He was half-naked when I walked in.
Locker open. Shirt already off. Pants nowhere in sight. He stood in nothing but fitted charcoal boxer-briefs, barefoot on cold tile, one hand braced casually against the metal shelf like changing in front of interns was just part of his routine.
I stopped short in the doorway.
“Oh—sorry,” I said, throat catching. “I can come back.”
He didn’t even glance at me.
“Don’t bother,” he said, voice flat. “You’re already here.”
I hesitated, but he kept talking—unbothered, mid-change, like my presence was irrelevant.
“You’re Larkin, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Intern?”
“First overnight.”
“Right,” he said, still half-turned, rummaging through the locker with one hand. “Here’s how this works. I move fast. I don’t repeat myself. If I ask you something, answer. If I give you something, take it. If I make a call, trust it.”
He found a folded pair of scrub pants and shook them out, still in just his underwear.
I tried not to look.
Failed.
His back was all lean muscle and sharp lines, the kind that didn’t come from a gym but from months of bad posture and bending over patients. His thighs—thick, defined, covered in soft hair—flexed as he stepped into the scrub bottoms. But he didn’t pull them up. Not yet. Just let them hang open at his hips, the waistband slack, his briefs still fully visible.
And yeah—there was a lot to see.
The bulge was impossible to ignore. Full, heavy-looking, resting left of center in the kind of soft fabric that offered no plausible deniability. Not obscene, but obvious. Thick. Dense. Like it had presence.
I looked away. Then back again.
Was he showing off? Or just that indifferent?
“Don’t interrupt me in front of a patient,” he said, pulling the pants up slow and tying the drawstring. “Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to. Don’t get in the way. And if you faint, you’re on your own.”
He grabbed a scrub top and tugged it on over his head, smoothing it down with both palms. His stomach vanished beneath the fabric, but the image of it lingered—tight, real, traced with the barest outline of muscle and the kind of body that wasn’t built for show, just… built.
He turned to me for the first time.
Eyes dark. Jaw sharp. Hair still wet, shoved back like he hadn’t bothered to dry it. He looked like the kind of man who didn’t need sleep, just caffeine and forward momentum.
“I don’t do orientation,” he said. “You’ve read the handbook. You’ve earned the coat. Now keep up.”
He handed me a chart on his way out the door. No further explanation. No introduction.
Just that name I already knew from every whispered story I’d heard since I stepped into this hospital.
Dr. Graham Foster.
Fourth-year. Fast-tracked. Rumor-wrapped.
And for the next twelve hours, mine.
Foster didn’t walk like a resident. He walked like someone who knew exactly where he was going and expected the rest of the world to move out of his way.
I followed him down the corridor, trying to match his pace without looking like I was trying. He didn’t speak as we passed the nurse’s station, didn’t explain the route or the patients or the plan. Just grabbed the first chart off the counter, glanced at the notes, and turned toward the patient’s room like it was already handled.
Inside, he barely paused before flipping on the overhead light. The patient stirred—a middle-aged man, post-op, shallow breathing, vitals stable but edging toward concerning. Foster didn’t blink.
“Vitals?” he asked.
I checked the monitor. “Heart rate’s climbing. BP’s soft.”
“Assessment?”
I hesitated, running through the numbers in my head. “Could be early hypovolemia. Labs say hematocrit’s dropping.”
“Plan?”
“Fluids. Type and cross just in case.”
He looked at me then—briefly. A single, evaluating glance. Not praise. Not criticism. Just the way someone checks to see if a machine is doing what it’s supposed to do.
“Good,” he said.
He stepped up to the bed and pulled back the sheet, then reached for the patient’s wrist to check the pulse himself. I watched the way his fingers moved—precise, minimal pressure, just enough to get what he needed.
His sleeves were pushed to his elbows. The veins in his forearms stood out against the fluorescent light. There was a small scar across one knuckle. I wondered, stupidly, if it was from work or something else.
“Make a note,” he said, already halfway to the door. “Trend labs, reassess in an hour. We’ll swing back if he dips.”
I scribbled as I followed him out.
That was how the next hour went. Room to room. Short, clipped commands. Brief assessments. He moved fast, but cleanly. Everything he did had intention. I could see how he had a reputation—how the nurses rolled their eyes when he passed but still updated him first. He didn’t apologize for the pace. Or the tone. Or the fact that he hadn’t used my first name once.
He didn’t need to.
I was watching him. Every step. Every shift of weight. Every line of tension in his shoulders when something on a chart didn’t line up. There was a sharpness to him—something constantly calibrating under the surface. He didn’t miss much. But he didn’t overexplain, either. He expected you to keep up.
At one point, I stepped in ahead of him to present a case. He stood just behind my shoulder, close enough that I could feel his presence without ever touching. I heard his breath, even. Measured. Focused.
“Fluid status?” he asked.
“Borderline. Mucous membranes are dry. Skin turgor’s delayed.”
He waited half a second. “Diagnosis?”
“Possible intra-abdominal bleed. Could be post-surgical, could be unrelated.”
“And?”
“And I’d order a fast scan. Prep for transfusion depending on output.”
A pause.
Then: “Okay.”
That was it. Just okay. But it landed heavier than it should have. Like I’d passed a test I didn’t know he was giving.
We moved on.
And I kept watching.
Not because I was uncertain.
But because I wanted to understand what made him feel so untouchable.
It happened somewhere between GI and general surgery.
We’d just stepped into the room. Elderly male, post-op, history of adhesions and complications. The moment Foster leaned in to check the abdominal distension, the patient turned his head and vomited with no warning—one deep, wet convulsion that hit the floor, the edge of the bed, Foster’s shoulder, and most of my chest.
There was a beat of silence. No one moved.
Then Foster calmly stepped back, peeled off his gloves, and said, “Okay. Showers.”
He didn’t wait for me to respond. Just turned and walked out of the room like this was the third time it had happened this week.
The staff locker room was down a side hallway, marked with a keypad and a metal door that stuck halfway open. I followed Foster through without a word, the stench of vomit still clinging to my scrubs like heat. My stomach had stopped turning. My skin hadn’t.
Foster moved without commentary. He headed to his locker, pulled it open, and yanked off his soiled scrub top in one practiced motion. I glanced away automatically—but too late. His bare chest flashed in the corner of my vision, lean and lightly dusted with hair, marked by the sharp outlines of someone who didn’t skip stairs.
I turned toward the row of lockers opposite his, trying to find one open. Trying to focus on anything else. But the space was small, and Foster wasn’t quiet.
I heard the soft thud of his shoes hitting the floor. Then the whisper-slide of elastic as he pushed down his scrub pants.
When I turned—just to ask if we had clean clothes stashed anywhere—he was standing in nothing but boxer-briefs. Dark. Damp at the hem from where the vomit had splashed. He didn’t meet my eyes. Just peeled them off like it didn’t matter.
And then—
I saw it.
Not all of him. Not yet.
But enough.
He stepped out of the briefs in one motion, bending slightly, balanced with one hand against the locker. And for a second—long enough to register, not long enough to be polite—I saw the full length of him.
His cock hung thick and low, curved slightly left, darker at the tip. Uncut. Heavy, even soft. The kind of size that wasn’t exaggerated, just… undeniable. A quiet fact with its own gravity.
I didn’t mean to look.
But I did.
I blinked. Looked away. Then back again—just to be sure I’d really seen it. Just to commit the shape to memory, because I knew I wouldn’t get another glimpse.
He didn’t notice.
Or maybe he did, and didn’t care.
He walked toward the shower stalls like he wasn’t leaving a trail of steam and silence in his wake. The backs of his thighs were cut with muscle. His ass flexed slightly as he moved—tight, covered in hair, just enough to remind me he was real, not some manicured fantasy.
He didn’t glance back.
He just stepped into one of the open stalls and turned on the water.
Hot. Loud. No curtain. No apology.
I stood frozen, one hand still on my locker door, breath tight in my throat.
And in my head, on repeat:
Jesus fucking Christ.
The door to the showers swung half-shut behind him. Steam was already curling past the frame.
I stood in the locker room a second longer, hand still clutched around the edge of the open door, the smell of vomit sinking deeper into my skin, my collar, my hair. But I wasn’t thinking about the smell anymore.
I was thinking about him.
About what I’d just seen.
That flash of skin. That curve. The sheer fucking weight of it.
Not a fantasy. Not some imagined half-glimpse through a towel or a fogged mirror. This was real. A man, fully nude, walking away like none of it meant anything.
Except I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
The kind of thing you don’t forget once you’ve seen it. The kind that does something to you.
My skin burned hotter than the water.
I stripped faster than I meant to. Pants. Shirt. Boxers. All of it into the bin like they’d betrayed me. Then I grabbed a towel off the wall and stepped through the threshold before I could talk myself out of it.
The shower room was all tile and echo—six open stalls with half-walls between them, enough for modesty but not for privacy. A line of small shelves for soap and cheap shampoo. Steam clung to the ceiling in slow, thick curls. The overhead light hummed like it had better things to do.
Foster was in the third stall from the end, his back to me, water cascading over his shoulders in clean, uninterrupted sheets. His head was tilted down, both hands braced against the wall, his spine curved just slightly—like he’d let go for the first time in hours. Not relaxed, exactly. Just not clenched.
The sight of him—again, still—hit me like a blow to the chest.
Everything about him looked effortless. Natural. His back was strong and lean, muscles moving beneath the skin as he shifted slightly. Hair clung to the nape of his neck. Water tracked down his arms, between his shoulder blades, over the curve of his ass and the backs of his thighs.
I took the far stall.
Not beside him. Not opposite. Just close enough that I could still hear the water hitting his skin.
My hands were shaking.
I turned the knobs. Hot water hissed out in a sharp burst, then softened as it warmed. I stood under it, eyes closed, hands braced against the wall, trying to breathe. Trying not to think about how hard I was already.
I didn’t even know when it happened.
Just that it had.
And I couldn’t get it under control.
Behind me, I heard the slick drag of soap in skin. The shift of feet. A soft grunt as he rolled out his shoulders.
Then his voice.
“Not your typical first night, huh?”
It cut through the steam like a scalpel. Casual. Even a little amused.
I blinked water from my eyes. “Not exactly.”
He didn’t say anything for a second. Just the sound of water. The echo of it hitting tile. I could still see the shadow of him beyond the divider—the blur of movement, the shape of his arm as he reached for the soap.
Then: “You froze up a little. Back there.”
I felt my pulse jump. “Didn’t expect a surprise like that.”
“No one does.” His voice had dropped slightly. Less teasing now. “But you handled it. Didn’t throw up. Didn’t bail. Most interns would’ve needed a stretcher.”
I let out a low breath. “High bar.”
“It is here.”
Another beat passed. Then: “You’ll get used to it.”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. My hand had drifted lower again without permission. The heat from the water, the sound of his voice, the image in my head—it was too much.
And it wasn’t just about the size. Not really.
It was the casualness of it. The unbothered exposure. The way he didn’t even register that someone might be watching him. Or maybe he did, and just didn’t care. Either way, it made something in me burn.
My fingers wrapped around myself under the water. I moved slow. Quiet.
This wasn’t for pleasure.
This was survival.
His voice came again, closer now. A change in tone.
“You good over there?”
I coughed. “Yeah. Just… warm in here.”
A pause.
Then, quieter: “You get used to that too.”
I bit the inside of my cheek to stay quiet. My hand tightened slightly, the motion kept low, hidden. My forehead pressed to the tile, hot water streaming down the back of my neck like it could wash the thought out of me.
It couldn’t.
I let out a breath. Stilled my hand.
Then—I turned.
Deliberate. Controlled.
I turned just far enough to see around the edge of the divider. My shoulder stayed tucked behind it, just in case. But my eyes—my eyes were on him.
Foster.
He hadn’t moved much. Still in his stall, head under the spray, one arm braced against the tile. He’d started soaping again—slow, methodical, like he was working through a checklist. Biceps flexing. Water dripping down the line of his spine. His hips tilted slightly back, one heel lifted, the weight shifting as he moved to rinse.
And his cock—Jesus.
Even soft, it was obscene. Not in a grotesque way, but in a way that made it real. A thick line of skin between his legs, swaying slightly with each shift of movement, resting heavy against the top of his thigh. Big without bragging. Just… there.
Unignorable.
I didn’t pretend not to look.
My hand moved again. This time not low. Not subtle.
I wrapped around myself fully, palm already wet, grip tight. The rush hit immediately—heat, yes, but more than that. Risk. The thrill of being this close, this brazen. Of jerking off to a man I’d spent the last four hours trying to impress. Of doing it while he stood five feet away, completely naked, completely unaware.
Or at least—acting like he was.
“Water’s decent tonight,” he said suddenly.
His voice cut through the steam like a slow blade.
I blinked. Kept my rhythm steady.
“Yeah,” I said. My voice didn’t crack. I didn’t stop. “Better than I expected.”
He huffed a quiet laugh, not turning. “Low bar. You should’ve seen it in March. It came out brown for a week.”
I bit down a moan. Turned it into a chuckle.
“Good to know.”
He lathered up again. I watched his hand drag across his chest, down his stomach, over the slight swell of his abs—all casual, all routine. Then lower.
He scrubbed between his thighs with mechanical efficiency, rinsed, and shook the water off. Everything about him was clean and practiced—just clinical enough to pretend this wasn’t personal.
But it was.
My breath came faster now, ragged at the edges. My fist worked tighter, timed to the sound of his voice, the rhythm of his rinse.
“You always this quiet?” he asked, rinsing the back of his neck. “Or am I just that charming?”
I swallowed hard.
“Just focused.”
Another pause. Another rinse.
“Focused on what?”
My eyes never left his body.
“Trying not to fuck up.”
He chuckled again—low, rough. It hit me in the spine.
“You’re doing fine,” he said. “You just don’t blink much.”
Neither do you, I thought.
I shifted my stance, leaned back slightly against the tile, and let myself chase it. Every flex of his thigh. Every twitch of his hand. Every echo of his voice bouncing off tile and skin.
It came on fast—heat coiled tight, breath catching behind my teeth, my hand working faster now, wrist tucked low, muscles locked tight to keep it quiet.
I looked straight at him when it happened.
When I came.
Mouth clamped shut. Eyes half-lidded. Every nerve in my body lit up like a warning flare.
It took everything in me not to say his name. Ropes of cum spilling from my cock getting caught in the steam of water going down the drain.
Instead, I gasped once—sharp and breathless—and let the water carry the rest away.
When I looked again, he was rinsing shampoo from his hair, eyes closed, head tilted back.
And I wondered—not for the first time—if he knew.
If he’d always known.
The locker room was still warm from the steam, quiet except for the low hum of overhead lights and the soft, rhythmic drip of a wet towel hitting tile. I stepped in wrapped in cotton, skin flushed from the heat and the aftershocks of something I hadn’t fully let go of. The room wasn’t spinning, but it wasn’t still either.
Foster was already there, standing in front of his locker with one foot braced against the bench, toweling off like he had somewhere better to be. His scrub pants lay folded beside him. His hair was pushed back, still dripping. The clean lines of his body were backlit by overhead fluorescents, every movement clean, casual, unhurried.
He didn’t look at me, didn’t acknowledge me beyond the faintest tilt of his head when I walked in. I nodded back—barely—and turned to the opposite row of lockers, grabbing the folded set of scrubs someone had dropped off while we were still under the water.
I moved slowly. Deliberately. Anything faster and I’d give myself away.
Behind me, I heard the soft snap of his towel hitting the laundry bin, followed by the shuffling rustle of fabric. Then—a pause.
“Shit,” Foster said under his breath.
I turned, just slightly, pretending to check the bench for socks. “What’s up?”
“That was my last clean pair,” he replied, and he said it like it was nothing, like he was talking about gloves or pens.
I didn’t ask. I didn’t need to. Because when I glanced—carefully, subtly, just enough to see—he was stepping into his scrub pants without putting on underwear. I watched the elastic drawstring slide across his hips, the fabric pulling taut across his ass, hanging a little looser than it should’ve over the front.
He adjusted the waistband and let it go with a snap.
“Guess I’m going commando,” he said. “Not the first time. Won’t be the last.”
There was no wink, no pause for effect. He said it like it was just part of the job—like it didn’t mean anything.
But it did.
Because I was looking. And he had to know that.
He reached for his scrub top next, tugging it on in one fluid motion. His skin was still pink from the heat, chest flushed in patches, the faint line of a surgical scar visible for half a second before it disappeared beneath the collar. He smoothed the fabric down his stomach, then clipped his badge to the neckline and grabbed his chart off the bench.
He moved like nothing had happened. Like he hadn’t just walked around fully naked in front of me. Like he hadn’t just told me—casually, offhandedly—that there was nothing between him and that thin pair of scrub pants.
I dressed in silence, trying to keep my breathing even. My own underwear felt damp, sticking uncomfortably to my skin in a way that reminded me of everything I was still pretending hadn’t happened.
By the time I tied my drawstring, Foster was already halfway to the door. He stopped at the threshold and looked back at me, one hand on the frame.
“Ten minutes until meds. We’ll circle back to ortho before rounds. You good?”
I nodded.
“Sure?”
His eyes held mine for a second longer than necessary. I didn’t blink.
“I’m good,” I said.
He didn’t smile. Just nodded once and disappeared down the hall.
I exhaled. Sat on the edge of the bench for a moment longer. Then I stood, grabbed the chart he’d left me, and followed him out.
My heart was still pounding.
Because now I knew exactly how he looked naked.
And now I knew—for the rest of the night—he wasn’t wearing anything underneath.
It was 3am by the time we hit the neuro floor, the overhead lights had dimmed to night mode, and most of the hospital felt like it had exhaled. Monitors beeped softly down the halls. The occasional burst of laughter echoed from the nurse’s station. You could feel the hour in your bones.
Foster moved a little slower now—not sloppy, just less sharp around the edges. He rolled his shoulder after every other doorway. Pinched the bridge of his nose between consults. The energy was still there, but it ran closer to the bottom of the tank.
We were outside room 514 when he handed me the chart.
“Post-craniotomy,” he said. “Three days out. Stable, routine check.”
I nodded. Read fast. Male, early fifties. Tumor resection. No complications listed. Slight elevation in blood pressure. Mild headache. Neuro checks mostly clean. But something… wasn’t right.
I felt it before I could name it.
We stepped inside. The room was low-lit, cold with A/C hum. The patient looked smaller than his age—sunken in the way sick men get when they’re too proud to ask for more blankets. He turned his head slowly when we entered, blinking up at us with watery eyes.
“Mr. Hines?” Foster said, stepping in. “Just doing a quick check. How’s the pain?”
“It’s… manageable,” the man murmured. “Head’s tight, though. Like a band. Can’t tell if it’s swelling or just the pillow.”
Foster smiled—that short, efficient thing he did when he didn’t want to give false reassurance.
“We’ll take a look,” he said. He ran through the basics—pupils, reflexes, orientation—all within range. Chart to bedside matched up.
But I was still watching. And I saw it. When Foster turned to check the IV bag, the patient’s left eye drifted slightly. Not lazy—just a moment of lag. A fraction of a second behind the other.
Cranial nerve palsy? Maybe. Maybe nothing.
But I filed it. Noted it. Cross-referenced it with the post-op notes. It hadn’t been there yesterday.
Foster was talking. “I’ll have someone come swap out your meds. You’ll feel better by morning.”
He made a note in the chart, then looked to me. Expecting confirmation. Expecting me to nod and move on.
But instead, I stepped forward.
“Sir, can I ask you to follow my finger?”
Foster didn’t stop me. Just watched.
I raised my hand, tracked my finger left to right, up and down. The right eye followed easily. The left—delayed again. Slight drift on vertical motion. Slow recovery.
I kept my voice calm.
“There’s a delay in the left ocular response,” I said. “Not major. But new.”
Foster stepped closer. He repeated the test himself. Same result.
“We’ll page neuro for a scan,” he said finally, writing faster now. “Could be minor edema. Or something else.”
The patient murmured something like a thank you. We offered reassurance and stepped out.
In the hallway, it was quiet again. Just the soft rustle of charts, shoe soles, machines humming behind closed doors.
Foster didn’t speak right away. He flipped the chart shut and held it loosely at his side. His gaze drifted somewhere over my shoulder, his jaw tight, unreadable.
“You saw it before I did,” he said finally.
I shrugged. “Just happened to be looking at the right time.”
“You picked it up fast.”
He wasn’t smiling, but there was something in his voice I hadn’t heard before. Not warmth. Not pride. Something quieter. Recognition.
“It wasn’t in the earlier notes,” I said, trying to keep my tone flat. “If it was new, I figured it was worth flagging.”
“You figured right.” He paused. “Good catch.”
I felt heat rise in my chest. I didn’t say thank you. Just nodded once.
Foster started walking again, slow and quiet down the hall, and I moved to follow.
“Don’t get used to that, by the way,” he added, not turning around.
“Used to what?”
“That tone.”
I smirked.
The code rang out overhead just past 3:00 a.m.
“Code Blue. Cardiac. Room 447. Code Blue, Room 447.”
Foster didn’t pause. He pivoted like a blade, chart forgotten on the desk, and took off down the hall at a pace that wasn’t quite running but close enough to make me chase him. My legs were moving before I had time to think. No words passed between us. There didn’t need to be any. We got to the stairwell taking them two at a time one floor down.
When we arrived, the room was already chaos.
Monitors were screeching. The patient—a post-CABG male in his sixties—lay pale and unresponsive in the bed. A nurse was bagging. Another was trying to get the bed rail down to begin compressions. An RT was prepping oxygen tubing near the wall outlet, hands shaking but moving fast.
“Unresponsive, no pulse,” one of the nurses said as we entered. “Found him slumped during hourly check.”
Foster took charge instantly.
“Quinn, start compressions,” he ordered. “Teresa—push one liter of oxygen via bag. Amy, get me the defib pads and place leads. RT, prep intubation but hold until we’re clear.”
I was already climbing onto the step stool, hands laced, arms locked. My weight dropped straight into the patient’s sternum. One, two, three, four—deep, even compressions at a rate of one-ten per minute. My palms ached, but I didn’t stop.
“Pads on,” Amy said, working fast. “Monitor connected.”
“Confirming V-fib,” Foster called. “Charging to 200 joules. Get ready to shock.”
“Epinephrine?” Teresa asked from the crash cart.
“Draw one milligram epi. IV push,” Foster responded, eyes on the monitor.
“Epi drawn,” she confirmed. “Ready on your call.”
“Quinn, clear.”
I stepped back instantly. Hands off. Everyone pulled back.
“Clear,” Foster said. Amy repeated it. He pressed the shock button.
The patient’s body jolted violently on the mattress. The monitor snapped back to static V-fib.
“No change. Resume compressions,” Foster barked.
I was already there.
Teresa moved quickly, taking position at the IV port. “Pushing one milligram epinephrine now. Time of push: 03:12.”
Foster nodded. “Log it. Next rhythm check in two minutes. Continue CPR.”
The RT stepped in to assist with airway management, adjusting the mask seal and monitoring chest rise as Teresa bagged every six seconds. Foster hovered at the head of the bed, eyes constantly scanning—the monitor, the team, the clock.
We ran the algorithm again. Two more minutes of compressions. Another shock. Another dose of epi. Still V-fib.
“Next line: amiodarone, 300 milligrams IV,” Foster said. “Draw and prep.”
“Drawing,” Amy replied. “Charging defib again.”
My arms were starting to burn. I gritted my teeth and kept going. Sweat was collecting at the base of my neck, but my rhythm never broke.
“Charging to 300. Ready to shock,” Amy called.
Foster made eye contact with me, then nodded once.
“Clear,” he said.
We all pulled back. Another shock. Another jolt.
Then silence.
The line on the monitor stuttered. Then steadied.
“Sinus rhythm,” Amy said.
Foster checked the carotid.
“Pulse,” he confirmed. “Weak, but present.”
The oxygen saturation climbed steadily. Color returned to the patient’s face. The high-pitched tone of chaos began to recede into the low hum of post-code recovery. The nurses moved efficiently to stabilize him—fluids, labs, orders for a post-resus ECG and portable chest x-ray. The RT started prepping for transport to ICU.
Foster stepped back and finally peeled off his gloves. He looked exhausted. His hair was damp. His voice dropped low.
“Nice job, everyone. Let’s write him back into the system.”
We slipped out of the room just as the transport team arrived.
In the hallway, the quiet hit me like a wall. My chest heaved. My arms trembled from effort.
Foster leaned against the wall outside the room, arms crossed loosely, breathing hard.
“You good?” he asked.
I nodded. “Yeah. You?”
He nodded once, then glanced over at me with something unreadable in his eyes.
“We work well together,” he said.
It was neutral. Simple. Just a fact.
But it landed like more.
“Yeah,” I said. “We do.”
He didn’t smile, not really, but the corner of his mouth twitched like he might have, if he wasn’t still shaking off adrenaline.
He pushed off the wall and jerked his head toward the stairwell.
“Come on. We’ve earned five minutes.”
The door to the stairwell clicked shut behind us with a heavy, metallic finality. The sound echoed off the cinderblock walls like we’d stepped into a different building altogether. Everything was dim and still. Just the soft hum of the emergency light above us and the distant groan of old ventilation.
We didn’t speak at first.
Foster leaned back against the railing, one foot up on the stair behind him, arms crossed over his chest. His scrub top clung to him—damp at the collar, loose at the waist. His chest still rose fast, shallow, like he hadn’t quite come down from the code.
I leaned against the opposite wall. My pulse had finally slowed, but my palms were still slick.
Neither of us looked directly at the other. It didn’t feel like avoidance. It felt like control.
“That was clean,” he said eventually.
“Yeah,” I said. “It was.”
“Two rounds, one shock. That’s textbook.”
“And a little lucky.”
He scoffed lightly, still catching his breath. “Luck’s just protocol that hasn’t been tested yet.”
The silence returned, this time tighter. Not heavy. Just thick.
I glanced at him. His eyes were trained on the floor, lashes still wet from sweat. The light overhead cast a shadow across his jawline. He looked like something pulled from a film still—too composed for someone who’d just shocked a man back to life.
Then he looked up at me.
“You’re not just good,” he said. “You’re steady. You don’t flinch.”
“Neither do you.”
He laughed, just once. “You’d be surprised.”
There was a pause. A flicker of something that passed between us and then vanished.
I wanted to ask what that meant. Why he said it. If he meant me. But before I could speak, his pager chirped, loud and sharp in the confined space.
He glanced down. His expression didn’t change, but he straightened immediately, readjusting his stance like a soldier coming back to attention.
“Neuro attending,” he said. “Calling in.”
I watched him cross the stairwell in two steps and punch in the code to the hospital line. He turned slightly, shielding the call from me—not enough to hide, just habit.
“Foster,” he said into the receiver. A pause. Then, “Yes, sir… Right. Larkin’s call. We flagged the drift.”
He listened, nodding to himself, fingers tapping against the metal railing.
I watched his back—how still he stood, how quiet he’d gone. His posture had shifted again, almost imperceptibly, like something had clicked into place.
“Yes, I’ll tell him,” he said. “Appreciate the follow-up.”
He hung up. Turned back toward me.
“Neuro scanned him,” he said. “Early posterior edema compressing the third nerve. Would’ve worsened overnight. Possibly irreversible by morning.”
I blinked. “So we caught it just in time.”
“You caught it.”
He said it without ceremony. Just a fact. But it landed somewhere low and sharp in my chest.
He held my gaze for a second longer, then pushed the stairwell door open and stepped back into the hallway.
I followed.
I didn’t smile.
But I walked half a step closer than I had before.
We barely made it to the stairwell landing before the next page hit.
“Rapid response, Room 311. Post-op. Vitals unstable.”
Foster was already pulling the door open again, steps heavy and fast.
“Come on,” he said over his shoulder, and I followed, legs still humming from compressions, mouth dry.
Room 311 was a smaller room on the general surgical floor. Inside, the lights were already on. A patient in his forties was sitting up, sweat pouring down his face, breathing hard through an oxygen mask. A nurse stood at the foot of the bed, reading vitals from the monitor and clearly trying to keep calm.
“Blood pressure’s crashing,” she said as we entered. “Seventy over forty. Tachy at one-forty. His pain meds were just adjusted.”
“Which one?” Foster asked.
“Morphine, two milligrams, IV push.”
“Okay,” Foster said, stepping in, voice crisp and clear. “Larkin, get a second line in. Teresa, draw labs—CBC, CMP, lactate, and type and cross. He’s hypotensive, diaphoretic, altered—call for a bolus and prep norepi just in case.”
I moved to the patient’s side, grabbing gloves, tourniquet, and line setup. As I was slipping the catheter into his vein, I heard Foster call out the med order over his shoulder.
“Give him another two milligrams morphine for pain, then start fluids wide open.”
The nurse paused. “Repeat dose?”
I froze. Looked up.
“That’s not right,” I said quietly.
Foster turned to me, eyebrows raised. “What?”
I gestured to the chart still clipped to the IV pole. “Look at his renal panel from earlier. His GFR is borderline. Last dose tanked his pressure. If you give him two more now—”
I didn’t finish the sentence. I didn’t have to.
Foster stepped toward the chart, scanning quickly. Then he exhaled through his nose, sharp and quiet.
“Cancel that morphine,” he said. “We’ll switch to a low-dose fentanyl drip. Start at 25 micrograms an hour. Adjust fluids as needed.”
“Got it,” the nurse said, already moving.
The patient blinked up at me, eyes glassy. “What happened?”
“Just a little dip,” I said gently, adjusting the line. “We’re fixing it.”
Foster stood beside me, arms crossed, watching the monitors. I felt him glance at me once. Then again.
When the patient stabilized—still pale, but trending up—the room settled into the low hum of ongoing care. The nurses moved around us, clearing packaging, checking lines. I stripped off my gloves and reached for hand sanitizer.
Foster waited until the others had stepped out.
Then he looked at me—really looked.
“You just saved my ass.”
He said it flatly. No flourish. No smirk.
Twice in one night.
“I wasn’t trying to—”
“I know.” His voice was quiet now. “But you did.”
There was something in his face I hadn’t seen before. Not awe. Not vulnerability. Just… recognition. Like I’d moved from idea to fact in his mind. No longer potential. Just proven.
He shook his head slightly, more to himself than to me.
“I usually catch that stuff,” he said. “I pride myself on it.”
“You were thinking ahead. That’s all.”
He looked back at the monitor. “Still. You were right to speak up.”
He didn’t thank me. Not directly. But I felt it.
I followed him out of the room.
He didn’t walk ahead this time.
We walked side by side.
The on-call room was colder than I remembered, the kind of cold that sinks under skin and makes you wish the blankets were thicker. The fluorescents had been shut off this time. Just a single lamp buzzed in the corner, casting a gold wash over the walls.
Foster didn’t say anything when we stepped inside. He moved like he was sleepwalking—slow, loose at the joints, as if his body was still carrying tension it hadn’t figured out how to release.
He dropped onto the far bunk without changing clothes, his scrub top still damp with sweat and his drawstring barely tied. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and exhaled hard—one of those breaths that isn’t meant to be heard, but fills the whole room anyway.
I closed the door behind us and stood there for a second, unsure.
I’d never seen him like this.
He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t rattled. Just… quiet.
He ran a hand through his hair and kept it there, fingers tangled at the crown of his head. His back curved inward, and his shoulders rose toward his ears like he was trying to hold himself together from the top down.
“Should’ve caught it,” he said. Not to me. To the floor.
“You caught everything else.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
His voice was raw. Tired. Like it had been worn down to the last usable layer.
I took a slow step forward.
“You didn’t give the order,” I said gently. “You corrected it. The patient’s fine.”
“Because you said something.” He laughed under his breath. “Christ. You’re not even supposed to be here tonight. You’re a shadow.”
“Then consider me well-placed.”
He shook his head, still staring down. “You don’t get it. This isn’t just a near-miss. That dosage—that’s on me. If I hadn’t stopped, if the nurse hadn’t paused—”
“She did. You did. We’re not writing an incident report.”
“I would’ve.” His voice caught, just for a second. “If something had happened.”
I watched him breathe—shallow and fast, like he was trying to regulate it and couldn’t quite find the rhythm. His knuckles were pale where they gripped the edge of the mattress. His eyes stayed down.
So I sat on the edge of the bunk beside him.
Not touching. Not close. Just… there.
“You’ve been on your feet for what, fifteen hours?” I said. “You’ve saved three people tonight. You didn’t miss the diagnosis. You didn’t miss the code. You listened when I spoke up. That’s what matters.”
He didn’t answer.
He just let his hand drop from his head and rest between his knees. His shoulders didn’t fall, not really, but something in his posture softened. Just a little.
“I’m not supposed to be the one fucking up,” he said, voice low. “I’m the one who double-checks everyone else.”
“You’re still allowed to be human.”
He glanced sideways at that—just barely. His profile was sharp in the low light. Under his eyes: shadows. Under his voice: something heavier.
For a beat, he looked like he might say something else.
Then he said nothing.
I moved a little closer.
Not much.
Just enough that our legs brushed where our scrubs met. Just enough that if he needed to lean, I’d be there.
He didn’t.
But he didn’t move away, either.
I shifted my hand, slow and quiet, resting it on the edge of the mattress beside him. It wasn’t a reach, not really. More like a signal—a presence—in case he needed something to meet halfway.
For a moment, nothing happened. He stayed still, eyes cast forward, breathing steady but tight, like something in him was still unraveling one thread at a time.
Then his hand moved.
It dropped from his knee to the bed between us, palm down, fingers loose. He didn’t aim for mine, didn’t grab or hold—but the edge of his hand settled just close enough that our skin touched. Not a grip. Not a gesture. Just a brush. A line of heat between my knuckle and his.
I didn’t move.
Neither did he.
Our hands sat there on the bed—side by side, barely overlapping. The warmth of his skin against mine was impossibly loud. I felt the subtle flex of a tendon in his thumb when he exhaled. The shift of breath. The stillness between us thickening, settling.
Then he looked up.
So did I.
Our eyes met across that small distance, and for once, neither of us tried to control it. No banter. No shrug. Just a quiet recognition in the space between pulses.
The light from the lamp threw his face into soft contrast—dark around the eyes, golden across the cheekbones, the line of his jaw shadowed just enough to feel dangerous. He looked like someone who’d been fighting the urge to break all night.
And I looked at him like I might let him.
He kept looking at me—not like he was trying to figure anything out, but like he already had.
His eyes searched my face, not with hunger, but with certainty. Like he’d made peace with something hours ago and had just been waiting for the right silence to act on it.
I let my hand turn slightly, just enough for our palms to meet. His fingers curled under mine with a tension so light it almost didn’t register—but it was there. A tether. A choice.
My chest was tight. Not with nerves. With the unbearable weight of how much I wanted him to do something. Anything. And the terrifying hope that he might be about to.
He leaned in.
Barely.
Just enough that I felt the change in air pressure, the warmth of his breath against my cheek. He didn’t rush it. Didn’t close the gap all at once. He gave me every second I might need to step back, to shift away, to say not yet.
I didn’t.
So he kept going.
His forehead brushed mine first—a ghost of contact, barely more than a breath. I felt the shape of his hesitation, the moment he lingered, the pause that asked without words: this?
I let my head tilt into his, and that was enough.
When his lips met mine, it wasn’t eager or messy or cinematic. It was quiet.
Soft.
Just the press of one mouth to another, tender and slow, like neither of us wanted to break it—not from fear, but from reverence.
He kissed me like it mattered.
And I kissed him back like I’d been waiting to for hours.
Maybe longer.
The kiss lasted only a few seconds. Just enough for my heart to forget its rhythm and start again. When we pulled back, his eyes were still on mine, unreadable but open. Honest in a way he never let himself be during rounds or under fluorescents.
He didn’t speak.
He didn’t need to.
Because now it wasn’t a question anymore.
It was happening.
He didn’t kiss me again right away.
He pulled back just enough to look at me, his eyes still dark in the soft lamp-glow, searching for something he wasn’t putting into words. I didn’t ask. I just kept looking at him the way I couldn’t let myself before—like I wasn’t afraid of what I’d say without speaking.
I reached up, slow and steady, and pressed my hand against his chest, just over the center of his scrub top. His heart was beating fast. Not erratic—just alive. Present. Like mine.
The fabric was soft from wear, damp at the collar, warm from him.
He didn’t move.
So I let my hand slide down to the hem.
And I waited.
His breath hitched, barely. Then he nodded once.
I lifted the shirt slowly, inch by inch, the cotton dragging against his stomach, catching briefly at his ribs before I eased it over his head. He ducked forward to help. When it came free, he tossed it onto the floor, then sat back on the mattress like he hadn’t noticed the weight he’d just taken off.
I let myself look.
Really look.
His chest was cut with lean muscle—not sculpted, not performative, but lived-in. A faint line of hair trailed down from his sternum to the waistband of his scrub pants. His skin was flushed in places, his neck still pink where stress had held him too long. He had a few scattered freckles over his collarbones, a pale scar just below one nipple, and the kind of shoulders you only get from years of carrying too much.
He wasn’t beautiful in the fragile way people talk about beauty.
He was beautiful in the way gravity is beautiful. Quiet. Undeniable. Elemental.
I swallowed and reached for the hem of my own shirt, slower this time. He watched me as I pulled it up and over my head, his eyes tracking every inch like it mattered. Like I mattered.
When I dropped my shirt beside his, he shifted—just enough to touch me.
His hand came to my chest, palm flat, resting over the center like he needed to feel me breathing. Like he needed to confirm that this wasn’t imagined.
“Okay?” he asked.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
But it wasn’t just okay.
It was everything I hadn’t let myself want for years.
It was everything I hadn’t thought I could ask for—not here, not like this. And now it was real, sitting across from me on a thin mattress in a room built for exhaustion and silence, and suddenly it felt like the only thing that could hold me together.
“Graham,” I said, and it came out low. Raw. Not a plea. Not a warning. Just his name—full of everything I couldn’t unpack fast enough.
He leaned in again. This time slower. Deeper.
And when he kissed me, his hands came with him—steady and warm, sliding over my sides, up my back, down again to rest just above my hips. I shivered, not from cold but from being seen. Held. Unraveled.
There was no rush.
Just his mouth on mine, his skin under my fingers, the creak of the mattress beneath us as we shifted closer—chest to chest, skin to skin.
I wanted more.
But not fast.
Not yet.
I wanted every second of this.
Our chests pressed together, the heat of skin against skin nearly unbearable. Every breath was shared, every motion translated directly through contact. I could feel the shift of his ribs against mine, the faint tremor in his arm as he held himself up. His hands slid lower—not rushed, not testing, just deliberate—gliding along my waist, tracing the line of my hip bones, settling at the elastic of my scrub pants.
He stayed there, fingers resting, thumbs brushing beneath the waistband. The skin-to-skin contact sent a sharp pulse through my spine. I didn’t breathe. I didn’t move. I just let myself feel it—his presence, his weight, the warmth blooming between us.
Then he kissed me again, deeper than before. Less hesitant. Less exploratory. This time, he knew I wanted it. I kissed him back with a hunger I hadn’t known I’d been carrying, my mouth opening under his, my hand sliding to the back of his neck to pull him closer. He tasted like heat and salt and breath. Familiar already.
His hand moved—finally—dragging down the front of my pants. His palm pressed flat against me through the fabric, cupping me fully. I gasped into his mouth. His grip wasn’t rough, wasn’t fast, but it was firm. It was intentional. His fingers curved to fit me perfectly, tracing the outline through soft cotton, applying just enough pressure to drive me wild.
My hips reacted before I could stop them. I pressed into his hand, grinding gently against him, chasing the friction. I couldn’t help it—the heat was unbearable, and I had been aching for hours.
“You’ve been hard since the locker room,” he murmured, lips brushing my neck, his voice a quiet scrape. “I could feel it.”
The admission hit like a low, slow punch to the gut—not cruel, just devastatingly true.
“Yeah,” I breathed, not even pretending otherwise. “I haven’t stopped.”
He kissed the edge of my jaw, then down my throat, open-mouthed and slow, tongue tracing the skin just long enough to make me tremble. When he bit, just lightly, my whole body jolted.
His hand kept working me through my pants, slow and controlled, dragging fabric just enough to tease. I could feel how hard I was. I knew he could too. And still, he didn’t rush.
I reached for his waistband, my fingers curling into the knot of his drawstring. He stilled for just a second, our eyes locking, breath shared between us. I pulled. He smiled—not cocky, just present—and leaned back, just far enough to lift his hips and peel his pants down.
The fabric slid past his waist, over his thighs, and down his legs. He kicked them off, and suddenly he was completely bare in front of me. His cock hung thick and hard between us, flushed dark, the head full, the length of him curving slightly left. Heavy. Gorgeous. Almost too much to take in.
There was no pretense in him. No self-consciousness. He wasn’t showing off.
He didn’t have to.
I couldn’t look away. For a moment, all I could do was take him in—how he looked, how close we were, how badly I wanted him. He watched me watch him, and for once, he didn’t mask it. He let me see everything in his eyes. Want. Patience. Heat.
He reached for me next.
Together, we worked my pants down—my hands tugging from the front, his guiding from the sides. The elastic peeled away, and then I was bare too. My cock stood hard and heavy between us, swollen from hours of tension and all the things I hadn’t let myself feel until now.
When our bodies touched again—skin to skin, no barriers—the sensation was overwhelming. My breath caught. My whole body flushed. His thigh pressed between mine, our cocks brushing, sliding against each other as we adjusted, both of us trying to stay grounded in a moment that felt like it could lift off the bed and take us with it.
There was nothing left between us now. No fabric. No space. Just heat. Just hunger. Just the quiet, shared knowledge that this was happening—and that we both wanted every second of it.
When we finally settled against each other—hips aligned, chests pressed close, breath shared between mouths—I couldn’t stop staring at him.
I let my hand drift down, wrapping gently around the base of his cock, feeling the weight of it, the heat. He was hard as hell. Thicker than anyone I’d ever been with, the kind of size that made my stomach clench and my throat go dry.
“Jesus,” I whispered, half to myself. “You’re huge.”
Graham’s mouth curled into something that wasn’t quite a smile—more of a question, half-lidded and lazy, as he looked down at me.
“Is that gonna be a problem?”
The way he said it—low, steady, completely unbothered—hit me like a lightning strike.
I didn’t hesitate.
“Yeah,” I said, voice tight, shaking, hungry. “It will be… if you don’t put it inside me.”
That knocked the breath out of him. His expression flickered—barely—like I’d landed a hit he didn’t see coming. Then he exhaled, long and slow, and kissed me like I was the answer to something he hadn’t let himself ask.
He moved carefully, reaching back toward the low drawer behind the bunk, fingers groping through loose odds and ends—a spare phone charger, protein bars, crumpled packets of Tylenol—until he pulled out a half-empty travel bottle of lotion. Unscented. Institutional. The kind meant for dry hands during twelve-hour shifts, not this.
Still, it would do.
He clicked it open and squeezed some into his palm, rubbing it between his hands before wrapping his fingers around himself. The first slick motion made me swallow hard. The second made my eyes flutter shut.
He stroked himself slow and steady, coating the length of his cock with practiced, deliberate care. It wasn’t showy. It wasn’t a performance. It was just him getting ready—like every other procedure he’d done tonight. Except this time, it was for me.
By the time he was fully slick, my thighs had gone tense from holding still. I watched his hand pump once more from base to tip before he reached for me again.
He tossed the bottle aside and shifted over me, guiding my hips into place with both hands. His grip was steady, firm but not forcing. He moved like someone who’d done this before—not too many times to care, but enough to understand exactly what I’d need.
When he positioned the head of his cock against me, I almost forgot how to breathe.
The pressure was immediate—blunt, thick, demanding. My hands curled into the sheets beside me. Every part of my body lit up in anticipation.
“Tell me,” he said, voice low. “If it’s too much—”
“It’s not,” I whispered, already trembling. “Just go slow.”
He did.
The first inch was a stretch. Not pain—not quite—just pressure that pushed the edges of me wider than I’d been in a long time. My jaw went slack. My eyes rolled back. I could feel every breath in my chest like it was trying to leave me all at once.
He paused halfway in, watching me. His hands stayed tight on my hips, grounding me, holding me open. My thighs were shaking. My spine arched off the mattress, a low sound escaping my throat that didn’t sound like me.
“You’re okay,” he murmured, and I realized I believed him.
He pushed in further—inch by inch, slow and steady—and the burn gave way to heat, then to fullness, then to something beyond words.
By the time he was all the way in, I was shaking.
My head tipped back. My vision blurred.
I didn’t just feel stretched—I felt wrecked. Not from pain, but from the sheer intensity of it. Of having him inside me like that. All of him. Nothing between us.
I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t do anything but breathe.
He held still, deep inside, giving me time. One hand came to my thigh, the other to my chest, resting lightly just over my heart. I felt his fingers spread, then still. Felt the weight of him—not just his body, but the pressure, the presence, the absolute certainty of him.
“Relax,” he said, so quiet it was almost a whisper. “I’ve got you.”
The moment shattered something in me.
Not from pain. Not from pleasure.
From the unbearable relief of being held. Taken care of. Let in.
He pulled back and pushed in again—just slightly—and I gasped, full-bodied, my hands reaching blindly for his shoulders, for anything.
He kissed me once, hard and deep, and then started to move.
Slow. Controlled. Like he wanted to feel every inch.
And I did.
He started to thrust—slow at first, like he didn’t want to miss a single reaction, like he wanted to feel me respond in real time. And I did. Every thrust sent a ripple through my body, nerves sparking beneath skin, pleasure running the length of my spine like a live wire.
The first few were shallow, testing. His hips rocked into mine, the drag of him pulling out nearly made me sob, only to be filled again, full and hot, with just enough force to make my breath catch.
“Oh—fuck,” I gasped, head tipping back, throat exposed.
He exhaled hard through his nose. “Yeah. Just like that.”
The next thrust went deeper. Slower. My back arched off the mattress with the intensity of it. I could feel him everywhere—pressing into places that made my vision pulse, the stretch still bordering on too much, but I didn’t want him to stop. Not for a second.
“Shit,” he hissed, his voice tight now, ragged. “You feel—Jesus, you feel fucking incredible.”
I whimpered—I actually whimpered—because it was too much and not enough all at once.
Every time he pushed in, I clenched around him like I couldn’t help it, like my body was trying to keep him there. He was fucking me slowly, deeply, like he wanted to leave something behind, and every time he bottomed out, I moaned like I was the one coming undone.
His rhythm built—not fast, but relentless. Purposeful. The sound of skin meeting skin filled the room, slick and rhythmic, broken only by the catch in my breath or the low groan in his throat when I said his name.
“Graham—fuck—don’t stop.”
“Not planning to,” he growled against my ear.
He reached down and grabbed my thigh, pulled it up higher around his waist, and the new angle made me see white. I cried out—couldn’t help it—and he kissed me hard, like he was trying to swallow the sound.
“Too much?” he asked, breathless.
“No—God, no—don’t you dare stop—”
His thrusts got sharper, heavier. Less restrained now. My body rocked with every push, the friction inside me pulling tight and hot and unbearable. I clung to him, nails digging into his back, forehead pressed to his temple. I was gasping now, moaning without rhythm, letting it happen because I couldn’t hold it back anymore.
“Fucking tight,” he muttered, teeth clenched. “You’re so fucking tight—taking me so good—”
I was gone. Utterly undone.
There was nothing but his cock inside me, his breath on my neck, the drag and snap of his hips, the curse of my name on his tongue. And I wanted it all.
“Please,” I choked. “Please—don’t stop—don’t ever fucking stop—”
He didn’t.
I reached down, hand sliding between our bodies, slick with sweat and still trembling. I wrapped my fingers around myself, the touch immediate, electric. My cock was throbbing, swollen with everything I’d held back for hours—everything this night had built toward. I stroked myself in time with his thrusts, not fast, just enough to keep pace with the rhythm of his hips driving into me.
Graham looked down, saw my hand working, and groaned—deep and rough, like it had been dragged from somewhere behind his ribs.
“You close?” he rasped.
“Yeah,” I gasped. “You?”
He didn’t answer with words—just buried himself deeper, the angle hitting something inside me that made my toes curl, my thighs lock up, my breath catch like I’d been slapped with heat.
“Cum with me,” I said, voice breaking, urgent now. “I want you to—fuck—cum inside me. Please. Just—stay. Stay in there.”
He let out a strangled sound, low and cracked open. “Jesus, Quinn—”
My hand moved faster now, chasing it. The tension in my body snapped tight, coiled hot and unbearable. My vision blurred at the edges. My muscles clenched, every nerve tuned to the rhythm of his cock driving into me—deep, wet, perfect—and my own hand dragging up and down in desperate, shaking strokes.
I felt it rising—fast and unstoppable.
“I’m gonna—fuck, I’m gonna come—”
“Do it,” he said, his voice wrecked. “Cum for me—right now—fuck, I’m there—”
And then everything exploded.
I came with a cry that punched from my throat, thick and raw, my body seizing around him, ropes of cum spurt across my stomach in hot, pulsing waves. My hand kept moving through it, chasing every last spasm, every last drop as my chest arched off the mattress, teeth clenched, head thrown back.
I clenched around him so hard I felt him stutter inside me—hips faltering, breath breaking—and then he was cumming too.
He pushed in deep, all the way, holding himself there as he groaned my name like a confession, hips jerking once, twice, buried to the hilt. His whole body trembled above me, arms shaking, mouth parted, eyes squeezed shut like it physically hurt to feel this much.
We stayed like that, locked together, both of us gasping. My thighs were still trembling. His hand slid up to my chest again, palm flat, as if he needed to feel the proof that I was still there—that I hadn’t come apart completely.
I didn’t speak.
Neither did he.
There was only the sound of our breathing, the stick of sweat between us, and the dull thud of my heart pounding against his fingertips.
And he was still inside me.
Still warm.
Still holding me open.
We stayed like that—tangled, breathless, slick with sweat and come and everything we hadn’t said out loud.
His weight settled on top of me, slow and warm, like gravity remembered where we were. He didn’t pull out. Didn’t even move. Just kept one hand flat against my chest, the other curled around my waist, holding me steady.
I could feel him still twitching, softening inside me, the aftershocks moving through him in small, involuntary pulses. My thighs were still parted, muscles spent, the ache starting to bloom under the skin. But I didn’t shift. I didn’t want to break the contact.
He exhaled against my neck—one of those long, guttural sighs that sounds like release, like surrender, like thank youwithout the words.
I reached up and traced the back of his neck, fingertips dragging through damp hair, down along the ridge of his spine. He shivered once, then pressed in closer, nuzzling into the hollow of my shoulder like it was the only place he wanted to be.
There was no rush. No cleanup. No apology.
Only heat. Skin. Connection.
His hand moved, brushing gently down my side, thumb tracing the line of my ribs. Not exploring. Just feeling. Like he couldn’t quite believe I was real. I let him. I turned my head to kiss his temple, just once, soft and quiet.
He hummed something—wordless—then shifted slightly, as if to pull out, but I wrapped a leg around the back of his calf and held him there.
“Not yet,” I murmured.
He stilled.
“Okay,” he whispered.
We laid there, still joined, our bodies cooling, hearts finding rhythm again. My breathing had slowed. My hands had steadied. I didn’t know what time it was, or how long we had before someone needed him again. I didn’t care.
I’d never felt this open. This full. This held.
I wanted to stay inside the moment.
But the hospital had other plans.
His pager vibrated—a sharp, urgent buzz between us. We both jumped slightly, the sound cutting through the quiet like a slap. He groaned, forehead dropping against my collarbone.
“Of course,” he muttered.
Neither of us moved right away.
He was still inside me.
I didn’t want to let go.
His breath was warm on my neck. His hand stayed where it was—on my chest, over my heart, like he didn’t want to let go either.
But the pager kept buzzing. The hospital didn’t sleep. And the night, relentless as ever, pressed forward without pause.
I’d come here to shadow him for one night. Somehow, he’s the one who left a mark.
And if this was only the beginning of my rotation…
God help me—I didn’t want it to end.
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