Page 3 of Toxic Temptation
The man twists around.
My first and extremely juvenile thought is,My God, he’s gorgeous.
I’m not proud of that one. Not in the least.
I’m a doctor and this is an emergency situation. I have a child in anaphylaxis on my hands and I’m ogling his father?
My only defense—and I’m aware it’s a pathetic one, but it’s the only one I’ve got—is that I’ve been having a rather extended dry spell lately. It’s been a hot minute since I had anything remotely hot going on in my life. At this point, I’ll settle for reheated and lukewarm.
That’s the only reason I can account for to explain why I’m so affected by the green eyes that bore down on me as though they have the power to turn me to stone.
It’s not the green eyes alone, though. It’s the whole dark, gritty, muscular package. The front is even more intimidating than the view from the back.
The man’s blunted jaw squares, his eyes narrowing mistrustfully as he scans me up and down like he can see right through me. Given the distinctly unappealing,shoulda-been-thrown-out-four-years-agosports bra I’m wearing, I sincerely hope not.
“Who are you?” He doesn’t wait for me to answer before he asks, “You’re a doctor?”
“That’s what my medical degree says,” I answer coolly. “Your son is in anaphylaxis. I need to?—”
Before I can tell him what I need, the piercing scream of a new and unexpected noise turns everything on its head. My arms break out in crops of goosebumps, my stomach flips itself inside out, and sweat breaks out in a cold sheen across my forehead.
It’s impossible,hasto be impossible, but I could have sworn the noise I just heard sounded like?—
“Is that agunshot?” Sonya gasps from where she’s cowered behind the nurse’s station.
“No,” I tell her calmly. “It can’t?—”
Then it happens again.
The same sound, except exponentially louder. Loud enough that there’s no mistaking what it is. Or where it is: coming closer to us.
“GET DOWN!” I cry out, as chaos is unleashed on the pediatric ward.
2
KOVAN
It’s not how I’d have imagined putting my hands on her for the first time.
But circumstances left me no choice.
Nor did they leave me time to treat her gently. It’s either I throw the woman aside like a ragdoll, or she’ll eat one of the bullets that are flying down the corridor.
So, with one hand still cradling Luka to my chest, I loop the other hand around the doctor’s slim waist and drag her to the floor with us. Then I plaster my bulk on top of both of them.
If bullets come, let them hit me first. I can take it. The boy and the woman? They cannot.
Her knees hit the floor hard. I expect blubbering, more of the kind I’m hearing from behind the nurse’s station. But when I arch up enough to look at her, the doctor’s powder blue eyes are clear, dry, and laser-focused on Luka. Her face is drained of color, her sandy brown hair plastered across her face—but she looks calm.
Reaching out awkwardly, she presses two fingers to Luka’s sallow throat to check his pulse. He looks worse than he did when we first arrived. All light of consciousness is gone from his eyes, though they aren’t quite closed yet. An unholy groan passes through his lips on every exhale. The mere sound of it makes me want to tear the walls of this place to the fucking ground, if only to find someone who can save him.
But that someone might be literally pinned beneath me. The doctor’s mouth sets in a grim twist as she withdraws her fingers from the hollow beneath Luka’s jaw.
“He needs epinephrine.” She wriggles out from beneath me and starts to clamber back to her feet.
“Get the fuck—” I grab her arm for the second time and yank her back down, just as a bullet narrow misses her head and smashes into the green-tiled wall behind us. “—down.Jesus, woman, where do you think you’re going?”
Her blue eyes flash, bright and hot. “I’m trying to save your son’s life,” she hisses back.
