Chapter Twenty-Three
One Year Later
Morgan had Sydney pushed up against the wall of the call room at Monterey Coast General. Her fingers drifted down the woman’s neck, her thumbs slid over her collarbone, and her palms swept down to her waist.
“I’ve never done it in a hospital before. Especially not in a doctor’s call room.” Sydney snapped her head in the direction of the door. “Are you sure it’s locked, Morgan?”
“Since when are you worried about being caught?” Morgan muttered, pressing her lips to Sydney’s neck while her fingers fumbled with the hem of Sydney’s shirt. She wanted it gone, now rather than later, and so she tugged it over her head, dropping it to the floor behind them.
Sydney moaned and tilted her head back against the wall when Morgan’s fingers roamed over her stomach, slid to her back, and inched closer to the strap of her bra. “Isn’t this, you know… frowned upon? It’s not like we’re living in an episode of Grey’s Anatomy.”
“Well, how about we pretend we are for a minute?” Morgan unclipped Sydney’s bra, dropped it to the floor and immediately began wandering her hands over Sydney’s breasts. She flicked her fingers over the hardened peaks of her nipples.
Morgan smashed her lips against Sydney’s again, tongue slipping through the slight gap, and then moved one hand down to the waistband of Sydney’s jeans.
It took Morgan a second to fumble with the button and zipper, but it was quickly forgotten when her hand slipped easily beneath her silky panties, her fingers dipping into Sydney’s wet heat.
As if in response, Sydney’s hand went down between Morgan’s legs and began palming over her scrub pants, easily finding her clit.
She applied just the right amount of pressure over and over again until Morgan forgot how to use her own hand.
Her fingers sat still between the slick folds of Sydney’s sex.
“Stop,” she breathed. Her head was tipped back, and her hips were undulating ever so slightly against Sydney’s palm. “I’m treating you, remember?”
Sydney chuckled. “I’m the one who showed up here with your packed lunch you forgot to take this morning.”
“Exactly,” Morgan smiled, barely recovering from the near orgasm when she was the one who was desperate to please Sydney, her partner, the love of her life, the woman who baked cinnamon buns on Sundays, who had gone out and bought her another Emma Woodhouse candle when hers had burned down to the wick, who kissed her awake every morning, and who tickled her arm every night before bed.
“This is my way of saying thank you for waking up five minutes earlier than me just to make me a gourmet packed lunch.”
With a sigh, Sydney dropped her hand. A smile was still on her lips as she pressed them against Morgan’s, kissing her hard and fast and hungry.
Their kiss was abruptly ended by the incessant beep of a pager.
Morgan backed up a step and glanced down at the pager strapped to the waistband of her scrubs. “I’m needed in the emergency room,” she sighed. “I have to go. I’m so sorry.”
“Of course you do,” Sydney interjected, zipping up her jeans and bending down to fetch her top and bra from the floor. “This hospital has never had a full-time neurosurgeon before. You’re running the show. There’s no need to apologize.”
“But I’ll pick you up at five sharp. Not a minute later. Promise.”
“It’s fine if you’re running late,” Sydney said, running her fingers through her blonde hair.
She had cut it a few weeks ago. Instead of her hair streaming down her back, it now sat just above her shoulders.
She looked gorgeous, but then again, no haircut, good or bad, could make her look any other way. “I’d rather you save some lives.”
“Not a minute later,” Morgan crashed her mouth against Sydney’s again before she backed up toward the door of the call room. She sent a few flying kisses her way before she swung open the door and rushed into the hallway.
Despite the emergency waiting for her, Morgan was smiling.
It was a cheeks aching, chest bursting with happiness kind of smile.
Not to mention that she was quite proud of herself for keeping the secret, especially when Sydney had rubbed her palm over Morgan’s clit, and she’d nearly lost all control.
That was a decent bit of self-control right there.
But it wasn’t the only reason Morgan’s lips were frozen in a grin.
Sydney had no idea that when five p.m. arrived, Morgan would pick her up and drive her to Carmel Beach, where a picnic blanket awaited beneath a clump of cypress trees.
She had no clue that exactly fifteen minutes past five, Liv would stroll in with speakers playing Mariah Carey’s My All, or that Vince and Tessa—both of whom Sydney was still determined to set up—would soon follow.
And she certainly had no inkling that Morgan would reach into her pocket, pull out a small velvet box, drop to one knee, and ask the woman she loved more than life itself to marry her.
In her heart of hearts, Morgan knew Sydney would say yes. She didn’t doubt it for even a second.
As she pushed open the door to the emergency room, Morgan was met by the usual chaos: monitors beeping, nurses rushing by, and doctors speaking urgently.
Curtains were drawn around beds enclosing patients in varying states of stress.
Two paramedics wheeled in a gurney, carrying an elderly man, while a nurse hurried past her with a clipboard.
“Dr. Blake, you’re needed at bed three.”
Morgan grabbed the clipboard and ran in the direction of a young girl being transferred onto a bed. “No problem, I got her covered.”