But then I see something new. Something unfamiliar. Tears at the corners of her eyes.
And then her lips curl up into a gentle smile.
And she squeezes my hand.
“The doctors told me what you did for me,” she says and she stops again, breathing heavy and in pain while the monitoring machines around us beep a steady rhythm. “I have been hard on you for a lot of your life. And I will not lie to you and say that I regret all of it — because some of your choices have really hurt me. But, that doesn’t mean that my opinion of you hasn’t changed. You know, Tiffany and I had a conversation just before I called the police and she told me about what you did for your friend in the fire service. And it made me think about you in a different light. And now I can honestly say that I am so proud to have a son who is so giving. We will probably have our disagreements about the things you do, Declan, but I don’t want you to ever think that I’m not proud of you for your heart. Because I am proud of you, son. And I love you. I love you so much.”
My sight blurs, and I brush something moist away from the corner of my eyes.
“I love you, too, mom,” I whisper.
She lies back into the bed, smiling. While I watch, she drifts off to sleep.
I sit for a while. Watching, replaying in my mind those words; words which make my heart swell every time I hear them — I love you, son.
There’s a knock at the door. It’s quiet, unobtrusive, and then the nurse from earlier enters.
“Mr. Dunne, we need you back in your room.”
She looks uncomfortable, and she shifts in place when I raise an eyebrow at her.
“I’d rather stay. Run along, nurse.”
“It’s important, Mr. Dunne. We have to run some tests. I’m afraid I have to insist.”
Rather than argue and risk waking my mom, I get up and follow the nurse back to my room. There’s a second nurse inside, she’s got her back to me and her attention on my chart, and she’s wearing a different style of scrubs.
“What’s this about?” I say.
“Please get on the bed, Mr. Dunne,” the first nurse says.
As I take a seat on the edge of the bed, I watch as the new nurse — whose face is obscured by a surgical mask — hands something over to the other nurse, who then leaves. She shuts the door behind her. And then the new nurse pulls down the window shades and locks the door.
“What the fuck is going on here?” I say.
“It’s me,” says a familiar voice.
She pulls her mask off, and I see the smiling face of the most gorgeous woman on earth.
“I will repeat my question: what the fuck is going on here?”
“I bought this little nurse outfit online,” she begins, taking a few steps closer to where I’m sitting on the bed. “Part of me wanted to buy a nun’s outfit — I thought it might go better with that nickname you used to call me — but I decided against it since they probably wouldn’t let me in here dressed like that. So, instead, I bought this and paid nurse Janessa a little extra to get us some time alone. You made me a promise a week ago, Blaze, and I’m going to make you keep it.”
“A promise?”
She pulls a string on her outfit and most of her scrubs fall away. What’s left is hot enough to put me in the ICU from a heart attack; it’s the same outfit from the poster above my bed. “We never got to celebrate my new job. Do you like my outfit?”
I’m gaping. So much about her is so different — she’s confident in herself, which is such a change from the self-hating bank employee I first met — and, somehow, it’s made her even more attractive. The outfit she’s wearing — something right out of my teenage fantasies — doesn’t hurt, either.
“Is that really…?”
“The same outfit from your No Doubt poster that, for some inexplicable reason, has every male member of the band cut out of it? Yeah, I might’ve bought it online.”
She advances and, before she even puts her hands on my chest and pushes me backward on the bed, I’m hard as a rock. To hell with Gwen Stefani, this woman is my fantasy.
“Well, if I made you a promise, I better keep it,” I say, grinning as she straddles me. Soft lips touch mine, and her hands caress my chest through my hospital gown.
“There’s something I really, really want from you and, since I sort of saved the day by turning those reports in to the police and the mayor, and since I did sort of get a new job, I feel like I’ve earned it.”
I nibble her ear. She’s wearing that same lilac-scented perfume she was wearing when we first met. Thinking about that moment, when I saw how much she had changed from that nerdy, awkward girl from Biology class, to the hot piece of ass with the great pair of legs, razor-sharp mind, and fearless heart, turns me on even more and reminds me just how lucky I am to have a woman like her.
“You’re demanding something from me? Are you going to blackmail me like you blackmailed the mayor?”
It’s hot as hell thinking of Saint Tiffany getting her hands dirty.
It’s also hot as hell feeling her perky tits press against me through the fabric of her tiny tank top.
With her fingers crooked in the waistband of her skintight jeans, she raises an eyebrow at me and curls her lips in a seductive smile.
