Baby, It's Cold Outside: An Enemies to Lovers Holiday Medical Romance

by Kimberly Kincaid

  Vasquez laughed, this time with ease. “Every single thing, huh? That sounds ambitious.”

  “Guess it fits you perfectly, then.”

  Time slowed way down even as Emmett’s pulse ramped way up, and even though decorum told him he should pull back, he didn’t.

  Neither did Vasquez. Instead, she moved closer.

  “Mallory,” she breathed, her stare glittering with heat. “I—”

  “Emmett.”

  “What?”

  He lifted one corner of his mouth in a smile. “You should probably call me Emmett.”

  “Why?”

  “Because unless you tell me not to, I’m totally going to kiss you right now.”

  “Oh.” She smiled back, and Christ, she was so beautiful. “Well in that case, I guess you can call me Sofia, because I’m not going to tell you no.”

  Although a tiny part of him wanted to savor the push/pull they’d been caught up in for the past year now, the rest of him refused to wait. Emmett slanted his mouth over hers. The sound that vibrated out of her damn near made him forget that composure existed, and the hum shot directly to his cock. Hooking his fingers in her hair, he slid his tongue over the center of her mouth, a smile sneaking over his lips when she opened without hesitation to meet him. Sofia kissed like she did everything else, fierce and fast and unrepentant, and Emmett matched her stroke for bold, brazen stroke.

  She wasn’t one to be outdone, though. Swiping the three phonebook-sized texts from between them on the couch, she knotted her arms around his shoulders and pressed against him, chest to chest.

  Emmett gripped her hips over her scrubs, angling her back over the sofa. Dimly, he knew this was impulsive. Not the kiss—that, he’d wanted since twelve seconds after he’d first laid eyes on her. But kissing Sofia here, in the attendings’ lounge, where another doctor might walk in and see them, was brash as hell.

  A noise drifted up from the back of her throat, needy and hot, and fuck it.

  Emmett loved brash as hell.

  “Sofia.” His voice was thick with want, her body goddamned perfect beneath his. He thrust his hips against hers, just once, but it was enough to make his cock stiffen to the point between pleasure and ache even though his brain knew far, far better.

  “Oh, God,” she murmured, arching up to return the thrust with one of her own. “Do that again.”

  Emmett’s laugh spilled over her neck as he put his mouth to her ear. “So bossy.” He pressed forward, the friction of the soft indent between her thighs right where he wanted it making him bite back a moan. “I like it.”

  “Then you’re going to fall pretty hard for this.”

  Before Emmett could blink, Sofia had curled one leg around his hip to switch their positions, kissing him hard and deep. Her hands roamed over his shoulders, his chest, lower to the hot space between their bodies, and—

  Their cell phones went off simultaneously.

  For a single beat, time hung in the air as if suspended. Then Sofia’s entire body went rigid beneath his hands, her expression shuttering and her mouth setting into a firm line that belied its kiss-swollen state, and fuck. Fuck.

  “Sofia,” Emmett tried. But her single, sharp head shake cut him off as she reached for her phone and stood.

  “There’s a trauma coming into the ED, ETA seven minutes. Looks like a car accident. One patient has an open humerus fracture.”

  He found his feet in less than a breath. “Okay. We need to get down there to meet them.” Rerouting his lust-blown thoughts, he grabbed his cell phone and straightened his scrubs. “Listen, before we go, I—”

  “Emmett. Dr. Mallory,” Sofia self-corrected, her chin lifting. “You don’t have to say anything. In fact, it’s probably better if we just forget the whole thing happened.”

  He blinked. If he lived to be a hundred, he probably wouldn’t forget that goddamned kiss. But now wasn’t the time or place to say that, especially with her armor right back in place, so he went with the truth that he could.

  “It doesn’t change anything. We’re still doctors, and I’m here to help teach you, so if this patient needs surgery, you’re scrubbing in.”

  5

  Their patient needed surgery. Even Sofia, whose mind was still reeling and whose cheeks were still tingling from the brush of Emmett’s day-old stubble rasping over her face as he’d kissed her senseless, could see that the second paramedics had wheeled the woman through the ambulance bay.

  No. Not Emmett. Dr. Mallory. Attending physician. Immediate supervisor.

  Fan-freaking-tastic kisser, and God, she had to stop.

  Her job was more important, and right now she had to do it.

  “My name is Dr. Mallory, and I’m here to help you,” she heard Emmett tell the woman, who was alternating between glassy, wild-eyed stares and cries of pain. Small wonder, considering the upper bone of her arm had broken badly enough to puncture her skin. Of course, Emmett’s demeanor and his tone were smooth sailing, as if this were simply a stroll in the park. “Can you tell me if you’re experiencing any pain?”

  “M-m-my arm. Oh, God, my arm.” The woman wrenched her head to the side to try and get a look at the limb in question, but instinctively, Sofia slipped into the woman’s field of vision.

  “We’re going to help you with that, I promise. But Quinn here”—Sofia nodded at the paramedic helping them wheel the gurney into the trauma room, and Quinn looked down so the woman could see her without moving—“put this C-collar around your neck to protect your spine, so we need you to try to be really still while we assess your injuries, okay?”

  She tried to nod before thinking better of it, then blinked up at Sofia. “O-okay.”

  They arrived in the trauma room, a flurry of one-two-three lift, gurney transfer, and monitors being hooked up happening in seconds.

  “Dr. Vasquez, can you get a status on our other patient, please?” Emmett asked, his gaze skating briefly to the adjacent curtain area, where two nurses and a third-year surgical resident tended to a man brought in by another paramedic. As the attending, his priority had to be to treat the patient with the most life-threatening injuries first.

  After a lightning-fast check-in with the other resident, Sofia relayed, “Restrained SUV driver, no LOC, no obvious head or neck trauma. Bunch of lacs from the broken glass and some mild chest trauma from the seatbelt and airbag deployment. GCS 13 in the field.”

  “Dr. Gerardi will have that well in-hand,” he said, as Quinn quietly slid her gurney out to the hallway with a wave. Emmett looked at Sofia, then down at his patient. “Okay, Ms. Polk. I know your arm hurts, and we are going to take care of that for you. Dr. Vasquez here is going to do what we call a rapid trauma assessment so we can make sure your arm is your only injury.”

  “I am?” Too much shock had popped her in the sternum not to make it sound like a question. She’d taken point on plenty of RTAs, but they’d all been on patients whose injuries were far less severe. She’d certainly never run a trauma before.

  But she wasn’t about to back down from the challenge, and time wasn’t a thing they could waste even a drop of right now, so she didn’t wait for the shock to wear off, or for Emmett to reply. “Ms. Polk, can you rate the pain in your arm on a scale of one to ten?”

  “Eight. Maybe nine,” the woman groaned. “Childbirth was worse, but that’s about it.”

  “I bet,” Sofia said, trying on a small smile. She asked a few more questions as she started performing the physical exam, running through steps that were familiar even though being in charge of them wasn’t. Emmett observed, only adding things in when necessary. He was never pushy about it, though, and by the time Sofia had analyzed the films and determined that a surgical repair was necessary, all that was left to do was let him take back over.

  “I agree with Dr. Vasquez’s assessment, one hundred percent. I know the idea of emergency surgery is overwhelming, Ms. Polk, but I promise, it’s the fastest and best way to get you on the road to recovery.”

 
“But…” The woman’s eyes flashed with uncertainty first, then tears as her gaze darted to Sofia. “Will you be there, too? Doing the surgery?”

  Sofia blinked. Scrubbing in was never a given, and she was still kind of shaky on ortho procedures. “Oh. Well, I—”

  “She will,” Emmett said. “In fact, Dr. Vasquez is going to perform a good part of the procedure to place the pins in your arm bone so we can get it exactly where it’s supposed to be. Now what do you say we take you upstairs and get you all prepped? Dr. Vasquez, would you like to call and book an OR?”

  You’re not bad at ortho…I think you’re smart as hell…

  “Absolutely,” she said.

  Focusing on work wasn’t just the most important thing. If keeping things professional with Emmett would get her closer to passing her boards, it had to be the only thing.

  Sofia yanked off her gown and nitrile gloves and felt like a grade-A jerk. Tossing everything into the biohazard bin by the door, she let out a slow exhale and replayed the last ten hours in her head. The impromptu study session with Emmett. The kisses that still made her face flush with heat. The intensity inside of her that had demanded so much more.

  The way he was her attending and she his resident, and God, was she insane?

  And more importantly, why did insane have to feel so freaking good?

  Shaking her head, Sofia headed down the hallway, toward the nurses’ station. She had goals, for Chrissake, and getting naked with her attending—in the attendings’ lounge, no less!—wasn’t one of them.

  Still.

  She knew she should steer clear of him, but she couldn’t deny that she and Emmett had worked Ms. Polk’s trauma with ease, him giving her the leeway to treat the patient and her taking the guidance and direction he offered on the assist in the OR as if they were in perfect orbit of each other. The tension she used to feel with ortho cases was weirdly absent, and even when he’d had to take over to do a truly complicated part of the procedure, Emmett had let her observe closely, and assist whenever possible.

  He was making good on his promise to teach her. Which meant she needed to get over that kiss and let him, rather than running away.

  “Oh, hey, Dr. Vasquez!” came a familiar voice, and she looked up just in time to catch former-nurse-turned-clinic-director, Connor Bradshaw’s smiling face—a smile that was, no doubt, as large as it was due to the fact that his fiancée and co-director, Harlow Davenport, was standing right beside him. “Coming off the night shift?”

  Sofia nodded. Her rumpled scrubs and disheveled ponytail must’ve been a dead giveaway. “What are you two doing here so early?”

  Harlow smiled and gestured to the stack of pastry boxes on the nurses’ station counter in front of them. “We brought breakfast as a thank-you for all the volunteering the ED staff does in the clinic. Thought it would spread some holiday cheer. Plus, you know how Connor feels about baked goods.”

  Sofia had to laugh. “I do.” The big guy’s love of cake (and cookies. And pies. And scones. And muffins. And…) was a well-established fact among all hospital and clinic staff.

  Rather than look affronted, Connor gave up a grin that spanned ear to ear. “That’s me, baby! Brightening everyone’s Christmas, one fruitcake at a time.”

  “Oh.” Sofia fit a smile over her face even though it pinched. Stupid holidays. “That’s really nice of you,” she said, eyeballing the boxes from Sweetie Pies. It was the best bakery in Remington, and in that instant, an idea unfolded, hot and bright in her mind. “Would you guys mind if I snuck mine before I head home?”

  “Not at all,” Harlow said, stepping back as Connor flipped the lid on the top box, which was loaded with festively-themed pastries. Gingerbread scones, cranberry pistachio shortbread bars…ah! Sofia plucked a double-chocolate muffin with caramel glaze from the box, cradling the softball-sized confection in the napkin Harlow passed over.

  “Thanks, you two. I really appreciate it.”

  “You’re welcome,” Connor called after her as she waved and began to hustle down the hallway. “And great pick!”

  “I hope so,” Sofia whispered under her breath. Holding the muffin in one hand and palming her cell phone in the other, she thumb-typed a text message before she could lose her nerve. A minute later, Emmett appeared in the small, deserted surgical waiting room, his forehead creased in concern.

  “Is everything okay?” he asked, and Sofia nodded.

  “Yeah, I, um.” She held up the muffin. “Brought you a peace offering.”

  One corner of Emmett’s mouth kicked up, just high enough to release that dimple that was going to wreck her. “Trying to get to my heart by way of my stomach?”

  The tension broken, she laughed. “Hey, if you don’t want this thing, I’m happy to take it off your hands. Maybe my love of Cake Showdown is stronger than yours, after all.”

  She opened her mouth as if she meant to take a huge bite out of the muffin, and Emmett’s fingers were on her wrist in an instant. Her heart slammed at his sudden nearness, at all the yes, yes, yesssss pumping through her veins as his eyes darkened and his voice went low in the space between them.

  “My love of Cake Showdown is stronger than ever, I assure you. But you don’t owe me a peace offering, Sofia. I’m on your side, remember?”

  “I do,” she whispered. Oh, God, oh, God, he felt so good, so warm and close with his fingers wrapped snugly over the pulse point below her thumb. “And I like you there. It’s just that you’re an attending, and I’m a resident. When we’re here at the hospital, I need for us to be doctors.”

  “What about when we’re not here?”

  Sofia’s lips parted at the thought, but… “I don’t think I’m ready to not be here. Not yet, anyway.”

  “Well, then,” Emmett said, sliding his fingers over her skin as he took the muffin from her grasp with a devastating grin. “I guess you should bring your books to your next shift. After all, I’m a man of my word, and we’ve got a lot of studying to do.”

  6

  Sofia propped her elbows on the small stretch of cafeteria table between her and Emmett and, okay, she couldn’t help it. She stared. “You did a surgery to separate conjoined twins when you were a third year?”

  He looked up from the textbook they’d been studying, his dimple in full view as he smiled. “I scrubbed in on a surgery to separate conjoined twins when I was a third year,” he semi-corrected. Of course, it had taken them studying together for nearly a week straight for her to discover that, on occasion, he did have an attack of humility.

  “Details,” Sofia scoffed. “You got to cut, right?”

  Now his smile became the mischief-laden grin that made her want to kick her work-only work ethic square in the ass.

  “Oh, yeah. I was in the OR for about eleven hours, and that was just the ortho part. The twins were joined at the pelvis and partially at the chest, too. A lot like this case.” Emmett gestured to the textbook they’d been studying. “But I knew it was a once-in-a-lifetime surgery, so I worked my ass off to get on that team, and I ended up learning a lot. The best part is that the procedure was a success, too. Everybody won.”

  “Yeah.” An odd feeling jabbed at Sofia’s rib cage, and Emmett—who was no dummy, thanks—narrowed his emerald-green stare at her.

  “What? And don’t insult me with ‘nothing’.” He hung air quotes around the word like Christmas decorations. “We’ve been doing these power-marathon study sessions for the last five shifts. I know your tells.”

  Well, fa-la-la-la-fuck her. “Fine. I was just thinking about how my Papi will never get to hear me tell him about all the surgeries I’ll get to do. All the lives I’ll help save.”

  “I’m sorry,” Emmett said, but Sofia waved him off. She needed to stop being such a downer, and she definitely needed to stop focusing on her crazy urge to take the hand he’d draped halfway over the table, just inches from her reach.

  “It’s okay. I’m not usually this grim. The holidays are just really hard for me. I’
ll be fine, though.”

  At that, he snorted. “I don’t doubt that. But have you ever thought about maybe celebrating in a small way? So the holidays don’t hurt as bad?”

  “No.” She knew better than to think he’d let her get away with the one-off, so she added, “My father was huge on Christmas. Decorations, trees—yes, plural—food, carols, presents, the whole enchilada. There’s not one celebration that doesn’t make me think of him.” And miss him.

  “Okay,” Emmett said gently. “Then maybe you could try something less conventional.”

  “Like what?”

  One leanly muscled shoulder lifted and lowered beneath his scrubs, reminding Sofia for the billionth time (today) that her attraction to him hadn’t waned. If anything, it was burning hotter than ever.

  “I don’t know. Takeout Pad Thai. Mini-golf. Watching old horror movies in your pajamas. Anything that makes you feel like you’re celebrating rather than sad.”

  The bubble of laughter she’d been trying to swallow betrayed her by escaping. “Mini-golf? In December?”

  “Hey, don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it. Look”—Emmett leaned in, his fingers now so close to hers, she could feel the heat of them—“I didn’t know your father, but I can see how close you were, just by how you talk about him. He obviously loved you very much. I know you loved him, too, and I can’t imagine how hard the holidays must be for you.”

  The edge of Emmett’s index finger touched her wrist, so lightly that anyone walking by them in the cafeteria would probably miss it.

  Sofia hadn’t missed it at all.

  “I just think you deserve to be happy,” he murmured, and oh God, why did it make so much sense when he said it?

  “Thanks. I’ll think about it,” she managed past her pounding heart. Thankfully, her stomach wasn’t about to be outdone, and it chimed in with a tension-scattering rumble that made them both laugh.