Chapter 8: Morning After
The room was dark, the silence broken only by the steady rhythm of his breathing. I lay beside him, staring at the ceiling, feeling the chill of the air on my skin. The heat of him, the scent of us, was already fading. My mind, clear in the void of exertion, began its cold, clinical analysis.
This was a catastrophic error.
I shifted, the sheets whispering. His arm lay heavy across my waist. Possessive, even in sleep.
“Thinking of bolting?” His voice, low and alert, cut through the dark. He wasn’t asleep at all.
“I’m thinking of the six a.m. multidisciplinary team meeting you’re leading,” I said, my tone carefully neutral. “The one where we discuss the Harrington case.”
He chuckled, the sound vibrating through me. His hand slid up my rib cage, thumb brushing the underside of my breast. “Priorities. I admire that.” He leaned over, his lips finding my shoulder in the darkness. “But you’re not getting out of this bed yet.”
Before I could protest, he threw the covers back. The cool air raised goosebumps. He got up, a tall silhouette against the city-lit windows. “Shower. Now.”
It wasn’t a suggestion. He took my hand, pulling me up. My body protested, muscles aching in unfamiliar places. He led me, naked, across the cool floor to the ensuite bathroom. He flicked the light on, the brightness harsh against my drowsy senses. The shower was a large, glass-walled enclosure. He turned the taps, and steam began to billow.
He stepped in first, holding the door open. The water sluiced over his shoulders, down the defined planes of his chest and back. He looked at me, expectant. A challenge. I stepped under the spray, flinching at the initial heat before it settled into a soothing embrace.
The water plastered my hair to my skull, ran in rivulets between my breasts. He just watched, his gaze a physical touch. Then he reached for a bottle, pouring clear gel into his palm. The scent of sandalwood and cedar filled the steam.
“Turn around.”
I did, presenting my back to him. His soap-slicked hands began on my shoulders, his fingers kneading the tension there with a surgeon’s knowledgeable pressure. It felt too good. I let my head fall forward, a low moan escaping me.
“That’s it,” he murmured, his hands sliding down my spine, over the curve of my ass. He washed me with a thoroughness that was neither purely clinical nor entirely sensual. It was both. He owned every inch. When his fingers slipped between my legs from behind, washing me there with an intimacy that made my knees weak, I braced my hands against the wet tile.
He turned me around to face him. Water cascaded over his face. “My turn.”
He handed me the bottle. My hands trembled slightly as I poured the gel. I started on his chest, mapping the hard contours, the faint scatter of dark hair. The silence was filled with the drumming water and our breath. As I worked lower, over the flat of his stomach, I felt him stir under my touch. He grew hard in my hand, thick and insistent.
He watched me, his eyes dark pools in the steam. “You have talented hands, Doctor.”
I tightened my grip, stroking him slowly, watching his jaw clench. A surge of power, fleeting and dangerous, shot through me. He let me work for a moment, his head tipped back against the tile, before his control snapped.
In a swift, fluid motion, he spun me around and pushed me hard against the wall. The tile was shockingly cool against my heated back and ass. He hooked his left arm under my knee, lifting my leg high to the side, opening me up. The position was vulnerable, exposing, and he didn’t wait.
He guided himself to my entrance and pushed in with one relentless thrust. The fullness was immediate, breathtaking. The water poured over us, making our skin slick, diluting nothing.
“Fuck,” he grunted, his forehead dropping to my shoulder.
He began to move, a deep, piston-like rhythm that had nowhere to go but deeper. The angle was devastating. Each drive hit a spot that sent electric shocks through my core. My other leg struggled for purchase on the wet floor. He held me up, pinning me between his body and the wall, his grip on my thigh unyielding.
“This cunt,” he rasped into my ear, his voice raw with strain. “It remembers me. It fucking clenches on me like it’s trying to keep me.”
I couldn’t speak. I could only feel—the slap of wet skin, the scrape of tile, the brutal, perfect friction of him inside me. My nails dug into the corded muscle of his forearm holding my leg. The steam choked us.
“Look at me.” His command was guttural.
I forced my eyes open, meeting his gaze. His face was a mask of pure, unfiltered need—a stark contrast to the composed Chief of Surgery the hospital saw. Seeing him like this, unraveled because of me, was more intoxicating than anything.
“You’re mine here,” he said, each word punctuated by a thrust. “In this shower. In my bed. In my OR. You understand? You are mine.”
It should have infuriated me. Instead, it detonated something. A scream built in my throat, ripped out as my climax seized me with violent, uncontrollable waves. My body convulsed around him, milking him, triggering his own release.
With a final, shuddering grind, he buried himself to the hilt. A hot, animal sound tore from his chest. He stayed there, pulsing inside me, as the aftershocks racked us both.
His breathing slowly steadied. He carefully lowered my leg, but didn’t pull out. He kept me pinned, his softening length still nestled within me. Then, slowly, he withdrew.
He turned me to face him again. His expression had shifted, the vulnerability gone, replaced by a dark, playful intensity. His hand wrapped around himself, giving a few firm strokes. He was still half-hard, and a fresh pearl of cum bead at his tip, mixing with the running water.
“Open your mouth,” he said, his voice quiet.
I hesitated for a second, the aftermath haze clearing into a sharp, shocking awareness of what he wanted. The power dynamic, momentarily balanced, snapped back into his favor. I obeyed, parting my lips.
He didn’t just finish himself on my tongue. He aimed higher. His strokes quickened, his eyes locked on mine. With a low groan, his release shot across my face—hot streaks across my cheek, my chin, my closed eyelids. It was a blatant, degrading mark. The warmth was startling against the cool water.
He finally stilled, watching his spend rinse down my skin in thin, white trails. He looked utterly captivated.
He leaned in, his lips brushing mine in a kiss that was startlingly soft. “Now we’re clean,” he whispered.
He reached past me and turned off the water. The sudden silence was deafening. Dripping, he opened the door and fetched a large, warm towel. He wrapped it around me, then one around himself.
He used a corner of his towel to gently wipe the remaining residue from my face, his touch almost tender. The contrast was dizzying.
Back in the bedroom, he handed me a folded pair of his sweatpants and a t-shirt. “Get some sleep. The alarm is set for five-fifteen.”
He climbed into bed, his back to me, as if the last hour had been nothing more remarkable than brushing his teeth. I stood there, clutching the soft cotton, my skin still humming, my face feeling branded.
The error was no longer just catastrophic. It was irreversible. And as I slid into the bed, keeping a careful inch of space between us, I knew the battle lines for the morning were already drawn. Not in the boardroom, but here, in the rumpled sheets where the scent of him, of us, clung to everything.