Chapter 7 Mikhail
MIKHAIL
Iwoke up slowly, taking inventory of my body before opening my eyes.
Pain radiated down my upper back and along my arm, reminding me that I had been shot when I defended my daughter at home. A new warmth of inflammation rose up on my thigh, too, suggesting that I had been hit when I ran into the ballroom to protect her.
As the leader of the family, I couldn’t afford to be reckless, to be stupid and daring all for the glory of being able to say I would defend my family no matter what.
But I really hadn’t been. Guards were there. Roman was there. Andre showed up too, I recalled that before I started to pass out.
That fucking dart…
I almost groaned at the reminder of being sedated against my will. Enemies would always want to take me, dead or alive, but the use of a tranquilizer like that suggested those attackers intended to take someone alive. To question them.
They were probably targeting her.
My daughter.
My burden and vulnerability.
In the recess of my mind, I fought back the initial annoyance that I had to allow for a woman in my inner circle now. A member of the fairer sex. The weaker sex.
Fuck that. I’ll ask Martin to arrange for lessons. She has to know how to use a gun. She needs to be armed, taught how to fight.
Her days of being a spoiled princess were over.
Every member of the Orlov organization would be strong and fearless. It was dogma. I just never had to factor in arming and training my teenaged daughter.
As I fought not to open my eyes, relishing the peace of lying flat and feeling the tug of stitches on my flesh, I tracked the sounds and smells of the room.
It was too cool, air-conditioned and dry, unlike the comfort of my home. Different odors and strong scents of medicinal properties gave me further clues that I was likely in the hospital.
I must have bled out too much.
That or the tranq had knocked me out for a long period of time that worried my son and nephew.
Realizing from the context clues that I was in a hospital, I let my obligations and worries enter my mind.
I’d be safe here—for a while. No one would bring me here and consider the in-depth need for security.
If I were unconscious, I would’ve been more vulnerable.
Too many soldiers and spies had been killed when they received medical care.
It wasn’t like it would take much for the wrong person to stroll into a room and smother someone while they slept.
But I couldn’t linger. I wouldn’t. If I hung around here for too long, I’d be further exposed.
What mattered more was getting back home. To check on Anya. To see if any of my men had captured the attackers and questioned them. Work was always at the forefront of my mind, and this was no different.
Opening my eyes, I took in the scene of a hospital room. Blank, boring walls greeted me. As I lay flat, hooked up to monitors that beeped and tracked my vitals, I stirred and tested out how stiffly I could move.
I leaned up slowly, gritting my teeth through the agony of forcing too much motion too soon.
“No, wait,” a woman said.
As she turned toward me, her white doctor coat hiding her tall but slender form, I sat up more.
No one told me no.
Not even this beautiful doctor who furrowed her brow so adorably at me.
“Mister, you need to lie back and rest.” Like a sentinel, she stood next to the bed and lifted her hands to urge me to lie back.
“No, thanks…” I leaned my head to the side, seeking out the laminated badge she wore. “Dr. Donovon.”
“It’s not a suggestion,” she replied primly, as if the fact that she was a doctor in the hospital would work as authority over me. “You’ve suffered significant blood loss. Failure to rest will threaten the strength of the stitches at the site of your injuries.”
Rushing to get up no longer seemed so smart. Not because she dictated that I take it easy, in that prim and proper tone of hers, but because she was the last thing I’d expected.
Soft, yet stubborn as she checked my lungs, pressing a cool stethoscope to my chest.
Unshaken, despite the murderous glare I gave her when she dared to defy my wishes.
And… mysterious, with a cool professionalism that taunted me to make her break, to ruffle her up a bit and see her not as clinical.
“Call it whatever you want,” I replied calmly, leaning back to peer at her. “But you are not the boss of me.”
She arched a thin brow, nonplussed as she continued to listen to my lungs.
As she leaned over to press the round tab of the stethoscope to the other side of my chest, strands of her long, light-brown hair fell out of her bun.
Tips of the silky strands tickled my skin, but it was her scent—clean and sweet like she’d never belong near the filth of my world—that stunned me.
“Not the boss of you?” she replied as she stood, pressing her fingertips around the stitches near my shoulder where she’d fixed me up. “I don’t know who you are to be able to determine that. I don’t know anything about you.”
I started to smile, intrigued by her admission of ignorance. Because if I let myself daydream about it, I could just so easily imagine that she wanted to know who I was.
“What I am certain of,” she continued in that crisp, somehow polite, yet no-nonsense British tone, “is that you are my patient. In my hospital. And that decrees I am in charge at the moment. Whether you like it or not.”
A full-on grin lifted my lips now. Picturing this good girl, this innocent, as a figure of authority was laughable. She might speak like she was in charge, but she was nothing to me. She didn’t have the bold power that I did to truly expect others to heed her demands or wishes.
It was almost… cute. Adorable that she could dare to tell me what to do.
“We can agree to disagree,” I said instead of bluntly telling her to back the fuck off and get out of my way.
As I sat up, she furrowed her brow and pressed her plump pink lips together.
With her fair skin and high cheekbones, she tempted me to lie back down and have her lean over me again.
This closeness was warping my thoughts. Her refusal to automatically bow to me was different.
“I won’t be agreeing or disagreeing with you about anything, Mister…” She tilted her head to the side. “Mister…?”
I stared her down, already tripping over how uniquely different she sounded. Her clean British accent wasn’t anything new, but it leant her an air of exoticism. A hint of something unfamiliar compared to what I was used to here.
“Mister…?” she prompted again, with more persistence, expecting an answer.
I sighed, wishing I could give her a chance to learn about me. My name. My mood. My desires—which were quickly waking up and molding to a particular interest in her.
The light green glimmer of her eyes didn’t fade as I refused to speak. Was it confidence? Annoyance? I wanted to chuckle at her prodding me for information.
“I’m not asking for any other reason than to complete my assessment of you,” she explained curtly.
I sat up, swinging my legs over the bed.
In this position, she was right there, standing between my knees, her body so close to mine as I acclimated to being upright.
“Your assessment?” I set my hands on the edge of the bed and leaned forward.
“And how is that going? What have you observed of me so far?” Taunting her as I slanted closer, I was suckered into glancing at her lips as she licked them.
The idea of her being intimidated shouldn’t have thrilled me, but I’d never really enjoyed butting heads with a woman like this before.
Never minding her prim and proper appearance, she was giving as good as she got.
And I couldn’t get enough of it. Of pushing her buttons and wondering if she’d crack.
If she’d lose that professionalism and waver.
“Stubborn,” she stated with a deadpanned smirk. “Perhaps indicative of a need for a scan to rule out a traumatic brain injury or concussion.”
I shook my head. “It comes naturally.”
“Marvelous.”
“What else?” I scooted closer to get into her space. “What else have you noticed in your assessment of me, Dr. Donovon?”
She licked her lips as she glanced behind me. “Your heart rate is increasing.”
“Maybe that’s your fault.”
She locked her emerald gaze on me and waited.
“Maybe you’re exciting me.”
If I weren’t watching her so closely, I would’ve missed that tiny reaction of shock. How she just barely glanced down with a coy smirk.
“I’m not here to excite you.”
Now she did it.
She lost her tight grip of professionalism and actually lowered her gaze toward my lap. Witnessing the spread of pink over her cheeks was the highest reward I’d felt like I’d earned in a long damn time.
She’d dropped her focus to where I’d be demonstrating how excited a gorgeous woman like her could make me.
In a hospital gown, no less. Fortunately, I was still too sluggish and getting back to the living to be hard.
But I bet if she spotted an erection tenting this thin material, she’d lose her cool even more.
And I wanted her to.
“I’m here to orchestrate your recovery and see to the delivery of your care.”
I nodded, unwilling to speak because I was getting fond of listening to her melodic voice. The tease of her thinking she could tell me what to do was too much to pass up on.
She amused me. This sexy, young doctor was a pastime I didn’t want to forfeit.
“Noted,” I replied. “But I’ve got things to do.
Places to be. People to…” I dragged my gaze from her burning emerald stare, over her breasts, and all the way down to where her curvy waist hid behind the bulk of her white doctor’s coat.
“People to see,” I finished belatedly, wishing I had the chance to linger here and fall under the spell of her company.
“You’ve also got a recovery to accommodate for,” she quipped.