Chapter 33
Thirty-Three
Beckett
I’m running on three hours of sleep and a level of anticipation that should be beneath a man of my age and profession.
I told her I’d be here, so dammit, I’m here.
With a deep breath, I finally knock.
Did I knock too hard?
Too weak?
Fucking hell.
My fiery redhead has turned me into a teenage boy.
Great.
I’m about to knock again, just to correct my earlier failings, when the door opens.
Yeah. I’m sure of it now. This woman’s eyes can see into my soul and either drive me mad or bring me to my senses.
Honestly, I’ll take either.
Madison is wearing trousers and a silk cami, her hair a wild copper halo. But it’s the footwear that kills me. It’s those big, fuzzy granny slippers.
When she looks at me, I can almost see the armor sliding into place. She’s already building the wall, brick by brick, preparing to tell me that last night was a fluke or a glitch in the matrix.
Oh no. You’re not disappearing on me now.
I don’t give her the chance. I extend my hand, palm up.
She eyes it, one perfect brow arched in question. “What are you doing?”
“Shake my hand,” I say.
“Is this a joke?”
“Shake my hand, Madison.”
She huffs, but her small hand slides into mine. I wrap my fingers around hers and give a polite, formal pump.
“Hi, I’m Beckett. Your neighbor from 4B.”
She stares at me, her lips parting. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Well,” I say, leaning against the doorframe, “considering that when we ran into each other earlier, you acted like we hardly knew each other, I just wanted to make sure you weren’t still suffering from some momentary memory loss. Figured we should start from the beginning.”
She pulls her hand back. “Shut up.”
Turning, she walks into the apartment, leaving the door open. It’s an invitation, however begrudging.
I take a selfish moment to watch the sway of her hips and the way the silk of that cami clings to her back before I follow her in, clicking the door shut behind me.
She’s pacing. A restless, nervous energy fills the room.
“Stop looking at me like that,” she snaps, not looking back.
I hold my hands up, palms out. “You’re a woman it’s hard not to look at.”
She ignores that.
“My mother,” she starts, her voice tight, “already has us married with three kids and a dog.”
I hum, moving deeper into the room. “Golden retriever?”
“Obviously,” she mutters. “She’s a cliché.”
“And the kids? What are we naming them?”
She throws out her hands. “I don’t know. I don’t want kids.”
She stops dead in her tracks. Even with her back to me, I can see her shoulders tensing. She slowly turns around, her eyes wide, looking like she’s just accidentally confessed to a crime.
“Shit,” she whispers. “I wasn’t supposed to say that part out loud.”
I keep my expression neutral. “Why not?”
“Because!” She throws her hands up again, and the silk of her top shifts dangerously.
Eyes on her face, Beckett. Eyes on her face.
“Because now you’re going to think I’m the ice queen who doesn’t want kids. I’m great with kids. I love them.”
“You let them use Silly String.”
“Exactly. I’m the best aunt on the planet. I just… I don’t want them for me.”
She’s bracing for the impact. She’s waiting for me to look disappointed or to start the “you’ll change your mind” speech I’m sure she’s heard a thousand times.
“Okay,” I say instead.
She scoffs, her eyes searching mine for the catch. “Okay? What do you mean, okay?”
“I mean, okay, Madison. It’s your life. Your body. Your choice. Why would that change anything?”
She blinks at me.
“What?” she asks cautiously. “Don’t you want kids? Not that I’m saying we’re having kids. I’m not saying we’re anything. I just mean, generally, hypothetically, in some alternate universe where you and I don’t live in the same building and my mother isn’t planning our anniversary party—”
“Madison.”
She barrels on. “Because, statistically speaking, most people do want kids, and you’re very…
stable. You wear glasses sometimes. It’s very attractive, by the way.
Not the point. The point is, you’re the kind of man mothers point at in supermarkets and whisper, ‘That one. That one will provide structure…’”
“Madison.”
“…And I just don’t want you thinking I’m some sort of emotionally stunted monster who hates joy.”
“I never really thought about kids much.”
That stops her. “You… haven’t?”
I shrug.
The truth is, I’ve spent most of my adult life in hospital corridors. I measure time by shifts, trauma codes, and how many hours I can go without sleep before I start making mistakes.
Kids were never a no.
They were just never a now.
“I’m an only child,” I tell her. “So I suppose it was always assumed I’d be the one to bring a football team into the family, or at least a respectable five.”
She huffs out a weak laugh.
“But I’m married to my work,” I continue.
“And some people might say the selfish thing would be not to have children.” I choose my next words carefully because I don’t want her to hear coldness where there isn’t any.
“I think the opposite,” I go on. “I think it would be selfish of me to have them if I couldn’t give them the time they deserve.
Kids don’t need a father who loves them in theory. They need one who’s there.”
There’s a flicker in her expression.
“I know what it’s like,” I add, more gently, “to grow up with expectations attached to you. I wouldn’t want a child to feel as if they were brought into the world because it was the logical next step.”
Her shoulders lose their tension.
“Me too,” she confesses, barely above a whisper.
And that… that feels a little like trust coming from her.
We stand there in it for a moment before I tilt my head. “The dog, though?”
Her brows lift.
“I like the idea of a dog.”
A reluctant smile pulls at her mouth. “Of course you do.”
“Golden retriever. Commit to the cliché.”
She exhales a small laugh, tension bleeding from her posture. “They’re high maintenance.”
“I’d walk it. I run at unreasonable hours anyway.”
She studies me like she’s trying to decide whether I’m serious.
The thing is, I don’t know what my future looks like. I never have. Medicine teaches you that plans are fragile and life pivots in seconds.
But standing here in 3B with a copper-haired woman in ridiculous slippers and too much bravery tucked behind her ribs, I know this: Whatever shape my life takes, I don’t want it dictated by expectations.
And if that shape includes her arguing with me over dog names at midnight?
I think I could live with that.
Which sounds fucking crazy. I know it.
I’ve spent one night with this woman, and suddenly a white picket fence flickers at the edge of my mind.
This isn’t me.
I deal in data. In lab results and scans and outcomes you can measure. I trust science. Not the vast, uncharted territory of whatever the hell we’re standing in the middle of right now.
Is this what she does to people? Slips under their skin and rearranges the furniture from the inside out?
See? Teenage boy.
She stares at me. “Why aren’t you running? Surely only insane women have conversations like this with a man they’ve slept with once.”
“Twice,” I correct her.
“What?”
“It’ll be twice in about an hour.”
A small, genuine smile breaks through her defensive mask. She tries to pout to hide it, but it’s too late. I see her.
“And I’m not running because I just came off a long shift, and my feet are killing me,” I tease, moving closer. “Plus, I’m fairly certain I’m the only one who can handle your psychological warfare without crying.”
She shakes her head. “Asshole.”
She grows quiet then, her gaze dropping to the floor. I saw her mother today. I saw them coming out of that department, and I know there are things she isn’t ready to say. It’s probably a weight she’s been carrying so long, she doesn’t even realize it’s there.
“I spent so much of my life being a parent, Beckett,” she says. “I think I’m just… tired.”
I don’t need the full story to understand the exhaustion in her eyes. I’ve seen it in the mirror after a bad week.
I step into her space and lift my hand to her jaw, my thumb brushing lightly across her cheek.
“You don’t have to explain yourself.”
Her hands start moving again. “It’s just that people expect—”
“Madison,” I say her name firmly enough to stop the spiral without bruising it.
She looks up at me, and for a second, she’s not the ice queen she claims to be. She’s just a woman who’s been carrying too much for too long.
“Come here,” I tell her.
She blows out a long, shaky breath and sags into my arms, resting her forehead against my chest.
“So,” she mumbles into my shirt, “I haven’t scared you off yet?”
“Oh, you scare the life out of me,” I say, resting my chin on the top of her head.
She pulls back just enough to look at me, her eyes shimmering. “I’d advise against it, Doc.”
“Against what?”
“Getting too close to me. I’ve been known to chew men up and spit them out. I’ll move on and forget you. It’s what I do.”
I see exactly what she’s doing. She’s building the exit ramp. She’s preparing for the break before it even happens because it’s safer that way. No words will quell that doubt. Not tonight, anyway.
So I don’t use words.
I curl my fingers under her chin, tilt her face up, and kiss her. She sighs into my mouth as her hands tangle in my hair at the nape of my neck.
I sweep her up before she can say something reckless, and this time we don’t make it anywhere near the bedroom.
Her back meets the kitchen island with a soft thud right before her legs wind around my waist like they were made for it.
I don’t give either of us time to think.
The silk cami slips over her head, and the sight of her in the low kitchen light—flushed, wide-eyed, already unraveling—makes something dark and possessive tighten in my chest.
Mine.
I drop my mouth to her neck, to her collarbone, down the smooth plane of her stomach, dragging slow kisses that make her fingers dig into my shoulders. She’s trembling before I even touch her properly.
“Beckett—”
“I’ve got you,” I murmur against her skin.
I drop to my knees, stripping off those ridiculous slippers and her trousers until she’s bare. I don’t waste time. I want to hear her. I want to feel her shatter.
There’s been a hunger building in me since I left her this morning, and I unleash it when I press my tongue against her clit.
I take my time, even though every instinct in me wants to rush. I learn her again. The sounds she makes when I press just right. The way her breath hitches when I tease.
I work her until she’s sobbing my name, her body bucking against me until she finally breaks. I don’t let her come down.
Standing, I free my cock with frantic hands and position myself just enough to see her mouth part.
She gasps just before I thrust deep. We move together in the quiet of the kitchen, the only sounds the slap of skin and the hitch of our breathing.
She tries to look away once, but I catch her chin, guiding her back.
“Stay with me.”
And she does, right until her eyes roll back and she breaks again.
When I finally spill into her, it’s almost blinding. I bury my face in her neck and wait for my heartbeat to even out.
“Twice,” she whispers, that spark sliding back into her tone.
A tired laugh leaves me as I press a kiss behind her ear.
“Told you.”