Hot Bodies Boxed Set: The Complete Vital Signs Erotic Romance Trilogy

by Hughes, Jill Elaine

  Ouch.

  Joanna headed out to the post-op ward, cheeks flaming. All the Recovery beds were empty, but the Intake bin was stuffed with patient files. Apparently there were a number of elective surgeries scheduled for the coming week. Most were routine, but like Mrs. Small’s high-risk hysterectomy scheduled for that evening, along with some complex joint-replacement surgeries, Joanna could see why even the senior residents were worried about the workload. Without an attending surgeon on duty for at least another ten days, Joanna shuddered at the thought of what might happen if Covington’s surgery department got saddled with any emergency situations like a serious car accident, severe burns from a house fire, or even bodies mangled by farm equipment. She’d seen all three possibilities happen during her ten years at Covington Community Hospital, and knew any one of these situations could strike at any time, without warning.

  She also knew that if any of them happened in the next few days, the hospital would be seriously unprepared. Turning away patients and instead sending them “up the road” to Asheville or Raleigh could result in unnecessary complications, or even fatalities—that much she knew from experience as well. Was stodgy old Joe Middleton’s administration really making the right decision by suspending Harlan? Even before his hand injury healed, Harlan could still serve as an expert advisor in the OR to the younger, less-experienced surgeons. He could even do some limited scalpel and suture work with his left hand only, if Joanna assisted. She thought about mentioning this possibility to Administration in an anonymous memo, but ultimately decided against it. In her ten years at the hospital, Joanna had learned the hard way never to interfere with Administration’s decisions, no matter how unfair or irrational they might seem.

  Joanna was flipping through a double-bypass patient’s chart when she heard a familiar masculine voice behind her.

  “You didn’t waste any time getting back to work, did you?”

  Harlan’s husky voice hit Joanna’s back like a thrown brick. She stiffened at the sound of it, but didn’t turn around to acknowledge him.

  “I suppose you’ll be working here for the rest of your life, won’t you, Joanna? A shame, because you’re a much better nurse than a cheap community hospital like Covington deserves.”

  Joanna turned around, slowly. Harlan was looking at her with a mix of anger and indifference. The lines around his eyes seemed deeper somehow, the set of his jaw much sharper and harder than before. The anger marring his face wasn’t due to his suspension from duty—it was clear from the look of anguish in his eyes that his fury was much more personal in nature. The incident with Bob at her condo three days before had obviously hurt the man deeply.

  “I’m back because Maryam said she needed me,” Joanna replied, trying hard to keep her voice even. “The hospital is very short-staffed in Surgery since you got placed on leave. And by the way, Dr. Wilkinson, my future career plans are none of your business.”

  “Nor mine yours,” Harlan seethed. Joanna noticed he was carrying a cardboard box full of office supplies, his many framed diplomas and certificates, and his gold engraved “Harlan J. Wilkinson, MD” nameplate.

  “Does that mean you’re leaving Statesville?” Joanna asked, nodding at the overloaded box. She was surprised at her own curiosity. She knew she had to keep cool and nonchalant, to give no indication that she still wanted this man desperately. But the sight of Harlan’s face and body made that increasingly difficult. She lowered her gaze to the tile floor.

  “Again, that’s none of your business,” Harlan answered curtly. But he didn’t leave, either. He stood in the center of the post-op ward, carrying his box of office supplies and medical journals like a lead weight. He looked anxiously back at Joanna, as if he expected her to stop him from leaving somehow. Joanna steeled herself against taking his bait, keeping her eyes down. No matter how much she might want to throw herself into Harlan’s arms that very moment, she could not risk the slightest possibility that someone—anyone—would speculate that their relationship was anything more than professional. Especially now that Shirley Daniels was snooping around, following her every move.

  “Well, I wish you the best of luck in any case,” Joanna finally said. “I don’t suppose I’ll be seeing you around here much.”

  “No, I don’t suppose you will,” Harlan answered.

  The sexual tension in the air was so thick you could have cut it with a pair of pinking shears.

  Joanna’s body cried out its need, its all-consuming desire to fall to her knees and give Harlan’s cock a nice good-old-fashioned deep-throat treatment right then and there. But she hardened her heart against the notion with all her might. “Well, I suppose this is goodbye, then,” Joanna heard herself say.

  “I suppose so.” Harlan tightened his grip on the cardboard box and left the room. A lump formed in Joanna’s throat as she watched him go. She didn’t want to think about the fact it might be the last time she would ever see him.

  ****

  “Pass me the number four scalpel.” Dr. Grenoway—the green surgery resident Shirley had seduced in the locker room—was fumbling his way through Mrs. Small’s hysterectomy procedure in the OR two hours later.

  “I think you mean the number three, Doctor,” she said gently, handing it to him. “The number four is too large for the area you’re working on.”

  “R-Right,” the young man mumbled, reaching for the correct scalpel. Then he and Shirley exchanged furtive glances. Joanna wondered why, but she understood soon enough. Despite his surgical mask and plastic faceguard, Joanna could see he was blushing to his hairline. Those two have been up to something behind closed doors, she thought.

  Dr. Randall Grenoway wasn’t exactly the cream of the crop as far as surgical residents were concerned. He’d barely managed to graduate medical school at Eastern Carolina, which explained why he was doing his third year of surgical residency at a small rural community hospital like Covington instead of at Duke, Wake Forest, or Chapel Hill’s university hospitals. He was a kind, handsome, and earnest young man, but a barely competent surgeon. He would likely be relegated to doing nothing but the most routine appendectomies and bunion repairs when he finished his residency and entered private practice. Joanna’s heart went out to him as he and his second-year classmate, Hattie Brown, stumbled their way through their elderly patient’s surgery.

  “Nurse Watson?” Dr. Brown asked timidly. “Should we complete the uterus removal before doing the ovaries, or after?” Hattie Brown was a stout, middle-aged African-American woman, who had put herself through medical school after single-handedly raising three children. “I was thinking we should complete the uterus removal first, then cauterize and tie off all those incisions before proceeding with the ovaries.”

  Joanna smiled underneath her mask. Joanna could tell that despite her age and unconventional career path, the older woman already had the makings of a very good surgeon. “Yes, Dr. Brown, I think that’s exactly the thing to do here. Don’t you agree, Shirley?”

  Shirley Daniels, perched at her usual spot next to the anesthesia machine, gave only a single nod in response. Shirley was still acting apprehensive around her. Joanna wondered exactly how much the younger nurse knew about her and Harlan.

  “Thanks for the advice, Nurse Watson,” Dr. Brown said as she began to complete the uterus removal, taking over for the now-trembling Dr. Grenoway completely. He backed against the porcelain wall of the OR, holding his number three scalpel in midair. Dr. Brown took it from him and completed the last few cuts.

  “You’re most welcome, Dr. Brown,” Joanna said, nodding her approval. “You’re doing a fine job, by the way. And please, call me Joanna.”

  “Only if you call me Hattie,” Dr. Brown beamed, obviously thrilled at the complement.

  Dr. Grenoway finally shook off his nervous funk and went to assist Dr. Brown in cauterizing their incisions when suddenly, one of Shirley Daniels’ many monitors began bleating an alarm.

  “Her blood pressure’s dropping!” Shirley shou
ted. “She’s already at 72 over 40 and falling fast!”

  Dr. Grenoway froze, the cauterizing tool in his hand still smoking and whirring. Joanna reached across Mrs. Small’s wide-open abdomen and shut it off. “What do we do, Nurse Watson?” he asked, terrified.

  Joanna took over immediately. “Dr. Brown, get the patient two units of blood, stat. Shirley, decrease the amount of anesthesia a bit—that might bring her pressure up. Dr. Grenoway, treat Mrs. Small for systolic shock. Make sure she’s not bleeding internally from any unsutured incisions. I’ll finish the cauterization myself—“

  “But nurses can’t do that by themselves—it’s against hospital regulations!” Dr. Grenoway protested, yanking the cauterizing tool out of Joanna’s reach.

  “Screw regulations,” Joanna spat back. “I’ve cauterized plenty of times on plenty of procedures, and I can do it faster than either of you can. We’ve got to stop all the excess bleeding fast, or we’ll lose Mrs. Small for sure.”

  Dr. Grenoway finally acquiesced and handed Joanna the cauterizing tool. He began the standard OR treatment for systolic shock while Joanna went to work cleaning up all of Mrs. Small’s open incisions. Just as she thought she had everything under control, she spotted the cause of Mrs. Small’s rapid drop in blood pressure. Someone——Dr. Grenoway, Joanna guessed—had nicked Mrs. Small’s aortic artery, and as a result the poor woman was gushing huge amounts of blood into the rear of her abdominal cavity. Joanna was stunned that neither she nor the other two doctors had noticed it before.

  “Dr. Brown—Hattie—get Mrs. Small four units of blood. Now.”

  The older woman stared back at her. “But she’s only lost one unit so far!”

  “Do it,” Joanna barked, amazed at how authoritarian she sounded. “Now. Or Mrs. Small is as good as dead.” Dr. Brown obeyed. Joanna somehow managed to stop the artery bleeding with a mix of quick stitches and creative use of the cauterizing tool. Her fingers flew along the elderly woman’s abdominal cavity with a dexterity and skill Joanna hadn’t known she possessed. Shirley, Dr. Brown, and Dr. Grenoway all watched in awe.

  When Joanna finally got the bleeding under control, Mrs. Small’s blood pressure began to rise to a more normal level.

  “Well done, everyone. We’ll need to suction out the excess blood from the abdominal cavity before it clots. Dr. Grenoway, do that, please.”

  “But suction is your responsibility, Nurse!” The young doctor looked close to throwing a temper tantrum right on the OR floor.

  “Dr. Grenoway, with all due respect, I don’t think you should be going anywhere near a scalpel until further notice,” Joanna snapped, her voice cold. “I imagine it was you who nicked the aortal artery and got us in this mess in the first place. Do the suction, or I’ll be forced to report your incompetence to your residency director.”

  Without another word, Dr. Grenoway began the suction.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Joanna undressed in the locker room in silence. She tried to ignore the fact that Shirley Daniels kept shooting her dirty looks from across the room, but so far it wasn’t working.

  “You had no right to yell at Dr. Grenoway like that,” Shirley snapped.

  Joanna slammed her locker shut. “Well, if I hadn’t, we would have had a dead patient on our hands. Bottom-line, the man’s a crummy surgeon. I think the hospital should get rid of him.”

  Those words cut Shirley to the bone. Joanna saw her wince and shudder at their impact. Now she knew for sure that Shirley and Dr. Grenoway were probably intimate.

  “Dr. Grenoway is a good surgeon,” Shirley protested. “He’s just, well, distracted lately.”

  Joanna chuckled. “By what, pray tell? You?” She stood up from her bench and slammed her locker shut. “You do realize that Dr. Grenoway is engaged to be married, don’t you?”

  Shirley blushed beet-red. “I don’t know what you mean,” she muttered. But it was obvious from her sex-flushed face and heaving chest that she did.

  Joanna put her hands on her hips. “Look Shirley. I don’t have anything against you as a person. I never have. You’re a very good nurse-anesthetist, and the hospital is very lucky to have you on staff. So I don’t know why all of a sudden you seem to be in some kind of cutthroat competition with me. Over what, I have no idea. Surely not my job. I work even longer hours than you do.”

  Shirley ground her teeth loud enough for Joanna to hear. “Let’s just say there’s something around the hospital that we both want, and that we’re both willing to do anything to get,” she chirped. “And I do mean anything.” With that, she turned on her heel and marched out of the locker room.

  Joanna watched her go, dumbfounded. Was the thing that they both wanted Harlan? And if so, what exactly was Shirley willing to do to get him and keep him all to herself?

  Joanna didn’t want to think about that right now. All she did want was to take a shower, and perhaps a little something else to help clear her head.

  Joanna stepped into the stall, turned the shower knob all the way to “HOT”, and stood under the scalding stream for a full minute, oblivious to the screaming nerve endings in her back. She needed the hot water to help relax the heavy tension and fatigue that was knotting her neck and arm muscles.

  Joanna stood under the scorching hot water for another thirty seconds, then slowly added some cold water until the temperature was more tolerable. She scrubbed, soaped, and shampooed, knowing full well she was due back in the OR in less than half an hour for yet another complex operation—this time, a hernia repair on a morbidly obese teenage patient, Todd Palmetto. Todd’s young age, extreme obesity, and history of heart murmur would make this operation even more difficult to manage than Mrs. Small’s. And the last thing she needed right now was to worry about whether the nurse-anesthetist she worked with every day had designs on the man she was in love with.

  Wait a minute—she was in love with Harlan? No, that couldn’t possibly be true. Not at all.

  Could it?

  At the very thought of Harlan, Joanna felt the heat rise in her nether parts. And it wasn’t as if she could satisfy that rising heat via another tryst with Harlan in the elevator. After all, it was clear the man despised her now.

  But the heat between her legs had to be satisfied somehow, or Joanna knew she’d never be able to concentrate in the OR.

  Desperate times called for desperate measures.

  Her fingers strayed south until they landed between her sweating labia. She lathered up her free hand with soap to give herself some more lubrication, and then spread that lather around all her nooks and crannies, enjoying the sensations it brought her. After stirring things up a bit in the slick folds of her sex, she transferred her attentions to her clit.

  Having been sexually frustrated for almost her entire marriage to Bob, Joanna was well-acquainted with how to bring herself to orgasm quickly. It was a skill she’d taught herself out of necessity. And now she put that skill to good use.

  She put her middle finger squarely on ground zero and became to rub. She started slowly at first, letting a slow burn start to rise first around her clit, then around her vagina. Then as that slow burn started to take over her lower half with its slow, red-hot vibrations, Joanna picked up the pace. She squatted low, leaning against the tile wall of the shower stall to give herself stability and the best access to her most sensitive parts. She pried her lips wide open with her left hand, and really started going to town on her clit with her right.

  Joanna pressed and spun her middle finger against her clit at light speed, bucking her hips as she felt her orgasm approaching. But try as she might, her orgasm seemed always just out of reach. Frustrated, she squatted lower, spread her legs wider, pressed and rubbed harder and harder. She gritted her teeth and concentrated hard while she rubbed herself into a frenzy—and still, she didn’t come.

  She had to take things up another notch.

  Joanna kept a long-handled back-scrubber with her at work that she used to scrub herself clean all-over in the shower after
long stints in the OR. It had a thick wooden handle, about two inches around. Not the most ideal thickness for filling her up, but it would have to do. She picked it up, running her soapy hands along the smooth maple as she prepared herself for what was to come.

  She held the scrubber handle-up, then lowered herself down onto its thick wooden length. She moved up and down on the improvised dildo, relishing the feel of it inside her. She maneuvered herself until the handle’s tip pressed itself against her G-spot, then rotated her hips around and around for a spectacular fake-fuck. She rubbed her clit in time with each sway of her hips, with each stroke her body made against the wooden handle. She moved faster and faster, harder and harder until the sensations were gripping and shaking her body with their intensity. It wasn’t quite as good as a real fuck—but it was pretty damn close.

  And just when she thought she could stand it no longer, she came.

  It was an orgasm for the record books—one that had her vaginal muscles clenching so hard against the back-scrubber handle she worried she might not be able to pull it out of herself after it was all over. Joanna had to bite down on her wrist to keep from screaming, and thrashed so hard in her ecstasy she almost cracked her head open on the shower tile.

  She stood back up under the showerhead and turned the taps all the way over to “COLD.” It was going to take a lot of icy water to bring her back to earth after such a mind-blowing orgasm. Joanna had never experienced such an intense release while pleasuring herself before. She supposed if anything good could come of her botched relationship with Harlan, it was the new sexual power it had awakened in her body.

  And that new sexual power told Joanna she had to make one last-ditch effort to bring Harlan back into her life.

  Now calm, cool, and relaxed, Joanna rinsed off, got out of the shower, dressed, and headed for Hospital Administration.

  ****

  “That’s impossible!” Joseph Middleton, President and Chief Executive Officer of Covington Community Hospital, barked when Joanna suggested that Harlan be brought back from suspension. “He’s injured, and by his own clumsy hand too!”