He settled down next to where my hip was, lifting my arm up onto his knee to turn it out like he had the other one. His thumb followed the line of my tendon, digging deep down into the tissue, hard enough to distract me from the pain in my abdomen temporarily while he ran up and down the area.
My eyes began to slowly close.
Whatever this was felt like fucking magic. Maybe some weird doctor trick that forced my brain into focusing on something else while the pain receptors tried to rewire themselves accordingly. Medicine and how the body worked were two things I had little interest in learning about outside of the occasional ‘why does this random part of my body hurt whenever it rains?’but this little cheat code was one I was definitely storing away for later.
All right, maybe Dr. Montgomery wasn’t all bad. So long as he kept my body from heaving up the rest of my breakfast from a pained panic response.
“They were expensive, weren’t they?”
Instantly, my eyes snapped open again. “What?”
His thumb circled around the outside of my forearm, tracing along the edge of my muscle. “Those chains. ”
My mouth grew dry.
He kept his eyes trained on my arm, following along with the slow and purposeful movement of his finger. “Real gemstones, too, I assume. Permanent body jewelry is a commitment. So is getting it forged in fourteen karat gold. Someone serious wouldn’t cheap out on an investment piece.”
It sounded almost like he was talking to himself out loud, like I was no longer in the room while he was piecing the picture together all on his own. Pulling in information that he’d come across since that night in the OR, and fitting it together into a nice little picturesque image of who I was—who he’d operated on that table.
I had no idea what to say or how to turn this conversation around. Back at the nurse’s station, I’d been prepared to snap back, but here I was feeling vulnerable. Picked apart and seen on a more intimate scale than I ever had before.
Hardly anyone knew what I liked to do in my private life or the secret parts of me I let out behind closed doors.
When he finally met my gaze, he asked, “How much?”
Fuck, I was so glad that heart monitor wasn’t hooked up to me still. “Ah…”
“Hundreds?”
What game was this?
What sense of superiority was he hoping to feel once he weaseled the answer out of me?
“Thousands?” he wagered again.
I bit my lip out of habit.
If I didn’t answer him, he’d drop it out of principle. No one liked an unwilling participant in a guessing game.
His thumb paused, then. His body growing still.
All at once, the energy in the room shifted. Moving from a lighthearted and vibrant mood to one that had a shiver racing up my spine. That same sense of need sat deep in my gut the longerhe stared me down, and enigmatic allure to his lingering touch on my arm, that had just been used as a pain management tool, was now sending small pinpricks of want throughout my body.
How the hell did he do that?
Nothing had changed aside from the conversation topic. Neither of us were doing anything that warranted this kind of response from me.
And yet, all I could do was hold my breath and wait.
Wait for him to lean forward and?—
“Something you need, Doctor?” Beth asked from the doorway.
Dr. Montgomery let go of my arm immediately, forcing me to suck in a much needed lungful of air.
Jesus…
His form was practiced as he rolled to his feet. “Give him some oxycodone to cut through the pain. Have someone bring him up something light to eat with it.”
