Flaming Desire - Part 1 (An Alpha Billionaire Romance) (5 page)

She sounded so pitiful, calling for her child. Over and over. My heart clenched. My immediate instinct was to comfort the woman, but I knew that would have to wait.

The paramedics guiding the mother’s gurney glanced at me and I immediately directed them to take her into Trauma Bay Three. I then gestured with my other hand for the child to go to Trauma Bay Four. The woman had a nasty looking gash that had lifted her scalp off the left side of her head. Her yellow-blond hair and one side of her face was streaked with blood. Other than the blood, she otherwise looked okay. But we needed to get her calm.

Over the chaos—screams, doctors, nurses, machines—I heard Matt’s deep voice as he tried to calm the child’s mother, sobbing a few feet away.

“Ma’am, we’re taking good care of your little girl,” he assured her. “Hold still now, so that we can—”

“Calm down!” snapped a voice. “Lady, you need to calm down!”

Doctor Linder. The bastard.

I shook my head.

He had a horrid bedside manner. No, he had
no
bedside manner. He was often curt and impatient with patients, and although he was an excellent emergency room doctor, I often wished that he had, or at least could show, more compassion. In fact, as Doctor Linder looked at me, he had the audacity to grin while the poor mother tried to still her sobs behind a blood-streaked hand. He seemed to know that I wouldn’t report him for the incident in the supply room, and his lips twisted into a sickeningly disgusting smile. I would love nothing better than to accidently stab him with a needle.

I stepped to the doorway to watch as Matt reached for a blood pressure cuff and began to wrap it around the woman’s left arm. “You’re going to be okay,” he soothed.

The woman continued to cry, still clasping her free hand over her mouth while Serena asked the woman numerous questions, assessing pain locations and potential unseen injury.

Doctor Linder quickly palpated the woman’s skull, pulled the flap of skin back and told Matt to drench it with saline solution. Serena handed Matt the bottle and, without blinking, he squeezed the sterile solution onto the wound, flushing out any debris.

Linder continued to palpate his fingers down along the base of her skull and along her cervical spine.

Behind her, the child was still too silent and I heard Melody gently speaking to the girl. I continued to watch Matt for several moments, making sure that he was okay, but with Serena in the room, I knew they had things well under control. I couldn’t help but admire his calming demeanor with the frightened mother. In a matter of moments, she had quit crying, and though her eyes were still wide with fear and silent tears streaked down her cheeks, she remained docile while Doctor Linder continued to check her out.

I turned and quickly stepped to Trauma Bay Four, pausing a moment in the doorway before I entered, stealing myself. Kids were hard for me, terribly hard. I didn’t like to see children in the emergency room. Unfortunately, they were way too frequent visitors.

I stepped into the trauma room and saw Melody still speaking to the child, trying to get a response. I was thrilled when she moaned, calling weakly for her mommy. Melody gently placed a folded up warming sheet on the child’s chest so that she wouldn’t look down and see her mangled leg. A small-sized child’s oxygen mask was placed over the child’s nose and mouth, and several leads connected by wires monitored her heart rate and oxygen stats. The poor child’s heart was racing, and her O2 stats erratically rose and fell. The child was unstable. The vascular and orthopedic surgeon were quickly trying to assess the severity of the damage to the leg while my heart went out to her. I quickly stepped to Melody’s side and placed a comforting hand on the child’s shoulder.

“Shhhh,” I soothed. “The doctors are helping you. What’s your name, honey?”

“Mel…Mel…Melanie,” she stammered past the mask.

Melody smiled down at her. “That’s almost my name! My name’s Melody. How about that? We almost have the same name.”

Melody glanced at me and I nodded, knowing exactly what I was supposed to do. Distract the child while Melody inserted a needle into her arm to start an IV for fluids and pain medication. “Melanie, can you look at me?” I addressed the child. “My friend Melody is going to give you something to help you feel better, okay?”

“Let’s get going,” Doctor Jackson muttered.

The child glanced between Melody and me, then at the doctors, her tear-glazed eyes wide with fear, her face filled with pain. She tried to look down at her mangled leg, but I did my best to distract her. “Melanie, I want you to look at me, okay? You’ll just feel a little pinch and you’ll start to feel better. I promise.”

“Where’s my mommy?” the child cried weakly, eyes wide, big, fat tears rolling down her cheeks.

I knew she was frightened and did my best to calm her. “Your mother’s in the room right next door. The doctors are taking care of her too. You be brave like your momma, okay?”

I placed my hand gently on the child’s shoulder as I stepped near the head of the gurney. “You want to hear a secret?” I asked, nodding at Melody as I did so. Melody quickly inserted the IV needle. The child didn’t even feel the needle prick. Soon, an IV bag was hung and pain medication was given. As I thought of a juicy secret that would interest a small child, her eyes began to roll back in her head and she quickly slipped into a drug-induced sleep. I sighed with relief.

As soon as the doctors had the bleeding under control, they wasted no time assessing the damage more thoroughly, manipulating the mangled leg this way and that and checking for internal injuries. Moments later, the vascular surgeon spoke.

“There’s a nick in the descending branch,” he said. “Another one in the posterior tibial.”

The orthopedic surgeon nodded. “We’ll need x-rays, but I can see there’s one break in the femur, and both the tibia and the fibula are fractured, both compound.” He quickly glanced at Melody. “Let’s get her up to surgery. We’ll need consent from the mother immediately.”

With that, they prepared the child for transport, a portable monitor and oxygen tank nestled between her tiny body and the side of the gurney, now with the metal side rails pulled up. Soon, the consents were signed by the sobbing mother and they whisked the child out of the room, heading toward the bank of elevators at the end of the hall. I stared down at the blood spattered floor around the space that the emergency room gurney had been situated, a surge of sadness welling in my chest. I turned around, pulled off my gloves, turned toward the door, and literally bumped into Matt—again.

I felt as if I had just bumped into a wall for the second time that day. My breasts made contact with his lower chest and upper abdomen, and the contact sent heat flooding through me. My right leg had bumped into his groin and I felt his genitals, causing a sudden burning sensation low in my belly.

“Oh! Sorry about that!” I said, tossing the gloves into the red biohazard receptacle. I forced the thought of his privates to the back of my mind. “How’s the mother doing?”

“Better than her daughter,” Matt sighed. “Mother was wearing her seatbelt. Child wasn’t. She went through the window.”

I stared at Matt for a moment, trying to process my sexual reaction to him, barely hearing his words. I shook my head as his words processed in my brain and pulled me away from sex and sexual urges. “Damn!” How many times did children come into the emergency room because their mothers didn’t take the time, or force them to strap in? Then again, to be fair, a lot of children did unbuckle their seat belts without their parents being aware. “How is she?”

“Several contusions, probably a concussion, but no broken bones, believe it or not.” He stared down at the floor where blood soaked gauze pads, paper wrappers for tubing, and other detritus lay. “The kid going to make it?”

“I’m worried about her,” I replied honestly. “Her right leg was broken in several places and at least two arteries were torn or damaged.” To my surprise, warm tears filled my eyes. The image of the child laying there, helpless and crying for her mother brought back unpleasant memories; memories that I tried very hard to keep buried deep down inside.

I felt a warm hand on my shoulder and glanced up to find Matt staring down at me with a look of concern. I couldn’t help it. My gaze focused on his lips. I wondered what it would feel like to have those lips on mine, kissing mine, his tongue sweeping into my mouth, caressing my nipples, and perhaps even my pussy. I gasped at the sudden and renewed surge of heated sensations that rippled through my body.

“You okay, Jesse?”

I took a deep breath, blinked back the tears, and forced a smile. “Yeah, I’m okay. Children are always hard, no matter what brings them in here.” I sighed, trying to force images of Melanie’s mangled leg from my thoughts. “Let’s get some of this mess cleaned up.”

“Jesse…”

I looked up at him and practically held my breath. Damn those grey-blue eyes. It wouldn’t be hard to lose yourself in them. Could someone be
too
good-looking? As activity in the emergency department had increased, I was more than aware of the double takes and the stares that Matt was receiving. I was sure that he noticed too, but he said nothing, as if he were used to it.

Would his looks prove to be a distraction? Not only to me, but to the other nurses on the floor? I couldn’t imagine more stunned reactions if a famous movie star had sauntered into the emergency room department, turning heads. I glanced at Matt’s hands as he carefully pushed the crash cart back into the corner where it belonged. Strong, tanned, heavily veined and more than capable hands. I had seen that for myself only a little while ago. Again, I felt a tingling in my nipples. As he turned away from me, I assessed his broad shoulders and the way his back narrowed into a vee at his waistline, and the way those pants fit his tight ass.

I was pulled from my assessing thoughts when I heard the sound of a clearing throat. I glanced up to find him gazing over his shoulder at me. He had seen me staring at his butt. Again, I felt the heat of a blush warm my cheeks as I muttered an apology. He turned around, stared at me a moment, and then took a step toward me. My eyes widened, but I stood my ground. The closer he came, the more I was forced to tilt my head back to maintain eye contact. He stopped in front of me, only inches away. I felt the heat emanating from his body. Damn him! It was like he had this invisible pull on me. When he grinned down at me, I just about creamed in my pants. Shit. I was definitely in trouble.

I admitted it. I wanted him. I wanted him in the worst way.

Awkwardly clearing my throat, I grabbed my walkie-talkie and contacted the environmental services department, who would shortly send orderlies to help with our hazardous mess. “Let’s… let’s get the room put back in order, and then we can resupply the crash cart.” I suddenly remembered what had occurred in the supply room only a short while ago. I looked up at him with a raised eyebrow. I knew that he knew I was thinking about the fuck fest that had occurred in there too. He didn’t need a picture to put two and two together.

“Jesse, you’ve already warned me about Nurse Vanessa, and the other one… Megan. Nothing like that will happen… at least not in the supply room.”

He saw the startled expression that crossed my features and laughed.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to be flippant. In fact, I can promise I won’t lose my head over them.”

It took me a second to process what he had just said, and then I bit back a chortle of laughter at his choice of words. His grin widened. “You think I’m over-reacting, but I’m telling you…” I reminded. “They can get you into trouble faster than you can imagine.”

“What about you?”

I paused as I closed cupboard drawers that had been pulled open along one side of the trauma bay, frowning in confusion. “What about me what?”

“You stay out of trouble all the time?”

I wasn’t sure what he was suggesting. Did he mean…? Yet again I felt the heat of a flush travel upward over my neck and face. Crap! I had never blushed so much in my life. “If you’re suggesting—”

He shook his head and tilted it slightly, examining me as if I were a bug under a microscope. “Oh, not that I wouldn’t be interested, but definitely not in the supply closet. You deserve better than that.”

I felt as if his eyes could see right through my scrubs, through my bra, and directly caress the mounds of my breasts with his gaze. Once again my nipples hardened and I yearned for his touch. He took another half step closer, but I lifted a hand and placed it on his chest to prevent him from coming any closer. That touch alone sent waves of heat thrumming through my body.

Beneath my fingertips, that rock hard chest almost managed to compel me to test its solid mass with a gentle squeeze. I froze, startled by my intense and totally sexual reaction to the feel of my hand on his chest. Matt seemed just a surprised. He gazed down at me a moment, and then, ever so slowly, lowered his lips toward mine. I knew I should stop him.

I didn’t want to. I wanted to feel his lips on mine.

Within moments, I felt his warm breath on my lips. I unconsciously licked my lips, wondering if he was really going to kiss me. My heart hammered in my chest and the vein in my neck pulsed with anticipation.

The sound of the trauma bay door sliding open with a quiet swish caused me to jerk my head around. I wasn’t sure if I felt relieved or angry about the interruption as Melody stepped into the room, took one look at Matt, and then stared at me, her eyes wide. Then she grinned, a knowing look in her dark green eyes. I tried to give my friend a smile, but it came out wrong. I swallowed. Thankfully, Melody didn’t say anything, but made a show of glancing around the room as if looking for something.

“Um… you haven’t seen a locket in here, have you?” she asked innocently. “The mother is asking for it and the child isn’t wearing it.”

“No,” Matt said. “How’s the kid?”

“In surgery,” Melody replied. “They’re doing their best to save her leg.”

He nodded and abruptly turned away, continuing the process of straightening the equipment in the drawers that had been used and closing them as I had started to do only moments earlier. I watched him for a moment and then turned to Melody, who merely offered a shrug and a mouthed ‘
Sorry!
’ accompanied by another grin.

I ignored the curiosity of my friend’s gaze and turned again toward Matt. He kept his back to us, but he looked stiff and angry. “And the mother?”

Melody shrugged. “She’s lucky.
And
she was wearing her seatbelt. The police are up there talking to her now, getting her side of the story.”

She glanced at me and made a slight gesture with her chin. I took the hint. “Matt, could you take the crash cart to the supply room and replenish it, please?” I asked. “I’ll be right there with the cart from the other bay. While we’re doing that, the floors can be cleaned.”

He turned and nodded, his expression once again as blank as it usually was. I could tell he was upset, but was he upset that we had been interrupted or upset because of the child? I couldn’t tell. He grasped the handle on one side of the cart and pushed it out the trauma bay and out into the hall toward the supply closet.

I followed Melody out of the trauma bay as we headed into the other trauma room, where I quickly glanced into the opened cupboards, making mental notes of what was missing, and then closed the doors. My heart still thudded in my chest but at least my hands weren’t shaking anymore. Melody grasped the sleeve of my scrub top and literally pulled me toward the bank of cupboards where we wouldn’t be seen directly from the hallway if someone passed by. She turned to me, her eyes wide.

“Are you insane?”

“I didn’t do anything!” I replied in self-defense, although I knew that if Melody hadn’t interrupted us when she had, chances were that Matt and I would have still been lip-locked.

“You were about to!” She shook her head. “Vanessa’s already claiming him as hers.”

I stared at her in surprise. “What?”

“From the way she’s carrying on, you’d think she’d just gotten engaged to the guy.”

“Oh God,” I moaned. “She—”

“She already confided in me that she gave one of the ER doctors a blow job this morning,” Melody said, placing a heavy emphasis on the word
confided
. “She said that Matt’s next on her list.”

Shit.

“Is it true?”

I didn’t want to gossip about anyone, but simply nodded. “They were in the supply room,” I admitted.

“Oh-my-God,” Melody gasped.

“As a matter of fact, I was taking my break in the stairwell, until creepy Doctor Linder approached me in there after we took the mother upstairs.”

“Again?”

“Yes, again.” I shook my head. “And that’s just before I caught him in the supply closet with Vanessa.”

“Jessica, when are you going to report him for sexual harassment?” Melody groaned in frustration.

“When he does something that I can report him for,” I replied. “You know how it is around here… how it is around any hospital. The doctors are Almighty God, and if you accuse one of them, you’d better have proof.” I paused. “I didn’t take pictures for heaven’s sake. It would be my word against his—and Vanessa’s, and we all know that she can lie as easy as she can f—”

“I don’t like it,” Melody interrupted with a scowl. “I don’t like him. He’s a creep. I don’t care if he’s good at his job. He preys on women. Isn’t there any way that you can report him and it’ll stick?”

I shook my head and shrugged. “He knows what he’s doing, and he knows just how far he can push the limit without being accused outright.”

“And Matt?”

“What about him?”

“Jessica, you were ready to kiss the guy!” She almost laughed. “You!”

I sighed. “I don’t know what came over me,” I admitted. “Yes, the guy is good-looking, and he practically oozes sex. I just can’t tell yet whether he’s a player—”

“Of course he’s a player!” Melody exclaimed. “How can anyone that good looking
not
be a player? You’ve seen him. He’s probably got women throwing themselves at his feet on a daily basis.”

She grabbed hold of my shoulders and gave me a gentle shake.

“Don’t you fall for it, Jessica.”

“I’m not planning on it,” I said, forcing myself to believe the words coming out of my mouth. Still, deep down, I knew I wanted Matt to kiss me. I had never been so stimulated and attracted to a guy as I was with Matt. Never. It wasn’t just his looks. It was his sense of confidence, his sense of presence. It was like he contained a source of energy that was so unique, so compelling, that it was hard to ignore.

“Stop it!” Melody said, uttering a short laugh. “You’re still thinking about him!”

I shrugged. “It’s kind of hard not to. Don’t you think he’s attractive?”

“Of course I do,” she said. “Have you seen the looks the women give him when he passes in the hallway? And I’m not just talking about the nurses. Did you see the way that little Melanie’s mother stared at him while he was taking her vitals?”

“Oh for Pete’s sake, Melody—”

“I can tell you already that Doctor Linder doesn’t like him,” she commented.

“How can you possibly—?”

“Because he’s tall, handsome, obviously compassionate, and everything that Doctor Linder is not. He’s threatened by Matt—”

“Matt didn’t do anything to—”

“He doesn’t have to,” Melody said. “I saw the look that Doctor Linder gave him when he first saw him. You better watch out for him. He’s not only going to make things difficult for Matt, but I’ll bet you donuts to dollars he tries to get Matt transferred to another floor, or out of the hospital altogether.”

I shook my head. “That’s ridiculous—”

“Mark my words,” Melody shrugged. “And I guarantee that it will happen even faster if he sees you ogling Matt like you have been since the moment you laid eyes on him.”

“I haven’t been ogling him!” I denied. Had I? Had my attraction to him been so obvious? Then again, Melody was my best friend. Melody wouldn’t lie about something like that.

She grinned. “What about that?” she asked.

She was pointing at my eyes. I frowned at my friend. “What about what?”

Melody laughed. “Every time you look at him, your pupils dilate.”

“What?” I exclaimed, horrified. Double shit. This was not good.

“A bit of advice, girlfriend,” Melody said, placing her arm around my shoulders. “You’re one of the best ER nurses we’ve ever had, and you’re a great mentor. Just try and hold yourself together when you’re around Matt. You want to see him outside of work, go at it. I see the way he watches you when you’re not looking. I have a feeling he’s as attracted to you as you are to him.”

I frowned. If that was the case—

“Vanessa made herself available, like Vanessa always does. I doubt if there’s a handful of doctors, orderlies, or even janitors in this building that haven’t had a go at her. She’s a nymphomaniac… and a slutty one at that,” Melody commented, nodding at her own words as if for emphasis. “What guy wouldn’t turn down a quick blow job? But I can tell that when Matt looks at you, he has more than sex on his mind.”

I thought a moment about what Melody said, and then shook my head, making a face. “What, you’re psychic all of a sudden?”

Melody grinned knowingly. “Mark my words. I’m willing to bet you’ll end up sleeping with him before the month is out.”

“Melody!”

“Jessica!”

I shook my head, made another face, and then left the trauma bay. Melody could finish in here. I could take the cart down to the supply room and restock it, but decided Melody could do it. I headed toward the nurse’s station, empty at the moment. I needed a moment or two to think, to assess.

The hustle and bustle of the emergency department continued all around me. The waiting room just around the corner from the trauma bays buzzed with voices; a child crying, a woman calling to one of the nurses to come look at her arm. Patients needed to be seen, cuts stitched up and bandaged, broken bones set, accident victims taken care of.

I didn’t have time for sex. I had a job to do. A job I took seriously. I would be cutting Matt loose sooner than any of my others, due to his experience. How he did, how he performed, or where he went after that was none of my business. He would be on his own to do as he pleased.

By the time I emerged from the nurse’s station minutes later, I saw Matt at the far end of the hallway, the supply room door closing behind him. Before the door closed, I saw Melody busily restocking the other cart. He saw me and gestured and so I quickly made my way down the hall, the sounds of the emergency room department echoing in my ears. The noise was part of my everyday environment; so much so that it barely registered anymore, sort of like white noise. Phones ringing, people crying, doctors calling out orders, intercoms from incoming emergency personnel crackling. Controlled chaos. That’s what I liked to call it anyway.

Matt approached and I decided that we’d better have a little talk before we finished our shift. I glanced down at my watch and realized there was only fifteen minutes left, so I gestured for him to follow me back toward the nurse’s station, where we could finish up our shift, barring interruptions or swarm of incoming patients. We could finish up our day making notations in charts and preparing notes for the next shift.

“Where’d you disappear to?” he asked as he grabbed the back of one of the rolling chairs and pulled it over toward the computer.

“I had to talk to Melody for a minute,” I replied. I gestured for him to sit in front of the computer while I took the position he had taken earlier in the shift. “You should get used to our dashboard system,” I suggested. “I want you to prepare the nurse’s notes for the woman you helped take care of. What was her name?”