Smirking down at the flimsy piece of fabric, I pick it up and set it at the end of the bed as I pull myself into a sitting position and toss my legs off the edge, bringing my body closer to hers and getting my first up-close encounter with Frankie.
Her scent is a bit sterile, like this hospital, but there’s also a hint of something citrusy under all of that. I’d love to go in for a closer inspection . . . right behind her ear, where her pulse point is—heart beating wildly, pumping blood to the surface—and inhale.
“Let’s just get to work,” I tell her with a wink, hoping my dick stays put and doesn’t make this even more uncomfortable than it already is . . . for her, of course.
“Lie back,” she snaps, her eyes darting up to mine. A new no-nonsense air floats around her, walls of steel firmly in place, as her gaze turns cold and aloof. “This is probably going to hurt.”
Have I mentioned I’m a perfectionist? When I get something—or someone—in my sights, I can’t stop until I reach the top.
Ace the test.
Make the grade.
Get the degree.
Graduate with honors.
Win all the rounds.
Be the best.
And in this case, get the girl.
Chapter 2
Frankie
I was having a perfectly normal day. A pedestrian who ran out in front of traffic and got hit by a vehicle turning into the gas station came in earlier with a broken femur. Then, there was a man who was out shooting—for target practice, thankfully—and a buckshot ricocheted back at him and caught him right under the eye. Two flu cases, even though it’s early in the season, and an appendicitis attack rounded out my day.
Until him.
Gunnar Elias Erickson.
Twenty-Two.
Six-foot-three.
Two hundred and thirty pounds.
A fighter with the most piercing, translucent blue-green eyes I’ve ever seen.
Growling out my frustration, I try to shake away his memory as I scrub my hands in the sink, getting ready to take my break and find something to eat. When you work in an environment like this, there are no normal time schedules or meal titles, like breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I just call them what they are—sustenance. You eat when you get a chance. You sleep when you get a chance. You pee when you get a chance.
Sometimes, people even fuck when they get the chance.
Not me.
I’m not into relationships. They’re too complicated and take up too much time. I’ve never been one to need a man to complete myself. I feel complete all on my own, thank you very much. However, that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the opposite sex.
One time, a fellow nurse asked if I’m asexual. I’m not. I notice. I lust. I just don’t act on it; not because the desire isn’t there, but because my discipline is greater than the desire. Maybe I owe that to my mother. She’s always made it perfectly clear that men bring complications.
According to her, safety is found in solitude.
I’m not the recluse she is, but I do see the reasoning in her irrational thoughts.
“Who was that beefcake?” Marie asks, saddling up beside me at the sink. My hands are now missing the top layer of skin. I’ve been scrubbing for long past the prescribed time, lost in my thoughts, all thanks to the beefcake.
Marie says the term like an endearment.
I, on the other hand, decide it’s my polite southern way of calling him what I really want to call him: cocky, arrogant . . . violent. As I stitched him up, small talk led us to what caused the injury, which led to what he does for a living—or rather, what he’d like to do for a living. He’s training to be a fighter. I don’t like people who fight.
Maybe that’s the nurse in me, unable to understand anyone who’d want to counteract what I do for a living. I’m in the business of making people well; healing their wounds, not giving them.
I’ve never understood violence.
That’s another thing I can credit to my mother. She’s always drilled into me to steer clear of it. Not just turn the other cheek, but run. When I was little, we played a game where she’d tell me the bad men were there and I had to run to my room and hide under the bed, pulling the boxes in front of me so I was basically invisible.
“Out of sight, out of mind,” she’d tell me.
“He was a patient,” I deadpan, hoping to end the conversation, but I couldn’t be so lucky.
“He was sexy as hell,” she muses, in one of those airy, breathy voices that says I’d happily sacrifice myself at his altar.
“If you say so,” I mumble, tossing my paper towel into the waste bin and making my way to the exit. Maybe I’m just hungry? A little food and everything will be right with my world again.
She laughs, catching up with me. “I’m not the only one who thought so. Did you see the way Lana and Jody were staring? I swear, I thought they were going to drop their teeth on the floor.”
Yeah, I don’t want to have this conversation, but now that she’s following me to the cafeteria, I have zero exit strategy. Not unless I want to head to the lounge for a repeat of last night’s dinner: stale crackers and a granola bar that’s probably been in my locker since I claimed it two years ago. So, basically, my choices are starving or letting Marie make my ears bleed. Guess I’ll be deaf soon. It was nice having my hearing for the last twenty-five years; I’ll really miss it.
“Are you even listening to me?” she asks, checking me with her hip as we turn the corner.
“Yes, he’s hot . . .” I nearly vomit on the word. “And you want to mount him . . . but you’ll gladly wait your turn, because even sloppy seconds with him would be better than any of the first courses you’ve had in your life.” Pausing, I wait with my hand on the door. “Did I forget anything?”
Her smile turns conspiratorial. “I see what’s going on here.” Clicking her tongue, she nods her head and walks past me. “That’s fine. You saw him first. Does he have any brothers? Oh, wait—was that scary dude with him related? Now that I think about it, they do have the same eyes. I mean, have you ever seen anything like it? Mesmerizing.”
You want to know what’s mesmerizing, Marie? Your ability to speak without breathing. That’s impressive.
I smile, hoping it’s somewhere between you took the words right out of my mouth and stop fucking talking before you give yourself an aneurysm.
Her head—and from the sounds of it, her panties—would literally explode if she knew there isn’t just one brother, but five. Yes, five fighting Vikings.
How wonderful.
“How are you always so unaffected?” Marie asks, grabbing a tray and making her way through the line. “Not just with men, but with everyone. I swear, someone could walk in here right now with their head hanging off their shoulders by a thread and you would calmly set your tray down, walk over to them, and start trying to patch them up.”
I shrug, grabbing a salad, because unlike everyone else around here, I don’t want to die of early-onset diabetes. You’d be surprised how unhealthy health professionals eat. It’s alarming. “It’s my job,” I tell her, unsure how to explain the way I compartmentalize. I’ve done it for so long, I don’t even know how to undo it. “I just see a problem and try to work through it. Everything is a process.”