Orlando Frederick also happened to be a gorgeous specimen of a man and he unnerved me with the way he kept staring at me intently out of a striking pair of grayish blue eyes. He was watching me like I was a complicated math problem that he was trying to solve. I didn’t like being dissected and picked apart. I was used to being the one in the position of authority and command. So sitting there silently while my last shot at getting my life back decided if he was going to help me out or not wasn’t any fun, and it took every single shred of self-control I had not to fidget or twitch anxiously under that cool, unwavering gaze.
I decided to check him out in a different way than the detached and calculating way he seemed to be analyzing me. He was a redhead. Not a full-on orangey-red ginger, but his auburn hair leaned further on the red side than the brown, and it was cut in a fashionable style that was super short on the sides and much longer on top. He had a paler complexion than I normally found attractive, and he had freckles that dotted the bridge of his nose. Who knew freckles could be so sexy? Rusty eyebrows arched elegantly over eyes the color of a mountain stream and while all of that should have made him seem wholesome and approachable, it had the opposite effect. All of those distinct and elegant features combined made him seem way more refined and sophisticated than the men I typically found myself interested in.
He was dressed in a black polo shirt with his clinic’s logo on it and when he stood up to shake my hand, I noticed he was an inch or so taller than me but built along far leaner and longer lines. He was in great shape, I figured he would have to be, considering his job, and he made me feel bulky and clumsy as he guided the way into his office. He seemed like he was built for speed and flash, whereas I was built to take a beating and keep on going. There wasn’t a hint of sophistication or refinement about me, and I liked it that way. It made fitting in with the guys on the force slightly easier. They all knew I was gay, but I went out of my way to make it a nonissue.
After an initial question-and-answer session, where he quizzed me about the accident, the subsequent injuries and what kind of physical therapy I had been doing up to this point, he lapsed into silence, where we just spent a good five minutes staring at one another. I was waiting for him to tell me there was nothing he could do. That’s what the doctors said. That’s what the physical therapist at the hospital said. That’s what the orthopedic surgeon said after my last surgery. I was always going to have a limp, and my shoulder was always going to be stiff, making my movements stiff and hampered. Neither of those things was acceptable when you chased bad guys around for a living.
He reached out and shut the medical file in front of him and leaned back in his chair. His eyebrows arched up, and he laced his fingers together and put his index fingers under his chin.
“What exactly are you after, Mr. Voss?” His voice was smooth and modulated. I was a disaster, a bundle of nerves and anxiety, and this dude was acting like we were talking about the weather, not my entire life and everything I had ever worked my ass off for.
Defiantly I spread my legs apart and slumped back in the chair across from him, making it a point to affect a posture that was as casual as his was professional. I had on a faded DPD T-shirt and a pair of jeans with a hole in the knee, and both were a little baggy since I’d lost some of my bulk being laid up in the hospital after the accident. If the guy across from me was a cherry-red Ferrari, then I was a rusted-out and battered John Deere tractor in comparison.
“I want my life back, Mr. Frederick. I want to be able to move the way I used to. I want to pass the department physical so I can go back on patrol. I want to be able to walk without needing a crutch or a cane. I want to be the way I was before I got hurt.” I was asking for the impossible and I knew it. “And please call me Dom.”
He dipped his chin down a little, and the edge of his mouth tilted up in a slight grin. Damn the man was good-looking. I blew out a breath and lifted up my hands to run them over the top of my shorn hair. I was hanging on to my sanity by a thread and my unexpected reaction to the guy that I was hanging every hope I had left on wasn’t helping matters.