Free Web NovelChapter 172: Chapter 172: Miracle Hands
Chapter 172: Miracle Hands
Elias stared straight at Yvonne’s bare hand.
He did not bother hiding what he was thinking. The look in his eyes gave him away completely, shameless and bright.
A moment later, his right hand slid slowly up from her wrist. His palm passed over the back of her hand and came to rest against hers.
Palm to palm.
Finger to finger.
Two flawless hands appeared together at once, so striking that the sight could make a person’s senses blur.
Elias’s fingers began to move lightly against her skin. It should have been an ordinary touch, nothing more than a hand brushing another hand, but somehow he made it feel indecent. His eyes softened until they looked almost wet, carrying a lazy, teasing pull as he looked at Yvonne’s hand like he was looking at a lover.
Then his fingers bent.
Naturally, almost lazily, he slid them between hers.
Their fingers locked.
Their hands tangled together, close and tight.
Only then did Elias look back up at Yvonne’s face. One arm still looped around her pale neck, while his other hand clasped hers as if they were partners on a dance floor.
If he had not still been sitting on her lap, the image might even have been elegant.
Elias smiled and leaned close to her ear. "Yvonne, everyone says you have Miracle Hands. Is that true?"
Yvonne looked into his eyes. "It’s just praise."
Her patients had started calling them that first.
Then people who had never even been treated by her began repeating it. Over time, the phrase spread far beyond the hospital.
It was a compliment, yes.
It was also a blade.
One careless move, and it could turn back on her.
When people said it enough, some of them began believing it. They stopped treating her like a doctor and started treating her like God, as if she could solve every condition that had defeated every specialist before her.
If she failed, then the fault was hers.
If she could not save someone, then she had betrayed the myth they had made for her.
Yvonne was still thinking when pain flashed through her earlobe.
The boy beside her had opened his mouth and bitten down. His teeth were sharper than expected, sharper than they should have been.
Canines.
Elias worried the edge of her ear with his teeth, then laughed softly. His eyes were full of malice so bright it almost looked sweet.
He had noticed her attention drifting.
So he punished her for it and dragged her back into this intimate, dangerous little fight.
"No," he murmured. "I don’t think it’s empty praise. Dr. Quinn’s hands really are Miracle Hands."
His breath slipped into her ear again.
He had changed what he called her, and somehow the shift landed exactly where it needed to.
The demon kissed the earlobe where a tiny bead of blood had surfaced, then gave his demand in a low voice.
"Yvonne, I want to taste what a miracle feels like."
Yvonne’s face, still as old water, finally changed.
A faint ripple crossed it.
It looked small, almost nothing. But that dark pool had been motionless for so many years that even the slightest movement mattered.
She had never imagined her hands would hold anything like this outside a scalpel.
There had been men online, foolish and filthy enough to fantasize about it. Men who wondered what it would feel like if the hands that could avoid a mistake finer than a strand of hair, the hands with machine-like control over pressure and placement, turned that precision toward something else entirely.
As for why Yvonne knew that?
Because she had read those things.
The twisted creature hidden inside her did not flinch from a little darkness on a screen.
She had only wanted to know what she looked like in other people’s eyes.
After hiding her real self for so long, even she was beginning to forget what shape it had.
And now, someone was trying to release that creature.
That same someone was enjoying what countless men had only dreamed about.
All of this involved one person.
If Elias claimed it was not planned from the beginning, even Yvonne herself would not believe him.
For a while, he looked as though he had sunk completely into an impossible tenderness. His pupils lost focus. His half-open eyes turned hazy, and his lips parted around a faint sound. freēwēbnovel.com
"Yvonne..."
He called her like he meant it.
Like she mattered.
Yvonne looked down at him and watched that face show a moving expression with no trace of falsehood.
For one moment, she wondered why she was doing this.
Her hand did not stop.
At some point, pain struck the back of her neck.
The arm hooked around her tightened suddenly, a burst of force that held her in place until, after a long while, it stopped all at once.
Elias went limp against her like a fish left on the shore, like a drowning person dragged out of the water too late to know where the ground was. Only his trembling continued, deep and uneven, with breathless little shivers that had nowhere to go.
Yvonne was his only support.
His whole body leaned into hers. He stayed in her arms, breathing against her, slowly returning from the aftershock.
Yvonne’s gaze moved from Elias’s face to her hand.
Her so-called Miracle Hand had been marked by blood before.
Now it had been marked by something else.
And yet it was like blood in one way: hot. Vivid. Alive enough that it seemed capable of burning straight through her palm.
Like the boy in her arms.
Healthy. Warm. Full of life.
Elias recovered at last.
The dazed look faded from his face, replaced by his familiar bright smile. He wrapped both arms around Yvonne’s neck and generously kissed her cheek.
"Mwah. Yvonne, you’re amazing."
So that was what Miracle Hands felt like.
[System Theta: ...]
How was it supposed to look at the word miracle after this?
Yvonne turned her head and looked at Elias.
At Longhaven, she could smile gently at patients for as long as necessary without showing impatience. At home, her expressionless, frozen look seemed just as effortless. Neither face appeared to bore her.
Now, her expression remained unchanged.
"Is that my reward?" she asked.
Elias paused.
Then he laughed so hard he nearly collapsed into her arms. Under Yvonne’s lowered gaze, there was only a soft mess of black hair.
It took a while before he lifted his head again. He wiped a little moisture from the corner of his eye, as if he had laughed until tears came out, then smiled at her.
"Then should I make Yvonne feel good too?"
Yvonne’s eyes narrowed faintly.
The sentence sounded like an implication, but it was almost too direct to be called one. Elias had laid his intention out in the open and left it there for her to inspect.
Yvonne’s thin lips parted.
"Kneel."
From that cold, noble face, the word had enough contrast to make someone shiver.
"Sure." Elias was still smiling. There was no anger, no offense, no shame. He only pushed his lips out a little. "But I’m not very good at it. Will Yvonne teach me?"
Yvonne’s gaze sharpened with assessment.
Elias simply closed his eyes and offered his slightly smiling lips in silence.
Yvonne did not hesitate.
She lowered her head, leaned in, and kissed the boy in front of her.
The scent that entered his breath was like poppies.
