I didn’t say anything because while Johnny’s spirits were high now, he was only nine years old. I didn’t want to imagine what the teenage years would be like for him as an adolescent with scars and burn marks over fifty percent of his body.
“You like kids?” I suddenly questioned as we both walked back down the hall to my office.
She seemed startled by the question as she pulled her lips in, forming a line. “Yeah, of course. They’re pretty cool. More durable than adults, that’s for sure. Someone twenty years older than Johnny in his same position would be having a much more difficult time with what he’s coping with. Their healing process would’ve been slower, too. You know all the studies that say kids are just more resilient.”
She stopped short, only a few feet from my office, checking her buzzing cell phone.
“Gotta go check on a patient and then I have to prep for surgery. See ya later.” She scanned the hallway, making sure it was just the two of us before lifting on her tiptoes and kissing my lips.
I would’ve told her it didn’t matter if the whole damn hospital was around, as long as I felt her lips on mine before she walked away, but I didn’t get the chance because my own pager went off.
I checked the message that had been redirected to my cell phone and found that the patient I was consulting on another doctor with was on her way up, with Dr. Lyons in tow.
I placed by pager back on my hip and my cell on my desk and was just preparing to wait for both the patient and doctor when my door suddenly opened. Assuming it was Grace since she’d just left, and the person hadn’t knocked, I turned with a half grin on my face.
“You’re getting used to entering without kno—” I cut myself off when I saw when it wasn’t Grace but a different nurse. “What the hell?”
“Hi,” Suzanne purred, looking over her shoulder as she slid the door to my office closed.
“Nurse Greene, what do you want?”
“Oh come on, Jacob. Grace isn’t around. You can drop the Nurse Greene crap.” She moved closer and the gleam in her eyes told me she was serious and had no intention of stopping.
Her eyes were filled with lust and a primal drive to get what she wanted. If it had been coming from Grace, I would’ve welcomed it with open arms, but coming from Suzanne both angered and sickened me. It threw me back to a long time ago.
Before I could part my lips to tell her to get the hell out in a much less polite manner her hand was reaching for my cock.
“Oh my God, you’re bigger than I thought.”
I don’t know if it was her hand on a part of my body that I hadn’t even let Grace touch, the tone of her voice that was lined with both awe and a hint of laughter, or if it was the look of winning in her eyes that did it. Possibly all of these things combined.
But without a clear thought in my head, my mind snapped, every muscle in my body coiling with anger. My left hand darted out and clasped tightly around Suzanne’s throat, squeezing it as I pinned her against my file cabinet.
I registered the moment her eyes turned from lust to sheer panic and fear. That turn made me squeeze tighter. I wanted to remove the life from her very body.
“Take your fucking hands off of me,” I growled in a voice that was utterly foreign to me.
By that time Suzanne’s hand had long ago dropped from my cock. She was now clawing at my wrist and hand, trying to get me to free her from my grasp.
“Dr. Reynolds, oh my God!” someone yelled behind me.
That snapped me back to reality and my grip fell from Suzanne who bent over, as she gasped for air.
“Oh my God!”
I turned to see two women, one of them Dr. Lyons, the colleague who paged me earlier, and the other woman her patient, I hastily assumed.
“What is happening?” Dr. Lyons, demanded.
“H-he tried to kill m-me. Help!” Suzanne replied, still gasping for air. “Call security.”
“Dr. Reynolds?” Dr. Lyons questioned, looking to me, obviously for answers but I didn’t have any to give.
“Get her the hell out of my office!” I yelled.
“I’m calling security,” the woman with Dr. Lyons said. “If this is how he treats staff at this hospital there’s no way he’ll be operating on me.”
I would’ve told the woman to go fuck herself, but words eluded me at the moment. I had nothing to say to anyone.
