Age Gap Romance by Penny Wylder
2
I’m still angry by the time I finish making my morning rounds. Angry enough that when the buzzer overhead beeps and my name is read out: “Margaret Owens, please report to the directorial office, Margaret Owens,” it’s enough to make my blood boil.
“He has got to be kidding me.” I slam my file folder onto the top of the tray I’ve been pushing around all morning. The whole thing rattles, but I don’t care. I storm away from it, fists balled.
I did what he told me to. Yes, okay, I visited a couple other patients before his precious “priority” ones. But I visited the board members’ kids’ rooms, one after the next, making sure to triple-check everything going on. I went to the Yale friend’s son too, and lingered for extra minutes, even though the guy kept checking me out and making less than appropriate comments about how well my scrubs suited my figure.
What more could my father possibly want now?
I’m tempted to ignore the summons, but I know he’ll just keep buzzing for me. I storm down the length of the hall toward the distant double doors that lead to the wing where Dad’s office is located. By the time I reach it, sure enough, someone has already paged me a second time overhead, and my stomach clenches. I hope my direct supervisor doesn’t hear this and judge me for not sprinting to Dad’s attention.
I hope I don’t get into trouble for missing my next set of rounds, if Dad keeps me here for ages to lecture me.
I hope a lot of things, really.
I reach his office door just as it’s swinging open, and when it does, I freeze on the threshold, my breath catching in my throat.
“Maggie!” Russ looks, if possible, even more handsome than usual. Unlike my dad, whose face has aged into permanent frown lines and a furrowed, disapproving brow, Russ’s only wrinkles are the faint laugh lines around the corners of his eyes. He smiles at me now, his salt-and-pepper hair still full and trimmed into a neat cut, his beard just long enough to show the same smattering of gray throughout it. It only adds to the sharp edge of his jawline, the high angles of his cheekbones.
His face softens when he sees me, his dark eyes flashing with something like warning. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it? You’re looking more gorgeous by the day, you know.”
Something curls in my belly, a warmth that spreads throughout my veins. Gorgeous. My teenage crush just called me gorgeous. But he means it in that way adults do, right? Like “oh you’re so cute, child of my best friend.” Surely he doesn’t mean anything more than that, does he?
He doesn’t mean what I want him to mean.
Still, I can’t help but notice the way his gaze drops, almost like he’s checking me out for a split second, before he recovers and steps aside, to allow me access into my father’s office.
“John, I’ll talk to you later tonight,” Russ calls over his shoulder, and my father grumbles something inaudible in response. “Careful,” Russ adds to me, sotto-voice. “He’s in a mood.”
“Believe me, I know,” I mumble, though I pause for long enough to trade conspiratorial grins with Russ before I slip past him into Dad’s office. As I pass, my hip brushes against his, my bicep skimming his forearm for a second. The heat of his skin is almost enough to make me stumble in my tracks.
Get it together, Maggie. I need to deal with my father right now, not get swept under by the crush I’ve nursed since my senior year of high school, when Russ came over for my family’s semi-regular pool parties, stripped off his shirt and dove straight into the deep end. Watching him toss his head back, running a hand through that salt-and-pepper hair, a huge smile on his handsome, angular face…
Fuck. It’s enough to distract me all over again, even now. I try not to think about how cute he still looked without a shirt, how his muscles haven’t faded with time. If anything, he looks in even better shape now. The man must have a serious workout routine. Then again, working in surgery here has got to be grueling, not to mention all the overtime I know Russ pulls.
He, unlike my dad, is an idealist. He believes he can save every single person who walks through the OR doors, regardless of how hopeless others might pronounce the case. It’s always mystified me that he and my dad could get along so well, but I guess opposites can be friends sometimes.
“Good luck,” I think I hear Russ murmur behind me, just before I pull the door shut after myself.
Behind the desk, Dad clears his throat and reshuffles a stack of folders at his elbow. “So. I gave you one very simple instruction this morning.”
“And I followed it,” I reply, before he can get his rant going.
“You didn’t visit those three patients first.”
“What, do you have people tailing me?” I ask, crossing my arms.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” He points to his left, to a pair of large monitors on the side wall. Of course. He had the security cameras patched through to the spare monitors he has attached to his desktop.
I roll my eyes. “Good to know you trust me to do my job, Dad.”
“I was merely interested to see how you would do, following our chat this morning.”
“You mean following your half hour long lecture,” I mumble.
“You should have gone to the priority patients’ rooms first. You should always treat the priority patients first. We are a private hospital, Maggie. How do you think we stay funded? How do you think we’re able to treat anyone? Because we play the game, we treat the people who keep us funded and supplied very, very well.”
I cross my arms. “That’s hardly ethical.”
“It’s how business works. And until you understand that, I don’t know that I can continue to give you your own rounds. Or at least not as many as you’ve had before now.” He places his palms flat on his desk. “I’ve told your supervisor to switch you off the rest of your patients. The three priority patients will be your only three patients now.”
My eyes widen. I had so many other people to check up on today. “But who will cover the rest?”
“Heather and Lionel will step in, along with Martha.”
Martha. The old woman who forgets where she put her own glasses half the time, let alone what medicine her stacks of patients need. “Will they have enough time?” I ask, panic rising in my gut. “There are so many people checked in today, and they all have their own patients to look in on already…”
“Something you should have kept in mind before you made it necessary for me to pass all of this extra work along to them.” My father turns back to his computer, clearly a dismissal.
“You are unbelievable sometimes, you know that?” I growl. But I can tell any more talking isn’t going to get through to him. And even if I try to continue working my rounds like I should, he’ll probably spy on me over the computers, report me to my supervisor—or make my supervisor squeal on me for ignoring his orders. Either way, I’m screwed.
Why did he even pay for me to go to school if he was just going to treat me like an incompetent child the second I graduated?
I storm out of his office and slam the door behind me, hard enough for it to echo all the way down the hallway. I’m stomping off down said hallway, when a familiar head pops out of a neighboring room.
“That went well, I take it?” Russ again. I glare in response, which only makes him chuckle. “Sorry. I heard the slam and just guessed.”
With a sigh, I lean against the wall beside the exam room Russ was just talking to a patient in. I wait for him to finish up and draw the door shut before I speak again. “Was he always like this?”
“If you mean completely oblivious to the needs or desires of most everyone around him?” Russ grins, and I press my lips together, nodding. “Yeah, a little bit. He’s got a good heart deep down, he just tends to focus on the really big picture. When he’s in that mood, he forgets about how all the cogs in that big picture are human beings with feelings of their own.”
I sigh and push off the wall to walk beside Russ as he strides down the long hallway, presumably back toward the surgery wing where he spends his time when he’s not following up on patients in recovery. “Sorry for being grumpy. I know I shouldn’t take my frustrations with him out on you.”
“Don’t worry, I can take it.” Russ’s eyes sparkle when they catch mine, and not for the first time since it happened, I think about the way he startled when he saw me in Dad’s office, the way his gaze dripped over me. I can’t remember the last time I saw him—maybe about a month ago when I first started here?
Has something changed since then? Or maybe just today?
I side-eye Russ as we stroll, not bothering to disguise the fact that I’m checking him out. “I’ll bet you can,” I say, before I can think better of it.
He laughs softly, just once, and it’s enough to draw my gaze back to his face. When I look up, I find his eyes boring into mine. Curious, searching. “When did you get so grown up, Maggie?”
“A while ago.” I smirk, lifting my chin high, holding his gaze steady. “Just took you a minute to notice, I guess.”
“Oh, you don’t know what I noticed,” he murmurs, and the sudden, low heat in his voice does all kinds of crazy things to my body. My toes curl inside my standard-issue work shoes, and my belly tenses. It feels like I swallowed a whole fireplace, there’s so much heat in my core, spreading out to tingle along the tips of my fingers.
“Why don’t you tell me?” I raise an eyebrow and take a step closer to him. I expect him to back off, or tell me this is a bad idea. But he surprises me. He holds his ground, his smile only widening.
“You sure you want to play this game with me, Mags?” He says the last word in a whisper, and it only stokes the flames that have been building further.
Mags. It’s what he’s always called me, since as long as I can remember. When I was a teenager, going through my hormonal phase, I can’t deny, I fantasized about hearing him call me that in totally different situations. Russ might be twice my age, this whole thing might be totally inappropriate, but I don’t care.
In fact, at the moment, if anything, that makes it even better. I think about the expression on Dad’s face, if he caught me flirting with his best friend, and it only makes me bolder. “I’ve always been good at games. Or don’t you remember how often I kicked your ass at poker nights?”
He chuckles softly. “You realize I was going easy on you, right?”
I arch an eyebrow. “Well, then you’d better stop. Because that’s exactly what I don’t want.”
Russ pauses. He runs a hand through his hair, a motion that makes the corner of his scrubs top inch up, just far enough to reveal a slice of his stomach, cut abs above a happy trail that my hands itch to trace. Then it falls back into place, as he casts a quick glance around us in either direction, as if he’s trying to decide whether he should continue with this. There is a cluster of nurses passing, clipboards in hand. One of them glances our way, and then the rest do, all of them trading glances between them.
In response, I reach up to place my fingertips on Russ’s arm, just above his watch. A barely-there touch, yet his skin feels heated under my fingertips. Boiling almost. But I keep my hand there, keep smiling, the grin turning mischievous as the nurses’ eyes widen, and they start to whisper amongst each other.
I want them to talk about this. I want them to report it to Dad. I want him to know what happens when he pisses me off. Dad thinks he can control every single aspect of my life, but he can’t. There are some decisions only I can make, some areas where I’m still the one in control.
And who I flirt with is very much one of those areas.
To judge by the look on Russ’s face, as he glances from my hand on his arm, to my eyes and back again, he knows this is a bad idea. A dangerous one.
But when his eyes find mine again, all fire and heat, I realize that he’s come to the same conclusion I have. If this is a dangerous game, that only makes it more interesting.
“Really, Maggie Owens.” Russ takes a step toward me. Another. His chest almost touches me, we’re standing so close. At this distance, I catch his scent. He smells like musk and smoke, all heat and fire. It reminds me of the scotch he and Dad always drink at our get-togethers, while Mom and her friends are mixing up margaritas instead. Or maybe the cigars Russ smokes afterward, out on our patio. He let me have a puff off of one once, when I was still in high school, and I came out for just ten minutes to wave hello to the party before I had to head back upstairs to bury myself in books again.
I still remember that night. The way he drew a puff before he passed the cigar to me, still wet from his mouth. The way I wrapped my lips around it and followed his instructions, breathed in a faint puff of smoke before I exhaled it, slow, through my nose so I could taste it right. It tasted incredible. But not as good as I imagined his mouth would taste, based on the tiny glimpse I got.
It made me shiver, that night, when he put the cigar back into his mouth, and I knew his lips were clamped right where mine had been a second earlier, my cherry flavored lip gloss still tinting the butt of the cigar.
“So tell me what you do want, then,” he murmurs, so close to me I can practically feel the words vibrate in his chest. He raises an eyebrow. “You like it hard?”
“Hard. Rough.” I pause to flick my tongue across my lips, and I’m gratified to see the way his gaze drops to follow its tracks. “Anything but safe.”
“Well.” His grin curls around the edges. “You certainly picked an interesting way to announce it, I’ll give you that. An interesting place to bring it up, too.” His gaze drifts back to the halls around us, following the tracks of the nurses. They’re almost at the far corner now, I can hear the squeak of their sneakers from here. They don’t work in the same wing as me, so I don’t know any of their names, but I recognize a few of them from around. And I’m sure all of them know who I am, at least.
Word gets around fast when the director of the hospital’s daughter signs up to the nursing staff. No matter how much I might have wished to remain just another anonymous face in the staff room, it was never going to happen. Not with Owens splashed across my name tag.
Or with my father in his office, sending down edicts like some kind of creepy overlord, obsessed with making sure I do every single thing he orders me to.
But he never ordered me to do this. He would kill me if he saw it, in fact. A thought that makes the edges of my grin curl.
“See, that’s what I’m worried about.” Russ arches an eyebrow, clearly watching me watch the nurses. “I understand why you’re angry right now, Mags, I really do. But I don’t want you getting in over your head.”
“Believe me, I know exactly what I’m doing.” I whip back around to lock eyes with him again. This time when I reach up to touch his arm, I don’t stop there. I let my hand trail all the way up his bicep, until it curls around the back of his neck. He’s a good half a head taller than me, but that doesn’t stop me from flirting. Besides, the nurses are gone now, out of sight. His objections hopefully went with them. “All I want is to feel in control of one thing, Russ. To feel like I can make one decision for myself.” I study his eyes. Dark, brown like his hair. But there are flecks in them, slightly lighter patches that I never noticed before.
He studies me right back, and to judge by the heat in those intense eyes, he’s close to giving in. “I can’t say I’ve never thought about it.” His gaze drops, slowly. Over my lips, my chest, my curves. I suppress a shiver that threatens to break out, at the way his eyes linger. Like he’s memorizing me, drinking me in. “You are a fucking sexy as hell woman, Mags. But I think you know that by now.”
I smirk. “Some people might have mentioned it.”
“Boys, I’d bet.” He raises an eyebrow. “You can’t have had a real man appreciate you.”
The words curl in my belly. “No,” I breathe. “Never anyone like you.” I trail my fingers back down his arm, and this time, he finally, finally responds in kind. His hands trace slowly along my arms, up to my shoulders. Then they slide down my sides, tracing the edges of my curves. He passes over my waist, then out wider again to grip my hips.
Without warning, he pulls me against him, my soft body crushed against the hard steel of his muscles. I can feel myself bend into him, molding against him, my legs trembling, my body already getting eager with want. I wore thin panties beneath my scrubs this morning, and they’re in danger of getting wet at this rate, if they aren’t already. Still, Russ’s hands keep moving, keep tracing along me, up to my waist again, back down.
“Maggie… I’ve thought about this moment. So many times before. Alone in the shower, late at night, after long shifts when I had to watch you strutting around on the far side of the hospital, too far away to ever touch…”
My breath catches in my throat. He fantasized about me too? I swallow hard, my throat suddenly tight, my nerves alight with anticipation. “I… I thought about you. All the time. After those family parties, I used to wish you’d sneak out of the guest room and into mine.” I summon my courage and meet his gaze again, savor the heat and the intensity there. “I’ve wanted you for so long. I used to touch myself, thinking about you.”
He lets out a low, guttural sound, almost a growl. “Christ, Maggie, you can’t tell me this unless you want me to pull you into an empty room right here and now.”
I raise a single eyebrow, my smile spreading. “What’s stopping you?”
He lets out a sharp, slow breath. Then he, too, starts to smile, slowly. “Don’t you have rounds?”
I tilt my head, affect my best innocent girl expression, and bat my eyelashes a few times. “Alas, my father took those away from me. He said I should concentrate on the hospital’s few, elite guests instead… Since my schedule is so freed up now, I’m sure he wouldn’t begrudge me taking a little time off.”
“Or rather, you’d enjoy making him furious wondering where you are,” Russ points out, with a smirk. His gaze sweeps over my face again, my body. “Not half as furious as he’d be if he learns what you were doing instead.”
“I won’t tell him,” I whisper, because I’m worried about this hesitation I’m seeing. “It’ll be our little secret, I swear. I don’t want to get you into trouble, or fired or anything—”
To my surprise, though, Russ just barks out a laugh. “Maggie. If your father wants to fire me, he’s welcomed to try. I have about a hundred job offers at competing hospitals coming in every year, which I always turn down from loyalty to him. But I’d be fine.” He tilts his head, his gaze going serious for just a moment. “It’s you I’d be worried about.”
“Don’t be. I can take care of myself.” I grin. Let my hands trace down his chest, to the abs I can feel even through the fabric of his scrub shirt. “Though, I’d prefer to let you take care of me right now.”
At those words, the fire flips back on in Russ’s gaze, and before I can react, he’s pushing open the fire escape door beside us, his hands tightening around my waist as he drags me through it. “Oh, believe me, that I can do,” he murmurs.
