Man Cave, page 1
Man Cave
On A Manhunt
Book 3
Vanessa Vale
Man Cave by Vanessa Vale
Copyright © 2023 by Bridger Media
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the products of the author's imagination and used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from both authors, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
* * *
Cover design: Sarah Hansen/Okay Creations
Cover graphic: Marishiav/Shutterstock
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Epilogue
Bonus Content
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Also By Vanessa Vale
About Vanessa Vale
Life’s not simple. Neither is love.
* * *
I’m twenty-four, and ahem… inexperienced.
When a blind date doesn’t change that status, Theo volunteers for the task.
Who’s Theo? Just the guy I’ve been crushing on for six months. Yeah, him. Tall, broad and handsome and gah, now he’s even got a beard!
He’s diligent. Very focused. Skilled. And impossible not to fall for.
Except he’s only up for a fun time. A wild romp or two.
No way would he have any romantic interest in someone like me. Why would he? He’s an intense, brooding doctor—and, oh yeah, a billionaire—and I’m a goofy first grade teacher barely making ends meet.
When my goal changes from man-made O’s to the man himself, I know I’m in trouble.
Because he’s no longer a crush, but someone I might actually love.
* * *
With all the books in the On A Manhunt series, it’s always open season on men.
1
THEO
* * *
I’d been at the job three hours and I was already having second thoughts. Not about Hunter Valley. The town was cool as shit. I’d visited before since Maverick pretty much moved his ass up here because of a work project… then a woman project. And Dex, who had a Hunter Valley woman project of his own but was settled in Denver with her.
There wasn’t a woman messing with my life.
I’d done that all by myself. Maybe I should have visited Family Health Services before I quit being a trauma surgeon and accepted the role as family physician. Over the phone. It was like buying a boat sight unseen only to arrive at the marina and discover it was barely afloat.
The medical practice wasn’t sinking. I was.
Over the weekend, I’d switched from an eighty-hour a week trauma surgeon to Monday through Friday, plus every other Saturday morning general practitioner. It wasn’t the extra free time that was an adjustment, although that was something to get used to. It was the patients. So far this morning I’d treated a man for chlamydia, handing him not only a prescription for antibiotics but some condom samples. After that, I pulled an eraser out of a six-year-old’s ear and performed a newborn baby well-check.
“Doing okay?” Verna Jeffries asked, holding out a mug filled with steaming coffee over the check in counter as I walked by.
I slung my stethoscope around my neck and eagerly snagged it, mentally blessing her practical nature.
I scanned the waiting area–which was currently empty–as I took a sip. The practice was in a converted old house in the historic downtown area. The entry was the original family room, fireplace and all. The bedrooms had been converted into exam rooms. My office, which I shared with Dr. Jeffries–Verna’s husband–was the old den.
This place was a long way from the hospital’s clinical interior.
“Good coffee,” I said, pleasantly surprised. The brew at the hospital in Denver was mostly a HAZMAT situation except for the ICU break room, which I frequented–used to frequent–way more than a surgeon based in the ER should.
“I get the beans from Steaming Hotties.”
I knew the place because Mav wore its damned pink t-shirt often enough.
“To answer your question, yes. Doing okay. So far, so good,” I replied, inwardly sighing. No one had died anyway, which was a distinct possibility of my old job.
But was treating sexually transmitted diseases the escape I really wanted?
I had enough money. I could quit entirely. Buy a boat that floated and sail the seven seas.
She laughed. Her dark eyes were filled with humor, although I expected it was at my expense. From what she told me this morning when she handed me the first batch of insurance paperwork, that she was a grandmother of three, liked to snowshoe and had the best sourdough starter in town.
I had no idea what the last meant, so I’d only nodded when she’d overshared. Or maybe she regular-shared and I was used to non-sharing. My previous co-workers didn’t have lives outside of the hospital, like me, so we didn’t have much to talk about besides tricky cases.
“It’ll take some getting used to,” I added diplomatically.
“Getting used to what?” she wondered. “Seeing this many patients in a day?”
On the computerized schedule I had twelve patients plus a one-hour window for call-in urgent visits like kids with unplanned ear infections.
I shook my head. “Having patients be conscious.”
Because patients sedated and prepped for surgery didn’t tell me their quirks and talents. If they did have chlamydia, it was the least of their worries.
With a head cock, she eyed me, as if giving me some kind of her own swift assessment, just like I gave to every patient when entering an exam room.
“I think you’re going to find all your patients awake. Except for the babies. Those you might want asleep.”
I considered the one I’d just seen, who’d been blissfully asleep except when he got an immunization and nodded. “Wise words.”
Her head tipped the other way, down the hall. “Your eleven o’clock is in room one. Annual. London’s probably done with vitals.”
Verna held out her hand and I gave the coffee back, eyeing it wistfully.
“I’ll take care of it,” she said, as if I was dropping a child off at the first day of kindergarten instead of being separated from caffeine for thirty minutes.
London, the efficient and knowledgeable nurse, came out of the exam room. She handed me the open laptop. “She’s ready for you. Since it’s her annual, I have everything set out ready to go. Just stick your head out when you’re ready to do the exam and I’ll come back.”
Annual. Annual.
Gynecologic annual. Not a cardiology annual or sports physical annual.
The newborn I saw earlier was… different for me. I hadn’t held a baby in years. Couldn’t remember the last time.
A woman’s breasts and vagina I was well acquainted with, in a personal setting, not a professional one. Not since my OB/GYN rotation during residency and that had been for only a few weeks.
I was a doctor. I saw bodies all the time. This was clinical. Completely clinical. The woman wasn’t imminently dying from a car accident or fall. Easy. Get in, get out. Literally.
I knocked on the door, opened it and entered, glancing at the name on the patient record on the laptop screen.
Mallory Mornay.
“Miss Mornay, I’m Dr. James and I understand you’re here for your–”
My words dropped off when I finally lifted my gaze to the woman who sat on the exam table.
Mallory Mornay. I said the na
Not Mallory Mornay, the random woman who was here for a woman’s annual reproductive health screening.
This was Mallory. Mallory.
Bridget’s best friend Mallory, who was outgoing, vivacious, and extroverted. Sexy and bold. Hot as hell and the woman I dreamed about fucking ever since I first met her in July. She was a goodie-goodie first grade teacher and I always wanted to dirty her up. Do filthy things to her. With her.
And she was sitting here in a paper gown, ready to part her legs nice and wide.
And not in the way I’d been imagining in the shower as I rubbed one out. Fuck. FUCK!
2
MALLORY
* * *
Oh my God.
Oh.
My.
God. No… gosh.
I shifted on the exam table and the paper beneath my bare butt crinkled. So did the ridiculous gown I was wearing.
Theo James just came in the door of my woman’s appointment. With a beard on his rugged face that he hadn’t had the last time I saw him. That was just unfair.
Theo James.
And he was the doctor. Who was going to look at my vagina. Literally sit on a stool between my spread legs with a light shining on it. He was going to put his fingers in it.
God, was my wax okay? I shaved my legs, but did I use enough lotion? I didn’t want to have alligator scale calves. Oh crap, I kept my rubber ducky socks on because it was pet week at school. If socks weren't bad enough, what about all my nooks and crannies? Were they normal? Was one side bigger than the other for all women? What about inside? How was it supposed to look? Was he going to peek and run away? Or worse, laugh?
I wanted to have a hot and sexy vagina. Pussy. Whatever Lindy wrote in her romance books. But when I looked at mine with a handheld mirror, it didn’t look hot. Maybe mine was–
“Mallory?”
His deep voice had me blinking. Sh–sugar.
I gave him a wide smile. “Sorry. Um, what are you doing here?”
“Dr. Robinson retired. I’ve taken her place.”
Dr. Robinson retired? Just like that?
“Here? I mean, now? I mean…” I closed my eyes because I felt like a moron. Of course Theo worked here. Now. He didn’t wear a stethoscope around his neck–which was really flipping sexy–and walk into a woman’s health exam willy-nilly.
Did he?
He came all the way into the room, set the laptop down on the counter across from me, then leaned against it.
I’d seen him in casual clothes before. The three times I’d seen him. Yes, I was counting. The first time was in the wallpaper photo on Mav’s laptop. The second, at my brother Arlo’s bar the week Bridget met Mav. And the third, the night I went to Mav’s–and Bridget’s–place for barbeque and he was just… there for an impromptu visit. Every time he’d been casual in jeans. Now? He had on a white doctor coat over a pair of khakis and a white dress shirt. He even had on a tie.
A tie! I squirmed on the table.
Crinkle!
Gah. Sit still, Mal!
The tie did it for me, but so did the doctor’s coat. So did everything about him. One look at his photo back in July and I’d told Bridget I was going to marry him. Yes, I was crazy. Yes, I lusted after him. Why? I had no idea.
Every time we met, he was quiet and broody. Intense. Totally not my type. Except my ovaries popped out an egg every time I breathed in his dark man scent. Was it cologne or body wash? And my vagina, it got wet. Very wet. Like Slip and Slide on a hot summer day kind of wet.
Which meant…
Squirm. Crinkle.
I was wet now. Naked beneath a gown. And he was going to find out.
Did other women get wet for their doctor? Did he–or she–discover it when they did the exam? Wait, how many vaginas had he examined before… as a doctor? I was suddenly jealous and freaked. Maybe mine wasn’t on the same vagina league as the others. I was short and curvy. Some gorgeous women, all willowy and tall, had to have an equally gorgeous vagina.
She had to.
What did I know? I’d never done this before!
“Mallory?”
I startled and met his dark gaze. “Yes. Hi, Theo. I mean, Dr. James.”
The corner of his mouth tipped up. “Theo’s fine, unless you’d be more comfortable calling me Dr. James in this setting. You’re here for a gynecological exam. I know this is a small town and everyone seems to know everyone else.”
“Just like this, right?”
It was possible the corner of his mouth quirked a little more, but I couldn’t be sure.
“Exactly. I’m sure I’ll meet many people I will treat at the grocery store or a restaurant. But this is different. You’re different.”
You’re different.
My heart leapt and I clasped my hands in my lap with secret glee. Except he didn’t mean it as praise. He didn’t mean it as You’re different from every woman I’ve ever met, and I haven’t stopped thinking about you or wanting to fuck you so hard you forget your name.
“You mean because I’m Bridget’s friend and she’s all hot and heavy with your brother. Then there’s Lindy, who’s more a mom to me than my own, with your other brother,” I clarified, bringing myself back to reality.
He nodded. “I can reschedule you and have Dr. Jeffries do your exam if you’d feel more comfortable.”
He was the other doctor in the practice, but I’d never seen him except one time when I was nine and had strep. He was nice, but he was old. Well, probably not old, but not young. And a man. A nice man, but a man. I always stuck with Dr. Robinson, a woman. Until now.
Theo was rejecting me. Did he not want to see my vagina? All of a sudden, I wasn’t doubting my vagina, I was proud of it. Mine was as good as any other woman’s! I was going to stand up for my lady parts. He was a doctor and I needed birth control. Just because I avoided all male doctors until now didn’t prove I was hot for Theo. I admitted–and had told Bridget for months–that I lusted after him and wanted to marry him.
It didn’t mean we couldn’t behave in a patient/doctor manner. Right?
“If you don’t treat women who are Bridget’s friends, you’re going to lose a lot of business,” I advised.
He nodded. “Probably true. If you’re comfortable with me… with the visit, then we will proceed. The nurse will be in the room during the exam, but first we can go over your health, any questions or concerns you have. Do you still want me?”
I swallowed. Gosh, this was hell.
Of course I still wanted him.
Between my thighs.
Fu–dge! If there ever was a be careful what you wish for situation, this was it.
3
THEO
* * *
I watched her squirm, then that pert little chin tipped up.
“It’s fine.”
“Good. This will be just like your last exam, so no surprises. Except me, I guess.”
She bit her lip and glanced at the tray with the supplies. “I, um… I’ve never had one of these exams before.”
I grabbed the laptop again, tucked it into my left forearm and scrolled through her records. “You’re twenty—”
