“What about our deal?” I asked.
She froze, hand hovering, then turned toward me. “You think that still matters?”
“I think I can still train you, and you can still help me.”
“So I’m supposed to put up with that Tippett guy threatening me?”
“I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head. “I can try to stop that. We can go to the admins about it maybe, but I’m not sure they’ll believe it, or if they do, I doubt they’ll do anything about it.”
“What am I supposed to do, Piers?”
I moved toward her. The office suddenly felt so tiny. When I first moved into it, I thought it was a palace. I never had an office before, and this was all mine, and felt like the biggest place in the whole world.
Now though, it was tiny, and there was barely enough room for the both of us.
She stepped back once, and bumped up against the door. She stared at me, mouth hanging open—those pretty lips, her small white teeth showing.
I walked right up in front of her and put one hand above her shoulder, leaning against the door, trapping her there. I took the coffee cup from her hand and placed it down on a filing cabinet. She let me without arguing—without resistance.
“I don’t know yet,” I said softly, and reached up with my other hand to touch her cheek. “I’m sorry he did that to you. Believe me, I never wanted you involved in all this.”
“If I could go back and stop myself from going into that cafe, I would.”
“It doesn’t matter. He would’ve gotten to you one way or another, and maybe it was better you got it done with.”
“Tell me what you want from me.”
Her eyes stared into mine, pleading for something—but it had nothing to do with our problem, with the hospital, with any Tippett.
It had to do with me and her.
I leaned forward and brushed my lips against hers. She sucked in a little breath, and I heard a small growl in her throat. I felt my stomach flip as I moved closer, body against hers, my right hand moving to her hip, my left on her chin, before I kissed her, deep and slow.
She pushed herself against me and returned that kiss, sucking in a breath through her nose.
Her taste sent a trail of fireworks along my lips. Her hip bone was smooth and hard against my palm, her skin gorgeous, dimpled and downy. I tightened my grip, slid my tongue along hers—tasted cherries, and blossoms, and old paperback pages—and held that kiss as my left hand moved up her top. I teased her breasts, as a dizzying sensation hit my head, her firm, round breasts, and I could feel her nipples through the fabric. She moaned into my kiss, moving her hips, and I got a flash of her naked, sitting on my legs, legs spread, sliding down my hard—
And another flash, of getting caught.
I broke off the kiss suddenly, my hand still up her top, my other hand on her hip. I leaned my forehead against hers and breathed for a second, trying to get myself together, and she didn’t move.
“Should we stop?” she asked, whispering, and that tone nearly killed me.
That tone, that pleading tone, like she wanted the answer to be no.
“I don’t want to.”
“I don’t either.”
I slid my hand away from her breast and released her hip. “But we should.”
She exhaled, like she’d been holding it for hours. “You’re probably right. It only complicates things, right?” Her smile was almost bitter.
“I don’t want you to get dragged down with me.”
“You might not have a choice in that.”
I knew she was right, and that nearly killed me. “I’ll still try.”
She shook her head, turned, opened the door, and left. Her coffee cup was left behind, still sitting on the cabinet.
I returned to my desk and stared at the papers.
15
Lori
Sometimes, at the end of the day, my feet hurt so badly that all I wanted to do was sit down and dunk my toes in ice. Especially after multiple different procedures: my knees, my lower back, everything aches after twelve hours on my feet, moving around in short bursts, then stuck in one spot staring over Piers’s shoulder.
He never seemed to get tired. We’d do endless procedures, then move from patient room to patient room, and he’d never once show his exhaustion. I knew he felt it, but he was better at hiding it than I was, or maybe he was just built in an entirely different way. He drank coffee after coffee and never once complained.
I learned to keep my discomfort to myself early on. He didn’t want to hear it, and I couldn’t blame him. “Whatever you feel right now, picture how your patients feel,” he said to me one evening as we went into yet another long surgery. “Imagine how they come into this place, hoping to get out again. Some of them can barely function, and we need to be strong for them, stronger than other people.”