He smirks. Resisting. Like he wants me to say it again. Like he wants me to lay hands on him and make him. And honestly, I’m not against it in the fantastical world my imagination lives in these days.
Mal’s stronger than me. Skilled. Trained. His body honed for battle. But I’d go down swinging, and I know I’d enjoy losing if it gave me more precious time this close to him.
Time I don’t have this morning.
I need him in my bed and I need togo, two things that shouldn’t co-exist in the same lifetime.
Mal blinks first. He relents, catching me off guard, and slips his leg under the sheets, the covers bunched at his waist as fatigue seems to sweep him again. “Fuck. Your bed is like a tranquilliser dart.”
I don’t want to know how he knows what a tranquilliser dart feels like. That means admitting I want to know everything about him, and I don’t. Ican’t. I reach over him, claim my phone from the windowsill, and stuff it in my pocket.
Mal inhales, a faint smirk lighting his tired features.
I roll my eyes. “Don’t sniff me, you fucking heathen.”
“You smell good.”
“Shut the fuck up.” It’s hard enough to leave him as it is. If he starts being cute, I’m fucked. “And stay hydrated today, okay? No more beer.”
Mal nods, hands twitching, as if he wants to reach for me again, and I make it easy for him. I step back, out of reach, almost groaning at the strain of not kissing him one last time.Just this oncehas turned into a fucked-up game ofjust one more, and it needs to fucking stop.
Weneed to stop.
Him.
Me.
Definitely me.
My back hits the door. I adjust, gripping the handle and opening it enough to slip through. I’m almost gone when he calls my name.
When he calls meSkyagain.
I turn back. “What?”
Mal has shifted onto his side, his eyes already hooded and soft. “You’re so fucking hot.”
His words are heavy, slurred almost, as though he doesn’t mean to say them, even inside his own head. And I know how that feels, because the next words that tumble from my own mouth are off the fucking wall.
“Yeah? Well you look good in my bed,Mal. Shame you’ll never be there again.”
I smile on the way to work, even through the traffic on the A-roads, and the roadworks I hit in Truro that add another half hour to my journey.
I’m not smiling by the time I get there. Mal hasn’t given me a lobotomy. But I’m in a good enough mood that even the prospect of gatekeeping A&E from the streaming desk doesn’t piss me off.
It pisses Marc off instead. “I need you in majors.”
“You always say that. What do you do when I’m not here?”
“Shout more.” Marc surveys the desk as I slide into my seat. “Where are the biscuits?”
I have no idea. But as luck has it, for Marc at least, I spot a packet tucked behind a pile of forms and hand them over.
He eats while I poke around on the computer, logging in to the admissions system, keeping an eye on the double doors that blast me with Cornish wind every time they open, regardless of the weather.
Marc puts the biscuits down, waylaid by another nurse needing his attention. I glance at the packet. They’re ones I like when I’m not tied in knots. And they’re not fucking white. Theyhave jam in them—Marc’s favourite. How the hell are there any left?
Kinda wish there weren’t. Avoidance is easier when people do it for me. I can’t get in my head about something that doesn’t exist.