Page 18 of Careless Whisper

“Man, you look like someone put a central line in your neck without local.” Sanjay clinked his glass against mine.

“Just tired,” I muttered and realized I seemed to say that often, all the time, ever since I moved to Seattle and laid my eyes on the gorgeous Nurse Sanchez.

Sanjay studied me carefully. “Tired of what or who?”

Before I could answer, Zara’s eyes flicked toward the entrance. “Incoming. Nurses.”

Of course, it was because my life was a shitshow for going against better judgment to take this job where I knewshe’dbe.

Shelooked amazing, and not because she was trying, not in that oversized black sweater and tight jeans.

She laughed at something Luther said as they stepped in, and it went straight to my dick.

“You laugh with your whole self,” I told her whenwe were sharing an ice cream after a shift in the on-call room, fighting over who got more licks.

The ice cream had melted, and there had been more licking…and…damn it, now I was hard as steel, ready to pound nails.

A few of the younger nurses trailed behind Luther and Reggie. Delaney was among them, wearing a tight, red dress, and she had a look on her face that made me brace.

Some nurses had iron-clad rules aboutnotfucking attendings, and some had the opposite tenet ofonlyfucking attendings. Delaney fell in the latter group.

She made a beeline for our booth once she got a drink at the bar. “Dr. Graham”—she brushed her shoulder against mine as she slid in next to me—“didn’t think I’d see you here.”

I offered a noncommittal smile. My eyes weren’t on her—they were on Reggie.

“Reg, Luther, join us,” Zara invited.

Reggie looked like she’d prefer to have a root canal without an anesthetic. Luther, who I was discovering was a provocative motherfucker, waved to Zara and looked at me pointedly. “We’re fine here…your booth is over-crowded.”

See what I mean?

Zara frowned. “You having trouble with Luther?” she asked me.

“No,” I murmured.

“Luther gets like this,” Delaney chirped.

Sanjay, who nailed pretty much anything that moved from what I’d learned, smiled at Delany, enjoying all the cleavage she was showing.

Zara rolled her eyes. “Trivia night not doing it for your stress relief, Sanjay?”

Sanjay grinned. “I dabble in several different kinds of stress relief.”

Reggie and Luther chose to sit at the booth behind me with a few others, which meant I couldn’t watch her the way I wanted to. I could hear their conversations, though, which were centered around one of the nurses’ partners, who was not doing his share of vacuuming.

“The asshole thinks it’s my job. Luther, why do men think it’s a woman’s job to vacuum?”

“I’ve got no idea, babe; at my place, Gio does the vacuuming, and he’s no woman.”

Delaney droned on about a difficult family consult that afternoon, how she’d handled it with “grace under pressure”.

Christ!

Reggie walked by, headed to the restroom, and I wanted nothing more than to follow her and…

“We can’t, Eli.” Reggie had been scandalized the night I followed her into the handicapped bathroom at the doc bar in Boston and shut the door behind us.

“Gigi, I need inside you,” I muttered, lifting her onto the counter, pushing her dress up.

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