by Amy Ruttan
How vulnerable she was when she was with him.
“God, Ella. I’ve missed you.”
She didn’t respond. Instead, she just undid the knot on his scrub pants and caressed him. He sucked in a breath at her touch. She wanted to tell him that she’d missed him too, but that was giving him too much power at this moment. And right now she wanted all the power.
She couldn’t let him have too much of her. Even though she wanted him to have all of her right now, and that thought scared her. That he had such a hold on her even after all this time.
Zac’s hand drifted to her bottom, his face buried in her neck. His hands on her made her melt with anticipation. Her body craved the connection again. Ella arched her back, wanting to be closer to him. She didn’t want any space between the two of them. She wanted to be possessed by him.
Zac scooped her up and pressed her against the cot and she opened her legs, his weight settling between her thighs.
His kisses teased her as he slipped her bra off. She hadn’t even realized he’d undone it when he was stroking her back. She had been too caught up in the sensation of his strong hands on her body again.
Zac pressed kisses down her neck, along her collarbone, lower and lower until she felt searing heat from his tongue on her sensitive nipple. First one and then the other.
She cried out. It was an overload to the senses.
Zac touched her everywhere and she caressed him, reaching down to touch him. He let out a growl and pinned her wrists over her head.
“Don’t,” he bit out.
“Don’t what?” she whispered, smiling because she knew exactly what she was doing.
“I want you so badly, Ella. I don’t want this to end just yet.”
“Neither do I, but I love the feeling of you. I love teasing you.”
“Ella,” he moaned.
“I want you, Zac.” And she did. Her legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him closer as she clung to him. She was begging him to take her. To possess her like she’d wanted so long ago.
She wanted this moment with him. It had always been Zac and it scared her, the hold that he had on her, but at this moment she didn’t care.
All she wanted to do was feel.
Zac moved away, only for a moment to get protection, but he was back in a moment. He removed her underwear and now there was nothing between them. They were skin to skin, heartbeat to heartbeat. He was touching her, caressing her between her legs and making her purr with desire. He was driving her wild with need.
“Please,” Ella whispered against his ear as she nibbled on his ear lobe, which drove him crazy. “Please.”
He didn’t respond with words, just kissed her, his tongue pushing past her lips. It was an urgent kiss. A possessive, hungry kiss.
He broke the kiss and touched her face gently. Their gazes locked as he entered her, slowly stretching her and filling her completely.
Her blood heated, like fire through her veins. They were one in this moment. And it felt like he belonged. Like he should always be there.
“Ella,” he whispered gently as he kissed her cheeks, her lips, her eyelids. Light kisses. “Ella.”
And before she could control them, tears slipped down her cheeks and he kissed those away too.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice hitching and her smile wobbly.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about.” He kissed her as he began to thrust slowly. And soon the tears were forgotten and she was swept up in the sensations of their lovemaking. She moved with him, meeting his thrusts. They were one and it was like they had never been apart. Like he’d never hurt her.
Like he’d never left.
Ella came to the startling realization at that moment that she still loved him. She’d never stopped loving him. She’d thought she’d got over him but she hadn’t. She’d just learned to exist and it wasn’t much of an existence. Her life was numb and lonely.
Her heart ached for him.
She climaxed then, crying out as she clung to him, her nails digging into the flesh on his back. She wanted more and she knew there would be no more after this moment, so she was trying desperately hard to hold onto this moment. To what she had.
Loving him was dangerous for her heart, but she couldn’t help it. She loved him. She had never stopped loving him, even when he’d hurt her so, but for her own sanity she had to hide her heart from him. She couldn’t open up her soul or heart to him again. It was too much of a risk.
And even though this wasn’t the same immature man who’d broken her heart, she just couldn’t risk it. She couldn’t risk having her world come crashing down again.
She’d worked too hard to repair herself after he’d hurt her.
It was safer behind her walls. Walls she’d built to keep him out.
Walls that you built to keep everyone out.
All they could have was this stolen time in the on-call room. Just like their stolen moment years ago in her parents’ library, when they had been alone and talking about heading off to medical school and he’d kissed her. He’d stolen her heart then.
This was all it could ever be between them. There couldn’t be any more. At least this time she had come to that realization before she had tried to give him her heart, only for him to break it. She was wiser.
Are you? Maybe you should just tell him.
She ignored that voice. She couldn’t tell him. Had to protect herself.
Her life and well-being depended on it.
* * *
Ella was still wrapped up in his arms. And he was angry at himself for being so selfish and not thinking about her at all. All he’d been thinking about had been himself when he’d seen her standing there, waiting for him to get off the elevator.
His body reacted and he’d sought the thing that calmed him down.
He’d sought out the only thing that he was addicted to. And that was Ella.
How could I use her again?
“You tensed up,” Ella said, propping herself up on one elbow. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I...” He sat up, leaving the warm comfort of her arms. “I don’t want to hurt you again. I should’ve—”
“Hey,” Ella said, and then he felt her hand on his shoulder. “I wanted it too. I know that there were no strings attached.”
“I hurt you so badly all those years ago.”
She shrugged. “And you’ve apologized. It is what it is. I don’t have those same feelings that I did back then. I know what this was and I’m okay with it.”
Zac was taken back by the way she so easily brushed it off.
Isn’t this what you wanted?
No. It wasn’t, but it was for the best. He knew what he wanted. He wanted Ella, but she was off limits. She’d always been off limits.
Love and marriage, a family wasn’t for him.
So you think.
“Right. Of course.”
Ella sat up and began to pull her clothes back on. “Can I ask a question?”
“Sure,” he said, worried that she was going to try to delve too deep. And he didn’t want her to.
“Why did...? I mean, why did you think of me back then?”
Zac ran his knuckles down her cheeks, reveling in the softness of her skin. He wanted to tell her about needing her, how she was his port in a storm, only he couldn’t.
“I just needed you,” he said. “The elevator and being stuck... I needed you. I needed to focus on things that made me happy.”
Ella didn’t say anything at first and he couldn’t help but wonder if she believed what he’d said or saw right through him.
Of course she sees right through you.
“And I made you happy?” she asked in shock.
“Of course. Our childhood was happ
y.” He wanted to tell her that it wasn’t just childhood memories that had sustained him through the horrors of what he’d gone through, the horrors he tried to forget. It was the memory of their shared kiss, so long ago, and his longing for more.
For all of her.
She seemed disappointed and he was angry at himself for hurting her. Again.
“You can talk to me about what happened over there,” she said gently.
Ella was always so giving and it made him feel worse.
“No. I can’t.”
“Okay, but if you need anything, I’m here.”
Zac wanted to thank her, to pull her close, only he didn’t. There had to be a separation now. He couldn’t drag this on.
“I’d better get down to the emergency-room floor.” He hated himself for being so cold yet again and brushing her aside, but it was for the best.
Keep telling yourself that.
He left the on-call room first and made his way to the emergency room. The first thing he saw outside the ambulance bay doors were sandbags. It surprised him. He couldn’t believe a storm surge had come this far or that the winter storm raging outside was strong enough to send a storm surge to the Upper West side.
Lower Manhattan, sure, but the Upper West side?
Ella came up behind him, tying her hair back as she stared at the sandbags that were being pelted with wet, slushy snow. If the temperature dropped, they could have a flash freeze, which was worse than snow. Snow was bad enough, but black ice was treacherous.
“Flooding?” he asked Ella.
“Yes,” she said quickly, barely looking at him. There was an almost palpable tension between them. She’d brushed him off and he’d done the same when she had offered to listen to him.
It was for the best.
Are you sure?
“Are there evacuation orders?” he asked, trying to change the subject.
“Yes.” She continued with her work, not looking at him, and he was annoyed that she was back to this cool behavior, like when he had first arrived at Manhattan Mercy.
He deserved it this time.
“Well?”
“I have to prepare the team. The evacuation plans are at the unit desk,” she said in exasperation.
“I can help prepare the team.”
“I don’t need help,” she snapped. “I’ve been in this situation before.”
“So have I, Ella.”
Her expression softened slightly. “Man the phones at the unit desk. Someone needs to.”
“Okay, I can do that.” He was glad to put distance between them. It was bad enough that he was working Christmas Eve again during another natural disaster.
Lower Manhattan was completely flooded and evacuation plans were in place for Manhattan Mercy to receive any pediatric patients. The pediatric department and the NICU had enough staff and were on standby. The loading dock entrance was not flooded like the ambulance bay doors, so all ambulances for patient transport were being diverted to the loading docks.
“And what about emergency patients?” he asked, before he went to take over the phones.
“If they can get in on foot, we’ll take them, but because the ambulance bay has about a foot of water in it we have to divert to Sinai,” she said as she began to distribute supplies to the different beds in the triage area.
Last Christmas he’d been on the island of Iphita in the Caribbean, working to help stave off a natural disaster, and then war had broken out. So many lives had been lost and not from the landslide but from the fact that the natural disaster had caused a complete collapse of government.
All the violence and bloodshed.
The government was hardly about to collapse here, but the thought of having to go through a simulation and then actually go through the execution of a plan for a natural disaster that was about to happen made him feel sick to his stomach.
What he needed now was Ella again, but he wouldn’t hurt her. Still, he couldn’t help but think back to what had happened. What they’d just shared.
Ella made him forget what had happened during that horrible Christmas last year. She gave him hope. Something he hadn’t felt in so long.
Zac turned to head to the unit desk when he heard a cry. A painful, soul-crushing sob. He turned to see a woman stumble in through the emergency-room doors.
The woman was drenched and not appropriately dressed for winter. Her dark eyes were wild and her long black hair clung to her face. The look of absolute horror and terror on her face reminded him of Consuela. And just like that he was thrust back in time to that moment.
“My son! My God! My son!”
Zac shook the thought away. He wasn’t going to let this happen again. Not another life lost. Not this Christmas.
“Please! Someone help me!” she cried out.
“Ma’am, how can we help?” Ella asked, rushing to her side.
“My son. Oh, my God. My son!”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“MY INFANT WAS being transported at the loading dock. We were evacuated from Lower Manhattan Hospital. I had my four-year-old with me, because his father is working tonight. He’s a firefighter and is trying to help with the flooding. My son was standing beside me one moment and when I turned around he was gone.”
The panicked woman ran her hands through her wet, stringy hair.
“He doesn’t usually wander off like this. Especially in a storm. He was frightened. They were so busy at the loading docks, trying to get the patients out of the storm, I followed footprints as far as I could and ended up here. I was hit by a storm surge, though, and... Oh, God. I can’t bear to think of something happening to him.”
No, this was different. This is your chance. You can save this life.
Zac’s stomach twisted. This was all too familiar. He took a deep breath. He had this. He wasn’t alone this time. He had Ella.
Do you?
They would find this boy. He and Ella would find him and he could lay his ghosts to rest. He could move on maybe.
He needed to find this child. He couldn’t be haunted any more.
He needed his life back.
“Okay, we’ll look for him,” Ella said calmly. “We’ll get you settled first and then I will look for him.”
“There’s no time for that,” Zac snapped, as he grabbed a Manhattan Mercy coat from where they were hanging by the ambulance bay doors.
“Time for what?” Ella asked in confusion as she left the frantic mother with the nurses.
“To get her settled. We have to find that boy.” Zac zipped up his coat and then headed out into the storm. He heard Ella calling him, but time was of the essence. The mother was fine, albeit wet.
The boy was not. He was in danger, Zac knew it.
And he needed to save this boy. This couldn’t happen again. Another child couldn’t die. Not again. If he made this right, maybe everything could work out.
Who are you kidding?
“Zac!” Ella called out, over the roar and rush of the storm. “Wait!”
He glanced over his shoulder to see Ella bundled in a Manhattan Mercy coat, wading through a foot of water left over from the last storm surge and it made him quake in fear. An image of her being swept away hit him hard.
It was a visceral reaction, one he wasn’t prepared for. He could see Rojas’s face rising from the shadows and the swirling snow like a ghost.
“Go back!” he shouted. He didn’t want Ella risking her life. This was his fight. He couldn’t bear it if she were hurt.
“You can’t do this alone!”
“I can! Why don’t you believe I can?” he shouted. “You need to go back.”
“I’m not going anywhere!” she shouted back at him, her eyes narrowed and that fiery temper shining through the snow
. “If we split up we can find him faster in this mess.”
He scrubbed his hand over his face, the blowing snow and ice biting at his skin. He didn’t want to let Ella out of his sight, but she was right. If they split up they would be able to cover more ground.
Still, the idea of something happening to her, of her being swept away or hit by a plow, or even slipping and hitting her head on the ice was too much to bear. The thought of losing her scared him.
If she was out of his sight, this barely contained anxiety would be uncontrolled. He needed her and he knew that the longer they stood there and argued over it, the longer the child was in danger.
“My son! My God! My son!” Consuela’s voice screamed.
No, it wasn’t Consuela’s voice. It was this new mother’s. And his own mother’s voice crying out when he’d been recovering from his injuries in Annapolis.
“No, we need to stick together. This storm is getting worse. He couldn’t have gotten far. Even if he was hit by the storm surge, it’s shallow and he wouldn’t have been swept out into the river.”
“Okay,” Ella said breathlessly over the storm. “Where do we start?”
Zac closed his eyes and tried to calm the erratic beating of his heart, which was drowning out all his training, everything he knew about tracking and survival. All he could hear was the howling of the wind and Consuela’s wails over her lost child.
That beautiful, happy boy who hadn’t needed to die. And this boy wouldn’t die. He wouldn’t let that happen.
“She was at the loading dock with the child, right?” he asked.
“Yes, that’s what she said,” Ella shouted over the wind, holding onto her hood so it didn’t blow off. “The loading dock is that way. If we follow that road we can search as we go.”
He held out his hand and she took it. He held tight to her. The thought of losing her scared him and the fact that he was so terrified of losing her scared him all the more.
He couldn’t be falling in love with Ella.
He didn’t deserve love. He didn’t deserve happiness and Ella deserved more than him.
“Do you know the boy’s name?” Zac asked.
“Josh,” she responded.
