Adams, Cara - Calling Doctor Wolf [Shape-Shifter Clinic 1] (10 page)

There was a beeping noise. Danny stared at Oscar and Oscar looked at his cell phone. “It’s a text message from Sierra, the attorney. I didn’t expect to hear back from her so soon, or even at all, possibly.”

Danny waited while Oscar read the message and handed the cell phone to him to see it.

“Check your e-mail. I need some papers pls.”

Okay. Now what?

Chapter Five

For Oscar the weekend passed in a blur. He spent time with his patients, especially a young female werewolf who’d narrowly escaped death in a car accident and whose self-confidence was at a rock-bottom low. He’d listed her for extra physiotherapy, but he also wanted her to talk to other patients and staff members. Staying out of cars would not keep her safe. Even if she locked herself in her house she couldn’t avoid danger completely. She needed to be encouraged to get in a car again before her confidence totally disappeared, along with her skills. He made a note to refer her to a defensive driving course. Likely that’d help her get back on her feet as much as the exercises he told her to do would.

It took him many hours of going through his parents’ and grandparents’ old papers to find and scan the documents Sierra had asked to see. Why she needed birth, marriage, and death certificates he had no idea. His grandfather had been dead for six years and his father for four. Anyway, he did as she asked.

He and Danny had asked Ambrielle to go to the movies with them as soon as she’d gotten to the clinic on Monday morning. She’d taken so long to answer that he’d begun to worry that she hadn’t enjoyed their date on Friday night. It’d seemed to him she was having a good time, but he was well aware women were a foreign country and not for men to understand. Or maybe she hadn’t liked the flowers? But she’d smiled so happily as she’d thanked him and Danny for them.

Eventually she’d nodded. “So which movie are we going to see?” Ambrielle asked.

“We thought you might like to choose,” Oscar said, trying to tell from her body language if she was happy or not.

“I can choose? Really?”

“Yes, really. Although if you pick a chick flick and I fall asleep, I’d appreciate if you didn’t wake me up until the closing credits,” joked Danny.

Ambrielle laughed. “I’m more likely to choose an action movie. Oh, I wonder if the James Bond movie is still showing. I meant to go see that over the holidays and never got there.”

“James Bond? Car chases? Explosions? That sounds like the kind of film I’d choose myself,” said Oscar.

Which just proved that either she was trying to please them and had gotten it exactly right, or that they really were well suited to each other and liked the same sort of things. He hoped it was the latter.

His day continued in a blur of frantic activity until he was finally sitting beside her in the theatre, grateful Danny’d had enough smarts to buy them a huge container of popcorn to nibble during the show.

He had so many things on his mind right now. He wanted her with every breath in his body. She was perfection personified. Bright, vivacious, smart, and talented, yet also able to be quiet, helpful, and unobtrusive when he needed her to be. All wrapped up in a body that was so delicious he had absolutely no control whatsoever of his cock when she was nearby. He only had to see her to want her desperately, and yet he had no time to think about her because there was too much other stuff going on.

The last thing he’d needed right now was George. Oscar was still trying to get the clinic set up properly, for everything to flow efficiently, to hire a few more staff, to quietly make himself known to the various shape-shifter communities so they knew about Thorne House Clinic and its services. He wanted to spend time with Ambrielle, to get to know her better on a personal level, not to be wasting his thoughts and his breath wondering what had upset his cousin.

He relaxed back into his seat, taking her hand in his, gently stroking a finger over her inner wrist. Her skin was so soft and sweet. And she smelled so good. Even after a day’s work she had a light floral scent about her. He supposed she kept a vial of perfume in her purse or something, but whatever it was, it appealed to him. It wasn’t a heavy, cloying, overpowering scent. It was just right for her, light, barely there, but adding a hint of enticing mystery to his woman.

The movie was as exciting and engrossing as the James Bond shows always were. A fraction light on plot, but heavy on car chases, explosions, and fights, which Ambrielle seemed to enjoy just as much as he and Danny did.

It was only as they were returning to the clinic Oscar realized he hadn’t spent a single moment planning what came next. He hoped Danny had. That was the advantage of having another Dom in the triad. Oscar felt guilt well up inside himself, though. He should have thought about the evening. He sure as hell wanted her, so why hadn’t he gotten his act together enough to plan a scene? Not necessarily a BDSM scene. That was a conversation they still hadn’t had, and one they needed to get to as soon as possible. But any kind of sex scene at all.

Really, he was a mighty poor sort of a Dom if he couldn’t even plan a scene with a woman he desperately wanted to get to know better.

Ambrielle asked the question he was madly trying to plan an answer for. “Where are we going?”

Danny answered immediately. “I thought Oscar and I might show you around upstairs where I’ve just begun the renovations.”

Thank you, Danny!

“I’d like to see that. You’re making it into your own apartments, aren’t you?”

Oscar relaxed and let Danny handle the conversation. But he absolutely had to remember to have the BDSM conversation tonight. Or at least introduce the topic.

Danny pulled his car around back into the all-purpose barn. Ambrielle had started parking her motorbike there, too, out of the way of casual visitors to the clinic. Staff had their own parking lot at the side of the building. They walked the short distance across the back garden following a concrete path that led them to the back door. It was locked but they all had a keycard to open the door. That was another thing he needed to think about, security. Even the front entrance was only staffed from eight ’til five. At present all the staff had keycards, but really he needed to get a better system so there was no chance of doors being inadvertently left unlocked at night. The patients deserved better security than he was currently providing.

Quietly they climbed to the top floor and Oscar stood back, wondering what Ambrielle would think of the space. Danny had marked the walls where the new rooms would be, but so far there was little to actually see.

Danny pointed out where everything would be, and Ambrielle followed him, nodding and commenting. Finally they returned to the middle of the room and she nodded. “I like the idea. It sounds great.”

Danny dropped to the floor and sat down. “Let’s talk,” he suggested.

Ambrielle looked at the floor, but it seemed clean enough to Oscar. She must have agreed because she sat cross-legged between them so they were in a loose triangle where they could all see each other’s faces.

Danny caught Oscar’s eye and Oscar understood he was supposed to take over now. The conversation he felt they really needed to have was about BDSM. He hoped that was what Danny meant, too. Often they did seem to think alike. But if he was wrong, Danny would just have to redirect the conversation the way he wanted it to go. Unless Ambrielle was horrified and ran away screaming, of course. Then they really would have a problem.

“How much do you know about Doms and subs, Ambrielle? The BDSM lifestyle?” he asked, trying to keep his face neutral so as not to give her visual cues and spoil the honesty of her responses.

“Not much. I know you’re both Doms. I think I’m probably a sub. I’ve read a few erotic romance novels, and I once visited a BDSM club with some friends, but we didn’t stay late. They said it got pretty hard-core after midnight so we left at eleven.”

“Have you ever thought about participating in a BDSM scene yourself?” asked Danny.

Oscar pinned his gaze to Ambrielle’s face. She didn’t look scared or even nervous, more pensive, thoughtful. He liked the idea that she was not answering casually but giving the question proper thought first.

Her answers were so important to them. If the idea of being involved with the BDSM lifestyle repulsed her, he and Danny would have to decide if they could give it up. And it was such a part of him he thought he might not be able to even if he truly tried.

At least she hadn’t run screaming from them yet. Surely the fact she’d visited a club once, even though only for a short time early in the evening, was positive and gave him hope?

He wouldn’t mind if she wanted to ease her way into the genre slowly. He could wait until she was ready. But if she couldn’t bear the idea at all he was going to be in a very painful place with some hard decisions to make.

“I think that would depend very much on where I was and who was with me. In a club, I’m not sure. On the one hand, the management is there to ensure everyone plays safe and follows the rules. But then again, once the dungeon door closes and the handcuffs are on, there’s not a whole lot a person who changed her mind could do to complain, is there?”

“How about with us?” Oscar asked softly. His heart was pounding so hard he almost thought she would hear it. He was tempted to hold his breath so he would be sure to hear her words over the sound of his own blood thumping through his veins.

“Not today, but if there were fixed, nonnegotiable boundaries, yes, I think so.”

“What kind of boundaries?” asked Danny.

“Ah, that’s why it can’t be just yet. I need to check YouTube and do some research first.”

Oscar laughed. “You’re a hell of a woman, Ambrielle Watson. You continue to amaze me.” So she hadn’t said yes but she hadn’t said no either. It wasn’t the best possible answer but it was one he could work with. Surreptitiously he wiped his sweaty palms on the thighs of his pants and breathed a deep sigh of relief. Well, temporary relief.

Danny leaned forward and gently pushed Ambrielle until she was lying down. “What about regular sex, just the three of us, here and now?”

“Do you have condoms?”

Danny fished his wallet out of the back pocket of his jeans, and held up a string of latex. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, I guess we’re good to go then.”

Oscar’s cock hardened and his heart started beating faster. He hadn’t thought of using this unfurnished room yet. Without a lock on the door they could be interrupted at any time, but then again, no one had a reason to come up here, so provided she didn’t scream when she orgasmed they should be fine. And she would orgasm. He was determined to make sure she came at least twice.

Since it didn’t look as though Danny’s preparations had extended to butt plugs or lube, Oscar decided to content himself with holding her in his arms for now. His dick would likely give him hell for making that decision, but it should be all about Ambrielle, not about him. He wanted her to be happy.

He wiggled across the floor and lifted her head onto his lap, then quickly helped Danny undress her. Since they hadn’t invited her out to the movies until she was already at work, she was wearing her standard work clothes of black dress pants and a pretty shirt. Today’s shirt was a deep sunburned kind of orange, and, now that he looked at her hands, every other fingernail was orange, too. Well hot damn, on Friday they’d all been sparkly blue. He wondered how many other times she’d had more than one color on and he’d never noticed.

He unbuttoned her shirt and opened it to run his hands over her skin. It was so smooth and soft as he teased her belly and gradually worked his way down to her waist where he unbuttoned and unzipped her pants.

Danny slid them down her legs, stopping to slip her plain black pumps off her feet first. Meanwhile Oscar gently pushed the shirt off her arms, lifting her up just enough to free her from the fabric and to unsnap the hook of her bra. He was almost disappointed it was plain beige, but that would teach him not to let her know they’d planned a date. Or maybe it was her color of choice under the orange shirt.

Oscar drew circles on her skin with his finger, then he wet it and painted more circles on her skin with the dampness. Finally he drew with his finger over the tattoo at her bikini line. This was the first time he’d looked at it really closely, and it had been done by a damn clever artist. The tribal pattern was perfect, intricate, and symmetrical. Yet within it the picture of the cat was clear, once he stared at it.

“I like your tattoo very much. It’s clever, neat, and engaging, just like you,” he said softly.

She flicked her big brown eyes up at him and smiled just a little, then looked back at Danny, who was almost undressed. Danny kneeled back down beside her and rolled the condom over his shaft. “We didn’t just ask you to the movies so the night would end like this, truly we didn’t. It’s just I want you so much I can’t bear to be this close to you without touching you,” said Danny, straddling her body and kissing her belly button.