Page 8 of Keeping Her Under (Deranged Highway, #1)

Eight

My first patient of the day –a middle-aged man– moves onto the operating table, and a nurse and I connect him to the standard vital signs monitors – a blood pressure cuff just above his right elbow, five electrocardiogram stickers across his shaved chest, and a pulse oximeter on his right middle finger.

Once I put him under, the surgery begins, and I keep my eyes on the EMR computer showing all of his vitals.

Normally, I love this part of the job. The concentration. The knowledge that if I’m off my game at all, my patient could die. I have the power to kill him by accident – or by “accident,” and that spike of adrenaline is fucking heady. I have always loved it more than sex.

But now… With Summer’s ICU feed in my pocket and the time counting down until I lose my chance to be with her –

Fuck. I think I’ve found my new addiction.

“So how’s your week been so far, Laura?” the surgeon asks as she begins the procedure to repair our patient’s aortic valve.

I tune the team out as they start to banter back and forth.

Music plays softly in the background as I do my charting and write my PACU orders behind one of the sterile drapes surrounding the patient’s chest. The hanging sheets help to limit contamination of the operative site, thus lowering the risk of infections, and they keep any blood splatter off my clothes and kit.

As the surgery goes on and boredom hits between the glances at my screens, I pull my phone out of my pocket. My finger hovers over the teddy-feed app, and my heartbeat increases.

It’s too risky in here.

The pale-teal drape is hiding me from my colleagues, but their view of me is only a head’s tilt away. If they glance over while I have her room streaming live on my phone… There’s no story in the world I could come up with that’ll convince them not to report me.

And what if one of the nurses –Ryan being off for the next four days– is currently giving her a sponge bath? Just the thought of seeing her completely naked is making my cock twitch against the thin cotton of my scrubs.

No.

If I mess up now, I might never get to fuck her, and all of this risk would’ve been for nothing.

So I force my finger to hit the web browser.

I scroll aimlessly through articles I don’t give a shit about.

I read about six women having been found drained of blood and how the Special Crime Unit (SCU), a private investigations team that helps with cases all around the world, has reached out to the local authorities, offering their aid.

The coral reefs are dying off. Wasps are disappearing – a nightmare, not a relief, scientists say as they’re a massive source of pollination.

There’s been a bombing in London, an earthquake in Japan, another rise of a dictator under the disguise of “safety”, “prosperity”, and “freedom”.

The whole world is seemingly falling apart, but all the while, my thoughts keep drifting back to the teddy I left in Summer’s room. To the feed that’s only a few clicks away from my finger.

I glance at the monitors in front of me.

Then at the curtain between me and my colleagues.

There’s no lull in the conversation, and no one’s peeking over at me.

But…

All it would take is someone catching a glimpse.

“Have you heard about those bodies drained of blood?” I say, cutting into their discussion about some hot new TV show with awakening dragons and dark-haired fairies.

“Yeah. It’s a weird case,” the operating nurse pipes in.

“I wonder how he’s doing it,” the CRNA says.

“Who says it’s a he?” the surgeon demands.

“Oh, come on,” the CRNA says, a smirk in his voice. “Women are nurturers. They might not all be in the kitchen now, but killing is a man’s thing.”

“There are women serial killers,” the surgeon says, and with the CRNA and I being the only men in the room, there’s a round of fierce agreement – a round I partake in.

But the idiot doubles down. “Yeah, but they’re not butchers,” he says.

Statistically, he has a point, and he probably is right.

As much as women are fighting for equality, they’re simply not the same as us.

We have more testosterone that causes us to do more stupid, emotional shit; the closest women get to that is when they’re on their monthly cycle and get a spike of testosterone.

But saying, “She could be on her period,” is not going to go down the way I mean it, and I want us off this track. If it becomes a men versus women conversation, I’ll be roped in more than I want to.

So I steer us back onto a topic where it’ll be easier for me to feign like I’m partaking in once it gets going.

“Whatever their gender is, I’m sure they’ll get caught soon. The SCU is asking to be invited into the investigation,” I say.

“What’s the SCU?” the CRNA asks.

“You’ve got to be kidding me. How do you not know who they are?”

“There’s a TV show based on them...”

As the conversation blossoms, I make the occasional input.

An, “I don’t think so,” here, a, “They could be,” there.

Having already read up on the article, I don’t need to pay attention too closely to the details of the case now being discussed.

So under the guise of being engaged in the conversation, I click on the teddy-cam app on my phone.

My pulse increases, starting to hammer as the little logo swirls on its loading screen.

My cock is already starting to rise.

Twitching with every rotation of the animation.

Is she naked right now?

Being bathed by a nurse who doesn’t know I’m watching?

Slipping a hand into the pocket of my scrubs, I reach for my dick through the fabric and slip it up into my waistband. The top of my shirt hangs over it, and with me sitting, no one will know.

My eyes dart to the patient’s vitals.

He’s steady, but if he crashes and I have to stand…

Maybe I shouldn’t…

The loading finished, the app opens, and my pulse hammers in my throat.

In the thickening of my cock.

I drop my eyes to the screen of my phone as the conversation flows behind the drapes.

And there she is.

Lying in bed.

No nurse is attending to her.

But someone will check in on her for a few minutes every hour. Between turning her over so she doesn’t get bed sores, feeding her, bathing her, and giving her physiotherapy, she’ll get roughly six to twelve hours of care a day from her nurse, plus a doctor’s visit.

What if someone notices the teddy bear has a cam in its eye?

“He must be hanging his victims upside down to drain them so well,” the CRNA says.

“The papers are most likely sensationalized,” I say. “I doubt the killer is draining them completely.”

My eyes are riveted on Summer’s face. There are so many tubes keeping her stable. My colleagues would think I’m sick to find her attractive as she is now, but there’s a peacefulness to her. A fighting spirit that’s now relaxing beneath all that medical equipment.

Memories of her house fill my mind. I wonder if the bed she’s in now is the most comfortable thing she’s been on for a while.

If being fed every day has put her a bit at ease.

A thrill shoots through me, knowing that I’ve taken care of her in a way neither of us knew she needed.

When I put her under, I just wanted to fuck her.

When I saw her home, I pitied her.

When I see her now… Lying so peacefully… I want to give her more.

Like a stray dog taken in and spoiled.

As an unfamiliar warmth spreads through my chest, I force myself to look up from my phone and at the patient’s vitals. He’s steady. The music is still playing. The conversation is still going. Everything is stable.

And yet, my entire world has just shifted.

Summer Wintry isn’t just going to be a one-night stand in her hospital bed.

She’s going to be my wife.