Weâre Not Done
Part Three: Pretty Girl
Pairing: Jack Abbot x Reader
Summary: The night shift is almost over, but the tension between you and Jack Abbot is nowhere near finished. With every interrupted conversation and every careful step apart, the truth gets harder to ignore: Jack wants more than stolen moments in the ER, and he is done pretending he does not know exactly what you are thinking.
Warnings: Mature themes, intense sexual tension, mutual fantasy, workplace flirting, heated makeout, strong language, ER/medical setting, mentions of injury/blood, patient in a possible domestic violence situation, emotional distress, no explicit smut.
Author's Note:
Should this stay a one-shot, or do we need the dinner follow-up?
Because Jack Abbot said âweâre not done,â and I fear he meant it.
As always, thank you for reading and loving these two with me. Your comments, reblogs, and reactions mean so much.
Xoxo, Del
MDNI 18 +
YOUR POV
By the time Daniel and Erin left the department, the ER had shifted into that strange post-trauma aftermath. Not calm. Never calm. But loosened. The immediate danger had passed, leaving behind wrappers, half-finished notes, cold coffee, and everyone pretending their bodies were not suddenly aware of how tired they were. You gathered the unused blankets from Erinâs chair because they were there. Because they needed to go back. Because returning hospital linens to the warmer was a completely normal, responsible task and not, in any way, an excuse to put distance between yourself and Jack Abbot before your body did something catastrophically honest. Across the station, Jack stood with one hand braced on the counter. Trauma gown gone. Scrub top rumpled near the collar. Hair roughened like he had dragged his hand through it one too many times. He looked up the second you moved. Of course he did.
His eyes found yours across the department.
Not neutral.
Not even close.
Your body remembered the trauma bay.
âBefore I say too much.â
You looked away first. Then you tucked the blankets tighter against your chest and headed for the supply room. Returning them. That was all. Just returning the blankets. A normal thing. A helpful thing. A thing that definitely had nothing to do with the fact that Jackâs mouth had become a problem, you could feel in your knees.
You walked toward the back supply room with the focused determination of a woman who absolutely knew where she was going and was not fleeing a man with a rough voice and dangerous hands.
Not fleeing.
Redirecting.
Professionally.
The supply room door swung open with a soft pneumatic sigh. You stepped inside, let it close behind you, and leaned your forehead briefly against the nearest metal shelf. Cool. Blessedly cool. You inhaled. The room smelled like cardboard, antiseptic, plastic packaging, and the rubbery scent of gloves. Shelves rose around you, stacked with gauze, saline flushes, socks, blankets, tape, basins, mesh underwear, and emesis bags. Everything organized. Labeled. Contained.
Unlike you.
You set the blankets down on a cart and pressed your palms flat against the shelf. You had been fine. That was the worst part. You had been fine for months. You had noticed Jack, obviously, because you had eyes and blood circulation. You had enjoyed the banter. You had occasionally gone home after a shift and thought about the way he said your name, or not your name, or âSocial Workâ like it amused him to put a little heat under the words.
But tonight had changed the weather.
Tonight, you knew.
You knew his eyes went to your mouth.
You knew he noticed your breathing.
You knew the thing between you was not something you had invented out of exhaustion and poor romantic judgment.
Jack Abbot wanted you.
And you wanted him so badly your entire body felt like it had been rewritten around the fact.
You closed your eyes.
Immediately, your mind supplied him at the trauma bay door.
âYou should go.â
âBefore I say too much.â
You had almost wanted to tell him, âThen say it.â
Instead, you had carried blankets down the hall like a responsible employee.
A saint, probably. A martyr to workplace boundaries.
The door opened behind you.
You turned.
Jack stepped inside.
For one second, neither of you moved.
He held a roll of Coban wrap in one hand, which was almost funny.
Almost.
His gaze moved over you, quick and sharp, and something in his face changed when he realized you were alone. Not softened. Focused. Like every interruption, every almost, every careful step back had led both of you here, and neither of you was going to be able to pretend otherwise for much longer. He glanced at the door. Then back at you. âI can leave,â he said.
The offer was immediate. Rough. Real.
Your pulse tripped.
He had not closed the door all the way. It rested mostly shut behind him, not latched, a sliver of fluorescent hall light cutting across the floor. He stood near it, one hand still on the roll of Coban wrap, body angled so you could walk past him if you wanted to.
You should have wanted to.
That would have been sensible.
Instead, you looked at his mouth.
Jack saw.
His hand tightened around the medical wrap. âDonât do that,â he said.
Your breath caught. âDo what?â
His eyes lifted to yours. âLook at me like you want me to stay after I gave you a way out.â
OhâŚ
Oh.
The room seemed to shrink. You could hear your own pulse. You could hear the dull hum of the ventilation. Somewhere outside, someone laughed at the nursesâ station, ordinary and distant and impossible. You swallowed. âDo you want to leave?â
Jackâs jaw shifted. âNo.â
The answer was so immediate it burned.
Your hands curled against the shelf. âThen donât.â
He exhaled slowly through his nose. A man fighting to remain composed. A man losing. âSocial Work.â
There it was.
Your armor and your undoing.
The professional mask. The almost-joke. The thing he had used all night to stand close without saying what he meant. It did not feel like a joke now. It felt like the last warning before something broke.
âYou said we were going to have a conversation,â you said.
Jackâs mouth moved slightly. Not a smile. Not quite. âThat what you want?â
âA conversation?â You ask in a whisper.
His eyes dropped to your mouth.
Your body answered before you could. Warmth unfurled low in your stomach, immediate and humiliating.
His gaze came back to yours. âNo,â he said quietly.
The air left your lungs.
The door clicked shut behind him. Jack set the Coban wrap down on the nearest cart. Very deliberately. Like if he moved too fast, he would make the decision before he had asked for permission to have it.
He took one step toward you.
Then stopped.
Still too far away.
Close enough to ruin you.
âTell me to stop,â he said.
Your fingers tightened on the shelf. âI donât want you to stop.â
His eyes darkened.
That was the only warning.
Jack crossed the space between you in two controlled strides and stopped close enough that the heat of him reached you before his hands did.
He did not touch you.
Not yet.
Somehow, that was worse.
His body filled the room. Not because he was trying to intimidate you. Because he was Jack, broad and solid and steady and suddenly not pretending the distance between you was safe.
You tipped your head back to look at him.
His gaze moved over your face like he was memorizing what happened to you when he got close.
âTell me no,â he said.
Your voice came out thin. âNo.â
Jack went still.
Your heart stuttered. Then you realized what you had done. âNo, I meanââ You reached for him without thinking, fingers catching in the front of his scrub top. âNo, donât stop.â
His control cracked.
You saw it happen.
One second, Jack was standing there, jaw tight, eyes locked on yours, giving you every possible chance to end this.
Next, his hand was at your waist, and his mouth was on yours.
Not gentle.
Not sweet.
Not polite.
Jack kissed you like restraint had been a language he had finally decided to stop speaking.
The first press of his mouth stole every coherent thought you had left. Heat flashed through you so fast your knees went unreliable, and his hand tightened at your waist, steadying you, pulling you in, holding you like he had been thinking about that exact place all night.
Maybe longer.
You made a sound against his mouth.
Small.
Embarrassing.
Completely involuntary.
Jack inhaled like it had hit him in the chest.
Then he kissed you harder.
Your back met the shelf behind you with a soft rattle of packaged gauze. Not slammed. Not careless. He followed you there with one hand braced beside your shoulder, the other at your waist, his body close enough that you could feel the heat of him through both layers of your clothes. Every fantasy you had been trying to survive all night suddenly had weight. His mouth at the corner of yours. His hand at your waist. His chest against your hands.
His voice, wrecked and low, when he broke away just enough to breathe. âJesus.â
You dragged in air.
It did not help.
Your hands had found his shoulders at some point. Broad. Solid. Real beneath your palms. One slid up to the back of his neck, fingers brushing the short hair there, and Jack made a rough sound that went straight through you.
You wanted to hear it again.
You wanted to hear everything.
You kissed him back before he could decide to be responsible. His mouth opened under yours, and the whole room tilted. Jackâs hand flexed at your waist. Careful. Still careful. Even like this.
Especially like this.
He held you like he wanted to feel every inch of you and still remembered you were a person he had to ask for. That thought nearly undid you. Your fingers tightened in his scrub top. He groaned softly against your mouth. The sound was low and broken and nothing like the controlled voice he used in trauma rooms.
You pulled back just enough to breathe. âJack.â
His eyes snapped open.
Oh.
That did something to him.
You saw it. Felt it. The way his whole body tightened at his name in your mouth.
He stared at you like he had been hit. Then his hand slid from your waist to your jaw, thumb brushing along the edge of your cheek with a restraint that looked painful. âSay that again,â he said, voice rough, âand Iâm going to have a problem, pretty girl.â
Your entire body went liquid. There it was. Not âSocial Workâ. Not the professional mask. Not the nickname he could say across a crowded nursesâ station and deny later if anyone asked.
Pretty girl.
Low.
Private.
Devastating.
You forgot how to breathe.
Jackâs thumb stilled against your cheek. âToo much?â
The question landed through the heat.
Gentle. Checking.
You shook your head quickly.
His eyes searched yours. âUse words.â
Of course. Of course, he would make you say it.
Your fingers tightened at the back of his neck. âNo,â you said. âNot too much.â
His gaze dropped to your mouth again. âGood.â
Then he kissed you like the words had given him permission. This time, you were ready for the heat. You were not ready for the way he made it worse by slowing down. By taking your mouth like he had nowhere else to be, no trauma bay outside, no coworkers with eyes, no entire hospital pressing around the edges of this tiny room. Like he had been imagining exactly this and wanted to prove, thoroughly, that he had a better imagination than you did.
Your hand slipped into his hair.
He made that sound again.
You smiled against his mouth because you could not help it.
Jack pulled back just enough to look at you. âWhat?â
You were breathing too hard to be dignified. âNothing.â
âLiar.â He murmured against your lips.
The callback hit both of you at once.
You laughed. Soft. Breathless.
Jackâs expression changed. Not cooler. Worse. Warmer. Hungrier. Like the sound had gone somewhere inside him and made itself at home.
Then his mouth was on yours again.
Your laugh disappeared into him.
The shelf rattled softly when his forearm braced beside your head. His body crowded yours, controlled strength and heat and the faint scent of coffee, soap, and him. You could feel every place he was careful not to press too hard, every place he gave you room to move away. You did not move away. You pulled him closer. His breath left him sharply.
âFuck,â he whispered.
The word barely made it past his mouth.
You felt it anyway.
A voice passed outside the door. âWhereâs Abbot?â
Both of you froze. Not pulled apart. Not yet. Jackâs mouth was still close enough to yours that his breath touched your lips. His hand was still at your waist. Your fingers were still curled in the front of his scrub top like you had forgotten how to let go.
Which, to be fair, you had.
Another voice answered from farther down the hall. âTrauma two, maybe?â
âHeâs not there.â
Jack closed his eyes. You felt his hand flex once at your waist before he made himself release you. Not quickly.
That was worse.
He let go like it cost him something.
Your back stayed against the shelf. Packaged gauze pressed between your shoulder blades. Your mouth felt swollen. Your whole body felt like it had been opened and left humming.
Outside, Ellisâs voice cut closer. âAbbot?â
Jack dropped his forehead lightly against yours. One second. Just one. âOf course,â he murmured.
You almost laughed, but it came out closer to a shaky breath. His eyes opened. They were dark. Wrecked. Still fixed on your mouth like leaving it was an actual physical hardship. âWeâre not doing this here,â he said.
Your pulse tripped. âYou started it.â
âI know.â No denial. No joke. Just a rough, honest admission that made the room feel smaller.
Then Ellis called again, sharper this time. âAbbot.â
Jack stepped back. The loss of him was immediate and unfair. He dragged one hand over his mouth, then stopped like that had only made it worse. His hair was mussed from your fingers. His scrub top was twisted where you had grabbed it.
You stared at him.
He stared back.
Then, because apparently he still had some mercy left, he reached up and gently straightened the edge of your badge. His knuckles brushed your chest through your top. Barely. After everything else, it should not have mattered. It did.
Your breath caught.
Jackâs eyes lifted. âSee?â he said softly. âProblem.â
Outside the door, footsteps approached.
Jack looked toward the hall, then back at you. âIâm going out first.â
You nodded, because words felt impossible.
His hand settled briefly against the door handle. Then he paused. âSocial Work.â
Your pulse kicked. âYeah?â
His gaze moved over your face once, lingering at your mouth. The professional mask was back in the nickname, but barely. It sat crooked now. Ruined by his mouth. Ruined by your hands in his hair. Ruined by the way he had called you pretty girl and made every thought in your head go quiet except yes. His voice dropped. âWeâre not done.â
Then he opened the door and stepped into the hall.
Shenâs voice came immediately. âThere you are.â
Jack sounded calm. Too calm. âProblem?â
âCT wants you,â Shen answered.
Jack nodded, âOn my way.â
A pause.
Then Shen asked, âWhy is your hair like that?â
Silence.
Your hand flew to your mouth.
Jack said, âLong night.â
âMm-hmm.â Shen hummed.
Jack gave him a look. âShen.â
âWhat?â He asks innocently.
âDonât,â Jack said.
You stayed in the supply room, one hand pressed to your mouth, the other still gripping the shelf behind you. You tried to breathe. Your lips still felt him. Your waist still remembers his hand. Your body still had the shape of him written against it in heat. You straightened your cardigan. Fixed your badge, which he had already fixed, because apparently you needed to touch the place his hand had just been.
You grabbed two random packs of gauze from the shelf so you could pretend you had entered the supply room for a reason that had anything to do with patient care. Then you stepped back into the ER with your mouth swollen, your pulse wrecked, and the horrible realization that Jack Abbot had been right.
You were not done.
Not even close.
You made it five full seconds. That deserved recognition, honestly. A plaque. A certificate. A hospital-wide email about your commitment to professional conduct in the face of extreme personal adversity. You stepped out of the supply room with two packs of gauze in your hand and the firm belief that if you moved normally enough, no one would know Jack Abbot had just kissed you against a shelf full of wound care supplies. The ER did not pause. Monitors chimed. A nurse laughed at something near the med room. The printer screamed itself awake. Somewhere behind curtain four, a patient asked for ice chips in a tone that suggested ice chips were a constitutional right. Normal. Everything was normal.
Except your mouth still felt like his.
Except your waist still remembered the shape of his hand.
Except the words âpretty girlâ had settled somewhere low in your body and decided to live there permanently. You walked back to central station with the gauze. Very casually. Possibly too casually.
Crus looked up from a chart and blinked at the packs in your hand. âDid we need those?â
You looked down. Gauze. Right. âYes.â
Ellis, without lifting her eyes from the board, said, âLet her have the gauze.â
You set the gauze beside your laptop as if it were the most important thing you had done all night. Then you sat. Carefully. Because apparently sitting was complicated now. Your body had become a crime scene. You clicked into your notes and stared at the screen. The cursor blinked.
Your brain supplied Jackâs mouth.
Not helpful.
You typed half a sentence.
Your brain supplied his hand at your waist, firm and hot through your scrubs, holding you like he had been thinking about that exact place all night.
You deleted the sentence.
The cursor blinked again.
Your brain supplied his voice.
âSay that again, and Iâm going to have a problem, pretty girl.â
Your fingers stilled on the keyboard.
God.
You had thought kissing Jack Abbot would answer something. That was almost funny now. It had not answered anything. It had made everything worse. Before, wanting him had been theoretical in the way dangerous things were theoretical when they stayed across counters and inside fantasies. His hands. His voice. His shoulders under black scrubs. The way he stood too close and looked at you like he knew exactly where your mind had gone. Before, you could pretend your body was exaggerating.
Now you knew.
You knew what his mouth felt like when he stopped being careful. Knew the weight of his hand at your waist. Knew the heat of him pressed close enough to make the whole world narrow down to his breath and your back against a supply shelf. Knew the sound he made when your fingers got into his hair.
You knew what it did to him when you said his name.
Jack.
Not Abbot.
Not Dr. Abbot.
Jack.
The knowledge sat low in your body, hot and impossible to ignore.
You wanted him.
God, you wanted him.
You wanted him so badly it made normal tasks feel obscene. Charting. Walking. Holding gauze. Answering Crusâs question about whether you needed gauze. All of it felt ridiculous when your mouth still felt swollen from Jackâs and your waist still remembered the shape of his hand.
And it was not just because he was beautiful.
Though he was. You could not find a better word to describe him.
Infuriatingly, unfairly beautiful in a way that did not look polished or easy. Beautiful like rough hands and tired eyes and gray in his scruff. Beautiful like a man who had seen too much and still knew how to stand between someone scared and the worst thing in the room. It was not just his body, though your brain had certainly built a detailed and deeply inappropriate file on that subject. His shoulders. His chest. His forearms when he snapped on gloves. His hands when they braced near yours, when they steadied patients, when they held your waist like he had been imagining that exact place all night. It was not just his voice, though that voice had become a private disaster. Low in the trauma bay. Dry at the nursesâ station. Rough in the supply room when he called you âpretty girlâ and made every thought in your head go white.
It was him.
That was the problem.
It was the way he waited for permission, even when he wanted something. The way he made rooms safer without needing anyone to thank him for it. The way he read fear like a vital sign. The way he could be blunt and careful at the same time. The way he looked at you when you were doing your job, like he saw the work beneath the warmth and wanted that too.
You wanted him outside the hospital.
The realization hit so hard you nearly stopped breathing.
You wanted to see him somewhere without fluorescent lights. Somewhere without call bells and trauma gowns and the constant threat of someone needing either of you before you could finish a sentence. You wanted him across a table. Wanted to know if he took his coffee black everywhere, or if that was only an ER survival mechanism. Wanted to know what he would order if you dragged him to a coffee shop after shift, both of you exhausted and useless in the morning sun, sitting too close at a small table with your knees brushing beneath it. You wanted to see what he looked like, tired and happy. Not calm because he had to be. Not controlled because people were watching. Just tired. Warm. Yours for an hour. Your throat tightened. You wanted to know what he would look like in your apartment. Too broad for your little kitchen. Out of place beside your couch. One hip leaned against your counter while you made coffee, hair still damp from a shower, scruff rougher than it had been when he left the hospital. You wanted to know if he would take up space carefully there, too, or if some part of him would finally stop bracing for impact. You wanted to make him stop bracing.
That thought changed the shape of the fantasy.
It was not only his hands on you.
It was yours on him.
You wanted to undo him.
Wanted to put your hands on his chest and feel all that restraint under your palms. Wanted to trace the hard lines of him slowly enough that his breath changed. Wanted to drag your nails down his chest and watch the calm leave his face inch by inch. Wanted to follow the path your hands made with your mouth, your teeth, your tongue, until Jack Abbot â steady, controlled, impossible Jack Abbot â forgot how to be anything but a man under your hands.
You wanted to know what he sounded like when he was not giving orders.
When he was not saying âbreathe with meâ to a patient or âSocial Workâ across a crowded station.
When he was saying your name, because you had taken him apart carefully enough to make him lose the rest of his vocabulary.
You wanted him on your couch.
Wanted to push him back and climb into his lap just to see if he would let you. Wanted to feel his hands grip your hips, to watch his jaw go tight, to find out whether he would still try to hold on to control when you were above him, moving against him, giving him every chance to break.
Would he let you have that?
Would he let you be the one who ruined him first?
Or would his restraint snap?
Would he stand, turn you around, bend you over the kitchen table with that rough sound in his throat and his hands finally as hungry as his mouth? Would he take you to bed like a man who had spent the entire night practicing restraint and was done pretending it had made him noble?
The thought nearly took your knees out from under you.
Slow.
Hard.
Gentle.
Desperate.
You wanted all of it.
You wanted to find every version of him and make him stop hiding behind the controlled one. You wanted his patience. You wanted his loss of patience. You wanted his mouth at your throat, his body over yours, his voice in your ear, his hands giving you exactly what he had been denying both of you all night.
And, God help you, you wanted to be the reason he stopped denying himself.
âSocial Work.â
Your fingers hit the wrong keys.
Again.
Because apparently this was your life now.
You looked up.
Jack had returned to central station.
Of course, he had.
He stood across from you with one hand on the counter and a chart in the other, looking almost normal. Almost. His hair was fixed. Mostly. His scrub top was smoothed down. Mostly.
His mouthâ
Nope.
You could not look at his mouth. You looked directly into his eyes instead, which was somehow worse. His gaze held yours for half a second. Long enough for your entire body to remember the supply room. Long enough for his eyes to drop, barely, to the gauze beside your laptop. One corner of his mouth moved. Not a smile. A crime. âYou find what you needed?â
Your face went hot. Behind him, Crus coughed into his coffee.
You folded your hands over the keyboard. âYes.â
Jackâs gaze stayed steady. âGood.â That word. That voice.
You were going to need legal representation.
Shen walked past with a chart and did not slow down. âBoth of you are very bad at being subtle.â
You closed your eyes.
Jack did not even blink. âJohn.â
âWhat?â Shen called over his shoulder. âThat was me being helpful.â
Crus looked up. âHelpful about what?â
âNo,â Ellis said.
Crus frowned. âIâm beginning to feel excluded.â
âYou are being protected,â Ellis said.
You opened your eyes.
Jack was still looking at you.
The ER continued around you, but the space between you had its own weather now. Different pressure. Less oxygen. You tried to reach for sarcasm. It slipped. âYou okay, Dr. Abbot?â
His eyes darkened.
Oh.
Wrong question.
Or the right question.
You were no longer sure there was a difference.
Jack leaned forward slightly, not enough to cause a scene, just enough that his voice could drop under the noise. âDo not ask me that right now.â
Your stomach tightened. You looked down at your laptop because eye contact suddenly felt legally dangerous.
His hand shifted on the counter. You saw it in your peripheral vision. The same hand that had been on your waist less than ten minutes ago. The same fingers that had fixed your badge after he kissed you. The same knuckles that had brushed your scrub top so lightly, your breath had caught anyway. You wanted those hands back on you. You wanted yours on him. The want rose so sharply you had to press your knee against the underside of the desk.
Jack saw the movement. Of course he did. His jaw tightened.
For one second, the attending-neutral mask slipped. Not much. Enough.
Then a nurse called his name from room six. âAbbot?â
He closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them, he looked at you one more time. âWeâre working,â he said.
You nodded. Yes. Working. A helpful reminder.
A terrible one.
âRight,â you said. âWorking.â
His gaze dropped to your mouth. Then away. He left before either of you made it worse. You watched him go.
No, you did not.
You looked at your computer screen.
Which reflected him faintly as he walked away.
So, technically, you watched him go.
You forced yourself back into the chart. Patient discharged with safety plan and resources.
Your mouth still felt like Jack's.
Follow-up provided.
Your waist still remembered his grip.
No further social work services are needed at this time.
You saved the note. Then the charge phone rang. Crus picked it up, listened for three seconds, and looked at you. âRoom eightâs daughter is asking for social work.â
You inhaled slowly. âOkay.â
Work. Work was good. Work was stable. Work did not involve imagining Jack Abbot in your apartment with his hands braced on either side of your kitchen table.
You stood.
Across the department, Jack stepped out of room six. You both moved at the same time. Toward opposite ends of the hall. The corridor narrowed near the medication room, forcing you to pass each other with only inches to spare. Before the supply room, that would have been the problem. The risk of accidental contact. The brush of his sleeve. The heat of his body. Now, Jack deliberately gave you space. He turned his shoulder slightly, making room for you to pass. He did not touch your waist. Did not brush your hand. Did not let his fingers find the small of your back. Somehow, after the supply room, the restraint felt louder than contact. You slowed for half a second. So did he. Neither of you stopped. As you passed, his voice reached you, barely more than breath. âLater.â
One word. A promise. A warning. A problem.
You kept walking because room eight needed you, and because if you turned around, you were not completely sure you could keep walking away. Your skin felt lit everywhere he had not touched you. Which seemed unfair. Deeply unfair. You entered room eight with a calm face, a soft voice, and absolutely no idea how you were supposed to make it to the end of the shift alive.
JACK POV
Jack had thought kissing you might take the edge off.
That was almost comical now.
 It had not taken anything off.
 It had put detail into every thought he had been trying to keep vague. Now he knew the sound you made when his mouth found yours. Knew the way your fingers tightened in his scrub top like you were trying to keep yourself upright. Knew the heat of your waist under his hand, the softness of you through fabric, the way your whole body seemed to answer before your mouth could decide whether it was allowed.
He knew what his name sounded like in your mouth.
Jack.
Christ.
He had been called Abbot for so long in these halls that his first name almost felt like something he kept somewhere else. Something private. Something that belonged off shift, off duty, outside fluorescent lights and trauma rooms and the endless machinery of other peopleâs emergencies. Then you had said it once, breathless in a supply room, and his body had reacted like you had put your hand around his throat.
Jack signed an order.
Fucking hell.
He forced his attention back to room six. Work. He was working. He had told you that because one of you needed to say it out loud, and because if he did not keep reminding himself, he was going to walk back across central station, put his hand at your waist, and finish what he had started beside the gauze.
He wanted to take you to dinner.
The thought hit him hard enough to make his jaw tighten.
He wanted to see you outside the hospital first. Outside of the fluorescent lights, trauma bays and central station counters. He wanted to know what you looked like when no one was asking you to be calm. Wanted to sit across from you somewhere dim and warm and watch you choose what to eat. Wanted to hear your laugh when you did not have to swallow it down because a patient was sleeping behind a curtain, or Shen was ten feet away, asking why everyone was acting weird.
He wanted to know you there.
And thenâ
Christ.
Then he wanted to fuck you.
Not in theory. Not in some half-controlled, easily dismissed way.
He wanted you in his bed. Against his wall. Under his hands with nothing between you but breath and want and every filthy thought the two of you had been pretending not to have all night.
He wanted to take you slowly first.
Wanted to learn you by inches. Kiss by kiss. Touch by touch. Wanted to drag his mouth over every place that made you shiver and find out what made that careful voice finally break. Wanted to coax the small sounds out of you until they were no longer small. Until you stopped trying to be quiet. Until your hands were in his hair and your body was arching into his and his name was the only thing you remembered how to say.
He wanted to take you apart with patience.
And then he wanted to lose that patience.
Wanted to fuck you hard enough that all the restraint he had practiced for weeks finally became useless. Wanted your mouth open beneath his, your legs around him, your breath coming fast and broken while he gave you everything you asked for. Rough if you wanted rough. Slow if you wanted slow. Anything. All of it. No denying you. No denying himself. No stopping just because wanting you had become inconvenient.
He wanted to hear you gasp.
Wanted to hear you moan.
Wanted to find every edge you had and bring you right up to it until you were shaking under his touch, until you were panting and desperate and looking at him like he was the only thing keeping you from coming apart completely.
And then he wanted to take you over.
Again.
And again.
Until neither of you had anything left to pretend.
Jack closed his eyes for half a second. A terrible idea. Because closing his eyes only put you there more clearly. Your back against the shelf. Your hands in his hair. Your mouth swollen.
Your eyes wide when he called you pretty girl.
He opened his eyes.
The patient in room six stared at him from the bed. âYou good, Doc?â
Jack looked down at the chart. Then back to the patient. âLong night.â
The patient nodded solemnly. âSame.â
Fair enough.
Jack finished the reassessment, stepped out of room six, and nearly collided with you in the hall. He stopped short. So did you. The corridor narrowed between the medication room and the supply carts. There was enough space for two people to pass if both of them behaved like adults. He was trying.
God, he was trying.
You looked up at him. Your eyes were calm. Your mouth was not. Your mouth looked like he had kissed it, and some primitive, unreasonable part of him wanted to turn you around and make it worse.
Instead, Jack moved his shoulder back. Made room. Did not touch you. That was the most restraint he had shown all night, and it nearly killed him. You passed close enough that he caught your scent. Hospital soap. Something faintly sweet.
You.
His hand flexed at his side. He did not let it move. Your gaze dropped to the movement, then back to his face. You knew. Of course, you knew.
Jack leaned just enough that his voice would reach you and no one else. âLater.â
Your breath caught.
Small.
Perfect.
Then you kept walking.
Good.
Good.
If you had stopped, he would have stopped too. If you had turned back, he would have forgotten the rest of the goddamn hospital. He watched you go anyway because, apparently he had learned nothing. You entered room eight. The door swung partly closed behind you. Jack stood in the hall for one second too long. You were not a stolen minute. Not a hallway look. Not a mouth he could keep thinking about while pretending all he had done was finally give in to something physical.
You were not just a heated moment in a supply closet.
You were the woman who made scared patients breathe.
The woman who gave people choices when the night had already taken too many.
The woman who had kissed him back like she was just as tired of pretending as he was, then walked back into the ER and kept doing her job with a mouth he could still taste and gauze in her hand like a shield. Jack looked toward room eight. Then down at the chart in his hand. Jack turned back to the board. There were orders to sign. Patients to disposition. A department to keep moving until the gray light of morning crept around the hospital windows and the day shift arrived smelling like sleep and optimism.
Fine.
He could do that.
He could finish the shift.
He could keep his hands to himself.
He could be steady for another hour. Maybe two.
Because he knew exactly what he was going to do when the night finally let go of both of you.
He was going to ask you to dinner.
Not because he had cooled down.
Not because the kiss had been a mistake.
Because it had not been a mistake.
Because if he put his hands on you again, he wanted it to be after you had chosen him somewhere outside this place. Somewhere warm. Somewhere without call lights and security phones and coworkers close enough to hear the way your breath changed.
He wanted your yes over dinner.
He wanted your laugh across a table.
He wanted to walk you to your car.
The pause.
The choice.
Then, and only then, he wanted the rest.
Jack picked up his pen and signed the next order.
His hand was steady.
Barely.
He was going to finish the shift.
And then he was going to ask you to dinner before he put his hands on you again.
YOUR POV
By 6:58, the ER had become the morningâs problem. Day shift arrived in layers of clean hair, full coffee cups, and the offensive brightness of people who had slept in beds rather than in chairs, cars, or spiritually questionable break rooms. Night shift handed over the department the way people handed over live wires. Carefully. With warnings. Room six needed repeat labs. Room eightâs daughter had finally agreed to go home and sleep for two hours before coming back. The toe was discharged, despite Shenâs continued belief that it had ânarrative weight.â Crus had found his missing tape roll on his own sleeve. Ellis looked ready to fight the sun.
And Jack Abbot had not touched you again.
Not once.
Not at the central station. Not in the hallway. Not when you passed each other outside room eight, and your shoulder came within an inch of his chest. Not when he leaned over the board to sign out to the day shift, and you stood close enough to see the pen mark still smudged near his thumb.
The restraint was worse now.
Before the supply room, the distance had been deniable.
After, it felt deliberate.
It felt like Jack holding a match between his teeth and refusing to strike it.
You had survived the last hour on professionalism, spite, and the phrase âweâre not doneâ repeating in your head every time you tried to form a normal thought. You signed your last note. Saved it. Close your laptop. Then stared at the blank screen for half a second, catching your reflection in the dark glass. Your mouth looked normal. Probably. Your badge was straight because he had fixed it in the supply room with hands that had no business being gentle after kissing you like that. Your cardigan was back on both shoulders. Your hair was still coming loose around your face, but that could be blamed on the shift. Most things could be blamed on the shift. Not this.
Crus passed behind you with his bag slung over one shoulder. âYou heading out?â
âYeah.â
His eyes moved over your face once. Not teasing. Softer than that. âDrive safe.â
The kindness of it nearly undid you. You nodded. âYou too.â
Shen appeared beside him, still wearing the expression of a man haunted by a missing phone charger . âIf anyone sees my chargerââ
âShen,â Ellis called from the board, âgo home.â
He sighed. âHostile workplace.â
Crus steered him toward the exit. Ellis stopped beside your chair. For one terrifying second, you thought she was going to say something about Jack. About the supply room. About the fact that the entire night shift had eyes and apparently no survival instinct.
Instead, she looked down at your closed laptop. âYour notes done?â
You blinked. âYeah.â
âGood.â She paused. âGo home before someone needs you again.â
Your throat tightened. âGood advice.â
 âI give it constantly. No one listens.â
Then she walked away.
You stood slowly, slinging your bag over your shoulder, and made yourself not look for Jack. You made it four steps. Then five. Then you looked. Of course you did. He was at the far end of central station, speaking to Robby. Scrub top rumpled. Hair mostly fixed. One hand on the counter, posture loose in that deceptive way that meant he was exhausted and still tracking everything in the room.
His gaze lifted before you could look away. Found you. Stayed. The department moved around him. Nurses, residents, techs, daylight. All of it passing between you like the world still had the audacity to exist.
Jackâs face did not change.
But his eyes did.
Dark. Steady. Certain.
Your pulse kicked hard.
Then he looked back at Robby and said something you could not hear.
The dismissal should have helped. It did not. Because you knew now what it meant when Jack looked away. You knew what it cost him. You walked toward the staff exit before you could do something humiliating like stand there and wait to be wanted in public. The back hallway was quieter. Not quiet, exactly. Hospitals were never quiet. But softer. Less immediate. The linoleum dulled the sound of your shoes. The windows near the stairwell held pale morning light, gray-blue and thin, the kind that made everything look slightly unreal.
You pushed through the staff door into the small alcove by the ambulance bay. Cool air slipped under your cardigan. You inhaled. Once. Twice. You had made it. You had survived the shift. You had survived Maya and Daniel and Erin and room eight and Shenâs toe and Ellisâs terrifying observational skills and the supply room shelf still holding the exact shape of your back somewhere in its institutional memory.
You had survived Jack Abbotâs mouth.
Mostly.
You took one step toward the outer door.
âSocial Work.â
You stopped. Your hand was still on the strap of your bag. For a second, you closed your eyes.
Because of course. Because the night was not done with you. Because he had told you he wasnât.
You turned.
Jack stood at the end of the hall. No chart now. No coffee. No stethoscope.
Just him.
Tired. Rumpled. Guard down enough that your breath caught before he even came closer. He looked different away from the central station. Still Jack. Still broad and steady and built out of restraint. But without the counter between you, without the board behind him, without someone calling his name every ten seconds, he seemed less like the attending and more like the man who had kissed you in a supply room and then walked back into the ER like he was holding himself together by hand.
Your body remembered instantly. His hand at your waist. His mouth opening over yours.
âPretty girl.â
You swallowed. âDr. Abbot.â
His mouth barely moved. âReally?â
You knew exactly what he meant. The title. The shield. The last stupid little wall.
You lifted your chin anyway. âWeâre at work.â
âBarely.â He replied.
âThat still counts.â
âIt does.â He came closer. Slowly. Not crowding. Not this time. He stopped a few feet away, leaving space between you like he had decided to prove he could. Like the space itself was an apology and a promise and a restraint all at once.
Your fingers tightened on your bag strap. âAre you okay?â you asked.
Jackâs eyes darkened.
You regretted it immediately. Not because it was wrong. Because it had become something else now.
He looked at you for a long second. âNo,â he said.
Your pulse tripped.
The corner of his mouth lifted, but it did not soften the answer.
âNo?â You asked.
âNo.â
The hallway seemed to narrow.
Jack glanced toward the door behind you, then back at your face. âI want to take you to dinner.â
You stared at him. Of all the things your brain had prepared for, somehow that had not been one of them. Not after the supply room. Not after his mouth. Not after âweâre not doneâ had been living under your skin for the last hour.
âDinner,â you repeated.
âYes.â
Your laugh came out small and disbelieving. âThatâs where youâre starting?â
Jackâs gaze dropped to your mouth. Briefly. Enough. âNo,â he said. âThatâs where Iâm choosing to start.â
Oh.
The words landed harder than any flirtation had.
You went still.
Jack saw it. Of course, he saw it. He always did. He stepped closer by one pace. Still leaving room. Still not touching you. âI want you,â he said.
The hallway vanished.
There was nothing but his voice. Low. Rough. Honest. âI think you know that by now.â
Your mouth went dry. You nodded once. Barely.
Jackâs jaw flexed. âBut I donât want this to be something that only happens because weâre exhausted and half out of our minds in a supply room.â
Your chest tightened.
He took another careful breath. âI want to see you outside this place. Without the badge. Without the call lights. Without someone needing either of us before we finish a sentence.â His eyes held yours. âI want to sit across from you somewhere that doesnât smell like antiseptic and bad coffee and find out what you order when youâre not pretending vending machine crackers count as dinner.â
A helpless smile touched your mouth.
Jackâs eyes followed it like it hurt him. âI want that first,â he said.
Your voice came out softer than you intended. âAnd then?â
His gaze lifted to yours. The air changed. Heat flashed through the space between you, immediate and familiar now. No longer imaginary. No longer deniable.
Jackâs voice dropped. âThen, if you still look at me like that, pretty girl, Iâm going to spend a long time proving I meant it when I said we werenât done.â
Your whole body went hot.
The words were not explicit.
They did not need to be.
Your brain supplied his hands, his mouth, your apartment, your couch, his body under yours, his control gone because you had taken it apart piece by piece. It supplied all of it in one bright, reckless rush until your knees felt unreliable and the door behind you seemed like the only thing keeping you upright.
Jack watched your face. The heat in his eyes shifted, not cooling, but anchoring.
âDinner,â he said again. âNot instead of anything else.â
Your breath caught.
âBefore,â Jack murmured.
That word nearly ruined you.
Before.
Not no. Not never. Before. You looked down for half a second, because looking at him was suddenly too much. The floor was safer. Ugly hospital tile. Scuffed from years of night shifts and bad news and people leaving differently than they came in. Then you looked back up.
Jack had not moved. Still giving you space. Still waiting. Still him.
You thought about him at the central station, leaning over your laptop with that awful, almost-smile. Thought about him in room twelve, asking Mayaâs permission before touching her bruised wrist. Thought about him in trauma two, calm as stone, making a terrible thing survivable. Thought about him in the supply room, losing his control and still checking yours.
You wanted the filthy parts.
God, you wanted them.
You wanted his hands and his mouth and the rough sound he made when your fingers got in his hair. You wanted to undo him. Wanted to learn what happened when Jack Abbot did not have to be steady for anyone. Wanted to see him in your apartment, too broad for your kitchen, coffee in his hand, restraint finally useless because you had chosen him there too.
But you also wanted dinner. You wanted him across a table. You wanted his laugh in daylight. You wanted the hour where no one needed either of you to be brave.
So you nodded. âYes.â
Jackâs expression changed. Just slightly. But you saw it. Relief first. Then heat. Then something more dangerous, because it looked almost tender. âYeah?â
You smiled, small and shaky. âYeah.â
His hand lifted. Stopped. Your eyes dropped to it. He noticed. Of course.
âCan I?â he asked.
Your throat tightened. After everything, that question still got you. Maybe because of everything. You nodded.
Jack stepped closer and took your hand. Not your waist. Not your jaw. Your hand. Warm, careful, solid around yours. Somehow, after the supply room, that felt more intimate than being kissed against a shelf. His thumb brushed once over your knuckles.
Your breath caught.
His mouth curved. âThere it is,â he murmured.
You narrowed your eyes, though your pulse had absolutely betrayed you. âDonât be smug.â
âIâm not,â Jack replied.
You raise a brow, âYou are.â
âIâm relieved.â
That stopped you.
Jackâs thumb stilled. The honesty sat between you, quieter than the heat but no less dangerous.
You squeezed his hand once before you could overthink it. âWhen?â you asked.
His eyes stayed on your face. âTonight.â
You blinked. âTonight?â
âAfter we sleep,â Jack replied.Â
You exhale, âBold assumption.â
âThat weâll sleep?â He asked.Â
âThat either of us will be functional in twelve hours.â
Jackâs mouth twitched. âI didnât ask for functional.â
âNo?â
âNo.â His eyes dropped to your mouth again, and your entire body remembered his. âI asked for dinner.â
You swallowed. âSeven?â
He nodded, âSeven.â
Then reality, cruel and practical, cut through the heat for half a second. âDonât you work tonight?â You asked.Â
âNo.â
You paused.
Jackâs mouth barely moved, but something almost amused shifted in his eyes.
âNeither do you,â he said.
Your eyebrows lifted. âYou know my schedule?â
âI work nights in an ER,â he said. âKnowing who Iâm stuck with is survival.â
âThat is a very romantic way to say you checked.â You grin.Â
âI noticed.â He corrected.Â
That was worse.
Of course, it was worse.
The heat of the hallway, the memory of his mouth, the way he had said âpretty girlâ like he had ruined both of you on purpose â all of it shifted around that one word.
Noticed.
Jack noticed everything. Your hands on a keyboard. Your breathing when he stood too close. Your voice with patients. Your name on the board. Your night off.
Your chest tightened. âSo weâre both off,â you said.
âWeâre both off,â he answered.
You raise a brow, âSuspicious.â
âDeeply.â He agreed.Â
âAnd youâre using this scheduling miracle to ask me to dinner?â You ask.Â
âIâm using it to take you to dinner.â
Your mouth curved before you could stop it. âConfident.â
âNo,â Jack said, quieter now. âHopeful.â
That softened something dangerous in you.
The filthy parts were still there. God, they were there. His hands, his mouth, your apartment, the imagined weight of him against you when neither of you had to stop because someone called his name from the hallway.
But this was there too.
Dinner.
A real one.
A night off.
A choice made outside the ER.
âWhere?â you asked.
âIâll pick you up.â He replied.Â
You furrow your brows, âYou donât know where I live.â
âI was planning to ask.â He said.Â
You smile, âVery responsible of you.â
âIâm trying something new.âÂ
A laugh escaped you.
Soft.
Tired.
Real.
Jack looked at you like he had wanted that sound all night and was furious it had taken this long to get it.
Then his hand tightened slightly around yours.
Not pulling.
Just holding.
âYou can still say no,â he said.
You stepped closer.
Only one step.
Enough that the warmth of him reached you again.
Enough that his eyes sharpened.
âI know.â
His gaze moved over your face. âAnd?â
You tilted your head. âIâm saying yes.â
Jack inhaled slowly.
The controlled kind.
The kind that meant he wanted to do something else with his mouth and was choosing not to.
For now.
You liked that you knew that.
You liked it too much.
His thumb brushed your knuckles again.
âGood.â
That word again.
Your stomach flipped.
âYou know,â you said, âdinner is not usually this dramatic.â
Jackâs mouth curved. âWith you, Iâm starting to think everything is.â
âYou started this.â You counter.Â
âI did.â
The lack of denial warmed you in places you were trying very hard not to think about in a hospital hallway.
A door opened somewhere behind him.
Voices approached.
Day shift. Nurses. The world.
Jack let go of your hand before anyone rounded the corner.
You missed the contact immediately.
His eyes told you he knew that too.
âGo home,â he said.
âBossy.â You replied.Â
âYes.â
You smiled despite yourself. âGo sleep, Dr. Abbot.â
His gaze sharpened at the title.
Not correcting you this time.
Just filing it away.
âCareful,â he said.
Your smile faded into heat
The word came back with every version of the night attached. The counter. The pen. The trauma bay. The supply room. His mouth. Your hands. âWeâre not done.â
You stepped backward toward the exit.
âMaybe you should stop saying that if you donât want me to test it.â
Jackâs expression went still.
The same way it had in the trauma bay.
The same way it had before he kissed you.
For one wild second, you thought he might close the distance again anyway.
He did not.
He stayed exactly where he was.
A man practicing restraint badly, but on purpose.
His voice was rough when he answered. âSeven.â
You nodded. âSeven.â
Then you pushed open the staff door and stepped into the morning. The air was cool. Gray light spread across the parking lot. The world outside the hospital looked too ordinary for what had just happened inside it. Cars with dew on their windshields. A delivery truck is idling near the side entrance. Birds making noise in the weak early sun like they had no respect for night shift or the fact that your entire life had just changed beside an ambulance bay door. You walked toward your car on unsteady legs.
Halfway there, you looked back.
Jack stood inside the glass, one hand braced against the doorframe, watching you go.
He did not wave.
Neither did you.
You only smiled.
Small.
Private.
His head dipped once.
A promise.
Your phone buzzed before you reached your car.
Unknown number. Then the text appeared.
Seven. Send me your address when you get home.
A second text followed before you could answer.
And sleep.
You stared at the screen.
Then smiled so hard your cheeks hurt.
You typed back with shaking fingers.
Yes, Doctor.
Three dots appeared almost immediately.
Then:
Careful, pretty girl.
Your breath left you in a laugh that sounded nothing like the controlled voice you used in the ER. You got into your car. Locked the door. Press your forehead to the steering wheel for one second. Then two. Then you looked at the phone again. Seven. Dinner first.
Then whatever came after.
Whatever you both chose when no one was bleeding, no one was calling his name, and there was no supply room door for the rest of the world to knock on. Your lips still felt like him. Your hand still remembered his.
And for the first time all night, you let yourself stop pretending that was a problem.
It was not a problem.
It was a promise.
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