“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.
CHAPTER 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 break, 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.
My eyes flew open. I shook my head and stood up from the chair. What was wrong with me? I was supposed to nurse my patients back to health. I was supposed to care for them. And here I was, fantasizing about one of my patients’ hands and his bulging cock inside me. I barely even knew him!
I paced around the room, trying to remind myself that I was a professional. That it was inappropriate to have thoughts such as these. Then the thought of him and his friend discussing the shooting drifted up in my mind. I knew there was something going on. They were trying to hide something. I didn’t want to rat on them…on Tank, but I had no idea what they were involved in. Whatever it was, they had not been out practicing shots and Tank had not shot himself accidentally in the stomach. That was just not possible.
Licking my lips, feeling a little dizzy with my overwhelming desire for him, I walked over to the door to step outside. I figured that getting back to work would help me forget about him…and what I wanted him to do to me.
When I opened the door, I saw Tank’s friend leaving the room. I remained where I was, frozen to the spot as the guy walked down the corridor. Leather jacket, tattoos, a threatening gait, dusty boots…this guy belonged to a world I was unfamiliar with. My eyes fell on the patch on the arm of his jacket. It had the logo for a Motorcycle Club called Bad Disciples. The name meant nothing to me…because I didn’t live in that world, but I had an idea of what it intoned.
Tank’s friend walked past me, and I got a glimpse into the life that Tank himself probably led. Did he belong to this MC too? That could explain his mysterious gunshot wound. I didn’t know much about Motorcycle clubs, but I knew that they risked their lives every day. They thrilled in living dangerously.
I stood there for a few more moments, the knots clenching and unclenching in my belly. I still wanted Tank, that feeling hadn’t gone away yet, but now I was reminded of the world he probably belonged to. How different he was from me. He was the bad guy my mother had always warned me against…and for a good reason.
The fact that Tank was my patient was only one of the many reasons why I needed to stay away from him. But my body was screaming out in protest. It was as if there was an invisible thread that continued to pull me towards him.
CHAPTER 5
Tank
If I was in pain, I couldn’t feel it. Glock had been gone for several hours and I hadn’t seen Noelle since then either, but all I could think about, was her and how desperately I needed to have her.
I remained lying on the hospital bed, with the TV switched on in front of me on mute. A different nurse had come in to leave me a tray of hospital food, which I tried some of and then left to the side. I kept looking at the clock on the wall. Was she still on shift? Would I ever see her again? Had Glock and I spooked her with our fake story?
Then the door opened and she stepped in, making me nearly choke. I wasn’t expecting to see her today again. She closed the door quietly behind her.
When she came into the room, she had a wide polite smile on her face. She was still in her scrubs, the scrubs I wanted to rip off her. Her bangs fell over her eyes, as she walked over to me and my first instinct was to touch her. I had to do everything in my power to keep my hand by my side.
“How are you feeling, Aiden?” she asked, in a quiet voice and without warning, reached for my right wrist. When our bodies touched, I felt my cock throb. That’s all it took, one touch from her. She was going to check my pulse, but she was going to get a wrong reading…because my heart had started beating frantically the moment she came into the room.
“I’m much better now that you are here,” I said and she looked up at me with a jerk and her cheeks flushed.
“You can call me Tank,” I said. “No one has called me Aiden in years.” A slow smile spread across her face.
“Do you do this often, Tank?” she asked as she turned her gaze away from me again.
“Shoot myself in the stomach you mean? No, not that often. Only when I run out of other places,” I replied and I could see that she was trying to suppress a smile.
“No, I meant, flirt with strangers,” she said as her fingers remained on my wrist. She was keeping count in her head, and I couldn’t help but stare at her delicious curves. Her breasts
looked big, too big for her clothes and they stretched the fabric of her shirt.
“You’re not a stranger, are you?” I asked and Noelle looked at me again. Her blue eyes were twinkling with excitement, and I wondered if she felt the same way I was feeling. I had my doubts that I was her type though. She probably preferred clean shaven doctors over scruffy bikers.
“I don’t know anything about you, other than your name and that you’re a bad shot,” she said and dropped my wrist, it fell back gently on the bed beside me and before she could step away, I reached for her and pulled her back towards me.
Noelle gasped from the surprise, but she didn’t try and wriggle herself free. She didn’t look distressed either, instead, there was a pinkish flush of excitement on her face now.
“What more do you want to know, nurse?” I asked and she stared back at me. Her lips were parted, just a little, enough to make her mouth look absolutely irresistible. I wanted my tongue to be inside that mouth. My cock to be between her lips. She gulped and then licked her lips before she spoke.
“Nothing. It’s better if I know nothing more about you,” she said and remained where she was, her wrist in my hand, our bodies only inches apart.
“Does this happen to you often?” I asked her and she arched her eyebrows at me.
“That one of my patients pulls me to himself?” she asked, with a humorous twang in her voice now. She wasn’t resistant towards me, instead she was playing along.
“No, that you don’t pull away,” I said and Noelle’s eyes looked like they were on fire. She gulped again, before she shook her head.
“No, it doesn’t happen ever,” she replied, in a quiet soft voice. My mind was whirling with thoughts. What was she saying? That she was mine for the taking? I hadn’t banged a hot nurse on a hospital bed before. I could feel my cock throbbing in my hospital grade thin cotton pants.
“Do you want me to let you go?” I asked gruffly, realizing that I was losing control of myself now. Noelle took a few seconds to respond, but I already knew what her answer was going to be. She wanted me just as much as I wanted her.
Fox (The Road Rebels MC Book 4) Page 29