5. David
5
DAVID
"Come on, think, people." I wasn't entirely stumped over this one and I had my hypothesis, but my job was to teach them how to think things through. I wouldn’t shortchange the interns on this particular differential diagnostic because it was such a rare condition, they may never see it again. "This is the best you have?"
"Parkinson’s?" Dr. Cooper didn't look convinced, and the others scoffed at her when she piped up.
"Are you kidding?" Dr. Baine's scowl revealed his obvious dissent to her opinion. "He's an alcoholic, Ginny. It's cirrhosis, obviously." Baine shook his head and leaned back, and Dr. Holt looked just as confused. The symptoms lined up perfectly, though it seemed none of them could see it.
As for Dr. Newhouse, whom I had to continuously remind myself to address by title and surname and not call her by her first name, sat in silence. She had her hands folded over her tablet and her lips firmly pressed into a line. After a week of ordering her around, I'd have thought she'd be eager to jump into a differential and get her hands dirty. But she remained quiet.
"What about you?" I asked her, nodding her direction, and she shrugged and remained quiet. "Are you part of this team or not? Give me a suggestion." I found myself being irritated by her reservedness, but that didn't seem to faze her. Maybe I'd broken her spirit a little too much. I needed the Dr. Lauren Newhouse from day one who was feisty and opinionated, not this lump on a bump.
Snickers around the table shifted my glare to their direction and they quickly stopped. Then I looked back at her. "Are you disobeying a direct order again?" I asked, and her eyebrows rose.
"It's Wilson's disease. I apologize. I was trying to let the others have a shot." She sat a bit straighter and continued. "Rings around the irises, rash, fluid in the legs, abdominal pain, it all adds up."
Satisfied, I nodded my head. She really was brilliant. I had to hand it to her. It had taken me a while to deduce this too, and the way she churned it out without any effort impressed me.
"Fantastic." I turned to the others. "Now, go do the tests. We need blood and urine samples to the lab now. Baine, do a liver biopsy immediately. If there is a line, sedate him and do it right there in his bed." Pointing at the door, I said, "Well, what are you waiting for? Go!" And the three younger interns jumped up.
Dr. Newhouse rose too, picking up her tablet, but I grabbed her wrist and she stayed behind. We both watched as the others scurried off to confirm our diagnosis, and when the door shut behind them, I breathed out heavily. I'd been holding it in all day long and I was on the edge of my seat now. Lauren Newhouse was spectacular in every way. I'd seen her demoralize herself by picking bubble gum off the bottom of the table in the doctor's breakroom simply because I told her to, and my God, was she hot crawling across that floor.
"Please, can I just work with the patient now?" Her lip quivered as she pleaded with me, but this couldn't wait.
"That was incredible, Lauren. How did you know that?" I knew it, but again, only after much thought and deliberation.
"I had an uncle who died of it. They thought he had fatty liver." She glanced at the door and took a step that way, but I realized I was still holding her wrist. She looked down at the place we were connected and frowned. "Am I going to be chewed out again? I've done everything you asked me to do and I followed every single order you gave me. I just want to be a doctor again."
Her tense body language showed her reservation. Whether it was because she truly did just want to rush down to the ER to be a doctor or whether she, too, felt the electric chemistry, I didn't know.
"I'm sorry." I let go of her wrist, but she stayed. "I mean it. I'm sorry for everything that I've been putting you through. You are a phenomenal doctor and I need you on my team. But I need the real Dr. Newhouse, not a shell of who you are. I just need you to respect my authority."
Her shoulders sagged and she nodded. "I know. Follow every single order you give. I've been trying to do that." Lauren wrung her hands and continued to glance down the hall.
The interns were out of sight. We'd gotten this case so late in the day, everyone on this floor had gone home too. If our tests were conclusive and we could get treatment started and handed over to the residents in the emergency department, we could go home soon too, but there was something that made me linger. A part of me liked this alone time with her—when I'd send the others off to do tests or speak with patients to get more information, and Lauren would be forced to linger with me here.
Our eyes met, and I didn't know what to say to her. I didn't like ordering her to do menial tasks like wiping down the tables or mopping the floor. Though, I didn't mind watching her bend over at times or the way her hair would fall loose when she worked extra hard.
"I mean it. You are an incredible doctor. Your mind is so intelligent and witty. You think fast. It's no wonder you made head of the ER in such a short time. I'm really glad you're on my team." I watched her hands stop wringing and she bit her lower lip.
"Thank you," she said, blushing. Compliments must not have been common where she came from, or maybe it was because it was coming from me and I had given her such a hard time before. "Does this mean I can stop being your gopher?" Her eyebrows tented, and I chuckled. She was beautiful too, bright green eyes and auburn hair that always seemed to fall around her round cheeks.
"But who will wash my windows?" I asked playfully, and she shook her head.
"I could hire you a personal assistant, Dr. Park. You do have a lot of non-medical tasks to be done. I never want to collate reports again."
"Ah, but you looked so intense hunched over that table sorting papers." And the way that low-cut top let her cleavage hang out was intoxicating. I had an erection for thirty straight minutes and I couldn’t stand up from my desk.
"You have to admit it's an egregious misuse of my education." Her counterpoint came with a smile, and I swore her lips darkened a few shades.
"But I like ordering you around." And there was where I crossed the line. It wasn't said with any purpose but to incite a reaction in her. I caught myself before I said anything more incriminating, but the ship had set sail already and there was no bringing it back into port. I saw the desire in her eyes flashing.
"I do very much like taking your orders, Dr. Park, but I was thinking maybe of learning more from you, not doing your dry cleaning." She chewed that bottom lip until it was raw and swelling, the way it was the night she approached me on the street. The way it was in my dreams when I pinned her against my desk. The way it was when I fantasized about her in my shower when I touched myself. "I also like seeing your smile when I do what you ask me to do."
My God, she had to, didn't she? My heart hammered against my ribs and my dick was stirring. This was so inappropriate. I should never be thinking the thoughts that I was, but there they were, right in front of me. I glanced now at the hall, halfway expecting to see someone watching us, ready to pounce and tell the board I was coming on to an employee, but we were alone. The hall was dark. The interns were gone.
"Is everything okay?" she asked, and I couldn’t stop myself. The imaginations of her in my head were too compulsive, too overwhelming. I met her gaze.
"Would you really do anything I asked you to? Follow any order?" I emphasized ‘any’, and her eyebrows rose slowly. She flicked her gaze to the dark hall then back to my face.
"Well, Dr. Park, you are my boss, and I?—"
"Any order…?" My mouth was so full of saliva I had to swallow. I wanted to devour her, spread her on this table and eat her from hole to hole, and my dick was making my slacks a tent.
She uttered a few unintelligible syllables and smiled, then said, "I gave you my word I would."
"Kiss me. Right now."
Holding my breath, I kept my eyes locked on hers. The first hint of resistance or discomfort, and I was out of here. I'd never take advantage of her, but she was driving me insane, and something told me she knew she was. The way she dressed, the way she bent over in front of me, the way she chewed that dang lip.
"Right here?" she asked, glancing at the hall. "In front of these glass walls, no lock on the door, no privacy?" As she spoke, she took a few steps closer. I could feel the electricity in her body reacting to my desire, like static cling making my hair stand on end, except it was my dick doing that.
"Doctor's orders, Lauren," I growled, and the distance between us closed.
Her tongue moistened her lips and she whispered, "Yes, sir," before rising on her tiptoes to brush them across mine. They sizzled with energy and desire, and I thought my body would explode from the charge.
What the heck was I doing? My hands were on her hips, and my mouth devoured hers hungrily. We were so going to get caught, and all I could do was pull her against my body.