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

by Hughes, Jill Elaine

  “She’s back today, actually.”

  “Good,” Joanna replied. “Then she can go deal with Dr. Wilkinson herself. I’m not in the mood.” A lie. But she couldn’t exactly tell Maryam the truth. The truth would just get her fired.

  Nurse Malone pulled up an extra chair and sat down. “Well, there’s kind of a thing you and I will have to talk about on that score,” she said, a nervous edge to her voice. “You see, it doesn’t really matter one way or the other that Lindsay’s back from sick leave. You’re on surgery duty anyway. Double-shift surgery duty. Maybe even triple, if need be.”

  Joanna’s breath caught. “What?”

  “I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, Joanna, I really am.” Maryam sighed and shook her head. “But Dr. Wilkinson’s gone over my head to Administration and ordered the powers that be to put you at his disposal at all times. You’re off nurses’ station duty until further notice. From now on, you’re on call 24/7, and you report only to Dr. Harlan Wilkinson. You might even say that he owns you.”

  Owned her? Harlan owned her?

  Joanna bit her lip. Although she’d already figured after last night that it was only a matter of time before something like this happened, she hadn’t expected it so soon. Clearly, this threw a wrench into Joanna’s plan to beat both him and his heart of stone into womanly submission.

  Maryam gave Joanna’s shoulder a maternal squeeze. “You should probably head over to Surgery now,” she said. “I can manage the nurse’s station until Lindsay can get herself over here. Good luck, Joanna. Trust me, you’re going to need it.”

  “Thanks,” was Joanna’s reply as she left to face her surely-coming doom.

  ****

  Joanna arrived in the Surgery and Recovery wing about five minutes later, dragging her jacket and duffel bag behind her. She dreaded facing Dr. Harlan Wilkinson more and more at every step. Her entire body quaked with fear and desire. How could she ever have thought herself capable of taming him? How could she have imagined herself able to suppress the lust that had overtaken her body and annihilated all of her ladylike Southern good sense? How was she going to suppress the irresistible urge to drop her drawers and open her legs as soon as she laid eyes on him?

  God only knew.

  Joanna took a deep breath, and decided that the best course of action was like removing a Band-Aid—a nasty job best gotten over with quickly. She trudged up to the Chief of Surgery’s closed office door and knocked on the opaque glass.

  After a moment, it opened. Dr. Harlan Wilkinson regarded her with a mixture of relief and contempt. Unlike the rumpled scrubs, disheveled hair, and nine o’clock shadow he bore yesterday during their first encounter, today he was clean-shaven, neatly coifed, and outfitted in a crisp white oxford, pressed blue slacks, and an immaculately knotted red silk tie. A stethoscope was draped around his neck, and he wore a loose-fitting white lab coat over his obviously expensive, custom-tailored clothes. He looked more like a laid-back family doctor than a chief hospital surgeon.

  “I see you’ve finally made it in, Watson,” he said, his voice about as warm and welcoming as your average meat freezer.

  Joanna shot him a look as frigid as his tone. “I was scheduled to arrive at eight a.m. today, and I arrived at eight a.m. I don’t know where you get the idea that I’m late, Doctor.”

  “You arrived at eight-oh-two,” Dr. Wilkinson snapped back. “I had Nurse Malone call me and tell me the exact time you showed up, and that’s the answer she gave me. So yes, you were indeed late. Although I’m sure Maryam Malone has already acquainted you with your new work arrangements, and from now on I expect you to be on call 24/7. I’ve requisitioned a beeper for you from Supply, you should have that shortly. Until you get the beeper, however, I suggest you set yourself up with a cot over in the residents’ sleeping quarters. That way, I’ll know I can rely on you to be here anytime I need you, day or night.”

  Joanna blinked twice. Did this maddening man really expect her to be at his beck and call twenty-four hours a day? To the point she was expected to move into the hospital—sleeping, eating, and bathing here just like some kind of prisoner? Not to mention becoming his own personal twenty-four-hour, on-site booty call?

  Ha. Not if she could help it.

  “Dr. Wilkinson, with all due respect, there is no amount of money this hospital could pay me to get me to move in to residents’ sleeping quarters and work twenty-four hours a day. I’m sorry, but that’s just outrageous.”

  Harlan’s eyes narrowed. He folded his arms across his chest. “You were willing to put that kind of time in for my predecessor. So why not me?”

  Joanna was taken aback at this. On-site booty call, indeed. The incorrigible man would be lucky if he ever caught sight of Joanna’s bare pussy again.

  “I pulled all those extra shifts for Dr. Turnblatt as a personal favor to him,” Joanna answered, locking her verdant eyes with Dr. Wilkinson’s azure ones to show her defiance. “I didn’t have to, and he didn’t make me. I worked for Dr. Turnblatt for many years, and I respected him enough to know that he was paying me a compliment when he requested I support him on all those surgeries. And I will also have you know that he made all the shift arrangements with me in advance, and never once required me to wear a beeper or make the hospital my primary residence. I happen to have a nice condo to live in, Dr. Wilkinson, not to mention a personal life.” (She said this despite the fact that since her divorce, her so-called “personal life” consisted mostly of spending her nights alone in front of the television eating microwaved Lean Cuisines.)

  Dr. Wilkinson’s expression softened. “Why do you think my request you work all this extra time is any less of a compliment coming from me than it was from Dr. Turnblatt?” Dr. Wilkinson’s ice-blue eyes took on a slightly suggestive glaze, and Joanna could swear she caught those eyes dip to catch a glance of her bosom. Was Harlan really insinuating that she had given the elderly, dried-up old Dr. Turnblatt the same sexual favors she’d bestowed on him?

  The bastard. She wanted to slap him. “Just what are you implying, Dr. Wilkinson?”

  A slow smile spread across Dr. Wilkinson’s chiseled features. “I’m not implying anything untoward, Watson, believe me. I was trying to make a joke. There’s this great new thing called laughing. You should really try it.”

  Joanna smoothed the front of her nurse’s uniform with her hands and turned her attentions to the pile of incoming surgery patient files. “Sorry, Doctor, but I’m not amused.”

  “Joanna, what I’m trying to say is, I am requesting all these extra hours and service from you because I know you can handle it.”

  Joanna. He‘d said her given name. The mere act of those three syllables escaping Harlan’s lips was enough to set her pulse to racing. Damn, what was this man doing to her? Joanna pretended to be interested in the file of a sixty-eight-year-old triple-bypass patient due in for surgery the next day, but the heat brewed in her chest at every word he uttered.

  “You did some damn fine nursing in the OR yesterday,” Harlan went on. Joanna couldn’t tell if he noticed her aroused state or not, but if he did, he didn’t comment on it. “Damn fine. Some of the best I’ve ever seen, in fact. What’s more, you stood up to me without batting an eyelash. Do you know how many nurses there are in this world willing to do that? None. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not the friendliest of people.”

  “No, I hadn’t noticed that at all, Doctor.” Joanna’s voice was nothing but a croak. She could feel that Harlan had taken a step closer to her. He was behind her, just inches away. She could feel the heat of his torso. She could feel the feathery touch of his breath against the nape of her neck. She felt an invisible connection growing between them, a line of sensual electricity that was just barely there, but present enough to make her insides quiver, to make her nether parts wet, to make her head so heavy with desire she could hardly remain standing. It was all she could do to keep breathing. And still, Harlan’s warm breath was there, lapping at the back of her
neck like a babbling brook.

  “I think you’re lying.” He was so close behind her now, his breath on her neck felt almost like a kiss.

  Joanna stepped away from him abruptly, almost ready to lose control. But she wouldn’t, couldn’t show him a moment’s weakness.

  Joanna backed up against the front panel of the refrigerator just outside the office used to store blood plasma. “Dr. Wilkinson, with all due respect, I hardly think it is appropriate or professional for you to accuse me of lying when I was merely stating a fact about our working relationship, which I frankly do not find in any way out of the ordinary.”

  A boldfaced lie, of course. Joanna’s voice was quavering so much now she could hardly get the words out at all.

  Harlan gave her an odd look. “Watson, are you sure you’re all right?”

  Joanna forced a smile. “Of course I’m all right. I’m fine. What makes you think I’m not?” Now Joanna’s voice sounded low, hoarse and breathy. She was mortified at the sound of it.

  “Watson, you sound like someone working a phone sex line.”

  So much for getting the upper hand.

  Joanna cleared her throat, willing herself to speak in a normal tone of voice. “Dr. Wilkinson, that is a completely inappropriate thing to say to your lead surgical nurse. If you ever make a comment like that to me again, I swear I’ll—“

  “Write me up for sexual harrassment? That might be kind of hard, given what you and I did yesterday. Twice.” Although his voice was hard and serious, Harlan shot her a boyish grin that showed her he was joking. Joanna couldn’t help but chuckle.

  “Ah, I see you’ve finally heard about that great new laughing thing,” he chuckled. “How’s it working out for you?”

  Joanna stopped laughing and set her jaw. “Dr. Wilkinson, would you mind returning to the task at hand? I was hoping you could brief me on the patients you’ll be operating on today so I can assist you in the OR to the best of my nursing abilities.”

  Harlan’s features hardened a little and his body stiffened. He seemed disappointed, perhaps even a little angry that Joanna was purposefully backing away from him. Maybe she was finally going about this delicate dance of seduction in the right way. (Which was kind of ass-backwards, considering that she’d already fucked the man twice. But better late than never.)

  Joanna silently scolded herself for marrying the first man who’d ever shown an interest in her—Bob, her impotent, possessive, and (thankfully) now ex-husband—instead of “playing the field” more. Joanna was in way over her head.

  “Watson, I was really hoping to get to know you a little better before we got started this morning,” Dr. Wilkinson said after what seemed like an eternity. “I like to get to know my nurses as people.”

  “Well, you already know me in the Biblical sense,” Joanna snapped. “Isn’t that enough?”

  He ignored this. “I find it helps improve my working relationship with my lead nurse if I know what makes her tick. But it seems to me that you’d prefer to keep everything strictly business. And that’s fine. I suppose.” He went to gather some files from his desk.

  You suppose? Joanna thought, indignant. Are you going to give up that easily, Dr. Harlan Wilkinson? Aren’t you even going to make an effort to get to know me better? Am I really that uninteresting?

  Yes, she was that uninteresting. Obviously, the only things the man thought she was good for were holding scalpels and getting fucked over the side of a car.

  As Joanna listened to Harlan shuffle through the day’s scheduled surgical cases with the stone-cold, efficient manner of your average executioner, Joanna knew she’d painted herself into a corner.

  It was clear Harlan had Joanna right where he wanted her.

  NINE

  “Scalpel, please, Watson,” Harlan’s voice was even and clipped. He didn’t shout or hiss at Joanna in the operating room like he had the day before. Instead, he spoke his orders in a voice so calm and emotionless it was almost eerie. His eyes were completely without expression, his manner cold. Silently, Joanna almost wished the man would start screaming and swearing at her again just so she could reassure herself that he was human. Ever since her botched attempt at reverse psychology that morning, Harlan had become a virtual robot, using his frigid indifference towards her almost like a weapon. The man now seemed no more sexually interested in her than he would your average rock. It infuriated Joanna almost as much as it further inflamed her desire for him.

  But she couldn't let him know that. Then he’d have even more power over her than he already did.

  Joanna needed to get Harlan’s attention in a way that would thrill and enthrall him, in a way that would throw him off guard and re-ignite his desire for her at the same time.

  But how exactly could Joanna make that happen?

  She had absolutely no idea.

  “Scalpel, Watson!” Dr. Wilkinson’s voice was raw with impatience. “Now.”

  Joanna felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment as Dr. Wilkinson caught her daydreaming. “Scalpel, Dr. Wilkinson,” she chirped as she palmed the instrument into his gloved hand.

  There was a pause. Then—

  “Goddamn it!” In a jerking reflex, Dr. Wilkinson flung the scalpel across the operating room and clutched his right hand, sharply sucking in his breath. Shirley Daniels, who was back on nurse-anesthetist duty, gasped.

  “Sweet mother of Christ, Joanna,” Harlan Wilkinson swore through gritted teeth. “What in God’s name are you doing?” Harlan’s unmasked forehead was twisting in pain as he clutched his right hand.

  To her horror, Joanna saw that blood was seeping from the surgeon’s right palm, soaking through the gloved fingers of his clutching left hand and forming a fast-growing puddle on the floor. Joanna realized that in her desire-fueled distraction, she must have handed Dr. Wilkinson the scalpel blade-first—the worst possible mistake any surgical nurse could make, ever. Nurses were fired—even had their licenses revoked—for less.

  Well, she’d gotten his attention, all right. In absolutely the worst way possible.

  “Oh, my God, Doctor—“ Joanna stammered. “I—I’m so sorry. I—“

  “Be quiet,” Dr. Harlan Wilkinson hissed. He stamped his scrub-bootied foot onto a button embedded in the floor of the operating room that controlled an emergency intercom. “Code 15 in Operating Room Two. Code 15 in Operating Room Two. Send a relief team immediately.”

  Code 15.

  At Covington Community Hospital, “Code 15” was the alert for “disabled surgeon”. In a single careless moment, all of Joanna’s years of nursing training and experience failed her, and she had rendered Dr. Harlan Wilkinson disabled.

  And all because she was desperate for more sex.

  Joanna felt the bottom fall out of her stomach. If the cut on Harlan’s palm was deep enough, if it had severed a muscle, or even worse, a nerve—he might never operate on anyone again.

  And it would be her fault.

  “You’re lucky this is routine elective surgery, Joanna,” Harlan growled at her, his voice riddled with contempt. “If this had been the open-heart surgery scheduled for later today, you very well could have helped kill the patient with what you just did. Looks like all you managed to do this time around is destroy my career.” Harlan held his bleeding right hand out away from the patient, a middle-aged woman seeking elective treatment for a troublesome but not life-threatening gall bladder problem. “Clamp the incision until the relief team gets here, Watson. If you think you can handle that.”

  Joanna obeyed, but it was all she could do to keep the surgical clamps steady. She was shaking all over. Harlan’s rage-filled eyes stared at her from his spot across the operating table from her—a spot he was required by law to occupy, bleeding profusely or not—until the relief team arrived. Every moment that those eyes bore into her felt like a century. Joanna feared it would never end.

  At long last, a bewildered third-year surgical resident and two young nurses appeared in the OR, already scrubbed and masked
. “I’m injured,” Dr. Wilkinson barked at them. “Take over. It’s a standard gallbladder removal, no complications other than the fact my fucking right hand is in ribbons. Plus, the whole surgical area is contaminated now. You’ll need to re-sterilize everything and re-dress the surgery site.”

  With that, Harlan stomped out of the OR, almost slipping on the trail of blood left by his shredded right palm.

  As soon as the new surgical team was in place, Joanna followed Harlan out of the OR into the scrub room, dreading what might happen next.

  ****

  Well, that was unexpected, Shirley Daniels thought to herself as she watched Dr. Harlan Wilkinson drag himself from the ER, bleeding like a stuck pig. She’d never seen anything like it in her entire career. Talk about cutting a man down a notch or two. Harlan had been cut down more than a notch—he’d been cut down, literally.

  All of a sudden, the man didn’t seem quite so McDreamy after all.

  It was all Shirley could do to keep from laughing while she continued on with the operation under the new surgical team. To think—just yesterday, the sight and sound of Dr. Harlan Wilkinson had been enough to make her panties swampy. Now the man just made her mad.

  What kind of crackpot surgeon lets his hand get sliced to ribbons on the job?

  Maybe the kind of surgeon who has his mind on things other than the task at hand.

  Namely, hot sex with his lead surgical nurse.

  Shirley shook her head and chuckled despite herself as she manually adjusted one of the dials on the anesthesia machine. Obviously, those two are in each other’s pants, she thought. And in all likelihood, it would end up with the both of them getting fired.

  At one level, Shirley was jealous. Even if she thought Dr. Harlan Wilkinson was a crass, obnoxious jerk who made everyone who worked with him in the OR miserable, she still would have liked the opportunity to see what the man carried around in his pants. The fact that the beautiful and sensual Joanna Watson beat her to it wasn’t exactly surprising, either—but she still would have liked to have had the opportunity to try for it herself. Now that the man was probably permanently out of commission as far as performing surgery was concerned, Shirley wouldn’t even have that. It was only a matter of time before he had to pull up stakes and head back north to Boston or New York or whatever Yankee city he was from, head dragging and tail between his legs.