Chris lays me on stiff white sheets and looks around the room. I tried to give it a cold, clinical feel, although it wasn’t easy with the rich, dark furniture we bought after our wedding. Hospitals don’t usually have four-poster beds or soft cream carpet, nightstands with modern silver lamps or chairs full of pillows. I cleared off our dressers, putting away the pictures and knickknacks, the receipts and small change, and placed a silver serving tray on the night table to hold Dr. Steadman’s erotic toys.

“We need some light.” He flips on the overhead lights and turns on the bedside lamps. I cringe under the glare. Although I’m not embarrassed about my body, we’ve always turned the lights down in bed and I feel uncomfortably exposed.

“I’m going to examine you now, Nurse Taylor. Lie still.” He sits on the bed beside me, his gaze drifting down my body. He is so fully into the role play, I tremble under his scrutiny.

He starts at the top, sifting through my hair before he cups my head gently in his broad hands. His thumbs trace the circumference of my face, my ears, my cheekbones, and my lips. It’s almost like the first time we were together, when he wanted to memorize me with his hands as much as he wanted to know me inside.

“Beautiful,” he murmurs.

Releasing my head, he continues his downward journey, the tips of his fingers skimming down my neck to rest at the pulse at the base of my throat.

“Rapid pulse.”

“You have that effect on me.”

“Hmmm.” He runs his finger over the crescents of my breasts, then gently lifts them from the cups of the corset. “Time for a breast exam.”

My cheeks burn ever so slightly, but it is nothing compared to the heat that floods my body when he squeezes and massages my breasts. His hands are callused now and excitingly rough on my soft skin.

“Slight swelling.”

“Maybe you could kiss them better?”

“I’m a professional, Nurse Taylor.” He rolls my nipples between his thumb and forefinger until I arch up on the bed.

“Very sensitive.”

God, his slightly detached, cool demeanor is doing something to my head. Before Chris was laid off, our lovemaking had a pattern, a familiar, easy rhythm that gave us both satisfaction. But this is something else. New and exciting and oh so erotic.

“I can treat that right now.” He draws one nipple into his mouth and a moan escapes my lips. It feels so good, so right, and I want more. More hot, wet mouth. More Dr. Taylor.

“Stay still. This might hurt a bit, but you’ll feel so much better when I’m done.” He holds me down with a firm hand against my hips and sucks and nips, squeezes and licks until my nipples are taut and my breasts are deliciously sore and swollen. I writhe on the bed, wet and aching to have him inside me.

“Please . . .”

Chris sighs. “You are not a very good patient. Far too wiggly.” He reaches for the handcuffs and holds them above me, his eyes never leaving mine. “We’d better secure you so I can examine you properly.”

My body goes entirely still. Chris has never restrained me before. Although we’ve had sex in many ways and many places, he was never interested in using toys or taking our encounters beyond the same positions in the same places.

As if sensing my hesitation, he leans down until his lips are almost against mine, his breath hot on my skin. “Do you trust me not to hurt you?”

He did hurt me. For over a year he checked out of our marriage. I’ve never felt lonelier than when we were in the house together with an unbridgeable gap between us. But that was emotional pain. I know he would never harm me physically.

“Yes.” I tip back my head, trying to close the distance between us, longing for a taste of his sensual mouth. When he backs away, I move to wrap my arms around him, but he catches my wrists and lifts my hands to the head of the bed.

“Naughty nurses don’t get to touch.” He snaps the cuffs around my wrists, and I instinctively pull against the fuzzy red padding.

God, what have I done?

Chris gives a satisfied grunt when it’s clear I can’t get free. He runs his hands over my ribs and stomach, in and out my curves, as if my restraint has loosened his own.

“I approve of this uniform.” His fingers follow the garter straps one at a time down to the tops of my stockings. I rock my hips, trying to get his fingers where I need them to go.

“Unfortunately,” he continues, tugging on my thong, “we will have to remove this to finish the exam.” With a quick yank, he tears it away, and I suck in a shocked breath.

“Nurse Taylor.” He holds the garment in front of me, a stern expression on his face. “This is soaking wet.”

“I was . . . um, hot.”

He lifts an eyebrow and picks up the rabbit vibrator from the tray. “Then I think we should take your temperature.”

“Ah.” I push myself back on the bed. “Maybe you could do it . . . orally like we did—”

The carnal look in his eyes freezes my tongue. “Knees up. Legs apart.”

Even though this is Chris, I can’t look at him as I get in position. My mind is caught between role play and reality, and with Chris fully embracing his cold, clinical doctor persona, I am at once aroused and deliciously apprehensive.

“We’ll start with the examination.” He pushes my legs apart, and I shiver when cool air rushes over my heated center.

“Are you cold?” He studies me with focused intensity.

“No.”

“Excellent.” He slicks his finger through my labia and eases them apart.

“Chris . . .” Embarrassment floods through me. He’s never touched me like this before. Never studied me so intently, except for the nights he went down on me in the dark.

“It’s Dr. Taylor to you.” He glides a finger between my buttocks and over my back hole. Not a place anyone has ever touched me before.

“Chris!”

“One more time, Nurse Taylor, and you’ll be punished,” he warns. “Now let’s do an internal exam.” He pushes a thick finger deep inside my pussy. My blood turns to molten lava and rushes through my veins. It’s been far too long.

“Very nice. Very wet. We definitely don’t need any lube.”

Mortified, I turn my face into my arm as he swirls his finger inside me and then up and onto my clit. My hips jerk and I blurt out, “Oh God.”

“No, just your neighbourhood doctor.” He glides his fingers through my wetness and over my clit again and again until my pulse is throbbing between my legs.

“I think you’re ready now.”

“Ready for what?”

“The thermometer.” He holds up the vibrator. “Stay in place. This is going to feel cold.”

Holding my labia apart with one hand, he slides the vibrator inside me and positions the rabbit ears on either side of my clit. Although it isn’t as big as his cock, I let out a groan. The sensation of having something inside me—something so hard and slick—almost sends me over the edge.

“I think you like having your temperature taken.” A buzz sound, and then the rabbit ears vibrate over my clit, already sensitive from his relentless fingers. My hips come right off the bed and all my nerve endings fire at once.

Chris chuckles. “I haven’t even turned the main part on.” He presses the button, and the rabbit twists and vibrates inside me.

“Oh God. Chris. Doctor.” My hands tighten into fists as he thrusts the vibrator in and out until I am writhing, mindless on the bed. His hot, wet mouth closes on my nipple, tonguing it firmly.

Everything in my body coils and tightens as he slides the vibrator in and out. I shoot into shocking arousal and then I fly.

Too much. Too hard. Too intense. Too long. The world splinters around me and I shatter. Scream. My pussy contracts around the hard vibrator, and my back arches as exquisite tremors shudder through me.

Chris continues to pump the vibrator inside me and the sensations go on and on until I go limp, my heart pounding so hard I think I might break a rib.

“My God. I didn’t know it could be like that.” I gesture to the stethoscope. “Do you want to listen to my heart?”

“I should have listened to your heart a year ago,” he murmurs, almost to himself. “But I couldn’t hear it.” He rises up on his knees, his callused hands forcing my shaky legs apart. “Open for me, sweetheart.”

I open for him. Bare everything that I am. Chris removes the stethoscope, shrugs off the coat, and pulls off the pants. He is beautifully, gloriously naked, and all mine.

“Dr. Taylor has been called away on an emergency. It’s you and me now.” His fingers glide over my mound to my clitoris, teasing the oversensitive bundle of nerves until my thigh muscles tighten and quiver.

“Good girl.” He thrusts inside me, his thick cock pushing through my swollen tissue. With my hands restrained, I feel helpless, used, and yet my pussy clenches around him, drawing him in.

“Sweet Jesus.” Sweat beads on his forehead, and he stares down at me as if seeing me for the first time.

“How’s my girl?”

My girl. Happiness washes over me with such intensity I want to cry.

“Your girl needs a kiss before you send her into space again.”

With his engorged cock still deep inside me, he drops down over my body and brushes my lips lightly, teasing. His mouth is so soft, so warm I could melt into the heat of his kiss.

He takes the kiss deeper, opening my lips with his own. When I submit, his tongue slips inside and he invades my mouth, taking possession. I feel wanted, loved. I feel home.

“So sweet,” he whispers, and he reaches up to unlock the cuffs.

When my hands are free, he rises up and surges deep inside me. My hips move upward in response and he increases the speed.

“You feel so good.”

I wrap my arms around him, feel the hard muscles in his back bunch and flex beneath my fingers as he thrusts. “I missed you.”

He pushes deeper, every rock of his hips sending a delicious tremble through me. His fingers find my clit and he teases and toys until my muscles are rock hard and I’m trembling, desperate to come.

“Let me hear you.” He grabs my hips, yanking me up against him with each stroke. His pelvis grinds against my clit and my panting breaths turn to moans.

“That’s it, sweetheart. Come with me.” He pinches my clit and I break with a scream, pleasure crashing over me in heated waves. Chris’s body tightens and he buries himself inside me, pumping his release with a low, rumbled growl.

I am still trembling from the shock waves of pleasure when Chris lies beside me and pulls me into his side, my head resting on his chest, where I can hear his heart pound. His arms are so welcoming, so comforting that I shudder against him. I’ve dropped my walls for him, exposed myself in a way I haven’t since I was a child, but when he holds me like this, I feel like everything will be okay.

But will it? Can one night of naughty passion bridge a gap that has been one year in the making? Was this just sex or something more?

“I can almost hear you thinking,” Chris says, his hand rubbing up and down my back. “Or should I say overthinking? That’s what you do best.”

“This wasn’t us. I mean, we don’t do things this way. We’re not . . . kinky.”

Chris’s hand stops moving. “You didn’t enjoy it?”

“I did.” I bite my lip, considering my words. “I enjoyed it a lot.”

He resumes his stroking, pausing between each caress to loosen the laces at the back of my corset. “So did I. After all these years, I finally got to be a doctor.”

I look up, catch the reassuring smile on his face. “I don’t think you should tell your mom. Hot, sexy doctor who makes his patient scream might not have been the specialization she was thinking of.”

“Maybe not.” He chuckles. “So you liked the coat?”

“I liked what was under the coat. You look amazing. All those muscles, the six-pack . . .” I stretch an arm over his chest, and he pulls me closer as I run my hand over his bulging bicep. “And these . . . When you were on top of me and your muscles were flexing, it made me want to come all over again.”

“You don’t care how I got this body? That I’m working with my hands and not in a suit with all the prestige and benefits that go with it?”

“Of course not.” I snuggle into his side, and he tightens his arm around me. “What I love about you is inside. And I’ll take these muscles over a suit any day.”

“These muscles don’t bring in anywhere near as much money as the suit did, and nothing compared to what I could have made as a doctor. If you weren’t working, we wouldn’t be able to afford the mortgage.”

I can almost feel him withdraw and panic grips me hard. Desperate to hold on to this moment, I throw one leg over his thigh and curl my hand around his chest, as if I could physically keep him in place. “Let’s stay like this forever.”

His muscles stiffen, and I wish I could take my words back when the arm he has around me falls away. “We can’t because you have to work two jobs to help pay the damn bills I can’t pay. What kind of man can’t look after his wife?”

No no no no no no no.

The coldness in his voice after our passionate lovemaking and his tender aftercare is like a knife in my chest. Nothing has hurt more. Not my father’s rejection. Not Chris’s indifference to our marriage over the last year. But this time, instead of sorrow and pain, anger floods through my veins.

Gritting my teeth, I push myself up and off the bed. “I don’t need to be looked after. I like to work. I like to contribute. I would go crazy in the house alone all day with nothing to do.” My voice rises to a shout, and I shock myself with a fit of temper I never knew I had, all the anger I’ve bottled up over the last year coming out in a rush. “I’ve been here for you, but you didn’t see me.”

“I did see you, Lil, but I couldn’t reach out. I didn’t feel like I was enough of a man for you.”

“Is that what this is about? Your ego? That’s such BS.” I’m shaking now, my frustration needing more than just a voice. “Your dumb shame has cost my happiness. It’s cost us both happiness. It has stolen one year from our lives. You’ve been so wrapped up in yourself you’ve lost sight of the big picture. So you got laid off. Lots of people get laid off. Lots of men. Big deal. It doesn’t make me think you are any less of a man. I love you for who you are inside, not what you do. But I guess what I think doesn’t matter. Your ego is all that counts.” I yank open a drawer and pull out a T-shirt and sweater. I can’t do this anymore. I need to go.

“It is a big deal.” He pushes himself up on one elbow, his jaw taut. “I failed. You. My mother. My dad . . .”

“For a smart guy you really lack common sense.” I pull the T-shirt over my head. “Yes, your job paid well, but it sucked your soul. You’re a physical person. If you’d stayed in that job, it would have killed you. You’re happy now, but you can’t accept it. The only person you have failed is yourself.” Too frustrated to deal with the corset laces or fussy straps on the garter belt, I pull my jeans over the stockings and garter belt, realizing only as I zip the fly that I have forgotten my panties. Too damn bad. No way am I staying here a minute longer than I have to. I don’t care if the world knows I really am naughty at heart.

Chris watches me silently as I pull on my sweater, his eyes dark, jaw clenched. For some reason his silence enrages me, and I grab the fuzzy handcuffs off the bed and throw them at him.

“You’re afraid to live the life you really want to live,” I say as the cuffs thud against his unmoving chest. “You’re afraid to be who you want to be. You’ve been hiding for one year and I let you, and in the process I hurt myself. Well, I’ve had it. I’m done.”

I run down the stairs, grab my purse, and walk out into the night.