Dr. Good by Flora Ferrari

Chapter Four

Miller

I pace up and down in front of the floor to ceiling windows of my penthouse apartment, still in my workout gear, watching as the sun sets slowly over the city below.

The light kisses the top of the buildings, and sometimes I’d pause and watch it for a while, but right now I’m too amped-up.

Even killing my body in the gym hasn’t distracted me from thoughts of Macie, bouncing around my head all damn day.

After my meeting with her, I had several more consultations and appointments, and it took everything I had to focus professionally on the work in front of me instead of letting my mind sprint off to worlds made of her curvy-as-fuck ass, her bulging breasts, the innocent blush in her cheeks telling me she’d melt for me in the bedroom, biting her lip as she stares up at me and I drive savagely between her legs.

I clench my fists, pacing, letting out a ragged breath.

My cock is rock hard in my gym shorts, pressing against the fabric, causing me to clench my fists harder.

I don’t want to touch myself. I don’t want to waste my seed unless it involves my woman.

Myfucking woman.

When my mind isn’t captivated with thoughts of her curvy body and her wide eyes, it flits to darker scenes, to places where she’s being kissed by other men, claimed by other men, and that prompts the monster inside of me to howl and beat its chest in primal rage.

No other man gets to touch her, fucking ever.

She’s mine and mine alone, and she always will be.

Even if she doesn’t know it yet.

I sigh, turn away from the window and walk across my open-plan penthouse to the kitchen.

I haven’t eaten all damn day, but the thought of food seems pointless when her fresh young body is out there waiting for me to feast on it, kiss her hips, her thighs, move my way to her tangy hole as she moans and begs for me to give her the release she desperately needs.

After I touched her hand in the consultation, I had to force myself to be detached, cold, because it was the only way I could stop myself from being too forward with her.

But the longer we stayed in the room together the more difficult it was becoming not to roar out my true desires. I kept trying to imagine what her reaction would be to her doctor telling her how I really feel about her, telling her I knew I was going to spend the rest of my life with her the second I saw her.

I laugh gruffly, shaking my head at the thought.

It doesn’t even make any fucking sense.

How can I know that with so much goddamn certainty?

My thoughts are interrupted by my landline blaring through the house, telling me it’s my mother. She’s the only one who bothers to use the landline these days.

She’s the only reason I bother keeping it, in fact.

I walk over to the living room, across the hardwood flooring and the fur rugs, and pick up the cordless phone.

“Mom?” I say, answering.

She chuckles lightly. “You always do that, Miller. What if it’s somebody else?”

I grin, strolling back to the floor to ceiling windows. “It never is. You good?”

“Oh, yes, just waiting for my nails to dry. I’ve got you on the loudspeaker thingy. Are you proud?”

I laugh, shaking my head at the sarcasm in her voice. “I teased you about being shit with technology once.”

“Firstly, young man—”

“Forty-five is hardly young.”

“It is when you’re seventy. Now stop interrupting me. Firstly, mind your language.”

“What did I say?”

“It begins with s and rhymes with pit.”

“Oh, spit.”

I can practically hear her rolling her eyes, which just makes me laugh even harder. Mom might like to pretend my teasing bothers her, but it’s one of the things that brought us closer in the years after Dad’s passing. Dad always used to tease her, delighting in making her squirm, and I think part of her misses that.

“And secondly?” I prompt.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she says. “You’ve made me lose my train of thought like you always do, you pest.”

I chuckle again, my eyes moving over the city, my chest tightening as I wonder if my woman lives in this neighborhood… or this one… or this one.

I could call her and find out, but calling her for anything not related to work would be incredibly unprofessional.

And what the hell am I supposed to say?

She’d think I’m insane if she knew how I really feel about her.

“Miller?” Mom says, in that tone of voice that tells me she’s said my name several times already, but I’ve been too busy fantasizing about my woman to listen.

“Yeah?”

“I said have you met any nice women recently?”

There’s a playful note in her voice like there always is when she asks this question. This is the part where I’m supposed to banter with her, telling her I’ll never find the woman of my dreams. Then she’ll laugh down the phone at me.

I don’t need you to find the woman of your dreams, she’ll say. I just need you to give me some grandchildren.

I know how badly she wants them, but what I’ve always told her has held true.

I never found the woman who triggers something in me, who provokes the feral need I require to commit fully.

Until now.

“Miller?” she murmurs, lowering her voice. “Have you?”

“I… may have,” I say. “But it’s complicated.”

“How so?”

I laugh raggedly, hardly believing I’m going to say this. “Because she’s a potential patient…”

“So she already has a partner?”

“No,” I growl, hot fire entering my voice at the thought alone. “She wants to become a voluntary single mother. She doesn’t have anybody else in her life.”

Thank God.

It wouldn’t go well for them if she did, even if that would be unfair, even if it would make me the beast that so desperately wants to erupt from my chest.

“I don’t see how there’s a problem then,” Mom says, doing a terrible job at masking the excitement bubbling up in her voice.

I know she’s waited a long time for me to tell her I’ve found someone, and now this is her chance to be a grandmother.

How the fuck am I supposed to explain the craziness of the situation?

I sigh. “Mom, I only met her today. I probably spent ten minutes with her.”

“What?” Mom gasps. “I don’t understand.”

I laugh drily. “Yeah, neither do I. But it’s the truth. The second I saw her I knew…”

I trail off as savage words try to rise on my lips, the sort of words I’ll throw at my woman when I finally grab her by the shoulders and pull her flush against me.

But even the word finally doesn’t make sense here, because I’ve only wanted her for…

Hours.

It seems impossible.

It feels like I’ve been waiting my whole life for Macie.

“I know I had to have her,” I finish, keeping it clean for Moms’ sake. “I know it makes no sense. But I’ve never felt more certain about anything.”

“I can hear it in your voice,” Mom murmurs. “I’ve never heard you this passionate before, even about your practice. You have to try and make this work, Miller.”

I laugh, my voice low and gruff, as I turn and pace across my apartment. I throw myself on the oversize leather couch. Somehow this place seems far bigger than it did this morning, as though thoughts of Macie and the family she’s going to give me are making me lonely.

“What the hell do you think she’s going to say if I call her up and tell her any of this?”

“I didn’t say you had to tell her,” Mom counters. “But you have to pursue this. I know you better than anybody. Wouldn’t you agree?”

I think about the people in my life, the acquaintances, the friends, the colleagues, and I know she’s right.

After Dad died I closed off parts of myself, a defense mechanism to stop myself from feeling that sort of pain ever again.

“Yeah,” I say.

“And I know you’ll never be able to forgive yourself if you ignore this feeling.”

“So you’re saying it makes sense?” I ask with disbelief writhing through my voice. “Come on, Mom. I must be going crazy.”

“I didn’t say you weren’t going crazy,” she says with a teasing note. “But maybe it’s a good kind of crazy. Maybe it’s the kind of crazy that will bring us happiness in the years to come.”

I know what she’s envisioning, the same thing I am.

A family, laughter, the picture-perfect future we’d both started to believe was impossible for me.

Because the truth is I’m usually a cold bastard.

But there’s something different about Macie, something special, and I can’t get her out of my head.

Not that I want to.

“Just call her,” Mom says. “Promise me that, okay? One call.”

I sigh, nodding, knowing she’s not going to quit. “Okay. I’ll call her. But I know she’s going to be pretty damn freaked out if I let her know how I feel.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” Mom says. “Or perhaps she feels the same. You won’t know unless you try.”

“I’ll call her, alright?” I laugh at her insistent tone.

“When?”

“In a few hours. I’ve got some work stuff to take care of.”

I know I won’t be able to focus on my work after I’ve spoken to my woman after I’ve heard her voice whispering to me down the phone.

“Make sure you do,” Mom says. “Because I can hear it in your voice. I can hear… I don’t know. You sound like you did when you were a boy, before your Father, God rest his soul…”

She trails off, a croak creeping into her voice.

“I know, Mom. I’ll call her. I swear.”

Unusual nerves make my stomach tighten.

I never normally feel like this, so vulnerable, so human.

But then I’ve never had Macie as my obsession before.