Healing the Quarterback (Wildhorse Ranch Brothers Book 2) Read online

  "Not a bad idea," he allowed as he gazed off down the hallway. "I mean, I get why some of the guys on my team might do this sort of thing more than they hit the club scene. I didn't always follow that line of thinking, but now…yeah, I might make the time."

  Dylan shook her head and rotated him back toward her. "No…I mean, that's great. It's really wonderful you feel this way. But that's not what I meant." His brow furrowed, perplexed. "As your doctor…" she continued, "As your friend…I think it's important that you start considering what the next step is going to be."

  "What do you mean?" he asked.

  Now it was Dylan's turn to feel confused. "Exactly what I said. I've seen plenty of career-ending injuries in my life, Charlie, and not all of them are obvious at the start. In fact, it's the ones that aren't obvious that are often the hardest on people, because they expect to be back on the field again in no time. When that doesn't happen…" She shook her head. She never enjoyed giving this talk, and it was even harder than usual giving it to Charlie.

  "It's important that you have other pursuits off the field, is all I'm saying. Whether your career ends today or tomorrow or five years from now, you have to have something to look forward to."

  She just wished she could read the look on his face better. His usual smile had deflated, but she wasn't sure at what point in their conversation all the air had gone out of it.

  "You see what I'm saying now? Right now, your life revolves around football. If—when—your football career ends, I don't want your emotional life to end with it. I'm your doctor, Charlie, and that means I concern myself with all aspects of your health. I'm saying that I think you'd be a really great ambassador to children like Nicholas."

  Charlie stood frozen in front of her. As the silent seconds ticked past, Dylan found herself wanting to reach up and rap her knuckles on his forehead to check that he was home. Had anything she said gotten through to him?

  "Right," he finally answered her. "Emotional life. Got it. If you don't mind, I'd like to get back to football now, Doc."

  Evidently not.

  "Come on." Charlie grabbed her hand and towed her toward the gym. "I don't think you fully appreciate yet what that encompasses. Let me prove to you how ready I am to get back out there on the field."

  "You don't have to prove anything to me," she protested as they entered the rehab facility. "Unless you want to start proving that you're going to follow my advice."

  Whatever Charlie wanted her to see, it evidently required him to be shirtless. The quarterback shucked his jacket—no easy feat considering it was already tight across his massive shoulders—and pulled his T-shirt up over his head. He pulled an elastic band off his wrist and used it to secure his hair, then he made his way out to the exercise mat.

  He dropped easily into a set of pushups, as Dylan seated herself on the nearby bench. She crossed one leg over the other and tried to arrange herself into a position that best conveyed her disapproval with this display.

  "Come on!" Charlie lifted one arm off the mat to gesture her over. She just chuckled and rolled her eyes in response.

  "Mr. Wild, I'm not going to sit on your back." Did he really think he was the first to make the offer?

  "Only on my front?" Charlie asked innocently.

  Dylan had no ready response. She scowled and settled for watching the show he insisted on putting on for her. When it became apparent she wouldn't budge from the bench, Charlie fisted his free hand and tucked it behind his back. He continued his push-ups one-handed.

  Dylan's gaze traveled over the heaving mountains of his shoulder blades, the tectonic shifts of his back muscles. He really was in breathtaking physical shape, built unlike any of her previous patients. Anyone who got paid what he did could spend their time bulking up in various areas and packing on the muscle, but Charlie's incredible height made him something unique to behold.

  She watched the way he trained himself close to the mat, clenching his jaw with the effort. His progress on one arm slowed, but he still kept up a steady pace despite his immense effort. The sweat practically boiled off him, sliding down into the valley of his back and trickling from his temple.

  She was transported, suddenly, into a reckless fantasy—one that overtook her before she could throw up any defense against it. She imagined herself beneath Charlie, naked, her legs wrapped around his surging waist. Her dark hair was free and fanned about her on the mat; the facility lights were off, and there was no one in the gym except for Charlie and her—no one to hear her cries of ecstasy as he took her, thrusting that unbelievable cock of his into her tight passage, stretching and filling and stretching her again to the brink of her absolute endurance…

  "Pistol?" Charlie asked her.

  Dylan blinked. "I'm sorry. What?"

  "Pistol squats," Charlie repeated. He was back on his feet now; sweat ran down his face. "I was asking if you thought I could do fifty of them."

  "Fifty is a lot," she mentioned. She flipped forward a page on her clipboard to check the schedule. Mainly she was looking for an excuse to take her eyes off him. She cleared her throat and fidgeted with her collar. When had she gotten so sweaty? She had barely moved since she had sat down. "I don't have you up to fifty until next week."

  "I'll make a bet with you." His voice boomed on the word “bet,” and several other patients using the gym turned their heads in interest. Dylan didn't like where this was going. If Charlie Wild was anything, he was a man who knew how to attract spectators and get them on his side.

  "A bet," she repeated.

  "Right." Charlie jutted his finger toward the mat. "I do thirty right here, right now, and you're my date to the fundraiser. And I get to choose the dress you wear."

  "Do you promise to back off from them if you feel any strain?" she asked him.

  "Cross my heart." Charlie grinned. A small crowd gathered around the mat. Dylan sighed in exasperation and set her clipboard aside. Trust Charlie Wild to turn his own physical therapy session into a spectacle.

  "Halfway down," she instructed. "If I see you go any further, the bet's off."

  "Done."

  "And if I win?" she challenged him.

  Charlie snorted as he dropped into his first pistol. "Not going to happen," he grunted as he hopped up again. "Might as well save your breath."

  Dylan scoffed at his arrogance, and the crowd of patients emitted a collective “Oooh.”

  "Need directions to the burn center, Dr. Rose?" one of the younger men called over to her. She couldn't help laughing with the rest of them—and holding her forehead in disbelief as Charlie continued his reps. She had already lost count. Thankfully, he had a crowd there to count aloud for him.

  Eighteen…nineteen…twenty…

  "I'm thinking green," Charlie said between exerted pants. "It would go with your eyes."

  "I look terrible in green."

  "You look terrible in nothing," he countered as he dipped down again.

  Twenty-seven…twenty-eight…twenty-nine…

  "Red," Dylan said.

  "Done," Charlie replied as the crowd's count hit thirty. A muted cheer went up as the quarterback hopped to his feet and turned to the spectators, waving and bowing in the wake of their adulation. There were exactly six of them.

  Dylan dropped her face into her hand, mainly to hide the breadth of her smile. When Charlie came over to the bench to collect his sweat towel, she held her other hand out. He dropped her a low-five. Whatever the nature of the competition, they were still on the same team—and his achievement was nothing short of extraordinary.

  "Guess I'm going to have to come up with a new regimen for you," she said. The bench sagged beneath his weight as he sat down beside her.

  "Guess so." He nudged her with his shoulder. "I bet you look sexy as hell in red."

  "I wouldn't go that far." Dylan reached up to fiddle with the pen behind her ear. She picked up the clipboard, set it back down.

  "It's what I do," Charlie reminded her. "Although, you know…I coul
d still go further."

  "I think we've done enough for today," Dylan said firmly. He wanted to have a parallel conversation, but she was determined to stay rooted in discussion of his physical therapy. She picked the clipboard up a second time and made several sweeping checkmarks with her pen. "Considering the…additional aggravations you've had this past week, I'd say we're doing pretty good. More than good. You've really exceeded my expectations, Mr. Wild."

  "Right back at you, Doc."

  Their gazes met over the clipboard. Dylan's pen stilled. The angular symmetry of Charlie's face was still for once. Expectant. His eyes locked with hers, until he appeared to see something in her expression that pleased him. He grinned and stood up. He pulled his topknot out and shook his hair loose, tossed his towel over his shoulder, and swaggered off toward the showers.

  I'm in so much trouble, she thought.

  6

  Charlie

  The hospital fundraiser was upon them. The Sport Medicine's gymnasium had been transformed seemingly overnight: turquoise and navy ribbon festooned the rafters, reflecting the Teamsters' colors, and a revolving disco ball twinkled in every corner. The perimeter of the gym floor was choked with well-dressed people: parents, doctors, donors, and coveted high-rollers. They all chatted animatedly with one another and appeared to be enjoying themselves.

  Two weeks hadn't seemed like enough to pull off such a function, but Dylan and the rest of the hospital had assembled the team to make it happen. Charlie would have taken a longer moment to absorb it all if his hand weren’t so busy flying through the motions of his signature.

  "Not bad," Smitty said around a toothpick loaded down with cheese cubes. "For a small town, I mean. The lights look great. Just wish they would have taken my suggestion and gotten a real DJ from Austin."

  Charlie sat bent over a table, signing an autograph in looping, hasty scrawl, when Smitty prodded him in the ribcage. He clenched his aching hand around the Sharpie almost hard enough to burst it. "Smitty, I swear to God, if you put one more pile of photos in front of me I'm going to need rehab for my…"

  "I think you're gonna want to see this, big guy."

  Charlie glanced up in annoyance, but what he saw nearly knocked the wind out of him. Dylan, tall and leggy in the first pair of heels he'd ever seen her wearing, looked as sinfully good as any professional model he had ever seen—no, scratch that. She radiated like a goddess. The crimson red dress he had ordered from Austin clung to every curve, broadcasting to every eye just what it was Dr. Rose had been keeping under wraps. Her dark hair was pinned up in an elegant twist, and her naturally lovely face was expertly made up. The overhead lights broke into sequins and scattered across the gym floor almost the exact moment she arrived, and the DJ—perhaps inspired by the appearance of a new muse—started playing “When the Stars Go Blue.”

  She was the most breathtaking creature Charlie had ever seen.

  She paused just past the entrance to the room and surveyed the scene casually, evidently unaware that almost everyone in attendance was gazing back at her. It was like Cinderella arriving at the ball, or any one of a number of Hollywood movie scenarios that Charlie would have found it hard to suspend his disbelief for. When she turned her head toward him, her earrings shimmering around the elegant curve of her neck, it was like a physical punch to his gut. There was no mistaking the change that came over her expression—the instant's recognition, the flash of unmasked happiness, followed by the professional chill he was so damn used to. Dylan handed her purse off at the coat check and strolled toward him. He ditched Smitty by the autograph table and met her halfway."Dylan." His eyes swept over her again. "You look…" He was at a loss for words. Dylan's thick, cherry-red lips compressed over a smile. She knew how good she looked, and damn, if that confidence wasn't sexy. "Why don't you look like this more often?" he asked finally.

  "Are you saying there's something wrong with the way I look normally, Mr. Wild?"

  "God dammit, you know what I mean." He didn't know where the sudden flare of aggression came from, but he had a feeling he wouldn't have to search very far to find the cause. Just the sight of her standing before him made him horny as hell, and he wasn't used to having his physical desires frustrated. "You deliberately try and hide how absolutely gorgeous you are.”

  "Normally it works." The lips he would have given anything to have on him peeled back in a dazzling smile. "Can I get you a drink?"

  "Hell, no." Now that he had seen it, he wanted to feel that dress for himself. He pulled her out after him onto the dance floor; Dylan came willingly, for once submitting to his command. Feeling her give way to him this easily only made him harder. He turned and pulled her in against him to disguise the fact from other people as much as to let her feel for herself just what she did to him.

  "Oh." Her breath caught a little. "I see the need for urgency now."

  "Do you?" Charlie ducked his head close, watching her dangling earrings sway from his own breath. "Do you have any idea what you do to me?"

  "I'm starting to have a…growing awareness," she admitted as she wound her fingers around his shoulders.

  "You know it isn't just me."

  "You mean I make every other man in the room as hard as you are right now? I think you overestimate my womanly wiles, Charlie."

  "I mean you can't deny you have feelings for me, Doc."

  "That's one of the most infuriating things about you," she hissed as he spun her around the dance floor. In a thirty-second conversation, he had managed to raise her ire as much as the sight of her had managed to raise the more insistent parts of his anatomy. "You claim to have knowledge of—to be the master of—everyone else's emotions. You think the world you exist in is so predictable."

  "That's because it is," he replied.

  His awareness of the room had narrowed to tunnel vision, until she was all he could see. Everything seemed suddenly, inexplicably clear to him, like an optometrist had turned the dial on his life and snapped it all into new focus. He pulled Dylan more firmly against him. The move was decisive, intimate, and there was no more room for misinterpretation. She gazed up at him with jade-green eyes rimmed in smoky eyeliner, and Charlie knew she felt more than just the press of his physical need against her.

  "I think I need a drink." Her voice quavered.

  "I think you need some air."

  "Charlie!" Dylan laughed breathlessly as Charlie pulled her after him. "Charlie, where are we going?"

  "The hospital can keep raising funds without us," he said. He glanced both ways down the hall; the lights were low where they stood and completely off further down the wing that held the staff offices. He knew she wouldn't let him lead her far—this wasn't the dance floor. As soon as he felt that expected tug of resistance, he turned.

  "Good enough," he decided aloud.

  Dylan obviously wasn't expecting his sudden change in direction. She barreled into him, and Charlie took advantage of the moment to grab hold of her and back her into the shadowy alcove around a door.

  "Charlie!" she gasped. As soon as her back hit the door, he swooped in.

  But Dylan evaded his advance. She turned her head away at the last instant, avoiding his lips. Charlie froze, watching her panicked eyes search the wall beside them. Her hands came up between them to rest against his chest—not pushing back, but not giving way, either. She knew what he wanted and was clearly undecided herself.

  "This feels like rejection at the high school dance all over again," he muttered into her hairline.

  Dylan laughed despite herself. It was a reluctant, almost panicked sound; her chest heaved a little with it, and he could feel the tight swell of her breasts press themselves against his chest. He stood so close that there was nowhere for them to retreat to, even after her laughter had died off, and he relished finally experiencing the impression of them for himself.

  "As if you've ever been rejected by anyone," she commented.

  "It's a foreign feeling," he admitted as his hand came up to palm her b
reast through the thin fabric of her dress. Dylan gasped at the unexpected contact. "Didn't know how much it drove me crazy until I met you."

  "Don't," she protested. "Charlie…"

  "Tell me you feel it, too." He deepened his touch, pushing past her weakening hands and penetrating her defensive line. "Tell me I'm not alone. Your body gives you away, Doc, but I want to hear you say it with that hot little mouth of yours."

  "Oh, God." Dylan moaned at his words, and the last of Charlie's restraint broke. He pressed her back into the door until it strained on its hinges beneath their combined weight. Dylan was a tall woman, especially in heels, but he still managed to dwarf her when he rose to his full height. He just hoped his knee didn't go out…fuck. Did he really just think that? The good doctor was rubbing off on him in all the wrong ways.

  Time to make an executive decision. Time to take the future—their future—into his own hands and accept the consequences.

  Damn the rules.

  Charlie slowly, deliberately, lowered his mouth to her, and took his taste of paradise.

  7

  Dylan

  Charlie's lips touched down on her throat. Dylan's pulse leapt in response; goosebumps erupted down her skin.

  "Charlie." When had her voice faded to a husky whisper? It sounded too deep. Too sultry. "Charlie, I…can't."

  "What can't you do?" His hand roved along the swell of her hip. The silken fabric of the dress rode up beneath his touch. She knew how easily he could tear it from her. A part of her almost wished he would.

  "This thing between us. I can't." She struggled to form a coherent protest as his lips grazed along her collarbone.

  "I want you to tell me what you can't do," he whispered into her skin. "Itemize it if you want. Don't hold back on the specifics."

  How could she possibly break it all down for him? She was a doctor, and he was her patient. It didn't get simpler, more specific, than that. But detailing the taboo out loud—for the both of them—might be her only chance to get out of this.