But it wasn’t enough, was it? This pretense that I was happy leading a picture-perfect life outside the hospital. I wished I could explain to my parents that I wanted to live a life of adventure.
The alarm on my digital wristwatch beeped, signaling the end of my break and I stood up from the chair with a start. Depositing the empty cup and the half-eaten granola bar in the bin, I stepped out of the staff room, at the same instant that the doors of the hospital at the end of the corridor burst open.
I was on alert immediately, feeling the rush of adrenaline course through my veins, and I rushed towards the group of three EMTs who were rolling in a man on a wheeled stretcher. Someone had called for a doctor, and Doctor Mason who was on call came running down the corridor towards the group.
The EMTs were explaining to Doctor Mason that the man had suffered a gunshot wound to the abdomen, and my eyes fell on the patient. He was shirtless, which was a good thing…that someone had thought of removing most of his clothing.
He was a muscular, tanned man, with chiseled six pack abs and intricate tattoos covering his chest. His bronze skin glistened with sweat, his muscles were taut, and his biceps bulged as he tried to sit up on the cart. I was surprised he was still awake with the amount of blood that was most likely lost.
“Hold him down, he needs to be wheeled into surgery,” I heard Doctor Mason’s voice, and he turned to me.
“Nurse Peters, good, please prep him, Surgery room three,” Doctor Mason said, before rushing past me to get ready for the operation.
I ran over to the stretcher, my expert eyes scanning his body and his gunshot wound. The bullet was lodged in him, and he was already losing a lot of blood. The problem now could be that he hadn’t been brought to the hospital right away, which could raise complications.
His broad shoulders shook as he grunted and tried to sit up again. My instinct was to reach for him, and I placed my hands on his shoulders and applied a gentle pressure.
“You need to stay down,” I said to him as gently as I could. I expected resistance, but instead, I found that he was sinking back on the stretcher. I looked over at his face, noticing his handsome, masculine features for the first time. His eyes were a dark hazel color, and they appeared bloodshot and intense as he stared back at me. A dark trimmed beard was on his cheeks and jaws, and along with that, he had shoulder length dark hair that was ruffled…adding to his scruffy look.
He was the type of man I had always admired and fantasized about from a distance…but he was the kind of man, who was inappropriate for me by my family’s standards. But holy hell was he hot.
We were rushing down the corridor in convoy, bursting through doors and finally into the operating room. My hands were still gently pressed against his shoulders, in an attempt to keep him in position.
The EMTs were getting ready to leave, and I looked up through the glass partition to find that Doctor Mason was prepping for the surgery already. I moved my hands away, a little nervous to assist in this particular operation. I was afraid that my sudden strange attraction to this man could affect my performance in this surgery. I could feel a weakness in my knees, especially given the fact that he was still staring at me.
I stepped away from him, and he suddenly reached for my wrist and yanked me back towards him. Despite the bullet in his abdomen, the blood loss…the man was crazy strong. I nearly gasped but gathered myself almost immediately. I thought I saw a flash of worry in his bloodshot eyes, and I forced a smile on my face.
“Everything will be fine. You’re in good hands,” I whispered.
3
Tank
I felt like I had been sleeping for centuries, and now there was a blinding white light surrounding me. I tried to blink my eyes open, and I could finally hear voices around me. My eyes were slowly adjusting to the light. Which wasn’t bright or blinding, as per my initial perception, it was just the sunlight streaming in through the window of the room I was in.
Someone was standing over me, and for the first few seconds, I could only see the woman’s silhouette. Then my eyes started adjusting to the light, and I saw her. She was doing something to me…perhaps tucking in the covers on the mattress? She had a delicate heart shaped face and long brown hair which she had tied in a thick ponytail, and it fell over her right shoulder now. She had thick straight bangs on her forehead, nearly covering her eyes. My gaze flitted over her, as she worked with some concentration.
She was a woman with curves, and she was in green scrubs. The thin material of her hospital uniform stretched over her, over her breasts, at her hips…and I could feel my mouth salivating like I was a hungry wolf. Suddenly, as she worked, she looked up, and our eyes met. Blue, clear and light. She was absolutely gorgeous, or was I drugged? I did feel drowsy and weak.
“Welcome back, Mr. Gowan,” she said, in a soft sweet voice. I couldn’t remember the last time someone had called me that. How did she even know my name? Where was I? My mind was still whirling with memories and conflicting emotions. On the one hand, I was confused about where I was, and on the other, I could feel a movement in my pants from the moment I laid eyes on this woman.
“Where the hell am I?” I asked, in a dry husky voice and the nurse smiled and seemed to stifle a laugh.
“Tank!” I heard a familiar voice, and within seconds, Glock’s face had appeared over me. Now it was the nurse and Glock who were leaning over me, peering into my face.
“Glock. What are you doing here?” I asked him, and he smiled nervously and looked up at the nurse to exchange looks with her.
“It’s normal for him to not remember everything right away, just give him some time and space,” she was speaking to Glock now, and I tried to sit up.
She leaned over me, placing gentle hands on my shoulders and I seemed to melt to that touch. I fell back down on the pillows, and she smiled, quickly turning her gaze away from me.
“You need to keep lying down, Mr. Gowan. You were shot, and you’ve been operated on. We can talk about it later when you’re feeling up to it. For now, all you need to know is that the surgery went very well and you’ll be back to feeling normal in no time,” she said and took a few steps away from me.
Nothing she said had really registered in my head. All I could do was stare at her plump pink lips moving as she spoke. I felt like I had been heavily drugged…I had to have been! Why else was I reacting to a stranger this way?
“What’s your name?” I asked, and my voice came out as a growl, even though I hadn’t intended it. I watched as the tops of her cheeks flushed for an instant, and she met my eyes again.
“Noelle. Noelle Peters. I’m your nurse,” she replied, and her name rattled around in my brain for a few moments. I tried to recall if that name meant anything to me if I knew her from somewhere. Why else did I feel like I wanted to hold her?
“Did you save my life?” I found myself asking, and Noelle’s cheeks flushed again, and she shook her head.
“Hardly. Doctor Mason, if anyone, saved your life,” she said, and I knotted my brows. It felt like she had saved my life.
“I saw you before. Somewhere,” I continued, and she stepped closer to me again, and then, she placed a delicate hand on mine, and I could feel a sizzle on my skin.
“Out in the corridor last night, when they were wheeling you into surgery. We saw each other then,” she said, and I noticed how calm and sincere her voice was. She could put anyone at ease with just one word.
“You were there? For the surgery?” I asked, staring into her smiling face. Her eyelashes fluttered, and she shook her head.
“No. Someone else assisted the doctor,” she said, and Glock stepped in with a laugh.
“Don’t worry, Tank, Nurse Peters here didn’t see your guts spilled out on the table,” he said and laughed hard while Noelle blushed again and quickly took her hands away from me.
At that moment, I could have ripped off all the tubes inserted in me, just to be able to reach over and punch Glock in the face. I clenched my jaws
at him, and he saw the look of rage in my eyes and stepped forward.
“How are you feeling, brother?” he asked, trying to soften the situation.
“Are you brothers?” Noelle asked, and I saw her filling in a form on a clipboard that was tied to the end of my bed.
“No, not really, not by blood,” Glock told her, and she smiled and nodded her head, while she kept writing on that form.
I looked at Glock again, while he stared at the bandage around my stomach, where I could still feel a dull aching throb.
“I’m fine. But what am I doing in a hospital? What happened?” I asked him, and he jerked his head over to look at me. He looked about the room nervously, and I was confused for a moment. Why wasn’t he just telling me what happened? The last thing I remember was sitting in the warehouse with Glock smoking a cigarette.
“What’s going on?” I urged him again, now feeling a sudden rush of adrenaline in my veins. He seemed like he was hesitating to disclose the truth and that was making me even angrier.
Noelle was looking at Glock as well, expecting a response and he shifted on his feet before he turned to me with a smile.
“You just don’t remember, man. We went out shooting our guns, you know over behind the Glen?” Glock said with a nervous laugh, and I narrowed my eyes at him. We did go to the Glen to practice our shots sometimes, but I had a feeling that wasn’t where we were the previous night.
“We went to the Glen?” I confirmed, and Glock nodded his head vigorously.
“Yeah, Gunner, Hunter, Sniper, you and I,” he continued, peering into my eyes like he wanted to say something. I took in a deep breath and tried to imagine the scene, hoping that some memory would return to me.
I could sense Noelle’s eyes still on us. She had stopped writing whatever it was that she was writing on the form.
“Yeah, remember? You and Sniper were joking around, hiding behind those wooden crates we’d found?” Glock stepped even closer to me, and his voice had dropped to a near whisper. But the room was small, and whatever Glock said, Noelle could hear.
I peered into his eyes, trying to think of these wooden crates that he was talking about, and it all came back to me in a flash. The cigarette falling to the ground, a shot ringing out, Sniper and me taking cover, walking into a shower of bullets, retaking cover. The bullet whizzing past my earlobe, blood on my ear, blood on my stomach. The Dragon Knights had shot me.
“Yeah, I remember, okay, yeah…” I fumbled with my words, as realization struck me.
“Who shot you?” Noelle’s voice cut through the air like ice and Glock whipped around to look at her.
“I shot myself,” I replied, without missing a beat. Before Glock could come up with a worse explanation.
“Yeah, he shot himself. The silly fucker!” Glock said and added another nervous laugh for good measure. We were both staring at Noelle to gauge her reaction, but she was only looking at me. I realized that was what Glock was trying to indicate to me with his eyes; that this was not a discussion, we should have been having in front of her in the room.
“How did you shoot yourself in the stomach?” Noelle asked, and even though a soft smile grazed her lips, her eyes were narrowed at me. She knew what was going on…I could see it in her eyes. She knew we were trying to cover up something. We needed to change the subject and fast.
Glock shrugged his shoulders, and let out a sound from his lips that seemed like a splutter. He was still acting nervously. He needed to get his shit together.
I stared back at Noelle and clenched my jaw. I had an uncontrollable urge to tell her the truth, it was because of the way she was looking at me. She was asking me to confess the truth to her, and never before, had I wanted to tell something everything.
I studied her face, the curves of her shoulders, the way her bangs fell over her eyes, the lusciousness of her lips…I needed to have this woman, or I was going to go insane.
“We were out shooting, and it was dark, and it was just a stupid mistake, you know?” Glock kept fumbling with his words, and Noelle kept staring at me.
I didn’t want to lie to her. I had already lied to her once, and I didn’t want to say another word that wasn’t going to be the truth, so I said nothing.
She took in a deep breath, gulped and then looked at Glock.
“It’s fine, you don’t have to give me an explanation,” she said in a curt but polite voice. Glock shook his head, and I could see that his brain was working a mile per second.
“No, of course, we have an explanation…” he tried to say, and Noelle gave him a half-smile.
“I don’t plan on discussing this with anyone else,” she reassured him, and Glock clamped his mouth shut. “As long as no charges are being filed, I don’t see why this is nothing more than an accident.”
I watched her as she tucked in some stray dark strands of hair behind her ears, and blinked at me. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking anymore, her expression was blank. Whatever it was, I knew that she had already formed her judgments about me. She knew that I was mixed up in something that was dangerous and had caused me to be in this hospital bed with a gunshot wound in my stomach.
Just by looking at her, I knew she belonged to a different world, a safe world.
“You take good care of yourself, now, Aiden,” she said, and the fact that she had referred to me by my first name made my muscles stiffen. No one had called me Aiden since I joined the Bad Disciples four years ago.
“Thank you, nurse,” Glock replied for me, and then I watched in silence as she turned around and left the room. The door swung shut behind her, and I clenched my jaw, realizing that I had been holding my breath around her. She had a weakening effect on me which I didn’t recognize.
Glock whipped around to me, the moment we were alone in the room.
“Fuck! That was close,” he said and jokingly ran a finger over his forehead to wipe away non-existent sweat beads.
I dropped my head back on the pillow and closed my eyes.
“You guys shouldn’t have brought me to the fucking hospital,” I said through gritted teeth, and I could sense Glock stepping closer to my bed again.
“I know you are pissed man, but the gun shot wound was a lot more than Kylie could handle. You needed surgery.”
I let out a frustrated grunt. Deep down, I know Glock was right. Hell, I knew they were all right when I was sitting in front seat of the truck. I just didn’t want to be the one to bring unwanted police attention to the Bad Disciples because of my stupid fucking mistake.
“Besides,” Glock said. “That nurse is nothing bad to look at.” I opened my eyes when he let out a laugh.
“You can thank us later for that delicious treat,” he said, and I crossed my brows at him.
“Don’t pretend like you don’t know what I’m talking about. You couldn’t stop staring at that ass!” he said and laughed again. I had to do everything in my power to not punch him.
4
Noelle
I had returned to the nurse break room because I could feel my body quivering. I shut the door behind me and was thankful that the room was empty.
At the vending machine, I tried to buy a granola bar, but the machine was stuck. With pent up frustrated I banged it repeatedly and then kicked it with my foot. I just wanted the feeling to go away. I just wanted to be able to stop thinking about Aiden Gowen, or Tank as his friend called him.
With no granola bar in hand, I went over to the coffee machine and attempted making myself a cup. I ended up putting in too much sugar and too much milk, and when I took a sip, I hated it so much that I had to throw it away.
No matter what I did, all I could do was think about Tank.
Shirtless, with his chiseled muscular torso, his washboard abs, the light dusting of dark hair on his chest, his tattoos, his beard, the strength of which he had caught my wrist and pulled me to himself. My mouth felt dry, and I went and sat down on one of the metal benches.
I didn’t even know if I was on br
eak, I hadn’t bothered to check my watch. I just needed some time to assemble myself again, to get back to working condition. Since the moment I had seen Tank on the gurney the previous night, being rolled into the operating room, I had been waiting to talk to him. I wished and prayed that his operation went well, and when it did, I tried to hide the constant smile on my face.
And now he’d woken up. I had actually spoken to him, and the electricity in the air between us was palpable. Had he felt it too? I couldn’t get those hazel eyes out of my mind. He had a slow and deliberate way of looking at me, his eyes roaming over my hips, over my belly and breasts. I knew he had undressed me with his eyes and I liked it. I liked being watched by him.
I had dealt with so many patients in the past three years of being a nurse, but nobody had this effect on me before. Hell, I don’t think any man has ever had made me feel this way. I pressed my eyes closed, but I was thinking about him again. His large rough tanned hands on my milky white breasts, his thumbs teasing my nipples, my legs were thrown over his hips. I wanted to kiss him, I wanted him to claim me. I could almost hear the rip of my scrubs as he tore them off me, and tore off my bra and sucked on my left nipple…then my right. I wanted him to take me in the room, lock the door and ravage my body on the hospital bed.
I could feel goosebumps on my arms as I imagined it. His rough grizzly beard leaving burns on my skin as he kissed my neck and my breasts. I was breathing hard as I fantasized. The knots in my belly were growing tight, only his fingers could unravel them.
I pressed my thighs tightly together and could feel the throbbing in my core. I was wet just thinking about him.
Tank (The Bad Disciples MC Book 3) Page 2
