“Oh, good aim,” she said, patting her head.
All at once, every hair on Evan’s body stood to attention.
Three words, and she held him captive. He could do little else but stare.
Babe. Hot. One word impressions flashed through his mind.
Fascinating. A sprinkle of freckles covered the tip of her button nose. A fine white scar feathered up her chin to her rosy pink lips.
Lick. He had the irrational urge to lick his way up it.
Want.
What the?
He blinked madly as his body reacted uncontrollably. Heat flared up his neck, hitting his cheeks. Pin pricks of sweat tickled his skin as it flamed. He was a long way from being a school boy, so when the telltale tightness grew in his groin, he rushed to cover himself with the sheet.
Shit. What the fuck was wrong with him?
Biological reaction.
The woman bent to pick up the crumpled paper and straightened. When her whiskey brown eyes met his, there was an inexplicable moment of intimacy, of human connection. The world around him fell away, and he felt nothing, no envy, no self-disparagement. It was him and her and the strange notion that she saw through it all. The moment lasted long enough to make his heart thud once… twice in his chest, and then it was gone.
She lifted the paper ball in her hands. “Is this important?”
He shook his head like a dumb-ass.
“He’s an artist,” Mary said with a pointed look at the paper. “He’s very talented.”
Evan cleared his throat and glared at his mother, but she didn’t seem to mind.
“He has an exhibition in a few nights—”
“Mamà,” Evan warned.
“He’s also a tattooist. Has his own studio.”
Christ. He scrubbed his face, letting his hand drag down over his stubble. He caught a whiff of his body odor and flinched. God, he must look awful. He wanted to crawl under a rock or, better yet, sink beneath the floor and never come out.
Mary kept talking about him. Stop. Please, God, stop embarrassing him. He ground his teeth. “Mary.”
“Right.” Understanding entered Mary’s eyes as she ping-ponged between him and the doctor, then she gathered her things, including the plastic bag holding his Envy fighting leathers. “Right. I’ll get out of here and let you do your job, doctor. You’ll be wanting some privacy. I’ll go and get a coffee. I’ll wait for you outside, Evan.”
With a secretive smirk, Mary opened the curtain to exit, and then closed it behind her, tugging the width tight to the edge, ensuring maximum privacy.
The last sense of envy in the tiny space vacated. Evan turned his gaze back to the doctor in surprise, realizing only then why he hadn’t sensed her approach. She held no envy. None.
Four
After the patient’s mother left, Grace deftly discarded the balled up paper on the bed, and then assessed him. At first glance she noticed his perfect bone structure. High cheek bones, razor cut jaw, intense green eyes. Good looking in a rugged sort of way except his overgrown brown hair and facial scruff meant he didn’t look after himself. Big, muscular, powerful… dangerous. Raseem said he had been a handful to constrain when admitted—she believed it. The hospital gown barely contained his broad shoulders and revealed a full sleeve tattoo on one arm and possibly more from the dark shadows underneath the gown. The artwork both intrigued and puzzled her with its simultaneous violent and harmonious subject matter. Skulls with flowers. A snake around a heart. Death with life. Her eyes tracked down the inked arms to where his fists clenched in his lap. Knuckles were grazed.
She had the impression he’d brutally earned that carved physique with every punch thrown. Possibly psychopathic from the way he watched her, tracking every movement.
But she’d seen the way his mother adored him.
She smiled. “Good morning Mr. Lazarus. I’m Doctor Grace Go. You were admitted earlier this morning with a”—she squinted at her iPad—“shoulder laceration and suspected internal bleeding. You’ve had some scans and have been administered something for the pain. How are you feeling?”
“Go?” His voice came out a low rumble. He scrubbed his scruff, inspecting her face. “You’re Japanese?”
“Ah.” Grace blinked, mentally thrown off key. Most people joked about her last name, but he’d identified its origin. “Sort of, not really, half I guess. My father was.”
He answered with a dismissive grunt.
Boy, this guy needed a Post-it note.
She cleared her throat and lifted her iPad. Right. Scans.
“Mr. Lazarus—”
“Evan.” He growled the word as though she’d done something wrong.
“Evan. Your scans are back and, good news, there are no signs of internal bleeding. However, there’s something interesting the radiologist picked up on that I’d like to discuss before checking your sutures.”
The man grew quiet, deathly still, until the wall of silence between them electrified. He had presence, she gave him that.
She turned the iPad to face him and pulled up the scan, zooming in on the area she needed. “Were you aware that you have three extra organs?”
He said nothing and, after a beat of awkward silence, she felt his eyes on her face. That charged energy prickled her skin until she turned to meet his gaze, inches from hers. Try as she might, no other words came to mind. In a sudden off-putting moment, she realized he held her captive and not the other way around. There was something about him. He drank in the details of her face, caught on the tiny scar at the base of her lip, and instead of glossing over her imperfection, he appeared intrigued with it. Then he seemed to catch himself staring, and his brow furrowed.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“You have three extra organs. See here, here and here?” She pointed to the dark masses on the scan behind his ribcage and stomach. “It’s incredible, really. They don’t appear to be the same shape as any other organ. And preliminary scans can’t pinpoint a common function. Something new entirely.”
Evan took the iPad and squinted at it, peering closely. “Huh.”
“So this is new information to you?” Grace asked.
“Yes. First time I’ve been scanned.”
“First time?” He piqued her interest more with each passing minute. “Right, well it’s called supernumerary. It’s more common than you think. Usually it’s an extra kidney or spleen… or the occasional tooth and the like. We’d have to run more diagnostics to identify their purpose.”
A loud pop and spark burst from the iPad, lighting the area as though a camera flash went off. Evan dropped the sizzling device into his lap. “What the hell was that?”
“Oh no. I’m so sorry. It must have shorted out.” Grace went to pick it up, but he stopped her with a hand to her wrist. Another spark ignited at his fingers. Grace yelped and he let go, eyes widening to meet hers, just as shocked as she was.
“You must have a residual static charge or something. Are you okay? Are you hurt?” she asked.
“Me?”
“Yes, you. Are you burned?”
“I’m fine. You?”
“Just a small… static shock.” Was that all it was? She sighed at the smoldering device. “Your scan; I can get another iPad and download it from the cloud.”
He pushed the tablet away. “No need. Can I go?”
“You don’t want to investigate the organs further?”
“No.”
“Oh. Okay, then. I’ll check your sutures and if everything is good, you can go.” She placed a palm on his good shoulder and applied pressure. He didn’t budge. She had a sense he wouldn’t budge unless he wanted… for anyone. “Please sit back. I need you to pull down the top half of your gown to expose the wound.”
He glanced at her hand as if it burned him.
She put the charred iPad down on a side table and when she turned back, he still hadn’t moved. “Mr. Lazarus, you haven’t removed your gown.”
He grunted. “Shoulder wound
.”
A man of many grunts. “Right. Of course. How silly of me. Sit forward and I’ll help.”
Evan leaned forward. He was so large that she lifted to her toes to peer over his shoulder and pluck the rear snaps apart. He went to catch the falling fabric and their hands clashed. Another jolt zapped between them.
Grace squeaked and let go.
He also let go.
The gown swished down, leaving the expanse of his chest exposed, and then some. From her vantage point, Grace saw indecently down the chiseled ridges of his front. Enough to confirm the tattoos covered half his body and didn’t go all the way down. They stopped where the light sprinkle of hair began under his stomach. She glimpsed the top of his shaft, where it joined his torso. Was he—? She squeezed her eyes shut, but that made it worse. The afterimage had burned into her retinas. She opened her eyes again to find him slowly covering himself, as if not to draw attention, but when he tilted his head to her side, there was a moment of shared awareness.
She’d seen. He knew she’d seen. She knew he knew she’d seen.
“Let’s check your wound,” Grace said, silently thanking her relentless training. She could do this. Ignore it. Oh no, she called his erection an it. This was officially the worst examination she’d ever had to do, and that included the geriatric who once sat on the handle of a back scratcher in the shower.
She faced his shoulder, trying desperately not to breathe in. At first, it was his dirty appearance that put her off, but then under all that there was a delicious pine and musk scent that came out to envelope her, infusing warmth into her bones. He shouldn’t smell that good. No man should.
Grace peeled the white tape from his neck to expose the wound.
He sat stiff as a board, gaze focused on a central point in front of him, hands gripping the sheet at his side, muscles taut. Perhaps he felt as awkward as she did. Good. He deserved to lose that gruff attitude. Grace went back to the sutures, assessing the nurse’s skill. They looked fine. No swelling in the wound. Healing rather well, in fact. But she pretended to take longer than she needed. The bruises on his torso concerned her, and she needed a moment to think on how to approach the topic. They reached all over his body, front and back, like a macabre purple and yellow painting. She decided he’d appreciate the direct approach.
“Do you want to tell me how you obtained the puncture?” she asked, and pressed the wound dressing down, smoothing the tape with her finger. “The notes say they found rust and metal filings in there.”
“A broken fire escape ladder fell on me.”
She sighed and pulled away. “And the bruising? Was that a ladder too?”
He said nothing.
Grace stepped back for a better look at his injuries. She clenched her hand into a fist and hovered it over a bruise under his ribs. Perfect match for knuckles.
“I’ve seen this kind of bruising before, Evan.” With his physique, it wasn’t hard to leap to conclusions.
“You done?” Without waiting for her response, he swung his legs over the other side of the bed, showing his naked back.
More tattoos. A quote of some kind weaved with a pattern. More skin. More bruises. More suffering.
“I’d like to talk some more about your other injuries,” Grace said. “The bruises.”
“You don’t give up, do you?”
“No.”
He shook his head and stood, heedless of his nudity, to pick up a pair of jeans. She caught a flash of a taut, tanned ass and turned hastily away with the absurd thought to wonder why his butt was the same color as the rest of his skin. Usually there was a tan line. He either fake tanned, or sunbathed in the nude. Or maybe that was his natural skin tone. For a moment, Grace’s mind got stuck on imagining his naked body in its entirety, and then remembered where she was.
She picked up the iPad, intending to go back to the patient notes, but it was well and truly fried. Just like her wits. Normally, she’d be fine with his level of body confidence. She saw naked people every day. Nothing to it. In fact, it had become such a common site that she thought she’d become numb to it.
You’d have to be blind and stupid not to be affected by his body, even in its current state of disrepute.
He slipped on a T-shirt.
Those bruises.
She cleared her throat.
“Um, so the stitches can come out in about a week. If you make an appointment to see your general practitioner, they can be removed there. And about the bruising. You were lucky enough to escape internal bleeding this time, but I can’t say you’ll be so lucky the next. Please look after your body. It’s the only one you’ve got.”
“Can’t you do it?” This brought his intense gaze back to her.
Grace’s eyes widened. Look after his body?
“The stitches,” he elaborated.
Did she detect a sparkle of amusement in his eyes?
“No,” she said. “I’m sorry but this is the emergency department.”
He walked around the bed until he faced her, invading her space. Now in a white T-shirt and jeans, he was no less imposing. She bet the other guy lost the fight. A step backward and her butt hit the gurney. He crowded her, caging her in by placing a palm on the bed either side of her.
“But I want to see you again”—his gaze dropped to the identification badge at her breast—“Doctor Grace Go.”
“Mr. Lazarus—”
“Evan.”
“—Evan. This is highly improper.” Grace glanced at his arms in the way of her escape and, for a minute, the closeness was too much. His smell. His heat. Overpowering. Confining. Intoxicating.
Was that water dripping over the roaring sound in her ears?
Was that the smell of concrete and fumes?
“I like improper.” He spoke into her ear.
He was too close, and she was unfamiliar with him. She hugged the broken iPad to her chest and shut her eyes to stop the past ruling her judgment, but the walls crumbled around her and she was back in the tight space underneath the building debris. The smell of asphalt. Her screams. The thick air running out of oxygen. She’d choked and coughed. Water dripped somewhere nearby. The telltale sign of heat flushing through her nervous system warned of an anxiety attack about to hit in full force.
Grace forced her eyes open. Her next words were slow and deliberate. “Move out of my way. Now.”
He cocked his head, studying—always studying—and then something strange happened. A spark and a sizzle came from where he rested on the mattress. His eyes widened, and he hid his hands behind his back.
“I have to go,” he said roughly. “See you in a week.”
And then he was gone, curtain swaying gently in his wake.
Grace exhaled in a burst. What had just happened? She patted her clammy forehead with the back of her hand. In a desperate attempt to get her thoughts into order, she set about the space to tidy up.
What kind of gall did he have to treat his doctor that way? Was he just an asshole alpha male who liked to fight? Or perhaps he truly was psychotic after all. Or maybe those bruises were part of a bigger picture. Would he actually come back and ask for her? Oh God. Her stomach twisted into knots. Maybe she should have directed him to the clinic to avoid a scene in Emergency.
Grace tugged the sheet from the bed for the orderly, and a burned plastic smell hit her nose. She shifted the sheet out of the way to expose the mattress. What the hell? Scorched handprints marked the mattress. She dipped to inspect the charring and her mind raced back to the sudden noise that made him hide his hands. He made those marks. With his hands. How? Maybe it was he who burned the iPad, not the other way around. Confounded, she pulled the sheets off further and the paper ball that he’d thrown at her head fell to the ground.
She unraveled it and flattened its length on the gurney.
Cold seeped into Grace and she had to sit down. The portrait was her. The arsonist.
Five
With the sound of AC/DC’s Highway to Hell blaring thr
ough his earphones, Evan stepped up to the entrance of Cardinal City’s finest art gallery at the heart of the Quadrant’s culture district. He stopped to stare.
Like many buildings in the city center, a modern version of gothic architecture had covered the old, and it was impressive. Instead of flowing decorative patterns casing the lancet windows, the curves had been fashioned into sharp edges giving the carved wings on spires a shiny futuristic vibe. Recently wet from the rain, platinum hood molds winked in the moonlight. He pulled out his earphones, and the city sounds replaced the hard rock. Some homeless people clinked bottles around the side of the building. Distant sirens wailed. Beyond the windows, through the stained silver glass, the muffled sounds of revelers pushed at him, telling him the party was in full swing. Late for his own exhibition.
His body tingled with unnatural energy and had for the past few days since he’d met the doctor. The memory of her proud face, light sprinkle of freckles, and warm smile hit him. Every time he thought of her, his gut drew tight and his stomach flipped. The way his bones had hummed in her presence made him constantly think of touching her soft skin again, and again. He’d dreamed of her nightly. Couldn’t get her out of his mind. It got to the point where he actually considered going back to see her about his stitches, despite the fact he’d healed. Maybe he could injure himself again. Put his own stitches in there.
The way her deft fingers moved when she’d checked his wound dressing; so confident and steady. He liked her surety, somehow it gave him peace.
The tingle in his body erupted into a burning zing.
He glanced down to see his Yin-Yang tattoo almost equal parts black and white, and the electricity gathering at his fingertips.
Part of him wanted to believe what it meant.
That she was it for him. The one. His balance. His salvation.
That this was some new power developing, and he was the first of his siblings to get it.
That unicorns existed and leprechauns shit rainbows.
Yeah, right. He scoffed and clenched his hands into fists, dispelling the sensation. When that didn’t work, he blew heat onto his palms. Maybe it was nerves. All those people inside were here to see him. Envy grated from each patron and pierced through his skin, like a thousand hungry teeth gnawing the surface of his stomach, reminding him of his true purpose, and his reason for this exhibition.
Envy (The Deadly Seven Book 1) Page 3