Page 6 of Yours to Keep
A chuckle escaped me before I could stop it. I shook my head at the absurd contrast, then followed the expensive leather up to the man wearing them.
“Something funny?” Adrian asked. His voice was smooth, curious rather than offended.
I met his eyes. That was my second mistake.
Desire sat in them. Open, unapologetic, burning with an intensity that stole the next thought from my head. It wasn’t a glance. It was a decision. Like he’d looked at me and already chosen the ending.
“No, Doctor. Nothing.” My voice came out steadier than I felt. “Shall I brief you on the patient?”
I gestured toward the room I’d just left, hoping professionalism would put enough distance between us to settle the strange flutter growing in my chest.
It didn’t.
After I’d finished briefing him, I expected him to thank me and head back into the patient’s room.
He didn’t. Instead, he stood there watching me with a focus that felt deliberate, but uncomfortable at the same time.
His gaze moved across my face, lingering at my snakebite piercings before drifting to my lips. When his eyes finally lifted to mine, something in his expression shifted.
My eyes had always been… different.
People always commented on my eyes, calling them Sahara gold. Bright when I was happy and darker when I was angry or exhausted. Adrian looked at them as though he had discovered something rare.
His attention moved to my eyebrow. Before I could react, his hand rose between us and his fingertip brushed the scar that cut through it.
“What happened here?” he asked quietly.
Heat rushed through me so suddenly it stole my breath. My tongue glued itself to the roof of my mouth. My heart hammered against my ribs while his thumb traced the old scar with a tenderness that should have felt comforting. Instead, it rooted me in place. I wanted to move. I couldn’t move.
I didn’t tell him to stop. I let him touch me, even though we were strangers.
He never waited for an answer. His gaze drifted from the scar to my mouth before settling back on my eyes, studying me with an intensity that felt far too intimate for a hospital hallway.
“Exquisite,” he murmured.
The word settled over me like a quiet claim, gentle enough to sound like admiration, firm enough that I couldn’t look away. I should have stepped back. I should have walked away. Instead, I ignored the warning that curled low in my stomach.
Red flag number two.
But there was something about Adrian that pulled at me, something magnetic that made me want to understand the man behind the confidence.
And if my dick had been allowed a vote… Hell, it had already made up its mind. It wanted to know Doctor Adrian Blackwell a whole lot better.
A cry from the room pulled us both back inside.
The patient was curled tightly on the bed, her voice breaking under the weight of everything she was losing.
Adrian reached her first, speaking softly, grounding her with a calm that seemed to follow him everywhere.
I watched the way she steadied under his voice, the way she clung to the lifeline he offered. When she settled, he nodded for me to step outside.
In the hallway, he stood close enough that I felt the warmth of him.
“Thank you for helping her,” he said. “You kept her steady.”
I smiled, telling him I was only doing my job. Something private flickered across his face, something that made me want to see it again. When I asked if he needed anything else, he held my gaze and said, “No. I have everything I came for.”
Looking back, I wish I’d paid attention to the way he’d watched me. The way his eyes had stayed a little too long on me. The way he’d touched me as though permission had already been given.
