Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 62056 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 310(@200wpm)___ 248(@250wpm)___ 207(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62056 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 310(@200wpm)___ 248(@250wpm)___ 207(@300wpm)
He tried his best not to wake her, but she still ended up stirring when he started to pull away.
"Doctor?"
God, he loved her voice.
He loved everything about her, actually, and when he thought about those words she had seemed to cry out unthinkingly in the middle of sex...
His chest clenched, and the emotions suddenly surging inside of him had Adam fighting off the urge to cup her face and take her lips for another kiss.
Control yourself, Adam Al-Masri.
If he kissed her just once, he knew it would not end there, and since he couldn't afford to be distracted at the moment, Adam could only sit back down on the bed and gently stroke her hair in the dark.
"I'm sorry I woke you."
"Are you going to leave for work?" she whispered.
"I have to, I'm sorry."
"You don't ever need to apologize for that."
Adam's chest clenched even harder. Every word she uttered rang true, but with all the times he had been fucking burned in the past—-could he really let himself believe this girl whose name he didn't even know?
"There was this woman I used to...date," Adam heard himself say, and he felt her turn absolutely still at his words. "We've been in a relationship for some time, but she never understood...what my work means to me."
His voice turned hollow as he told her the rest of the story.
"She bribed my assistant...and someone fucking died, and all because she wanted us to celebrate our fucking anniversary."
"Oh God." The agony in her voice was real, and it was something he had once wished he could hear from Ilona...but never had.
"I'm so sorry, Doctor. I'm so, so sorry."
She reached for his hand and kissed his knuckles.
"I promise you, I'll never interfere, and I'll a-always...I'll always be proud that you're doing what you do."
Adam squeezed his eyes shut. She was so damn young, and yet she seemed to know exactly what he was hoping she would say...as the girl who owned his heart.
God.
Adam swallowed hard as the inescapable truth finally hit him.
He loved her.
Even though he had yet to see her face, even though he had yet to know her real name—-
He knew that she was the rose he had asked the heavens for, and that was why he heard himself say, "I'm done with the fantasy—-"
She jerked at his words, but he swiftly pinned her down when she tried to pull away.
"It's not what you think, little thorn."
Her anger disappeared in a blink, and she looked up at him in a mixture of exasperation and amusement instead. "Little thorn? That's your idea of endearment?"
"It is, yes." Because the moment he had said those words out loud, Adam realized that was exactly what Temptation was, and he wouldn't have her any other way.
His Temptation was a rose on the outside, but her soul was that of a prickly little thorn, and he loved the fact that she could be both.
"You're crazy."
"Crazy for you," he corrected her, "and that's why I want to do away with this whole fantasy business. The next time I meet, I want everything to be real between us."
She didn't answer right away, but Adam soon realized why when he felt her cheek grow wet against his palm.
"I want that, too." And this time, it wasn't just the tears he heard clogging her throat.
This time, he also heard her heart whisper the same words she had cried out earlier.
I love you.
She loved him just as he loved her, and it was this thought that Adam held close to his fucking heart even as he reluctantly forced himself to get moving.
Adam kissed the top of her head one last time before leaving, and while he had intended to talk to her again after his unscheduled operation, life was never what one planned in his line of work.
He had thought they would only be apart for a few hours.
But he was wrong.
JOELLE RETRIEVED A party horn blower from under the counter when her cousin walked inside his clinic.
"Congratulations, boss!"
The fact that all Adam could do was nod spoke volumes, and she quickly went around her desk to hand him his decaf. "Here you go."
"Thanks." Adam drank everything down in one gulp.
"You need to rest. You've worked nonstop for seventy-two hours."
"Didn't really have a choice with that one," Adam reminded the younger girl while massaging the muscles at the back of his neck. A colleague's bachelor's party had ended up severely crippling the hospital's surgical unit, and Adam had ended up handling other doctor's case loads when both groom-to-be and four invited surgeons went down with a viral infection the following day.
"Well, you have a choice now," Joelle told him. "You have until next Friday off, so go home and get some sleep."
Adam frowned. "What about my meeting with the board?"
"Canceled by the CEO himself."
Adam only looked at her, but Joelle by now was well used to such a reaction. It was only when he was dead tired that her cousin's brain cells tended to work just a tad slower than usual.