Rush (Men of Rapture #1) Read online

  It only takes a minute to make our way through the bar and out the back door. The afternoon sunshine is bright against my eyes, and I squint as they adjust, pulling my hood over my head. Kicking back against the brick, I tug Lydia’s hand to bring her into my personal space as I slip a smoke between my lips.

  The mix of sunshine and nicotine calm the raging beast—but only slightly. As my eyes scan her slim but well-enhanced form, my mouth still waters, the speed intensifying my need. I ache for completion, but that hardly seems enough. I also yearn for domination, to be the master of my realm, for complete satisfaction.

  From the corner of my eye, I think I see movement across the alley, and I shift my attention from my conquest to the new red door, studying it curiously. Nothing. All is still and quiet, and I begin to wonder if I imagined it. With the ice pumping through my veins, I’m easily preoccupied, though, and Lydia’s fingers walking up my chest drag me back into her hemisphere. Every now and then, I remember the door and my eyes jump toward it, to no avail.

  It always looks the same—closed and off limits.

  Those are words to live by when it comes to Dr. Alyssa Cole. She’s pretty fucking terrific, and when I’m around her, I feel like life isn’t quite so bad, but to keep her—that feeling—she has to remain off limits. I bask in her greatness while constantly reminding myself we’re only friends. It’s a persnickety balance when what I want most is to give in to the simmering electricity that crackles between us.

  Lydia’s tongue swirls around the head of my cock, and my eyes fall closed at the thrill that tingles up my spine. I fist her hair and let the speed guide me, rocking my hips back and forth, pushing deeper with each stroke. Her teeth errantly scratch my shaft, and it’s never hurt so fucking good.

  “That's it, baby,” I grunt, my eyes snapping open to watch her work. My balls tighten as my cock disappears down her throat. “Faster!”

  She picks up the pace and it builds and builds until I explode, letting out a ferocious growl as she sucks me fucking dry. “Son of a bitch,” I mutter, sagging against the brick as I tuck myself in. “That was nice.”

  She smirks, wiping the corner of her mouth as she stands. “It could’ve been nicer,” she purrs, crossing her arms to push her ample cleavage front and center. It works as a distraction to my speed-addled brain. “Maybe we can get together and explore this in a more mutual way sometime soon?” Her lips are red from the excellent job she just did on my cock, and her lashes are batting in a way that’s usually unappealing, but I’m finding it hard to turn her down.

  Lost in a tit haze, I nod. “I’m game.”

  “I thought you might be.” She smirks and struts to the back door, pausing as she grips the handle. “Don’t keep me waiting.” She lifts the small clear zipper baggie from between her tits and shakes it before pulling open the door and disappearing inside.

  Almost as soon as the door closes, dark thoughts begin to infiltrate my mind. Without her around to cloud my head and the high from my orgasm fading, I’m back to the same empty man I was this morning before I began this hunt. My newly discovered medicine—a visit with the doc—has worn off.

  Maybe it’s time for another dose.

  Without much thought behind my actions, I march to the shiny red door and slam my palm against it five times. The sound echoes through the alley, and I press my face to the glass. It’s tinted, so it’s hard to see, but I’m quick to notice the bod that’s moving this way. I smirk as I prop against the brick to wait.

  The door whines as it opens, and the head that pokes out doesn’t belong to the doc. “Can I help you?” a woman asks. She has a perfect brow arched high on her forehead.

  My smirk falls as I try to see past her. “You’re not the doc.”

  “Duh,” she says, eyeing me up and down. “And you are?”

  “I didn’t say,” I spit, my patience wearing thin. “Where’s Alyssa?”

  “She’s with a patient,” the bleach-blonde beauty says, “but you’re welcome to give me your name, and I’ll pass it along.”

  “No,” I snap, standing to my full height. “You’ll go tell her Rush wants to see her.”

  “Look,” she says, propping a hand on her hip. “I bet I can guess who you are, but that’s unimportant at the moment. She’s in emergency surgery, trying to save a family dog who got hit by a car. So you can hang around until she has a minute or you can just text her later or something, but she can’t come out right now.”

  Guilt clenches my stomach, making it roll. Now I feel like shit for more than one reason. First, because I’m being a demanding asshole while she’s trying to save a life, and second, I don’t have her number. My new friend, the person who’s done the most to keep the darkness at bay, and I don’t even have her fucking phone number.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, dropping my rude glare. “Just tell her I missed her.”

  She looks me over with shrewd eyes before nodding once and disappearing inside. Feeling beat down and with nowhere else to turn, I inhale a Marlboro before heading back into Rapture to seek out Lydia. Maybe with the rush from the meth, I can offer her something in return.

  It’s two days later before I finally see the doc again, and I’m all the worse for wear. I haven’t been to sleep yet, afraid of being dragged into the abyss. It’s only a lunchtime chat, but it must fill my tank because I suddenly don’t feel so desperate anymore.

  “You look like shit,” she says, her arms crossed as she studies me.

  “I feel like it,” I reply, covering a yawn. “But things are looking up.” I eye her from head to toe.

  “You’re a mess.” She rolls her eyes. “I’m sorry I missed you the other day. You were preoccupied when I checked before surgery.”

  “Oh,” I say, lifting a brow. “You looked for me earlier?”

  “Mmm,” she hums, failing to meet my eyes. “You were busy.”

  It was her.

  And I feel more like shit than I felt before she joined me. She’s better than this, better than me. Doc deserves way more than a front-row seat to watching me crash and burn with a string of meaningless encounters. But then again, the idea of her watching …

  Fuck.

  I step closer and palm her cheek, turning her gaze to mine. “I’d rather talk to you than fuck them any day, but you have important shit to do, and I have to stay distracted.”

  She tugs her lower lip between her teeth, gnawing on it as she thinks through her response. “Distracted from what? And how do those encounters help you cope?”

  Panic swells inside my chest. This answer is simple, yet it feels like it’ll blow the hole wide open, shattering me. “I … can’t,” I mutter, stepping away and shaking my head decisively. “You’re … changing things, but I can’t. Not yet.”

  “It’s okay.” She holds up her hands in a soothing manner. “You don’t have to tell me.”

  I grab my chest, the swell of panic almost overwhelming me. Closing my eyes, I take deep breaths. In through the nose and out through the mouth. Small, strong arms encircle me, and her soft honeysuckle scent invades my senses. Those two things do more for me than just about anything else could, until a soft feminine body follows, lining itself against my front. As a whole, her entire being embraces me.

  My thundering heart slows, and each breath is easier than the last. With jerky movements, I unclench my fists and wrap my stiff arms around her small frame. “Thank you,” I whisper, pulling her tighter against me.

  We stay that way for a while, and there’s nothing sexual about it, even though I’m aware of every single inch that’s pressed against me. This is one friend making another squirm and then offering comfort when they spiral into a tailspin. Maybe one day, her questions won’t send me into a goddamn nosedive. Maybe one day, I’ll be brave enough to share the ugly truth.

  And maybe she’ll even still be my friend.

  “God, I’m such a fuck-up,” I murmur, letting out a humorless chuckle. “I’m sorry I can’t be a normal friend.” I pull back
and look at her, reluctant to break the connection between us.

  “Normal is boring.” She smiles, and I suddenly feel like I’m soaring over the steepest cliff of a roller coaster. “And Rush Kaplan is anything but boring.”

  I smirk, her words making me feel ten feet tall, and prop my back against the brick as I slip a smoke between my lips. “I could say the same about Doctor Alyssa Cole,” I muse, withdrawing my Zippo and flicking open the top. “Saving pets by day and befriending miscreants at night.”

  She puckers her lips and … blows out my fucking flame before snatching the cigarette and tossing it to the concrete. “I don’t want to smell like smoke in front of my patients, please.”

  “Shit. Sorry,” I mutter, craving the soothing burn of the smoke in my lungs. “How much longer do you have?”

  She glances at her watchless arm like a damn smart-ass. “Oh, lookie there. I’m already five minutes late.”

  I mock pout. “Already?”

  “No. Not really,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Elle will come looking for me before she reopens.”

  I nod toward the red door. “Elle, huh? That the blonde bitch?”

  She hits me in the stomach, hard enough to make me double over. “What the fuck?” I choke out, trying to draw in a breath.

  “Women aren’t automatically bitches, especially my friend and employee,” she says sternly. “I don’t care how you talk around your other friends, but that is unacceptable around me.”

  “Yes, fucking ma’am.” I smirk as I salute her. “Why don’t you and your friend come to Rapture one evening after work?”

  “Ohhh.” Her eyes widen. “You’re interested in her. I get it, but we’re not seven, Rush. You don’t have to call her names before you ask her out.”

  “Fuck no!” I sputter, stunned her mind went in that direction. “No.” I shake my head adamantly. “I wanted to buy my friend a drink, and I thought you’d be more comfortable bringing your friend. Like a girls’ thing or some shit.”

  “Oh.” She seems to be the surprised one now as she considers it. “Sure,” she says, shrugging. “Elle will probably be more excited than me.”

  “Cool,” I respond, trying like hell to hold back a smile. “How about we exchange numbers so we can set it up?”

  “You didn’t have to go to these lengths for my number. You could’ve just asked.” She’s gnawing on that damn bottom lip again, and it’s doing all kinds of weird things to me.

  I whip out my phone, ignoring her words as I try to focus on shit other than how my body reacts to such a simple action on her part. “Gimme your digits, woman.”

  She shakes her head as she calls out the numbers, and when her phone chirps, she withdraws it and smirks at me over the top as she types in my name or whatever the fuck she intends to call me. I backspace over the Doc that I’d already typed and ponder for a minute over what I should put. I end up settling on something I’m slowly starting to believe she is.

  The Cure

  She lifts to her tip-toes and tries to see what I typed, but I evade her and hit save, swiftly shoving my phone into my pocket. I poke her sides to distract her, and it works. She squirms away from my fingers while emitting a giggle so happy and carefree that it travels through the air and reverberates inside my chest.

  And I almost feel happy, too.

  The red door swings open to reveal the blonde, and she’s looking curiously back and forth between us. Doc gives her a silent nod before turning and shoving her thumb over her shoulder. “Well, that’s my ride.”

  I look past her to the blonde chick. “Eh, it’s a nice model.”

  “It is.” She seems hesitant to leave, and I sure as hell don’t want her to, but she has responsibilities, important ones.

  I pull a cigarette from my hoodie pocket and slip it between my lips to urge her on. “Talk to blondie, and maybe we can hang out one day this week, yeah?”

  “Yeah,” she responds, taking two backward steps. “I’ll text you later.”

  “Bye, doc.”

  I watch her join her friend through a haze of thick smoke as I finally get my first soothing draw of a Marlboro. Instead of this being the “I just had a panic attack; I need a cigarette” smoke, it’s turned into a different kind. This is the relaxing smoke you have after the hottest sex of your life.

  The fully sated smoke.

  After a three day speed bender, I finally feel like I can sleep. All my fear of spiraling has evaporated into thin air with a simple twenty-minute interaction, and interestingly enough, not the sexual kind either. Though the physical attraction between us is still off the charts, I really do consider her my friend. The first female I’ve made a real connection with since … Katherine.

  A sharp pain moves through me, but it isn’t the clenching, unbearable ache that sends me into a deep dive of nothingness for days on end. No, it’s a combination of loss and grief, emotions that are usually overwhelmed by guilt and regret. I breathe through it before tossing my butt to the concrete and casting one last glance to the red door as I disappear inside Rapture.

  “Yo, man,” I say, clapping Niko on the shoulder as I pass. “I’m heading out.”

  He quirks a brow. “Say what? It’s barely one.”

  “I’m through.” I scrub a hand through my hair and bite back a yawn. “I’m headed home. See ya tomorrow.”

  His gaze travels down the bar to where a blonde bombshell is already looking my way as she uses her tongue to toy with the straw of her mixed drink. “It isn’t like you to leave something like that on the table.”

  “That doesn’t hold a candle to what I’ve already had today.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Shaky

  ALYSSA

  “Shit,” I mutter, pausing as I walk toward my car.

  “What is it?” Elle asks, following my line of sight. “Oh, that sucks. What are you going to do?”

  The rear fender sags due to a flat, and I sigh, annoyed that something else is interfering with our evening plans. We’re already late because of a last minute patient—a tiny kitten whose owner needed a syringe and formula, along with a lesson on how to take proper care of it. At only two weeks old, it barely had its eyes open, and its little mouth was too tiny for a nipple.

  “Just ride with me,” Elle says, looping her arm through mine. “We can pull around together, and I’ll give you a ride home and pick you up in the morning. That way, you can just have the garage repair it during the day tomorrow.” She glances at her watch. “They’re probably already closed tonight.”

  I shrug, not hating her plan. “I guess.”

  She giggles. “Don’t sound so excited.”

  “Right?” I say, rolling my eyes at myself. I’ve been anticipating this evening since Rush proposed it last week, and I’m letting everything get to me before it even starts. “I guess I’ve let myself get frustrated.”

  “Or,” she says, hitting the key fob, “maybe you’re nervous because you like this guy.”

  “I do like him,” I reply, climbing into the passenger’s seat. “We’re friends.”

  “That’s not what I meant and you know it, Alyssa.” She gives me a pointed glare as she turns to look over her shoulder. “I just want you to be careful. That man screams trouble, even without the whole breaking-into–the-clinic thing.”

  “Oh, I know,” I say on a laugh. “But he owns his issues, which is why we’re trying out this friend thing.” I pause, looking out the window. “Someone might get hurt otherwise.”

  She grabs my hand, bringing my gaze back to her. “Maybe it doesn’t have to be that way. Have you ever considered he might just need the right woman?”

  “He’s had that already, and it didn’t end so well.”

  “Who’s to say he can’t have it again?” She squeezes my hand before letting go to whip her car into a spot in the lot across from Rapture. “The chemistry between you two is off the charts.”

  “Don’t remind me.” I smile, knowing it’s true. “But we’ve conne
cted beyond that, and it’s pretty cool. I like where we’re at.” Images of him being pleasured in the alley flash through my mind, and heat burns across my skin. I swallow it down, though, and shove open my door. “Being friends is the best thing for us.”

  “If you say so, boss.” Elle gives me a dubious look as she hooks our elbows together to cross the street. “I’m not sure I could resist that sexy hunk of man.”

  I bark a laugh. “It’s not as hard as you’d think. He can be a real dick.”

  “Ladies,” a beefy guy at the door says as he pulls it open.

  Elle bats her lashes and giggles coyly as we pass him, and I begin to wonder what I’ve gotten myself into. Sure, we’ve grabbed a drink before, but her whole demeanor is different tonight. From the moment I invited her, she’s framed this outing as a couple of women on the prowl, and her flirtatious side is new to me.

  The pub is cleaner than I expected, with shiny wood floors and pale green walls peeking from beneath the musical artwork that covers them. The background tempo is upbeat country, and there are booths and high-top tables on the periphery, with an empty circle toward the center where two couples are dancing. A long granite bar spans the far right wall, and that’s where my perusal comes to a screeching halt. Because propped against it is the prettiest man I know, and he’s sporting a stomach-clenching grin.

  I gather myself and head his way. “Hi,” I say when I reach him. It comes out a little breathless, and Elle gives me a pointed look, which I ignore. “You’ve already met, but this is Elle.” I tilt my head toward her. “And this is Rush.” I gesture at him with my hand like I’m Vanna White, and his grin grows even wider, amusement dancing in his eyes. “Blondie,” he says, taking her outstretched hand and shaking it in an overly dainty fashion. “It’s nice to officially meet you.”

  “Exceeeept,” she says, smiling brightly, “my name isn’t blondie.”

  “As you wish, Elle.” He lifts a brow, and I hold in a snicker as his gaze shifts my way. “Glad you girls made it. I was beginning to think you were skipping out on me.”