Trapp #3
She straightened in her seat, that familiar look crossing her face, the one that telegraphed to the entire world that she was about to argue with him. “No, that’s not right. I should pay my own—”
“That’s not the way we do things,” Trapp snapped, cutting her off again, heat blooming across his chest in aggravation.
She was so irritating. His wolf was close to the surface, snapping, growling at the smaller beast in her, wanting to do nothing more than jump up and pin her to the ground.
Right before you roll her over and fuck her into the dirt.
“We work as a team. It’s not tit-for-tat.
You don’t want to be here and I don’t especially want you here, but today, you’re a part of this team.
So shut up and eat, because I can promise you, we’ve only got a few minutes. ”
In the back of the ambulance, Oleg slapped his palms down to his bony knees. “Welp. I’m gonna get some fresh air. Thanks for dinner, Trapp.”
Only once the troll had clambered down from the ambulance, leaving the back bay doors open, his stack of pizza resting inside and out of the rain, did Adriana slowly return her little wristlet to her backpack, pink spots of color warming her face.
“Thank you,” she mumbled, taking the plate he handed her without further argument.
Trapp was glad he was watching when she took her first bite. Her eyes fluttered shut, the thick fringe of black lashes casting a shadow on her cheekbone like a bruise. “Oh my gods!”
“I know, right?” He chuckled in spite of himself. “This is the only place we ever ordered from growing up. Everything else in town is a pale imitation of what pizza should taste like. My mom used to say the grease is how you know it’s actually good.”
“She’s right,” Adriana choked out around a mouthful of cheese. “I used to think the same thing, anytime I moved somewhere new and tried to find pizza that was worth eating. This tastes like home.”
They were each quiet for a moment, chewing. It wasn’t what Trapp would’ve called a companionable silence, but it was at least not actively antagonistic. “You’ve moved a lot?”
She stiffened slightly, and he could tell that she immediately regretted the tiny confidence. Fucking ironic since she had no problem telling perfect strangers all about us while she waited for her medium house roast.
“A few times,” she allowed at length, her voice careful. “I stayed on at the place I did residency with until their whole hospital system imploded. After that it was a few years until I found someplace that stuck.”
Trapp said nothing. He didn’t want to pry into her hospital work history. He didn’t care. He didn’t miss the life he’d walked away from, despite what everyone seemed to think.
“Did you . . . When did you leave? How many years after residency did you—”
“I didn’t finish residency.” There was no point in lying. It wasn’t as if she couldn’t find out the truth with even a minor amount of digging. Probably wouldn’t even need to dig if people are still talking about you.
In the passenger seat, her mouth hung open, her pizza slice frozen midair a few inches from her lips, the action aborted at his words, her eyes wide. “But . . . why?! You were at the top of our cohort! You could have matched into any program you wanted!”
“Yeah, well. Shoulda, woulda, coulda. I didn’t.
I didn’t like the program I matched into, and it didn’t take long to realize I wouldn’t be any happier someplace else.
It was a bad fit, the whole career. A bad fit for my temper.
A bad fit for what I wanted for my life.
Just think, you were second in our class for nothing.
All that scheming and you got beat by a dropout. ”
Her eyes darkened, face screwing up.
The smell of her anger was spicy, a drop of hot chili oil in the sweet, clean rain smell of her neck. Trapp raised a single finger, pointing to the dashcam. Adriana leaned in close, obviously intuiting his meaning.
“You know how you said to me that some things never change?” Her voice was a furious whisper, low for his ears only, and Trapp knew that the steady drumbeat of rain on the roof would prevent the recording from picking it up.
“You’re right. Because you’re still a fucking asshole.
A cocky, full-of-himself asshole. And that’s never going to change, is it? ”
“As long as you’re here to be the same argumentative, backstabbing know-it-all you’ve always been? I guess not.”
They were both leaning into each other, hissing over the center console, faces growing closer with each word they spat, until contact was made.
Trapp had no idea which of them leaned into the kiss first, only that as soon as the tip of his tongue touched hers, they both abandoned all pretense of control.
She gasped against his mouth, her nails dragging over his forearm until he knew she’d drawn blood.
He could taste her anger as their tongues slid against each other, teeth clacking, biting at his lips, a furious kiss, fueled by hatred as much as lust. His cock was throbbing, and he could smell her slick, could almost taste it on his tongue . . .
He should have been expecting the next tone drop, for there was never a time when they didn’t interrupt. One could never make a personal call, finish a meal, or use the restroom uninterrupted, and now Trapp could add “hate-kissing one’s enemy” to that list.
“Attention all units, stand by for MCI dispatch. Stations Two and Twelve, Rescue Five, Medic Forty-one, Medic Forty-three, Medic One-eighteen, and Battalion Two. Respond to Code Three on Interstate-12 westbound, mile marker one-sixteen. Multi-vehicle collision with heavy entrapment and multiple critical patients. Requesting all ALS units. Air Care One and Two remain on standby.”
“What the fuuuuck. Why can’t anything ever just be on fire?!” Trapp beat on the steering column for a brief, frustrated moment before throwing the driver’s side door open. “Oleg, where the fuck are you?”
Adriana gasped when he surged to his feet right there in the cab, dropping the pizza box into her arms, stepping over the center console and through the narrow partition door to the back of the rig. She shrieked in surprise when Oleg threw himself into the front seat beside her.
“C’mon, let’s go, lights and sirens.”
The troll was already doing so as the words left Trapp’s mouth, pulling out of the pizzeria parking lot and putting his foot down on the accelerator.
“We’re not going back towards the city?” she questioned, the stretch of highway between Bridgeton and Cambric Creek having been the scene of every other highway call of the day.
“This is in Greenbridge Glen,” Trapp answered tersely.
It was clear from her blank expression that his words meant nothing.
“Between Cambric Creek and Starling Heights. It’s a lot more rural.
Flat, one straight line, there’s usually not too many accidents over there, but this rain has everyone driving like it’s their first time out of the house. ”
He quickly ensured that his field bag had everything necessary for advanced life support, picking through the supplies from the ambulance and tossing them into the bag before kicking off his boots.
Trapp could feel her eyes on him the entire time he undressed, peeling off his uniform pants and shirt, down to his boxer briefs, catching sight of her slack jaw as he pulled his flightsuit off the shelf.
He had no doubt she was able to see the thick, curved bar of his erection standing in relief, in danger of escaping his waistband.
It twitched under the weight of her stare, and he was positive he heard her whimper.
“What are you doing?” she gasped out at last, his hard-on finally out of sight as he zipped up the suit. “I thought this was Medic Forty-three?”
She didn’t bother turning back in her seat as he grabbed a T-shirt from his bag, pulling the snug cotton down over his chest, slipping his arms into the flight suit, zipping it to the top.
“It is. But I’m Air Two.”
Oleg laid on the horn, silencing them both, cursing at the amount of traffic that wasn’t moving over to let them pass.
“I thought air-medic services are operated by private facilities?”
“They are,” Trapp agreed. “Everywhere else. The hospital in Bridgeton and the hospital in Starling Heights both use the same air-med dispatch. But they won’t service nonhumans.
Healers bought their own chopper two years ago, hired their own pilots.
They’ve got two of us at the station and two ICU nurses licensed for flight care.
Oleg, if they pull me, you bring her back to the station with the rig, understand? ”
Instantly, Adriana straightened in her seat, her hands closing over the strap of her trauma bag once more. “What?! No! I’m a doctor! I can be of service—”
“The only thing you’ll be out there is a liability. You’re here as an observer, Adi. That’s it. You want him to drop you off at your clinic so you can unlock the doors for intake; be my guest. That’s your job on the line, not mine. But this is my rig. I’m the attending here.”
Trapp glanced back only once, once they arrived on scene.
She was still in the ambulance, at least following that direction.
Her face was practically pressed to the glass, palm flat against the window, watching him go.
He had to force his feet to move, turning away from her to face the wreckage beyond.
He wanted to kiss her again, taste her fury, but right now, he had a job to do.
Some other time, Trapp thought, wondering if the opportunity would ever arise.
***
He stepped out of the hospital into the ambulance bay hours later, his flight suit unzipped to the waist, the arms swinging loose around his knees.
Trapp dropped his head back, sucking in a deep lungful of air.
The night was cool, but it held no hint of further rain; a relief after the evening storm and harrowing transfers.
He did a double take at the vehicle just across the lot once he opened his eyes.