Page 449 of The Doctors Will See You Now

Somehow, someway, we’d reached this pivotal moment, me meeting his daughter, and it couldn’t have gone better.

Well, it actually did end up going better.

Mostly thanks to Lexi, and maybe a little bit from me, Dumbledore’s Quizards swept all twenty-five questions of the night, and took home the Cornerstone Tavern Trivia Night trophy.

Yeah, life was good.

No, life was perfect.

Two months later…

“Good night, Lexi,” I whispered into the top of her head, strands of her soft, blond hair tickling my nose. A few snores left her lips, but other than that, she was out like a light. I took Moby Dick from her hands, put her favorite bookmark in where she left off, and set it on her nightstand. “Sweet dreams, pretty girl.” I said quietly into her room as I got off the bed and turned out the light.

I made my way into the hallway, past the kitchen, and toward the opposite end of the apartment where Nick sat on our bed. Usually, he always made a point to put Lex to bed on the weekends she was with us, but he still had a lot of work to finish up before the night was through, and I pretty much adored lying in bed with Lex and reading books. Often times, we stuck to Harry Potter, but tonight, she’d been insistent on Herman Melville.

Nick had been putting in long hours at work on a difficult case, one involving a rare type of brain tumor that no other physician in the city wanted to take on. The boy was seventeen, and my fiancé was determined to save him.

It took a good and courageous man to do what he did day in and day out. Not all of his cases ended successfully, not every patient could have a good outcome, and when you had the tenacity to take on the biggest mountains, most of the battles were fought uphill the entire time.

But somehow, Nick always managed. And if anything ever put fear in his gut, he did a damn good job of hiding it.

God, I admired him. Medicine wasn’t just a paycheck to him. His patients weren’t just a number. They were living, breathing humans that he truly cared about. It showed in everything he did, including taking on a teenager’s rare brain tumor case pro bono.

His back rested against the headboard, and his gaze was focused on the laptop on top of his thighs. He looked good. Well, he always looked good, but it was times like these, when his attention was completely preoccupied, that I savored the short little bursts of time when I could just look at him without him realizing he had his own personal Peeping Tom.

With my shoulder leaning against the doorframe, I took him in. His deep brown gaze, the way his brow furrowed ever so slightly when he was questioning something he was reading, the way his long, dark lashes fanned over his face with each blink. And his lips, goodness gracious, those lips, no matter what they were doing—smirking, laughing, firm with focus—I was a fan.

And don’t even get me started on his body, currently sporting only a pair of navy boxer briefs, nearly every square inch on display. Every time his fingers tapped across the keyboard, his forearms and biceps flexed ever so slightly, leaving me with the delicious promise of more.

I smiled softly and ran my index finger across my bottom lip. Hot damn, he really was the most magnificent man I’d ever known.

I guessed I was biased, but when it came to love, wasn’t being biased a good thing?

It meant that you only had eyes for that person and you loved every little piece of them, even their flaws. Through your eyes, they were everything.

Eventually, my little speck of time to gawk at my fiancé ended, and Nick looked up from his laptop and met my gaze.

“You look like you’re up to something,” he said with a tiny smirk. “Should I be worried?”

“Nah.” I waved him off with a hand as I walked into the bedroom and started undressing. “I was just standing there, watching you like a little creeper. No big deal.”

“Well, that’s a relief because you looked like either you were head over heels in love with me or plotting my murder.”

I laughed outright at that. “It was the former. Promise.”

“Is Lexi asleep?” he asked, and I nodded.

“After she read two chapters of Moby Dick to me, she was out like a light,” I answered with a soft smile and tossed on my favorite sleep shirt before sliding into bed beside him. “Her brain should be considered the eighth wonder of the world. I can guarantee I wasn’t reading novels that most adults have a hard time comprehending at her age. Hell, as she was reading it to me, there were a few words in there I was happy she knew how to pronounce because I sure as fuck didn’t.”

He grinned. “Thanks for tucking in her tonight.”

“No thanks necessary. You know I jump at the opportunity to spend time with her.”

“She likes you, you know,” he said and shut his laptop. “This afternoon, when you were at the grocery store, she made me promise that I would marry you and that we’d stay together like her mother and Wes.”

I held up my engagement ring and winked. “Well, good thing marriage is the plan, huh?”

“Damn straight.” Nick smirked and pulled me on top of his big body. His lips brushed mine, once, twice, and on the third time, he kissed me deep, his tongue sliding into my mouth and dancing with mine.