Doctor Hero by Madison Faye

Chapter Three

Aria

My hands shakeas I shove the coffee cup under the Keurig machine and jam the button on. Great, a trauma surgeon with shaky hands and shot nerves. Wonderful.

I swallow the hot coffee quickly when it’s done—too quickly, really, and I swear as the liquid burns my tongue a little. I whirl, pacing the lounge, my pulse racing as I try and replay what just happened.

Yeah, so, that was not good. None of that was good. In fact, everything that just happened is arguable grounds for him to file a complaint to the hospital and get me on some serious probation. Probably, at least. I’ve never looked too hard at the regulations on doctor-patient sexual harassment because, you know, I’ve never been fucking crazy enough to kiss one of my patients.

Or ogle his cock. Or lust after him. Or stare at him with my heart racing imagining him pinning me across that hospital bed and having his freaking way with me.

Fucking hell.

I squeeze my eyes shut, sucking in breaths of air. This is ridiculous. I need to shake this absurdity out of my head, transfer off of this rotation, get Jack a new freaking doctor, and hope to everything holy that he forgets about all of this with his next dose of pain meds.

I frown, chewing on my lip. He did kiss me, right? I’m not rewriting history to make myself feel better, am I? It’s not that I let my roaring desires for this ridiculously hot man blend with my complete lack of sex life and mix into some sort of super-crazy psychosis, right? But no. I close my eyes and think back, and he definitely kissed me. We’ll forget the part where I kissed him back, eagerly.

I storm over to my locker and grab some clean clothes before slipping behind the curtain across the designated changing corner of the break room. I slip off my scrubs and pull on my skirt and blouse for my rounds, pulling my coat back on before stepping back out.

No, he kissed me, so that lets me off the hook, right? We can chalk that up to his medications or being loopy after surgery. I’m sure the next time I walk in there, he’ll either be asleep, or he’ll be awkwardly apologizing, to which I can put on my doctor smile again and assure him that it’s perfectly natural to be out of sorts after anesthesia.

Yeah, it’s perfectly normal for your monster cock to swell into a huge erection, and for you to growl dirty things into your attending doctor’s ear, and then to kiss her, after life-threatening surgery.

Yeah, right.

I slug back the rest of my coffee, steeling myself to head back out to the rest of my rounds, when the door to the lounge swings open, and Courtney, the on-duty internist, waltzes in, her blonde hair piled high in her customary bun.

“Have you seen the guy in room twelve?”

I groan. Yes. Yes, I have. In fact, I was just kissing him about ten minutes ago.

“Uh, yeah, I was the surgeon.”

She whistles and fans herself. “I mean, hello, right?”

I blush. “Courtney!”

“What!” she laughs. “You heard about the debate team down in the ER intake lobby who all ate the same e-coli infected pizza from that sketchy place by the university, right?” She blanches. “Girl, I’ve been dealing with shit—literal shit—down there all night.”

I wrinkle my nose. “Jesus, no. That’s pretty bad.”

“Yeah! Yeah, it is! So, let me eye-fuck your patient a little without judgement, okay? I deserve this.”

I laugh. “Alright, alright. No judgment.”

You know, glass houses and all. I decide it’s probably a good idea to not mention that the gorgeous patient handcuffed to the bed also has a porn star cock.

“Was he handcuffed, by the way?”

“Hmmm?” I blink, blushing as I pull myself out of my reverie.

“The hottie in room twelve. He’s handcuffed to the bed.”

“Oh, yeah,” I murmur distractedly. “Yeah, he’s apparently a person of interest. The cops are going to talk to him about some stuff when he’s more awake.”

She arches her brows. “Jesus.”

“Yeah.”

“Alright, well, I need to get back—”

“Hey, do you want him?” I blurt out.

She frowns. “Pardon?”

“I mean on your rounds. I’m beat, and I’ve got a ton of other people to check in on right now. I dunno, just, if you want to scoop him up into your own rotations, he’s all yours.”

She peers at me curiously. “What’s the catch?”

I laugh. “No catch.”

I just can’t go back in that room after I fucking kissed him.

Courtney arches a brow skeptically. “Really.”

“Honestly, yes, I just have a really full plate as is, and—”

“Doctor Linetti?”

Caleb, one of the nurses on duty, pokes his head in the room.

“Sorry to interrupt, but your gunshot patient needs you.”

I swallow and swivel my eyes back to Courtney.

“He’s actually Doctor Santos’s patient now.”

Courtney smirks and wags her brows at me, but Caleb clears his throat.

“I’m sorry, Doctor Linetti, but he’s very insistent on it being you.”

“Caleb, like I said—”

“Very insistent,” Caleb growls, and I suddenly see the strain and bottled anger on the normally extremely easy-going nurse’s face.

Shit.

I sigh. “Okay, okay fine. I’m coming.” I glance at Courtney. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” she mopes. “I’ll just go back to the debate team. Twelve years of higher education to clean up shit. Super.”

I laugh and give her a sympathetic look before I follow Caleb out of the lounge.

Back to him.

Back to temptation.

Back to the man who makes me forget every rule I have.