The sound was sharp and wrong in the thick silence of the room.
Ethan froze. His forehead dropped against mine. For a second neither of us moved. Then he pulled his fingers out of me with a wet sound and reached for the phone on the nightstand, still braced over my body.
He glanced at the screen. His expression changed.
“When?” he said into the phone. A pause. “How bad?” Another pause, longer this time. His free hand stayed on my hip, but the tension in his fingers had shifted. “Yeah. Yeah, I understand. I’ll leave now.”
He ended the call and looked down at me. The heat in his eyes was still there, but something else had taken priority.
“There’s been a multi-vehicle accident on the interstate,” he said quietly. “Two of the trauma attendings are already in surgery. They’re short-staffed. They need me. Now.”
I stared up at him. The drug made the disappointment feel physical, like someone had reached into my stomach and twisted.
“You’re leaving?”
“I don’t have a choice.” He cupped the side of my face, thumb brushing my cheekbone. “I’ll be at the hospital all night. Probably won’t get back until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest. I’m sorry, Lena. Truly.”
I swallowed. My throat felt tight. The ache between my legs had not lessened; if anything, the sudden loss of what I had been promised made it pulse harder. I could still feel the ghost of his fingers inside me. I could still feel how close we had been to him finally pushing into me after months of waiting.
“It’s fine,” I made myself say. “Go. They need you.”
He kissed me once more then grabbed a clean shirt from the chair and pulled it on. Within four minutes he was dressed, keys in hand, apologizing again at the door. I listened to his footsteps go down the hall, the front door open and close, the car start in the driveway.
Then the house became too quiet.
I sat on the edge of the bed in the red lace, thighs pressed together, the drug still burning through me with no relief in sight. My skin felt too tight. Every small shift made the soaked silk of my panties drag over my swollen clit. I had tried touching myself, but my own fingers only made the empty ache worse. The drug didn’t want a quick orgasm. It wanted weight. Heat. The thick stretch of a cock forcing me open.
I needed Ethan.
And Ethan was gone until tomorrow.
What am I gonna do now?
A sharp, pained shout suddenly cut through the silence.
I froze.
The sound had come from somewhere down the hall. My heart kicked hard against my ribs. I hadn’t heard anyone else in the house. Ethan had left. We were supposed to be alone.
I stood up too fast. The room tilted for a second. I didn’t bother putting anything else on, just walked into the hallway on unsteady legs, the garter straps shifting against my thighs with every step. Light spilled from the half-open door of the guest room.
I pushed it wider.
A man stood near the small en-suite bathroom, a white towel wrapped low around his hips. One hand was pressed between his legs, fingers stained with blood. Water still beaded on his broad shoulders and the defined lines of his back.
When he looked up, my breath caught.
It was Ethan’s face.
Same dark hair. Same sharp jaw. Same mouth. For one disorienting second I thought my husband had come back. Then I saw the small scar cutting through his left eyebrow, the one Ethan didn’t have and reality slammed into me.
Adrian.
Ethan’s twin. The one who had been staying in the guest room while he finished renovating his own place. I had almost forgotten he was even in the house.
He went completely still when he saw me.
For a second neither of us spoke.
I became painfully aware of what I was wearing. The sheer red lace that barely covered my nipples. The way the panties sat high on my hips, the dark wet patch was already obvious between my thighs. The stockings. The fact that I was still flushed and breathing too fast. His gaze dropped once, slowly, then came back to my face. Something dark and immediate moved behind his eyes.
“I cut myself,” he said. His voice was rougher than usual. “Its while i was shaving and it pretty deep.”
He shifted his hand slightly. Fresh blood welled against his fingers.
I stepped into the room. The air felt thicker here. I could smell the clean soap on his skin and underneath it something warmer. He and Ethan were identical enough that looking at him felt like looking at the man who had just left me aching—only this version was bleeding and staring at me like he had forgotten how to blink.
“You’re a doctor,” he said. “Can you help me?”
“Yes.” The word came out steadier than I felt. “Sit down. Let me see it.”
He sat on the edge of the bed. The towel shifted. I caught a glimpse of dark hair and the heavy shape of him underneath before he adjusted the fabric. My mouth went dry. The ache between my legs, which had never really faded, pulsed once again and harder.
I stepped closer until my knees almost touched his.
Adrian’s eyes never left me. They moved over the sheer red lace that barely contained my breasts, down the flat plane of my stomach, and settled on the dark, wet patch already visible between my thighs. His stare wasn’t polite. It was hungry, open, and completely unashamed. The kind of look a man gives a woman when he has already decided he wants to ruin her.
“Take the towel off,” I said. My voice came out lower than I intended.
He didn’t argue. He hooked his thumbs into the terry cloth and pulled it away, dropping it on the floor beside the bed. Underneath he wore only a pair of dark boxer briefs. The thick, heavy outline of his cock was impossible to miss. Even soft it was substantial, the shaft resting against his left thigh, the head clearly defined beneath the thin cotton. As I watched, it gave a slow, visible twitch.
A sharp gasp left me. The sound was sharp and involuntary. It wasn’t meant to be that way.
Adrian’s gaze flicked up to my face. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I forced a small, breathless laugh. “Just a hiccup.”
He nodded once, but the corner of his mouth curved like he didn’t believe me.
I couldn’t stop staring at the outline of his cock. The way the fabric stretched over the growing length of him. The faint ridge of the thick vein that ran along the underside. The dark thatch of hair that peeked above the waistband. He was already swelling, the outline lengthening and thickening right in front of me. My own panties were soaked through; I could feel the wet silk clinging to my cunt lips with every small shift of my weight.
I sank to my knees before him.
The movement brought my face level with his lap. Heat radiated off his skin. I could smell the clean scent of soap and something warmer underneath, skin, blood, the faint musk of a man who’d just stepped out of the shower. My fingers hovered for a second before I reached for his wrist and gently moved his hand away from the cut.
His pulse jumped under my touch.
The gash sat high on the inside of his left thigh, just beside the heavy curve of his cock where it rested against the fabric. It wasn’t deep, but it was still bleeding in a slow, steady seep. I pressed two fingers lightly against the skin on either side of the wound, assessing.
Adrian’s breath caught.
I felt it more than heard it, the sudden stillness in his chest, the way his thighs tensed under my hands. My fingertips were only an inch from the thick outline of him. The cotton was warm. Damp in places from the shower, or maybe from something else.
“Stay still,” I murmured.
I leaned in closer, angling for better light. My shoulder brushed the inside of his knee. The contact was brief, almost accidental, but neither of us moved away. I could feel the heat of his body through the thin barrier of my lingerie. Every small shift made the lace drag across my nipples, already tight and aching.
I cleaned the cut carefully with a damp cloth from the bathroom, working in slow, deliberate strokes. Each pass of the cloth made the muscles in his thigh jump. My knuckles grazed the edge of his boxer briefs once, then again. The second time I didn’t pull back as quickly. The fabric was stretched tight over the growing hardness beneath. I could feel the solid heat of him through it.
Adrian’s hand flexed against the mattress.
“Lena.”
My name came out rough and low.
I looked up. His eyes were darker than I’d ever seen them, fixed on my mouth like he was thinking about putting it somewhere else entirely. The air between us felt thick, charged. I was kneeling between his legs in the exact lingerie his brother had chosen for me, still wet from wanting Ethan, and Adrian was looking at me like he wanted to finish what Ethan had started.
I swallowed.
“It’s not deep,” I said, trying to keep my voice clinical. It didn’t work. “You’ll need a couple of butterfly strips. Maybe a small bandage.”
I reached for the first-aid kit he’d left on the nightstand. My fingers brushed his when I took it. Neither of us pretended it was an accident this time. His skin was hotter than it should have been. Mine felt like it was burning.
My hands were shaking so badly I could barely grip the kit.
Jeez, what’s going on with me?
The plastic case slipped from my fingers and hit the floor with a sharp clatter.
Fuck. You didn’t have to fall right now.
I leaned down to retrieve it, the movement bringing my face closer to his spread thighs. My fingers brushed the floor, closed around the edge of the kit and then my hand accidentally met the thick, heavy bulge straining against his boxers.
His cock jumped hard under my palm.
A rough, startled sound tore from his throat. The heat of him sank straight into my skin, pulsing, thickening, unmistakably alive. For one frozen second I stayed exactly where I was, palm pressed fully against the rigid length of him.
Jesus.