Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 75599 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75599 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
“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.