Page 65 of Hearts on the Table
When I finally returned to myself, stretching my toes and stroking up and down his spine, my body felt different. Or maybe it felt the same as always, and something else had shifted.
Either way, I felt changed, somehow. It didn’t feel scary at all. It felt like I wanted to do it again.
Chapter 24
Sam
“You’re never going to believe this.”
“Hmm?” I looked up from flipping a grilled cheese. Lainey and I had stayed in bed well past noon. Both early risers, we’d kept commenting on it, how odd it was to still be horizontal after the sun was up. But inevitably, one of us would reach for the other and it would be another hour or so before we brought it up again.
Finally, we’d dragged ourselves downstairs for sustenance. I’d have kept her up there all day, but we were burning up a lot of calories. I had to feed her if I wanted her again later.
I’d suspected my crush on Lainey was intensifying the more time we’d spent together. Last night had blown straight past a crush and into let’s go to a jewelry store and catch a flight to Vegas territory.
It wasn’t just the sex—although, God Almighty the sex was phenomenal—it was the way she fit with me. Burrito bowls and workout sessions. How she looked in my t-shirts and did everything within her power to make me laugh.
I honestly felt a little too smug about it. The first time I’d ever seen her, our eyes had met over a patient’s bed and she’d knocked my breath out.
That’s the one,I’d thought to myself.That’s the one.I’d been right.
So damned smug. The multiple orgasms and nail marks down my back only fueled the contented hum in my chest.
“My phone’s blowing up. Is yours?” she asked, coming down the stairs in a pair of leggings. She’d stolen another one of my shirts. At this rate, I was going to have to buy more.Worth it.
“Mine’s upstairs on silent. Something wrong?”
“Not wrong.” She laughed, staring at her screen. “We’re viral.”
“What?” I tipped the sandwich onto a plate. I wasn’t a viral type of guy.
“I’m serious, look!”
She peered over my shoulder while I watched the video of us and the nursing team dancing in the scrub room yesterday. Cedar had posted it on their Instagram channel. We were up to half a million views already.
“What...” I repeated.
She reached around me to press play again when the video stopped. In the second it took to reload, we racked up a few hundred more likes.
“This is…” I watched us two-step while the nurses did a little shuffle in the background. Video Sam spun Lainey. Video Lainey grinned.
“Crazy? I know! They’re calling us the dancing doctors.” She accepted her phone back, as well as the grilled cheese, still looking at the screen as she took a bite. “Who can blame them? You got mooooves, Reese. Where’d you learn to dance like that?”
“Lessons for my brother’s wedding, remember?”
“Ah, right. He wouldn’t let you lead. Bet you never thought they’d come in handy like this.”
“It may have crossed my mind that women like dancing.”
She hummed, looking up at me through her lashes. “Maybe with the right steps, you could convince said woman to come home with you. Hop into bed?”
“Nah.” I leaned over to press a kiss into her cheekbone. “I don’t watch documentaries with just anyone, you know.”
We watched another episode while we ate. Got distracted during the next. Our phones lay, all but forgotten, on the counter. The more I had her to myself like this, the more I wanted. By the time dinnertime rolled around, I was completely enchanted, hanging on her every movement while she dabbed on makeup and swept her hair up. The sleeveless dress she had on showed off the freckled skin on the top of her shoulders.
I could barely keep my hands to myself on the drive to the restaurant, though my touch lingered on her back when I opened the door for her. The look she gave me told me to behave, while somehow also inviting me to come closer.
“Oh, my God! Aren’t you the dancing doctors?” A voice snagged my attention away from Lainey’s teasing eyes.
