I knew Carter had slept with her; he’d been brutally blunt about this while explaining Mandy’s behavior.
“I heard Carter’s looking to hand you off to someone more appropriate for an outsider girl like you,” Gilly said. “My advice—don’t get comfortable. He doesn’t want you or your brat.”
Her words hurt; I couldn’t lie to myself, but my arms still folded, and my infamous temper reared its head. I’d been scared of many things since the world collapsed. Gilly wasn’t one of them. “I figured you couldn’t be as big of a bitch as your sister. Guess I was wrong.”
She laughed. “That the best you’ve got? I have a lot of friends here. They’ll be sure to watch that you don’t try to steal anything. Outsiders can’t help themselves. The laws are strict. Those who can’t fit in find themselves back outside the gates where they belong. I told Carter he shouldn’t be so charitable.” She smirked. “I’d have said more, but he has a way of distracting me, you know?”
No, I really didn’t know, and I didn’t want to either. Maybe he was still intimate with her? It wasn’t like he was acting on his ownership rights with me.
I convinced myself I didn’t want him to and that I wasn’t ready. But the truth was that I was jealous. I wanted to say more, but I curbed it because I didn’t know the way of things here yet. I was still finding my feet, and I hated that she might be able to spoil that. Gilly left, ass sashaying as she gloated over her prowess in knocking me down.
Pulling myself together, I got on with my afternoon rounds. One rotten apple didn’t make a disaster.
But two did.
The man occupying the bed of 17E had a knife wound. As I blundered into the cubical, I knew I’d made a mistake.
“That real red hair?” he asked.
I thought about lying. I wasn’t one for being tongue-tied, but there was something about the way he was sizing me up that set the hair on the back of my neck rising.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” he said.
He was similar in age to me, stocky build, with a drawn face that I’d come to associate with drugs. In that instant, I was thrown back into that time after Glenn and before Sanctuary when I’d found myself the unwitting guest of a gang.
The nurse’s uniform didn’t do much to disguise the size of my breasts, and the man’s lecherous gaze went straight there.
I shuddered, frozen with my fear of those ghosts from my past.
“You got an owner, sweet cheeks?”
“Yes,” I said, lowering my head and nearly dropping the supplies in my haste to check the supply caddy at his bedside.
His hand closing over mine was shocking. I didn’t like to be touched, but especially not by men… any man other than Carter.
“I look after my girls,” he said, confirming my worst suspicions.
I snatched my hand from his.
“I have an owner.” It surprised me how much comfort I took from this statement when the idea had appalled me not so long ago.
He smirked, not bothered.
“Let me know his name. I’ll talk to him. My customers would pay well for a natural redhead with a bit of fire.” He winked. “Not to mention that fucking rack.”
“Go to hell, you sick fuck.” I shoved the drawer shut so violently the caddy shook. “I have a baby. Men like you don’t want that complication.”
His eyes immediately dropped to my chest again. “Nah.” He grinned. “You’d be surprised what clients pay for. You still breastfeeding? They pay extra for that. How about you let me know your owner’s name, and we can have a little chat?”
He cracked his knuckles.
Why was this cretin even receiving medical attention?
“Doctor Carter is her owner.”
I glanced back over my shoulder, already knowing who that haughty voice belonged to. Gilly, whom Carter had been inside, was every bit as bitchy as her sister in allocations. God help me, I wanted to hurl at the mere thought of Carter and Gilly together. What did he see in the tasteless hussy?
I mentally scoffed at myself. Her perfect blue eyes and her perfect auburn hair neatly tied back were plenty enough. I doubt there were stretch marks on the perfect figure she was rocking in her nurse’s uniform.
“Doctor?” The man on the bed said, disdain dripping from his tone. “You’re shitting me. Not even military? How’s he hope to hold on to a pretty little thing like you?”
The blood drained from my face.
Gilly was inspecting me like she had a dirty smell under her nose. “He felt sorry for her,” she said. “So I heard. I’m sure he’d be only too happy to hand her off.”
Hands shaking around the supply cart, I backed out of the cubical. Somehow, I got through my rounds, although I was quaking the whole time.
I had forced Carter into this. I could see a mile off that he was a good man. He hadn’t once tried to force me and had been patient with Adam even when he’d screamed the place down. So yeah, it was within the bounds of possibility that he was doing what he thought was right in offering me ownership.
Why would he want to keep me?
I told myself that a good man like Carter would not hand me over to a pimp.
Then I remembered that he was a doctor, not even a soldier, and I wondered what he could possibly do if the thug in cubical 17E decided to pursue ownership.
I worried all day, grateful when it was time to collect Adam and return home.
I should tell Carter what had happened. But I was so relieved by his smile and the way he stopped to give attention to Adam that I couldn’t bring myself to sully it.
Soon, we would be home and safe, and I could forget all about 17E and his words.
Carter
I knew something was off as soon as I met Nora at the end of her shift. I figured it was something to do with Gilly, who’d found reasons to speak to me over recent days that defied logic.
Today, I’d had enough and told her to get on with her fucking job.
I’d created a monster with that woman. She might be hot, convenient, and have an owner who had no issues offering her up. Half the hospital had dipped in that hole. I knew she saw me as a potential owner upgrade. I wasn’t delusional enough to think I was the only doctor she was pursuing, nor to presume her social climb would stop at me. Gilly was playing a dangerous game, but that was her problem, not mine.
It had been fun, but things had changed after a broken, sassy redhead entered my life.
I questioned my decision to become Nora’s owner as often as I questioned how long I could keep my hands off her. I’d been waking up with a stone hard dick every morning since she had first gotten into my bed—I didn’t have faith in my ability to hold out much longer.
The kid screaming certainly helped keep my libido under control, as did his mother, who fluctuated between abrasive and sweet without much in the way of warning.
Okay, the kid was cute sometimes. Except for three am this morning when he decided to projectile vomit all over the crib. I still couldn’t get the smell out of my nose.
I found Nora cute all the time, even when she was glaring daggers at me. But especially the softer side of her… the side I imagined I’d see more of once I’d pounded her pussy.
Ownership. According to Blaine, it might be wrong, and while I usually respected his opinion as the source of greater knowledge than mine, I saw it in a whole new and twisted light.