Page 18 of The Love Operation

I should’ve texted: This is a fucking hotel, Isaac. Why are we meeting at a hotel?

But I didn’t, and not just because I don’t know how to underline a word when texting. I just came here, no questions asked, like a woman who answered a Craigslist ad and naively expected not to get murdered.

Isaac: 19th floor. Harriet’s Rooftop. Already got the coffees.

How is a text this sexy? He’s so clear, to the point. The lack of subjects and verbs is wildly erotic.

It may seem like I’m abandoning my feminism here, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. I like it when a man knows what he wants. When he doesn’t hedge, doesn’t ask. Just tells. But that’s only because I know what I want. I don’t hedge. I’m just as forceful, if not more so.

It’s like finding a worthy opponent in tennis. Not that I play tennis. But if I did, I imagine that’s what this is like. Beating an inferior player is satisfying, but beating an equal? Now, that’s the stuff of life.

And precisely why I shouldn’t be meeting Isaac Thompson.

I don’t respond. I simply take the elevator up to the nineteenth floor and exit when the doors open with a soft ding. I square my shoulders, walking forward with determination.

But then I stop. Because this? This is a setup, a full-blown thirst trap. Harriet—whoever she is—is not on my side. Harriet wants to test my self-control. I should’ve told Isaac to meet me at a sewage treatment plant.

This place—atmosphere times ten.

Lush with plants.

Indoors melting into open-air patio seating.

Low glass walls.

Potted plants frame the edges like they were curated to make me want to strip out of my torn lab coat.

Buildings sparkling in the distance, a backdrop that is carefree and grounded at the same time.

Plush couches, low-set, organic wood tables—furniture free to be itself.

Intimacy. Openness. Freedom.

And then there’s the man . . .

Isaac stands at the glass wall, one leg casually crossed over the other, gazing out at Nashville’s skyline, which is brushed with morning gold, like the sky has been raiding Cleopatra’s jewelry box. But the peaceful serenity is completely at odds with how his navy blue suit stretches across his toned back, with how the fabric grips every inch of muscle like it was handsewn by fairies in a den of iniquity.

And don’t even get me started on his ass.

The whole scene makes lip-licking compulsory.

It’s indecent.

And . . . I’m in trouble. Because I just stand there, admiring him admiring the morning. Any second, swooning violins will start playing. I’ll look down, and I’ll suddenly be in a tight-fitting black dress, push-up bra, my hair mysteriously curled by unseen forces.

I exhale, gather my willpower, and force myself to walk forward, past the empty bar.

“Mr. Thompson,” I say in my provider voice, the one that makes patients relax, the one that assures them that I know what I’m doing, that I’ve learned it all so they don’t have to.

His turn is slow, like ice cream melting down a cone—unstoppable, sticky—and you’ve got to lick it before it drips too far.

“Dr. Wren.” His smile tries to lower my guard, like it saw the locks temporarily disengaged and made a move. I ram my guard back up, slamming his smile’s fingers in the process. But then his eyes do that thing again—they roll into me. My stomach likes it. So do my lady regions.

The rest of me does not.

He picks up a paper cup with a sleeve and a lid and extends it toward me.

I take it, my heart rate instantly going tachycardic when his fingers brush mine. The skinilicious sensation is so unexpected that I lose my grip on the cup after he’s already let it go.