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A black SUV stops hard under the emergency awning, and before the doors finish opening, our nurses rush a gurney out to meet it. Two men in dark suits flank the stretcher, and a pregnant woman hurries alongside, her hand pressed to the patient’s shoulder.
Our team’s voices overlap as they wheel him in. “Stab wound to the flank. Pressure dropping. Major blood loss.”
The man on the stretcher reminds me of a brick wall. His broad shoulders strain the seams of his blood-soaked clothes, his platinum blond hair is plastered to his forehead, and a thin scar cuts through his left eyebrow like a permanent question mark, almost touching the edge of the dark beard scruff shadowing his strong jaw.
“It’s a scratch,” the man on the gurney mutters, pale beneath the bravado. “You should see the other guy.”
One of the nurses doesn’t miss a beat. “Sir, the other guy isn’t bleeding on my floor.”
The suited man and the pregnant woman follow us as far as the trauma bay doors, close enough that I feel their attention on him like a second set of hands.
His eyes flicker open as we wheel him into Trauma Bay One, and my chest stutters.
“Two large-bore IVs.” My hands move in rhythm with my orders. “Type and cross. Prep for FAST.”
We transfer him to a bed, cut away his leather jacket, and then the cotton shirt beneath it. My gloved fingers graze his bare chest as I assess the injury. Heat radiates off his skin, and his muscles harden under my touch.
His eyes—deep and intense and half lidded with pain—lock onto mine. His mouth quirks like he finds his brush with death amusing.
“Careful, Dottoressa,” he croons in a smooth, silky baritone marred only by a staggered breath that signals his pain. “I bruise easily.”
At the doors, the taller of the two men in suits loops his arm through the pregnant woman’s and steers her back toward the exit. “Let’s get home,” he says, low. “He’ll be okay.” Then they’re gone, and it’s just me and the bleeding stranger with the reckless mouth.
My pulse jumps.
“Please do your best not to flirt while bleeding out,” I advise before resuming my examination. “Time and place.”
He leans his head back slightly, a faint smile curving his lips. “If I’m going to bleed out, Dottoressa, I might as well spend my final minutes doing something I enjoy.”
Something buzzes in my stomach, and I strive to convince myself I’m just hungry and not taken by his gravelly voice and wicked smile.
Gritting my teeth to draw more willpower, I focus on the wound. Though the knife bit deep, it left behind a clean wound. No major organs damaged. Lucky bastard.
Jenna hands me fresh gauze and leans close to my left ear. “He’s hot.”
I shoot her a pointed look, and she shifts away. But I can tell from the crinkling corners of her eyes that she’s grinning behind her mask.
She’s not wrong. This man has a magnetic pull and a predatory awareness of his attractiveness. I press the gauze in place, already bracing for the fallout of whatever storm he’s carried in with him.
“Your injury needs to be sutured. We’ll place you under general anesthesia and begin surgery.”
“No!” He shakes his head, his throat flexing for a second. Then he winces softly, and his next words come out steadier. “I would rather keep my wits about me, thank you.”
My mouth drops, rage simmering in my belly. “You’re bleeding through three layers of gauze. I’m not testing your masculinity.”
A pair of deep-set eyes the color of a rich espresso flick up to mine. They’re calm. Assessing. Those of a fighter sizing up an opponent rather than a man with a knife wound. “I can handle it.”
“That’s not bravery.” I draw up a full syringe of lidocaine. “That’s stupidity.”
The corner of his mouth lifts. “Go ahead and start, Dottoressa. Without the sedation.”
A hot flicker runs through me. Irritation, maybe. Defiance. Or the lingering hum of nerves he lit under my skin the second his eyes met mine. I set the syringe down with a clink on the cold metal table.
“Fine.”
The first stitch—sharp and swift—pierces his skin. I might have added more gusto than necessary. The expected whimper of pain doesn’t come.
His jaw tenses, but no sound escapes him, not even when I pull the suture snug, perhaps firmer than necessary. My precise, practiced hand sews with enough malice to prove a point.
