Chapter 2
Daniel
I needed space. He was crowding me, and my brain couldn’t function with him being this close. Before I could open my mouth, Reed stepped back.
His brows were bunched up, his smile had vanished, and he was frowning.
He had always had an uncanny knack for reading my moods.
It was frankly frightening because I wasn’t an overtly emotive person to begin with.
Whether it was due to my Asian heritage or just my wiring, I didn’t know, but expressing feelings had never come easily to me.
I turned my back to him, put the iPad away, rested my palms flat on the countertop that ran the length of my clinic, and took deep breaths.
“Daniel?” His voice was uncertain and held a slight tremor. Almost as if he was in pain.
I gave myself a stern warning. There was no need to fall apart just because he was not wearing his ring.
Hadn’t that always been what I had known already?
He was a free man. I had never expected him to uphold the sham of our wedding.
I wore the ring because it gave me immunity. Or at least, that’s what I told myself.
Here, in the remotest part of the world, where recreation was severely limited, that piece of metal on my finger allowed me to stay out of the way of lonely men and women.
Everyone respected a married man. The fact that they didn’t know I was married to a man, not a woman, as I was sure everyone assumed, was of no consequence.
The moments ticked by slowly. The only sound was the ventilation system pushing air through the overhead vent in a low, continuous exhale.
Through the small porthole of my clinic, Antarctic afternoon sunlight spilled onto the floor.
I stared at the ocean. The surface was a deep blue.
Ice chunks floated in loose, unhurried clusters, paying no attention to the turmoil inside my heart.
I could feel his presence in every cell of my body.
“Daniel.” His voice was closer, softer.
A lump formed in my throat. I blinked furiously. I knew what I had to do, but it hurt so badly to say it. Still, it was only the right thing to do. My heart beat frantically in my chest like it was fighting to get out and escape.
I opened my mouth, but the word annul just wouldn’t come out. God, I was such a coward. He was definitely waiting for me to say it, but I just couldn’t. I needed a bit more time.
Just a little more preparation to sever the connection that bound me to him.
I don’t know how long I stood like that, but eventually, I felt him move.
“I’m also here to present myself for your NASA study,” he said. “Was told you collect data on everyone.”
I almost wept in relief at having something to do. Without turning back, I told him, “Sit on the exam table, please. We will get both your clearance and my NASA exam done. It will take a bit longer, but I’ll make sure to get you out of here as soon as possible.”
I heard him hoist himself onto the examining table and mumble, “I’m not in a hurry.”
Snapping back into my professional mode, I quickly moved through my space. I hooked up the monitor and gathered my instruments on a tray. Finally, I turned around and faced him.
He was sitting with his hands loose on his thick thighs, looking like a slightly lost boy despite being the tallest man I had ever met.
I knew he was nervous by the way his gaze darted around, the way he waited to see what I would do.
Despite everything, I felt my heart immediately soften and a smile slip through. I walked up to him with my tray.
“Relax.”
“Can’t.” He chuckled, but it still wasn’t back to his usual carefree one. And that pained me more than all the crap I was experiencing. Reed not being his idiotic, smiling, joking self was just wrong. I needed to see that smile. I needed him to be okay.
“So, what are you going to do to me?” he asked, fidgeting.
I focused on peeling the backing from a small white rectangular packet. “First, I’m going to collect your baseline data. Next time you’re in, I’ll run more tests—that way, we can compare.”
“Sounds fun,” he said in a tone that made it sound anything but fun.
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t worry. I remember your fear of needles.”
The explosion of breath from him and the way his entire body deflated had me chuckling. You would think he had been moments away from being beheaded.
“So no needles?”
“No needles.”
“What are these?”
“We need to measure your VO2 levels first.”
He grabbed me by the waist and pulled me in until I was standing between his legs. I gasped but just went with it, without any fight.
He leaned toward me. “Just VO2? How about measuring other things too?”
And there he was. My Reed was back. Well, not mine. He was, of course, not. I just meant my patient. Temporarily.
I could feel heat in my ears. They had surely turned pink, but still, I couldn’t help the smile that insisted on staying on my lips. I flicked his shoulder. “Shut up.”
I snapped on gloves, clipped the VO2 meter onto his finger, and took out a handful of small adhesive electrode pads, each one connected to a thin colored wire that trailed back toward the monitoring unit on the counter.
He watched me as I stood between his legs, our bodies close to each other, and peeled the backing off the first pad, holding it between my fingers. At 6’8”, Reed was so tall that even sitting on my exam table, I had to tilt my head up slightly to look at him.
“These read your heart’s electrical activity,” I said. “I’m going to place them across your chest and ribcage.”
“Can’t wait.”
The VO2 meter beeped. I checked his reading. “Good reading.”
He beamed like a little kid who had just been praised.
“I need you to remove your shirt… uh, flight suit.” I swallowed. “Just the top part, please.”
Reed’s gaze turned heated. He used both hands to slowly unzip his flight suit. It was a single-piece garment that ran the length of his torso. Slowly, the fabric parted and fell away from his muscular chest.
I didn’t know where to look. Locking eyes with him would be catastrophic, but looking at his well-defined pecs covered in dark swirls of hair wasn’t helping either. The zipper kept revealing inch after inch of rock-hard body.
“Stop,” I breathed when he had reached past his stomach.
He stopped and let the flight suit fall off his body, with the bottom portion still on.
“All yours, Doctor,” he murmured.
With trembling hands, I pressed the first electrode just below his collarbone and smoothed the edges flat against his warm skin with two strokes of my fingers.
Reed’s breath hitched.
I was wearing gloves, but I could feel the heat of his skin at each fingertip through the thin latex.
Moving to the next position, I worked methodically: collarbone, sternum, the left side of his ribcage, below the pectoral, two more along the lower ribs—peeling, positioning, and pressing each one flat.
Neither of us spoke, but I could feel his eyes tracking each placement and traveling north toward my face between them.
Once I was done placing all the pads, I stepped out from between his legs to go to the monitor, but before I could take even one step, he yanked me back.
The sudden movement caused me to stumble and fall into his arms.
I glared up at him and pushed off his ridiculously hard body.
“Love it when you get mad at me.” He ran a fingertip down the column of my throat.
I shivered.
“I want to mess up that neatly combed hair. I want to mark this clear, smooth skin.”
I swallowed repeatedly, suddenly rendered mute. I could see him savoring the satisfaction of watching me struggle. It wasn’t like he was physically forcing me. That was the most annoying part. My body and brain were at war.
There was something about his appearance, the wild and untamed energy radiating off him, that made me run hot. He leaned forward and blew warm air against my mouth.
“I want to do dirty things to you, my prince.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and groaned. This was just plain unfair. He was using every weapon in his arsenal. The proximity of his body, using my call-sign as an affectionate pet name, and, worst of all, showing up in my life without any notice.
I took a deep breath and opened my eyes. I needed to be professional. He was my patient and a research subject. Nothing else.
With a stern look, I warned him, “Stay still and behave.”
He lifted his palms off me and grinned. “Sorry.”
He was not sorry at all.
I leveled a stare at him. “Do I have to make that an order?”
His smile disappeared, and the black of his pupils in those blue eyes dilated so fast right in front of me that it stunned me.
I swallowed. Shit, wrong thing to say.
“Forget I said it,” I hastily added. “Just… hold still, please.”
I quickly walked over to the monitor array at my workstation and sat down before my body could betray me again. The monitor was turned away from the patient area and facing me.
“Breathe normally,” I instructed as I watched the screen come alive with a steady green tracing.
I studied the sinus rhythm and was satisfied to see normal oxygen saturation.
But the satisfaction didn’t last long. His resting heart rate was too high for a man with Reed’s conditioning, and it wasn’t coming down.
I switched to different tabs, checking all the possible biomarkers. I spent several long moments making a thorough sweep.
Reed was healthy, but I was seeing clear signs of elevated sympathetic activation.
I glanced up from the monitor and looked at him—actually looked at him, not through my lust haze but through a medical lens.
My heart sank as I noticed what I had missed earlier: the dark circles under his eyes.
There was some capillary redness as well.
“What’s wrong?” Reed straightened up. “Why are you staring at me like that?”
“When did you last sleep?”
He frowned. “I slept before the rescue call.”
“What about since then? The medevac was more than twenty-four hours ago.”
He looked down at his clasped hands on his thighs. “New station, new place, didn’t get much shut-eye. Nothing you need to—”
“Don’t even try to finish the sentence.”
“Okay.” He smiled, but it was a quiet one, tinted with something close to grief. My heart twisted. What was going on with him?
I turned toward the treadmill against the far wall. “Get on the treadmill. I want to run some more tests. I’ll start the speed low and increase it in increments. The test runs until I have a complete cardiovascular picture.”
I picked up my iPad and, using the stylus, started setting up the test. He slid off the table, crossed to the treadmill, and then a sound reached me that made me stop tapping.
Reed was undoing the zipper of his flight suit further down.
“You don’t need to remove your pants.”
“I know.”
He unzipped down to his legs and stepped out of them in two easy movements, folding them over the exam table. Underneath, he had nothing on except a pair of thin shorts, barely covering his ass and leaving nothing to the imagination.
“Makes me feel more free,” he remarked casually.
I had to fight to tear my gaze away from the curve of his ass. “Get on the treadmill.”
The belt started slow, barely faster than a walking pace, the motor producing a low, steady hum. I tapped the stylus against the screen, and the speed climbed one increment. The wires trailing from the electrodes on his chest swayed with the movement.
“Breathe normally,” I repeated, willing myself to keep my eyes on the readout, not on the way his muscles bunched under his skin. I knew that he had grown up in the Australian outback, the harsh life of a cowboy, and his body showed that. The man was carved of granite and callouses.
I heard his low chuckle. “I am breathing just fine. Why do you sound so winded?”
He knew exactly why. Why did he need to do this to me? Running semi-naked, all six foot eight inches of his raw beauty on display. I could kill him right then. Smug asshole.
I ignored his question and tapped again. The belt accelerated, pulling his stride longer and making his flimsy shorts ride higher up.
Jesus Christ. This had to be the toughest evaluation I had ever conducted in my life.
I focused on his gait, his arms finding their natural swing, and his long, powerful legs pounding rhythmically on the treadmill. The monitor beeped steadily on the counter beside me. I watched the numbers, made a note, and tapped again.
The motor hummed louder as the speed increased another notch and then another, the sound filling the small room. Reed shifted from a jog into a full run, his feet finding the faster cadence without difficulty, his breathing deepening.
A bead of moisture gathered at his hairline and began tracking down his temple, down the side of his throat, collecting at his collarbone where the first electrode was pressed flat against his skin.
I watched his chest expand fully on every inhale, ribs lifting the wires and dropping them on the exhale.
I felt dizzy, all my blood suddenly rushing south.
Sweat was running freely down his forehead now, dropping from his strong, square jaw onto his heaving, glistening chest, down his abs, darkening the trail of hair that disappeared into the waistband of his shorts.
The sound of his pants mixed with my own breath, which was coming hard. My pulse spiked through the roof.
Everything in the room was loud—the motor, my heartbeat, his breathing, the rhythmic strike of his feet on the belt—and I was completely transfixed.
“Planning to kill me?” he said between breaths.
“Shit.”
I slammed my palm onto the emergency stop panel on the treadmill rail, and the belt lurched to a halt beneath his feet. He caught himself on the treadmill rails, our eyes locked, both of us breathing hard. A slow smile spread across his lips.
The monitor released one long, continuous beep into the sudden quiet, startling me.
I was so doomed.