Chapter 4
Jax
Iwake up smelling expensive wool and sandalwood.
For a second, I panic. I think I’m back in the barracks, or maybe in some stranger’s bed after a night I don't remember. But then my neck screams in protest, and I realize I’m still in the chair. In the office.
I peel my face off the desk. My cheek is stuck to a patient file.
I sit up, shivering. The basement is freezing, but I’m warm. There is something draped over my shoulders.
I pull it off. It’s a cardigan. Charcoal grey. Cashmere. It feels soft enough to be woven from clouds and money.
Maxwell.
I look at his side of the room. It’s empty. Pristine. The blue tape line on the floor mocks me.
He covered me up. The Ice King, who yesterday threatened to have me evicted for eating corn chips, tucked me in.
I bring the collar of the sweater to my nose. I can't help it. It smells like him—that crisp, clean scent of ozone and soap, with a hidden undercurrent of something darker. Like cedar.
"You’re losing it, O’Connell," I mutter, tossing the sweater onto my chair. "He probably just didn't want a frozen corpse stinking up his office."
I grab my stethoscope. Time to work.
Six hours later, I am covered in sweat and regretting every life choice that led me to this moment.
"We are losing pressure!"
The shout comes from Dr. Singh.
We are in OR 4. It’s not my usual domain, but the patient—a nineteen-year-old kid who got stabbed in a bar fight—bled out in the elevator, so we crashed the closest sterile room.
Maxwell is here. Of course he is. The knife nicked the pericardium.
"I need more suction," Maxwell says. His voice is calm, but it’s tight. He’s working deep in the chest cavity. "Jax, retract the lung. You’re crowding me."
"I’m keeping him from drowning in his own blood, York," I snap, pulling the retractor harder. "Work faster."
"Precision is speed," he recites, the arrogant prick.
"BP is sixty over forty," Singh announces. "He’s circling the drain."
"Damn it," I curse. "The bleeder isn't in the heart. It’s the mammary artery. It retracted behind the rib."
"I can't see it," Maxwell says. "The field is too wet."
"Move," I say.
"Excuse me?"
"I said move!" I shoulder-check Maxwell York—the Chief of Cardio—out of the way. I dive my hand into the chest cavity. I’m not looking; I’m feeling. I spent two years digging shrapnel out of soldiers in the dark. My fingers are my eyes.
"Jax, you are flying blind," Maxwell warns. "If you clamp the phrenic nerve, you paralyze his diaphragm."
"Shut up," I hiss.
I feel the pulse. The hot jet of blood. I slide the hemostat down. I pinch.
The spraying stops.
"Suction," I order.
The nurse clears the field.
There it is. The artery, clamped perfectly. The nerve is untouched.
I look up. Maxwell is staring at my hands. His eyes are wide behind his goggles. He looks furious. He looks impressed. He looks like he wants to strangle me.
"Suture," Maxwell says, stepping back in. "Now."
We finish the closure in silence. The only sound is the beep of the monitor, slowly climbing back to a normal rhythm.
"What the hell was that?"
We are out of the OR. We are in the hallway. We haven't even taken our masks off yet.
Maxwell grabs my arm. His grip is surprisingly strong. He drags me away from the scrub station, away from the nurses who are watching us with wide eyes.
"That was a save," I say, ripping my mask off. "You're welcome."
"That was reckless!" Maxwell hisses. He shoves a door open and pushes me inside.
It’s a supply closet.
It’s narrow, dim, and smells of cardboard and latex. Metal shelves line the walls, packed floor-to-ceiling with boxes of saline and gauze. There is barely enough room for two people to stand.
The door clicks shut, sealing us in.
Maxwell rips his mask off. His face is flushed. I’ve never seen him this unraveled. A strand of black hair has fallen loose, hanging over his forehead.
"You shoved me," Maxwell says. He is vibrating with rage. "In my own OR. You compromised the sterile field. You risked nerve damage on a hunch."
"It wasn't a hunch," I argue, stepping into his space. The adrenaline from the surgery hasn't faded; it’s spiking. My blood is boiling. "It was tactile anatomy. Something you’d know about if you ever took your head out of a textbook."
"I am the Chief of this department!" Maxwell shouts. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard him raise his voice. It echoes in the small space. "You do not touch me! You do not override me!"
"I saved the kid!" I yell back. "While you were hesitating, looking for a pretty angle, he was bleeding out! I did what had to be done!"
"You are a chaotic, insubordinate—"
"And you are a frozen, uptight coward!"
The word hangs in the air.
Maxwell goes still. His eyes darken. The blue turns to indigo.
"Coward?" he whispers.
He steps forward. He slams his hands against the shelving unit on either side of my head, boxing me in. A box of syringes rattles ominously.
"I hold human lives in my hands every day," Maxwell says, his voice low and dangerous. "I do not gamble with them. That is not cowardice. That is control."
He is breathing hard. I can feel his breath on my face. It smells of mint.
I should push him away. I should leave.
But the anger is morphing. It’s twisting into something else. The adrenaline is looking for an outlet, and fighting isn't enough anymore.
I look at his mouth. It’s sharp, severe, and currently parted in anger.
"Control," I mock, leaning in until our noses almost touch. "You’re so obsessed with it. What are you so afraid will happen if you lose it, Max?"
Maxwell stares at me. His gaze drops to my lips. Then down to my throat. Then back to my eyes. The pupils are blown wide.
"I am not afraid of you," he says.
"Then why are you shaking?"
He is. His hands, pressed against the metal shelves, are trembling.
Maxwell makes a sound—a frustrated, guttural growl that I feel in my own chest.
He crashes his mouth onto mine.
It’s not a kiss. It’s a collision.
It’s teeth and tongue and anger. He kisses like he operates—intense, demanding, and overwhelming.
I groan, grabbing his hips and hauling him closer. I slam him back against the opposite shelf. Bottles of saline wobble.
"Jax," he gasps against my mouth.
"Shut up," I growl.
I kiss him harder, biting at his lower lip. He tastes like coffee and repressed desire. It’s intoxicating.
Maxwell’s hands are in my hair, gripping tight, pulling my head back to deepen the angle. For someone who hates mess, he is getting filthy. He’s grinding against me, hard, desperate.
This isn't making love. This is rage induced lust. This is a week of arguing over tape lines and corn chips and surgical techniques exploding all at once.
My hands find the hem of his scrub top. I shove them underneath. His skin is burning hot. Silk and steel.
He hisses when I touch his lower back, arching into me.
"You’re infuriating," Maxwell mutters, nipping at my jawline. "You are arrogant. You are messy."
"And you like it," I pant, running my hands up his chest.
"I hate it," he says.
He grabs my hand. He pins it to the shelf next to his head. His grip is bruising.
"I hate it," he repeats, looking me dead in the eye.
Then he kisses me again, and this time, there is no holding back.
We are a tangle of limbs and scrubs in the semi-darkness. I’m pressing him into the metal shelving, his leg hooked around my hip. The friction is unbearable. I want to strip him out of these tailored scrubs. I want to see the Ice King melt.
I reach for his waistband.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
My pager.
The sound cuts through the heavy air like a scalpel.
We freeze.
Maxwell’s hand is in my hair. My hand is down his pants.
We stare at each other, chest to chest, panting like we just ran a marathon.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
The reality of where we are—Supply Closet 4B, East Wing, St. Jude’s Hospital—crashes down on us.
Maxwell pulls back first.
He stumbles away from me, hitting the opposite shelf. He looks wild. His hair is messed up. His lips are swollen and red. His scrubs are twisted.
He looks horrified.
"I..." He touches his mouth, as if checking to see if it’s still there.
I lean back against the shelf, trying to catch my breath. My heart is hammering a hole in my ribs.
"Don't," I warn him. "Don't apologize."
Maxwell straightens his scrub top. He runs a hand through his hair, trying to smooth it back into its perfect helmet, but it’s hopeless.
"This was..." He clears his throat. The cold mask is sliding back into place, but it’s cracked. "This was a lapse in judgment. Adrenaline response."
"Sure," I say, though my voice sounds wrecked. "Just biology, right?"
"Right."
He won't look at me. He reaches for the door handle.
He pauses.
"Fix your scrubs," he says softly. "You look... compromised."
Then he opens the door, checks the hallway, and slips out.
I’m left alone in the closet.
I look down. I am, indeed, compromised.
I grab a bottle of saline off the shelf and press the cold plastic against my forehead. I close my eyes.
"Adrenaline response," I whisper to the empty room. "Yeah. Right."
I can still taste him. And god help me, I want more.