Erin turned her attention to the small spiral notebook at her elbow, the one where she recorded all of her to-dos, reminders, and notes. I used to think she was hyper-diligent, almost in the way that Shannon was Type A all the way, but I'd come to realize that Erin was the classic absentminded professor. She wrote it all down to remember what to do, and what she'd done.
"What's on deck for fieldwork?" I asked. She didn't have to be at Oxford for several months; I had those dates marked on the calendar hanging in my kitchen.
She bobbed her head from side to side as she flipped through her notebook. "I need to get over to Greenland," she said. "Maybe June, and then a few more times after that. There's a lot going on there, but at least it's close by."
"Okay," I said, thinking through my surgical and on-call schedule for the month. "Okay, that leaves March, and then April and May. Right?"
Erin blew out a heavy breath. She was still catching up on work after being in the Arctic for the past two months, and she had a lot of balls in the air right now. "Yeah," she said. She shook her water bottle. "Hang on, I need a refill."
She unfolded her legs from beneath her and went to climb off her bed when I said, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. What isthis?"
I'd been looking at her black long-sleeved thermal shirt with the Harvard Med hoodie I'd sent her a few months ago on top—the one she woreallthe time—and foolishly assumed she was wearing jeans or yoga pants, too. But the smooth, bare skin that filled my screen proved otherwise.
"You've been sitting there in your little pink skivvies this whole time?" I asked. Erin pushed her glasses up her nose, smiling though she tried to fight it. "If you're not wearing any pants, darlin', you'd best announce that up front."
Erin cocked her head to the side. "Oh? And why is that?"
I set the lo mein and my laptop beside me on the sofa and pushed to my feet. "So I can join you," I said, shoving my flannel pajama bottoms to the ground. That left me in a Longhorns t-shirt and boxers. Thinking better of it, I yanked the shirt over my head. Superfluous.
"Good Lord," she muttered, staring at my chest.
"Yeah?" I ran my hand over my abs. "How about you take that shirt off, darlin'."
"No, Nick," she warned, holding up a hand. It was the same hand with her wedding ring on the wrong fucking finger, and I growled at that reminder. "I can't do this."
She sounded like I was asking her to jump out of an airplane without a parachute. Abandoning the lo mein, I carried my laptop into the bedroom.
"Where are you going?" Erin asked. "Seriously, Nick. Ican'tdo this. You know how awkward I am when it comes to sex, and I can't—"
"Awkward?" I asked, leaning back against the pillows. "You are anythingbutawkward, darlin'."
She tossed her head back and covered her eyes. "I'm so awkward," she said, groaning. "I'm not comfortable with sex or saying dirty things or—or—any of this. I can't."
"If that's the case, then we have very different recollections of having sex with you," I said. I had the computer propped up beside me, and in a strange, digital-society kind of way, it felt like she was in bed with me.
"Ohno," she said heavily. "You can't do that. No sleepy eyes and rumpled faces. Put that filthy smirk away, sir. You can't do that."
"Do what?" I asked, pillowing my head on my bicep. Her lips parted and I could almost feel her sigh on my skin.
"That." Erin gestured to me, her hand outstretched as if me, lying in bed shirtless, explained it all. "You are unreal, and I'm a hot, hot mess. Just admit it."
Frowning, I scratched my belly while I considered Erin's comment. She was a hot mess if hot messes were gut-churningly gorgeous. Then I heard her sigh. It wasn't her usual exasperation either, it was the breathy type of sigh that rang with longing. Glancing back to the screen, I found her gazing at my torso.
"I love that you're fuzzy," she whispered, as if she was sharing a secret with my abs. Her teeth sank into her bottom lip, and it only made me want to taste her more.
"Yeah?" I asked, dragging my fingers through my chest hair. Later, when my cock wasn't demanding attention, I'd file this nugget away with all the other things I'd never expected to hear from Erin.
She nodded a few times too many, like she was in an eight-pack trance and couldn't shake free. "I like your hands, too."
I didn't expect that one either. "Why is that?" I asked.
She lifted a shoulder and then tugged at her sleeves, pulling the cuffs down over her hands. It was too fucking cute. I couldn't articulate why I liked that as much as I did, but it always turned me on more than any show of cleavage.
"They're strong," she said. So shy. "And your veins, they're…they're nice."
"No one's ever complimented my vascularity before," I said. That wasn't true. Phlebotomists loved me. Not relevant to the current situation.
"Oh my God!" she cried, burrowing inside the hoodie to hide from me. "See? I'msoawkward."
