I just watch him.
He moves closer to the bed, and confusion creeps in. He checks the monitors, adjusts a wire, makes a few notes, then reaches toward her.
I am out of the chair before he gets the chance.
My hand clamps around his wrist, and I haul him away from the bed. His back slams into the wall, and my forearm presses into his throat as I lift him until his feet barely scrape the floor. His eyes go wide.
“Who the fuck do you think you are,” I snarl, my face inches from his, “touching my woman?”
His fingers claw at my arm, his breathing turns ragged, and I tighten my grip.
“I asked you a question.”
“I… I’m her doctor,” he chokes out. “I—”
I lean closer. “I gave explicit instructions. Only female doctors, female nurses. No man steps foot in this room. No man touches her.”
“I know, but this is absurd. We’re short of staff…”
“So you crossed me because you think it’s absurd that I want female doctors checking on her.”
In one twist, I wrench his wrist sideways. There is a crack. His scream breaks loose, and I clamp my hand over his mouth before it can carry.
“Shut the fuck up,” I snarl. “If you disturb my woman with your pathetic screaming, I will kill you, so you definitely won’t make a sound.”
I release him.
“Leave,” I demand.
He nods frantically, cradles his arm to his chest, and stumbles toward the door.
I watch him go, my voice calm as I add, “Take a holiday or something, because if I see you again while we are staying in this hospital, you’re dead.”
He doesn’t look back. He scrambles out of the room, but not before I call after him and tell him to send another doctor, a woman this time.
I keep my eyes on the door long after he is gone, weighing whether I should have killed him for touching my woman.
Fuck.
I think I should’ve just killed him.
I take a step toward the hallway when something soft, so damn soft, beautiful, the best sound I have ever heard, reaches my ears.
“Milo.”
My name.
She never, ever calls me by my first name.
Something twists hard in my chest.
My head snaps around so fast it nearly gives me whiplash.
Those green eyes, heavy lidded and dazed, butalive.
My world stops.
And I swear to every god that ever existed, nothing has ever mattered more than this moment.
