Doctor Hero by Madison Faye

Chapter Five

Aria

“Mr. Klein,we talked about this last time, remember?”

Embarrassing things—medically embarrassing things, I mean—happen. I mean, they just do, especially when people start experimenting with, uh, things, and their butts.

Yeah.

I’ve worked in the ER for years now, and believe me, I’ve seen it all up there—hairbrush handles, bananas, sharpie markers, beer bottles. If you can look around your immediate setting and see something even vaguely phallic shaped, believe me that somewhere, someone has tried putting it up their ass because they got curious.

Experimental butt-stuff: the real human condition.

Except here’s the thing. They make toys and devices specifically designed for back there, and those specifically designed toys have one thing in common: a flared base. Why? Because things have a way of slipping inside butts when people start experimenting, and without a flared base, they can go in and then have a very hard time coming back out. It’s usually between the four and twelve-hour mark that people cave, swallow their dignity, and take the most embarrassing trip of their lives to the emergency room.

The best course of action, should you find yourself in a bad way like this with your shampoo bottle or whatever stuck up your ass, is to be honest. I mean, sure, you can tell your doctor “you fell in the shower and it just happened!” But I can tell you with as much sincerity as I can that no doctor, ever actually believes that. So, just be honest, like Mr. Klein here who’s just had his fourth operation in two years to remove a foreign object from his rectum.

Look, I’m not judging, believe me. But surely there are better ways to get off that don’t involve a Bud Lite bottle in your ass. For the fourth time.

“I know, I know, doctor,” Mr. Klein sighs, shrugging and spreading his arms wide. “Look, I tried, I just… c’mon, you know? You get urges too, right?”

I smile. “Yes, Mr. Klein, everyone gets ‘urges,’ and sometimes we get urges that involve a degree of risk. But I’m going to remind you again that this can be very, very dangerous. It’s tricky enough to get a full bottle out, but if it were to shatter inside of you, you’d be in a world of trouble.”

I frown. I could have the same conversation I’ve had with this man three other times. I could once again try and assure him that, though I’m not a psychologist, him wanting to experiment anally doesn’t mean he’s gay, and that perhaps these urges are something he could share with his wife of twenty years. Hell, for all we know, she’s been dying to shove things up his ass. Kinks are funny like that.

But we’ve been through all of that before, and I’m not here to play marriage or sex counsellor to Mr. and Mrs. Klein.

“Mr. Klein, I won’t tell you how to live your life or how to communicate better with your wife, that’s between the two of you, and you already know what I’m going to say about being open and honest.”

He chuckles, nodding. “Yep, I know, I know.”

“But what I will tell you, and I’ll keep telling you this, is that if you’re going to be doing this, you need to buy a toy that was specifically designed for it. You need something with a flared base, so it doesn’t get stuck—”

“Doctor, I’m not a gay. I’m not buying a goddamn rubber dick.”

I sigh. “Mr. Klein, the body has all sorts of erogenous zones, the anus being one of them. And wanting to explore that doesn’t change your inherent sexuality—”

“Can you even imagine my wife finding something like that?”

I arch a brow. “Can you imagine her finding out that you’ve been in here four times for the things I’ve personally removed from your body?” I mutter sharply.

He blushes but shrugs it off. I mean, c’mon. The man drives a Range Rover and pays for his hospital visits with an AMEX black card. He can afford a fucking dildo.

“Well, thanks again, doctor,” he grins. “You know, we gotta stop meeting like this,” he jokes.

“I can’t understate how much I agree, Mr. Klein,” I sigh before I point a finger at him. “I mean it, by the way. Please just go buy something appropriate to do this with. One of these days you’re going to seriously injure yourself, where it won’t be something you can hide from your wife. Okay?”

He frowns and nods. “I got it. Thanks, Doctor Linetti.”

“Take care, Mr. Klein.”

“See ya next time!” he crows out with a laugh.

“I’d better not!” I yell over my shoulder as I step out from behind the privacy curtain around his hospital bed.

“Better not what.”

I almost scream, and as it is, I jump about a foot off the ground as my head whips back around to see Jack standing right in front of me. His piercing blue eyes burn hotly into mine, and that chiseled jaw of his grinds tightly as he growls lowly. I gasp, looking up into his face, standing mere inches apart from him.

“What are you—!” I stammer, my breath coming quickly. “You—you need to be in bed!” I hiss.

Somehow, instead of wearing a patient’s gown, he’s managed to get himself a pair of hospital scrub pants, with a robe on top that’s just loose and open. My eyes slide slowly over his perfect abs, and his powerful, muscled chest covered in gorgeous tattoo ink. I shiver, forbidden heat teasing through me before my eyes slide to his shoulder where the robe is half slipping off, and I frown.

“Goddamnit, you’re bleeding,” I mutter. “Mr.—”

“Jack,” he growls quietly, his voice like a teasing warmth over me. “Just Jack.”

Jack,” I croak out. “You need to be in bed, right now. You might’ve torn a stitch, and your bandage needs to be changed.”

He frowns and glances down at his shoulder. “Huh,” he mutters, like he’s just noticed it.

“What the hell are you doing out of your—” I suddenly frown, blinking quickly before I grab his wrist and yank him out of Mr. Klein’s room, across the blessedly empty hallway, and into a dark, unused trauma room. Inside, I whirl, my eyes wild as I point at him.

“How did you…” my eyes drop to his wrist—his wrist that is obviously not still handcuffed to his hospital bed.

And suddenly, the door behind us shuts with a click, and I shiver.

What the fuck am I doing, pulling the man with gunshot wounds, who’s been handcuffed to a hospital bed, who the cops want to talk to, who has that dangerous, hard glint in his eyes into a dark, unused room, alone?

I swallow thickly, and I gasp a little as I look up into his eyes.

“Are you scared of me?” he growls lowly.

I swallow another lump in my throat, sucking my bottom lip between my teeth.

“Should I be?” I whisper.

“Maybe,” he purrs. “But you don’t have to be.”

“How did you get out of those handcuffs?”

He smirks. “This ain’t my first rodeo, doc.”

“Why shouldn’t I call hospital security right now?” I hiss before I wince, realizing what a stupid threat that is. I mean, the man does have me alone in a room.

But Jack just shrugs, steps aside, and nods at the door. “Go ahead. I won’t stop you.”

I frown, and I don’t move. Jack turns back, a grin on his face.

“What are you doing, doc? Go on, make the call. Yell if you have to.”

I chew on my lip, trying to squash down the throbbing, pumping heat coursing through my body at being this close to him, alone. My mind wanders back to looking at him under the sheets, and the horrible, forbidden desires that came with that. And now here I am, alone with him.

I take a shaky breath, and my eyes slip over to his shoulder.

“C’mon,” I whisper. “Let’s get you fixed up.”

I nod at the table in the center of the room, and he smirks at me, his eyes sliding over me, before he steps past and takes a seat on the edge.

“Robe off.”

He shrugs it off, and my breath catches as my eyes drink in the sheer size of him—the perfectly sculpted muscles that would put a Hollywood superhero to shame, and the gorgeous swirls of ink across his skin.

Get ahold of yourself, psycho.

I clear my throat, reminding myself for maybe the millionth time today that I’m a professional as I turn and start to pull supplies out of a cabinet. I turn back and move close to him, peeling back the bandage to get a look at what’s going on. Sure enough, he’s pulled two of the stitches, but the wound looks clean.

“Admiring your own handiwork?” he grunts.

“More like admiring the way you managed to fuck up my handiwork, actually.”

Jack chuckles deeply. “I had to.”

“You had to rip stitches somehow breaking your way out of handcuffs?”

“I had to see you,” he growls.

I freeze, my hands still on his shoulder as my eyes swivel up to his. I blush, biting my lip before I quickly look back at his stitches.

“Let me fix this,” I say quietly. “I’ll find some topical anesthetic and—”

“Don’t need it,” he grunts. “You can just stitch.”

I frown, but when he shrugs, I do too. “Hey, your call, tough guy.”

He chuckles quietly as I move in with the needle and start patching him up again. When I’m done, after he hasn’t flinched one bit, I re-dress the wound, put on a clean bandage, and finally step back.

“All glued back together?”

“For now,” I mutter. “Until you try playing contortionist again.”

“No promises.”

I roll my eyes. “You should get back to your bed,” I say quietly.

“Yeah?” he growls. “Why’s that.”

“Because you just should,” I croak.

“Will you be joining me?”

I blush heatedly, raking my teeth over my lip.

“No,” I whisper.

“Then what the fuck would I go back to bed for?”

I gasp as he slides off the edge of the table and suddenly moves into me. His hands slide over my hips, and my pulse surges as I feel the heat of him burn over my skin.

Jack—

“Aria,” he growls.

“What are you doing?”

“You know what I’m doing,” he growls darkly.

“I—”

“I’m doing what we’ve both been wanting to do since the second your lips left mine, which is exactly where they belong.”

With a moan, I feel his lips sear to mine, and I gasp as he kisses me fiercely and deeply. I whimper into the kiss, melting helplessly against his body as I feel his big hands slide to the front of my white coat. He pushes it wide, and his hands slip under, over the waist of my skirt. He tugs at my blouse, and I moan as I feel him pull it free and start to work the buttons undone.

Shamelessly, eagerly, I drop my hands to his body, and I gasp at the feel of his hot, muscled body under my touch. My fingers tease over his forearms before they slip to his waist, and I gasp again at the feel of his abs clenching beneath my hands. I run them over his abs and his chest as Jack growls into my mouth and yanks my blouse open, making me moan.

His hands move down to my skirt as he groans into my mouth, and I shiver as I feel him start to yank it up higher and higher, tugging the fabric up my legs towards my waist. And just as he’s about to pull it all the way up and over my panties, suddenly, reason slaps me hard across the face. With a gasp, I yank myself away from him, panting heavily as I step away. My eyes burn into his, and his into mine as I raise a hand to lightly brush my fingers over my lips.

Stop it,” I hiss quietly.

Jack growls. “Says you or says that stuck up part of you that just can’t let go of control?”

My lips purse. “Both,” I mutter. “We can’t do this.”

“Can’t or don’t want to?”

“Want has nothing to do with it!” I snap shrilly. “It’s against every single moral and code of conduct—”

“So you do want it,” he purrs.

I swallow thickly, my face burning in the dim light of the room.

“No, I mean—”

“You mean you can’t.”

I swallow again. “Yes,” I breath, my body aching for his touch again, my lips dying to taste him once more.

“Why?” he growls.

“Because you’re a criminal,” I snap.

Jack chuckles. “Says?”

“Says the obvious!”

“Built from my circumstances, doc,” he says with a cheeky grin.

I roll my eyes. “Well, good for you.”

He grins, but then his look hardens, and I gasp as he pulls close to me again. This time, his hands slide over the bare skin of my waist under my untucked and mostly unbuttoned blouse, but I don’t stop him. My body arches into him, eager for his touch even if my mind is screaming at me for how insane this is.

“I’m running, Aria” he growls quietly. “Away of this city, away from all of this.”

I chew on my lip, my eyes burning into his with a mix of fear and desire.

“Away from the mob?” I throw out harshly.

“Yes.”

He answers without even hesitating, and I shiver as I swallow thickly.

“Where?” I breathe.

“Vietnam.”

His hands tighten on me, and my pulse quickens. Heats pools between my thighs, and the ache for this completely wrong, probably dangerous man claws its way deeper into my skin.

“What? Why?”

“Beaches, warm sun, cold beer…” he grins. “No extradition.”

I stare at him. “You’re serious.”

“It’s how I got shot,” he grunts plainly, his eyes never leaving mine. “I told them I was done. I’m not killing anymore,” he growls with this intensity that takes my breath away.

I’m not killing anymore.

His words have my heart racing and my mind whirling as I realize truly the sort of man who’s got his hands on me, alone in this room. The man I want more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life.

“How many—” I frown and quickly shake my head. “Never mind, that’s—”

“How many?” he grunts.

“I don’t want to know,” I whisper.

“I don’t either,” Jack growls quietly. “But I know I want to do good now. There’s a group over there in Vietnam that runs hospitals for kids and refugees. I’m joining up with them when I get there.” He looks away. “I’ve brought enough death down on the world, it’s time to try and wash the blood off my hands,” he says tightly, his jaw clenched.

I frown. “Wait are you talking about the organization Just Cause? Is that who you’re planning on linking up with?”

He arches a brow. “You know them?”

“Yeah! I… yeah,” I smile. “I’ve thought about working for them before too, it’s just… well, here…”

“What about here?”

I shrug. “I guess I like it here. I mean, I don’t love it, but it’s home. It’s where I grew up. But…”

I trial off, but he frowns, pulling me closer to him and staring deeply into my eyes.

“But?”

I haven’t talked about this with anyone. I don’t actually have any really close friends, and so I’ve just kept my thoughts on my stagnated life inside. And yet for whatever reason, I want to tell him, even if I don’t even know him.

“But I don’t have any family left, and I’ve gone as high in my career as I’m going to here. It’s still a boys club at this hospital, and I’m pretty much where I’m ever going to be, career wise.”

“And you want something new.”

I nod. “I guess? Maybe? Who knows?”

“So come with me.”

I blink, my heart actually skipping a beat as my eyes dart up to his.

“Excuse me?”

“I said come with me,” he growls.

“You mean flee the country with some criminal?”

He frowns. “No, not just some criminal,” his perfect lips pull back in a gin. “With this criminal.”

I shiver as his hands tighten on me, and when he pulls me right against him, and when he reaches up and tilts my chin up with a finger, the heat that envelops me feels like it’s going to burn me alive.

“I’m asking you to run away with me, Aria,” he growls. “Because I’m not sure I even want to without you.”

His mouth crushes to mine, and I melt into him as the moan comes rumbling through my core.