Page 1 of Unscripted Love

“Ineed to tell you something, Kyle. I should’ve told you months ago,” I said, staring into his deep blue eyes that reminded me of the Pacific Ocean in Josh’s honeymoon photos. I’d never seen water that color, or eyes for that matter. In fact, his irises were so dark that across the room you might mistake them for brown. I was used to seeing laughter, compassion, and toe-curling desire in Kyle’s bottomless blue eyes, but that night I saw frustration, hurt, and even a little wariness until he realized I planned to come clean with him.

“You can tell me anything,” Kyle said earnestly, or so I thought. It was hard to judge his tone when we were shouting over the music that blared through the speakers at Josh and Gabe’s Halloween party. Helookedearnest and sincere at least. “I won’t like you any less.” Damn, I had hoped that was true, but I wasn’t holding my breath.

It was easy for Kyle to say that without knowing my secret. I couldn’t hide the truth from him another day. It was tearing me up inside and destroying any chance I had with him. I took a calming breath, stood on my tiptoes, and pressed my mouth to his ear because what I had to say was intended for him only. I had an uncanny ability to humiliate myself by blurting things out at the worst possible time, which Kyle was all too familiar with by then. With my luck, the music would’ve come to a screeching halt had I chosen to say my confession out loud. I whispered two words in his ear that I knew would get an immediate reaction out of him.

Kyle jerked back and looked into my eyes with a fierce expression that made me nervous. I’d never seen that look from him and I wasn’t sure what it meant for me—for us. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. Kyle inhaled deeply through flared nostrils like he was working to calm himself. I expected him to yell, or walk away from me, but never would I have guessed that he would toss me over his shoulder caveman style and carry me out of the party.

“What are you doing?” I squealed in alarm.

“Not a word out of you,” Kyle said sharply. The slap to my leather-clad ass that followed was even sharper.

Maybe it was because I was too stunned to heed his command, or maybe it was because I liked the way my ass tingled from where he slapped it, but I didn’t listen. “Where are you taking me?” I demanded to know.

Slap!Hello!

“I’m taking you somewhere we can hash this out in private,” Kyle said. “I can’t believe you, Chaz.” He didn’t sound at all happy with me, and I worried that Kyle’s assurance that he wouldn’t like me any less were nothing more than empty words. How could henotthink less of me?

There are times in your life where you wonder how the hell you’ve landed yourself in a situation. Tossed over the back of Kyle’s shoulder while he stomped out the front door of our friends’ house was one of them. It didn’t take much reflection for me to realize exactly how I got there.

A year earlier…

“What’s wrong with Harry?” Dr. Vaughn, aka Dr. Dimples, Dr. Do Me, and Dr. D, asked me.Harry? No, I manscape to within an inch of my life. No wild bush with hairy man berries here!Dr. Vaughn narrowed his eyes and leaned toward me a little bit. I moved back in surprise causing him to chuckle. “Stay still a second,” he said, “you have something in the corner of your eye.”

Dr. Vaughn cupped the left side of my face in his big, strong hand and gently worked something loose from my right eye. Hand to God I thought I was going to faint right then and there. I prayed hard that the trembling I felt was internal because I was nowhere close to being in the guy’s league. I saw the kind of man he had dated, and I didn’t measure up—probably in more ways than one. In fact, I’d just seen him flirting with his ex-boyfriend in the damn lobby. I couldn’t blame him for wanting to climb the hunky detective, but I had a feeling that ship had long sailed. Detective Wyatt had his eyes set on my best friend Josh, who tried really hard to hide his mutual attraction to the man.

“There,” Dr. Vaughn said. He held his finger up to show me the eyelash he’d worked free from the corner of my eye. “Aren’t you supposed to make a wish and blow on it?”

Do me, Dr. Dimples. Do me, Dr. Dimples.“Are we still talking about the eyelash?” I asked. I felt my face flame red with embarrassment when I realized what I’d said. Dr. Vaughn’s eyes widened as if maybe he imagined my lips wrapped around his cock, but that was probably wishful thinking on my part.

“Uhhh,” the normally unflappable man said.

For the life of me, I don’t know what made me do it. Perhaps it was his blown pupils or the racing pulse at his neck, but I wrapped my hand around his wrist and lowered my lips until they hovered over his finger with the eyelash. I kept my eyes locked on his while I gently blew on his long… digit. Dr. Vaughn swallowed hard then broke eye contact long enough to look down at his finger. A wide smile had bloomed across his face before he said, “Looks like you need to blow a little harder.”

Sure enough, my eyelash dangled from the tip of his finger. That little bastard was clinging to the sexy vet for dear life. Dr. Vaughn cocked his eyebrow as if he dared me to do it again and I surely couldn’t back down after the stunt I pulled. I formed my mouth into the cutest little pucker I could and…

Meow.The painful plea coming from the cat carrier pulled us both back to reality. What kind of cat dad forgot about his baby’s misery when the hunky vet walked into the room?This one!

“I love that your hairless cat is named Harry,” the good doctor said, humor lacing his voice. “I appreciate a sarcastic sense of humor. Kind of like the two-hundred-pound Saint Bernard named Tiny I saw earlier today.”

“Well, I’m funny at least,” I said because I wasn’t sure what else to say. I’d made a fool of myself, which was nothing new, but on a much grander scale than normal. It was time to get things back under control. “I noticed that Harry wasn’t using his litter box as frequently and today I saw blood in his urine.” Harry meowed again as if he weighed in on the situation. “He sounds like he’s in a lot of pain.”

“It sounds like a urinary tract infection. Let’s take a look,” Dr. Vaughn said, opening the door to the cat carrier. Harry walked to him willingly like he knew help was imminent. He meowed pitifully, earning an extra ear scratch from the vet. “I love how smooth he feels.”

Yeah, I couldn’t keep my mind from going there. I had something smooth Dr. Vaughn could pet.“He’s… um, great.” My voice broke a little when Dr. Vaughn slid his hand beneath Harry to examine his abdomen.

“His bladder feels hard and contracted,” he said. “We’ll take some x-rays to make sure he doesn’t have any blockages in his bladder, draw some blood for tests, and hopefully Molly can coax the little guy into giving up a urine sample.”

“I brought some with me,” I replied. “Harry started peeing outside his box, which was how I saw the blood. I grabbed the first thing that came to mind to get a sample.” I pulled a small mason jar out of my pocket and handed it to him. “I don’t want the jar back.”

“I bet not,” Dr. Vaughn said. “Well, hang tight in here for a few minutes while I borrow Harry to get his lab work started. The blood test will take a little longer to come back, but the urine test results will be immediate. Hopefully, we’re just looking at a UTI that we can resolve with medication and changes to his diet.”

“Okay,” I told him. I worried my bottom lip between my teeth the entire time they were gone. Luckily, it didn’t take too long for Dr. Vaughn to come back into the room and confirm the diagnosis.

“Terry is filling his prescription now, so it won’t be long before you can take him home.” Dr. Vaughn handed my cat back to me. Harry looked up at me with big eyes that pleaded with me to hand him back to the good doctor.

I kissed Harry’s smooth forehead then smiled up at Dr. Vaughn in relief. “Thank you, Dr. Vaughn.”

“Kyle,” he said.