Table of Contents
Book Description
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Lily’s Temptation – Vol. 1
By
C.C. Michaels
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 C. C. Michaels.
Published By C. C. Michaels Press.
Book Description
My name is Maddox St. Clair. I attract women and trouble…in that order.
One night, after Maddox has been brought to the ER kicking and swearing after a fight, the young Dr. Lily Brasco’s world changes. She’s chest deep in her draining and hectic career of completing her residency and finds herself disillusioned with the inhumane way her boss, Dr. Mandel, treats the patients.
One look in Maddox’s eyes and Lily’s temptation erupts. She struggles to resist not wanting to get involved with a troublemaker. Meeting Maddox sets into motion a chain of events in which she has to make a choice; betray her values or let him go.
~*~*~
“The only thing I can’t resist is Temptation.” – Oscar Wilde
~*~*~
Chapter 1
Lily
I can hear Jack shouting. His voice is being carried through the hallways like an echo in a cave. The patients in the hallway rise in their beds to hear his grunts and curses.
“Get that shit out of my face! What the fuck are you trying to do to me?”
I move toward the sound and it’s not until I look down at my feet that I realize I’m running. By the time I look up, I’m standing in front of Jack and a bright crimson wetness covers his face.
Isabel is screaming, “Calm down. Calm down.” Her petite frame dwarfs against the build of the thunderous man on the gurney. Despite her diminutive size, Isabel maneuvers him like the expert ER nurse that she is.
The man on the gurney flails his arms and legs in the air, attempting to land blows with both fists and feet on an invisible enemy. Well-defined muscles ripple under the caramel-colored skin on his powerful arms, but it is his foot that lands the bloody blow to nurse Jack’s nose.
Eleanora puts a hand on my shoulder. “Corbin and the other EMTs brought him in. Told me he’s been in a fight.” I quell the urge to scowl at the remark. It is not my job to judge. The man continues, disoriented. He hurls violent expletives like stones. Eleanora leans in to my ear to compensate for the shouting and yells, “He’s drunk. And violent.”
For a second I forget everything. It’s like eight years of undergrad and medical school education evaporate, leaving my mind devoid of thought. But then the vacuum is breached and it all rushes back. I see a torrent of words and images in my head that lock together, forming a cohesive set of possible outcomes. My mouth barely keeps up, but somehow I manage to speak. “We need to get him stabilized. Isabel, go get the EMTs. See if they can stay for a while until we hook this guy up.”
Isabel happily leaves the writhing patient in his bed. I turn to Jack, the emergency room nurse, his nose still gushing dark red blood. “Once your nose stops bleeding, I need you to hold his legs.”
“Yeah, give me a sec,” Jack says from behind his hand. With his thumb and forefinger pinching his nose, his voice takes on a high-pitched tone when he says, “I think he broke my nose.”
And then it all slows down. I move without feeling my feet hit the ground. The harsh screams sink lower and lower as I approach the patient. My heart beats a deep bass, resonating little tidal waves through my body. I am watching the patient as he shouts nonsensically at the nurses. He sits up and says, “Where am I?” His head turns to meet my stare. As soon as he locks on my eyes, I shove him back down, pinning his massive shoulders to the bed.
He stares at me with his mouth open slightly, not uttering a word. He slowly relaxes, letting his arms and legs fall into the bed long enough for the EMTs to come back and help hook him up to a machine. I wonder if he is coherent.
I step close to examine his pupils for any signs of dilation. Routine procedures. As he breathes out of his mouth, I smell the stench of whiskey on his breath. His cheeks flush with embarrassment and alcohol. He keeps his eyes on me the whole time. I wonder what he’s looking at. I let off him and ask, “What’s your name?” More standard procedure.
“Maddox.” He says with an apologetic face.
“Do you know where you are, Maddox?”
He blinks. His gaze pierces me. “In a hospital.”
My pulse stutters. I draw back slightly. I make the mental note of the degree of pupil dilation but then all professional thoughts are overridden by curious musings about the color of his eyes. Are they blue? Green? More of an aqua...
I snap back to the task at hand. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-five.”
“What day is it?”
“It’s Tuesday...wait no, it’s...” Here he trails off, mumbling, until finally, he exhales and says, “I don’t know. I don’t know what day it is.” His voice carries defeat. Maddox shakes his head, closes his eyes and tries to force his memory to yield information.
Eleanora turns away from the heart monitor machine which rhythmically counts out his pulse in little beeps and asks, “What do you remember?” her soft voice falling on Maddox like fog.
“I honestly can’t— I mean, I am just a bit…” Maddox struggles to speak; he would start to talk but then lose his concentration midway through a sentence.
“Why does my eye—” Maddox touches his head just above his eye and winces at the pain induced by his own touch. “Fuck, why does my eye hurt?”
I lean in to examine the cut closer. I gingerly place my thumb above the cut, allowing the palm of my hand to lay on his hair.
“Clean this up and get a better look, Eleanora.” He is silent now. His blue, or green, or whatever color, eyes now flit to mine. I choke down a gasp. Warm blood flushes to my cheeks. The room seems unbearably hot in the instant our eyes connect. I snatch my hand away from his head and quickly turn to let the nurse do her job. And to hide my reaction. A reaction that’s not normal. Not professional.
“It’s a deep cut,” Eleanora says as she leans over, inspecting the gash with blue latex-covered fingers. Maddox sets his arm by his side as Eleanora assesses the cut above the eye. He has cuts on his knuckles which are scabbing, making his strong hands appear as if he was rapping them against a cheese grater. I am trying to think of a way to keep him concentrated on me and not Eleanora, who is suturing his cut. So I say, “You were in a fight, Maddox. Can you remember if you hit your head?”
“No, I, I … goddamn,” Maddox says as his face contorts in pain.
Eleano
ra stops for a while to let Maddox speak, but he is still disoriented. That, coupled with the pain he is in, makes it hard to accurately target his injuries. I look to Eleanora and say, “He’s alert and oriented times three. I’m checking behind his ears for battle signs.”
Eleanora nods in agreement and says to Maddox, “You're lucky a neurologist was so close.” But Maddox is barely paying attention when he asks with a quiver in his voice, “What does that mean? What are battle signs?”
I roll his head to the left, peel his earlobe up and see dark shading. I lean over his face, checking the area behind his other ear, when I realize no one has answered him. He is waiting for some answers. I only glance at him and try not to notice his blue-green eyes demanding attention. They beckon and mesmerize me, draw me in. For a moment, I lean in. I think I see something in them. A glimmer of...what, familiarity? No. Recognition? No. It’s gone and I am left wondering how is it that such captivating eyes are to be found on this brute of a man.
Maddox is breathing normally now. It’s the second time he is relaxed because my body is in his personal space, close to him. Feeling his attentive stare took me out of myself for a second, until I remembered he was scared and just wanted an answer. I told him, “Battle signs behind the ears indicate your brain was forced against the back of your head, which would account for the state of confusion you are in.” I pause and wait for Maddox to say something, but he just lies in silence. I want him to say something to break the stillness that’s building. Finally, I say, “It’s not life-threatening it just means we keep you here while we run some tests.” He exhales slowly, while nodding, and looks at Eleanora to say he was ready for her to go back to stitching.
As Eleanora finishes her stitching, I lay my hand on top of Maddox’s, “Okay, now that you’ve stabilized, a doctor will be with you shortly.”
Maddox turns his palm up to clasp my hand and squeezes weakly. “Well, wait, you’re a doctor. Why can’t you stay?”
Before I have the explanation formed, a voice comes in from behind us.
“Because she’s a neurologist. You’ll probably see her again for a consult.” Maddox looks quizzically at Dr. Mandel and squeezes my hand tighter.
“Try not to kick me in the face, like you did to my nurse earlier,” Mandel jokes. He has a slight rasp in his fifty-eight-year-old voice. Makes me wonder. How ironic, a doctor who smokes.
“I’m sorry, he was grabbing my legs. I guess I lost it.”
I can feel Mandel doesn’t want me in the room anymore. He is looking at me with a smile that says, “Okay, your time is up, please leave now.” It is his courteous way of letting you know you are not needed. I lean in to speak to Maddox in a hushed tone. I feel the heat of his body vibrating out towards mine, filling the vapors between us with an unexplainable electricity. “I have to go now, I’m being paged,” I lie.
“Can you stay, please? I feel calm...” He struggles again to get the words out. “...with you here.”
His sincerity crushes me. It melts my heart in a way it shouldn’t, causes my defenses to drop, and puts me at a disadvantage. Makes me – vulnerable, and that’s not a good thing right here, right now, when I’m leaning in close, sinfully close to those aquas eyes, feeling the heat of his hand burn into my skin. I can’t manage the words to say, “No, I cannot stay. I’m a professional, damn it, not your...babysitter.” But I nod instead.
“You have one hell of a bedside manner, Doctor.” Mandel says this to me as he inspects the stitching Eleanora has done. “I’ll have to ask you to relinquish the lady’s hand, sir.” Mandel is saying this with a smile to Maddox. He looks at me and my cheeks blush red. I am painfully aware that I held Maddox’s hand for too long. And even more aware that I enjoyed it. And embarrassingly aware that Dr. Mendel knew it.
I nod to let him know it’s okay, and I feel in this moment like I am rescuing a puppy from the pound. Why is Maddox so worried? Is he delirious from the fight, is that the reason he acts so dependent; because he lost a fight and wants someone to help lick his wounds? Great; all I need is some fully-grown man to look after. Some brawler, who loses a fight and chooses to cozy up to me. Why does this brute have to bother me? Can’t he leave me alone? I can’t allow this kind of sympathy, this kind of personal interest. I have a career to think about. That’s what I keep telling myself, anyway, to gird myself against this insane pull he has on me.
Maddox opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. He is looking at me, like he wants to say goodbye. Suddenly, I fluster and act shy. I say it first just to alleviate the awkward moment. Then I nod to Mandel and walk out of the ER.
Chapter 2
Mrs. Fritz’s room is across the highly-polished hallway from Maddox’s. Earlier today during rounds, the group of us, the new residents, busted into her room to basically harass her—speaking about her like she was some textbook example, ripped from the pages of the textbook to help us better understand aneurysms. Doctor Mandel rattled off Mrs. Fritz’s symptoms with a tone somewhere between mild concern and utter lack of empathy. “Patient suffers loss of perception and balance, double vision and pain above the eyes.”
From there, the discussion went to treatment, which I think was either surgery or simply observing the patient, but I can’t be certain. I am too busy thinking about how Maddox is in the room right across the hall. I force myself to focus on the patient at hand, admiring the smile Mrs. Fritz casts upon us. She is being talked about as if she has already died, but she keeps a grin the whole time. I try to concentrate on Mandel: I shoulder my way towards the front of the group, I write down notes, I nod in affirmation when Mandel makes a statement, but no matter how hard I try, my eyes keep finding Maddox’s room. I’m hardly paying any attention to Mandel as he fires off questions.
But by the time I make my way around to the side of her bed, Mandel is mentioning the likelihood of women, ages thirty-five to sixty, getting aneurysms.
Mandel’s voice annoyingly wedges into my thoughts. I try to block him out. Thinking about Maddox was just about the only thing keeping my interest. When Maddox was on my mind, my pulse would quicken. My heart would race every time I thought about him.
Mandel’s voice becomes exponentially strident; words leap from his mouth in synchronized form, diving headlong into my ears. His tone now matches his stoic demeanor, as he turns away from Mrs. Fritz. He begins lecturing in a way not unlike a lobotomized museum tour guide. Mandel merely sees Mrs. Fritz as an opportunity to understand the human body. But isn’t a person in that body also? Mandel probably figures her to be a risk with little success of curing her or alleviating her symptoms. He weighs Mrs. Fritz’s life like a risky stock; maybe it will pay off maybe not. That is how this man thinks.
The exhibition ends as ritualistically as it began and I leave with the huddled crowd of residents. I don’t know if Mandel’s view of Mrs. Fritz is one I will adopt. As mechanical and alienated as it may seem, I think there might be some merit to his view. What use is petty emotion in a place like this? No amount of concern will reverse a patient’s symptoms. You can’t cry away cancer or talk your way out of dementia. The truth is, if you are here, you are sick, and in need of medical attention, not emotion.
And then there’s Maddox, my fighter brute. What does he want? His body definitely needs attention but those eyes, those blue-green eyes, they tell another story. What does he want with me? As the group of residents file out of the room, heading to the next patient to review, I hang back near Mrs. Fritz’s bedside, lost in a moment of thought, a thought about Maddox. I notice how frequently the memory of those aqua eyes is invading my thoughts lately. I should be focusing on my job, and helping the many patients I see every day. The thoughts of him draw me away from the others. Selfishly, I indulge myself and allow my mind to wander and, much like a diverging stream, it flows in the direction it must. It’s not like I can stop it or even control it and most of all, I don’t want to. So at any given moment of the day, I find myself drifting away, caught up in lustful fanta
sies of Maddox when I should be hanging on Mandel’s every word. I finally turn from Mrs. Fritz’s bed and follow the other residents who have now all left the room with an unsettling feeling that something has changed in me and I’m not sure what it is.
~*~*~*
The florescent lights seem especially bright tonight as I go to check on Mrs. Fritz. I keep the thought tucked in the back of my mind that her room is right across the hall from Maddox’s room. Not that that is why I am going to check on her. I convince myself she is in serious enough condition that a little extra attention. Whoever washed down the walls with disinfectant left enough of it to burn a hole in my nose. You can spend an eternity washing and cleansing to appease Hygeia, the goddess of health, but it doesn’t purify the memories tied to the smell of the cleansers that remind me of blood, vomit, and feces. Cavicide rushes up my nose to deaden any cognitive faculties and is, in my opinion, the number one cause of forgetfulness in this place. It smells like pure chemicals. What I picture as a clear liquid capable of killing germs, also kills my hunger. They crank up the air conditioning in this place also. It’s probably just as well. We don’t want people to assume that chunks of rump roast are being kept at a temperature safer than our patients.
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