Heart Murmurs Read online

  Her face was ghostly pale, and she’d wrapped her arms tight around herself like a tourniquet. “No, what I really think is that I was obsessed with you before, and now that I’ve actually been with you, I will never, ever get you out of my blood. So, for the sake of my sanity, for the sake of my career, I need to stay as far away from you as possible.” She gave him a brittle, beautiful smile with that confession. “And, yes, I know I said all of that out loud.”

  What did one say to a woman who ran from their bed after a bout of phenomenal sex? Nothing. Vince could say nothing. All he could do was cross the room and pull her into his arms.

  ****

  Anu didn’t want him to be kind to her. She wanted the bastard who’d slammed on her door and barreled into her apartment like he had a right to be there. She wanted the prick with a God complex she’d always thought he was. Not this man with welcoming arms and a hard chest and lips that brushed across her hair in a gesture that was meant to soothe. She shoved at him, but he was unyielding. He didn’t move. He just held her closer, tighter…and it felt amazing.

  For the past five days, she hadn’t let herself feel anything. She’d compartmentalized, tucking everything that had happened between the Subtle Knife and leaving the Grand into a little, locked box. She’d charted the passing of hours by how many times she changed her scrubs, focusing on nothing but patients and reports and getting through assisting on a triple bypass without screwing up. But he’d still been there, of course. Under her skin, in her blind spot, caught in that split second between awake and asleep. Vince McHenry had seeped into her very marrow.

  She wanted him more than ever. Worse, she wanted him more than anything. That was completely unacceptable. But, oh, did it feel completely attainable when she was threading her fingers through his silky dark hair and breathing in the subtle scent of his expensive cologne.

  “It’s okay,” he murmured against her cheek. “It’s okay to want this. To take it. To keep it.”

  “No, it’s not.” She closed her eyes, shutting herself away from the power of him as she forced herself to speak. To say all the honest things that he seemed to value so much. “Because I’m some silly resident with a crush, and that’s going to get old for you really, really fast. You’re going to move on, and I’m going to be Meredith goddamn Grey, mooning over you until I transfer somewhere else. I don’t want to be a soap opera, Dr. McHenry. I want to be a healer. I came here to be a doctor, not a conquest.”

  “Who says you’re the conquest?” He was pressing the lightest, barest of kisses to her temple, her cheek, her jaw. His tenderness was nearly brutal in its sweetness. “There is another option, you know.”

  She pulled back and looked up at him. “Really? And what would that be, adjoining rooms in the psych ward? Don’t worry; I already have mine all picked out.”

  “No. It’s a little less drastic than that,” he smiled. “It’s a regular course of treatment involving dinner and movies, telling me about your day, hearing about my truly stellar surgical skills, and you reading The Return of the King while I lie next to you in bed looking over research notes.” Just like before, he loosened her hair from its ponytail, tossing aside the rubber band and tangling his fingers in the strands. Just like before, he was effortlessly mastering her. With his hands, with his eyes, with his words. “It’s simple, Anushka. Simple and perfect. You let yourself fall in love with me, and I let myself fall in love with you, and we turn into the best pair of doctors who are crazy in love with each other that our hospital has ever seen.”

  Yes. She wanted to shout, “Yes. Yes, let’s do it.” The words wouldn’t come. She wasn’t that reckless. She wasn’t that stupid. She wasn’t the only woman who’d entertained foolish notions about Vince McHenry, and she didn’t need a Facebook group to prove it. She fisted her hands in the soft material of his shirt, shaking her head. “How do you know that would even work, Vince? How do you know it’s not better, safer, to just leave me alone and write this off?”

  “What can I say? I’m taking an informed, educated risk.” He cradled her face in his palms; thumb stroking over her lower lip. “Think about it,” he urged, huskily. “That’s all I’m asking. Look at all the angles, all the arguments, and think about it.” Then, he bent to kiss her. Once. Twice. Hot, drugging kisses that she would feel for hours. “Take two of these and call me in the morning.”

  ****

  If you looked up “god complex” in the dictionary, ahead of any other brilliant medical mind in the country there would be a picture of him, or so he’d frequently been told. According to some, he was a nurse whisperer, a magician in the OR, and a neuroscience pioneer. Still others said that he acted like he walked on water and raised the dead.

  Vince was happy to take credit for all of it. You didn’t get to be the best in your field by trading in humility. But, to tell the truth, he was more human than god. He had flaws like anyone else, weaknesses like any other man, and he was just as vulnerable when a maddening, bold, stubborn young woman didn’t call him when he’d hoped she would. At the ripe old age of forty-three, you’d think a day wouldn’t feel like an eternity, but after the twenty-four-hour mark, Vince had to take a brisk walk around the floor, thundering at a few orderlies and an unwitting scrub nurse just to feel remotely normal. Then, he sat with Mrs. Stevens and listened to a few halting stories about her grandchildren, gently prodding her and helping her through her aphasia. Only when she began to fall asleep did he finally leave her side. He pulled the door shut behind him before stepping into the hallway.

  “Hey, you.” A voice stopped him in his tracks just outside 206. Feminine, commanding. So very, very welcome. “What are you doing just standing there?”

  “Waiting,” he said, turning to look across the hall. He expected to see Anu in her uniform of scrubs, ponytail, and fresh face. Glaring at him. He’d begun to crave being glared at, knowing that, underneath, it meant “I wish I could kiss you.”

  But she wasn’t glaring—no, her eyes were soft, and her glossed lips were curved into a gorgeous smile—and she wasn’t wearing scrubs. Under her open lab coat, she wore an honest-to-goodness dress. Short and red and the skirt swung, showing off a perfect length of thigh as she moved toward him. Vince nearly stumbled back a step. “Be still my heart.”

  “It’s a good thing I’m going to be a heart specialist. We’ll get that started right back up again.” She reached out, put her palms on his chest like the paddles of a crash cart. “Clear!” Sure enough, he felt a jolt. All the way down to his toes.

  “All right, doctor, I’ve been anticipating your report all day.” Vince covered her hands with his, squeezing her fingers. “Tell me, what’s your diagnosis?”

  She took a deep breath, but her gaze didn’t waver from his. It was steady and sure. “Patient is a South Asian female in her mid-twenties, suffering from heart murmurs, shortness of breath, and occasional dizzy spells,” she recited in a perfectly clinical tone. “She frequently complains of an inability to concentrate. It all adds up to the classic signs of infatuation. Patient is apprehensive about the prescribed protocol but understands that it may be the best option to keep her symptoms in check.”

  Thank you. Vince was suddenly feeling a little dizzy and short of breath himself. “And what’s the prognosis, Anushka?” he prompted, quietly.

  Here, she smiled again. Not clinical, not removed. Just completely and totally engaged. “I…I think I’ll survive.”

  ****

  “I think I’ll survive.” No, I think I’ll thrive.

  Anu didn’t do anything as stupid as hug him. She didn’t even reach for his hand, knowing that her little crash cart gesture—and the big romantic speech disguised as medical jargon—had been intimate enough for an open hallway. But the current flowing between them made it feel like they were already stripping each other bare. In tacit agreement, they stumbled, one after the other, into the first open on-call room they could find, barely making it until the door shut before they were kissing.

&n
bsp; Vince McHenry was hers. He was really hers. He tasted like want and need and desperation, like days of denial, which she’d inflicted on them both. No more, Anu thought. Not if they could have this and have everything else.

  He called her Anushka, which was beginning to become her favorite sound in the world, and when he linked it with the word mercy, it wasn’t to beg, but to tease. “I don’t need mercy, Anushka. I need you.”

  His hands shoved up the skirt of her dress, cradling her hips, fingers stroking her flesh so gingerly that she had to whisper “more” and “I’m not going to break.” Only then did he press harder, making her gasp. She surged upward, clinging to him and meeting his absurdly sweet—no one would ever believe it, but no one else had to—mouth. He locked her legs around him, moved with her to the bunk beds, and…

  Suddenly, something was buzzing. Vibrating, too. They both tensed, and she pulled away, still breathless and winded from his kisses. “Is that your pager? I think you should—”

  “No. Not yet.” Vince stopped her from reaching for it, catching her hand and tugging her close once more. “Five minutes, doctor.” He grinned against her lips. “Trust me, just this once, it’ll wait.”

  Just this once, it did.

  And just this once—and every day afterwards—Dr. Anu Gupta was utterly and totally Vincible.

  A word about the author…

  A writer, reader, and lifelong geek, Suleikha Snyder has always dreamed of being a published author…but she took the long way around and got a little lost en route, thanks to extended detours into administrative work and journalism.

  After publishing her first romantic short story in early 2011, Suleikha’s finally on the path to literary bliss.

  Suleikha lives in New York City with her neuroses, her sense of humor, and her menagerie of stuffed animals.

  Follow her on

  twitter.com/suleikhasnyder

  and find her online at

  suleikhasnyder.blogspot.com

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