Kendall Ryan - Hard to Love

BY KENDALL RYAN

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published by Kendall Ryan Books 2014

First published in Great Britain by Harper 2015

Copyright © Kendall Ryan 2014

Cover photograph © Tom Merton / Gallery Stock

Cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2015

Kendall Ryan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9781481042444

Ebook Edition © April 2015 ISBN: 9780008134037

Version 2015-04-13

Contents

Cover

Title Page Hard to Love BY KENDALL RYAN

Copyright Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk First published by Kendall Ryan Books 2014 First published in Great Britain by Harper 2015 Copyright © Kendall Ryan 2014 Cover photograph © Tom Merton / Gallery Stock Cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2015 Kendall Ryan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9781481042444 Ebook Edition © April 2015 ISBN: 9780008134037 Version 2015-04-13

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

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

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Cade

Dammit . I knew a four-hour erection wasn’t normal. I shifted uncomfortably in the cab of my truck and debated what to do. The emergency clinic was open twenty-four hours so that wasn’t the problem. It was embarrassment over my condition that had me stalling in the parking lot. But damn, this thing was fucking painful. I tugged on my jeans, trying to create some room and adjusted my erection yet again.

Fuck it. I was going inside.

I stalked across the dimly lit parking lot, trying to walk as normally as possible, but each step tested my sanity.

When I reached the reception desk, an elderly woman looked up and asked if she could help me with something. I struggled to keep a straight face while I explained my problem. She thrust a clipboard of forms at me with a dour expression, not wanting to hear another word. I headed to the waiting room, holding the clipboard in front of my groin.

To make matters worse, Rick, the director I’d been working with on the set, came barging into the emergency room to join me in the waiting area, saying he wasn’t about to let one of his actors go through this alone. Just fucking g reat .

Once I turned in the paperwork, I focused on thinking about anything that would tame this monster of a hard-on. The Chicago Bears, how much I hated hospitals —anything non-sexual. Nothing helped. It was full-on throbbing by the time they called me back thirty minutes later.

I had hoped for a male doctor, so we could handle this man-to-man, but as I stepped behind the curtained room and saw a young female nurse waiting for me, all my hopes went up in smoke. Rick followed me inside the small room and positioned himself in the corner to observe. I was convinced he was here for the sole purpose of having a good laugh.

The nurse glanced at me, her eyes widened and her breathing hitched. She looked young, too young to be a nurse, and was pretty in an innocent, sweet way that I didn’t normally go for.

‘Hello. Caden Ellis?’ she asked. Her voice was soft and laced with concern.

It took me a second to respond. ‘Cade.’

‘Please have a seat.’ She gestured to the white-paper-covered exam table and began flipping through my chart. ‘My name’s Alexa. I’m a nursing student and I’ll be assisting the doctor tonight. Do you mind if I ask you a few simple questions before we move on to the hard stuff?’ Her eyes shifted nervously to my lap, and I couldn’t help but grin.

‘Sure.’

She nodded astutely. ‘Fine, then. Let’s begin.’ She sat down on the rolling stool beside me and wheeled herself closer. ‘Your weight?’

‘Two-ten.’

‘Height?’

‘Six-one.’

She scribbled it down on her file. ‘And your age?’

‘Twenty-two.’

She bit back a smile, though I didn’t really know why.

Her hair was somewhere between blonde and brown, and she had large blue eyes that matched the color of a crystal-clear sky. She was petite yet shapely, nicely filling out her blue hospital scrubs with curves in all the right places. She had a full rosebud mouth and a small upturned nose, and even in her work uniform she looked polished and put together – giving the impression she’d been raised to be poised and proper. A far cry from how I grew up.

She finished the forms and busied herself with the medical equipment to check my vitals. Even though her presence was professional, it did nothing to help weaken my erection. In fact, I think my damn cock became even harder just to taunt me.

She placed a stethoscope over my heart and listened for several moments before jotting down a few notes. I watched her work, a smile tugging on my lips.

‘So, Cade.’ She smiled up at me with straight, white teeth while she attached a blood-pressure cuff to my bicep. ‘What seems to be the problem?’

Fuck . She was going to make me say it. ‘It’s there…’ I tapped the clipboard she held. ‘On the forms I filled out in the waiting room…’

She looked down, a frown tugging at her mouth. ‘Yes. I see that. But if you could just please explain… um, how this happened. Is this the first time, you’ve, um…experienced this?’