Her face pales at once. She looks at him, at me, and then back to him, before nodding her head and moving the curtain aside, disappearing behind it, leaving Dr. Z and me alone. He rests his hand gently on my shoulder, his thumb grazing it softly. “I’m sorry about her. She thinks she owns everything in this building.”
I smile softly up at him and say sarcastically, “Including you, I guess.”
He lets his hand fall away from my shoulder and says firmly, “No one owns me.”
I grip the back of my gown, holding the sides together behind my back with one hand. “Must be nice.”
A breeze floats over my barely covered backside when I turn away from him.
“Don’t move,” he orders, making me freeze in place. “Let me help you.”
Help me? Help me with what, my sadistic incubus boyfriend? That’ll never happen.
“With what?” I ask shyly.
His feet shuffle against the tile as he steps closer to me, the scent of mild cologne filtering into my nostrils. “With your gown.” He grips the strings around my neck and ties them loosely before stepping backward and asking, “Is there something else I can help you with?”
I turn on my heel to face him, and I can’t tell whether he means medical or something else. God, I want to touch him in so many ways. He has to feel it too, how can he not? I open my mouth to reply when the curtain clanks open.
“Are you coming? You have another patient to see in the next room?” Angela asks hurriedly.
Without looking away from me, he answers, “I’ll be right there.” He picks up the clipboard with my information on it and tucks it under his arm before vanishing behind the striped curtain.
I release a long-winded breath I didn’t realize I was holding before sitting gently down on the side of the bed, listening to the cheap wall clock tick with every second that passes.
It feels like forever for a different nurse to come back and dress my wound. After she finishes taping a gauze dressing on my buttocks, she plasters ointment on my neck, the various blisters and red marks on my body I can’t reach and then passes me the rest of the tube to spread the treatment on the places I can. After she leaves, I get dressed, take the edge of the curtain and move it aside, so they know I’m decent, and jump back when I nearly collide with Dr. Z’s chest.
He doesn’t move, our closeness making my heart skip a beat. He holds a bag in his hand in front of him, separating our bodies slightly, his eyes gazing intensely into mine. I back up into the room, putting some space between us. He walks forward, closingthe gap, staring at me, his mouth partly open as though he forgot why he’s standing before me holding a white plastic bag filled with supplies.
The nurse who dressed my wounds enters and advises Dr. Z that his other patient has returned from X-ray and is ready to be seen. He clears his throat, glancing away from me briefly to thank the nurse before turning his attention back to me. “After speaking to the attending physician about your injuries and my findings, the best course of treatment for your burns is Silvadene ointment used twice daily. As for the wound on your backside, it’s not deep enough to need debridement, but you need to have it reexamined in a few days to make sure it’s not getting infected and is healing. You can’t get a clear view of it in its current location. Keep it covered and change the gauze as needed. Take showers instead of baths for now. Is there someone at home or someone you can call that you’re comfortable with who can check it in a few days to make sure it’s not infected?”
That I’mcomfortablewith. The way he said it tells me he’s concerned about me, which I understand. I shake my head, because who am I going to call? My mom? My dad?
He extends the bag to me, and I take it as he removes a business card from his front pocket and passes it to me. “Take this. It has my number and extension here at the hospital. Call and leave me a message in a couple of days, and we can arrange a quick recheck here in the ER of your wound without you having to wait for hours.”
I take the card, my fingers grazing his as I slide it away from him and tuck it into the pocket of my sweatpants. “Thank you,” I say softly as I tilt my head down and stare at the floor between us.
There’s something about him that makes me feel intimidated and shy, which isn’t like me, and I’m not sure how to act around him. A part of me wants to bury my face in his chest and beghim to help me, and the other part wants to stay far away from him. I glance up at him, my eyes staring at his lips as he licks them and swipes them with his thumb. I look away, wishing my life weren’t so complicated and that I was deserving of such a handsome creature.
“Contessa,” he says barely above a whisper, causing me to look up at him.
Usually, I get irritated if, after I tell someone to call me Tessa, they still call me Contessa, but not with him. When he says it, it sounds seductive and eerily natural, almost like I’ve heard him say my name many times before, which is impossible under the circumstances.
He takes a small step back as the nurse reenters the room, checking the status of my discharge so he can move on to the next patient. He smiles down at me and says, “If there’s anything else, anything at all we can do to help you, call or come back, okay?”
His eyes, so honest, so humble, so sexy. I quickly look away from him. A shudder travels through me, making me outwardly tremble.
“Contessa, are you alright?” Heat rises in my cheeks as he reaches for me, sending a wave of passion and desire to my core.
What the fuck is wrong with me? If Mastyx found out I had these thoughts about someone, he’d be furious.
“Thank you,” I say again, without looking at him, pushing all the thoughts and how he makes me feel out of my head and quickly moving around him, my sandals squeaking loudly.
I make my way to the exit, my body screaming, needing to go home and plaster more of the medicine samples Dr. Z gave me on my skin. The nurse put on an ample amount, but I feel like the more I have on, the better.
Dr. Z’s face flashes through my head, his eyes full of concern and those soft, inviting lips begging to be kissed. I find it hard not to think about him.
Fuck. I shake my head rapidly and take a deep breath, pushing him out of my head once more.
