She wanted to check on the elderly man in 413. Just a quick driveby to make sure he was still in his bed, that he’d not, for whatever reason, returned to a crumpled mess on the floor. She had already made a mental note of him, adding his name to the list of “wanderers,” the patients who could barely walk on their own yet still insisted—at any odd time and for any odd reason—on getting up and going like they were still some strapping twenty-year-olds.

It was somewhat understandable, getting up in the middle of the night for a bathroom visit. For that reason, the hospital had a contingency plan, nurses on call 24-7 who could attend to their patients’ every need with one press of the nurse-call button. But it wasn’t always so simple. Fiona’s list of wanderers included those who would not only forget about the location of the bedside button, but also the bathroom. And voilà, a downed and confused geriatric.

She took a quick peek in his room. Her patient was not only safely in bed, but he had Wendy by his side. She was doing something with his pillow, smiling and nodding while the man was babbling away happily.

Good. Everyone was safe and well cared for. Marva was alive. The emergency was over.

As she turned away from the room to walk, she heard Wendy say, “Oh, wait.” And then, more pleadingly, “Fiona?”

She paused before turning around slowly. “Yes?” She was in no mood for any extra duties.

But Wendy’s smile seemed too warm to portend any orders. “Great work,” she said.

“Huh?”

“Good job in there, with Marva.”

“Oh, yeah . . .”

Wendy cocked her head. “Come on, Girl. You saved her.” Then she laughed and said, “It’s okay to take a compliment once in a while, especially when you save someone’s life.”

Fiona worked out a meek smile. “Not when I almost caused it to end.”

“How’s that?” Wendy said before her face soured with deep frown lines splitting up her jowls. “With the insulin pump? You were only trying to make her happy. And comfortable.”

Fiona watched their patient, who appeared to be nodding off. “That doesn’t necessarily make it right.”

“You’re a nurse. It’s your job to make them comfortable. That’s all we can do sometimes.” Wendy checked on the patient one last time before quietly sneaking away from the bed, walking slowly toward the doorway. “And by the sound of it, she’d probably rather die in one fell swoop than by a thousand needle pricks. And she’s alive. And you saved her. So what the hell are you complaining about?”

Jasper saved her. Not Fiona. If anything, Fiona just made the situation more chaotic. And more dangerous, with the addition of the trial technology. The experiment. She was tempted to complain about all of that, to maybe even confess that it was Jasper who did the real work, and that she was indeed a terrible nurse—drug addiction or not.

“I’ve been meaning to talk to Dr. Wahl,” Wendy said as she walked with Fiona out of the room. “On your behalf.”

“No, you don’t have to.”

In the hallway, they moved to one side as a gurney raced by, Wendy waiting until they were alone again to resume. “I don’t have to do anything, when it comes to sticking my nose in someone’s business. But today I will. I’m sick of it.”

“Then just ignore it.” Fiona could feel herself wince. “Please,” she said more softly, taking hold of Wendy’s arm. “Thank you.”

“I won’t get you in trouble,” Wendy said.

“I know you won’t.”

“I just want all this to be done with. I’m vouching for you.”

“And I appreciate that,” Fiona said. “But let’s just ignore it. Let’s just . . .” She lost her train of thought. It happened sometimes when she saw Jasper. He was walking up to them, behind Wendy, grinning.

Wendy’s expression was the opposite. “That’s fine, then. I won’t say anything.”

“But I really do appreciate it.” She watched as Jasper’s magnificent body slowed its long strides.

“Yeah, that’s fine.”

“Thank you.” She watched as he pretended to busy himself with his phone, looking down at it.

“So can you do me a favor?” said Wendy.

“Sure,” Fiona said. “Anything.”

“Miss Waitsfield needs her bag emptied. I was going to have you do it while I talked to Dr. Wahl, but now . . . Maybe I’ll just go have a smoke. Would you prefer that?”

Fiona snickered, just happy to be done with the interaction. “Yes, that sounds wonderful.” And happy, too, to finally hear what Jasper had been smiling about. He was leaning against the wall, and then bouncing off it after Wendy walked away, his grin widening as he approached.

“Hey, stranger,” he said, one of his typical lines from back in the day. Did he call everyone that?

Were all the women he slept with strangers?

“What’s wrong?” he asked, his smile fading.

“Nothing. My head’s just . . .”

“Headache?”

“It’s just been a really . . . A real fucked-up kinda day.”

He shrugged like he’d seen a lot worse. Fiona was sure he had.

“What are you so smiley about?” she asked.

“You.” He was looking her up and down. “You busy?”

“Aren’t you? Isn’t there some kind of prince here that needs—”

“When’s your break?” he interrupted.

She thought of Miss Waitsfield and Wendy and everyone else. They could all wait. “Right now,” she said.

“Where?”

She could almost feel his breath on her, how it seemed to have quickened. She could almost imagine the new tent that had been created, the bane of bed-bath nurses everywhere. She smiled and said, “Somewhere near a computer.”

He looked a little crushed, like some boy who’d just had a dream stomped out of him, or like some horny nerd who wanted to do anything else but homework. “What do we need a computer for?”

“I need to check on something, er, need you to check on something. You wouldn’t happen to know how to hack the hospital, would you?”

He waited, expressionless, as if he expected more from Fiona. “What do you need?” he finally said.

Fiona made sure they were sufficiently alone, and said, “Test results from the lab.”

“You can’t just head down there?”

“They ran a drug test on me.”

He erupted with laughter. “What?”

She was looking away, at her hands, her shoes. “A urine sample. That’s what they’re testing.”

“Is it positive?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking you to look into it.”

His eyes widened. “Do you expect it to be positive?

“No! But they seem to think otherwise.”

“Why?”

Fiona cleared her throat. “I’ve had some bad luck.”

“Bad luck . . .”

“And, my mind has been on a lot of things, most of them having nothing to do with the hospital. And so I’ve been a little careless, maybe.” She frowned. “I’m still not sure I even did what they think I did. But, now they think I’m a heroin addict.”

He laughed until he snorted.

“I’m serious.”

“Well, you did some good work today. They’ll like that.”

“So do you have to get your laptop or . . .”

He gave her a confused look.

“For the sample,” Fiona said. “Even if you can just find out the sample number. I can go down there and look for it.”

“And swap it out?”

“Huh?”

“Is that what you’re trying to do? Tamper with the process—”

She wanted to be upset—or at least annoyed—with him. But he was too damn cute.

“I’m only kidding,” he said bumping his hip against hers gently.

She smiled. “I know. You’re just not very funny.”

* * *

Fiona was impressed by the ease with which Jasper navigated through the hospital security system. Impressed, also, that it could be done simply through his phone. She had always known him to be resourceful. A Jack of all trades. But hacking wasn’t exactly a simple trade. She wondered where, between saving lives on multiple continents, he’d found the time and resources to learn something that others spent a lifetime specializing in.

She watched him work in the empty patient room, wondering about all the exotic places he’d been to, all the chaotic situations, all the lives he’d saved. And now he was with her, at exactly the time when she’d needed a friend, or at least someone who could help her navigate the minefield that was hospital bureaucracy.

“I’m no expert or anything,” he said, finally looking up from his work. “And, technically, I’m not even hacking anything. Just checking a database.”

“I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

“You would if it was part of one of your photo stream apps.”

She furrowed her brows at him, more out of confusion than scorn.

“No? What social media are you—?”

“Just Facebook,” she interrupted.

“Really? I don’t really see you update—” He seemed to have stopped himself. And then he looked away.

“Gotcha,” she said.

“Gotcha me what?”

“Caught you creeping my profile.”

“Alright,” he said, looking back down to his phone. “So you want your sample number or not?”

She snickered to herself as she crossed the room, grabbed a pen off the table, and put it to the back of an old receipt.

“You ready?” he asked.

“Do you have the results, or just the number?”

“Just the number,” he said, before reading off the ten-digit name of whatever vial contained her urine.

She gave a sad little sigh. “I just realized how embarrassing this is.”

“You’re clean. I believe you.”

“No, I mean, that we meet after all this time and now . . . here we are . . . talking about my urine.”

“Come on, Fiona, we’re used to this kind of thing. We’re health professionals.”

“Yeah,” she said quietly, wondering how long she’d stay a health professional. She folded up the paper and slipped it into her pocket.

“I don’t get it,” Jasper said. “All this modesty. Just a little while ago you were giving me a . . . um, a bed bath.”

She watched him approach with that damned smile of his.

“You weren’t embarrassed then,” he said.

Her face was starting to warm.

“Or after,” he said.

She was starting to burn now. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Me neither.” Jasper used his fingers to pinch the cloth of her sleeve and then pulled her in to him. “That’s the best part. Not having to think.”

“Yeah, I know, but . . .” She struggled away from him. “I’ve got too much on my mind.”

“Well, let me take care of that.”

She chuckled at him. “You’re still hung up on your happy ending.”

“Or lack of.” He retreated, walking over to one of the empty beds.

“That was payback.”

“For what?” He sat hard and lazily, like he’d just hiked twenty miles.

“For what happened to me,” she said. “Back in the day. I didn’t get a happy ending.”

He put his hand to his forehead, sighing.

“I didn’t even know it was an ending,” she said.

“We graduated.” He patted the bed next to him. “And you got hired to work here. Isn’t that a happy enough ending?” Jasper made a sad puppy dog face when Fiona stood her ground, when she wouldn’t come slinking over to him.

“Don’t get the wrong idea.” Fiona started walking toward the door. “I wasn’t heartbroken.”

“Where are you going?”

She peeked into the hall, hoping not to find anyone, hoping that Wendy had indeed succumbed to her addiction and gone for a smoke break. When Fiona turned back into the room, she was glad to see that Jasper was still there. He had a bad habit of sneaking away. An escape artist. Maybe she should strap him into the bed like a psych-ward patient. Make him helpless. The thought appealed probably more than it should.

She shut the door.

“I was a little heartbroken,” he said.

“Sure you were.”

“Come on, I have feelings. It was hard to leave you.”

“I know,” she said, walking back into the room. “You had a good time.”

“So did you.”

She shrugged, and then pulled the curtains around his bed, blocking the view from the door if it did, for whatever terrible reason, open.

“I know you had a good time,” Jasper said.

After the curtains, Fiona stopped and stared at him from the foot of the bed. “Can I ask you something?”

He pursed his lips, moving his head from side to side in deliberation.

“What the hell were you doing back there with that seizure patient?”

“What? I was saving her life.”

“I mean after. Talking to my boss. You lied to her.”

Jasper muttered something on his way down to the bed, like a falling tree, leaning back and stretching out across it, his hands reaching up and back to support his head, his entire body—even fully clothed—looking as sexy and available as ever.

“So?” Fiona said.

“So what?”

“What was that all about?”

He was scratching his forehead again.

“I mean . . .You don't have to be so . . .” So what? What was she trying to say? So annoying and hot? “You don’t have to be so nice to me.” No, that wasn’t it. It was something more than nice. What was it? Why was he—?

“It’s no big deal,” Jasper said with yawn.

“That’s probably true. You’re just playing your old tricks again.” It wasn’t the first time he’d passed some unearned praise her way. He’d come and save the day, and then usually trick her into rewarding him somehow. But she enjoyed his tricks, just like she enjoyed his current trap, luring her back into bed with him. He’d done so with no effort, just lying there, waiting for her to sit, and then for his hand to start lazily up her back.

“It’s not a trick,” he said, sitting up now, placing his other hand on her shoulder, both of them there, massaging. “Damn, you’re tense.”

“Yeah, that’s why I’m tricking you back.” She closed her eyes and leaned into his work, the way his hands sucked out all the tension of the day’s events.

“Is that what the curtains are for?” he asked.

“I’m just trying to guilt you into a massage.”

“You’re never going to make me feel guilty about it.”

“About what?”

“Helping you out.”

“Oh,” she said, sighing at his masterful touch.

“You made it clear that you’ve been in some hot water lately. So, yeah, I just wanted to help you. Why not?” He was rubbing the base of her neck now, his fingers loosening up the stiffened muscles. “But let’s be honest, taking credit for what I did with your patient wouldn’t help me any.”

Her hand had slipped down to his thigh, squeezing him in unison with his massage.

“It wouldn’t help me if I drew any unnecessary attention my way,” Jasper said.

“What do you call this?”

“Oh, this? This is completely necessary.” His hands moved lower, around her shoulders, under her arms, and then into the center of her back, thumbs pressing in, fingertips around her torso, the rhythm of it gently rocking her head back and forth.

“Mmm,” she moaned.

“That’s good?”

“Yeah,” she said, giving up and leaning back into him.

“That’s your spot?”

“Yeah.”

His fingertips worked at a bunch of knotted muscles, something the size of a peach pit, a little nasty ball of stress being slowly flattened out with each pass. It felt like the exact location of all her troubles, the worries and the stress calcifying her muscle.

“That’s where you’re carrying it,” he said, his voice vibrating through her back and along her spine in tingly waves of relaxation. “All that worry . . .”

“I guess it crept up on me,” she said. “It’s crazy. I didn’t know being a nurse could be so bad for my health.”

“When was the last time you had a vacation?”

She had no idea. She tried thinking . . .

“That long?” he asked.

There was that week she took off to care for her sister, when it all began. That was a year ago. And it felt like more work, and more draining, than any single week of her nursing career. It was the furthest thing away from a vacation.

“Sounds like you need a break,” he said. “Some you time.”

“Me time . . . yes . . .”

He chuckled quietly. “Maybe I could help you with that. You time with me time.” And then he went quiet.

She thought of the ways that he could help her, how many of his muscle groups he’d utilize, silently flexing in a dark bedroom. Her hands on his firm ass.

“Maybe,” she whispered, feeling his face pressing up against the back of her neck. And then the sound of a long, slow inhale. “But why do you want to help me so bad?”

His face pulled away. His massage slowing and beginning to sputter.

“Hmm?” she said. “What is it? Guilt?”

“Why guilt?” His hands stopped.

“Keep going.”

The massage resumed, but this time his hands were moving down to her hips, around them, and then one hand was curving into her lap. She quickly dropped her hand to intercept, to hold it away and resist. But instead of stopping, his hand kept moving. And instead of pulling back, hers now rested on top of his as his fingertips peeked under the waistband of her scrubs, curving around to the front, beneath her belly button, and then under, gliding on top of her moist panties, rubbing through them along her opening slit. She collapsed back into him, her hand pressing his hand harder against her body so that he took a firm handful of her now, all of her, the gentle squeeze making Fiona squirm uncontrollably. She wasn’t expecting it. And at first she wasn’t even sure if she’d wanted it. But she was too late to make anything resembling a rational decision. She pulled her hand away, leaving him more room to work and do whatever he pleased.

“Keep going,” she said again.

And his hand responded, quickly entering her panties and slipping over the wetness he’d created, around her clit, and then back down under, and then slipping inside her. Fiona trembled, her lungs unable to take a proper breath, almost as if she were suffocating. And she loved it, every lost brain cell of it.

Somewhere during the ecstasy, his warm mouth found the nape of her neck. Jasper kissed there softly before then moving around to the side, sucking. But she wanted that mouth on hers. She leaned back, dipping her head over her shoulders, seeing his face for the first time in what felt like ages.

Eye contact, a familiar expression. A timeless one, no matter how many years had stood in the way. It felt like they’d never left each other, like he’d never hopped on a plane and traveled around the world, like no tragedy had recently struck Fiona’s life. Like everything in the world was okay, and they were still two young, horny students with no obligations or attached strings. And now they had returned to their favorite field of study.

She was the first to slide in her tongue, tasting his mouth wildly, groaning into him while two of his fingers slowly entered her again, stretching, curling, her hand over her pants guiding his deeper, imploring, needing.

Through the heat of it all, she couldn’t help but think, and remember. She couldn’t help but realize, for the first time, that their last fling so many years ago marked the happiest time in her life. A time when she felt so free, so full of potential, and so desired. She’d had boyfriends in the time since, but nothing to compare to the double edge of their professional and sexual connection. And no breakup had affected her so deeply, if it could have even been called that. But what could she call this? Was this a second chance? A redo?

She wondered, as Jasper delivered waves of pleasure, which rippled through her body, how this second chance would play out. What would she do differently? And how would he respond?

For now, he was busy sending her body into convulsions of pleasure. One hand in her panties, the other having already crept up her shirt and wrapped around her breasts. He was busy setting out to do exactly what he’d prescribed for her, the exact treatment her body—and mind—had needed. It began with her increased breathing, a desperate panting, succumbing to the growing forces he’d stirred up inside her with the masterful strokes of his fingers. An expert’s touch. Someone who understood not only human anatomy, but the uniqueness of Fiona’s body. A personalized care regimen. A dose of “me time” administered by her personal Dr. Feelgood. The drugs: dopamine, serotonin. The mode of delivery: Jasper effortlessly finding her G-spot and turning on that part of her body that delivered the most powerful and explosive kind of orgasm. And doing it in just a way that only he knew about. He’d taught her before, to relax and let it happen. How he could almost feel it swelling under his fingertips, and the way her body would tremble at the very beginning of the almost scary out-of-control experience.

And he was teaching her today.

“Can you feel it?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she whispered, eyes rolling into the back of her head, head slumped back onto his shoulder as if she’d lost her neck muscles.

She indeed felt it, a warm vibratory pulse emanating from her core. His fingers, with a steady pressure, curling, nudging her closer and closer to coming. And then the electric tingle in her fingers and toes, and at the same time her brain numbing and shutting off. Consciousness fading away to an egoless, Zenlike existence. She was not a nurse or a person, or a mind, but a body. His body, to be manipulated like a machine, a warm and fleshy piece of equipment designed and used for one purpose: to orgasm as hard and often as possible. That’s all it was, a ball of energy waiting to be released, and to be released at Jasper’s will. On his time. When he wanted it to happen.

Her nipple rolled in his fingers. Her moaning. His mouth back onto hers, covering up her sounds, covering her, swallowing up her existence. It was okay to be owned this way by him. He made it feel safe and right, like she’d needed this all along and there was no other choice, no other life but to be used, her body to be played like an instrument, like a tool with no other purpose but to release the best fucking feeling in the world.

“Come on, Baby,” Jasper said. “Just let go.”

With his soothing yet dominating tone, he was coaching and pleading with her. It was fucking crazy what he was doing to her, how he was so easily devastating her mind with the sweetest agony she’d ever known.

“There you go,” he said when her thighs started twitching harder. “Good girl.”

Yes. She was his good girl. A brain-dead, sex-crazed piece of pleasure center. And right now it had been activated and dialed up higher and higher, the electricity burning new pathways into her brain, new rewards and memories being implanted that her physiology would never forget, Jasper so sweetly ruining sex with any other guy. But they weren’t even having sex yet. Goddamn. She couldn’t believe it, this was still just foreplay and yet, the feelings...

She was moaning.

She didn’t even realize it, how loudly it was coming out now. Jasper took his hand away from her breast and pressed it lightly to her lips. “Shhhh.” His other hand never stopped moving, building the feelings, the excited shakiness of it all to build up to an insurmountable level.

She could feel it more vividly now, climbing to the top and cresting some giant mountain. She wasn’t in a hospital bed, or a room or even a hospital at all. She existed now as a gleaming particle of light atop the apex of what she’d been climbing for the last several minutes. And it scared her, the height of it, her proximity to the sun and its burning glare singing at her nerve endings. Blinding her. Sending her into a fit, the sweetest seizure, and the feeling of a dam ready to explode.

Through the heat and the glaring light she barely noticed how Jasper had pulled her pants down around her ankles, how her knees stretched wider, almost as if making room for him to go deeper. Everything was spiraling into some type of giant explosion. And Jasper wanted it, coaching and begging her to trust him and to let go and to come as hard as she could. God, she just wanted to come so hard for him, squeezing and pulsing around his three curled fingers, gripping them with her violent, uncontrollable orgasm. The internal quivering built up to a detonation, a release not unlike a nuclear explosion, an underwater detonation which ignited a tsunami, its power cresting high and exploding as Fiona bit her tongue to silence her screams as pleasure erupted.