It’s an excuse that would make most people back off, but Julian is not most people.
“You’ll be alone starting tomorrow,” he says. “It seems like right after you get discharged from an emergency room isn’t the best time to seek solitude. You’re not a dying bird, Sean.”
“No, I’m a very much alive and fully autonomous human woman,” I insist. “And while I appreciate your help today, I don’t have to accept your charity just because you’re offering it, Julian.”
“Charity?” Julian repeats, gobsmacked. “This isn’t charity, Sean. This is me trying to feel a little less useless than I did all night. I’m being selfish, and right now what I want is to take care of you a little. So just let me do that.”
He sounds dejected, like a puppy denied a belly rub, and I feel my hackles lower.
“Why is this such a big deal to you, Julian?” I ask softly. “Why does it matter so much?”
Color rises to Julian’s cheeks instantly. It’s subtle under his golden undertones—a bronze shift—but so abrupt that it makes me blush too.
Oh.Oh.
He raises a hand to cover his mouth as if to hide what his face has already revealed.
“You are so much crueler than you look,” he mumbles.
My head is buzzing. I feel like I’ve just downed my fourth cup of coffee and am reaching for the fifth. I want, no,needJulian to say what he is implying out loud. Need it more than the air I breathe. Except I’ve stopped doing that too. Catching myself, I inhale in a gasp, and Julian’s brow furrows in concern.
“See? You aren’t well,” he says. “I’m being serious, Sean. Please. Promise me you’ll take it easy today.”
Distantly, I know that I’m still being chastised. But from this close, Julian is too overwhelming, and I can’t react with the contrition he expects.
“What will happen if I don’t?” I say. “Will you tie me down, Mr. Conrad?”
The shift in the mood is instant. Once the suggestion is spoken, I can’t shake the image of Julian’s hands around my wrists, holding them above my head, of ties and cuffs and ropes that keep me immobile and at his mercy. It’s not something I’ve ever wanted before, if anything found a little distressing, but with this man? My thighs clench, trying to scratch an itch I shouldn’t reach.
Julian’s eyes flicker to my lap, catching the movement, and then his hand snakes behind my neck, quick as a viper strike, and grips just hard enough to tilt my head back.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” he whispers, his mouth hovering so close above mine that I can feel the words form.
I’m not quite sure what sound I make, if it is an affirmative hum or a plaintive sigh, but what I do know is that the second I do, Julian rushes to indulge me. There’s an inelegance to this kiss, a clash of tongues that makes me feel like I am being consumed, and my world narrows to the scratch of his stubble against my chin, the iron, inescapable press of his fist in my hair. He isn’t touching me, not really, there’s too much in the way, IV lines and side rails, but the surging heat of his body courses the short distance between us and floods me with warmth. His free hand shifts to my jaw,squeezes, and I pop open to his command like a burst plum.
This man, I know, will be the death of me. Under his grasp, I forget everything—that I might be getting him sick again, that we arein an emergency room with nothing but curtains for privacy, that we could be interrupted at any moment. It’s the duality of his control, I think, how quickly he vacillates from a restrained Dr. Jekyll to a ravenous Mr. Hyde, that carries me beyond reason. When he moans into my mouth, my sole thought is how I can get him closer, how I can maneuver my body around in this narrow gurney to press it against his. I don’t wonder about whether the neighboring patient will hear us. I certainly don’t ask myself why that succession of beeps is getting louder—
“Is everything okay in—oh, comeon, guys.”
Mortified, I tear away from Julian and turn to find Deb, my nurse, looking disapprovingly down at us. My ears pop, and suddenly the beeping that had seemed distant is blaring loud; it takes me a second to realize it is my monitor, reporting to everyone in the emergency department that my heart is hammering away at a hundred and twenty beats per minute.
I’ve been on the other end of this exact situation before—running in to rescue a patient from a suspiciously elevated heart rate that turns out to be a much needed, erm, release. Those stories always make the rounds in a unit, and I know the one Julian and I just made will be juicy: a local cardiologist getting frisky in the emergency department with her hot young thing.
Julian, for his part, seems unbothered. He unfurls himself slowly, then wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Sorry,” he says casually, as if he’d been caught poking around the supply closet and not making out with her patient.
“Well, I guess that’s as good a sign as any that you’re ready for discharge,” Deb says. Then she jabs a thumb over her shoulder. “All right, Romeo. Out.”
She watches Julian like a hawk as he grabs his blazer from whereit’s draped across his chair, tosses it over his shoulder, and ambles out of the room. The second he’s out of sight, Deb’s mouth screws up in amusement.
“Now, I know you know that wasn’t appropriate,” she says. “But I can’t say I wouldn’t do the same.”
The laughter that bursts from my chest is mostly relief. Deb is the kind of old-school nurse who reminds me of my aunties, steady and stern and commanding respect, and I’m glad that I haven’t disappointed her. When she rounds my bed to remove my IV, I hoist myself up until my legs dangle off the edge.
“Yeah…” I say. “I, um, don’t normally do things like that. Sorry.”
Deb waves me off with one hand and peels away my bandage with the other.