Something More

Summary: Bryce and MC’s (Stevie) casual relationship becomes more. Smutty romantic fluffiness, because I just can’t help myself. Set a few months into the future.

“Are you really denying me the chance to finally destroy you at darts?”

Despite the horrible day and her almost as horrible mood, Stevie’s lips quirk up at the voice coming from behind her. She stops, turning and waiting for Bryce to catch up.

“You’ve been saying you’ll destroy me for weeks now,” she points out, the cool night air hitting her face and momentarily stunning her as they step outside. “Hasn’t happened yet.”

“Because you keep distracting me,” Bryce counters, tucking his hands in his coat pockets.

“Because I’m better.”

Bryce laughs. “Seriously though. You never pass up a chance to go out.” He bumps her shoulder with his. “What’s up?”

Stevie shrugs, fidgeting with the apartment keys in her pocket. “Just not in the mood.”

“Stevie.”

She stops walking and closes her eyes briefly, finding Bryce looking at her in concern when she glances up at him. Her sheer stubbornness and the walls she’s so painstakingly constructed were supposed to be a better defense against him. He’s her colleague, for one. She doesn’t let people in very often, for another. Her worries and insecurities are hers and hers alone; there’s a reason she keeps them so carefully hidden. And yet, here she is.

Bryce says her name like that, gets that sincere look on his face, and every time, raw, honest words come tumbling out of her. The first few times it happened, she shrugged it off as a side effect of their sheer physical attraction. There was no denying how good-looking he was. He was a fantastic kisser. She told herself he was a blissful distraction. Life was stressful, but Bryce was refreshingly uncomplicated.

They stole kisses and as much touching as they dared in the hospital, and more nights than not, their bets at the bar consisted of kissing amongst the hoots and cheers of their fellow interns.

Physical, she told herself. It’s strictly physical. Until it stopped being just physical and she found herself wanting to kiss him and talk to him just because she liked being around him.

“I had a patient die today,” she finally admits. “And it’s happened before, and I know it will happen again,” she continues in a rush, “But she was so young, and it was unexpected, and I should have been able to do more. I just…”

Stevie trails off, running her hand through her hair in frustration. “This one was rough. I just really don’t want to go out tonight.”

She forces a smile on her face. “So you’ll have to survive a night without me kicking your ass in darts. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He reads right through her.

“Hey,” Bryce says gently, cupping her elbows and then wrapping her into a hug.

It’s cold, and he’s warm, and she sighs with something like relief when his arms are around her. She burrows into his coat, snaking her arms around his waist.

“Come on,” he says when the wind suddenly picks up, cold air and fine, tiny snowflakes swirling around them.

He takes her hand and tugs gently. Stevie sighs. “Bryce… I mean it. I just want to go home and curl up in my bed and watch shitty, mindless TV until I pass out.”

“Great! That is exactly what I was going to suggest,” Bryce says, tugging on her hand again. This time she follows him, their fingers still laced together.

She’s a little surprised. “You’re passing up a night out to hang out with me while I mope?”

“No. I’m going to hang out with you to keep you from moping,” he corrects her with a lopsided grin.

Stevie groans. “Bryce, I swear to god, if you say we’re going to ‘Netflix and chill’…”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. You said it, not me,” Bryce laughs.

Stevie rolls her eyes but his laughter is infections and eventually she cracks a smile, a real one this time.

“Not that I’d have any complaints about doing that,” he adds.

Stevie lightly punches his shoulder. “Shut up, Bryce.”

Bryce has never been in her room. She isn’t sure if it’s been entirely deliberate or not, but they’ve kept things out of both of their places. She can’t remember how much dirty laundry she has strewn across her floor, or how many coffee cups are stacked on her dresser from desperate attempts to make up for lost hours of sleep. Then she remembers what a disaster Bryce’s locker is and shrugs it off as they head up the stairs.

She starts heading into the bathroom to change out of her scrubs, a habit she’s gotten into since getting four roommates. She loves them all, even when they don’t always knock on closed doors before flinging them open to vent about their attendings or their patients or the horrible sludge the hospital tries to pass off as coffee.

“You know I’ve seen you in your underwear before,” Bryce calls out.

She smirks, stepping back into her room and shutting the door.

“Habit,” she shrugs, then strips down to just her bra and underwear. Even from across the room, she swears she can see Bryce’s pupils dilate and hear his breathing speed up. She digs a pair of shorts and a tank top out of her dresser and slowly pulls them on. Bryce watches her, shaking his head when she grins at him.

“You’re cruel,” he shoots at her.

“Please. How many times have I made out with you? Last time we were lucky the door locked,” she fires back.

She rises up on her toes to kiss him, slipping her arms around his neck. Bryce nips at her lower lip and she groans.

“We’re lucky I have quick reflexes and actually got the door locked before that resident walked in,” he murmurs.

“Mmm,” she hums in agreement. “As much as I love you shirtless, you’re right.”

He bites her lip again, harder this time, and makes her gasp quietly. Her arms tighten around his neck.

“I wasn’t worried about my shirt,” he rumbles, his own hands dipping under the back of her shirt.

His fingertips rove over her skin. “I was thinking more about the fact that your hand was down my pants.”

Stevie hums again. “Oh yeah.”

Bryce snorts. “‘Oh yeah’?”

She smiles, twining her fingers into his hair and kissing him soundly. “I’m teasing you, Bryce. I definitely didn’t forget that part.”

She leans back, smiling at him, then rolls her eyes at his self-satisfied smirk. She pushes her pile of blankets out of the way and climbs into her bed, tugging Bryce after her. He wraps himself around her, his chest against her back, and brushes slow kisses down her neck. Goosebumps dot her skin and she shivers, shifting her hips back into his. She sucks in a breath when he hardens against her. His groan vibrates against her back when she rocks back against him, small, subtle movements that have his hands running under her shirt and trailing just below her breasts.

“Stevie…”

She rolls to her back, Bryce hovering over her.

“What?” she asks, noting the expression on his face.

His brow furrows. “Nothing,” he says, tilting his head down to bring his lips to hers.

Stevie frowns. For as good as he’s gotten at reading her, she’s gotten good at reading him too. Whatever is on his mind, it’s not ‘nothing’.

“Bryce. What is it?”

He lifts his head up, leaning into her touch when she runs a hand through his hair. “I’ve just been thinking. You know I love kissing you,” he begins.

“Okay…” She’s unsure where he’s going with this.

He smirks a little and murmurs, “And god knows the sex is incredible,” right into her ear.

Stevie bites back a whimper. He’s right about that. Bryce shifts down, kissing her neck and running his fingertips under her tank top. Her eyes drift closed, her fingers tightening in his hair when his mouth moves lower, his tongue tracing along her clavicle.

“Bryce,” she moans. “I want…”

He stops suddenly and she nearly cries out in protest.

“What do you want?” he asks in a low voice.

His eyes burn into hers and Stevie swallows hard at the blatant desire she sees in them. And… something more, something she’s been feeling too, something she’s tried to ignore at the risk of complicating things. But right now, with Bryce in her bed and looking at her like that, trying to pretend those feelings aren’t there seems a hell of a lot more complicated than just admitting that she wants more from this, more from him.

“You,” she breathes out. “I want you.”

She knows, from the look on his face, that he knows what she means. He leans down, his lips just barely touching hers.

“God, I was hoping you’d say that,” he murmurs.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I have no objection to still making out with you in supply closets,” Bryce jokes, then winces when she pokes his side. Hard.

“Bryce…”

He laughs, bringing his mouth to hers again. “But I also want to take you out during the two whole hours a week we’re not at the hospital. Kiss you just because. Tell people I’m dating a beautiful, badass doctor.”

“You’re really laying it on thick, Lahela,” Stevie laughs.

“Just being honest,” he says cheerfully.

“So… we’re doing this. Dating,” she clarifies.

“Dating,” he agrees.

He teases her playfully about the smile that blooms across her face. She retaliates by threatening to call him sickeningly sweet pet names and not to kiss him in the hospital for a week. That plan fails miserably when he kisses her deeply, his tongue tangling with hers, and says, “You can call me whatever you want as long as I can kiss you. And I’d rather have you in your bed than fumbling around in some random dark closet anyway.”

“Huh. You know, you have me in my bed now,” Stevie points out, rolling her hips into his.

She pulls impatiently at his shirt, his pants, dips her fingers below the waistband of his underwear. Those skilled hands he likes to brag about fumble when she gets her hand inside his boxer briefs and wraps her fingers around his cock.

“Stevie,” he groans.

He takes a shuddering breath and drops his head, sinking his teeth into her shoulder.

“God, Stevie, you…”

Her hips rock restlessly into his touch when he slips his hand beneath the waistband of her shorts and into her underwear, his fingertips brushing over her skillfully. A whimper bubbles in her throat, escaping as a sharp inhale when he presses his fingers into her warmth. This somehow feels even better than every other time they’ve done this before.

His mouth finds her neck, sucking and gently biting as his hand moves.

“Bryce,” she pleads. “Please…”

He stops just long enough to impatiently get the rest of their clothes off. His hands and his lips are everywhere as her skin is bared to him. For a long moment, he kneels and stares down at her, drinking her in. She takes the opportunity to stare at him too, now that they’re not rushing in a dark closet and getting caught isn’t in the back of her mind.

She’s seen him before, of course, and felt him, those well-defined muscles, the dusting of hair across his chest and abdomen, the V lines along his hips. She’s felt those long, skilled fingers on her skin, the warm, solid strength of his arms holding her up and wrapping around her. But now she can actually take the time to appreciate him, to notice the faint scar low on his stomach and the way his chest rises and falls with his breaths.

“God, you are… absolutely beautiful,” Bryce says, his voice husky.

“So are you. Now get down here,” Stevie replies, tugging at his hand.

He grins at her impatience, propping himself up over her.

“Still bossy, I see,” he breathes in her ear, cutting off her snarky reply when he surges into her.

“Oh,” she moans, wrapping her legs around his hips. “Yes…”

Her fingers dig into his back as they move, hips coming together again and again.

“God, you feel good,” Bryce groans.

Their lips meet in desperate, messy kisses, one of her hands burying in the soft locks of his hair. Her breath comes in short, sharp gasps as she pleads with him for more, harder, faster. Bryce kisses her hard and then leans back, bringing her legs up to rest on his shoulders. He slams into her, his eyes dark and hazy as they lock with hers.

“Bryce!” she cries out, arching up into him.

He groans her name, his mouth pressing to her calf and his fingers digging into her skin before he brushes them between her legs. A scream nearly rips out of her at the feel of his thumb on her clit, the insistent press of his hips against hers. Her fingers clench in the sheets, her muscles tightening around him. She moans when he keeps thrusting against her and then spills inside her, his head dropping forward.

“God, Stevie,” he groans after a moment.

The sheets are cool against her bare skin when Bryce slowly lowers her legs down. He traces his thumbs over her hips and smiles when she pulls him back over her, her lips finding his. She exhales a sigh and trails her hands lazily up and down his back, content not to move anytime soon. Bryce shifts his weight off of her, threading one of his hands into her hair.

“Feeling better?” he asks.

Stevie raises an eyebrow and he grins at her. “You said you were having a rough day.”

“Oh yeah,” she remembers.

In truth, he’s nearly erased the terrible mood she’d been in earlier. “How much will your ego swell if I say yes?”

Bryce shrugs. “Does that matter?”

“Yes. If your head gets any bigger, you might not make it through the doors at the hospital.”

His grin turns into a laugh. “Funny. I’m just happy to have helped.”

At some point the front door slams and Stevie hears laughter drift up the stairs. She presses one last lingering kiss to Bryce’s lips.

“You might want to get your underwear on,” she murmurs. “For all their smarts and talents, my roommates are not always good about knocking before entering.”

Bryce sighs exaggeratedly, a teasing glint in his eyes. “But I’m comfortable.”

He pulls her legs up around his hips and Stevie groans. “Mmm. Me too. But this door doesn’t lock.”

“We need to do something about that,” he says.

He kisses her neck, then climbs out of her bed and retrieves their strewn clothing. She watches him unabashedly, shaking her head and laughing when he catches her and winks. He barely has his underwear back on and Stevie’s still pulling her shirt down when her door flings open.

Sienna steps in. “Stevie! You missed-”

She pauses, a grin crossing her face when she sees Bryce. “Never mind. You missed nothing. Have a good night, you two!” she calls out, shutting the door again behind her.

Bryce pulls her into bed, wrapping his arm around her hips and dropping a kiss to her shoulder. “Your bed is really comfortable,” he sighs. “And closer to the hospital than mine.”

“You know if you want to stay over you can just ask,” Stevie says through a yawn.

He nips at her neck and she jolts against him. “Well then, Dr. Wilder. Can I stay over?” he asks in a murmur.

His hand drifts low on her belly and skates over her thigh. All thoughts of being tired and desperately needing sleep vanish.

“Yes. Since you asked so nicely,” she breathes. “But if you keep me up all night, you have to make me coffee in the morning.”

“You’re in luck,” Bryce says, rolling her underneath him. “Making coffee is another one of my many talents.”