Devaney’s Doctor Daddy by Honey Meyer

Chapter Nine

While he would’ve enjoyed talking to Devaney in the car, Eric was glad she fell asleep almost as soon as he’d buckled her into the front seat. He had a couple friends who suffered from migraines and they all told him the same thing: the best way to get through it was to sleep as much as you could.

When he pulled into the driveway of the address Devaney had given him, Carter was standing with the boys on the front stoop. It was a big house in a nice neighborhood and he could tell someone had taken a lot of care to set up the landscaping in the front but no one had been keeping it up.

If he had to guess, he’d say that used to be Devy’s responsibility and Carter hadn’t realized how much work she put into making it look nice. Either that or the guy needed to find a different landscaping service because they were slacking.

Eric woke Devy by rubbing her thigh and speaking as quietly as he could while still being loud enough to rouse her.

“Hey, buttercup, we’re here. The boys are all ready.”

Her lids fluttered open and she let out a soft “oh,” like she was surprised to be here already. And then she seemed to steel herself and take a deep breath before unbuckling her seatbelt and getting out of the car.

If he thought this was going to be an innocuous or pleasant interaction he would’ve stayed in his SUV. But that’s not how he saw this going with Carter so Eric let himself out, offering Logan and Carter waves as they approached. Logan ambled with that teenage apathy whereas Chase was still young enough to run and throw himself at his mother who gave him a big hug.

She was trying so hard to pretend everything was fine for them but he could tell it was an act. Inside she was still hurting and exhausted but was probably wary of showing any weakness. He couldn’t blame her with the storm gathering on Carter’s face as he stalked down the stone path.

“What the hell is he doing here?” Carter demanded.

“Boys, get in the car, we’ll be right there,” Devy said, herding them into the backseat, clearly in the hopes they wouldn’t hear whatever else Carter had to say. What a dick.

Eric wasn’t going to start something because the last thing he wanted to do was make life harder on Devy, but he also wasn’t going to let her ex talk to her like that without saying anything. No one should talk to anyone like that, but if the boys could hear, he especially didn’t want them to think it was okay to yell at their partners or exes like this.

“Devaney’s migraine hasn’t let up and I didn’t think it was safe for her to drive so I offered to help,” he said, doing his best to keep cool in the face of Carter’s fiery temper. He wasn’t a yeller by nature and he didn’t want Devy to feel like she had to rein him in too.

Carter’s hazel eyes narrowed. “Are you two fucking? Is that what’s going on? You’re fucking this guy, Dev?”

Devaney’s lashes fluttered and her lips parted, looking like a nervous little bird. He hated the way she twisted her fingers in front of her and he hoped to hell the kids couldn’t hear this.

Eric waited a beat to see if Devy was going to snap back at Carter but she couldn’t seem to find her words. That was fine, he had plenty for this asshat.

“We’re dating. We hadn’t told the boys yet because it’s brand new.”

Eric moved closer to Devaney, put his arm around her waist and settled a hand on her hip. He’d apologize later for overstepping but he needed to protect her in any way he could from this monster. If that meant claiming her, then that’s what he’d do. It felt right to hold her protectively, possessively, and he didn’t want to stop.

“We should go, don’t want the boys to be late to school.”

Carter glared at him and then turned his displeasure back on Devaney who slid an arm around his own waist and dug her nails slightly into his skin through his shirt. He wanted to punch Carter for making her so stressed, especially when she was already ill, but that wouldn’t go well. A Black man—even a doctor—punching a white guy in his own driveway? Nah.

“We’re not finished talking about this,” Carter seethed.

Devy pressed herself against his side, dug her nails in a little tighter but seemed to draw comfort from his presence, finding the wherewithal to say, “For now we are. We have to go.”

* * *

The ride to school was filled with Chase chattering away and Logan reluctantly answering questions Devy asked. After they’d dropped them off at their respective schools just in time for the bells, he drove back to his home and parked in the garage. When they got to the breezeway, Devy turned to him with a tight smile.

“Thank you for everything,” she said, waving a hand through the air. “But I have to go. I can’t be late for work.”

Work? Was she fucking kidding?

Eric cocked his head and tried, mostly successfully, to keep the growl out of his voice. “No. What you can’t do is go to work. You told me yourself that your migraine is going to get worse before it gets better and if that’s true you shouldn’t be driving. You shouldn’t be working. All you should be doing is resting.”

“I can’t. If I don’t go to work, I’ll get fired.”

“You don’t have sick time?”

She glared at him, crossed her arms over her chest. “No, I don’t. That’s not really a thing at minimum wage jobs.”

“What if you have a doctor’s note? I’ve got like a thousand prescription pads right next door. Hell, I’ll call them and tell them you can’t go in. Doctor’s orders and all that.”

What else could he offer? What else could he do? There had to be somehow, some way to fix this. He couldn’t bear the thought of her leaving like this. Hell, he couldn’t actually bear the thought of her leaving at all but he could deal with that possessive urge later.

“It doesn’t matter, Eric,” she snapped.

And then she burst into tears.

He reached out to pull her into his arms but she swatted his hands away. There were times when he would’ve used his size and strength to overpower her because he didn’t actually believe she wanted to be left alone but she thought she should be. But they didn’t know each other well and it wouldn’t do to have his patients and their parents seeing him struggling with a woman through the windows that lined the entire top half of the breezeway.

Tears streaming down her cheeks and holding herself tight like she thought she might fall apart otherwise, Devy went on. “I have to go because I’ll get fired if I don’t. If I get fired I won’t be able to pay my rent. And if I lose my apartment and can’t find another one in this school district—which I probably can’t because I was lucky to get this one—Carter is going to take the boys. He’s going to take them away from me.”

Devy’s shoulders shook as she buried her face in her hands, sobbing. Fuck. He was such a fucking idiot. He could follow the hopscotch of Devy’s logic but hadn’t been able to make the leap to the boys himself. Despite working with kids all damn day, he hadn’t figured custody of Logan and Chase into the equation. He wasn’t a parent, but for fuck’s sake, he should’ve known.

He swallowed his anger at Carter and gently chafed Devy’s biceps, softened his voice. His little girl didn’t need his anger right now, she needed his empathy and his help.

“Okay, baby. I’m sorry I pushed, I get it now. Where do you work?”

She sniffed, scrubbed balled up fists across her cheeks and then named a store at the mall—one of the places the tweens liked to get their earrings and scrunchies and the latest trendy whatevers from. That wasn’t what he’d been expecting, and she must’ve seen the surprise on his face.

“Yeah, I know,” she said, shaking her head and rolling her eyes like she was embarrassed. “I’m a grown woman who has a master’s degree. I shouldn’t be working there.”

He cupped her face in his hands and thumbed away some tears from her cheeks. “Devy, if that’s what makes you happy, you should work wherever you want.”

“That’s the thing. It doesn’t make me happy. I hate it. But there aren’t so many jobs that will let you work part time during the school day. I get yelled at whenever I have to take time off to bring the boys to their appointments or when I have to be home with them because it’s a holiday or they’re sick. Logan is old enough to be home alone but he gets so caught up in his games I don’t think he’d pay enough attention to Chase. And I’d move someplace cheaper but the boys go to a good school and if I can’t afford to live in the neighborhood anymore Carter will insist they come live with him. And I…”

She made a strangled sound in her throat and then looked up at him, blue eyes wide and so godawful sad. “You must think I’m so stupid. To have married him. To have stayed with him for so long.”

“I don’t,” he said with all the earnestness in his heart. “No way you could be stupid. I’m guessing you were in a tough situation and it seems like things haven’t gotten any easier since you split.”

Devaney shrugged. “In some ways. Carter doesn’t yell at me every day anymore, so that’s nice. And I get the boys away from him for most of the week so that’s good too. But they see Carter on the weekends, and I know he fills their heads with horrible things and lets them get away with murder and I can’t do anything about it.”

Right. The way Logan had looked up from his gaming console and rolled his eyes when Eric had sought him out yesterday. They way he’d been so fucking dismissive of his mom’s pain and illness. That was all Carter. Wasn’t it bad enough for the guy to be a total asshole to his ex-wife? He had to poison his sons against her too?

Eric couldn’t help it anymore, he had to hold her. This time when he went to put his arms around her, she didn’t resist but went willingly, burying her face in his chest and wrapping her arms around his waist.

Her head fit perfectly tucked under his chin and he kissed the top of her head as he gave her a squeeze. Rubbed her back as she gathered herself. After a minute she pulled away and used her fingers to swipe at the remaining tear tracks.

“I’m sorry I cried all over you, you’re going to have to change your shirt.”

“I promise that is not anywhere near the worst thing I’ve gotten on my clothes. You know kids are disgusting. If they’re not picking their noses, they’ve got potatoes growing in their ears. I’ve seen more blowout diapers and puke than you can shake a stick at, but I think the worst are jam hands. It’s this insidious stickiness that just won’t wash off. Damn those jam hands.”

She gave a weak laugh and he bent down to kiss the corner of her mouth that’d tipped up.

“There’s my pretty baby. I love it when you laugh, Devy.”

“I like it when you make me laugh,” she murmured, the swell of her cheeks flushing.

There, that was better. A little anyway. It would have to do.

Eric snuck a glance at his watch and yeah, he needed to get over to the office. He hated to leave her, but it seemed like there was a snowball’s chance in hell that he’d actually convince Devy not to go to work.

As much as he might want to haul her over his shoulder, drag her upstairs and buckle enough restraints on her that she wouldn’t be able to escape, he wouldn’t be that domineering asshole. Not yet, anyway, until she agreed to be his and they’d settled on exactly what that meant, at which point he’d just be domineering and not an asshole.

Before she left though, he wanted to make something very clear.

“It’s Friday, is Carter taking the boys after school?”

“He comes to pick them up after he gets off work usually, but they go to a friend’s house after school for a few hours before coming home.”

“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.