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Our little secret.
She doesn't put much thought into it, in that exact moment. She's distracted by the superficial wound, by the freckles on his shoulder, by the thumping of her heart at the recognition he had inadvertently given her.
She thought she had gotten through to Mr. Diaz, persuaded him to stay just a little bit longer. Given herself enough time to look for other angles, smuggle whatever other resources there could possibly be into the small, white bag. Anything that could give him a little bit more time.
Samira couldn't handle another father on her conscience, not today, not during a double on a holiday weekend. Not when it was starting to get so fucking hot.
She does her job, and she does it as well as she can: cleans up the blood, adheres the gauze, tosses the swabs before anyone can walk in on them and start asking questions.
Samira leaves him to redress, to stay or go, she's never quite sure with this one. She expects it to be like most other things with Dr. Jack Abbot: a passing comment, a breath of exhilaration, a moment of feeling seen—really seen—before she washes it off in the shower with the lingering sweat and smell of antiseptic.
Until. Until a day or a week or a month passes, and she realizes it's hovering at her periphery, and she will wonder when it turned from nothing into something.
A week later, she walks into PTMC ten minutes early for her night shift (another double, she tries not to think about it) and stops short at the sight of Dr. Jack Abbot, hands dug deep into his scrub pants pockets, getting his ass handed to him by Gloria.
She wants to hover, to see what could possibly have the woman so animated - Samira has a sinking feeling in her gut that she doesn't want justified - but Dr. Abbot catches her out of the corner of his eye. His mouth twitches and with the subtlest shake of his head, Samira tightens her grip on her backpack and ducks into the locker room.
"That was because of me, right?" It'll haunt her the rest of the shift, Samira knows herself, so she nips it in the bud.
"Not sure what you mean. Gloria loves me."
Samira crosses arms over her chest, frown deepening.
Dr. Abbot glances at her, does a double-take. Seems perturbed by the downturn of her lips. "She had...thoughts about my handling of certain situations. Nothin' I haven't heard before."
She bites at her lip. "Are you telling me the truth?" She doesn't usually push him like this, but there's no way he's taking the fall for her choice, for her determination, for her insistence on getting Mr. Diaz the treatment he needed to survive.
(Although perhaps insistence isn't the right word. After all, he had offered. He had wandered over to her later, gotten Mr. Diaz's address from his file, tapped away at his phone without a moment's hesitation.)
Dr. Abbot sighs, pivoting to face her fully, mirroring her stance. She pointedly ignores where his biceps flex against the cut of the black scrub top. "Dr. Mohan, I made a decision about patient care, same as you did. You think we made the wrong call?"
"No." She shakes her head automatically.
"Great. Me neither." He gives her one, solid nod. "So...that's that." Returns to the computer, though his eyes linger on her—as they always seem to do, now that she thinks about it. "You've got good work to do. Go. Do."
Samira opens her mouth, but isn't sure what else there is to say.
He notes her hesitation, corners of his mouth twitching up. "I got your back, you got mine, Mohan. Literally."
Our little secret.
Right.
Right.
She forgets about it, temporarily.
Until.
The banging of a door and the sudden piercing light startles her so violently she almost falls off the hospital bed. She releases a choked sound, and then sees Dr. Ellis in the doorway, crestfallen.
"Oh for god's—Lena said you were in 16, not 17!" She holds a hand out, backs out like Samira's a caged animal, and shuts the door quietly behind her. As if that will do anything. As if there's any hope of getting back to sleep.
When Samira's straightened her scrubs and attempted to pat out as many wrinkles as possible, she heads towards the charge desk.
"Seriously...my bad." Dr. Ellis drops the tablet onto the counter, expression tight. "If you wanna take another 30, I'll cover you."
"No, you're fine." The sentiment is lost a bit as the yawn interrupts her midway through.
The other doctor jerks a thumb behind her, focus now on the board. "At least drop by the lounge first. Abbot said he left something for you in the fridge."
Samira nods, brain still rebooting, and drags herself towards the small break room. It isn't until she's through the door that the words hit her frontal lobe.
Dr. Abbot left something for her. In the fridge. Okay.
In the back of the bottom shelf, tucked away so well she almost misses it, sits a small iced matcha latte. Almond milk, no sweetener. Not from the hospital's cafeteria, not even from Kinder Being down the block. No, it's from Commonplace, the one with the good matcha powder, that always has a line. That's a drive away—five minutes, sure, but that's still...five minutes.
Mohan is scrawled on a post-it adhered to the front and when she picks it up, eyes wide, she flips it over and sees what's written on the back in his ridiculous doctor's chicken scratch.
Our little secret.
It becomes something…else.
Two weeks go by before Samira wonders if she should reciprocate. He expects nothing from her—certainly nothing she’d have to spend money on, he’d made that abundantly clear—and he’d more than likely prefer letting sleeping dogs lie. But it’s fun, sort of. Or has the potential to be fun, and interesting, and something different from her routine: work, shower, research, bed, rinse, repeat.
So the next time she’s reading an article and has the errant thought that Dr. Abbot might like this, she acts on it. Prints it out because the idea of sending him an email with the subject line 'our little secret' is a mistake most anyone could identify relatively quickly. Writes those three words above the abstract in her perfectly legible handwriting instead, folds it once, and slips it through the slots of his locker when she’s leaving after her Tuesday shift.
She doesn’t expect the texts that come in at 3:12am—doesn’t actually read them until the next morning—that make her stomach twist.
Good read.
Our article is gonna be better.
“I’m not taking the New Jersey fellowship.” Samira blurts out during a slow night, when she’s catching up on charting and he’s making the final revisions to their article.
Abbot blinks a couple of times, first at the screen, then at her. “Oh?”
“I didn’t want it.” The words startle her, the truth in them. Must be the exhaustion, the long hours. Must not be the way he shifts his whole body, giving her his undivided attention, making her feel like the only person in a quiet (but not empty) emergency room. “I thought—I wanted to be closer to my mom. But now she’s…well, anyway. I’m not taking it.” A pause. He leans in. She’s not sure he’s conscious of it. “I’m staying here.”
Abbot swallows, and she tries so hard not to track the movement. “Oh.” He's about ready to say something, and then hesitates. It is jarring; she doesn’t think she’s ever seen him do it before. “And you want it? The ED fellowship here?”
Samira fights against the expression forming, one of utter perplexity. “Yes?”
“You don’t sound sure.”
“I am—what is happening right now?” She sounds almost amused; she very much is not.
Abbot stares at her. “Mohan, you have worked your ass off for your career and you deserve every single fellowship you get, and ones you probably didn’t apply to. Anyone would be lucky, privileged in fact, to have you on their team. It’s an important year for you. Go be where you are going to get the most out of it, where you can do the most good—on your terms. Where you wanna be.”
Samira gapes at him, head spinning at the proclamation. The ED at night has always felt like a liminal space, a place that can get lost outside of time and reality. This isn’t exactly helping.
She takes a minute, parses through what Dr. Abbot is saying. Finds, in fact, that very few people have asked her what she really wants.
“I’m doing the fellowship here.” Samira says, then with more conviction, “I want the fellowship here. I know PTMC, I know how to help people. And I know how I can make things better, as well. With my time, my research, and my energy.”
“And your brain.”
Samira huffs out a laugh. “And with my brain.”
A moment passes, two. Abbot is perched on the edge of his chair, chin braced on his cupped hands, taking her in. And then, like a puppet with cut strings, he releases all the tension in his body and sags back into the seat.
“Oh, thank fuck.” He rolls his head over to look at her, smiling. “We would have been lost without you.”
Samira feels a thrumming pick up in her veins. There’s something on the tip of her tongue, a boldness that only arises when it’s four in the morning and you’re running on too little sleep and too much caffeine, and there’s a current of tension that never seems to displace itself.
“Trauma coming in.” Bridget, their charge nurse, interrupts and the ED is back alive with movement, as if the past thirty minutes had all been a dream.
“Hey.” Samira says as they’re snapping on gloves at the ambulance bay, as she bounces on her toes to wake her feet back up. “I haven’t told anyone that I’m staying yet, though, so…”
Abbot glances sidelong at her, and she would swear it’s not a trick of the fluorescent lighting, the pink dusting his cheeks. As if the fact she told him first means something.
He winks at her just as the ambulance shrieks in. “Our little secret.”
"You're joking." It might be at least a bit funny, if she wasn't dead on her feet. Samira steps out of the sliding doors of PTMC and witnesses the sheets of hail, relinquishing herself to the inevitable. Doesn't matter that it'll probably stop in a couple of minutes, the commute is going to be hell. You'd think Pittsburgh public transit would have learned how to work in any weather condition, at some point. And yet.
She pulls out her phone, sucks her teeth at the cost of a Lyft. Wonders if she can justify the expense, cursing dynamic pricing. She's indecisive in a way she rarely ever is, wavering, when a body inches into her space.
She doesn't look up when she says, "Dr. Abbot."
"Dr. Mohan." His hands are tucked deep in his windbreaker, and she looks at it with disdain. Like a boy scout, always prepared. "Lovely weather we're having."
Samira has the sudden urge to smack at him, trip him with her foot. It startles her as much as it makes her want to laugh.
"Gorgeous." Is what she offers back, all deadpan.
Raises her head just in time to see the fond smile forming, quickly smothered when he catches her watching. A beat passes and she shivers.
"Need a ride?" The question surprises her, as does her immediate urge to accept. She hesitates again. Certainly not something she wants to make a habit of.
But...why shouldn't she take him up on his offer? Jack Abbot doesn't do things he doesn't want to do, she's known him long enough for that to be an immutable truth.
"Okay. Thank you." Samira hikes her bag higher on her shoulder and purses her lips together when his brows twitch up, as if he expected more protest. But he's glad, she can tell—not sure how she can tell, not sure when she started picking up on Dr. Abbot's micro-expressions, not sure when they started syncing up so well that falling into step together became unavoidable.
She climbs into the passenger seat of his Subaru and then releases a small chuckle, their unintended mantra playing over in her mind. Samira turns to drop her bag in the back, just as Dr. Abbot does as well, just as the words spill out,
"Our little secret."
Oh, how close they are. Their arms brush, her bag smacking into his hand, her face inches from his. A widening of eyes, a shared breath.
His eyes dip to her lips for a split second, she'd swear her entire career thus far on it.
Eventually, he faces forward, a straight-backed as he turns the car over. Puts a hand on the back of her headrest to reverse out of the spot, his forearm a hair's breadth away from her cheek. Looks at her as he's putting the gear shift back into drive. Swallows, loud and harsh, as she clasps her hands between her thighs, squeezing, so she doesn't do something reckless and stupid and oh so secretive.
That night, her routine only diverts in one specific way: she eats her takeout, showers, submits their article for final publication, slinks under the sheets of her bed, and then comes with three fingers pressed inside herself with his name on her lips.
Her little secret.
A muffin, accompanying her matcha latte this time.
Our little secret.
It’s a rare end to a shift, monotonous instead of rapidly unspooling. She’s caught up on her charts, and her patients are all passed off to night shift residents. So she picks at the scrap of paper, scratches the pencil across, until she hears Dana wishing her a good weekend.
Samira creases the little sketch in half but stops before tossing it in the garbage. The corner of her lips quirk up and she’s writing three words on the coffee-stained paper as he strides into the ED. They pass each other and Samira offers him a small smile and the note as she leaves for the day.
When he unfolds it, he’ll see three portraits: Dr. Ellis in the top left, strong jawline and determined expression; Dr. Robby in the bottom right, glasses on and mouth turning down. And smack dab in the middle will be one Dr. Abbot, lips mid movement and eyes focused. Just as she sees him.
Our little secret.
A bouquet of flowers, delivered to her apartment, after she officially announces her fellowship at PTMC's Emergency Department.
Our little secret.
An acknowledgement is necessary, but a simple text doesn’t seem to suffice. So Samira holds the bouquet in one hand, adjusts herself as she raises her phone. Ends up taking over fourteen photos before she becomes exasperated, sighing as she adds a quick thank you they’re beautiful! and sends the message. Doesn’t let herself dwell on it, how tired she must look, how disheveled her ratty sweatshirt and windswept curls must be.
Samira locks her phone before she can witness the never-ending string of grey dots, appearing and disappearing on the bottom of their text thread.
Our little secret.
Samira Mohan is not stupid, is under no false illusions.
She knew it had to come to a head eventually.
"Al-Hashimi and I are grabbing drinks tomorrow after her shift ends." Abbot mentions casually as they're rounding. "You should join us if you're free. Get a chance to talk about the fellowship." He tacks on, as if it’s an afterthought. As if there has to be some clinical reason for it to be okay to ask a co-worker out for drinks.
She supposes for him, in his position, it is especially important.
"Sounds fun." She taps at the tablet, pointedly ignoring the stutter of his right foot. Adds one last note to Ms. Buckley's chart before passing it to him. "Text me the details."
Abbot stares at her, in that unnerving way he does. Or rather, not so unnerving anymore. She used to be concerned about his attention, about the way his eyes would pierce through her. Now, though, Samira recognizes the focus for what it is: his nature, his temperament. The slight flush on his neck? Well, that's just an added bonus.
Dr. Al-Hashimi catches sight of her first, a wave beckoning Samira to the booth in the corner of the congested bar. Abbot glances over his shoulder, drumming his fingers against the pint glass. He’s out of his scrubs, but the clothes are simply a different version of what he always wears: cargo pants, boots, that damn black t-shirt.
“Glad you could make it, Samira.” Dr. Al-Hashimi greets warmly, but makes no move to get up. Samira stands there for a second too long, and oh, that ripple of anxiety tugs deep in her gut, the kind that keeps her from socializing outside of the hospital often. It’s like she’s missed the last step, the cue that would let her know exactly what her next move should be. How are you supposed to act, faced with two of your attendings outside of the hospital?
She’s about to use a drink as an excuse to scurry away to the bar and collect herself, when Abbot pushes up and sticks a hand into his back pocket. “Drink of choice?”
“Uh…” A great question, one she should probably have an answer to at the ready. But that would imply she does this: goes out, grabs drinks with people, has preferences. Knows the distinction between what she likes and what she very much does not. “Margarita?”
His tongue turns over in his mouth, but he swallows whatever he might have wanted to say. She tracks his journey to the bar until she hears,
“Please, sit Samira.”
Dr. Al-Hashimi is all soft curls and sweet smiles and Samira slides into the booth across from the other woman, finally letting herself relax. She always did like Dr. Al-Hashimi; liked her solid confidence, her teaching style, her support of the students she took under her wing at the VA. Had come to like her even more during Robby’s sabbatical, a much needed shake-up in the PTMC ED if anyone had bothered to ask Samira.
“I was glad to hear Jack invited you.” Dr. Al-Hashimi grasps at the stem of her wine glass and Samira blinks once before remembering who she was talking about. “I’ve been meaning to touch base about your fellowship.”
“Yeah—yes, it’s been so busy for…” Samira trails off.
A wry smile. “A long time?”
“Uh-huh.” She huffs out a sound, but there is a comfort in knowing that Dr. Al-Hashimi understands. She doesn’t need to explain her schedule, her lack of a social life to someone like Al-Hashimi. Or someone like Abbot, either. And as she thinks his name, he reappears, placing her drink down, sliding into the booth next to her.
It is not a particularly large bar, not a particularly large booth. Dr. Jack Abbot is not a particularly large man except maybe for his thighs. And his biceps, and his fingers—
“Thank you.” Samira says because her mother raised her right, and then she drinks a third of the margarita to focus on anything else.
It’s hot in the bar, just like it was hot in the ED, just like it’s hot under the sheets when she has her hand down her sleep shorts and the blankets try and stifle her. She’s stripped off her sweater before she’s halfway through her margarita, elbows resting on the sticky table, thigh warm where it’s pressed up against Abbot’s.
Abbot and Al-Hashimi are regaling each other with war stories and Samira should at least pretend she’s interested, but she’s distracted and she’s hot and the urge to fidget grows strong with each passing minute. Abbot idly taps his fingers against his glass and she stares, tracing a line up his past his wrist, following the veins of his forearm to the strain of his bicep against the black of his t-shirt and below—
“Samira?” Dr. Al-Hashimi’s voice breaks through the daze and Samira physically shakes herself.
“Yeah?” Wants to wince at how out of breath she sounds, unfocused. She has no idea what they’re talking about so she finishes her drink to give her hands something to do, lets the condensation cool her overheated palm. Wishes she could run it over the back of her neck for some relief.
Dr. Al-Hashimi looks like she has a question poised, before she gets this tiny pinch between her brows. Seems to pivot as she asks, “Another round?”
“Here.” Abbot slides out his wallet, plucks a couple of bills and hands them over.
“For me too? Or just you and Samira?” Al-Hashimi doesn’t wait for the reply, leveling Abbot with some kind of bemused look, and then she’s turning and pushing her way through the overcrowded room to garner the bartender’s attention.
Samira watches her go, disoriented. It’s the heat, of course. The heat of too many people in a small space. The heat of Jack Abbot next to her, a line of raw tension. They’re pressed together, thigh to shoulder, and they don’t need to be. They don’t need to be, and yet.
Samira’s gaze falls to her lap, then to the side, to the black t-shirt. Her tongue is heavy in her mouth; two margaritas will do that to a person. Her eyes resume their path again, no longer worried about being interrupted. She catches on the hem near his neck, and Samira’s hand moves of its own accord.
She draws the fabric away from his skin and Abbot’s head whips towards her, eyes wide.
“Healed over fine?” She focuses on the part of his back she can see as she tugs, searching. It’s been weeks and he’s fine, she knows this. Call it professional curiosity.
Actually, don’t. Please don’t call it that.
“I’m fine, Mohan.” He says, but he doesn’t try and swat her hand away. Lets her manhandle him, lets her get the clear evaluation she's vying for. She swipes a single finger down the skin of his back and Abbot straightens up like he’s been electrocuted. This may be the first time she’s touched this man without gloves on. The room is crowded with people, and it’s so hot, and there’s a pink flush that has overtaken Abbot’s neck, ruddy under the dim light. Samira doesn’t think much as she slips his shirt back into place, and traces that same fingers against the pink skin. Warm, under the pad of her finger. Speckled with goosebumps and freckles.
Samira Mohan is hot. Samira Mohan is two drinks in. Samira Mohan is at the end of a tether she only just realized she had two hands gripped tight onto.
“Were you hard when I was cleaning you up?”
Dr. Al-Hashimi returns minutes later, finds the two of them almost exactly how she left them. Carefully places the three drinks down, shakes out the cramp in her fingers at the expert maneuvering, no spilling thank you very much. Perhaps Samira is sitting a bit straighter, her eyes a fraction wider. Perhaps Jack is a bit more flushed, but that’s probably the heat.
Baran ignores the pulsing that has been growing since Samira Mohan showed up because it’s none of her business and she’s too busy to be bothering with the interpersonal happenings of her colleagues during off-work hours. So she asks Jack a question about a recent case, drags him from whatever stupor he might have fallen into, and restores balance to their trio.
As much as is within her control, anyway.
Samira wants to say that she hadn’t meant the question, that the alcohol had forced the words from her somewhere deep within her. But Samira Mohan never was a very good liar.
She’s grateful for Dr. Al-Hashimi’s prompt arrival, glad for the way she’s able to draw Abbot back into a conversation, no matter how clipped his responses are. Abbot, who keeps his arms crossed tight on the wood, left knee bouncing under the table so that the fabric of his cargo pants keeps rubbing against her own jeans. It’s distracting. He’s distracting.
So really, it’s his fault that her attention is drawn over towards in his direction again, down again. It’s his fault that, no matter how much he tries to fit his compact body tighter into the small space, he can’t hide the white knuckles where he grips his biceps, the fidgeting of his left leg, the bulge in his cargo pants.
He’s half-hard already because she asked him a question, just like he was half-hard all those weeks ago when she had sterilized his wound.
(She hadn’t been sure, of course. Had sort of assumed it was her imagination gone wild, the palpable tension of their interaction doing strange things to her head. He had placed the black t-shirt over his lap as he set up his supplies and she'd barely touched him with her gloved hands. But there was a moment, after she pressed the tape down, after she snapped off the blue gloves and tossed them in the garbage, when he had stood up and whipped around, his back to her once more, that she could have sworn—)
Samira sweats as she grasps the margarita, mouth suddenly so dry it’s a wonder she’s been able to say a word all night.
Dr. Al-Hashimi's phone lights up and it grabs her attention, the message drawing out a smile. "Alright, that's my cue." She finishes the last of her wine and stands up, shucking on her jacket. "My wife says it's time for our shows."
How sweetly domestic, Samira thinks, before the comprehension that she is about to be left alone with Dr. Jack Abbot sinks in.
Dr. Al-Hashimi leaves them with a short thanks, a reminder about their next shift together, and then it is the two of them. The swell of noise and bodies and smells is nearly overwhelming, and Abbot's thigh is so hot against her own, and Samira wants to strip her tank top off to give her a second to fucking breath.
Samira swipes at the sweat beading at her hairline. Abbot hunches over himself, and then he opens his mouth,
"I'll make sure we're never on the same service again." She has to lean in to hear him, voice muffled as he refuses to make eye contact with her. "I'll tell Robby so there won't be an issue, you'll always have another attending when you're working."
Samira's brow furrows, mind sluggish, playing catch-up.
Abbot soldiers on and he still won't look at her, but she observes the red on the back of his neck, beneath the stubble on his cheek. "I'm sorry, I thought I had a better grip on - well - it doesn't matter."
It's a strange sensation, to someone as analytical and careful in her observations as Samira, to feel left out of the loop. Samira Mohan doesn't like missing anything, not when it's this important.
"I made you uncomfortable, and you-you, Dr. Mohan, should never feel anything but totally confident at work, and I—"
Something clicks into place right as he glimpses her from his periphery, gaze rapidly returning to the wooden table, and Samira's own eyes widen. The red on his neck, on his face; the shifting attention; the hunched body posture; the mumbling, the rambling.
Wow.
Samira Mohan is far more oblivious than she could have ever guessed.
She tunes out his continued muttering as she finally fits the pieces together, as the picture solidifies in her mind.
She's the smartest one here. The gruff authority he had utilized when he thought she couldn't hear him, in order to shut down the conversation, in her defense.
Oh, just wait and see. An anticipation, a hope for a later, when he could show her just how competent he could be.
I'm not gonna do anything. You are. Total confidence in her abilities, in her decision-making. In her determination to help her patients, fuck what the hospital said.
Solid work. Reassurance, sending a shiver down her spine that she chalked up to adrenaline and little else because she wasn't looking at his expression when he said it.
I'll pay for it. Wanting to help a patient, wanting to help her, however he could.
Our little secret. Coffee, food, articles, sketches, shared looks, hidden smiles, a weight in her gut and a kindling lower that she wasn't sure what to make of.
A trail, littered behind them, of little secrets.
He couldn't hold her eyes. He thought he had made her uncomfortable. He had been hard when she touched his back—
Samira had masturbated to the thought of him.
Right.
Okay.
So.
Samira Mohan is slammed back into her body as the revelation settles in her psyche, as the din of the bar picks up again, as time returns to its normal rhythm.
Dr. Abbot is still fucking talking.
"And listen, you have to know I respect you. You're the best fucking doctor, Mohan, and—"
Samira puts a hand on his thigh and Abbot chokes on his tongue.
Finally, he turns to look at her and oh, how she wants to be reminded of how far down that flush can go.
She smiles, even as her heart jackrabbits against her chest, even as her stomach tightens. She smiles, even as her fingers dig into the meat of him and—god, he really is all taut strength, isn't he? She smiles, even as Abbot's jaw clenches, searching for the joke, for the punchline, for the slap in the face.
Samira doesn't really know what she's doing, but she's just become cognizant that she may be attracted to her attending, that he may have a big fat crush on her, and that she could potentially be having sex for the first time in over a year and half in five to fifteen minutes, give or take. She could be having sex with Dr. Jack Abbot.
A horizon opens up before her, filled with loud gasps, dexterous hands, pink cheeks, and all that undivided attention only, solely, fixed.
On her.
Her brain reaches its inevitable conclusion and Samira stands up, awkwardly since she’s still essentially trapped between the wall and Abbot’s stunned expression. A real rock and a hard place. She sinks fingers back into the fabric of this stupid fucking black t-shirt, trying not to yank, trying not to let desperation roll off of her in sick, cloying waves. He lets her because he is off-balance and confused, but also because she thinks he might let her do whatever she wants to him.
Stop, she demands of her overheating brain. There is too much racing and not enough doing.
Samira herds him out of the booth, doesn’t even laugh as he trips a little at her insistence, because people might speak about Dr. Jack Abbot’s intense focus but it might have found its match in Samira Mohan’s one-tracked mind. She grasps at his wrist—and fuck, her fingers can’t even circle it fully—and scans the space, clocking the doorway and moving towards it with a ferocious certainty. Samira has never felt this monomania outside of the emergency department before, lets it direct her, lets her drag Jack Abbot along for the ride.
And he follows. As if he would ever do anything else.
The bathroom is blessedly empty, and she crowds him in, locking the door and then facing him fully. Abbot is standing with his hands up by his chest, wrists loose. It’s as if he doesn’t know what to do with his body. His eyes bore holes into hers, and her skin prickles with it. She feels the heat of it now. She gets it now.
“Mohan…” His voice is low and it’s the same tone he used when he told her he would pay for the Uber and, by extension, Mr. Diaz’s medication and supplies. As if it were a drop in the bucket, as if it meant nothing.
She knows that it meant everything. To Mr. Diaz, and to her, and thus, to him as well.
“You didn’t answer my question.” Samira pants because it’s still so hot and she is desperate. Her hands come up under the plain white tank top she had thrown on earlier, unhooks the clasp of her bra, and rips the thing fully off her shoulders. She takes a deep breath, rolling her neck at the relief it offers. He gulps—really, audibly gulps—and she gets to watch the fight as his eyes remain on hers, do not drift down to where she can feel her nipples rubbing against the soft fabric. “It’s hot,” is the explanation she extends.
Abbot holds himself still, body a livewire. Abbot vibrates with a tension, perfect posture, perfect stoicism. Abbot is self-restraint personified, except—
Except when it comes to Samira Mohan.
It’s a drug, is what it is, the feeling that hits her. Intoxicating, encompassing.
“You didn’t answer my question.” She says and, because she is generous, repeats it. “Were you hard when you were my patient?”
The words ‘my patient’ hit him like a slug to the face and ripple across his tense muscles, across the hard plane of his body. Samira doesn’t have the same reservations he has, gaze roving down the length of him and landing on the cargo pants that do nothing to hide him from her.
“Yes.” Abbot eventually grits out, teeth probably aching. “I’m sorry.”
“Why’d you let me take care of you then?” She rubs at the back of her neck, across her shoulder, down her sternum. Wiping away sweat, tracing the electricity of her skin. His eyes dip down, then snap back up.
His tongue rolls over in his mouth and she wonders what he tastes like. “Because you’re the best doctor in that damned place.” He is not going to lie to her, not going to offer false platitudes. He is going to tell her the truth. He is going to mean it. Licks at his lips, stutters as she latches onto the movement. “I wasn’t thinking. About what it would mean to have your hands on me, like that.”
“And after?” Samira pushes because she’s confident she’s figured it out, but it can’t hurt to hear it. Her hand slides down, over her tank top.
“After?” He sounds breathless.
“The coffee. The food. The rides. Our little secrets.”
His eyes flutter and Samira breathes in.
“You like me.” She accuses, except she’s grinning.
Abbot cocks his head, his crow’s feet crinkling as he offers her that smile she now understands might have only ever been directed at her. “You don’t know the half of it, Samira.”
It’s a brief foray into his mind, into what it might have been like for him these past weeks (Months? Years?). Samira’s still lagging behind, but her name on his tongue incites a shiver that starts in her toes and works its way up to the crown of her head.
Abbot clenches his open palms into fists, sways forward as if compelled but stops himself at the last second. He will not move. He will not do anything. He is self-restraint personified, she knows this. That is what makes him good, and kind, and trustworthy. That is what makes it all so fucking hot.
Samira does not mean to sound so eager, so earnest, when she says,
“Show me how much you like me, Dr. Abbot.”
“Wider.” Her exhale is heavy and he kicks at the inside of her sneaker with his boot, forcing her legs open. “Wider, Samira.” He’s trying for casual authority and he’s almost there, almost got it, if not for the whine stuck in the back of his throat.
Samira wants to tease him about it, but she's not a hypocrite, doesn't want to think about the sounds she's swallowing as he dips fingers into her underwear and presses against her clit. Instinctively she arches, one hand gripping the countertop while the other skitters into the sink. Gross, is what Samira would normally think. More, is all Samira can think in this moment.
Her top sticks to her skin, patchy with sweat and the heat of Abbot. He’s pressed against her from knee to shoulder, his erection a constant presence. She aches to grind back into him, but when he had tugged her over, had turned her around to face the sink with little fanfare, he had reminded her what was hidden under that black t-shirt.
Strength, borne from experience and circumstance she could only imagine.
Abbot groans in her ear as he slides further, collects her wetness on the tips of his fingers. His other arm is a brand against her chest, cupping a breast through her tank top but keeping her firmly where he wants her: trapped between the counter and his body. An image flashes in Samira’s mind of him hauling her up by the sheer force of his fucking bicep, her toes scraping the ground as he fucks into her. She squeezes her eyes shut, body shivering, heart racing. Too much, too much.
Abbot at the very least has had time to work through his fantasies. Hers keep speeding up.
“Okay?” He nips at her ear, gives her breast a small squeeze. Her thighs tense at the softness of his voice, juxtaposed against the rigidity of his body and the pressure of his fingertips at her core. Abbot doesn’t move, simply holding her steady until he gets a response.
“Yeah.” Samira manages, straightening up as much as she can. This is going to be a problem because as she rolls her neck, her eyes fall on the mirror above the sink, drink in the sight of her—mouth open, flyaways mussed, chest heaving and trapped under his pale, corded forearm—and the sight of him—chin hooked over her shoulder, face flushed an almost alarming pink, pupils blown and resolute. A gleam of crooked, white teeth and then one of Abbot’s fingers sinks down, pressing into her as slow as it can go.
Holy fuck.
This is gonna be an issue.
“Oh.” It's stolen from her throat, all brute force and uncontrollable urges. He’s barely up to his knuckle and Samira had noticed his fingers—how could she not have—but she hadn’t exactly held his fucking hand, now had she. “Wai-wait.”
Abbot freezes, a statue against her back and the immediate acquiescence has her constricting. “Samira?”
His voice isn’t helping, his breath against her neck isn’t helping, his heat really isn’t fucking helping.
“Just…big.” She slurs out by way of explanation and he makes a pained sound. She readjusts her feet, feels antsy with urgency, and then taps at his forearm. “Okay, okay, go.” Samira knows he will accept this because he trusts her, and she trusts him, and that’s the exact reason—the only reason—they’re locked in this bar bathroom together.
Abbot grazes teeth against her pulse point and then sucks lightly, just as he presses his finger in deeper, up to the knuckle and then further. Crooks it, searching. Samira inhales sharply and he pauses again, but she scrapes her nails down his arm, drawing a hiss from his lips.
“God—” She burrows her face into her unoccupied shoulder. “One of your fingers is, like, two of mine. How is that possible?”
There’s a hiccup from behind and then Abbot’s hips are bucking forward, a quick movement; a slip, an uncontrolled urge. Her eyes snap open and she has to refocus, get a grip before she can find him again in the reflection. His gaze, still on her, always on her. The tips of his ears are pink; Samira wants to sink her teeth into him.
“Who’re you working out for, hmm, Dr. Abbot?” She grapples at his bicep, gives it a good squeeze. His mouth twitches up in the mirror.
“Strength can be just as important as dexterity in medicine, Dr. Mohan.” And because he’s a show-off, because he’s such a good teacher, he decides a demonstration is necessary. His finger twists inside of her and massages against something, just as his thumb drags against her clit, just as his left hand twists a nipple through her tank top. Samira moans, shocked and unabashed at the head rush, but Abbot’s arms keep her up, keep her from twitching out of his grasp.
“Again—do it again.” She demands which is new, at least in this sort of context.
“I got you.” It’s a promise, more than anything else, and Samira’s chin does something funny that she chooses to ignore. Abbot is a man of his word, though, and he draws gasp after gasp from her, works her up with the hands that heal, the hands that guide, the hands that hover over hers as he talks her through a complicated procedure. She is on the other side of that devotion now, and it is stunning.
“Ready for another?” Samira nods, doesn’t care that he chuckles in her ear, because any illusion of unaffected he might be vying for is negated by the evidence of his arousal bumping into her ass.
Samira doesn’t back down from a fight, but god, is it hard.
“Oh, shit.” Spits out the curse, shifts her hips away from the press of a second finger. She wants it—desperately, deliriously—but it is a stretch, no matter how wet she is. “Too much.”
“Come on, Mohan. Come on, Samira, you’re doin’ so good.” He scissors his fingers just past her entrance and her knees nearly give out.
“Want to…” She pants, can’t get enough air in her lungs. “Want to be good, but can’t…”
Abbot’s groan is unrestricted, and he rubs her clit harder, more insistent, drawing out breathy little sounds. “You are good—fuck, you’re perfect at everything, everything you do. At healing people, at guiding the other residents.” His tongue is loose and honest, and Samira shudders in his embrace. “You wanna help so many, and you can, you’re going to.” Abbot is babbling; Samira is whimpering. “You wanna take my fingers, and you can.”
She teeters, she bites into her fist to keep from crying out, and then two of his thick fingers are stuffed inside of her. Samira’s head falls back and she spits his name out,
“Jack.”
There and gone, Samira moans at the loss as she clenches around nothing, as she is suddenly tilting forward, as hands grab at her hips and spin her around.
Disoriented, she grasps at the first thing she can: shoulders, thick and shaking under her palms. Abbot—Jack stares at her, stubble stark against pink skin, Adam’s apple bobbing. And then a hand comes up—the one not bearing her own scent—and cups her cheek.
Samira reruns the last couple of seconds in her mind and then grins. “Jack.” She sighs, and the sound is captured by his mouth.
Slightly chapped, but far more gentle than she anticipates. She drags him into her chest, scraping nails through his scalp and down his neck, drawing out his own grunts that she can swallow, make a part of her. There are hands under her jeans, shimmying them down far enough that Jack can touch more skin, can run fingertips through thick curls at the apex of her thighs, can rub at her clit insistently until she has to break away from him to catch her breath, to steady herself back against the counter.
“Please-” Samira starts because she wants more, wants to feel full again, but she is interrupted by a loud knocking at the door.
Jack reels back, a scowl overtaking his expression so quickly it gives her whiplash.
“Occupied!” He shouts over his shoulder and Samira is so shocked she laughs once, twice, and then has to bury her face into the stupid fucking fraying black t-shirt so she isn’t heard. “People seriously don’t have manners anymore.”
She guffaws, because it’s all so ridiculous; it’s all so good. His chest shakes under her, and oh that’s nice, she’s never heard his laugh before. Her own turns to a stuttered gasp as his fingers, gone still at the interruption, resume a rhythm.
They glide down, perched at her entrance, and then Jack whispers in her ear, “Our little secret, remember?”
Secrets have never tasted so delicious to Samira Mohan before.
He pushes in slowly, and her body tries to remember the weight of him, the size of his fingers, the insistence of them. He curls them, knocking the breath out of her again with one, exhaled moan.
“There you go.” He kisses her, licks into her mouth, mirrors the feeling of his fingers. “Don’t got much time left, Samira.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Pants, shakes. There is a pressure under her abdomen, a growing tensing of each of her individual limbs. Her throat is a long line of sweat-slicked skin, her curls escaping from the claw clip and matting against her neck. Jack gathers the strands in his palm, clearing the annoyance, cupping them reverently. He knocks his forehead against hers, and there’s barely a sliver of room between them, his flexed wrist the only gap between their bodies.
Jack stares at her, maps her in her entirety. And, really.
How had she never noticed?
“Gonna come.” She speaks the words into his flushed skin, into the breath of air between their lips. He nods, which makes her nod, a back and forth. The same wavelength, the same dance they always seem to fall into.
“Let me see.” He begs, hand moving, so steady, so strong. She clenches around his fingers, likes the way he groans at that, like he’s imagining his cock buried deep inside her. She grasps at his forearm so she can feel the sinewy muscle work, can feel exactly how he exerts himself to get her off, to bring her pleasure, to make her his. There’s something cold mixed in with the warmth of his fingers and the blistering realization hits only a few moments before her orgasm does: he had switched hands when he’d turned her around. His wedding ring is bumping up against her at every stroke.
“Jack.” She’s on her toes now, gaze shuttering.
“What’re you gonna do?”
“Come.” Samira says, and it is exactly what she does. He is almost as loud as she is, has to bite into her clavicle to silence himself as she rides out the orgasm on his fingers, on his arm. Her cunt pulses, tries valiantly to push out his fingers, but he insists upon her until she is shivering, until she is smacking at his shoulder and he is withdrawing his hand. There’s a clattering sound, but Samira pays it no mind because she is watching—distantly, from outside of her body—as he sucks his fingers, moans around them, palms himself through his cargo pants.
Samira is out of her mind, out of her body, when she raises her sneaker-clad foot, bends her knee, and presses against his straining erection. Jack’s eyes fly open, breath falling out of him as he grips at the counter on either side of her. He opens his mouth, nearly crazed, but Samira does not stop. She digs her foot into his clothed cock, presses—swears she can feel the heat of him through it all. He chokes, he gasps, his brow furrows, and he sort of frowns at her. But her palm comes up, grips at his chin, studies him the way he always likes to do with her.
Samira grinds her foot into Jack’s cock, through each layer separating them, and watches as he comes from nothing but her pressure, her eyes, and her dimples.
When he’s decent, when the red has subsided to a manageable pink, when she’s given him one last kiss (and then asked for one back), Samira unlocks the bathroom door. She’s not sure how it catches her eye, but she’s grateful as soon as she realizes. Bending down, she scoops up the ring that must have slipped off his finger—slippery with her slick, she reminds herself—and holds it gently in her open palm. Jack’s mouth falls open, a sharp sound echoing around the small bathroom. Samira waits patiently, all the time in the world; he’d waited longer, if they’re talking about equity. Eventually, he grasps the black metal and clutches at it tightly, resting his fist against his chest. Against his heart.
Samira smiles, open, warm. Samira smiles, because she may not understand everything about Jack Abbot yet, but she sure knows about treasuring the past. Samira smiles, and Jack smiles back at her. He slips the ring into the side pocket of his cargo pants, close to his prosthetic, patting it once for good measure as she maneuvers out of the bar, collecting their discarded jackets in the booth.
They take an Uber back to his place. He pays, of course.