Dark Steel: A MC Romance Novel (13 page)

My stomach grumbled as I made my rounds. It had been eight hours since I'd eaten anything of substance. Food would have to wait. I couldn't believe it was only last night when I operated on Tanner King. I barely got enough time to myself before I had to go back to work.

Mr. Jacoby in room five was constantly pooping himself but finally stopped. Nurse Fiona will be cleaning crap off the floor for days. I still had a couple patients to see before I could finally take a break.

I opened the door to the oldest patient I had. He fell down in the shower and broke his hip in two places. Luckily his dog barked up a storm and a neighbor called 911.

“Hello George, how is your hip doing?” I checked the monitor and he seemed fine.

“Oh sweetheart, I feel like a million bucks. I could get up and we could dance the night away.” George tried to show me his moves while laying down. “I know a nice club a few blocks from here. They're open pretty late on Saturdays.”

“Maybe another time, George.” I put my stethoscope on and rested the bell on his chest. His heart was old but healthy. “Sounds good, George.”

“Fit as a fiddle, Doc.” His wrinkly skin stretched into a smile.

I chuckled. “I'll check in on you later.”

He blew me a kiss. “Bye sweetheart.”

I left his room and checked my clipboard. Tanner King in room three needed to be looked at. Flashes of his tattooed chest ran across my mind. Goosebumps formed on my skin and a shiver ran up my mind.
Why was I so scared to see him?

I peeked into room three and Mr. King was still sleeping.
Thank god.
I walked in and checked his vitals. Tanner was sleeping soundly. The white sheet covered up his entire body. I was tempted to pull it back just to get one more glimpse of that hot black widow tattoo. Tanner rustled and opened his eyes.

“Don't try to move yet. I don't want you to pull out your stitches.” I took out my penlight and did a couple eye tests—all normal. His brown eyes burned deeply into mine. They were dark, brooding, and oh so sexy. I couldn't look away from his gaze.

I grabbed his wrist to check his pulse and felt an electric shock. His heart was racing but so was mine.

“Are you the nurse?”

I hated that question above all other. Couldn't the patients clearly see my white coat. Just because I was a woman didn't mean that I had to be a nurse. God forbid a woman ever succeeds at something.

“What happened?” he asked groggily.

Suddenly, a whole group of bikers came into the room and began congratulating Tanner. I used that opportunity to exit the room. I spotted Dr. Green walking down the hallway towards me and I quickly ducked into room four with a coma patient. If I could go just one shift without interacting with that sleazeball.

I spent an hour in the mess hall, chewing on a poorly made hamburger. I checked my phone and saw a missed text from my younger sister Rachel. When she had dropped out of college, our parents disowned her and I let her stay with me temporarily until she could find a job. Flash forward two years and she was still living with me and had not found a job.

Rachel: I hope that bastard doctor is keeping his hands off you.

Honestly, I liked having her around. It could get lonely returning to an empty apartment every night. Dating was hard enough and combine that with an eighty-hour work week and your sex life becomes non-existent.

I typed her back a quick reply.

Grace: So far so good. I'll be home early in the morning. See you soon xoxo.

I finished my hamburger and returned to the ER. Everything had been pretty quiet since the stab victim came in last night. I checked my watch and realized it was past visiting hours. I would need to tell all those bikers that they needed to leave. I kept my phone close by just in case I needed to call security. Who knows what could happen.

I entered room three to find Mr. King standing up and trying to leave. “What is going on in here?” I grabbed his arm away from the biker and set him back down on the bed. His muscles were rock hard.

“I feel good, Doc. It's time to go home.”

“Over my dead body,” I said without wavering.

“I surrender. Sorry guys but it might be a couple days until I'm out of here.”

The MC left the room, leaving Tanner and I all alone. I checked his pulse one more time. “Your vitals are getting better. But we still need to do some tests.”

“Dr. Holmes eh? Any relation to the famous detective.”

I really needed to think about changing my last name. “Like I haven't heard that one before.”

Growing up, my friends and family all believed I was going to be a cop. I actually did have a thing for Sherlock Holmes—read all his stories more that once—but I grew out of that phase when I reached high school. I wanted to save lives, not solve murders.

“What's your first name?” he asked me.

Before I could stop myself, my lips betrayed me. “It's Grace. But you can call me Dr. Holmes.”

“Well Grace, I'm Tanner. It's nice to meet you. Thank you for saving my life.”
Who did this guy think he was?
The anger in my stomach was bubbling in my throat. He had the same disrespect that I hated about Dr. Green. I didn't even pay attention to his outstretched hand.

“If the tests look good tomorrow. You'll be able to go home,” I said.

“Thanks again, Grace. Thank you for saving my life. I owe you one,” he said with a stone-cold face. He really meant it.

“Your welcome, Tanner,” I replied, trying not to meet his gaze. My face flushed and I had to leave before my body could further react to him. He was just so damn cocky.

—

I spent the rest of my shift checking in on other patients and doing a good job of keeping my mind off Tanner. He was so frustrating and I had only known him for a couple hours. I couldn't wait until I could discharge him.

I stopped by his room and the door was closed. The nurses only closed the door if they were giving the patient a sponge bath. It couldn't hurt to peek in and get one last look at that sexy chest of his. I knocked on the door before opening it. Nurse Fiona was flustered and dropped the sponge in the bucket. Tanner looked relaxed. Way too relaxed.

I told Fiona to go give Mr. Jacoby a bath so I could be alone with Tanner. I approached the bed and could see his erection pulsing under the sheets. My skin became red hot and a desire in the pit of my stomach began to grow.

I ordered Tanner to get some rest and left the room before I saw anything more. It had been so long since I was with a man. Six years to be exact. I closed my eyes and tried to remember Kyle from med school. His face was hard to recall but I could clearly see him sweeping all the books off my desk and bending me over. He rammed into me four times before finishing. That was the last time I had sex and my body was beginning to rebel against me.

I left the room and wasn't looking when I accidentally bumped into Dr. Green. My clipboard went flying through the air and the papers he was holding fluttered to the ground. I bent down and helped him gather up his files.

“We should do this more often,” he whispered to me.

I huffed and grabbed my clipboard, leaving him in the dust. So much for going my whole shift without seeing him.

It's hard to sleep at night in a room with so many beeps and whistles. It's even harder when a nurse is constantly entering the room to check on me. Now if they woke me up for a sponge bath, then I could hardly complain.

I dreamed of Grace Holmes giving me a sponge bath. Her hands ran the sponge all over my body. I revealed my large snake to her and Grace gasped. She wrapped the sponge around my erection and washed me.

She slowly took off her sexy white coat and undid her hair from a ponytail. She bit down on the pen she was holding, running her tongue along the tip. She turned around and bent over, just about the pull down her blue scrubs...

I woke up the next morning feeling like I barely slept two hours. Grace was by the window, opening the blinds to let in more light. “Rise and shine, Mr. King.”

I put my arm over my eyes and hid beneath. “Go away, Mom. I'm too sick to go to school.”

Grace fake laughed. “Very funny, Tanner.” She had so many barriers up. How could I break through? Grace brought out her clipboard and began flipping through the papers. “I have the results from the tests and it all looks normal.”

“Does that mean I can go home today?”

“Not yet. We still need to get you walking around and eating solid foods.”

I sat up in bed. “Well what are we waiting for, Doc? Let's go take a romantic stroll on the beach.” Grace took my arm and helped me off the bed. My knees were no longer wobbly and my legs felt stronger. I took a couple steps forward and already felt better.

“Good job, Tanner. Now let's go out into the hallway.”

I nodded and walked slowly. Even though my legs felt one-hundred percent, I didn't want Grace to leave my side. So I had to pretend I could barely walk. We reached the hallway and a few of the Black Widow MC were waiting outside.

“Look! The man can walk,” Big Mike announced.

I nodded. “Yes, and for my next trick I'll turn water into beer.”

Claire approached Grace and walked next to us. “Can Tanner come home tonight, Doc?”

“Not yet,” Grace replied, focusing on keeping me upright. “He still needs to rest a bit more.”

Claire walked in front of us and stopped us in our tracks. “Come on, Doc. He seems perfectly fine. Let me take him home and I'll look after him.”

“I'm sorry but he's staying here,” Grace said with a sense of finality. Claire could steamroll over most women but Grace wasn't like most women. She could hold her own.

We made a lap around the hospital and returned to my room. Even though I faked needing help for most of the walk, I was completely out of breath when we got back. “Thanks for the exercise, Grace. Maybe when I get out of here, you can train me personally.”

She tried not to respond but a tiny smile formed at the corner of her mouth. “I don't think that would be appropriate, Tanner.”

“Well then if we can't exercise together, how about a drink?”

Grace looked me directly in the eyes. She was scared of something but I couldn't put my finger on it. “I'm sorry Tanner, but I don't date patients.”

I grabbed her hand before she could leave. That same electric shock zapped me. “I won't be your patient for long. Come on...one drink, what's the harm?”

The doctor hesitated. “I can't.” She left quickly and suddenly I was all alone with my thoughts.

I was in and out of sleep. Nightmares of getting stabbed kept me awake at night. The memory of blood pooling around my body was constantly hounding me.
I almost died.
But I survived, like I always did. It would take a lot more than a broken bottle to take out Tanner King.

What was happening to me? I almost said yes to a date with an outlaw. The man came into the ER with stab wounds. He was not the right guy for me. My prince would come one day and sweep me off my feet. Or at least that's what the movies told me. I doubted I would ever meet him. I made my choice a long time ago—I'd rather be a doctor than someone's wife.

Nurse Fiona found me in George's room while I checked on his hip. “Dr. Holmes, I can't seem to find anymore Codeine.”

“There's no more in the drug cabinet?

“I checked. We're all out,” the nurse replied.

I sighed and shrugged. “I'll go get more then.”

“Thank you, Doctor.”

“I'll check in on you again, George,” I said, winking at him.

He smacked his lips.“I'll be waiting patiently for your return, Angel.”

I laughed and left the room. I actually liked when old men hit on me. It was just harmless flirting. Not like it was with Tanner. I could see the hunger in his eyes. Did I have that same desire in my own?

I went down the elevator and to the locked pharmacy. Only doctors had a key ever since a patient stole a ton of painkillers and Od'd in the hospital. The resulting lawsuit made the board change the way drugs were stored and now nurses bugged me every time we ran out of something.

I pulled out my keychain with a million keys on it. The one for the pharmacy had a little purple sticker on it to identify it from the others. I opened the locked cage and entered the dark room. My hand felt around for the light switch and flipped it. Rows of shelves were lined up containing every drug known to man. I went to the aisle of painkillers that were locked again in a cage. For some reason the bright minds upstairs thought it would be genius to have them behind bars twice with the same key. If somebody could get through the first lock, they could easily get through the second. I opened it and grabbed a few bottles of Codeine.

“Nice night for drugs,” a dark voice announced from behind me. My heart spiked and I dropped all the bottles of Codeine to the floor. I turned my head to find Dr. Green looming.

“You scared the crap out of me,” I yelled at him.

The doctor grinned. “I didn't mean to.” He bent down and began collecting the fallen drugs.

How could I escape this encounter unscathed? “What are you doing in here?” I asked, waiting nervously for him to hand over the bottles to me. My heart was pounding in my throat.

Dr. Green stood up and shuffled the bottles around in his hands. “Same thing you are Grace—needed to get some drugs.”

I snatched the Codeine from his hands. “Well next time please don't sneak up on me.”

Green put his arms up to both sides of my head, keeping me in place. His bad cologne made me nauseous. His eyes blankly stared into mine. “We'd be really good together, Grace.”

“I already told you that I wasn't interested. Now let me go.” I tried to escape past his arms but he knocked me back against the shelf. My pulse was pounding in my ears now.
How was I going to get out of this?

“I love it when you play hard to get. Your not like most women, Grace. Most women would already have their legs spread wide open for me, wet and ready to go. But you keep yours clenched closed, not allowing anyone to get close.” His hand brushed against the side of my face and my stomach overturned. “It's time you finally give me what I deserve.”

Oh fuck!
I needed to do something right now before it was too late. I cursed myself for not taking those self-defense classes the hospital offered. But I knew the basics. I raised my knee to his groin as hard and fast as I could. Doctor Green's face twisted as he doubled over with his hands in his crotch. I ran to the door and realized that it was closed.
Did he lock it?
I pulled my keys out searched for the purple sticker.

“You're not going to get away from me you bitch!” he yelled from far away. His voice sent shivers down my spine. The keys shook in my hands as I tried to find the right one.
Come on! Where is it?
I could hear the doctor running towards me. I found the purple key and shoved it in the lock. The door clicked open...but it was too late.

Doctor Green shoved me against the steel cage door and we both bounced back and fell onto the ground. I tried to wrestle him off but he was too strong. His eyes were on fire and he held my wrists against the cold cement floor.

“I'll show you what a real man is,” he said, licking my cheek. I screamed as loud as I could but Dr. Green just laughed at me. “Nobody is going to hear you down here.”

A voice behind Dr. Green boomed. “Get your fucking hands off her.” It wasn't a request but an order. Dr. Green looked behind him and let me go. I looked past Green to see Tanner standing in the doorway, barely able to hold himself up.
What was he doing down here?

“You better turn around and forget you saw any of this,” Doctor Green hissed.

“Are you okay, Doctor Holmes?” Tanner asked me, ignoring the threat.

My eyes were filled with terror but I was able to nod.

Tanner clenched his fist and threw an uppercut, knocking Green's head back and sending him crashing to ground. Tanner immediately groaned and held his side as he collapsed. I picked myself off the floor and ran to Tanner, side-stepping an unconscious Dr. Green.

“Oh my god, are you all right?” The side of Tanner's hospital gown was stained with blood. I lifted it up to find his stitches ripped open.

Tanner's face was pale. “I'm fine, just a little woozy.”

“Here, let me help you up.” I put his arm around my shoulder and used all my strength to get Tanner to his feet. We stumbled to the elevator and got one last glimpse of Dr. Green's limp body. I wished that Tanner had killed him but at the same time I knew that was wrong.

“Thank you for saving me,” I whispered to him, pushing the button for the fifth floor.

Tanner waved it off like it was nothing. “You would have done the same for me.”

I let out a laugh that instantly made me feel better. All the tension in my body finally released. What was I going to do about Doctor Green? Should I file a formal complaint with the hospital? Go to the police? My head was swimming with too much. I needed to focus on getting Tanner fixed up.

The elevator dinged open and I called out, “Nurse! Little help here.”

Nurse Fiona ran to the other side of Tanner and took some of the weight off me. “What happened Dr. Holmes?”

Should I tell her everything? No not yet. I needed to think it through first. “Tanner tore some stitches while walking around.” Tanner nodded and backed up my story.

We helped him back to his room and set him on the hospital bed. Tanner rolled around and groaned in pain. For being such a tough guy, he was acting like such a baby. Fiona left us alone and I began closing his wounds back up.

“You know, you don't have to act hurt to gain sympathy from me.”

Tanner grinned and stopped groaning. “It was worth a shot.”

“I hope you know that this doesn't mean I'll go on a date with you, Tanner.”

Tanner scoffed. “Way to bring a guy down after he just became a hero.”

I flushed and smiled.
Tanner King, my hero.
I sewed the last of the wound and cleaned him up. “That should do it. Good as new.”

Tanner lifted his arm up and rolled his shoulder. “Thanks, Doc. I feel better already.”

“No thank you, Tanner.” Tears choked my throat. I didn't want to cry in front of him. Keep it strong, Grace. “I don't want to imagine what would have happened down there if you didn't rescue me.”

Tanner reached out and held my hand. His eyes were intense and unwavering. “If he even looks at you again, I'll make sure he never takes another breath.”

I wiped the lone tear from my cheek. “I really appreciate you looking out for me. The good news is that you should be able to go home tomorrow morning.”

Tanner smiled and still held my hand. I liked the way he gently ran his fingers in my palm. “It's about time. If I have to eat one more pudding cup, I'm going to bounce off the walls.”

“I'll make sure the nurse brings you a few to take home.” I winked.

This man was bringing emotions out of me I hadn't felt in ages. I tried to shake off that feeling because I knew he wasn't the right guy for me. He might be off-the-charts hot but he'd end up in prison or dead eventually just like every other member of a motorcycle club. I didn't want that life for me.