Standing across the operating table from Romano, Elizabeth was taken in by how much she missed working with him. His precision and intelligence were definitely attractive. Lately, she admitted to herself, there had been something more.
Romano looked up and caught her staring. "Something on your mind Lizzie?"
"No." she answered blushing.
"Well, there is something that I have been keeping bottled up."
Trying to keep it light, "Oh, is that why you've had your staff holding crucifixes for the last four years?"
"Cute Lizzie, but no. This is much more about the here and now. " He completed the incision to the pulmonary artery and then let Elizabeth clean up the cavity. "What I am wondering, is what are you doing here, exactly."
She pulled away from her suctioning and nervously questioned, "What do you mean? I thought you were waiting for me to clear the area so you could attach --"
"No, I mean here, in my home. I understand that Gretal let you in, but what exactly were you doing on my doorstep in the first place?"
"Oh. Well," she focused her eyes back on the procedure, "I thought that you might be hungry."
"I see."
"And I thought, you might not really want to cook, your first day back and all."
"Right."
"And I thought --"
Abruptly Romano lunged across the table and kissed her. Hard. On the lips.
Understandably, it caught her off guard and she stumbled backwards by the force. In doing so, the kiss was broken and she knocked a table full of tools onto the ground. They stared at one another, frozen, eyes ablaze.
After a beat, Romano saw the corners of Elizabeth's mouth curl up into a grin. They both offered a weak apology and Robert walked around the table to help her pick up what she had dropped. Crouched low under the table they scrambled to collect everything.
Seeing that everything was gathered, Romano tried to stand up. Instinctively Elizabeth reached out and grabbed for his arm. Being to the left of him, she made forcible contact with his pant's leg instead. She quickly withdrew her hand. Robert, having understood the action, knelt back down to the floor. They were facing one another sitting on their knees. Elizabeth, who had a pan and several tools still in her hand, set the materials down to her side. Their eyes met.
"Yes…" Robert prompted, "now that you've got me back down here. What did you --"
"I just wanted to say, that you caught me off guard before. But…"
"But, now you're on-guard?" he finished.
"No Robert, just the opposite actually," she answered. She leaned into him slowly, closing her eyes. Instead of their first contact being lip to lip as she had anticipated, she felt him touch a curl of her hair and tuck it behind her ear. She opened her eyes and sat back on her legs. Embarrassed, she gave a little pout and looked down to the floor between them.
Romano chuckled, "No Lizzie, don't give me that. I just want to make sure you have your eyes open this time."
And with that they both leaned forward and slowly touched… lips to lips. Robert's hand reached out and cradled the back of her neck as the intensity of their kiss increased. Elizabeth's arms reached around him and held tight. She explored the back muscles she felt through his shirt with her fingertips. Stretching her hands as wide as she could she grasped tightly bringing him even closer to her. Robert's palm came forward and traced a line from her neck up to her chin as he backed away from her lips. Breathless he whispered, "whh…wait."
She relaxed her fingers and let him pull away just enough so that she could look into his eyes. "We… uh…" he stumbled trying to get his heart to stop pounding in his eyes, "we… we might… uh, contaminate the field."
Elizabeth giggled at his choice of words, "always the professional."
As they stood up he responded, "oh no, there's nothing professional about it. I've wanted to reach across tables and kiss you, with just about every patient we ever worked on." He smiled wickedly at her as he closed the computer program and removed the various apparatus still in their patient. "My concerns are strictly pecuniary."
Just before he covered the dummy, he turned to Elizabeth. "You know... we skipped one of the most important steps here. You never named the patient."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, when I first was demoted, I began calling it "Kerry". I figured considering with my limited success rate, it was a win-win situation."
"Robert, that's sadistic."
"I try." He looked over to Elizabeth who had put the last of the equipment on a shelf. Holding out his hand to lead her back upstairs, he asked, "you ready?"
"Well, Robert, that depends," she answered lifeless, avoiding his eye contact.
He dropped his hand. He wasn't sure exactly where he messed things up. A moment ago he was certain that she was enjoying the kiss. And now, with his had extended, she seemed hesitant of him all over again.
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All right, as promised, there was bit of "action" in this chapter. I was beginning to think I was going to lose readers if I didn't get some kind of contact happening. Anyway, thank you everyone for the feedback. I never claimed to be writing Rated R stuff though, so I am confused and apologetic if that's what was expected. And thanks for everyone who said I have got the snark down. I'm a relatively new Rocket fan so I wasn't so sure if it was really working. Does he really use pop culture in his banter? Oh well it's too late now.
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