“Melissa,” I breathe heavily.
She turns, and the simple act of her face softening when she sees me makes my chest tighten. The morning air is sharp, the city loud, but everything narrows to her standing there in scrubs and a coat she hasn’t bothered to button.
I step aside automatically, holding the door open. “After you.”
She passes close enough that my instinct takes over before thought can catch up. My hand settles at her lower back—not guiding, not pushing.
I tell myself it’s professional. Habit. A courtesy. I also tell myself a lot of things that aren’t true.
Her body stills for half a second, just enough that I feel it. The awareness. The quiet intake of breath. My hand doesn’t move away immediately. I don’t let it.
Desire flares low in my stomach in a way it hasn’t in a long time. Not sharp. Not urgent. Almost possessive.
I drop my hand like it burned me and walk ahead before I do something reckless, but the damage is already done. My pulse is too loud. My thoughts too focused on the way her back curved under my palm. How much I wanted to sink my hand lower to her bottom.
The elevator doors slide open, and we step inside together. Then the rest of the floor piles in. The space between us disappears in seconds. Bodies press close. Someone backs up against her pushing her into me.
My hands come up automatically. One at her hip. The other braced against the wall behind me so I don’t fall.
Her breath stutters. So does mine.
Her hip fits against my palm like it’s always belonged there, and I realize I’m gripping her harder than necessary. Not steadying.
Holding.
I can feel every inch of her through layers of fabric. I sense how aware she is of me. How aware she is of this.
No one else exists.
The elevator hums. Floors tick by. Someone laughs. Someone complains about the weather.
I barely hear any of it.
I hear her breathing. I hear my own restraint fraying.
I should move. I should create space. I should do a hundred things I don’t do.
Instead, my thumb shifts against her hip.
The elevator doors open, and I step back like I’ve been shoved, breaking contact too fast, too abruptly. She exhales like she’s been holding her breath the entire ride. I have been too.
The rest of the morning is a blur of charts and exams and conversations I hardly remember. I move from room to room on autopilot, my mind replaying the feel of her body against mine on a loop I can’t shut off.
I tell myself it was nothing, but I’ve apparently become a pathological liar today.
By the time I step into Frank’s room, I’m wound tight enough that even his grin sets me on edge.
“Well,” he says, eyeing me, “you look like hell.”
“Good morning to you too,” I mutter.
“Didn’t say it was a bad thing,” he adds. “Simply … noticeable.”
I’m about to respond when the door opens again and Melissa walks in. Just like that, the room shifts.
Frank notices immediately. His gaze flicks from her to me and back again, sharp and amused.
“Well, damn,” he says. “Did I miss something, or did the temperature go up ten degrees?”