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“I guess we can consider it, but I’m not sure that will go over well. Give me a few more days to think it through before we make any decisions. “Tonight,” I say, threading my fingers between hers, “I want to enjoy a meal with you, and then eat your pussy for dessert.”
She blushes, and it’s adorable. Even after all the sneaking off to have sex in public places, Ava still has the same innocence about her I saw the night we met. “Now, you’re just trying to get me wet, aren’t you? Haven’t you had enough of me already?”
“Nope, I can never get enough of you. It’s been that way from the start.” I smile at her, her expression mirroring mine. “You’re beautiful, smart, and everything I have been waiting for in a woman. And I found you on a dating app, of all places.”
She blushes. “You’re making me a better doctor. Sometimes, I wonder if you let me scrub in on my first day because we had sex, or if it was because I had earned it. I don’t want the lines to become too blurred when it comes to work and our relationship. I want to earn the surgeries I get.”
“You earned it,” I say, almost annoyed that she would even think I would allow her to perform surgery on a real, live human being just because we had sex. “Don’t ever doubt that you are a good doctor. In fact, you are the best in your class. So get that shit out of your head.”
“I love how you always know the right things to say,” she mutters with a dreamy look in her glassy blue eyes. “I love everything about you, Sloan.”
“No more Doc?”
She shakes her head. “Nope, I can’t possibly call the man I am falling in love with Doc.”
Her words somewhat take me by surprise, though I have been asking myself ever since the donor dinner if what I feel for Ava is love. It sure as hell is more than lust. “Do you mean that? You love me?”
She nods. “Is that crazy?”
“No,” I say, leaning in to her mouth. “Because I am falling crazy in love with you, too. I never expected to find love, because that would mean caring about someone more than I do my job, but I found it with you, Ava.”
“I love you, too, Sloan, but I’d like to know more about you. You keep me at a distance from your personal life.”
I sit up straight and press my body into hers, cradling her with my warmth. “I work more than anything. I have no life anymore.”
“I’m serious. I would like to know more about you. Why did you want to become a doctor? What led you to become the man you are today?”
“Is that all you want to know?”
“Let’s start with some of the basics, I guess. There’s one question I would love to know the answer to more than anything. Why did you have rules about one-night stands when we met?”
I sigh at her words. “So I didn’t get hurt again.”
“Again?” She narrows her eyes at me, awaiting a response.
“Yep, again. I dated this girl in medical school who was pretty much my world. Other than medicine, there wasn’t much I loved more than her.”
Ava sinks further into the leather seat and peeks over at me with curious eyes. “What happened?”
“She was offered a surgical residency at UCLA. I got one at Penn General. For a while, we tried to make it work long distance. Or at least I tried. She ended up cheating on me with an attending. They got married a few years ago.”
Ava runs her fingers over my skin, stroking the top of my hand. “My mom always says that things happen for a reason. That shitty experience led you to me.”
I grin so wide my jaw hurts. “I wouldn’t change meeting you for anything. She wasn’t right for me. It took me much longer to see that. You’re exactly what I want—beautiful, smart, a brilliant surgeon.”
“You already know why I wanted to become a doctor. I had no choice. My father raised me to become a surgeon. So what’s your story? Why did you choose this life? Every doctor has a reason they wanted to hold someone’s life in their hands.”
I consider her question for a second, taking far too long to answer, before she cocks an eyebrow at me. Even though I hate telling the story about my past, it’s a part of me she should understand. Unlike Ava’s story, mine is nothing but a series of fucked-up shit that guided me along the way. I’m lucky I made it this far.
Dredging up the past is one of my least favorite things and the reason why I always keep women at bay. Anytime a woman gets too close to me, they find out why
I’m so broken and unwilling to let anyone into my life, and then it doesn’t work out. Work usually gets in the way, where with Ava we share the same love for the profession. Things are easier with Ava. She gets me in ways no else had in the past.
“Okay, but no judgment and no crying or pity parties. Got it?”
She holds up her pinky and says, “Promise.”
“I had a rocky upbringing. I grew up in a tough part of Philly with a dad who never remembered I was alive unless he wanted someone to yell at. He was a dick and a drunk. After my mom died from cancer, he fell apart. My mom wanted me to become a doctor. She said I was too smart, even as a child, to be anything other than a doctor. I was her doctor for a long time. When she got sick, I would take care of her. I would sit at her bedside for hours, taking her temperature and checking her heart rate with the toys she bought me. It was one of those medical bags with a plastic thermometer and stethoscope. Back then, I thought my toys could save her. I was too young to understand that saving a life took more than hope. So, I devoted my time to school and getting good grades, even though I was the biggest fuck up.”
