I made a sound that was supposed to be a laugh, but it got hijacked halfway through when she ripped a second strip of tape off my skin. “The most tragic thing about you never becoming a doctor, is all the people who’ll never experience your sterling bedside manner.”
Her fingers paused on my bicep, the last piece of tape, and she glared at me. “You keep pushing like this, Bouchard, and I won’t be able to protect you anymore. There’ll be no skating under the radar.”
“Team’s happy, and so is Coach,” I replied through gritted teeth, staring up at the ceiling to avoid meeting her gaze.
Her thumbs lingered on my shoulder as she lifted the tape completely. The slight contact made my skin tense despite myself. “They’re happy because they don’t know about this. If they did—”
“They won’t.” Our eyes met, and I caught a flicker of uncertainty in hers.
The silence stretched between us like a slingshot taking aim and in that one look, it became clear we were both the target. No matter what either of us said or did. This had gone too far to walk away unscathed.
10
Reese
“We have to stop meeting like this.” Theo sauntered into the room that reminded me of Holly’s office back home. Dallas Stars called it their visiting medical bay, which… go figure.
“You’re late.”
His grin made it seem like he had a secret he wasn’t sharing, and it didn’t falter when he said, “Sorry, I know how much you miss me when I’m gone.”
The French lilt in his accent usually left the blandest statement dripping in charm. Now, it made something twist low in my belly. Which, I’d come to discover, was something he was very aware of. A weapon he wielded easily and freely.
Another thing I knew he was aware of, was how that wasn’t gonna work. Not after the past few games and the steady deterioration of that shoulder. Not with the team’s evaluation only a couple of weeks away.
A win and a loss to Stars at home, and he was still adamant he was ‘fine’.
“Take your shirt off.” I was already cutting strips of tape, mostly to get me out of staring down those smiling brown eyes.
The small space filled with light rustling, and then, “I’m all yours, Doc.”
He stood there far too pleased with himself, and when I looked up from the strips I’d lined along the end of the table, I caught more of him than I meant to. Shoulders built from years of hits he pretended didn’t leave a mark. Chest lean, the kind of athletic cut that made his shirts sit just right. The overhead light caught along the curve of his abdomen, pulling attention to places I had no business letting my eyes linger.
I cleared my throat and moved around him before any of that could register on my face. Professional. Focused. The shoulder was why we were here, not the rest of him.
But he turned his back so I could reach, and something in the quiet flex of muscle pulled at me anyway. A pulse of awareness I shoved somewhere deep, the same way I handled everything else that didn’t belong in this room.
“Hold still,” I said, even though he already was.
I set my hands on his shoulder, kept my grip clinical, and ignored the spark of heat skating up my spine that had nothing to do with the lack of ventilation in this stuffy room.
My palm settled against the curve of his shoulder while the other hand anchored the tape. He breathed through it, watching me instead of the wall like I’d hoped.
“What’s going on with you today?” His voice lost some of that roughened charm. “I mean, you’re usually bossing me around, but… there’s something up. I can tell.”
Oh, ever the perceptive one, was he? Well, he was also consistent in his unchallenged levels of superior self-involvement. What would he care about any of the something elses going on with me?
I reached for his other hand, fingers closing around his. The touch made him jump a little, and his eyes snapped to mine. Questioning, but not refusing my steady hold. His hand was warm. Calloused in all the ways that reminded me he made a living colliding with people almost always twice his size. My fingers pressed down on his shoulder and his grip tightened on instinct, a quick jolt of pain flickering across his expression, and—fine—something flickered through me too. But it wasn’t anything I planned on naming just yet.
He swallowed whatever the shoulder pulled out of him. I swallowed whatever this holding of hands pulled out of me.
My fingers guided his arm into position. “Hold it there.”
He did. Too easily. With that same infuriating composure he used whenever he was trying to read between lines I hadn’t given him access to.
I smoothed the first strip, then wound the second around his upper arm. His skin held heat and I hated that I noticed it. Hated that my pulse kicked in ways that forced me to think about things other than the job I was doing.
He tilted his head as if that would help him catch my eyes. “Did something happen?”
