Fighting Lust: A Deadly Sins Novel (8 page)

Noah and Natalie already cornered me, requesting me to make good on that drink I owe them – and to go out with them after work since I bailed on them the last time. I haven’t given either of them a direct answer and in truth, keep avoiding them at all costs. Earlier I heard Natalie’s voice down the hall and as it got louder, I ducked into the visitor’s women’s restroom to avoid her. She didn’t see me and I feel a little bad for escaping from her, but I’m really not in the mood for going out with them. It’s nothing against either of them, I adore them both, but I’m just not in the mood to drink, gossip about work people, or relive our worse patient nightmares. I’m actually looking forward to going home, running a bath and maybe reading for a little while before falling asleep. The thought alone makes me happy and even more eager to get the hell out of here.

Walking around the corner, I see Rachel, the triage nurse, obviously having just checked in another patient. Pushing the portable vital machine that is used to take a patient’s temperature, pulse, blood pressure and oxygen level in their blood, and stethoscope in hand, she walks out of one of the exam rooms, closing the door behind her. I watch as she notates something in the patient’s electronic medical record located in an alcove next to the door. When I walk up to her, I hear muffled laughter through the barrier. “What have we got?” She smiles as I look over her shoulder on the entries she’s making and then I quickly page through the electronic chart to see what tests or radiology studies are being ordered, if any. Seeing the order for a head CT scan and findings related to a neuro examination, I quickly open up the patient information and documentation about the presenting condition. Clearly someone has suffered a head injury.

“Adult male that needs stitches above his left eye. Initial vitals and neuros seem ok. He needs a head CT and repeat neuros to rule out head injury or concussion.” She looks around and then leans toward me and whispers, “He’s freaking hot. Both of them are. He has a friend with him.” At my amused look she shrugs, “Just a heads up.”

“Thanks for the information,” I laugh as she walks away. Looking at a few more things on the chart, I make sure to check his vitals giving special attention to his neuro assessment, and quickly scan the brief description about what happened before I walk inside the room. Heading straight for the sink without much more than a sideways glance at the men in the room, I turn on the water. “Alright, Mr. King,” I say as I pump soap into my hands, lather and rinse. “My name is Tessa, and I’ll be your nurse this evening.” I shake the excess water from my hands and grab a paper towel to complete the job. “Why don’t you tell me what brought you here tonight that resulted in the need for stitches?” I flip open the trash can with a tap of my foot against the pedal, throw the towel away and as I do so, am surprised when I hear laughter. Spinning around to find out what’s so amusing, I get a good look at the patient, then freeze, a tingle going up my spine, though the reason is initially lost on me.

“Well, I’ll be damned. Wasn’t sure I’d see you again. Tessa you said, was it?”

My confusion and curiosity quickly turns to comprehension and immediate nervousness. I’ve run into men that I’ve slept with at a bar or club, but never here - not where I work. I guess part of me always knew it was a possibility – I mean, I’m no saint – there have been plenty of guys. The thing is, I refuse to sleep with a man more than one time. It can make for an awkward interaction if I’m approached more than once, but I don’t care. All it takes is a quick walk down memory lane to a time when I let myself fall for someone and that snaps me out of whatever nonsense I think I may be starting to feel. Scratching the itch I have always leaves casualties in my wake, but I don’t care, as long as I’m feeling better. I can’t believe this is happening here, in the emergency room, of all places. With an internal sigh, I square my shoulders and shake off this thought and attempt to set my professional demeanor firmly in place.

“Oh, fuck,” I say in the process and then redden in the face realizing that my thoughts were said out loud. Great, that’s really professional. The man I now know as Ryder King, thanks to his chart, laughs out loud at my curse. His friend, however, looks really confused albeit amused as well.

“Yeah, we did that,” Ryder laughs. Great, so he’s going to be like that – not shy about what we did at all. Fine, I can handle him.

Gripping the dangling stethoscope tighter in my hand, I refuse to acknowledge his comment. “According to your chart, you’ve had a head injury and sliced the skin open above your eye,” I say indicating the bloody towel he’s holding there. “Perhaps you didn’t hear me a moment ago - can you please tell me what happened?” I’m able to get that out and even sound reasonably pleasant about it. Go me. This isn’t awkward at all. I can handle this.

“You know, I can’t decide which is hotter. The red dress you were wearing in the bar, the black lace underneath, or the prim blue scrubs you have on now. Do you wear lace under those too?” Ryder places a hand behind him on the hospital bed and the paper that covers the top crinkles. He leans back on one hand and looks completely comfortable in his skin, even with a bloody towel covering half of his face. It kind of makes me want to punch him. He exudes sex appeal and it takes everything I have not to look him up and down, to see if my memory is as vivid as the real thing.

“I’m not going to dignify that with a response. Now, tell me how you hurt yourself or perhaps your friend here can do so for you,” I grit out between clenched teeth.

“Worried about me?” he asks with a wink.

I’m not sure if I’d rather kiss him or smack him.

“He was in a fight and took a blow to the face. It sliced his skin open,” his friend offers.

“Thank you…”

“Cole.”

“Thank you, Cole.” He smiles, but it’s wary. He looks confused as he glances back and forth between Ryder and me. I don’t blame him. “I’m going to need to take a look.”

Apprehensively, I approach a still grinning and nonplussed, Ryder. The towel he’s holding to his wound is soaked in blood. Head wounds are tricky that way – they’re happy bleeders. Turning back toward the sink, I momentarily wonder why Rachel did not attempt to at least replace the towel with an adaptic, but shrug off the thought, grab a pair of gloves and put them on my hands. Once they’re covered, I move once again toward Ryder and place my hand over his, and immediately feel a shiver of awareness run up my arm. It makes me quiver on the inside and feel surprise that even through the glove I would have this reaction to touching him. Ryder sucks in a breath and I have an immediate flashback to our hook up in the bathroom. His harsh breaths in my ear as he took me from behind, the feeling of our bodies moving together, the front of my pelvis smacking against the sink.

Blinking rapidly, I briefly wonder if our touch stirred the same reaction in him, but quickly focus instead on the task at hand. Easing away the towel, I avoid a wince as a bit of his skin sticks to the fabric. I quickly turn, grab and open a bottle of sterile water from the cupboard behind me, and slowly drip a light stream of the water on the adherent area, pulling gently, as the skin separates from the towel. Realizing my answer to my prior question, I try to keep my attention on the task at hand, but can feel his unceasing stare directly into my eyes. As soon as the skin is fully separated, blood seeps out of the cut and runs into his eye. “It’s deep. I don’t know who you were fighting or why, but he got you good. It’s a good thing you came in because you’re definitely going to need stitches – which clearly you know. Dr. Charleston is the doctor this evening, and he’ll determine how many you need, but from the looks of things, I’m guessing four, maybe five, should close it up. We also need to obtain a head CT scan to make sure you didn’t sustain an injury to your brain. Did you black out or lose consciousness at all? Do you have a headache, nausea, dizziness? Can you follow my finger with your eyes?” I’m holding my finger in front of his face, silently praying that he chooses to look at it instead. I know I’m rambling but am not able to stop myself as I attempt to regain my professional footing.

Ignoring all of my questions including the one about the fight that landed him here as well as my finger and continuing to look squarely into my eyes, he continues. “How long have you been a nurse, firecracker?”

Pressing a clean non-adherent bandage to the wound on his head, I turn to his friend hoping it’s a smarter move. “The doctor will also check to make sure he’s not suffering from a concussion.” Ryder laughs and the corner of Cole’s mouth twitches. “You said this was a fight? Do the police need to be called, or have they been called? I need to make sure the nurses station is aware so when they arrive, the nurses know where to direct them to obtain his statement.”

Ryder chuckles, “It wasn’t that kind of fight, sweet thing, but thanks for your concern. I’m an MMA fighter. It was a professional fight, not a street fight. What do you take me for?”

Raising a brow at that question, I ask, “An MMA fighter?”

“Mixed Martial Arts. I’m a professional fighter and I had a fight tonight. Makes me even hotter now doesn’t it?” He smiles at himself in amusement and dammit, I’m trying not to smile back.

Clearing my throat, I do my best to look at Ryder sternly, “The doctor will be in shortly. After he sees you, I’ll be back to help him stitch you up.”

“You’re going to put in the stitches?”

At this, I finally do smile. I know I won’t be actually placing the sutures, but he doesn’t. Leaning towards him I ask, “What’s the matter? Scared?” Before he can respond, I walk out of the room. Leaning against the wall as soon as I shut the door, I close my eyes and take a deep breath. Shaking my head as if the action can shake off the feelings, I make notes on Ryder’s chart, then go update Dr. Charleston on his next patient. Once I fill him in, he enters Ryder’s room and I remain at the nurse’s station waiting for a sign that he has finished his exam and needs some help. I hear loud laughter coming from the room and roll my eyes.

“Did I tell you they were hot, or what?” Rachel asks as she sidles up next to me.

“You did,” I smile without humor, not liking the twinge of jealousy I feel at her comment. Why the hell should I care if she thinks they’re hot? They are.

“Would it be totally inappropriate if I gave him my phone number?”

I don’t know which ‘him’ she’s referring to and I don’t care. When I see Dr. Charleston walk out of the room, I walk away from her, leaving her question unanswered. Dr. Charleston states that his neuro exam is negative – no concussion - and confirms what I thought, he’s sure that four or five sutures should do the job just fine. Assuming the CT scan is negative, he’s going to write a prescription for a mild painkiller. He expects Ryder to have one hell of a headache and nasty facial bruising when he wakes up in the morning. While he patiently waits, I get the suture kit from the supply cabinet and let radiology know that we’ll be bringing someone there in a few minutes.

Walking back into the room, I find Cole sitting in the available chair in the room and Ryder lying down on the table. Without a word, I wash my hands, put on my gloves, open and set up the tray and other needed supplies on the small overbed treatment tray. I fill a syringe with the appropriate amount of lidocaine to numb the area. Dr. Charleston comes back in and we both move toward Ryder to stitch his wound. Advancing to the opposite side of the bed so I can better assist Dr. Charleston, I almost trip over myself at the sexy smile on Ryder’s face as his eyes roam my body. I remove the bandage from his head, and using more sterile water clean up the dried blood the best I can. I carefully dab at the area with a dry gauze. “I’m hoping four stitches does the job here,” Dr. Charleston says. I hand the prepared syringe to Dr. Charleston, and as he assesses the site to administer the numbing agent. “This is going to slightly burn and the suture placement may pinch a bit,” he’s told, as the needle enters his chiseled face. Keeping my eye on the wound or Dr. Charleston, I continue to avoid his penetrating stare.

Cleaning up the blood that’s once again seeped out, we give the medicine time to work. Making the mistake of looking in Ryder’s eyes, he smiles again. I feel a twinge of something deep within me along with slight amusement at him that I refuse to let him see. Clearly his charms always work for him, and I can certainly see why. With a sweet smile I look at Cole and then back at Ryder, “Do you want Cole to hold your hand? The slight pulling sensation may not be pleasant.”

Ryder frowns and rolls his eyes, “No. I can handle it.” Dr. Charleston hardly contains his amusement at my question and then nodding, he pinches his skin together, and begins the repair

“Did I mention that I won my fight?”

“No, I don’t believe you did,” I comment absently as I dab at the slightly oozing blood leaking below the freshly sutured site and concentrate on assisting Dr. Charleston so this can be finished quickly. Thinking out loud, I say “This is going to leave a scar, but it should heal well as long as you don’t take anymore hits to the area.”

“No problem,” he says, “A scar, huh? That will only reinforce the fact that I’m pretty bad ass.”

“Is that right?” I ask and hear Cole and Dr. Charleston choke on laughter.

“Also, nurse Tessa. It’s okay if I call you nurse Tessa, right?”

“Mmm hmm,” I murmur not really giving a crap.

“Nurse Tessa, there’s another problem that I have that I think I’m going to need looked at.”

Watching Dr. Charleston tie off the end of the final suture, I use the tiny scissors for the last time and cut the catgut, while Dr. Charleston removes his gloves and heads for the exit. My eyes finally meet his. “What do you mean?”