Page 8 of The Wrong Husband (The Davenports #6)

Phoenix

“Guilty as charged, Doc.” His voice is pure gravel and sin—low, rough, with a dark edge—like thick, hot fudge you dig out with a spoon.

It rips through me like an adrenaline shot to the heart, flooding my veins before sparking outward, leaving even my fingertips aching for release.

I swallow to stop the moan that whips up my throat.

“What are you doing in my ER?”

Surely, it’s not a coincidence that he’s here now?

“Your ER?” he drawls.

That voice shouldn’t be legal. It does things to my autonomic nervous system I can’t explain—makes my breath hitch, my pulse flutter, my common sense short-circuit.

Doesn’t change the fact that he’s right.

I wish I could play it cool. Wish I was one of the doctors who could shrug off the possible ER closure like it was another administrative hiccup. But I’m not.

I care too much.

I take on too much. I say yes when I’m already drowning. Maybe, it goes back to my mother. Wanting to make her proud. Wanting to be enough.

My siblings and I were all adopted, but it always felt like my mother held me to a different standard. Stricter. More alert. The curse of being the only girl with a bunch of brothers.

She tried to mold me into her mini-me. Ladylike. Prim and proper . So not me. So, I pushed back. I rebelled. I tried to prove I didn’t care. But I did. More than I ever let on.

I’ve spent most of my life trying to earn something I never knew how to ask for—her approval, her trust. Her love.

I mean, I know she loved me, but it always felt conditional, like I was a disappointment.

I don’t need a therapist to tell me that’s where my overdeveloped sense of responsibility comes from.

I left home at eighteen, thinking I was claiming my freedom… But the guilt followed me. It always does.

Maybe, that’s why I pour myself into the ER. Why I jump into every crisis like it’s mine to fix.

And I wish—sometimes—that it didn’t cost me so much to feel everything this deeply. Life would be easier if I didn’t.

I wave a shaky hand.

“I didn’t literally mean it’s my ER—just that I’ve been here long enough to feel a sense of…ownership.”

My voice cracks. I clamp my jaw shut. Yeah, that sounds weak. I’m not giving this walking daydream with a jawline and storm-colored gaze insight to my personality.

Although… Given the way he stares at me, cobalt eyes unblinking, makes me feel like he’s able to read past the walls I put up against the world to the secrets I harbor inside.

A tremor spirals under my skin. I shake my head, trying to cast off the sense of disorientation gripping me.

I've just broken free of one relationship. The last thing I need is to be pulled into another man's orbit. Or maybe, that's exactly what I need? A diversion?

He nods slowly. “I know what you mean.”

There’s no hint of sarcasm on his face.

“You do?” I venture.

His gaze seems to turn inward. “When my team works on a biotech discovery that could make a difference to people, even though I may not be the one researching, I feel responsible for it. I take the outcome of every experiment personally—especially the ones that fail.”

“You’re a scientist?”

He smirks.

Ugh! It makes me want to slap it off—and, kiss him. Damn it, why did I ask? Why did I give him the satisfaction of knowing I’m curious?

“I’m a biochemist,” he explains.

Huh. He looks more like he bench-presses bodies than test tubes.

“ And I’ve worked undercover.”

My eyes widen. That explains the cat rescue—the way he scaled that tree like he’s done it while running for his life.

“Don’t you people keep that kind of thing…secret?” I arch an eyebrow. “Or is that something you say to impress women?”

His eyes spark, lips curving like he’s got my number. “Are you impressed?”

Yes. But hell, if I’ll admit that.

“What I am”—I tighten my jaw—“is deeply skeptical about running into you again.”

I glance at the gash on his forehead. “But first—let’s deal with that wound.”

“Whatever you say, Doc.” He tips his chin.

I survey his features once again, looking for signs of mockery, but find none.

Instinct tells me, it’s rare for him to acquiesce so easily. That he’s a man more accustomed to giving orders than taking them. Well, too bad. In this ER cubicle, I am the doctor, and he’s, my patient.

A very sexy patient whose smirk triggers an acute spike in my core temperature.

Ovaries: on hyper alert. Blood pressure: elevated. Pulse rate: abnormally fast.

Every cell in my body seems to be in overdrive, completely fixated on him.

Then his gaze narrows. “You have an American accent.”

“My mother's American. I went to the American school in London,” I blurt out, then curse myself.

Why am I sharing personal information with this man? He must have shaken my composure to the extent that I’m not thinking straight.

His eyes sweep over me—slow, deliberate. A touch without contact, that leaves prickles of awareness in its wake; like powdered snow laced with shards of glass.

He could hurt me. Shatter me into something unrecognizable. Break me down and rebuild me in an image that serves his desire. And the twisted part? I’d let him. I’d want it. The idea of pleasing him—being remade for him—sends a pulse of heat through my chest.

I shiver. God, what a thought. But it clings to me, sharp and sweet. A new kind of anticipation unfurls inside me—deep, primal, unfamiliar. And it climbs my spine like a live wire.

I need to get on with treating him. Need to do my job.

I tear my gaze from his. Immediately, air fills my lungs. Good God, surely this is how it must feel to be extubated without warning—raw, exposed, but finally able to breathe on my own.

I pick up the paperwork, and scan through it. I’m not surprised to find my fingers are shaking. I compose myself.

"Connor Davenport. Thirty-five years. You were in a bar fight?" I ask without looking at him.

If I do, I’m going to be drawn into this strange chemistry between us again, and I don’t want that happening.

“The triage nurse was thorough,” he rumbles.

I ignore the instant leap to attention from various parts of my body and focus on the paperwork. Reading it until the end, I set it aside.

"Take off your clothes." My voice comes out husky. Like we’re in the bedroom instead of this examination room with its harsh fluorescent lights and tiles made of vinyl.

He arches an eyebrow.

My flush deepens. I clear my throat and try again, pleased when my tone is brisk instead of breathy. "I mean, please take off your jacket and T-shirt so I can examine your wounds." I keep my expression impersonal. "There’s blood on your T-shirt, under your jacket, which is ripped.”

He glances down at himself, then unfolds his body and rises to his feet. And keeps rising.

The promise of the breadth of his shoulders and of the width of his palms is borne out when I tilt my head back, then further back, to see his features. He’s tall. As tall as my brother James, who’s six-feet-four-inches.

The man shrugs off his jacket, dropping it on the treatment table.

I have a brief impression of the blood blotting the side of his T-shirt. Then he reaches behind himself—winces—and pulls it off.

Holy serotonin overdose. I draw in a sharp breath at the sight of acres of golden-brown skin, tanned by the sun. His pectoral muscles are well developed enough to warrant a dip between them. Very male nipples, and corrugated abs form an eight-pack.

Yep, an honest-to-life eight-pack, marred by an ugly bruise over his ribs on the right side. The skin is mottled and turning purple. Blood from the cut has dripped onto his jeans.

My gaze slides down to take in the mouth-watering iliac furrows on either side swooping down to the waistband of his pants. He flicks open the button, lowering his zipper.

The r-r-r-i-pping sound ricochets off the walls of the room and seems to hit me in my chest. My pulse shoots through the roof. I want him to shuck off his jeans so badly. It’s the hunger in me which brings me to my senses.

"S-stop," I croak. "You can keep your pants on." I stumble over the words like I’m thirteen, instead of a qualified trauma specialist. I need to get a grip on my emotions.

"As you wish, Doc," he drawls.

That last word feels like a caress coming from him. Another shiver squeezes my lower belly. Ridiculous. I close the distance toward him. With each step I take, expectation pitches in my chest. I am conscious of the fact he’s watching me closely as I inch toward him.

Under that sharp astringent hospital smell is something dark and smoky, like a distant campfire on a star-drenched night, with a hint of leather, maybe, from his jacket. And something else unique. Intoxicating. The scent of his skin, perhaps?

Just as I'm congratulating myself on completing what feels like a walk of shame as I near him, I stumble and pitch forward.