This was what I did. I worked in a world of data, not feelings.
In the OR, people didn’t argue about mistakes from five years ago or how badly you’d fucked up someone’s life.
You just made hearts beat again.
And, yet—despite all that, I don’t have feelings bullshit—for some reason, ever since I saw Reggie again, my ticker was on overdrive.
CHAPTER 3
Reggie
Ihad a double shift, so I took a quick nap in the on-call room. I woke up when my alarm buzzed against the edge of the pillow.
I’d given myself twenty-five minutes. Any more than that, and I’d be groggy.
I sat up slowly, feeling the tightness in my shoulders. The fluorescent ceiling light flickered above, half-dimmed to save energy—or maybe to keep people from mistaking this room for anything remotely restful.
The Harper Memorial on-call room was like every other one I’d ever been to—some combination of beige, antiseptic, and forgotten. Two single beds were pushed against opposite walls, and thin hospital-issue blankets were tucked over them military-tight. A narrow metal locker stood in the corner, dented from years of abuse. There was a small side table between the beds with a Keurig that was on the fritz more often than not.
I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and sat there for a second, elbows on knees, head bowed. My badge lanyard hung around my neck, cool against my skin.
I needed a shower.
And coffee.
And maybe a whole new life.
Damn it! I was doing fine. I had been doing fine.
Were you?
God! Of all the cardiac departments in all the worlds, why the hell did he have to walk into mine?
Like it always did when I was too tired to block it out, the past crept in.
The on-call room in Boston had been almost identical—but everything had felt different back then. It had been newer. Or warmer. Or maybe it was justhim.
Elias used to find me there between shifts.
He’d tap his knuckles on the door, a half-smile playing on his lips, eyes still rimmed with fatigue from whatever marathon surgery he’d just come out of. We were always stealing time—twenty minutes here, a whispered joke there, a touch that lingered just a second too long.
I smiled when I thought about a time when, in another on-call room in Boston, he’d made me come so hard that I’d screamed his name into the void of our tangled sheets.
We’d been seeing each other for a couple of months. It was a Boston summer, the kind where theheat clung to your skin like a lover who refused to let go.
Elias had me in the on-call room, his body pressing mine into the wall with a hunger that made my knees buckle. His fingers tangled in my hair, pulling just enough to make me gasp, and then his lips were on mine, devouring me like I was the last thing he’d ever taste.
“Reggie,” he growled, his voice low and rough like gravel under bare skin, his hands hard on my body, so hard that they’d leave bruises.
I loved it, loved the way he marked me like I was his.
My scrubs were off, and panties were already soaked through. He didn’t waste time. His fingers hooked into the lace, tearing them off with a single yank.
I moaned, my head falling back against the wall as he dropped to his knees.
“Elias—” I started, but his tongue was on me before I could finish.
My legs trembled, and I clutched at his shoulders for balance as he buried his face between my thighs. His tongue was relentless, flicking over my clit in quick, dirty circles, then plunging deep inside me until I was whimpering, my hips rocking against his mouth. He was a fucking God down there, and I was his willing devotee.
