebrow over the silver rim of his sunglasses. “I might add that it was difficult for a heart surgeon such as myself to keep a vegetable off that burger, knowing tomatoes are good for your heart and blood pressure.”
I rolled my eyes. “I can only imagine the horror of it all.”
“It was a nightmare,” he added, feigning drama. “The woman who I was fascinated by on all levels had found a way to let me down.”
“All while she was asleep?” I played along with him, enjoying his handsome expression while we ate. “What a bitch. Surely she knew that you had her heart’s best interest in mind.”
“She obviously didn’t have my heart’s best interest in mind. She always found a way to be sound asleep when I visited her dad.”
“Perhaps she didn’t know your hours?”
“Seven in the morning and seven at night—every damn night.” He popped a grape in his mouth and leaned over to kiss me. “Doesn’t matter now. I ensured she had the best sandwich after having the best night of her life last night. I think she and I found a way to meet in the middle.”
“Oh, listen to the confidence ooze out of your mouth,” I said, unable to resist running my hands through his short, messy hair.
“I listened to your moans last evening. I remembered those well from San Francisco, and I also learned a few new ones after the sensational sounds of you screaming my name all night.” He leaned on the table and took another drink of water, “I’ll say, hearing Jake being called out all night while you rode me over the edge—all fucking night long again? Best damn sound in the world.”
I felt my cheeks heat up. “Last night was wild.”
“That is an understatement.” He grinned. “And now I have to figure out where the closest restroom is so I can fuck you, or I have to deal with this hard-on for the rest of the day.”
“There’s no way I’m fucking in a roadside bathroom,” I teased.
“Shit.” He sighed. “She won’t let me fuck her in a rowboat or a disgusting bathroom.”
I laughed. “What made you what to become a heart surgeon?”
“Changing the subject.” He pulled me in close to him, us both now straddling the bench and facing each other. “Good idea.” He leaned forward and pressed his lips into my forehead.
“Answer the question, Dr. Mitchell.”
“Now that you call me that, my sexual appetite has been destroyed.” He laughed. He let out a breath and pulled his sunglasses off. “It’s sort of a long story. I mean, since I was a child, I was fascinated with medicine. The science of it all, anyway.” He pinched his lips together. “I’ll never forget the look on the doctor’s face when he walked into the waiting room where my brother and I waited with my uncle, who was alive at the time. We lost him and Dad both to a heart attack, but my dad’s heart attack was different for me. The look on the doctor’s face was distant, and there was no emotion. That played hard on me. He just came out and stated the fact that they did all they could do, and Mr. Mitchell didn’t make it.”
“God, I’m so sorry.”
He smiled and ran his hands over my knees. “There’s nothing to apologize for. It was that look, though. It urged me to want to be in his position to prevent a family from receiving such a devastating announcement from a doctor who couldn’t do anything more.” He pressed his lips together. “That’s why I was driven toward being the doctor I am. Not only to save lives. I understand that I cannot save them all; however, it’s my job to that family to make sure that good or bad the message may be, they receive it well. I won’t separate that part in my life, and develop what some medical personnel have—for good reason—which is more of a dark-humored way of coping with death. Everyone handles it differently. They have to, or we’d all go mad in this industry, but I know how I deal with it.”
“And that’s by being the most compassionate doctor I think I’ve ever been in the presence of. Trust me.” I shook my head while his solemn expression looked over at me. “With my mom, the doctors were amazing, but I felt empty after she passed.” I pulled my hair out of the ponytail that was suddenly too tight. “I didn’t expect the doctors to show any form of sympathy. I knew that wasn’t their job. Mom’s case was obviously different since she went before we could even get her on hospice, but I didn’t feel like it was the doctor’s job to comfort us.”
He shrugged. “As I said, I got into this line of work to save not only patients but also their families from grief. Becoming a heart surgeon was something I became passionate about after wishing I could have saved my dad on my own. Living in guilt as a freshman in college that I should have been able to do more, but knew I couldn’t. Guilt plays with your mind—I know that now—but it drove me to learn more about the silent enemy that took my dad, then my uncle soon after. Heart disease runs in my family, and thankfully with my knowledge, my brother and I are doing well by taking precautions.” He let out a breath. “Shit.” He laughed. “I haven’t thought this topic in a long time, and I think I’m making absolutely no sense.”
“It makes sense. You became passionate to save others from what you went through. Now, look at you. You’re the most amazing doctor in the world, I think. It’s why you are a celebrity!” I laughed.
He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, that most definitely wasn’t why I became a heart surgeon.” He rubbed the outside of my legs. “I’m not the best. I’ve lost patients, and when I do, it’s not easy for me to digest, but I do move forward in remembering why I became a heart surgeon.”
“I don’t know if I’ve ever really let you know, but I can’t thank you enough for saving my dad and for calling me during his surgery when I was losing my mind out there.”
He smiled. “You’ve thanked me in numerous ways. And yes, that’s sort of a unique thing I do while in surgery. If I’m going over and I believe the family is concerned, I make sure I speak to them personally and assure them all is well.”
“If it’s not well?” I cringed at even asking that.
“I still believe it’s my duty to call out to the waiting family. These families and my patient entrusted me with their lives for these surgeries. I feel I need to guarantee I am either having great progress or working with as much passion as I know they have to keep their member with us. I guess the best answer to if it’s not going well is they need to know I’m in there fighting for their family member’s life, and I won’t stop. Anything to reassure them.”
“How can you even think to do surgery and talk on the phone?” I laughed, grateful my lame question just now didn’t affect him.
He shrugged. “Although everything down to the last stitch being made must be nothing less than perfect, I still have conversations with all the staff while working. It could be a long four to sometimes twelve or more hours standing there.” He smirked at me.
“It’s because you’re a badass doctor, and you know it.”
“As long as that’s how you feel, then that’s all I care about.” He leaned forward and kissed my lips. “Let’s get out of here and go for a hike. There is a perfect area out here that I believe you could capture beautifully in a painting for my home.”
“You hiring me?” I chuckled, and he stood with me.
“Depends on how good you are.” He draped an arm around me and brought his lips to my ear. “In bed tonight, that is,” he said, and of course, I was the one who couldn’t visualize anything else now.
One thing I knew I had to do was not get too close to this man, and what the hell did I just do? Ask the one thing about him that truly attracted me to him. His answers and being the most perfect and compassionate doctor who ever existed only made me more attracted to him beyond where I was, trying to guard my heart.
I wasn’t stupid. An empty box of condoms in his house? Yeah, the guy could get any girl he wanted, and that was obvious. I didn’t regret having unprotected sex, but don’t think I didn’t have concerns about whether or not he was truthful about me being the only one.
He could drop me tomorrow or next week from what I was learning about the rumors of him. It’s why I had to be smart around him with my emotions and my own heart. So, when all was said and done, we wouldn’t mess around without condoms again. With him buying condoms today, it only reassured me that he felt the same way as I did. No stable relationship should come out of this—or could come out of this.
Even if the man I learned about through hospital gossip was a player, then that let me know what I was doing with him. Playing. And dammit, I wasn’t ready for a relationship. I just wanted to enjoy life again, and if having sex with the gorgeous doctor would be a part of me learning to live life again, then that’s exactly what I was going to do.
