Fucked Wide Awake

NIGHT SHIFT: CODE BLUE – PART I

The first thing I noticed was the sound. Not the beeping—that came later. First was the flat, terrifying silence, that half-second vacuum between a patient crashing and the monitors catching up to it. Then came the flurry.

“V-fib,” someone called. The room burst into motion.

I was already moving. Gloves on, gown half-secured, chest compressions underway before the crash cart even stopped rolling. Sweat prickled under my collar. Third time tonight for this patient, and it wasn’t getting easier. Every round, we’d pulled her back from the brink. This time, it felt like the edge was fighting back.

“Charging to two hundred,” Graham said, already at the cart.

The defib pads were already on her chest. He glanced at me. “Clear.”

I stepped back. Everyone did.

The shock jolted her like a pulled wire.

“Back on compressions,” he snapped.

I moved in fast, hands centered, counting silently. Deep, even, precise. I focused on the rhythm. I could feel him watching me, but I kept my eyes forward. Not after earlier.

Not after our argument during the last code. He wanted to intubate. I said no, changed course mid-protocol, and did what felt right. The patient had lived. The room had gone quiet. Graham hadn’t said more than five words to me since.

“Push one of epi,” Graham said. Steady. Direct. Maddeningly calm.

The nurse confirmed and moved fast.

“Pulse check,” he called.

We paused. Fingers searched. The silence stretched.

“I’ve got a rhythm,” the nurse said, voice soft. Hopeful.

I exhaled. The monitor picked up a sluggish but steady beat. Relief spread like warm water across my chest. The adrenaline was still in me, but fading fast. Hands lowered. The room exhaled.

Graham stepped to the foot of the bed, eyes scanning the monitor, then lifted his gaze.

It landed on me.

“Nice work,” he said.

Not warm. But not cold, either.

I nodded once and turned away before the heat in my face betrayed me.

Three months ago, Graham ended things without warning. Just a quiet, surgical cut—like we were nothing more than a distraction to be excised. Two weeks passed before he gave me a reason: his work was slipping, he said. He wanted to focus on patient care. He was gunning for a cardiothoracic fellowship and couldn’t afford to be... compromised.

I told him I understood. What I meant was, I didn’t want him to feel worse than he already did. What I should’ve said was that it gutted me. That it felt like I’d misread everything. And maybe I had.

I let him fuck me the first night we met. Maybe that was the mistake. But the month that followed wasn’t casual. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other. On-call rooms, stairwells, his place, mine—always desperate, always quiet, always pretending like it didn’t mean more than it did. Until one night I let it slip. I told him I thought I might be falling for him.

Two days later, it was over.

So you tell me: was it about the work? Or was it about me?

“Larkin.”

My name snapped like a rubber band through the air.

I blinked, breath caught halfway up my throat, and turned.

Graham was standing right in front of me, close enough that I could smell the clean snap of latex gloves and faint cologne. I hadn’t heard him approach.

“Yeah,” I said, trying to keep my voice level. “What’s up?”

His brow lifted.

“I said good work. Where the hell did you go just now?”

I gave him a tight shrug. “Nowhere.”

I didn’t wait for a response. Just turned and slipped out of the room, heading straight for the nearest bathroom. My hands were shaking as I splashed water on my face, cold and fast, hoping it would dull the burn still prickling at the edges of my skin.

When I looked up, my reflection was flushed, jaw tight, eyes too bright.

I dried off with a paper towel, tossed it, and stepped back into the hallway. Checked my pager. Nothing.

Checked the tablet at the nurses’ station. All quiet on the western front.

I looked down the hall. No codes, no call lights, no footsteps.

So I did what anyone would do at the end of a shift like this.

I headed for the on-call room.

The door creaked softly as I stepped inside, the lights low, the air tinged with sleep and antiseptic. I didn’t expect anyone to be there—especially not him.

Graham stood near the bunk, halfway out of his scrubs. His top was already off, hanging from a hook on the wall, and he was in the middle of stepping out of his pants. Just briefs now, and the moment my eyes landed on him, I saw it—that familiar, unmistakable bulge straining against soft fabric.

I froze.

“Shit—sorry,” I blurted, already turning back toward the door. “I’ll come back.”

“It’s fine,” he said, voice even, no urgency. “You’re good.”

I hesitated, fingers still on the doorframe, then looked back at him. He was straightening up, watching me like he always did—too still, too calm, like nothing ever touched him unless he wanted it to.

I forced a half-smile. “Don’t want to be a distraction. Wouldn’t want to compromise your patient care.”

That got him. He flinched, barely, but it was there.

He exhaled and pulled on a clean shirt. “That wasn’t about you.”

I nodded slowly. “Okay.”

I didn’t press. Not yet.

I just crossed the room and dropped onto the lower bunk, pretending I wasn’t still thinking about the way he looked with his scrubs half off and nothing but a thin layer of cotton between me and the memory of him inside me.

Graham didn’t say anything at first. Just crossed the room slowly and sat down next to me, his shoulder barely brushing mine. The silence stretched out, filled with everything we weren’t saying.

Then, quietly: “I’m sorry.”

I turned to look at him, brows drawn. That wasn’t the apology I expected—if I expected one at all.

He didn’t meet my eyes at first. Just stared down at his hands, fingers knotted loosely in his lap.

“The truth is,” he said, voice low, “I’ve missed you. And it shouldn’t have ended like that. You deserved better.

That was when he finally looked at me.

And I couldn’t not look back.

Our eyes held for a breath too long—then another. Something cracked open between us. The weight of what hadn’t been said. The memory of what had.

I leaned in first. Or maybe he did. It didn’t matter.

Our mouths met in a slow, quiet kiss. No urgency this time. Just heat and hesitation, lips parting like we’d been waiting months to say something we didn’t have the words for.

But it didn’t stay soft.

The moment our lips found their rhythm, something deeper took hold. His hand came up to the back of my neck, fingers slipping into my hair. I leaned into it, my mouth opening under his like muscle memory. Like surrender.

I kissed him harder. He let me.

He tasted the same—warm, familiar, slightly bitter from bad coffee and adrenaline. My hand found his thigh, the bare skin hot through thin fabric. His breath caught, and when he pulled me closer, I went willingly, already dizzy with the way he still felt like home and havoc at the same time.

His other hand slid beneath the hem of my scrub top, palm splayed against my lower back. My skin jumped under the contact. I shifted on the bunk, knees brushing his, thigh pressing into his. His fingers flexed.

I reached for the waistband of his scrubs, finding bare skin. He’d left the briefs behind when he changed. Of course he had.

I grazed him, half on purpose, half testing the limits of what this was. He inhaled sharply through his nose, then leaned forward and kissed me again—harder this time. More mouth, more tongue. Less apology, more want.

His hips shifted instinctively when I touched him again, firmer this time. There was no pretending now.

“You sure?” I murmured, voice low against his jaw, breath ragged.

He nodded once. Didn’t say anything. Just reached for me—hands under my shirt, pulling it over my head like he couldn’t stand the space between us anymore.

My scrub top hit the floor. Then his joined it.

His chest was warm against mine, skin to skin, the kind of contact I hadn’t let myself think about in weeks. Every part of me remembered him—how he moved, how he kissed, how he took. And when I palmed him again, fully now, he let out a sound that hit somewhere deep in my spine.

We didn’t say anything else.

There wasn’t anything left to say.

He reached for my waistband first, tugging scrub pants and briefs down in one motion. I kicked them off without hesitation.

Then I returned the favor. His pants were already loose, riding low on his hips. I pushed them the rest of the way down, along with his underwear, and he stepped out of them like he couldn’t get free fast enough.

We were bare now—no layers, no excuses. His cock pressed against mine, thick in the air between us.

Our arms searched each other blindly, hands dragging along ribs, hips, backs—memorizing what we already knew by heart. My legs shifted, one hooking around his thigh, drawing him closer until there was nothing left between us but heat and breath and the pulse that pounded in both our chests.

His mouth found my neck, my jaw, the corner of my mouth. Everywhere I burned, he found. I arched into him, my hands sliding down his spine until they gripped the backs of his thighs, anchoring us together as he pushed forward—slow, steady, hungry.

We moved like we remembered, like we’d rehearsed this moment in dreams, each grind and kiss deepening, unraveling what we’d tried to hold together with silence.

Afraid he might change his mind, I reached between us, wrapped my hand around his cock, and slicked it with my own spit. He groaned when I stroked him, hips flexing, breath sharp against my throat.

I guided him lower, lined him up, and held him there for just a second—long enough to meet his eyes. Then I pressed down, gasping as the blunt head of his cock sank into me.

His fingers dug into my sides, steadying me. My breath hitched. The stretch was too much and exactly right all at once.

He held still for a beat, his forehead pressed to mine, both of us panting. Then he started to move.

Slow at first—just enough to feel it. A careful retreat, a deeper push. My fingers curled into the sheets. Every thrust carved something loose in me: tension, regret, weeks of wanting him back and not knowing if I could.

“Fuck, Quinn,” he muttered, voice cracked wide open. “You feel—god—better than I remember.”

“Don’t stop,” I breathed.

He didn’t.

His thrusts grew harder, more purposeful. I wrapped both legs around his waist and met him with everything I had—hips, breath, the quiet, desperate sound I couldn’t keep in.

“You shouldn’t still fit like this,” I whispered. “You shouldn’t still get to feel this good.”

He kissed me then, hard and clumsy and full of teeth. His rhythm never faltered.

“Fuck me, Graham,” I gasped, voice breaking. “Fuck me harder—ugh.”

Graham was fucking me like his life depended on it.

There wasn’t any finesse anymore—just sweat and skin and the deep, rhythmic snap of his hips against mine. Every thrust sent a jolt straight through me, made my back arch and my hands claw at the sheets. My legs stayed locked around him, keeping him close, keeping him in, like letting go now would break something we couldn’t get back.

I felt everything.

Every emotion on the spectrum, every piece of unfinished business between us. Shame, longing, anger, want. But more than anything, I felt heat—low in my belly, curling up my spine, lighting up every inch of me he touched. He reached down, wrapped his hand around my cock, and stroked me in time with every thrust. It was too much. It wasn’t enough.

I met his eyes. He looked wrecked. Wild. Beautiful.

“Don’t stop,” I choked out. “Graham—keep going.”

He didn’t. If anything, he fucked me harder.

Like he needed this. Like we both did.

His hand tightened around me. Every stroke was matched with another deep thrust, dragging me closer to the edge—relentless, unyielding, fucking perfect. The pressure climbed fast, like something pulled taut for too long finally snapping forward.

“Quinn,” he panted, low and wrecked. “I’m—fuck, I’m close.”

“Then don’t stop,” I gasped, thighs tightening around his waist. “Stay with me. Come with me.”

I jerked beneath him, body caught between the drag of his hand and the drive of his hips. My vision blurred. My mouth opened, but nothing came out until the pleasure cracked through me like a bolt. I came hard, breath ragged, spilling over his fist and both of our stomachs, thighs trembling from the force of it.

He groaned deep in his throat and thrust one more time—then again, slower, deeper, like he couldn’t stop even if he tried. His whole body shuddered against mine.

“Fuck—”

He came with his forehead pressed to mine, gasping, hips twitching as he emptied himself inside me, and for a few long seconds, the only sound in the room was the broken way he whispered my name.

We stayed there, locked together, too breathless to speak, his weight grounding me in a way I didn’t know I needed.

Then he looked down at me and said my name.

But his lips didn’t move.

I blinked, heart still racing. “What?”

Again: “Quinn.”

Still, no movement. Just the sound, cutting through the fog.

The third time, I jolted.

My eyes flew open. The room was dark again. Still. I was alone in the lower bunk. My chest heaved, damp with sweat. My pulse thudded in my throat.

Graham stood by the door, scrub top already on, tablet in hand.

“418’s stats are climbing. We should check on her.”

I sat up too fast, the sheets clinging to my legs. My scrubs stuck uncomfortably to my skin.

He paused, glanced down at me, and said casually, “You might want to change those before you come. Looks like you’ve had a productive nap.”

And then he walked out.

I sat there frozen, heart pounding in my ears, every nerve ending still buzzing like it hadn’t gotten the memo.

I looked down.

The dark stain spreading across the front of my scrubs left no room for denial. I’d come. In my sleep. To the fantasy of the man who’d broken things off three months ago and now spoke to me like we were nothing but colleagues.

Heat rose up the back of my neck, crawling into my ears. Fuck.

I pressed the heel of my hand to my eyes, willing the moment to pass, willing the ache between my legs to dull into something forgettable. But it didn’t. It lingered. Just like he did—in my thoughts, in my body, in dreams I couldn’t seem to outrun.

I peeled off my scrubs slowly, balling them up and shoving them into the laundry bin like I could erase the evidence.

Then I reached for a clean pair, inhaled once, and tried to piece myself back together before stepping out into the hallway.

TO BE CONTINUED…