35. Chapter 35
Chapter 35
Walker
M orning light streams through a crack in my blackout curtains, illuminating Morgan’s face as she shifts in my arms and mutters something unintelligible. I have no idea if she knows this, but she talks in her sleep. I’ve been listening to her mumble complete nonsense for the past few minutes, and it makes me wonder what she’s dreaming about because the words “limoncello” and “pool boy” just came out of her mouth in close succession.
My arm went numb beneath her head a while ago, but I can’t bring myself to move it—she just looks so angelic and peaceful. And after everything I put her through last night, she deserves all of the rest that she needs.
After I fucked her on my desk until we both came, I picked her up and carried her to the bathroom. I intended to draw her a bath and let her relax, but she asked if I would get in with her, just like the night of the ice storm. And just like that night, I held her in my arms until the water turned cold, fully content.
As I’m mentally going through my to-do list for the weekend, Morgan stirs and slowly opens her eyes.
She blinks rapidly, pupils dilating and contracting as they finally focus on my face. “You’re up? ”
I shift, wiping the drool-crusted hair from her face. “I’ve been up for a while, listening to you dream about . . . Italy?”
“Close.” Her lips tilt into a sleepy smile. “A billionaire boyfriend named Lorenzo.”
I scowl. “Oh, so your real-life boyfriend isn’t enough?”
“Real-life husband,” she corrects, running her fingers along my arm that’s draped over her bare stomach. “Though, I’d be happy to also find a real-life boyfriend if you want. You know what they say, sharing is caring.”
My fingers pinch her side, making her squeal and squirm. When she finally settles I ask, “How does your ass feel?”
I was hoping that we would’ve had a chance to talk more about the scene last night, but most of our time in the tub was spent in comfortable silence, and she passed out immediately after we climbed into bed.
She tilts her head toward me, brow cocked with amusement. “Why? Thinking about spanking it?”
I let out a soft laugh. “If you keep talking about sharing, I might. But I wanted to check in after last night. How are you feeling about what we did?”
The entire scene I kept my attention on her, reading her body language and breathy little sounds to ensure that I didn’t push anything too far. It seemed like she was enjoying herself, and she even voiced a few things that she liked about it briefly in the tub, but her opinion could be different now—I hope it isn’t, but it could be.
“I feel like you might have a humiliation kink,” she replies, shooting me a teasing wink.
When I don’t react, she adds, “It was honestly more intense than I was expecting. Not in a bad way, just in a surprising way. I think whenever we do that again, we need to make sure nothing is planned after, or I won’t survive.”
I swallow hesitantly before asking, “So you want to do it again?”
“Duh.” She grins at me like the little devil that she is. “Yeah it was intense, but it was also hot as fuck.”
I smile and press a silky kiss to her lips, feeling a sense of contentment that’s hard to describe. “I agree.”
Her fingers lazily trail up my arm, tracing the lines of ink covering my skin.
“You do that a lot,” I comment, watching her eyes follow her feathery touch like the tattoos are a book she’s trying to read.
Morgan furrows her brow, studying the ropelike design on the top of my forearm. “I don’t understand them.”
“You don’t understand my tattoos?”
She nods slowly. “Yeah, don’t get me wrong, I like them. It’s just that usually people get meaningful things inked on their skin, and yours just look like a bunch of random shapes and shading.”
“And?”
Her lower lip draws between her teeth as she finally turns to face me, a curious expression on her face. “Why?”
I hesitate for a moment as a feeling of uneasiness washes over me. It would be so easy to reply with a snarky comment about how I thought they looked badass when I turned eighteen, but she doesn’t deserve that—she deserves to know the truth. And I want to tell her.
“Remember how I told you that my parents died when I was a teenager?”
“Yeah . . .”
“My dad and I were in a pretty bad car accident when I was fifteen.” I flop onto my back and let out a pained breath because it’s been a long-ass time, but the words still hurt. “He died on impact, but I was thrown from the car despite wearing a seatbelt.”
I study the crown molding above my head, recounting the memory vividly even after sixteen years. Morgan threads her fingers through mine, squeezing my hand as I work up the strength to continue.
“Both of my parents were addicts who struggled with sobriety off and on for years. I was walking on eggshells for my entire childhood and never wanted to do anything that set them off. So when my dad told me to get in the car with him, I listened, even though I knew he was high.”
I swallow and close my eyes, the image of him hanging upside down in our beat-up SUV flooding back with vivid clarity. An ambulance showed up a few minutes later, declared him dead on arrival, and rushed me to the hospital.
“Mom died a few years later,” I add, blinking away the memories. “Overdosed the night after I left for college.”
Saying everything out loud sounds a lot worse than it feels. Sure, it’s hard to talk about, but I worked through my shit years ago. And while I would have loved a different childhood, it made me into the person I am today.
“So, uh, yeah,” I pause, trying to remember the point of this story other than pity. “The wound from the accident was pretty nasty, and the doctors at Grady did the best they could, but I ended up with a big-ass scar that ran down my forearm. As soon as I could afford it, I got a tattoo to cover it up. I didn’t give a fuck what it was—pretty sure I just told them to do the entire arm and handed them a wad of cash.”
Morgan nuzzles into my side, pressing her cheek against my chest. “I’m sorry that you went through that. And I’m even more sorry that I asked.”
“I’m glad you did,” I reply, stroking the back of her hand with my thumb as I meet her gaze. Her emerald eyes have turned glossy, like she’s fighting back tears. “And I’m glad it happened because I probably wouldn’t be a doctor otherwise.”
I didn’t make the connection until much later, but the experience actually solidified my interest in medicine. The team that worked on me was thorough, comforting, and incredibly talented. If it hadn’t been for them, I would have a fuck ton of debt because my parents didn’t have health insurance. The vascular surgeon spoke with social work to ensure that the surgeries were pro bono, and I left the hospital without a single bill.
“For what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re a doctor.”
I plant a kiss on her forehead. “I’m glad I’m a doctor, too. Because it means that I met you.”
Silence settles between us as I think back on the past five months.
When my wife left me, I resigned myself to a life without love because I assumed that I couldn’t be a good surgeon and a good husband at the same time. I figured there was a reason the divorce rate in residency was so high, after all. But it turns out that the problem wasn’t my career specifically—it was a lack of perspective, both from myself and my partner.
The hospital is a unique microcosm that you can really only understand from the inside. The doctors, the nurses, the technicians, we all spend more time with each other than we do with our own families. We laugh together, we cry together, we grow together, and we fall apart together. And because of the rawness of human emotion that we experience in our careers, it doesn’t take long to form bonds with our coworkers that rival any other relationship in our lives—bonds that are foraged in mutual suffering, enlightenment, and deep acceptance.
Oftentimes, when we try to live our normal lives outside of our jobs, it can be challenging to feel understood. And the more that I think about it, that mutual lack of perspective is what ended up becoming the biggest detriment to my first marriage. I lacked the perspective to understand how alone Lane felt when I was working hundred-hour weeks, and she lacked the perspective to understand how alone I felt after those hundred-hour weeks. Neither one of us was wrong, and while it was fucked up that she had an affair, I understand now that it was because she was lonely—we were both lonely.
Having a career in medicine can sometimes feel like you’re living two different lives—one at work and one at home. But with Morgan, those lives have merged effortlessly into something beautifully whole. Something that I never want to let go of.
“Actually, I do have one tattoo that means something,” I murmur after a while, my voice barely above a whisper.
I promised myself that I wasn’t going to show her until it felt right, but now seems like just as good of a time as any—I want her to know how much she means to me.
Her ears perk up, and she lifts her head. “Please tell me it’s not a Creed song. I didn’t realize how obsessed you were until I opened your phone to play music in Vegas and saw that your username was in the top zero point one percent of listeners . . .”
“It’s not a Creed song,” I confirm with a soft laugh. “See if you can find it.”
Shifting my body, I turn to face her again and hold out my arm so that my palm is raised to the ceiling.
She mutters something snarky about how she’s already seen my tattoos a million times, but her stubbornly curious gaze travels along my skin, trying to confirm that she hasn’t missed anything. When she reaches the inner part of my upper arm, her face pales.
“Hang on. What’s—” Her voice crawls to a stop, like she’s had the wind knocked out of her.
“I got it after Vegas,” I explain, the amusement from her shock warring with the sudden rush of emotion that just slammed into my chest. “It’s the Tasmanian Devil.”
Morgan swallows and touches the fresh ink. Her fingers trace over the animated character swirling around in a tornado that appears to be coming out of a wound in my skin. Because of its location, you wouldn’t know the tattoo was there unless I called attention to it, so I’m not surprised that she didn’t notice it yet. But now that she has, I don’t think she’ll ever unsee it again.
“But why?” she asks quietly, keeping her eyes glued to the permanent art like it will answer the question for her.
“Because you swirled into my life like a little devil—unpredictable, powerful, and intoxicating. You swept me away, and I haven’t wanted to be back on my feet ever since.” I reach out to cup her face, directing her attention to me. “I wanted to carry you with me, regardless of what happened with us in the end. Even if you decided you didn’t want me, I knew that you’d always have me.”
Her bottom lip wobbles. “You’re serious?”
I nod, swallowing down my own emotion. “You have my heart, little devil, and you’ll have my heart until the day that I die. I love you. ”
The words are everything I can offer her, and yet somehow not enough, because what I feel for Morgan is so much more than love. She’s the most important thing in my life, and she will continue to be the most important thing in my life until I die.
The raw emotion that crosses her face tells me that she feels the same way, and even though I don’t expect her to say anything, she whispers, “I love you too.”
My fingers tip her chin, angling her face so that I can capture her mouth. Our kiss is all-consuming, filled with passion, vulnerability, and pure understanding. It’s a kiss that I never thought I’d experience, but one that I feel so goddamn lucky to have.
She pulls back, her reddened lips quirking into a humored smirk. “I hate to burst your bubble, but you know that tattoo isn’t on your heart, right?”
I bark out a laugh, not expecting her comment. “It’s not? Guess I should just cover it up then.”
She starts to protest, her eyes widening in alarm, but I cut her off. “Relax—it’s here to stay. However, if you had paid attention in anatomy class, you would understand the significance of the location.”
“Listen, C’s get degrees.”
I roll my eyes and gently adjust her arm to better illustrate my point.
“The basilic vein,” I explain, tracing a finger up her smooth skin, “is located on the medial side of the arm. It’s the preferred location for PICC lines because of its size and close proximity to the surface.”
“Okay . . .” she says, drawing out the word like she’s unsure where this is going.
“It also has a direct line to the heart. ”
Morgan snorts, her smirk transforming to a wicked grin. “And here I thought you ortho bros only knew about bones.”