Chapter 6 #2
He shrugged. “Is that any of your business?”
“It is when you shove a flashlight in my face.”
“You were draped over the counter looking like you’d found out your rich husband of fifty years just died and left you nothing in the will. What else was I supposed to think when coming up on a sight like that?”
My face flushed instantly. “I was not being that dramatic.”
“So you agree. You were being dramatic.”
He said it like it was some sort of checkmate. Like he’d just won at a game I wasn’t even aware we were playing. There was a smug shift to his otherwise blank face, hardly noticeable but definitely there the longer I stared at him.
If someone were to ask me to point it out, to name what specific places of his features were telling me that he was being a complete asshole, I’d have nothing to give. No paper to dissertate or long and lengthy explanation to argue my side.
But the vibe was definitely there.
My jaw ached with how hard I was clenching my teeth.
“If I had to guess,” he went on. “About the reason you were asking my nurse about a cataloged list of things recovered on your surgery date…”
My heart pounded when he trailed off.
Stupid, so stupid, to be embarrassed about something like this.
This woman who was well past the age of retirement would have no earthly idea what the fuck a waist chain was if Dr. Montgomery spilled the beans in front of her or why there was any significance behind them to begin with and why a man like me, who was a fucking cop, would be wearing one.
He was just mocking me for his own sick and twisted pleasure. To get a rise out of me and to see me squirm.
What else would excite a surgeon more than getting to play around with a patient for the fun of it?
Wait a second.
My eyes narrowed. “Dr. Montgomery.”
“Yes.”
“What do you think I’m looking for?”
There was a beat of silence that descended over us.
Was it possible to uncheck a checkmate?
To catch someone in a bluff was a rare thing.
Even more so when it was an intimidating personality like Dr. Montgomery’s.
He was the type you seldom crossed if you knew what was good for you and hardly looked to for emotional comfort.
Personalities like his were stone cold blocks of eyes that had yet to feel the warm, burning touch of humility.
I’d known a few of his type back in my days at the academy. Had worked one-on-one with them on a few separate occasions and had grown to have a healthy fear of the biting tongue that was waiting to be unleashed at the right opportunity.
I was all for a mastery of wit and the appropriate verbal lashing when the time called for it, but something told me that this man wasn’t a stranger to doing so whenever he wanted and cared little for social norms or tact.
Why bother when he was typically the most powerful one in the room?
He lifted away from the counter, nodding his head at me while spinning on his heel. “You’ve had enough exercise for the day. Let’s get you back to your room.”
Giving Beth a cursory smile, I shuffled after him.
His plain clothes were alien compared to the scrubs I’d met him in. They fit him well, gave his tall frame a well and defined shape that I was sure was also helped by his hours spent at the gym or whatever it was that he kept up to keep himself fit.
He had long strides that were hard to keep up with, my own body growing increasingly more sore the farther I pushed it to move.
Foolish on my part, to think standing for longer than an hour would be good for me.
My desperation to get out of here ran the risk of putting me into stupid predicaments like this one where I’d spent too much time arguing with my damn surgeon and tired myself out.
Ultimately, pushing my discharge date back if I didn’t get it together and be more careful.
He stopped at the threshold of my door, attention locking onto me again while I struggled to catch up. It’d be a miracle if I didn’t sweat through my bandages, forcing me into needing an early re-dressing when I’d just gotten the latest one done this morning.
When I reached him, he surprised me by cupping a hand under one of my biceps to help me through the doorway.
The burden of my own weight was lifted just long enough to get me back over to the bed, a slow and steady pace that kept up with my shuffling feet and didn’t force me to go faster than I realistically could.
“Careful,” he murmured, grabbing my other arm once it was free from holding onto my IV, and slowly lowered me back down onto the bed.
A sigh of relief left me the second I was horizontal.
Yeah, I was definitely spending the rest of the day in bed.
He bent over me, latching the heart monitor onto my finger and eyeing the screen beside my bed for a long moment while it read my pulse. A short and satisfied nod was given and then the clamp was slipped off, replaced by some patch slapped against my chest.
Leaning back, he readjusted the saline bag and checked the tap, following the line until he got a hold of my arm and twisted it into its proper position, a finger running over the tape keeping the butterfly needle buried under my skin.
“Thought you said this was your day off.”
He didn’t look up when he answered. “It is. Unfortunately, difficult patients make those days close to impossible to enjoy.”
“Oh, come on.” I wasn’t that annoying to deal with. In fact, I bet I was his easiest patient.
“You think I’m kidding,” he replied.
“I think you're the one being dramatic now.”
“So says the one bothering my staff looking for his lost item.”
My mouth snapped closed, the words it was expensive burning on the tip of my tongue. Call me a sentimentalist or poor. Whatever.
What was it to anyone that I wanted my things back?
He cupped a hand behind my neck, pulling me forward just enough to re-fluff my pillow but not too far that it re-aggravated my already very angry incisions.
Fuck that hurt.
While being aware that I’d been cut wide open and sewn back up, knowing it and feeling it were two vastly different things. I’d had the greatest gift known to mankind pumping through my veins only twelve hours prior that had lulled me into a false sense of confidence.
Now, I was paying for it.
The stone cold truth giving me a nice little dose of humility.
My wince must’ve been too obvious to ignore, because soon, he was letting go of me to lean over to tap the page button next to my head. “This is why we don’t overdo it three days post-op.”
“I’m not in the mood for a lecture.” What I really wanted was to curl up and melt into the bed.
“Then listen to me when I say things the first time around.”
He settled down next to where my hip was, lifting my arm up onto his knee to turn it out like he had the other one. His thumb followed the line of my tendon, digging deep down into the tissue, hard enough to distract me from the pain in my abdomen temporarily while he ran up and down the area.
My eyes began to slowly close.
Whatever this was felt like fucking magic.
Maybe some weird doctor trick that forced my brain into focusing on something else while the pain receptors tried to rewire themselves accordingly.
Medicine and how the body worked were two things I had little interest in learning about outside of the occasional ‘why does this random part of my body hurt whenever it rains?’ but this little cheat code was one I was definitely storing away for later.
All right, maybe Dr. Montgomery wasn’t all bad. So long as he kept my body from heaving up the rest of my breakfast from a pained panic response.
“They were expensive, weren’t they?”
Instantly, my eyes snapped open again. “What?”
His thumb circled around the outside of my forearm, tracing along the edge of my muscle. “Those chains. ”
My mouth grew dry.
He kept his eyes trained on my arm, following along with the slow and purposeful movement of his finger. “Real gemstones, too, I assume. Permanent body jewelry is a commitment. So is getting it forged in fourteen karat gold. Someone serious wouldn’t cheap out on an investment piece.”
It sounded almost like he was talking to himself out loud, like I was no longer in the room while he was piecing the picture together all on his own.
Pulling in information that he’d come across since that night in the OR, and fitting it together into a nice little picturesque image of who I was—who he’d operated on that table.
I had no idea what to say or how to turn this conversation around. Back at the nurse’s station, I’d been prepared to snap back, but here I was feeling vulnerable. Picked apart and seen on a more intimate scale than I ever had before.
Hardly anyone knew what I liked to do in my private life or the secret parts of me I let out behind closed doors.
When he finally met my gaze, he asked, “How much?”
Fuck, I was so glad that heart monitor wasn’t hooked up to me still. “Ah…”
“Hundreds?”
What game was this?
What sense of superiority was he hoping to feel once he weaseled the answer out of me?
“Thousands?” he wagered again.
I bit my lip out of habit.
If I didn’t answer him, he’d drop it out of principle. No one liked an unwilling participant in a guessing game.
His thumb paused, then. His body growing still.
All at once, the energy in the room shifted.
Moving from a lighthearted and vibrant mood to one that had a shiver racing up my spine.
That same sense of need sat deep in my gut the longer he stared me down, and enigmatic allure to his lingering touch on my arm, that had just been used as a pain management tool, was now sending small pinpricks of want throughout my body.
How the hell did he do that?
Nothing had changed aside from the conversation topic. Neither of us were doing anything that warranted this kind of response from me.
And yet, all I could do was hold my breath and wait.
Wait for him to lean forward and—
“Something you need, Doctor?” Beth asked from the doorway.
Dr. Montgomery let go of my arm immediately, forcing me to suck in a much needed lungful of air.
Jesus…
His form was practiced as he rolled to his feet. “Give him some oxycodone to cut through the pain. Have someone bring him up something light to eat with it.”
She smiled, nodding. “Of course. Thank you, Doctor.”
My head throbbed from holding my breath like that.
What the fuck had gotten into me?
“Are you all right, Mr. Bishop?” Beth wandered over to me, reaching out to place her hand on my shoulder where she rubbed it in the same way my grandma used to. “You look a little flushed.”
Yeah, I wonder why.
All of two entire minutes had probably passed since he’d pressed the call button and grabbed my arm. Even less than that when he’d worked the tense muscles underneath the skin and sent me into a blind state of horniness to rival my teen years.
Without looking over toward the doorway, I knew he was still in the room, still watching me in that calculated way that had me wanting to squirm on my bed like some desperate bottom.
“I’m okay.”
Breathe, Terran.
“Those pain meds sound like a fine idea, though.”
She gave me another smile and a small pat. “We’ll get those for you. How’s that forehead of yours?
“Hopefully, not bruised. Though I am feeling the makings of a unicorn horn.”
She laughed at my joke, taking the bait quite easily and distracting us both for a temporary second. “Maybe an ice pack for that as well. You want tapioca or vanilla?”
“Either is fine. I’m not picky.”
When she pulled back from me, my gaze automatically darted over to the door, finding it void of a tall and handsome doctor who’d somehow spun me around with barely any effort. The sad pull in my chest was annoying, as was the instant drop of my mood.
Whatever.
I needed to sleep anyway.
Clearly, these meds were messing with my mind.
Getting distracted was only going to push my progress back. If I wanted to get home to my family and not break my promise like I told them I wouldn’t, then tunnel vision was a must.
Sexy, alluring doctors were out of the question.
No matter how good their hands on me felt.