Page 44 of The Doctors Will See You Now

The.

Not my.

Though, really, popping my cork early would be pretty fucking disappointing too.

Again, I ignored her line of questioning—after briefly considering teasing her if she lost ninety-nine percent of her vocabulary when she stepped outside of the office—and motioned for her to precede me. “Let’s go upstairs. Much better view.”

She dug her heels in, holding me at a stop behind her. “Why are we on a bus full of tourists?” Hell of a pair of heels they were, by the way. Stiletto, thigh-high boots that just skimmed the bottom of her, short—God, painfully, beautifully, short—black skirt.

I snapped my fingers in excitement. “Ah, thanks for reminding me.” I reached into my back pocket to hand her a disposable camera. “So you don’t miss anything.”

She almost tripped as I pushed her up the stairs, and when her angry eyes met mine over her shoulder, I worried for the first time that maybe this hadn’t been such a great first-date idea after all. But under all of that anger lived passion—a side of Mel I’d been dying to see since I’d laid eyes on her in that awkward exam room the first day—and curiosity over intelligence won out. I blame my Y chromosome.

“Will—” she started again when we reached the top of the stairs to an almost packed bus.

Turning her body to mine with a hand at her hip, I slid the other hand up and into the loose curls of her crimson hair. “Have I told you how happy I am that you changed your mind? How happy I am that some small part of you found me irresistible?”

“Will,” she said again, but this time it was a whisper.

The emotion of her word yanked the cord attached to my chest and sucked me in, luring me as if the call were designed specifically for me. In that moment, I was nothing but her prey.

Desperate for gratification, for some physical reassurance that I wasn’t fourteen steps into the twelve it would take me to lose my mind, I touched my lips to the skin of hers. Heat, raw and exotic spread from my mouth to my chest at first contact, but when she pushed up onto her toes and touched her lips to mine, once, twice, the blaze spread all the way to the end of every limb.

When the bus started to move, rocking us so hard that I had to catch her with an arm around her back and the other hand to the railing, I forced my lips to back away.

She smiled, and I realized at once that sometimes moving away has its perks.

Directing her to a seat, I let her scoot in first and settled beside her before wrapping an arm around her shoulders and leaning in to whisper in her ear. “Is this a bad idea? Do you hate it?”

I moved closer as I scented the intoxicating fruity allure of her skin. She shivered and leaned in to whisper in my ear. “Not anymore.”

“Good. I didn’t want this first date to be like any other first date you’d ever been on. I know you know the city, but this way, from now on, I’ll have memories of this everywhere I go.”

And, hopefully, so will she.

Truthfully, I was also hoping posing as tourists would aid in anonymity. I didn’t exactly get recognized everywhere I went, but it happened a whole lot more than you’d want it to on a first date.

She laughed. “Well, you’re definitely succeeding there.”

“I promise dinner at the end of the bus tour, though.”

“Well, well, look whose grade just shifted up the scale to a four point five.”

“Four point five?”

She winked. “What fun would it be if there weren’t any room to improve? I know how you doctor types are. It’s the challenge that drives you.”

I shook my head with a chuckle. “I don’t know, Mel. In this case, victory sounds pretty good to me.”

“Excuse me?” I heard as a soft tap rapped on my shoulder.

Mel’s face scrunched, especially at the corners of her eyes. I knew from watching her with Marlene that this was her face when annoyed. Ironically, the sight of it kept me from being the same.

I turned to the moment-interrupter with a smile. “Yes?”

“Would you mind taking a picture of us? Times Square is coming up, and we really want to get one of us with all the lights!”

“Sure,” I agreed, watching as Melody’s crabby wrinkles deepened. Absently, my hand lifted to the side of her head so I could smooth a finger over them. They cleared immediately.