by Hamel, B. B.
Dr. Tempt Me
BB Hamel
Contents
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1. Fiona
2. Dean
3. Fiona
4. Dean
5. Fiona
6. Dean
7. Fiona
8. Dean
9. Fiona
10. Dean
11. Fiona
12. Dean
13. Fiona
14. Dean
15. Fiona
16. Dean
17. Fiona
18. Dean
19. Fiona
20. Dean
21. Fiona
22. Dean
23. Fiona
24. Dean
25. Fiona
26. Dean
27. Fiona
28. Fiona
Also by BB Hamel
Copyright © 2020 by B. B. Hamel
All rights reserved.
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1
Fiona
I would rather gouge out my eyes with a dirt-covered Barbie than get stuck in a tiny, cramped alcove with the most attractive doctor in the entire hospital.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t given the choice.
I walked down a quiet, abandoned hospital hallway at the end of a late shift, my comfortable shoes squeaking over freshly polished linoleum with each step, feeling exhausted and looking forward to hitting my bed so hard it broke, when a hand shot out from behind a pair of double doors and yanked me to the side. I stumbled and nearly screamed, but a rough hand pressed itself over my mouth. I turned, ready to kick whoever had the audacity to touch me like that directly in his or her private parts so hard their parents felt it, when I met Dean’s eyes.
Something about his gaze made me stop. So instead of making sure he’d never have children, I bit his finger.
His skin tasted like salt and soap.
He grunted and hissed but didn’t move. “Stop,” he whispered. “I’ll move my hand, just don’t be loud.”
I clenched my jaw harder and he sucked in a breath then dropped his palm away. I bared my teeth, ready to lay into him, but stopped myself.
He looked anxious, extremely anxious, and I’d never seen him sweat before since he first joined Mercy General. We were crammed together in a tight closet where they kept extra face masks and rubber gloves, the white and blue boxes stacked like bricks on a metal wire rack. Dean stood next to the open doorway, eyes wide, and he jerked his chin toward me.
I got the hint and stepped out of the way. “What the fuck, Dean?” I whispered, not sure why the hell I was going along with this insanity. Dean was a young, handsome neurologist, and one of the more serious people I’d met at Mercy General—which, despite being a hospital, was packed with some of the most insane humans I’d ever seen in my life.
He nodded toward the doorway and held a finger to his mouth then cupped his head. I understood what he was pantomiming, although I hated playing charades, and leaned toward the opening, listening.
I didn’t hear anything at first. But then the sound of a conversation drifted over toward us.
I couldn’t make it out at first. I caught tones, mostly, and they didn’t sound happy. I leaned closer and pressed myself against Dean. He gave me a look, but it wasn’t anger—more like he was curious about me. I was tempted to lop off his manhood but held back, since he’d probably start screaming and give us away. I heard footsteps, and the conversation got closer. I guessed it was happening around the corner, up near the elevators, right where I was headed a minute before.
“… not my decision,” a masculine voice said. It was low and had a very light South Philly accent, the sort of cliché thing I’d only ever heard in cheese steak shops that catered to tourists. “The boss wants what the boss wants.”
“Tell your boss that he’d better relax a little bit, or else our current situation won’t last.”
That second voice was definitely, without a doubt in my mind, the hospital administrator. Her name was Maria Dickens, and she was an asshole.
To be fair, most of the administration were. The hospital was technically a business, and there was a certain line most people shouldn’t cross, but the admins were happy to trample all over it. People weren’t dollars and cents, their worth wasn’t inherently tied into how much money they made, and yet the admins acted like if someone couldn’t pay, then they should be thrown out like trash to die on the street.
Maria was one of the worst about it. She seemed to delight in swooping down on unsuspecting patients and telling them that their insurance had lapsed, or refused to pay for treatment, or any number of tragic, horrible things, and she always did it with a smile.
I hated her. Really, really hated her.
“I understand that your arrangement with my boss is quite lucrative for you both, but remember who has the power here, Ms. Dickens.”
“And you remember, Mr. Lorenzo, or whatever your name is, that I’m not some pushover mark your boss can strong-arm. I run a major hospital, and I need to be able to plausibly explain why fifty thousand dollars suddenly disappeared out the front door.”
“You’re a creative woman, Ms. Dickens. So create.”
I glanced at Dean and his eyes were wide. He frowned at me, and I suddenly felt how close we were standing—inches separated our bodies as we both strained to listen to that conversation. My mind raced in a million different directions, trying to understand what the hell was happening. I knew Maria was a callous monster, but I had no clue she was straight up corrupt on top of that. If she was skimming money from the hospital, that meant she was skimming money from doctors, nurses, and sick people that desperately needed help.
Rage bubbled in my gut so hot I could barely hold it back. I took a step toward the door, but Dean put a hand on my hip, almost like he wanted to pull me back. I stopped, surprised at the touch. I thought he’d learned his lesson already, but he didn’t yank away. Instead, he stared at me, eyes warning, and I glared back at him.
We stood like that, locked in a staring match. It would’ve been almost hot, if I weren’t pissed as hell.
“I’ll see what I can do. For now, please take this small offering to your boss, and inform him that the rest will be coming shortly.”
“Very well, I’ll see what he says, but I can’t promise anything.”
More footsteps came and I stepped back quickly, pressing myself against Dean. I had nowhere else to go since the closet was so tiny and he was in the only good hiding place. I glared at him, aware that my breasts were pressed against his chest, and very, very aware that his hands were on my hips like we were slow dancing at junior prom. I clenched my jaw, and I could feel my cheeks turn red—and the smirk he gave me drove me wild.
Maria and the guy she spoke with passed by the doorway. Neither looked over, but I caught a glimpse of them: the guy was tall, lanky, with dark hair, a black leather jacket, and a pair of jeans.
They disappeared through the doors and were gone. I waited a few seconds, breathing fast, suddenly very aware that Dean was staring down at me with unrestrained joy, or maybe lust, and I pulled back suddenly, stumbling into the racks behind me.
He tilted his head. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said, steadying the boxes before they could fall and make a racket. “What the hell w
ere you doing in here?”
“Getting masks,” he said. “Then I heard that.”
“So you stuck around and eavesdropped?”
He shrugged. “Frankly, when Maria’s talking, I like to listen.”
“That’s really creepy.”
He gestured toward the door. “And yet you stayed and listened too.”
I threw my hands up, annoyed. “What was I supposed to do? You practically held me prisoner.”
“I don’t know about that. You seemed to enjoy pressing yourself against me.”
I gave him my best your-head-will-explode-now glare and stepped closer to him, but he didn’t flinch away. Instead, his smile got larger.
I was about to tell him to go shove one of those mask boxes up his rear end when I stopped myself and took a deep breath. Getting pissed at him was fun and whatever, but it was completely beside the point.
That overheard conversation ran through my mind again.
“What did I miss?” I asked. “From before you nearly ripped my hand off my arm.”
“Not much. They talked about money, mentioned some program Maria’s been running.”
I frowned and touched my chin. “Program?”
“I’m not sure, some trial maybe? They were pretty vague. Didn’t sound like a happy conversation.”
“Who the hell was that guy?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
I rolled my eyes. “I bet you think that, doctor.”
He laughed. “Oh, come on. We’re not all that bad.”
“Yes, you are.” I walked past him and into the hall. He followed, much to my immense pain.
“We need to talk about what we’re going to do.”
“I don’t know about you, but I’m going to tell someone about that. If Maria’s stealing from the hospital, someone’s got to find out.”
“I agree, but we can’t tell anyone, not yet.”
I stopped in front of the elevator doors and turned on him. “Now why the hell would I keep this to myself?”
“Because nobody’s going to believe you.”
I glared at him, heart racing. I was exhausted and emotionally frayed from a difficult day. One of my patients passed away at the opening of my shift, and that set the tone for the rest of the day. It was never easy, losing a patient, and I took it hard every single time, no matter how often it happened—and it happened more than I liked. That was the ugly truth about hospitals. People died here, people died at my place of work, and I had to figure out how to deal with it or else it would all overwhelm me.
So I wasn’t being as level-headed and patient as I otherwise would have been. I was a very patient and kind person, after all.
“How about you fuck yourself, dickwad,” I snapped.
He laughed. “Don’t take it personally. I don’t think anyone would believe me, either.”
“So then what do you propose?”
“What we just heard sounded a hell of a lot like some kind of scheme to defraud the hospital. And it sounded like it’s been going on for a while.”
I hesitated, glancing down the halls behind him. “How do you know that?”
“The way they talked, like they knew each other. Someone else is involved too, whoever that boss guy is. We need to find out as much as we can before we take this to someone.”
I scoffed. “So you want to play detective.”
“I want to get the facts straight before we run off half-cocked and let Maria lie her way out of this.”
“That won’t happen. If she stole money—”
“You heard her. She said she needs to find a reason for it disappearing, which I think means she found other reasons before. I bet they’d go back through the books and find every single dime accounted for, even if those books are built on the backs of a whole lot of falsehoods.”
I paced back and forth in front of the elevators. This was way too much for me right now, especially considering how I was running on empty and ready to jump off a roof out of sheer exhaustion and mental fog. It didn’t help that Dean was the epitome of a know-it-all doctor, so sure of himself, absolutely convinced that he was the smartest person in the room at all times, and that his professional opinion needed to be followed to the letter. He was the kind of doctor that double-checked whatever a nurse was doing just because he didn’t think they could be trusted with even the simplest tasks.
I let out an annoyed breath. I knew I wasn’t being fair to him. Dean was a very good doctor, and I didn’t really know his working habits all that well. I rarely worked with neuro patients, and when I did, he’d been nothing but kind and easygoing.
I could feel myself losing it and needed to get the heck out of there.
“All right, fine,” I said. “I’ll sleep on it for now.”
“Good,” he said, nodding. “Are you at the end of a shift?”
“How can you tell?”
“You look tired.”
I balled up my hands into fists. “You’re not supposed to tell a lady she looks tired.”
He held his palms up in surrender. “Sorry, I just meant—”
“I know what you meant.” I waved him off, calming myself down. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”
“When are you working next?”
“Tomorrow, day shift.”
“All right. I’ll find you and we’ll talk about what to do, okay?”
“I can do that. Just don’t do anything in the meantime.”
“I won’t. I need to process whatever the hell we just heard and try to come up with a plan.”
I sighed and rubbed my eyes then bashed the elevator call button. “Don’t even plan. Just wait until we talk again, okay?”
“If that’s what you want.”
I knew he wasn’t going to listen and his little brain was probably already doing mental math. Not that I could blame him—we’d just experienced something pretty crazy together, and the implications were both enormous and horrifying.
I glanced back over my shoulder and expected to see him staring out the window or off into space or something, but instead his eyes were on me, locked on to my body. He met my gaze and a smile broke across his lips, his handsome, full lips, and I took a step back.
“What?” I asked.
“It was nice being trapped in that closet with you.”
“That’s not— what?” I blinked rapidly.
“You and me. In that closet.” He tilted his head. “I liked having you so close. It was nice. Except for when you tried to bite my finger off.”
“I wasn’t going to bite it off,” I said, shaking my head. “And you’re not supposed to say that.”
“What, I’m not supposed to like being close to the most attractive nurse on staff?”
I gaped at him then snapped my jaw shut and turned my glare back on. “That’s enough, okay? Don’t get any stupid ideas. That was purely—it was purely business.”
He laughed and waved as the elevator dinged and the doors slid open, revealing an empty car. “Right, sure, purely business. See you soon, Fiona.”
I gave him one last you’re-a-total-bastard stare then stepped onto the elevator, banged the button for the ground floor, and watched the doors slide shut.
I leaned my head back against the cool metal wall and stared at the ceiling.
Something bad was happening in Mercy General, and Maria Dickens was at the heart of it. I didn’t know what she was up to, or if I should even get involved, but I knew Dean was going to throw himself directly into the path of that train whether I wanted him to or not.
He was right about one thing though. I couldn’t run off and start telling everyone. I didn’t know nearly enough yet, didn’t know what the scheme was or who was involved, didn’t know anything worth talking about. I’d been a nurse at Mercy for four years, but I wasn’t exactly important, well-known, or respected.
The elevator doors slid open and I walked through the lobby and out into the city.
2
Dean
The next day was a blur of patients. I kept myself busy, mostly because I knew that the second I slowed down, I’d start thinking about that moment in the closet.
And not just what we overheard. Sure, that was pretty messed up, but I couldn’t be too surprised. Mercy General was a hotbed of corruption and grift, and the hospital admins tended to be the biggest con men in the whole place, without a doubt in my mind.
No, I kept thinking about Fiona and the way she’d stared at me.
Didn’t help that my hand hurt from where she’d bitten me.
That girl was gorgeous. Long auburn hair, light green eyes, plump, pink lips, and a body that drove me wild. I felt it pressed against me when I hid her, and again when I touched her hips, and although she looked at me like she wanted my face to melt off, I still couldn’t help myself. She was gorgeous, and I liked that she didn’t take any shit.
She was famous for that, of course. Fiona was one of the better-known nurses, although I wasn’t sure she even realized that. She was highly sought after and every doctor I knew wanted her working on their patients. I was lucky enough to land her a few times, and each time she lived up to her reputation of being smart, prompt, and on top of everything.
And now we had this secret together.
It was almost too much. I mean, I’d been admiring her from a distance for a while, and now we were thrust together into that closet by complete chance. It could’ve been anyone walking past at that exactly moment, and I would’ve pulled them right in with me. Instead, it was Fiona.