“These next couple of months are the most important months in my entire career. I have to be focused. I’m closing in on the end of my residency, and then I’ll have to sit for my exams.” He’s pacing my living room, talking frantically with his hands. “But for the past week, I haven’t been able to get you out of my head. I don’t know why. At work, at home. All I can think about is how crazy it feels when I’m near you, and I need you to make it stop, Lily.” He stops pacing and faces me. “Please make it stop. Just once—that’s all it’ll take. I swear.”
My fingers are digging into the skin of my arms as I watch him. He’s still panting a little, and his eyes are still frantic, but he’s looking at me pleadingly.
“When is the last time you’ve had sleep?” I ask him.
He rolls his eyes like he’s frustrated that I’m not getting it. “I just got off a forty-eight-hour shift,” he says dismissively. “Focus, Lily.”
I nod and replay his words in my head. If I didn’t know better . . . I’d almost think he was . . .
I inhale a calming breath. “Ryle,” I say carefully. “Did you seriously just knock on twenty-nine doors so you could tell me that the thought of me is making your life hell and I should have sex with you so that you’ll never have to think of me again? Are you kidding me right now?”
He folds his lips together and, after about five seconds of thought, he slowly nods his head. “Well . . . yeah, but . . . it sounds way worse when you say it.”
I release an exasperated laugh. “That’s because it’s ridiculous, Ryle.”
He bites his bottom lip and looks around the room, like he suddenly wants to escape. I open the door and motion for him to walk out. He doesn’t. His eyes fall to my foot. “Your ankle looks good,” he says. “How does it feel?”
I roll my eyes. “Better. I was able to help Allysa at the store for the first time today.”
He nods and then makes like he’s walking toward the door to leave. But as soon as he reaches me, he spins toward me and slaps his palms against the door on either side of my head. I gasp at both his proximity and his persistence. “Please?” he says.
I shake my head, even though my body is starting to trade sides and beg my mind to cave to him.
“I’m really good at it, Lily,” he says with a grin. “You’ll barely even have to do any work.”
I try not to laugh, but his determination is as endearing as it is annoying. “Goodnight, Ryle.”
His head drops between his shoulders and he shakes it back and forth. He pushes off the door and stands up straight. He half-turns, heading for the hallway, but then suddenly drops to his knees in front of me. He wraps his arms around my waist. “Please, Lily,” he says through self-deprecating laughter. “Please have sex with me.” He’s looking up at me with puppy dog eyes and a pathetic, hopeful grin. “I want you so, so bad and I swear, once you have sex with me you’ll never hear from me again. I promise.”
There’s something about a neurosurgeon literally on his knees begging for sex that does me in. That’s pretty pathetic.
“Get up,” I say, pushing his arms away from me. “You’re embarrassing yourself.”
He slowly stands up, dragging his hands up the door on either side of me until he has me caged in between his arms. “Is that a yes?” His chest is barely touching mine and I hate how good it feels to be wanted this much. I should be turned off by it, but I can hardly breathe when I look at him. Especially when he has this suggestive smile on his face.
“I don’t feel sexy right now, Ryle. I worked all day, I’m exhausted, I smell like sweat and probably taste like dust. If you give me a little while to shower first, I might feel sexy enough to have sex with you.”
He’s nodding feverishly before I’m even finished speaking. “Shower. Take all the time you need. I’ll wait.”
I push him away from me and close the front door. He follows me to the bedroom and I tell him to wait on the bed for me.
Luckily, I cleaned my bedroom last night. Normally I have clothes lying around everywhere, books piled up on my nightstand, shoes and bras that don’t quite make it to my closet. But tonight it’s clean. My bed is even made up, complete with the ugly, quilted throw pillows my grandmother passed down to every person in our family.
I make a quick glance around the room, just to make sure nothing embarrassing will catch his eye. He takes a seat on my bed and I watch as he scans the room. I stand in the doorway to my bathroom and try to give him one last out.
“You say this will make it stop, but I’m warning you right now, Ryle. I’m like a drug. If you have sex with me tonight, it’s only going to make things worse for you. But once is all you’re getting. I refuse to become one of the many girls you use to—how did you word it that night? Satisfy your needs?”
He leans back on his elbows. “You aren’t that kind of girl, Lily. And I’m not the kind of guy who needs someone more than once. We have nothing to worry about.”
I close the door behind me, wondering how in the hell this guy talked me into this.
It’s the scrubs. The scrubs are my weakness. It has nothing to do with him.
I wonder if there’s a way he could leave them on during the sex?
• • •
I’ve never taken more than half an hour to get ready, but it’s almost an hour before I’m finished in the bathroom. I shaved more parts of me than was probably necessary, and then spent a good twenty minutes having a freak-out, and had to talk myself out of opening the door and telling him to leave. But now that my hair is dry and I’m cleaner than I’ve ever been, I think I might be able to do this. I can totally have a one-night stand. I’m twenty-three years old.
I open the door and he’s still there on my bed. I’m a little disappointed to see that his scrub top is on the floor, but I don’t see his pants, so he must still be wearing them. He’s under the covers, though, so I can’t tell.
I close the door behind me and wait for him to roll over and look at me, but he doesn’t. I take a few steps closer, and that’s when I notice he’s snoring.
Not just a light—oh I just fell asleep—snore. It’s a middle of REM sleep kind of snore.
“Ryle?” I whisper. He doesn’t even budge when I shake him.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
I drop down onto the bed, not even caring if I wake him. I just spent an entire hour getting ready for him after busting my ass today, and this is how he treats this night?
I can’t be mad at him, though, especially seeing how peaceful he looks. I can’t imagine working a forty-eight-hour shift. Plus, my bed is really comfortable. It’s so comfortable, it could make a person fall right back to sleep after a full night of rest. I should have warned him about that.
I check the time on my phone and it’s almost 10:30 p.m. I put the phone on silent and then lie down next to him. His phone is on the pillow next to his head, so I grab it and swipe up the camera option. I hold his phone above us and make sure my cleavage looks good and pushed together. I snap a picture so he’ll at least see what he missed out on.
I turn off the light and laugh to myself, because I’m falling asleep next to a half-naked man that I’ve never even kissed.
• • •
