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His hands on my waist.

The way he caught me before I even knew I was falling.

The way he didn’t hesitate—didn’t do anything but move—and the exact half-second before I remembered to hate him again, when my whole body was pressed flush against his and my hands were on his shoulders and I felt his heart going as hard and fast as mine and I did not, God help me, feel one single ounce of revulsion.

I flop onto my stomach and shove my face into the pillow and let out a sound that is not becoming of a woman with two board certifications.

What is wrong with you?

I’m a doctor.

I have opened a man’s chest with my hands and kept him alive with sheer stubbornness.

I understand cortisol responses.

I understand adrenaline.

I know exactly what my body was doing when he caught me—a woman held against a big, dangerous man for a few too many seconds.

It’s chemistry.

It’s biology.

It’s nothing.

I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling.

That doesn’t help. Neither does the dark. Neither does anything about this stupid room, including the sheets, which are somehow too soft.

Ugh. I groan and press the heels of my hands into my eyes so hard I see different colors. I’m not sleeping. I already know it. It’s just not happening tonight.

I sit up. I lie back down. I sit up again. There’s this awful jittery feeling under my skin and I can’t get rid of it. It feels like I’ve had too much coffee, except I haven’t had any coffee. Except what I’ve apparently had is Nico Barone.

“No,” I say out loud, sharply shaking my head. “No. I am not doing this.”

But my brain isn’t listening.

My brain wants to think about him.

About his shoulders, and the way they look under a fitted shirt. About how tall he is.

God, he’s what? Six foot three? Six foot four?

I’m five-eight and I felt small next to him in that gym.

I never feel small.

I’ve gone toe to toe with department heads who towered over me and I never felt my height.

But now that I’ve opened the door, my traitorous fuck ass brain is now running through the other physical attributes of Nico Barone. His tattooed forearms, all those dark lines running up and disappearing under his sleeves.

God, I wish I knew what those tattoos were.

What they mean.

What story do they tell?

I shiver again, feeling the phantom touch of his large hands, and I briefly touch my waist, remembering how they felt when he caught me.