“Yeah. Sure, Kimmy, make coffee, and then I need you to please pull the charts for the next patients on the list.” Lucas tossed his paper towel into a bin and glanced past his rather creepy admin. “Teagan.” His brows shot up. “You came?”
“I’m a sucker for free operations. I just couldn’t resist.”
Kimmy looked over and nodded in approval. “Is that a werewolf thing?”
“She’s joking, Kimmy.” Lucas nodded back. “I can squeeze you in now.”
“What the fuck?” A woman called from the waiting room. “She was here like an hour after us.”
“Maybe you’d like to take her place?” Kimmy stood, and she flourished her fingers where the same small dagger appeared again. She turned her smile on the woman standing in the waiting room, who immediately took a seat and mumbled that she’d wait for her appointment.
“Kimmy…” Lucas rubbed the bridge of his nose wearily, “Just please put the knife away and don’t make any extra work for me. I’d like to leave at a somewhat reasonable hour. Coffee would be good.”
I threw a thumb toward the waiting room. “I don’t want to get you in trouble, here.”
He smiled, and I got to see why he had such prominent smile lines. A little dimple creased up his right cheek too. “I’m actually on break,” he said, “So I wouldn’t be seeing them anyway.”
“Now I feel really bad,” I said as I headed around the desk. “Are you sure you want to sacrifice your break to do me a favor?”
“I’m positive. Mind if I take a look?” Lucas reached out for my hand. When I set my hand in his, he cupped my palm in warm fingers and leaned over it. He pressed gently on the meat of my palm, and pain radiated out.
I hissed in a breath.
His soft gray eyes came up to meet mine. “I’m guessing you didn’t get all of the glass out before your hand healed, yeah?”
“You would be correct in that assumption, Dr. Wolf.”
“On top of that, vampire saliva doesn’t repair lacerations in the muscle. It just closed up your cut.” His lips twisted, and it was half genuine smile, half annoyance. “I want to scold you for botching your own operation when I could have fixed you up in ten minutes, but I’m not going to do that because I’m just happy that you showed up here.”
“It’s hard for me to trust anyone who’s offering to help me without getting something from it.” I bit my lip. “Which sounds ungrateful, and I’m not.”
“Well, I hope I’m deserving of the trust you’re putting in me today, then. How do you feel about me grabbing your height and weight?” Lucas nodded to a scale. “I’m probably just going to use a local, but you might need full anesthesia.”
I winced inwardly. Stepping on a scale in front of a good-looking doctor was a recurring nightmare of mine, no matter what my weight was, but it was really the anesthesia I had an objection to. “Lucas, I’m going to need you to do this without medicine.”
His warm grin faded. “Just so I have this right, you want me to operate on your hand without any type of anesthesia? There’s a lot of nerves in the hand, and if you move, I could easily do the kind of damage that could potentially cause loss of function in your hand.”
I looked up into his soft gray eyes. “If you order me to stay still through the operation, I will.”
“Are you sure?” he asked. “This would be disastrous to get wrong.”
“I’m positive.” The air around us suddenly felt heavy, like Kane’s dark energy had dropped down on my shoulders.
Lucas nodded back toward the first patient room. “Let’s get this over with, then.”
It took him a few minutes to set up his station, while I took a seat in the vacant chair.
“So… am I supposed to be wearing one of those backless gowns?” I asked in an attempt to lighten the suddenly heavy mood. It was a damn shame that I lost the good doctor’s smile.
Lucas raised his head and his gaze went distant. Shame washed through me. Holy crap. Had the flirting all been in my head? Oh, crap on a stick. Was I sexually harassing the good doc in his place of employment? I opened my mouth to apologize profusely when he grinned, and his eyes met mine. Butterflies took flight in my stomach. There was no mistaking that smoldering look. The attraction was definitely mutual.
“I don’t think that would help my concentration,” he said as he scooped up my wrist and set it on a bed of gauze. “Lay back. Get comfortable.” He set up a lamp and poured a few astringent smelling chemicals onto my skin.
“Comfortable… okay,” I said breathlessly as I stretched out on the reclining patient chair. My heart was beating in my throat, and it took a hell of a lot of concentration just to stay put.
“How old are you?” Lucas asked.
I rolled over just enough so I could see his handsome face without looking directly at my hand. “Is this for my chart?”
“I’m on my lunch break.” His eyes shone with his interest. “This is the closest thing I’ve had to a date in a long time.”
“Well, if you think cutting women open is a date, there’s probably a reason for that.”
Lucas burst out in a laugh that made his shoulders shake. “Fair point. Don’t make me laugh after I get my scalpel out, okay?”
“I won’t, and as for your question, I’m forever twenty-seven and technically thirty-seven. How about you?”
“Forever thirty-seven, technically much… much older,” he said.
“Thirty-seven,” I looked over his features. I would have put him at a damn sexy forty-five.
He inhaled deeply. “Life aged you faster back when I was human.” Lucas pulled a ring off his hand, setting it on the counter, and my stomach squeezed as I realized that I hadn’t checked for a wedding ring before I started flirting with the sexy veterinarian.
“Beautiful ring,” I said with a nod to the intricate band on the counter. “Is it a wedding ring?”
“Yes. It was.” Lucas’ brows lifted and he nodded back. “It was my mother’s band. I wear it on my pinky.”
I bit my lip. “Ah… I thought you took it off your ring finger.”
“Nope.” Lucas held up his hand, showing me a little ring indent on his pinky finger and nothing on his ring finger. “I was married once before, a long time ago, but this ring here was only ever my mother’s.” His gaze traveled far away again as he pulled on a pair of latex gloves. The look faded quickly, and his gaze returned to mine. “So, Teagan, I’m going to need you to direct me on how to immobilize you without anesthesia.”
“Command me and mean it. It’s as simple as that. It’s going to feel really good. Dominating me is the werewolf equivalent of cocaine, and you shouldn’t feel bad about feeling good, because I told you to do it.”
He licked his lips. “Can you tell I’m nervous? It’s been a long time since I used my dominance on another wolf.”
“We don’t have to do this if it makes you uncomfortable,” I said, even though, damn, it was going to be a serious problem if I had a glass shard in my paw.