No. Absolutely not.
The exam room is small. White walls, padded table, standard equipment. Mary helps me onto the table and the paper crinkles loudly beneath me.
“Doctor will be right in.”
She leaves. The door clicks shut.
His scent is stronger in here. Soaked into the walls, the furniture, the air itself. Bergamot and sandalwood with a darker edge underneath—alpha, unmistakably alpha—and every instinct I have is already humming with recognition.
I press my thighs together. Breathe through my mouth.
This is a medical appointment. He’s a doctor. I have a twisted ankle. Nothing is going to happen.
Logic doesn’t matter. A decade since I’ve been this close to him, and I still react like I’m eighteen and stupid and completely gone for him. My scent is probably already shifting—honey and citrus going warm with want—and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
The door opens.
“Ms. Donovan.”
That voice. Low, measured, precise. I’d know it anywhere.
I open my eyes.
And there he is. Lucas Price. Standing in the doorway of his exam room, white coat over a blue button-down, stethoscope around his neck. Tablet in hand. Expression carefully blank.
Ten years since I’ve seen his face, and for a moment I can’t breathe.
He’s changed. Of course he’s changed—we’ve all changed—but seeing it is different from knowing it. The boyish softness is gone from his jaw, replaced by sharp angles that make him look more serious. More guarded. His hair is shorter now, professionally cut instead of the slightly-too-long style he wore in high school, the one that used to fall into his eyes when he was bent over a textbook. He’s wearing wire-rimmed glasses I don’t recognize—when did he start wearing glasses?—and he’s broader through the shoulders than I remember. Filled out. Grown into himself.
But his eyes are the same. Deep brown, almost black, taking in everything and giving nothing away. He always could do that—watch and assess and keep his thoughts hidden behind that calm, analytical mask.
Except with me. He used to let me see.
The memory hits without warning.
Junior year. His bedroom. Books spread across his bed—his AP Bio textbook open to a chapter on cellular respiration, my already-finished essay on Pride and Prejudice sitting in my bag. We’re supposedly studying. But I’ve been watching him instead of rereading my annotations for the past ten minutes, and he knows it.
“You’re staring,” he says without looking up.
“You’re interesting.”
“I’m reading about cellular respiration.”
“Interestingly.”
That gets him to look at me. The corner of his mouth twitches—the Lucas version of a grin. “Don’t you have an essay to review?”
“Finished it last night.” I crawl across the bed, textbooks be damned, and settle against his side. “Tell me about cellular respiration instead.”
“You don’t care about cellular respiration.”
“I care about your voice.”
He sighs, but he’s already shifting to make room for me, already pulling me closer so I can rest my head on his shoulder. His hand finds mine, fingers intertwining automatically.
“The mitochondria,” he starts, and I smile against his neck.
“Is the powerhouse of the cell. Even I know that.”
