Heart Murmurs (3 page)

When they were over the threshold, standing in the dimly lit entryway, she finally turned to look at him.
Finally
. “Is
this
practical?”

God, she was beautiful and fiery and utterly breathtaking, all without putting any effort into it. She wore simplicity like other women wore diamonds. “No,” he said, roughly. “This isn’t practical at all.”

He wasn’t sure who made the move. Him. Her. It didn’t matter, because within a fraction of a second they were in each other’s arms. Anu kissed like she talked, combative and defensive and completely committed to her argument. They crashed into the wall, a tangle of bodies, of hands exploring and mouths battling for dominance. Vince tasted heat, mint, and fury and he wanted more. He wanted
everything
.

He grabbed her wrists, pinning them above her head. She wedged her knee between his legs, rubbing her denim-clad thigh against the rise of his fly. For every move he made, she matched him and then upped the ante. So he pressed the only advantage he could: he swept her up in his arms and carried her into the depths of his suite. But even then, she didn’t surrender. She locked her legs around his hips, kissing his mouth, his cheek, his throat. Every bit of him that was available to her. Like he was something to be devoured. He’d been wrong that day in front of room 206.
He
wasn’t the Big Bad Wolf. She was going to eat him alive.

“Anushka,” he gasped, nudging aside the strap of her tank top and baring the soft, honeyed skin of her breasts. “Anushka, tell me you want this. Tell me how
much
you want this.”

She didn’t. As they made their way into his bedroom, flinging clothes and second thoughts every which way, she
showed
him.

****

There were no pagers. No alarms. No dangers of waking from another unfulfilled dream. Anu was in this for real. Vince was spread beneath her, a willing victim. The flesh was more stunning than any fantasy. He was all muscles and sinew, lightly haired arms and chest, the dark whorls of his hair growing thicker the further south they traveled. She almost wanted to pinch herself again, to double-check that this wasn’t her imagination, but instead she closed her teeth around the tender skin of his throat and marked him as her own. Let
him
be the one begging for mercy.

Vince swore, hips bucking off the king-sized mattress, and palmed the back of her head. He worked the tie on her hair, snapping the band and letting it all loose. It spilled around her like a curtain as she bracketed him between her thighs and continued her attack. If this was her chance, she was going to take it. To the hilt.

“Anu,” he called her, the unspoken demand in the sharp syllable. He wanted her to lay herself bare in more than just the expanse of her skin. But she couldn’t give him the words. She had to hold something back or she’d lose it all.

As if he could read her mind—which wasn’t outside the realm of possibility, given his multitude of talents—he rolled them so he was the one on top, and he took the lead.

Oh, God
. Had she really thought she could master the great Dr. Vince McHenry? She’d only succeeded because he let her. Now,
he
was the one calling the shots, with his powerful grip, his consuming kisses, and his deft fingers scissoring inside her heat, touching places she didn’t know existed, and making her want to give up all of her secrets. He didn’t leave bruises; he didn’t need to. She would remember every place he pressed his mouth to, every hollow and angle he caressed.

“
Vince
.” His name tore from her throat in a desperate plea. “Vince, Vince, Vince.” As he grabbed a condom from the nightstand, covered himself, and buried himself in her in one sure stroke, she gave him the only truth she could allow: the prayer that was his name.

****

Four days later, Vince could still hear the echo of Anu’s throaty cries. They haunted both his sleeping and waking moments. Her voice was his surgery music.
VinceVinceVince.
His name had turned into a keening wail as he drove her to the edge and they fell over it together, and he wasn’t sure he could ever hear it spoken again without remembering how, just for an instant, Anushka had let him in. They’d clung to each other, no barriers, no illusions. Just a man and a woman sharing the most sacred thing in the world next to holding someone’s life in your hands.

Then, she’d climbed out of his bed, gathered her clothes, and fled.

It was easy to play the avoidance game when you worked in different departments. She threw herself into what was, doubtless, an insane cardio rotation schedule. He had multiple procedures, a clinical trial to check in on, and a talk for the first year residents. He saw her name on the surgical board for an assist on a bypass, but he couldn’t track her down and demand to know what happened. There just wasn’t time, not for anything but the replay.

On the fifth day, after a four-hour nap in one of the on-call rooms that was riddled with lurid fantasies that made him feel like a twelve-year-old coming in his shorts, Vince knew avoidance was no longer an option. He had to see her. He had to get to the bottom of this.
And I have to have her again
.

“I’m sorry, Vince. I had her here for a full forty-eight. She clocked out for the day.” Theresa Lincoln, the best damn CT surgeon in the city, was enough of a professional that she didn’t bat an eye when he cornered her in one of the observation rooms. There was no recrimination in her voice. She spared as little consideration for stray emotion as she did for her hair, which she kept tamed in a severe bun. “Is there something I should be concerned about? Is Dr. Gupta’s work in question?”

“No. Never!” he was swift to assure. A doctor’s career could end merely on the
suspicion
of sub-par care. “It’s nothing, Teri. I just wanted to follow up on a consult from last week.”

Dr. Lincoln didn’t buy that, of course. A Johns Hopkins grad with a PhD, she hadn’t been born yesterday. But all she did was nod, dismissively. “If she’s not at that bar down the street, you’ll find her at the Barracks on 7th Street. I believe she, and a few other residents, have apartments there.”

The Barracks was slang for an old apartment building called the Baron, built in the 1950s. Stark, almost military in its efficiency, it was perfect housing for anyone who did nothing in its rooms but sleep and maybe heat up a can of soup. Vince knew of it even though he’d never been there. It was an easy, fifteen-minute walk. Easy in every way except mentally.

What did one say
to a woman who ran from their bed after a bout of phenomenal sex? Vince had never, ever been in this position before. He’d never had to be the pursuer, tracking someone down for answers and pleading for a second chance. Even when he and Debra had broken up, he’d just accepted it and closed the case file rather than dwelling on all the maudlin might-have-beens. Anushka was uncharted territory, territory that he’d mapped to the best of his ability in the darkness of his bedroom, memorizing the taste of her and exploring the wild terrain of her body.

Are you insane, or just so used to getting your own way that you don’t give a damn what anyone thinks?

Both. Most definitely both. Because he stalked through her apartment building with purpose, recognizing and then ignoring a few interns along the way. When he came to her door, he didn’t bother with a pleasant tap or a gentle ring of the doorbell. No, he
pounded
on it, until he heard the fumbling of locks and the knob on the other side, and it was swinging open to reveal one very exhausted and cranky-looking future cardiologist.

Wearing flannel pajama pants and a faded Penn State T-shirt, without a trace of makeup on, and looking ready to kill him, Anu was still one of the most compelling things he’d ever laid eyes upon. “What?” she demanded. “What do you want?”

“What do you think I want?” He shouldered past her, into the small apartment, which could easily fit, in its entirety, in his living room. “To check your bedpost for a fresh notch.”

“That’s not fair. I don’t deserve that from you.” She flinched, shutting the door behind him and flattening herself against it. Like she needed it to hold her up.

He would’ve held her until sunrise. Gladly. “I don’t know
what
you deserve, Anu. I don’t know anything about you, because you didn’t stick around long enough for me to discover it.”

“As if you’re not used to that?” She came away from the door then, skirting past him and keeping a battered plaid couch between them like a force field. “What would’ve been the point, Dr. McHenry? You’re you, and I’m me. We have no long-term potential whatsoever, so why not file it away as what it was: a good time that doesn’t need to be repeated.”

He wanted to kneel and look for his jaw where it had hit the floor. “Jesus. Is that what you think? Do you really think I’m not capable of a deeper commitment?” It certainly wouldn’t be the first time he’d been accused of it, but he usually deserved the suspicion. This…this was something else. “Is it just how you’re determined to live: for nothing but the work and the occasional recreational sex? Because I have to tell you, we don’t do that by choice, Dr. Gupta. It’s not a goal. It’s not a life. Not for a top surgeon, not for
anyone
.”

Her face was ghostly pale, and she’d wrapped her arms tight around herself like a tourniquet. “No, what I really think is that I was obsessed with you before, and now that I’ve actually been with you, I will never,
ever
get you out of my blood. So, for the sake of my sanity, for the sake of my career, I need to stay as far away from you as possible.” She gave him a brittle, beautiful smile with that confession. “And, yes, I know I said all of that out loud.”

What did one say
to a woman who ran from their bed after a bout of phenomenal sex? Nothing. Vince could say nothing. All he could do was cross the room and pull her into his arms.

****

Anu didn’t want him to be kind to her. She wanted the bastard who’d slammed on her door and barreled into her apartment like he had a right to be there. She wanted the prick with a God complex she’d always thought he was. Not this man with welcoming arms and a hard chest and lips that brushed across her hair in a gesture that was meant to soothe. She shoved at him, but he was unyielding. He didn’t move. He just held her closer, tighter…and it felt amazing.

For the past five days, she hadn’t let herself feel anything. She’d compartmentalized, tucking everything that had happened between the Subtle Knife and leaving the Grand into a little, locked box. She’d charted the passing of hours by how many times she changed her scrubs, focusing on nothing but patients and reports and getting through assisting on a triple bypass without screwing up. But he’d still been there, of course. Under her skin, in her blind spot, caught in that split second between awake and asleep. Vince McHenry had seeped into her very marrow.

She wanted him more than ever. Worse, she wanted him more than anything. That was completely unacceptable. But, oh, did it feel completely attainable when she was threading her fingers through his silky dark hair and breathing in the subtle scent of his expensive cologne.

“It’s okay,” he murmured against her cheek. “It’s okay to want this. To take it. To keep it.”

“No, it’s not.” She closed her eyes, shutting herself away from the power of him as she forced herself to speak. To say all the honest things that he seemed to value so much. “Because I’m some silly resident with a crush, and that’s going to get old for you really, really fast. You’re going to move on, and I’m going to be Meredith goddamn Grey, mooning over you until I transfer somewhere else. I don’t want to be a soap opera, Dr. McHenry. I want to be a healer. I came here to be a doctor, not a conquest.”

“Who says you’re the conquest?” He was pressing the lightest, barest of kisses to her temple, her cheek, her jaw. His tenderness was nearly brutal in its sweetness. “There
is
another option, you know.”

She pulled back and looked up at him. “Really? And what would that be, adjoining rooms in the psych ward? Don’t worry; I already have mine all picked out.”

“No. It’s a little less drastic than that,” he smiled. “It’s a regular course of treatment involving dinner and movies, telling me about your day, hearing about my truly stellar surgical skills, and you reading
The Return of the King
while I lie next to you in bed looking over research notes.” Just like before, he loosened her hair from its ponytail, tossing aside the rubber band and tangling his fingers in the strands. Just like before, he was effortlessly mastering her. With his hands, with his eyes, with his words. “It’s simple, Anushka. Simple and perfect. You let yourself fall in love with me, and I let myself fall in love with you, and we turn into the best pair of doctors who are crazy in love with each other that our hospital has ever seen.”

Yes
. She wanted to shout, “Yes. Yes, let’s do it.” The words wouldn’t come. She wasn’t that reckless. She wasn’t that stupid. She wasn’t the only woman who’d entertained foolish notions about Vince McHenry, and she didn’t need a Facebook group to prove it. She fisted her hands in the soft material of his shirt, shaking her head. “How do you know that would even work, Vince? How do you know it’s not better, safer, to just leave me alone and write this off?”

“What can I say? I’m taking an informed, educated risk.” He cradled her face in his palms; thumb stroking over her lower lip. “Think about it,” he urged, huskily. “That’s all I’m asking. Look at all the angles, all the arguments, and think about it.” Then, he bent to kiss her. Once. Twice. Hot, drugging kisses that she would feel for hours. “Take two of these and call me in the morning.”

****

If you looked up “god complex” in the dictionary, ahead of any other brilliant medical mind in the country there would be a picture of him, or so he’d frequently been told. According to some, he was a nurse whisperer, a magician in the OR, and a neuroscience pioneer. Still others said that he acted like he walked on water and raised the dead.