Dirty Sweet Doctor (Dirty Sweet Heroes #3)

Chapter 1

one

. . .

Elias

The scrub cap does nothing to hide the silver at my temples.

Neither does the mask covering the lower half of my face.

I am, by every metric this hospital tracks, a man in complete control.

The best hands in thoracic surgery. The coldest demeanor on the floor.

The attending no resident wants to disappoint and every nurse steers clear of.

Except one. And she is currently standing three feet to my left, taking vitals on a post-op patient with fingers that tremble slightly whenever I speak.

“Mia.” Just her name. That’s all it takes.

Her head snaps up, cheeks flooding pink beneath the fluorescent lights.

I watch the color spread down her throat and disappear beneath the collar of her scrubs.

It’s the same reaction she’s had for six months.

Six months of her wide eyes and bitten lips and the soft, breathless way she says, “Yes, Dr. Thorne?”

Six months of hell.

I finish dictating the post-op notes with the same clipped efficiency I bring to everything.

My voice doesn’t waver. My hands are steady.

The mask of the brilliant surgeon stays firmly in place because I’ve worn it so long it’s grafted to my skin.

But beneath it—Christ. Beneath it is something feral that has been pacing the confines of my chest since the day a nervous nursing student with honey-blonde hair and a stethoscope draped around her neck walked into my OR and asked if she could observe.

Observe. As if I haven’t been observing her since.

Every shift. Every late night. Every time she leans over a chart and her scrub top rides up to reveal the pale strip of skin at the small of her back.

I’ve memorized the curve of her waist. The way she tucks her hair behind her ear when she’s concentrating.

The tiny, unconscious whimper she makes when I correct her technique and my fingers brush hers.

I’ve turned down dates. Canceled dinners. Stayed late on nights I didn’t need to, just to keep her in my line of sight for another hour. To watch her move through the ward with that earnest focus, that gentle touch with patients that makes her better than half the senior nurses already.

And I have said nothing. Done nothing. Been nothing but the stone-faced mentor she thinks barely registers her existence.

It’s nearly midnight. The ward is quiet.

Most of the day staff has gone home, and the night shift moves with the hushed rhythm of a hospital after hours.

I’m in my office finishing paperwork when I hear it—a soft thud from the direction of the break room, followed by the distinct sound of something—someone—sliding.

My body is moving before my brain has fully processed.

Down the corridor. Through the half-open door.

And there she is—Mia, slumped against the counter, her knees buckling, eyes rolling back.

She’s pale. Exhaustion written in every line of her small frame.

She’s been pulling doubles all week. I know because I’ve been watching.

I cross the room in two strides and catch her just as her legs give out completely.

One arm around her waist, the other cradling the back of her head before it can connect with the linoleum.

Her body is warm. Soft. So much smaller than mine.

She weighs nothing in my arms, and the sensation of her pressed against my chest—her cheek nestled into the hollow of my throat, her breath hot through the thin fabric of my scrubs—does something catastrophic to the careful architecture of my control.

It cracks. Not a hairline fracture. A seismic rupture.

My hands are shaking. Actual, physical tremors running through fingers that have held beating hearts steady. I can feel her pulse against my palm where it cups the base of her skull. Rapid. Light. The flutter of a bird.

“Dr. Thorne?” Her voice is muzzy, disoriented. She tries to push herself upright and her hand lands flat against my sternum. Right over my heart. Which is currently trying to hammer its way out of my ribcage.

“Don’t move.” The words come out rougher than I intend. Deeper. Something in my voice has changed and I can hear it—the veneer of professionalism stripped away to something raw beneath.

I adjust my grip and lift her fully into my arms. She’s light. Too light. The urge to bundle her against me, to tuck her head under my chin and carry her somewhere safe, somewhere far from the fluorescent hell of this hospital—it hits with the force of a physical blow.

I don’t take her to the on-call room. I don’t page a colleague. I carry her down the hall to my private office, push through the door with my shoulder, and kick it shut behind us. The lock engages with a soft, definitive click.

The room is dark except for the desk lamp. I set her carefully on the edge of my desk, her thighs spread on either side of my hips because I haven’t stepped back. Can’t step back. Not now. Not when every cell in my body is screaming with the same primitive directive: mine.

She’s blinking up at me, confusion and something else—something warmer, darker—swimming in her eyes. Her hair is coming loose from its ponytail. There’s a smudge of exhaustion under one eye. She looks young. Fragile. Precious.

And I am done being her mentor.

“I have watched you,” I say, and my voice doesn’t sound like mine anymore.

It’s low. Guttural. The voice of a man who has been starving for too long.

“Every shift. Every night. Every time you bite that fucking lip when I give an order.” My hand comes up to cradle her jaw.

My thumb traces the curve of her lower lip, and I feel her shudder.

“You have no idea what you do to me. No idea how many times I’ve stood in the supply closet with my cock in my hand thinking about you. ”

Her breath catches. Her pupils blow wide.

“You’re exhausted,” I continue, and my hand slides from her jaw to the back of her neck.

I curl my fingers into the soft hair at her nape and squeeze, just enough to make her whimper.

“You’ve been running yourself into the ground.

And I have stood by and watched because I am supposed to be your superior.

Your teacher. The man who shapes your career, not the one who wants to bend you over this desk and fuck you until you can’t remember your own name. ”

“Dr. Thorne?—”

“Elias.” I lean in until my mouth is inches from hers. I can smell the faint sweetness of her breath, the hospital soap on her skin. “My name is Elias. And you are going to say it while I’m inside you.”

She makes a sound—half gasp, half moan—and her hips shift on the edge of the desk. The movement presses her against the hard ridge of my erection straining against my scrubs, and we both freeze.

“There is no going back from this,” I tell her, and I am not asking. I am stating a fact as immutable as any diagnosis I’ve ever rendered. “I am going to take you home. I am going to put you in my bed. And I am going to fuck you slow and deep until you understand exactly what you are.”

Her lips part. “What am I?”

“Mine.” The word leaves my mouth like a vow.

“You have been mine since the first day you walked into my OR and looked at me with those eyes. I am going to breed this tight little belly full.” My hand slides down, palming the flat plane of her stomach through her scrubs.

She jerks against my touch, a full-body shiver.

“Until you’re swollen with my baby. Until you’re wearing my ring.

Until there is no version of your future that doesn’t have me in it. ”

I watch the words land. Watch the shock ripple through her. The fear. The arousal she can’t hide—her nipples pebbling visibly beneath the thin cotton, her thighs squeezing together around my hips.

“I should report you,” she whispers. But she doesn’t move. Doesn’t push me away. Her hands have come up to grip my forearms, and her fingers are digging in like she’s afraid I might let go.

“You should.” I brush my mouth along the shell of her ear. Feel her tremble. “But you won’t. Because you’ve been wanting this just as badly as I have. Haven’t you, little one?”

The pet name falls from my lips without permission. Something ancient and possessive unfurling from a place I didn’t know I had.

She doesn’t answer. She doesn’t have to. The way her body melts against mine, the soft, broken sound she makes when my teeth graze the sensitive spot beneath her ear—it’s all the confirmation I need.

The cold, brilliant surgeon is gone. In his place is something hungrier. Something that has been waiting in the dark for six months, watching her, wanting her, counting every blush like a man collecting treasures.

And now the treasure is in my hands. Soft. Warm. Mine.

I press my forehead to hers and breathe her in. One more moment of restraint before the dam breaks completely.

“Tell me to stop,” I murmur against her mouth. “One word. That’s all it takes.”

She is silent. Her breath comes in shallow, heated pants against my lips.

And I am lost.