Forbidden Touch: A Best Friends To Lovers Romance - Iona Rose (free ebook reader .txt) 📗

Chapter Two

Aidan

The ward seems to be particularly loud today as I make my rounds, checking on patient’s charts and making sure all of their vital statistics are good, prescribing medications and writing a few discharge notes. I have just finished up the last bed when a nurse came towards me.

“Dr Miller, we have a new intake in room three. Would you mind taking a look at her?” she says.

“Sure,” I agree. “What’s her story?”

 The nurse, Julie, looks down at a piece of paper she is carrying as we walk back down the corridor towards the private rooms at the end of the ward.

“Female, estimated to be in her early to mid thirties. She came in through the emergency room. She’s unconscious but Dr Lowe from the emergency room is confident there is no skull fracture present after taking several x-rays. She has a bruise on her cheek bone and bruises around her neck consistent with being choked. An elderly neighbor heard commotion coming from her place so he called the police and when they arrived, they found the woman unconscious and her house trashed. The police called for an ambulance and she was brought here. The neighbor has told the police her name is Erika Hart and that’s all we know at this time. The police are on standby and we’re to call them when she wakes up and is up to being questioned about what happened to her,” Julie says.

I blow out a low whistle.

“It sounds like she’s been lucky to survive this. The police must have showed up at just the right moment to scare her attacker away,” I comment. “Either that or they thought they had finished the job and left her for dead.”

Julie nods her head.

“Yeah. Judging by the woman’s neck, whoever did this to her meant business,” she agrees.

We reach the room and I knock, just a habit really as I know the woman is unconscious. I open the door a crack and I hear a shrill alarm ringing out from the direction of the nurse’s station. Julie glances down the corridor at the flashing red light indicating a patient is calling for assistance and then she glances at me.

“Go,” I say to her. “I’ve got this.”

She flashes me a grateful smile and hurries off to attend to whoever needs her. I push the door to the patient’s room open a little further and step in. I move towards the bed as the door slowly closes behind me. I pick up the patient’s chart and glance over it. It confirms everything Julie has just told me and nothing more. I didn’t doubt that would be the case. Julie has been a nurse for a long time, and I swear she knows more about medicine than I do and she would never leave out an important detail on a patient’s background when they’re a new admission.

I glance up at the patient. She’s laid on her back. A sheet is pulled up to her chest, her hands neatly folded on top of it. She’s wearing a pink hospital gown. Her eyes are closed, her long eyelashes laid on her cheeks. I am meant to be looking at her neck, but I can’t tear my eyes away from her face for a moment. This woman is gorgeous. Even the bruise on her cheekbone does nothing to diminish from her beauty. In fact, it makes her look vulnerable which somehow makes her even more attractive.

Her skin is pale and her long wavy hair is a natural looking red colour. Other than the bruise on her cheekbone, her face is unblemished, perfect. When I finally manage to tear my eyes away from the woman’s face, I step closer and begin to look over her neck. The sight of the bruises there, obvious finger marks, make me feel sick. I am over whelmed with a feeling of protectiveness for her, and I know if her attacker was before me right now, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from punching him. I swallow down my anger and gently put my hands on either side of the woman’s neck, feeling for anything out of the ordinary. It all feels normal enough and I ignore the way her skin feels warm and delicious underneath my touch. I ignore the way it makes me feel like my hands are tingling. And I definitely ignore the way it makes my cock pulse with desire.

The woman makes a low moaning sound and her face screws up slightly as I probe at her injured neck. I take some of the pressure off, but I don’t move my hands away fully; not yet. The woman’s eyes open and I find myself looking into emerald green eyes, eyes so bright and vibrant that I want to look into them forever. She smiles at me and her beautiful eyes sparkle as she looks back into my eyes. I return her smile and we just stay that way for a moment, looking at each other.

“Who are you?” the woman whispers after a moment.

Her voice, her words, pull me out of this stupor I have found myself in and I straighten up, taking my hands from the woman’s neck. Somehow, I miss the feel of her skin. I clear my throat, a little embarrassed that I have let myself act like this around a patient. At least her question didn’t sound like she is afraid of me. Instead, she sounded curious, relaxed, like maybe she knew she could trust me. I tell myself I’m being silly and I smile at the woman.

“My name is Dr Miller,” I say. “You’re at Claremont Hospital. Do you remember what happened to you?”

“I … No,” she says, screwing her face up slightly as she tries to remember.

She starts to push herself into a sitting position and I put my hand on her shoulder, gently holding her in place. I feel sparks running through my hand and up my arm