Branded

I glare at him, and then the door, hoping he’ll get the hint and leave.

“It’s not my fault she came to see me and I had to talk to her. And look at her. It would have been rude to close my eyes and pretend I was mute,” Dax explains, picking up a piece of paper from the floor and reading it over.

I snatch it out of his hand and slam it on top of the desk with a little more force than I meant to.

She went to see him? She talked to him? Goddammit all to hell!

Dax picks up a pen to examine and I grab that out of his hand, as well. “Stop touching my shit!”

He laughs and shakes his head at me. “Yeah, I already got that message, buddy. Loud and clear.”

Pushing myself away from the desk, I get up out of the chair and stalk to the other side of the room. If I don’t move away from Dax and his smirk I’m going to shove my fist through his face. This is an ambulance transport unit, though. Any damage I inflict could be easily fixed. While I think about the merits of messing up his pretty face and whether we have enough gauze in the supply room to clean up the mess, I hear the squeak of Dax’s chair as he swivels it around to face me.

“She found a note taped to her front door yesterday. You wouldn’t by any chance know anything about that, would you?” he questions with a raise of his eyebrows.

“I’m pretty sure she isn’t the flowers and love notes type of girl, and I’m smart enough to realize that. So no, I didn’t leave any notes on her doorstep.”

Dax shakes his head, clasping his hands together on top of his stomach. “Not a love note, man. This one pretty much hinted that they knew about what happened at Phina’s place the other night. The word ‘whore’ might have been used, as well.”

My hands shake and my blood boils thinking about Phina coming home alone to find a note like that on her door, not to mention the fact that she went running to Dax about it. Fucking Dax with his three-piece suits and fucking product in his hair to make sure not one piece is out of place. When I got Phina to admit that her number one fantasy was being with one man while another watched, I immediately thought of Dax. We’d met in high school and ran in the same crowd back then. As adults, we kept in touch over the years and when I moved back to town, we hung out every once in a while when our schedules permitted. He was a decent guy, definitely not the type to settle down or stick with one woman for more than a night. He got more pussy on a weekly basis than a damn whorehouse. He appeared to be the perfect choice for the third wheel in Phina’s fantasy, especially since she knew him and it wouldn’t be like I was letting a total stranger walk into her house to watch her have a few mind-blowing orgasms. I could finally get a taste of the woman I’d wanted for longer than I could remember and I didn’t have to worry about the guy getting attached or taking her focus off of me. I never anticipated feeling so much rage and jealousy at having to share her. I hated seeing his hands on her and listening to him whispering words of encouragement in her ear. It didn’t matter that I was the one to feel her come against my mouth every time, it didn’t matter that she called my name over and over. All that mattered was someone else getting to witness all of that when it should have just been me.

Bringing my thoughts back to the matter at hand, I have a thousand questions I want to ask Dax about the note Phina received, but I keep my mouth shut. I’m finished sharing shit with this asshole. I don’t like the fact that I just received an email with similar wording in it from someone I didn’t know. Someone knows about what went down the other night, and I’m going to find out who the fuck it is. I don’t give a shit if Dax is a detective and makes his living getting to the bottom of mysteries. I can and will handle this on my own and he can just go fuck himself. If anything, it will give me a reason to see Phina again, to try to get on her good side after fucking things up at the gallery.

The piercing sound of the emergency alarm on the paging system rings through the building. A few seconds later, the static voice of dispatch comes through the speakers, giving the details of a car accident on the outskirts of town with two individuals in critical condition.

I don’t bother saying a word to Dax, I just turn and head for the door.

“Tell Phina I said hello!” Dax shouts in a chipper voice as I make my way out into the hallway.

I refrain from giving him the finger and calling him every damn name I can think of since my co-workers are currently rushing down the hall with me towards the ambulance bay.

Fucking Dax.

After transporting the two injured parties from the car accident to the emergency room and then explaining several times to the doctor on call why we did certain things out at the scene, I’m exhausted and irritated as I make my way down the hall of the hospital. You would think being at the scene of an accident with life-threatening injuries would be the most stressful part of my job, but it isn’t. Explaining yourself to a medical resident with a stick up his ass and arguing about the procedures we conducted that he doesn’t agree with when he wasn’t even fucking there is the most stressful.

I walk quickly with my head down, making notes on my clipboard for Brad to transfer to our computer system as soon as we get back to the station. I’m not looking where I’m going and so preoccupied that my shoulder slams into someone. I turn around and glance up to throw out a quick apology and stop in my tracks.

Phina stands in front of me in pale blue scrubs with her hands on her hips. Her long red hair is pulled up into a ponytail and her green eyes bore into me with annoyance.