From his window seat Shane took a last look at the city below, swathed in the deep blues and violets of the early evening. The twinkling lights of Rio de Janeiro dotted the sprawling vista with only the famous summit of Sugar Loaf poking from the tracery of clouds as the plane curved in a wide arc turning northward. They lifted higher and higher, topping out over thirty thousand feet as they approached cruising speed and for the first time in thirty-six hours Shane felt relief. They were going home.

He took Tara’s cold hand in his, squeezing the frail fingers inside his own stronger ones, betraying a concern he didn’t want her to see. She appeared to be asleep but he knew the Demerol had only taken the edge off the pain, it couldn’t ease the spasms in her legs during the fitful ambulance ride to the GIG much less soften the pressures of the lift-off. Every time she moaned she gripped his hand, nails first. Once they reached cruising speed Shane pried her fingers from his own, moving the grip further up his forearm where he could better take the brunt of her clutch. The flight attendant returned to First Class to take any beverage orders and dispense a selection of magazines and blankets. He had his copy of the Economist still folded back, laying across his lap; he had read the same page for the last two days. The attendant repeated her offer of a blanket for Tara, then helped him carefully cover over her legs; she smiled sympathetically.

Shane watched her proceed up the aisle, irritated by her numerous backward glances. It wasn’t like him to be churlish to an attractive woman. He rubbed his eyes, upset with himself, which didn’t help; he felt very near his point of exhaustion. He hadn’t shaved in two days and didn’t like the stubble on his cheeks or the unkempt feeling of his mustache as it tickled his upper lip. These were things Tara handled, she had a fetish for shaving him; now, in her present condition it would be a very long time before they returned to their morning routine. It struck him, at that moment, just how much this girl had insinuated herself into his life.

He found his pen and began marking sections of the Economist article he had been reading, pausing frequently when Tara turned in her seat, digging her nails into the meat of his arm and making it impossible for him to concentrate. He bit down on the cap of his pen while his magazine slid off his lap to the floor. As he bent over to retrieve it he adjusted the flannel blanket draped over Tara’s legs, not that he could hide the situation. Every passenger who filed past them when boarding took note and even now, well into the flight he could hear the murmured speculation about the woman in First Class with both her legs in casts. Shane shifted in his seat, chewing on his pen, unable to stop thinking about the casts, they were strictly temporary since he refused to let the medical staff handle her anymore than was absolutely necessary. They couldn’t reason with him nor override his irrational decision to get her back to the States where she would get "better care," and surgery, if necessary.

He felt a different kind of squeeze on his arm; he leaned closer, at the ready with his reply. Almost from the moment that he had arrived at the hospital all she could say was "sorry, sorry, don’t be mad, sorry…"

"Shane?" she now whispered into his ear, "Shane?"

"I’m right here, don’t talk, we’re on our way home."

"I’m so sorry so sorry so sorrrryyy…" and the tears started again.

"You have nothing to be sorry for," he told her, long since frustrated with his inability to get her off this guilt trip she had taken. He kissed her cheek, then kissed each of the fingers, worried about her reaction once she learned the full extent of her injuries.

He declined the on-flight dinner, unable to eat, although he was dying for a cigarette. Seven years after giving it up he still craved them when stressed. Moving from the stable paycheck of a regular column to pursue the ever-changing fortunes of a freelancer had been difficult, but he didn’t relapse into the habit. Even the worst hassles that he had gone through in other relationships - caused in part by his erratic lifestyle – had never rattled his sense of equilibrium the way her accident had. This thing that happened to her, to them, had seized him in the gut with a vice-like grip that had only tightened day by day, hour by hour.

Outwardly he appeared much the same as always, his usual aura of self-assurance and arrogance only marred by a fretful impatience with the people around him, given away by the continuous drumming of his fingers on tables and counters and railings as he waited for news or assistance. He disliked the sudden vulnerability the accident had caused for both of them; and, it was something new, this worrying about someone other than himself. He balled his hand into a fist, dying for just one long drag, for a carton of them, something to numb this chaos of events. He closed his eyes, maybe it was all this time that he had to sit around and think, while waiting in the ER lobby, then waiting for x-ray results, and waiting in Orthopedics while she was being prepped and casted.

Shane blamed himself for the accident, that was at the heart of it. He had promised to go with her to the famous beaches of Ipanema and Copacabana – but changed their plans so he could meet with Maurio, one of his contacts, followed by a day of making the rounds with him. Tara, predictably, spent that first day pouting and shopping in the Centro neighborhood overlooking Guanabara Bay. On the second day he missed luncheon with her while Maurio’s soccer friends overtook their plans for the evening. The next morning when she announced she’s go down to Ipanema on her own he nodded absently, telling her to rent a bike, avoid the hellish traffic jams of Rio. He didn’t look up from his laptop as she left, didn’t hear her answer, her plans to rent a moped and zip around the city, swim in the riptides at Barra, take the cable car up to Sugar Loaf in the nude, samba in her thong in Maracana stadium …

"Would you like a pillow?"

Shane looked at the flight attendant as she proffered one of the hopelessly inadequate airline pillows, an item that could scarcely handle the needs of a hemorrhoidal dwarf. She raised her dark winged eyebrows, extending the pillow with all the beguiling charm of the most sophisticated Carioca. He accepted it with a long look of his own and positioned it behind his neck. His squirming to adjust the pillow made her smile, revealing beautiful teeth. She promised to check back in on him in a little while and he watched her move back toward the cabin, drumming his fingers to the full swish and sway rhythm of her hips.

He noted the mild flirtation but returned to his reading, the Economist’s article on Brazilian politics, marking virtually the same paragraph he had done several times before. The names of the election hopefuls blurred in front of him as he lapsed into thought. He didn’t usually bother with the politics in the areas he wrote about but the upcoming election was all anyone had talked about, even two years out. He pulled the pillow out from under his neck and stared at it. If he had gone with her, down to Ipanema or Praia Vermelha at least, brought his work with him to the beach, then this wouldn’t have happened. She hadn’t asked that much, he had plenty of time to reschedule appointments.

Shane looked off into space, to the area where her legs were carefully arranged, away from passengers, two long casts swelling the dark blanket. His jaw tightened; how long had he fantasized about seeing Tara in a cast again? And, now that it had happened, and not some feeble hairline fracture like before, but two complete breaks in both of her legs, he wasn’t at all sure that he would behave himself. He remembered the look on her face when she first realized why her legs wouldn’t move, why they looked so odd to her. There was the widening eyes of shock, followed by a trace of dismay, and then, the most unlikely smile just at the edges of her mouth. His heart nearly flipped over itself; they exchanged looks and his mind reeled with thoughts of what his touch would do to her, to him. She was so responsive, so sensitive to the slightest vibration that it was all he could do to refrain from stroking her toes, sucking on them right there in their room in the hospital. Shane thought of that old saying, "be careful what you wish for…" and got another massive hard-on for his trouble. He shook off the image and forced himself to look away from her legs, capping and uncapping his pen for what seemed like the rest of the flight.

In the midst of his annoying erection the pilot announced that they had begun the descent, and another nagging worry ran through his mind. Who would take care of her while he was on the road? There was a special restaurant review commitment he simply couldn’t delay and Visiting Nurses only covered day shifts; to make matters more unsettled he had yet to find a suitable time or place to discuss his upcoming itinerary with her.

The flight attendant lounged against the metal trim of the opening to the food service area, their eyes met and she smiled at him with that lazy "too bad" expression women often had when they knew it wasn’t going to happen with him after all. He regarded her with interest, something about her seemed so familiar. Perhaps it was her extroverted demeanor, or her deep laugh, but it made him think of Cheryl. Now there’s a thought…he wondered if Cheryl might consider staying with them, with Tara, for a week or two. He made a note to call her once he got Tara to the hospital to re-cast her legs, something he was determined to see "corrected." He wouldn’t mind seeing Cheryl again and, as he well knew, Tara wouldn’t mind it at all either.

The landing couldn’t have been smoother, a rare but grateful experience under the circumstances. It was like sliding on a ribbon of silk, from thirty-seven thousand feet to the runway. The weather was clear; he held Tara’s hand as they scraped the runway to their final stop at the Gate. She was awake for the whole descent and landing, a flush of excitement spreading over her pale face. Shane was the first passenger off the plane, conferring with the Newark authorities about a wheelchair for Tara. It took him and all three attendants to move Tara from First Class to the wheelchair and then down the ramp. Shane then sprinted on ahead, to retrieve his car from the long-term parking lot while the airport personnel took Tara through the terminal; she tried to answer their questions about her accident and seemed quite animated, not at all the distressed passenger they were led to expect. She waved at the children who pointed or stared.

Shane pulled up to the curb just as they made it to the doors of the terminal for international flights; he pulled the flashers on and it took another twenty minutes to move her from the wheelchair into his car. By the time he peeled away from the curb, dodging the idiots unloading luggage, his nerves were ready to explode. All the tension of the previous three days had come to a head and he wanted very badly to floor it. That can’t happen at the Newark airport, an under-construction tangle of ramps and fenced off parking lots. He cursed under his breath, oblivious to Tara’s knowing grin.

He flipped his cell phone up and dialed the hospital, nearly shouting into the mouthpiece due to a poor connection; he found himself saying everything several times before he could be certain they understood what he wanted once they arrived at the ER entrance. He composed himself at a light, only his fingers drumming on the wheel.

"What are they going to do to me?"

Her voice caught him by surprise. Shane shifted into first gear and then second before turning to her, "well," he said, slowly returning her smile. "Look who’s come back to the land of the living." He threw the car into fourth and let it haul. He slid open the panel to the moon-roof, the night sky seemed inky black through the glass.

"What will they do, Shane?" she asked again, chewing on her lower lip. They had given her the blanket from the plane to cover her legs on her way through the terminal; she pulled at its edges, peeking under it, head tilting to one side. She couldn’t see anything, and her legs just tingled when they hit a bump or edge of a pothole in the road.

He moved his hand from the gear knob to rest for a moment on her casted leg, "that depends, doesn’t it, Saba?" He knew she wanted more, needed more information but he wasn’t sure what to tell her. "I want new x-rays, new casts, maybe they’ll let me take you home tonight. Maybe not."

"Is that why you’re nervous?"

He shot her a quick look, between shifting gears as he pulled to a stop for the Turnpike’s ticket machine. "What makes you think I’m nervous? You’ll be fine, the worst is over, and no more mopeds for you." He stuck the ticket into his overhead visor and shifted from first to second. "What do you think of Cheryl coming up for a visit, keep you company while I’m covering that restaurant review I’ve got to do?"

Tara’s eyes widened. "Cheryl?"

"Yea, maybe she’ll help us out for a couple of weeks, if we ask her realll nice." His dark eyes glinted; he reached over and squeezed her hand. "I can’t get out of the review, it’s been set for months."

"You don’t write restaurant reviews, do you?" She waited for his hand to come back to hers as he shifted gears again.

Shane checked the rear view mirror, pulling into the left lane, and began to relax. "Not really, not for years. This is a favor, for a friend."

"A friend."

He smiled at her tone. "Yes, a friend; she was the one who convinced me to freelance; I haven’t seen her in years."

Tara frowned and fidgeted, the Demerol was wearing off. "Can’t you tell her something’s come up?" She didn’t want to sound like a baby but the idea of him wining and dining an old girlfriend at this time made her unreasonable.

Shane stretched and moved his hand back to the gear shift, absently squeezing it. "Wish I could. But it’s Laure’s restaurant now, she’s doing it on her own since she got the divorce and no one thinks she can do it without that P.O.S. I don’t want to let her down. She needs seriously good coverage to talk up why she made it a success to begin with and I’ve known her longer than most; I’d like to ghost a few versions too, get everyone thinking about the difference she’s made in this business. Especially in that neighborhood."

Tara wondered if this Laure was the same one she had read about in People magazine. "One review can’t take that long, can it?"

He looked at her from under his brows, eyes narrowing. "This isn’t a normal review; besides, until I’m happy with your casts I won’t leave. You of all people should know that."

She slipped into thought afterwards, hands in her lap. They took their exit and headed for the hospital. She counted street lights until they got to the intersection. He pulled into the ER drop-off zone and hopped out of the car, explaining the situation to the Security Guard. A wheelchair was produced, along with a nurse to take her to the main desk while Shane left to park in the off-site garage two blocks away.

"I’ve got this one hon," the nurse said to the elderly attendant who had also responded to the page. He accompanied them down the corridor to the elevators anyway, happy to have someone to chat and gossip with. She was a large woman, the nurse who pushed Tara in her wheelchair; she and the elderly attendant stopped to gossip with every employee they passed but the spicy details could just as well have been in code since Tara didn’t know any of the people in the "news." It took forever to get downstairs to the Orthopedic department, she was beginning to feel a tad overlooked. Her legs were throbbing again and they felt strangely itchy. Was it going to be like this for the next six weeks?

They came to a halt in front of the nurses’ station, a large, well-lit area with an enormous marker chart hanging on the wall. She found her name in the third slot. Many of the doctors walked by in white jackets but most wore regular clothes, only the clogs gave them away. She noticed a redheaded nurse laughing with two interns; she concentrated on a decal emblazoned over her butt. The uniform pants seemed too tight but that was probably because she had a very nice posterior and long legs. Tara was hoping Shane would make it to the department before this nurse left, she was dying to know what her name was. The way the woman was standing too caught Tara’s attention, the nurse favored her left leg, keeping her weight off it.

Tara’s own nurse, the large one who called everyone "hon," returned with news, they were going straight to X-ray and "that Mr.Orsini can wait for you here, hon."

Tara caught a last glimpse of the redheaded nurse just before turning the corner, another long corridor stretching before them. She sighed, her legs felt like as heavy as two very long watermelons and the itching was driving her crazy. If the nurse stopped for just one more person she would shoot herself. If only she had a gun.

Shane missed her by more than five minutes. As he checked in with the intern assigned to Tara he bombarded the young man with questions: which doctors were on duty, who would be doing the casts, if the cafeteria was still open.

He had to settle for the coffee machines in the visitor lounge. The little paper cup with coffee-colored water was at least hot; he drank it in a couple of gulps and trashed it on his way out. He had an hour, maybe more, before she’d be done in x-ray, not because they had so many to do but because moving her into any position was difficult. He had already done all the insurance form stuff, and washed up in the bathroom, and wandered through two entire sections of the hospital before he heard someone calling his name.

"Shane, hey Shane!"

He turned around to see a redheaded woman getting off the elevators; she was with a group of interns and at first he didn’t recognize her. He slipped his hands into his pockets and grinned, she walked with an unmistakable hitch, her auburn hair bobbing from side to side as she paced herself.

Shane started walking toward her, lengthening his stride as he slowed his pace, a calculated gait that made the most of his lanky, seductive body. He met her in front of the hospital’s main cafeteria, all decked out in overhanging plants, a veritable jungle. His eyes surveyed her delighted face with unusual warmth. She leaned toward him and he bent down to kiss her on the cheek, "hey to you too Nurse Grenville." He kept his hands in his pockets, resting all his weight on one leg, still grinning at her with his cocky smile.

The redhead blushed; he could nearly hear her heart thudding in her chest. She had to tilt her head all the way up to meet his look, "still chasing ambulances?"

They both laughed; he rubbed his jaw and looked down at the floor, he noticed the sock on her foot, under the velcro strap of a walking cast. His heart raced. The contours of the cast were visible under the sock’s Tweety Bird pattern. Shane sobered and offered his arm, leading her into the empty cafeteria, "not exactly Nurse Grenville, not this time."

They sat down at a small booth, he let her slide into the seating first, making sure her casted left leg was between them. She looked at him accusingly, "You’ve forgotten my first name!" she exclaimed, pretending to be offended.

"Not at all." Shane was dying for a cigarette. Her pants strained over the form of her cast, a light blue by his reckoning, her white pants from the knee down had the unmistakable pale discoloration.

The redhead regarded him with some indignation, "no one calls me ‘Nurse Grenville’ for God’s sake… unless, you did forget my name!"

"Hardly." He settled back against the plushness of the vinyl seating.

"You did," she sniffed in mock irritation.

Shane yawned, he couldn’t remember the last time he had slept, "Callie, I’m in no mood. I’m actually here with a patient; she’s up in x-ray at the moment."

Hearing her name from his mouth softened her eagerness to tease; "I know sweetie, I’ve been looking for you. Half the hospital is talking about her, and you."

He sat up, suddenly focused on the conversation, "you know something?"

"Of course, haven’t I always been your best source for information?" She tilted her head, arms crossing over her chest in a conspiratorial pose.

"Callie, just tell me," he said. "This is no time to fuck around…" he added with more heat than he wanted to show.

This surprised her too, she dropped her coy attitude and leaned on the wide table top. "Okay, it’s like this, two clean breaks, though the left leg’s break is just above the ankle. Seems she smacked into the side of fruit stall with her right leg then went crashing onto the curb breaking the left one. They are wait and see concerning surgery, for now. If she doesn’t heal right, or if she re-injures one of her legs, well, you know. I was sent to give you the most immediate update. They agree her casts require removal, and not just because you want fiber; they were prepping her when I left. The x-rays looked great, it could have been much worse."

He met her look and relaxed. "Thank you," he said simply, as if an apology.

Callie shrugged, looking down at her hands on the table. "No problem."

After a long moment Shane exhaled, as if he had been underwater for hours, and said, "look, I do appreciate this; it’s just been a hellish couple of days for me, if you understand my meaning."

Callie looked down at her clasped hands on the table top, it felt so nice when one of his hands went overtop of hers, and murmured, "yeah, I do understand. You look like hell." She couldn’t stop grinning.

"You bitch," he said lightly, admiringly. He moved his hand to her leg under the table, thumbing the curve of her knee and the ridge of her cast.

Her blue eyes glinted with mischief, "oh you know it." She tried not to shiver when she felt his warm fingers traveling the inside of her leg.

He made scratching tickles, more playful than sexual. "And here I thought you were happy to see me again."

Callie stopped smiling, her oval face, framed with a few loose red curls, became quite serious. "I am… so, have you missed me?"

"What do you think?" he said, leaning closer, his hand resting on her upper thigh.

"I don’t mean, do you miss all the women in casts you met thanks to me, but do you miss me?" She felt incredibly warm, his hand seemed heavy and dangerous, poised inches from the "V" of her now wet pants.

Shane pulled himself closer to her, his hair caught on the trailing vines from the planter above their table. He disentangled himself very leisurely, as if he had all the time in the world, before he turned his attention back to Callie. She remained somber, regarding him with uncertainty.

"Callie," he began in a hushed voice, as if there were any other people who might hear them, "I think you know that I can get any woman I want; but, it certainly made it more interesting to "meet" them through you, since we share similar interests. And, we did manage to get each other pretty worked up discussing them, didn’t we?"

He began kissing the side of her neck, biting gently at her ear lobe. He could hear her breathing become ragged. "Well, don’t you remember?"

She turned her face to his, they began exploratory kissing, as if for the first time, both of them hesitant. "I more than remember," she whispered, deep-kissing him suddenly.

For some minutes they continued to kiss lightly, the building tension made them both careful not to seem too passionate, too out of control. Callie pulled back after awhile, jittery, then somewhat indignant, something had just occurred to her.

"Shane, don’t you want to know?" She pulled his hand down to below her knee, rubbing his palm on the rough outline of her cast.

He kissed her on the nose, "not here, tell me in private."

She slid around the booth, flushed with excitement, "I have some Polaroids of the casting." He didn’t have to ask her about that detail, he already knew the routine.

They walked back to the elevators, where Callie put in a call to the Nurses’ Station to let them know that she had found Mr.Orsini, then asked for the latest information on Tara. He held the elevator doors open for her as she finished on the phone, returning it to its niche on the wall.

"Well?" In the garish lighting of the elevator his eyes appeared almost black. Callie gripped the metal railing as they throttled upward three floors.

When the doors opened again she accepted his arm, looking about for any attendants. "She’s in with Dr.Neumann now; he’s new, you don’t know him. It could be awhile, he’s very methodical, very thorough. I think they were expecting more swelling. Eleutha couldn’t stop calling her "poor little lamb," so I guess she’s been fighting back some tears. Wish I could work you into the room but Neumann is a stickler for protocol."

Shane didn’t reply. He didn’t need to, anyone who had followed his series through the Caribbean would remember volatile personality of "Saba," the young scuba guide he had met in the bar, her swollen ankle propped up on a bag of ice. Without any real explanation the character of Saba never really went away after that, she remained at his side, hobbling on crutches from her broken ankle, his partner from one misadventure to the next.

She may have been agile as a fish underwater in her scuba gear but on dry land there were few things she didn’t fall over or collide into. Some of her mishaps Shane had exaggerated for comic effect and he wanted the reader think that her lack of poise was the result of infatuation, inflamed by her self-consciousness around him, rather than natural clumsiness. The harder she tried to appear aloof and grown-up the more likely it was that he would describe her bumping into some unsmiling Official, or knocking some antique off its podium, or accidentally stepping on some old matron’s foot with her crutch. He never anticipated that his creation, Saba, would become such a large part of the series’ success, but her unpredictable tears and little jealousies made for a nice human contrast to his own spare, reserved writing style and tone. She made him seem not only real, but desirable.

His editor congratulated him for his inspired "surprise" and it got him a photo bio and blurb in People Magazine, for the second time in his career; mostly on the strength of what he hadn’t discussed in his articles. It was just assumed Saba, shown in her skin-tight wetsuit, had found a way into his heart, amongst others things, and it gave Shane the writer a sexiness, lifting him from the run of freelancers to that of the "lucky bastard."

As they turned the corner of the hallway Callie produced a key from the pink rubber spiral on her wrist, turning on the light as she entered the small office. "Remember Jeanne Lowicki? She’s out on maternity leave so they’ve given me some of her desk duties until I can return to the floor. Nice, huh?"

The room barely qualified as an office and Lowicki rarely used it, preferring patient contact to the increasing mountain of paperwork for nurses associated with the computerization of healthcare and the new guidelines concerning privacy issues. "You always did have the right friends," he teased her offhandedly, sitting on the edge of the desk, amongst the piles of print-outs, folders, opened and unopened mail. "So, did Neumann suggest this deal?"

Callie settled into the large, padded armchair opposite him and swung back and forth, pivoting gently on her heel while she balanced her casted leg atop of the good one. "Whatever are you implying, dear?" Callie had her dark reddish hair pulled back in a heavy ponytail. He watched her tuck the stray curls behind her ears.

Shane removed his jacket, one of his older leather bomber jackets, and stretched to hang it from the doorknob, locking it for insurance. "My guess is he’s the new resident, probably also newly separated or divorced, no kids; and since the affair with you is still in that hot stage he’s found a tidy way of keeping you around during those long, long shift hours he’s got." Shane folded his arms across his chest, "and," he added lazily, "he’s the one who did your cast."

Callie remained calm, returning his sly look, though her coloring had pinked up again. "Not the first cast, Shane, but he did oversee this one, after the surgery." She carefully opened the top drawer to the desk and found a manilla envelope, handing the Polaroid photographs to him, several at a time. "We had one of those full-moon incidents with a patient, she actually followed me out to the underground garage. Tackled me onto the cement; cracked my ankle here," she lifted the hem of her pantleg, indicating the side of what would be her ankle, "but I was beeping David like crazy, thumping her on the head and yelling until he and Security found me on H level. They hauled her off me before any real damage happened. To her head that is; I was effing mad with pain."

Callie put her hands behind her head, elbows out, still gently rocking back and forth in the armchair. She had moved her casted leg and foot over to where his legs were and began rubbing the inside of his leg, just above the ankle.

Shane raised his eyebrows, with a mocking, "David?" then bent down and moved her casted leg to rest in his lap. He pushed the pantleg upward, the skin of his fingertips tingling at the feel of the fiberglass texture underneath. He wanted very much to pull the sock off her foot.

"Dr.Neumann to you," she answered with a grin. "Can’t believe you missed that one, Sherlock." She lowered her arms, her hands running over her breasts under her pale lavender tunic, before she slowly unzipped it.

Shane rolled the sock down inch by inch as he watched her unzip the tunic. "I still read you like a book." He curled the sock over the tip of her toes and dropped it to the floor, his thumbs caressing the back of her soft, somewhat moist toes. He pushed his thumb through the big toe and the second toe, and kept it there, easing it in and out with subtlety.

"Oh," she gasped, struggling to not betray the waves of heat that his touch generated, "I gave it away the second I said his name."

He enjoyed her attempt to stay in control and scratched her skin under the stockinette. A moan half-escaped her and she fidgeted in the chair. He leaned down and kissed the top of her bared toes, the unruly hairs of his mustache adding to her jumpiness. "Is it serious?"

Callie dropped the tunic to one side as she undid the hook in the front of her bra, her breasts slid out of the silky cups, the deep pink nipples hardening in the air conditioned room. "For now; we’re still in that so-called ‘hot stage’ so it seems more serious than it is. Keeping it hot enough for me is going to be the challenge for David, as you know."

Shane wet his finger and slid it between her toes, making her weak with another moan; he nibbled on the back of them, breathing deeply, she still smelled the same, it reminded him of the herbal shower gel she used, the slippery sudsiness of the froth. "Voracious little cunt …" he said, grinning, and lowered her foot to caress his massive, aching erection. He saw her color spike; using coarse language had always titillated Callie.

"You should talk…" she gasped as she wiggled back and forth, sliding her pants down over her hips and letting him first pull them off her casted leg, then the other leg.

His thumbs hooked the lacy trim of her panties and yanked them down next; he buried his face in her soft reddish hair, kissing and tonguing the outer lips, planting a serious and tender long kiss on the wet area around her clit. He stood up suddenly, removing his shirt. "You mean I should know."

He turned off the bright overhead light, preferring to see her half naked body lit from the side, a perfect cone of pale orange light thrown by the adjustable desk lamp. It made her breasts seem larger, made her hair glow deeper, like copper wire. He stepped close enough for her to unzip his pants, roughly pulling them down over his hips, releasing the fullness of his penis with an odd bounce, like the proverbial man shot out of a cannon. She laughed in her throat, looking at him as she cupped her hands about the head, tense with eagerness. It was too quiet, they could hear each other’s labored breathing.

"No boxers?" she asked, adding "you slut" just loud enough for him to hear. She spread her hands, exposing the large head of his penis, and licked it; sometimes dragging her tongue over it’s oozing tip, sometimes darting her stiffened pink tongue about the two meaty halves. Her fingers interlaced about his shaft and pulled down on the skin till it was almost painfully taut, exposing the upper three inches to her deepest sucking, raking the head along the roof of her mouth before ramming him further down her throat. He shivered, in a violent spasm from the back of his eyeballs to the soles of his feet, and let his chin sink down to his chest.

Callie twisted her head from side to side, changed her rhythm and depth of her sucking stroke, not wanting to bring him off too soon. He reached for her swinging breasts, cupping them from underneath, his palms full. She liked it when he flat-palmed over her nipples, it excited her to feel him so close yet not be handled.

With effort he stepped back, disengaging from her arms and kisses, deftly stripping down till he stood before her completely in the nude. He let her hands wander over his abdomen, to his heavy balls, while he considered which position he wanted her in; the casted leg wasn’t the problem, it was the tiny size of the room. They couldn’t lay down, or he couldn’t, and the desk was covered with trays and folders and computer paraphernalia. It would have to be the chair.

He pulled her up from the armchair so she was standing in front of him and cupped her face, to kiss sweetly, one last time before the serious fucking started. Callie remembered this maneuver with sudden heat; she threw her arms around his neck and held onto to him as her weight fell against him, kissing and biting whatever she could reach. He dragged his nails down her bare back until he felt the tight band of her pants down at her hips. She let him roll her pants down her thighs, enjoying all the wandering squeezes and kneading to her butt, the fullness of which made his dick throb; he needed this now. She stood on her good leg so he could pull her pants off completely, leaving her in a simple white thong, her reddish hairs curling around the elastic trim. His fingers slipped under the thong from both directions, pulling her pussy lips apart and teasing her by rolling them between his fingers, loving the crinkly feel of the hairs between his fingertips. She too was stroking him hard, drawing him out longer and longer, making the head bounce up and down onto her palm like a tennis ball hitting a racquet. He groaned and pushed the papers and pen holders off the desk with the swipe of his arm.

Callie tried to stop him but he picked her up and laid her on her side along the edge of the desk, he was going to penetrate on the angle, her good leg bent at the knee, gripped in his hand. He stepped as close to the edge of the desk as he could and pulled her to the same edge. He almost forgot the condom, his three-pack stashed within the zippered pocket of his jacket. He preferred non-latex, it had a slick friction and didn’t cause any adverse reactions in women. He gave her the small foil envelope, enjoying her near frantic effort to tear the packet open, watching her roll it down the head of his penis, which never quite managed to reach the base of his shaft. With jittery fingers Callie guided him just to the wet target of her pussy before hitching her leg over his forearm so he could drive straight in till he rubbed her raw with his balls.

They both felt it, a huge impossibility. He wanted to drive and explode, she wanted hours of stroking, of being filled and teased and losing him, of having her butt squeezed hard as he buried his massive dick inside her pussy. He felt a light perspiration misting over his skin as he worked her deep, sometimes only pulling out a fraction because the angle was so good, the head of his penis barely inside her soft walls yet mashing and bullying its way deeper. She started calling out to him, demanding he go deeper, fuck her harder, dammit; really pack her till she couldn’t tell where he began or ended inside of her.

Shane withdrew a moment, enough to pull her upright, hands under her butt cheeks, and dig his nails into the flesh as he sank completely into her pussy. Her legs went round his back, the casted one resting on the good one, and she arched backwards, catching herself, hands planted firmly on the desk behind her. He went for it now, head nodding, eyes closed, heaving his meat to the hilt, only pulling out an inch before ramming into her again. She took the pounding, her whole body shaking with impact, her breasts swinging outward in sharp, staccato jerks. He was coming; her cunt tensed with his engorgement, all her muscles gripping his shaft, the head as it burst in waves of slick cum. It gave her a thrill unique to other kinds of orgasm, this deep knowing, the feeling that went with all his mounting tension that battered her inside then peaked like a hang-glider as it sailed into some nether world. It was as if she could share his orgasm with him, the shuddering of his penis that made her just as weak and jellied-kneed. She loved the feeling, the flood of heat, the breathless scramble to twist and rock together, ensnared in the fury of his fucking motions.

She drew his body to her, letting him pump the last of the load, becoming protective of him in this state. It was so unusual to see him like this, off-kilter, incoherent, flat-out exhausted, so endearing that it made her almost gentle. Almost, but not quite. With his forehead nestled hard against her collarbone she stroked the wet hairs curling at the back of his neck. She kissed his eyelids, murmuring something like baby-talk. It roused him for a moment and he let her kiss him and nibble on his ear lobes. He was wiped and she had her typical new rush of erotic needs.

He arched his back, though still in her arms. When he could focus again she smiled at him, eyes bright with a sudden anger, "damn you Shane, I wanted it in the butt."

Shane started to protest, then caught the edge of her curving smile. "Wah, wah, wah," he mocked. "You’re such a bitch, Callie." He grabbed her hand at the wrist, before it could playfully smack him in the head, and turned it in his grip hard, making her eyes widen. "Behave or I won’t drive you home tonight."

Callie demeured, knowing when to concede a point. She’d get what she wanted later; for now, it was time to get dressed and find out how the patient was doing.