5. Off The Charts

I was having the worst day of my life.

My coffee had spilled on my white dress at 8am. My best friend Jade had cancelled our lunch plans via text with three words and a shrug emoji.

My Uber had taken forty minutes in traffic that shouldn't have existed on a Tuesday, and now I was standing outside Whitmore Medical Associates at 2:47pm for a 2:45 appointment, slightly sweaty and entirely done with the universe.

"First gyno appointment," I muttered to myself, pushing through the glass door. "What could make this day worse?"

The receptionist smiled at me with the kind of practiced warmth that belonged exclusively to medical offices and five-star hotels. "Nova Reed?"

"That's me."

"Dr. Whitmore will be with you shortly. You can head to room three."

I filled out my forms, sat on the paper-covered examination table that crinkled every time I breathed, and stared at the anatomical diagrams on the wall, trying not to think about how intimate this appointment was about to get with a complete stranger.

Jade owed me enormously for this recommendation.

He's the best in the city, she'd said. Professional, thorough, makes you feel completely comfortable, she said.

I smoothed my sundress over my knees and exhaled.

Then the door opened, and the universe, it turned out, had one more thing up its sleeve.

He was looking down at my chart when he walked in, which gave me approximately three seconds to experience the full impact of him before he looked up. Three seconds to take in the broad shoulders filling out his white coat, the dark chestnut hair, the jaw that looked like it had been carved specifically to make women forget their own names.

Then he looked up.

And the world around me stopped.

Dark blue eyes, the kind of blue that didn't look real, it was so deep and sharp and intensely focused.

A mouth that curved just slightly at the corner, even when he wasn't smiling, like a permanent suggestion.

I knew that mouth. I knew that jaw. I knew exactly what those hands felt like on my hips in a dark club three weeks ago, while Destroy Me pulsed through the speakers and I'd pressed my back against his chest and let him pull me in like gravity.

He'd found me in the crowd like he'd been looking specifically for me. No words, just his hands settling on my waist from behind and his body moving with mine like we'd choreographed it, his breath was warm against the back of my neck, and his heartbeat steady against my spine while mine went completely haywire.

I'd felt him wanting me. His hardness pressed right against the small of my back, thick and unmistakable, and I'd tilted my head back against his shoulder and rolled my hips slowly and deliberately just to feel him tighten his grip and hear the sharp intake of breath he'd pulled through his teeth.

Then my phone had lit up with Jade's emergency, and I'd slipped out of his hands and into the crowd and never looked back.

I've thought about him every day since then.

And now he was standing in a white coat, holding my medical chart with my full name on it.

The recognition hit his face in slow motion. Those blue eyes moved from the chart to me and went very, very still.

"Miss Reed." His voice was exactly as I remembered it. Low and unhurried, the kind of voice that took its time unraveling someone. 

"I'm Dr. Whitmore."

"I know who you are," I said before I could stop myself. Something moved behind his eyes, but was controlled immediately, locked down behind professionalism so seamless I almost believed it.

"You've been referred by a Miss Jade Collins?" He pulled the stool out and sat, crossing one ankle over his knee, chart open in his lap. 

Completely composed. Like I was any other patient, and three weeks ago hadn't happened.

"Yes." My voice came out steadier than I deserved credit for.

"First visit?"

"First visit."

He nodded slowly, pen moving across the page. "Any concerns today, or is this a routine appointment?"

My concern, I thought, is that I spent three weeks thinking about a stranger from a club and now he's about to conduct my pelvic exam.

"Routine," I said. He looked up from the chart then. Really looked at me, the way he hadn't allowed himself to since he walked in. His gaze moved across my face with the kind of deliberate restraint that felt more dangerous than if he'd just stared openly.

"Nova." The way he said my name, so unhurried, like he was tasting it. 

"That's an unusual name."

"My mother liked stars."

The corner of his mouth twitched. "Lie back for me."

My entire body responded like a livewire, and my thighs clenched on their own. Just three words, and I was ready, feeling this way. 

Clinical. Routine. Standard medical instruction, I reminded myself. Je'd probably said them ten thousand times.

I shifted back on the table, the paper crinkling beneath me, and stared at the ceiling while I felt him pull on his gloves with two short snaps that echoed in the small room.

His stool rolled closer. His hands— warm even through the latex—pressed gently against my lower abdomen, professional and precise, and I focused very hard on the ceiling tile directly above me.

"Any pain here?" He asked, his voice deep.

"No," I responded, swallowing thickly. 

"Here?" He moved further down.

"No."

"Breathe normally, Nova."

"I am breathing normally." I bit my lower lip, fighting the urge to clench my thighs.

"You're not." He said, almost amused, and I exhaled.

Suddenly, his hands stilled against me, and the room went very quiet. 

When I looked down, he wasn't looking at my chart. He was looking at me.

Just for a second. Just long enough for every carefully maintained boundary in the room to tremble on its foundation.

Then he looked away, clearing his throat, made a note, and stood.

"Everything looks fine." He snapped the glove off. "I'll need you to come back on Thursday for the rest of the examination."

I sat up immediately. "Thursday?"

"I have another patient in four minutes." He was already at the door, chart in hand, every inch the consummate professional. "My receptionist will schedule you."

His hand was on the door handle when I called, "Dr. Whitmore."

He paused, not turning around immediately, but when he did, his expression was perfectly neutral.

"You left," he said quietly. "At the club. You just… left."

The air between us went electric.

"I had somewhere to be."

His eyes dropped to my lips for one devastating, unguarded second.

"Thursday, Miss Reed." His voice had dropped to something low and private that had no business existing in a medical office. "Don't be late."

The door clicked shut behind him, and I sat on that crinkled paper table with my heart in my throat and my thighs pressed together.

With that absolute certainty that Thursday was going to ruin me completely…

And I could hardly wait.