Not knowing how to respond to Josh’s sendoff, I set my phone in my locker and backed away like I’d just stowed a bomb in there. Of course, that’s when Tanya walked in.

“You doing okay, Aly?” She stood halfway inside, arm outstretched as she held the door open, glancing warily between me and my locker. “You didn’t leave Indian food in there again, did you?”

“No, I didn’t,” I said. “And that was one time!”

She stepped inside, letting the door close behind her. “Yeah, but that one time was enough to clear the whole floor. Four days, Aly. Four days of rotting curry in the middle of summer, the week the A/C was acting up. We sent Seth in here dressed in full PPE to dispose of it.” She shuddered. “He still has nightmares.”

I shook my head at her, oddly grateful for the familiar ribbing and the distraction it provided. “I’ll pay for his next therapy session.”

She strode toward the coffee maker. “Our therapy is free.”

“Yeah, well, I’ll buy him some wine,” I said, joining her.

Technically, our shift didn’t start for another half an hour, but Tanya and I always came in early to get the lay of the land. We chatted for a few minutes, catching up on life – mostly hers, as she actually had one with a husband and kids – before heading to the nurses’ station to get the gossip from the day and learn which patients we’d be inheriting.

Josh’s parting words kept repeating themselves in the back of my mind, and it wasn’t until someone poked me in the ribs and asked if I was listening that I realized I’d been zoning out. Yup, I had it bad. Hopefully, I’d figure out some way to guard my heart in the next few days.

Several hours later, my hope went up in flames as I watched his latest video. It was darker than his others, not just in lighting but tone, with lyricless, haunting music playing in the background. He was shirtless in it, and the video opened with him grabbing the phone like he’d just wrapped his hand around someone’s throat – my throat – before a pan transition revealed him rising over the screen, one hand braced somewhere overhead, his dark jeans unbuttoned as he reached into them like he was getting ready to pull out his dick – and fuck it straight into my tits again. The camera panned once more, showing him lying on his side, one hand propping his head up, the other disappearing off-screen, forearm flexing deliciously as he pumped his arm like he was fucking that vibrator into me again.

This was the most overtly sexual video he’d ever posted, and watching him recreate what we’d done this morning made me fucking desperate for round two. What a devious bastard. Sure, take your time, Aly, but I’m going to torture you with my absence until you come to your senses. It made me want to be bratty again, hold out until his patience snapped and he hunted me down.

Oh, fuck, that sounded like a good plan. Yes, I was definitely going to do that. And…wait. His video had another caption.

I nearly dropped the phone when I read it, my laughter so instantaneous that I choked on air. It said: “Mommy and Daddy time.” How? Howww was he able to be so fucking hot and funny at the same time? It didn’t compute. Surely, one should cancel the other out, and I should either be turned on or amused and not both simultaneously.

My eyes skipped down to the comment section. It did not disappoint.

OMG is he married???

This just proves that all the good ones are taken.

I knew I’d been calling him Daddy for a reason.

@aly.aly.oxen.free GIRL, YOU WON.

Okay, but how are you going to tell your wife that this video just got me pregnant?

Are you accepting applications for a third?

If my future husband ain’t like this, I don’t want him.

I didn’t think I wanted kids until I just pictured this man holding a baby.

I all but threw my phone into my locker. No. Nope. I did not need the image that the last comment invoked filling up my head.

Oh, God. Too late. 6’4”, muscle-bound, heavily tattooed, shirtless Josh cradling a baby in his arms. I could feel my ovaries back at it again, opening the floodgates and screaming, “GO, GO, GO,” as they released every single egg in my body. If I had sex with this man in the near future, we’d have to double up on birth control.

My pager went off, and I was glad for the excuse to get out of there before the next kink I developed was a breeding one.

The next several days seemed to both fly by and drag, making me feel like I was in a time warp. Going back to my usual routine was weird, even though I hadn’t been out of it for that long. I half expected Josh not to honor my request for space, but the time stamps on my security cameras didn’t show any gaps indicating he’d hacked them and broken in again, and other than the pining video he posted halfway through my shift Thursday night, complete with a sad 80s hairband soundtrack, he hadn’t tried to contact me.

The comments on the video were priceless, with many wondering if Mommy and Daddy were fighting again. I’d gotten almost ten thousand follow requests since Josh had “claimed” me, which spoke volumes about the kind of pull he had online. No wonder he had such a big ego. All that power had gone to his head.

“Hey,” I said as I joined Tanya, Brinley, and a few other coworkers at the nurses’ station. Usually, I spent my downtime in the breakroom chugging coffee, but I didn’t trust myself near my phone right now.

A chorus of greetings welcomed me into the fold. We were midway through a late-night lull, but we’d pick up soon once the bars let out and all the football fans hit the streets. Our city’s team had made it to the final round of playoffs, and after games ended, we got an influx of shitfaced men who’d hurt themselves trying to flip cars or climb light poles.

The nurse station faced our fast-track area, where we had six narrow, open bay rooms, almost like stalls. It’s where we put patients with minor injuries and illnesses like sprains, fractures, lacerations, and sore throats. Three were occupied, but only two of the patients were being seen. The third bay contained an average-looking white man with light brown hair. He had one of those faces that were ambiguous, like he could have been anywhere from his early 20s to late 30s, and he’d blend in well in a crowd. Still, he looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place him. His shoulders were broad like he worked out, so maybe he went to my gym?

“What’s up with that guy?” I asked. It looked like he’d gotten into a fight, with one eye quickly swelling shut and a split lip. He held gauze to his forehead, no doubt putting pressure on a cut there. Someone should be helping him with that.

Tanya leaned in close, her voice low. “That’s the rapist from the other night.”

It felt like she’d dumped ice water over my head. I jerked my gaze from the guy, not wanting to make eye contact if he turned our way. “Why isn’t he in jail?” I asked. “Didn’t he get caught in the act?”

It was Deb, a white woman in her mid-50s and the most senior nurse on shift tonight, who answered. “He didn’t even get arrested. Some hotshot lawyer showed up before we could swab him, and he walked out of here scot-free an hour later.” She shook her head in disgust, her shoulder-length gray hair swaying with the motion.

I gripped the edge of the nurses’ desk to steady myself. “How. The fuck?” I couldn’t get any other words out. Felt like I was choking on the anger that threatened to bubble up.

Brinley let out a sound like an angry cat, and I felt better knowing I wasn’t the only one on the brink of going nuclear. “His family is loaded. The lawyer threatened to sue the shit out of the hospital and the cops for trying to coerce a DNA test out of him.”