Alan had always been good at keeping his mind on his work, even when his personal life was a shambles. And he didn’t make any fatal errors or get sidetracked from what he was doing. But he couldn’t make himself forget that Phoebe was in the ER, just a few feet away, watching him. He couldn’t make himself forget the taste of her lips, the scent of her hair, or the feel of her tight, lean body wrapped around his.

The way she’d tried to talk him out of the two of them. No way she would have done that if she were trying to con him. The heightened emotions surrounding the bizarreness they were both dealing with would have been like the... the golden ticket to a con artist.

Which meant she was on the level.

Which meant he could allow himself to feel what he was feeling for her. She wasn’t Janet. He could let himself trust her — at least enough to pursue the real stirrings between them, to see where those emotions led.

Alan got through the trauma code, got the patient stabilized and shipped upstairs — but the whole time he was working, he was feeling his hands on Phoebe’s skin and seeing her smile, and imagining the look he would see in her eyes when he plunged into her for the first time.

He did his charting standing up, leaning against the counter, not daring to move. The hard-on was persistent, obvious, and annoying. Annoying only because he and Phoebe weren’t someplace where they could put it to good use.

She looked sad and tense sitting over there, he thought — like she’d lost her best friend, or maybe like he had and she was the one who was going to have to tell him about it. Pretty — God, she was beautiful. His parents would love her. And his brothers. When he introduced her to his brothers, he’d have to club them once, just to make sure they knew not to try poaching.

He wanted to see her smile. Wanted to hear her laugh again — she had a wonderful, rich, throaty laugh, but he had the feeling she only took it out of mothballs on blue moons. And that just wasn’t right. She deserved to be the happiest woman on the planet. She deserved to be free of all the horrors haunting her, all the pain that chased after her, and definitely free of that psychopath who was scaring her, whoever he was.

Brig would be by later and would start straightening things out for her. Meanwhile, she was where Alan could see her and make sure that the phone freak didn’t turn into an in-person freak.

She’d been scared to be by herself. It should have been obvious to him before that whatever was going on with her was real — at least to her. Jesus, look at her. She was truly afraid. She couldn’t see him watching her — he was catching glimpses in the convex mirror at the nurses’ station. As long as she thought his attention was elsewhere, she looked like a violin string stretched too tight, like at any minute she was going to snap in two and go whipping around the room in two different directions. Every time he’d been with her before, he’d only felt her strength, her quiet belief that she could protect herself. And when she realized he was looking at her, she did the same thing. Drew courage from someplace and projected calm.

But it was the hint of weakness, of fragility, that gave him a sudden rush of “Me Tarzan, you Jane” machismo. Underneath everything, she was afraid, and even if she didn’t want him to know how much, she’d sought him out for protection. He discovered that he liked the feeling.

He smiled at her, a smile that he just meant to be reassuring and comforting and maybe a little heroic, but somewhere between his brain and his mouth, he all of a sudden wanted to kiss her again, and the expression on his face must have done something bizarre, because she looked at him exactly the way the one deer he’d almost run over had looked at him.

Big deep brown eyes. A man could get lost in those eyes and never find his way out again. And a man could like being that lost.

Every time he looked at Phoebe, he kept seeing those two narrow, lonely bunk beds in the overnight room, and her naked on one of them, turning that room into something magical.

He was supposed to be an adult, for chrissake. Yet he felt like he was fourteen again, accidentally brushing against girls in the crowded hallways at school, flooded by insane teenage hormones and imagining every pretty girl he passed undressed.

He looked at the nurses.

No. They still had all their clothes on.

He looked back at Phoebe.

Naked, on the bed in the doctors’ overnight room.

Well — this was better than when he was fourteen, anyway. At least now it was a selective phenomenon.

* * *

Alan finished the chart. Looked at the clock, then over at Phoebe. “Time to go home,” he said, and she was amazed that he didn’t look tired. She heard a tension in his voice that made her skin tingle.

Desperate yearning filled her.

“Ready?” he asked her.

She nodded, not saying anything. Her mouth was dry.

“I have to stop in the overnight room and pick up my stuff on the way out.”

“That’s fine. I’m...” She swallowed hard and lied. “I’m not in any hurry.”

She watched him, feeling the air between them crackle. He might be willing to amble along, but if she didn’t touch him soon — and a lot — she was going to explode.

He said, “I’ll wheel you out.”

“I’d rather walk.” She smiled at him. “The knee is not so bad now.”

He took her hand, helped her to her feet — and the way her hand fit into his and the heat of his skin bypassed rational thought entirely and made her belly knot and her nipples tighten and her heart race.

“You okay?” she asked him, frowning a little. Up close, he looked ready to snap.

“It’s been a long night,” he said.

She nodded fervently. “It has. I’ll be so glad to get in bed.” And touch you, she thought.

She heard his breath catch. Then, hoarsely, he said, “C’mon. Let’s get out of here.”

He steered the two of them past the watchful eyes of the rest of the ER staff and led her into a room that would have made fleabag hotels look good. It was clean — the two-high metal bunk beds against the walls to left and right were made, the carpet had been swept, the two metal desks on either side of the door held a few reference books. But Phoebe had a first impression of grayness that went deeper than the industrial carpet, the burlap walls, the fluorescent lighting, the gray desks, the gray bed frames, the dismal gray-blue bedcovers, the beige lockers against the back wall. This was a lonely, sad, tired place.

“This is the best they can do for you guys?” she asked.

He nodded. “I think Administration figures, ‘God forbid any of them should actually want to be in there.’” Alan stood studying the lockers. “Jane is already gone, we passed Farris making tracks out the door on our way in, and Morrie and the other day-shift guys have already been here and locked up.” He gave her a smile that offered delicious wickedness.

She returned the smile, hoping he was thinking what she was thinking. “Anyone ever... ah... you know... in here?”

Alan shoved the door shut and locked it without turning away from her. “If they haven’t, it’s their loss.” He walked over to her and pulled her into his arms.

“We won’t get caught in here?”

“Well, we won’t get walked in on without warning. I locked the door.”

Phoebe ran a finger from the hollow of his throat down his chest and belly. “That’s not quite the same thing.”

Alan kissed her, and Phoebe felt the world and all its problems fall away into irrelevance. “No,” he whispered, “it isn’t.“

Abruptly she pulled away. “Shit.”

“What?”

“Condoms.”

He dug into the pocket of the lab coat he hadn’t yet taken off and pulled out a handful — all promising New, Bright Colors! and Ribbed for Her Pleasure. “Restroom earlier,” he said. “After you got here.”

She laughed, soft and low, and stared into his eyes. “I hope that’ll be enough.” She undid the drawstring of his scrub pants and tugged them down. Slid her hands down his back, under the waistband of his underwear, and dragged her fingernails lightly over his buttocks. And felt him shudder.

“You have too many clothes on,” he murmured right before her hands pulled his underwear down and moved around to the front and he groaned.

She pulled the front of his scrub shirt up and started licking and nibbling her way down the center line of his chest, and suddenly he said, “Not yet. You first.”

Her pulse skittered and her breath picked up as Alan slipped her shirt over her head.

“We’re not going to have a lot of time,” she murmured. “Someone is sure to interrupt us.”

“This is just to tide us over until we get home,” he said. “Sort of an appetizer.”

He undid her bra with one hand, pushed her back against the burlap-textured wall, and leaned into her, the length of his body hot and hard against hers. He slid down slowly, his mouth grazing her lips, her throat, her clavicles one at a time, embracing each breast in turn, sucking hard, moving away as she started to cry out. He grabbed a rocklike little hospital pillow from the freshly made bunk nearest them, handed it to her. “Bite this. No noise.” He grinned, but his eyes were hungry, the grin predatory. Her heart pounded in her throat and her skin tingled. His mouth resumed its downward journey, and now his fingers slid between her legs, flicking lightly, applying gentle pressure. The pleasure of it made her dizzy — she shoved an edge of the pillow into her mouth, bit it hard, screamed as his tongue found her clit and his fingers slid inside her. He moved both, and she rocked into him, her muscles tightening, her body locking into an orgasmic spasm. His tongue moved faster, his fingers plunged harder, and she bucked and screamed into the pillow, and as the pleasure became more than she could take, tried to climb the wall behind her.

“You’re fun,” he said. “You do more than just breathe. And you’re ready already.”

”I’ve been ready all night,” she muttered and lost her grip on the pillow. It fell, bounced off his head and onto the floor. He picked it up and stood up, swept a PDR and a couple of emergency medicine reference books off the little desk beside them. He put on one of the condoms.

”Purple. Think it’s my color?“

”Anything would be your color,” she said.

”I’m glad you approve.” He put the pillow on top of the desk, picked her up, turned her around, bent her over it. ”God, you have a gorgeous ass.”

Some part of her realized that this position put no pressure on her bad knee — she only had an instant to wonder if he’d thought of that, and then he thrust against her, and slid in slowly. And in, and in, and she got the sharp pain of having not had sex or anything like it in almost thirteen years, and with it the incredible pleasure of the two of them. She only barely remembered to scream into the pillow. He felt huge, and hard, and hot inside her, and his hands grabbed her hips and she could feel the rough furring of his hard-muscled thighs pressing out against the insides of her thighs. It was so much — too much — nothing had ever felt so good, and she thought she was going to pass out.

He stilled inside her, stroked a finger down her spine. She shuddered.

“So beautiful... all of you,” he whispered.

“Don’t stop,” she told him.

“I don’t want it to be over too soon,” he said and dragged his fingers down her back. “It’s been a long time.”

She moaned. He filled her, overwhelmed her. Remember this, she told herself. Remember every second of it. Don’t let it get away — his voice, his touch, the feel of the wall on my back before, this cold desk now. Just hang on to it all...

He stirred inside her and slowly, slowly, began to move in and out, not thrusting, just sliding, pushing, one slow inch at a time. He tightened his grip on her hips and thrust once, harder, and an “Oh, God!” escaped her before she bit into the pillow.

He picked up his pace, moved harder, and she went over the edge again, her entire body locking into tight hard shudders as she came. He draped his upper body over hers and whispered in her ear, “I didn’t know women came with a ‘vibrate’ option.”

If she could have laughed at that moment, she would have. But he lifted up again and came crashing into her, hard and fast, powerful, hungry. She pushed against him, tightened around him, arching and shuddering, lost, lost, lost. The desk thumped against the wall, faster and louder. Phoebe and Alan melded, merged, collided, faster, faster, harder, and the pillow muffled but did not silence her screams, her ecstasy, and nothing stopped his own sudden cry as he exploded into her and her body notched tighter, bucked harder at this last best crash in their tempest. He held her tight, shuddering against her in a moment of forever — and then he dropped forward, still inside her, catching his weight on his forearms, his body lying lightly along her back, and he kissed her and whispered in her ear, “Good God, you’re amazing. I’m going to die now, I think.”

“Me, too.”

“Housekeeping’s in for a hell of a shock.” Alan laughed softly, and his breath tickled the back of her neck.

“Perhaps we shouldn’t die just yet, then.”

“When I get my legs back, I’ll get us out of here and drive us home.” They lay that way for a while, and she thought he was the best blanket she’d ever had.

Finally, though, a hand rattled the doorknob, and out in the corridor someone said, “Dammit, Littman, you could do that in the restroom, and we’re getting busy anyway. Hurry the hell up.”

Alan whispered in Phoebe’s ear, “I have just been accused of being ‘Left-Hand’ Littman, one of our residents who sexually has not moved past the age of self-discovery.”

Phoebe giggled.

“Littman? You have a girl in there?” Out in the hall the voice took on a tone of wonder.

“Not Littman,” Alan said.

“Oh, shit.” A long pause as the person on the other side of the door sorted things out. “Sorry, MacKerrie. I was looking for Littman.”

“Try the restroom.”

“Yeah. I’ll do that.”

When he was gone, Alan sighed and slid out of Phoebe, and a little sob of loss escaped her throat. He kissed the back of her neck. “Hey, that was just an appetizer. I want to look in your eyes when I enter you; I want to see you sitting on top of me, riding up and down on me. I want — oh, hell, a lot of things. That was just a promise of what’s to... come... so to speak. But we need to get out of here before Bahoudi finds Littman and gets back to the ER. Because Bahoudi is going to mention this to Morrie. And Morrie...” Alan sighed heavily. “We need to hurry.”

He stood up, and Phoebe pushed herself to a standing position and discovered that she could only stand by hanging on to the corners of the desk. “I have no legs,” she said. “I’m Jell-O below the waist.”

He wrapped an arm around her, turned her to face him, and gave her a light kiss on the forehead. “If I didn’t want to get us out of here and back home before we get more company, I’d offer to take a few bites right now.”

Phoebe closed her eyes, imagining, and sighed a happy little sigh.

“Hold that thought, whatever it was,” Alan said. He leaned her against the desk and grabbed her clothes off the floor for her, and she realized she didn’t even remember most of them coming off. How the hell had he done that?

They drove home without hurry, and Phoebe — comfortable in the passenger seat, filled with afterglow and the promise of more wonders to come, thought, If I could just freeze time — have this moment forever, at this point of total contentment between perfection and expectation — I would ask for nothing else.

Clouds were building toward what would become a wonderful thunderstorm later in the day. The sunlight slanted across the road, and traffic moving in their direction was so light it was almost nonexistent. Alan, beside her, was humming something vaguely Bach-ish, though Phoebe was at a loss to figure out exactly what it might be.

Yes. This moment.

They pulled into their subdivision, and suddenly Phoebe wanted nothing more than to beg Alan to turn the car around and go back to the hospital. Or maybe to a hotel. Or... something.

Alan’s friend Brig was standing beside a big white Crown Vic looking grim, and with him were two young men in jeans and pullovers who, despite their clothing, gave off an air of official business. Phoebe looked at Alan, aware that the perfect moment was gone. Something waited for them that was going to change everything.