E L L A R A

The clinic is silent, save for the faint click of the lantern outside my window swaying in the wind. It’s almost dawn, but I haven’t slept.

My laptop glows in the half-dark, charts and requisition drafts scattered across the desk like a trail I can’t stop following. I’ve redone the supply flow three times, and I still don’t trust it.

My hand cramps around the pen. I dropped it. Shake it out.

I’m not shaking because of fatigue.

I’m still burning from earlier, from the way he didn’t touch me, didn’t take what we both knew he could. From the way he saw through me and still walked away.

I should be grateful.
I should be angry.

I’m both.

The door opens quietly. I don’t turn. I don’t have to.

His footsteps are soft, deliberate. No cologne, no entourage. Just Adrian, barefoot, shirt untucked, voice low with sleep or regret or both.

“I figured you’d still be awake.”

I circle a number with more force than I need. “Did you come to check if I forged anything overnight?”

“No.” He steps closer. “I came because I couldn’t sleep either.”

The silence between us expands, then stretches thin.

I don’t look at him. Not yet. “I don’t have the energy to fight.”

“I’m not here to fight you.” His voice is hoarse. “Not anymore.”

My hands are still. My breath isn’t.

“You were right,” he says quietly.

Now I look. He stands just inside the pool of light, hair messy, jaw shadowed with stubble. He looks like a man who’s been chasing sleep through hell and only found this room.

“About what?” I ask, my voice tighter than I want it to be.

His gaze lifts to mine, clear for once. “About me. I wanted you wild so I wouldn’t have to admit I needed you calm.”

My throat tightens. I can’t speak.

He steps forward slowly, giving me time to flinch. I don’t.

“I didn’t leave because I didn’t want you,” he says. “I left because I did. And that scared the hell out of me.”

My stomach twists. I want to scream. I want to believe him.

Instead, I say, “You’re not the only one scared.”

His eyes search mine. “Then tell me how we stop making that an excuse.”

I swallow hard. “You start by giving me what you never give anyone.”

He doesn’t ask what. He already knows.

He crosses to my desk, eyes flicking to the scattered documents. The final requisition packet sits on top, unsigned.

He reaches for it, fingertips grazing the edge. “What happens if I sign this and the board turns on me?”

“Then we do what we’ve always done,” I whisper. “We fight for what’s right. Together.”

He glances down at the pen, then up at me. “Is that what we are now?”

I step around the desk. Close, but not touching. My voice shakes. “That’s up to you.”

He exhales like he’s been holding that breath for years.

“Then I’m in,” he says.

His fingers brush mine. The first real touch since the counter. It isn’t rushed. It isn’t angry.

It’s everything.

He leans closer, his voice low. “You still haven’t told me what I’m signing.”

I lift the top page. “Every safety requisition. The full overhaul. Emergency response stations. Portable defibrillators. Heat protocol staffing. Oxygen refills for six months minimum. I didn’t wait for approval. I built the framework.”

His brow arches. “You spent the budget.”

“I spent it like life depended on it.”

He studies the pages. His silence crackles. Not angry, calculated, bracing for fallout.

“I took a risk,” I admit. “I’m asking you to make it official.”

His gaze lifts slowly to mine. “You could’ve pushed it through without me.”

“I could’ve tried.” I step closer. The warmth between us starts to hum again. “But I didn’t want to. I don’t want this without your name next to mine.”

That stops him. His breath catches.

Then I say it, softly. “Trust me.”

He doesn’t move for a second. Just stands there, still in yesterday’s shirt, his hand brushing the edge of the requisitions like they might bite.

“I trusted you in the cave,” he says, voice rough. “I trusted you not to let me lose her.”

It takes me a second to realize he means me.

He picks up the pen. Flips to the first page. Signs.

One after another, he moves through the stack. The scratch of ink is loud in the quiet, steady as a heartbeat.

When he finishes, he sets the pen down with a quiet finality.

I don’t expect the emotion that swells in my throat. It feels like oxygen after drowning.

“Thank you,” I whisper.

His hand catches mine. Pulls me gently into his chest. “Don’t thank me.” His voice is low, heat curling under each word. “Just stay.”

I melt against him. My arms wrap around his waist, my cheek pressed to the warm fabric of his shirt. He smells like salt and sleeplessness.

He cups my jaw and tilts my face up. “I don’t want to be afraid of needing you anymore.”

“Then don’t,” I say.

His kiss is soft. No performance. No punishment. Just lips against mine, slow and steady, like a promise.

When he lifts me onto the desk and steps between my legs, I don’t flinch. I welcome him.

His hands slide under my scrub top, warm and reverent. Mine found the hem of his shirt and tugged it up. He groans into my mouth, deep and wrecked, like this kiss is undoing him.

“You still want this?” he whispers.

“I never stopped.”

He doesn’t take me fast. Not this time. This is something else. Something that feels like rebuilding, one touch at a time.

He drops to his knees and parts me with his mouth like he’s memorizing me. Slow, precise, relentless. My thighs quake. His tongue strokes until I come undone with a shuddering gasp.

He stands, breathing hard. Lifts me into his arms and lays me on the couch. We strip what’s left between us. His body covers mine, and when he enters me, it feels like being claimed and forgiven at once.

We move together, sweat-slick and gasping, his name a mantra on my lips. He flips me gently, pulling me into his lap as I ride him, forehead pressed to his. When I cry out a second time, he follows, buried deep, clutching me like a lifeline.

Later, wrapped in the fleece blanket, we curl on the couch, heartbeats steadying. His fingers trace idle shapes on my back.

“I meant what I said,” I murmured. “You don’t have to carry this alone.”

“It’s strange, trusting someone else with my name.”

“You trusted me with your life.”

“And you made it mean something.”

He kisses my temple. “We built this together.”

I fell asleep believing him.

I wake to a faint chime. Not a knock this time. A soft alert from his datapad, left on the corner of my desk.

Adrian stirs, eyes half-lidded. Reach for it. Taps the screen.

He freezes.

I sit up, blanket slipping. “What is it?”

He doesn’t answer. Just turn the screen so I can see.

It’s the audit. The requisition files.

My requisition files.

Every one he just signed.

Amounts flagged. Accounts linked offshore. Disbursements that never reached the hospital.

Millions.

“Someone rerouted funds through the safety budget,” he says slowly. “It looks like embezzlement.”

The air freezes.

Adrian looks at his signature on the final page.

Then at me.

“Tell me this isn’t you,” he says softly. Not accusing. Not angry.

Just broken.