Chapter 1

LARA

The first time I saw Elijah Roosevelt, he was bleeding out on my table and smiling about it.

When I tell you he was smiling, I don't mean a grin or a grimace…that might be used to hide pain, no. I meant he gave a slow smile that spread across his face, like he was really enjoying this. On his torso, there were lots of lacerations. Some of them were fresh, but some, were like…old, and these lacerations were done methodically. Like…the injuries lined up to form a heart shape on his torso.

What the fuck?

I leaned closer to examine it. Someone had deliberately and carefully done this to him. I looked at his vitals and it was… weird.

His heart rate read just fine, but his pupils were blown in a way that had nothing to do with concussion. His breathing was controlled, almost pleasured. He wasn't in distress.

He was enjoying it, the sick bastard.

I should have noticed his face first. His body. The obvious, impossible beauty of him. But what stopped me was his eyeswhiskey-dark, framed by lashes too long for a man like him, watching me the way a predator watches is prey.

And the truth was, in my many years of working and in my life, I had never seen any man as beautiful as he was. And I hated that I noticed.

"Dr Ford," he said, calling my last name with contempt, his voice low, and rough from pain and tiredness… or something else, I had no time to think much about it. But I knew that it made something crawl under my skin… not in a bad way. "You're even prettier than your hospital bio photo."

I didn't react. I'd learned to freeze my face years agothe first time Delson backhanded me across a restaurant table and I had to smile through the blood. Ignoring him, I snapped on my gloves and arranged my surgical tools.

"Mr. Roosevelt. You have multiple wounds requiring suturing. I need to numb the area before I begin."

"No."

I paused. "No?"

"No anesthetic." He said it casually, like as if he was ordering coffee. "It takes the edge off the experience."

The experience. Not the procedure or the pain. The experience.

I looked at him. His jaw was as sharp as a razor. A faint scar crossed the left eyebrow. His lips were full, the lower one split a little fresh, from whatever had put him on my table. I looked away too quickly.

"You want me to stitch you up while you are fully conscious and without any drugs." I repeated to him.

"I want you to stitch my wounds while I feel every needle come in and out of me." He shifted on the table and the movement pulled at a gash in his ribs. I saw muscle beneath his broad chest, dark hair trailing down his stomach. He had the kind of body that had been in fights and won most of them. "Can you do that Doctor? Or should I ask for someone else?"

I should have walked out and called security, telling them this guy was sick and that they should let someone else handle the mob boss who watched me like I was a puzzle he had already solved.

I didn't. Instead, I moved over to the end of the room and brought out a clipboard. Glaring at him, I flash ut to his face. "Here. It's a waiver. You're going to sign it before I start anything." I said.

He raised his bŕows in shock. "I have to sign a waiver? You have a waiver for this?"

His eyebrows lifted. "You have a waiver for this?"

"I'm about to write one." I said, taking the clipboard from his face and drafting out a signed agreement.

That got a real smile out of himnot the wolfish one, but something almost human. It changed his whole face. Made him look younger. Less like a monster and more like a man.

I ignored the way my stomach flipped.

The first stitch went in clean.

I'd done this thousands of timesneedle angled just right, knot pulled tight enough to close without tearing. But I'd never done it without anesthetic. I'd never watched a patient's breath hitch, felt the tremor run through his muscles, and known the tremor wasn't pain.

His breath came faster. His fingers curled into the sheets. But he didn't make a sound. Not a grunt, not a gasp. Just that slow, steady breathing, each exhale longer than the last.

That's when I noticed.

The thin hospital gown did nothing to hide it. The ridge of him, pressing against the fabric, unmistakable. He was hard. Fully, visibly hard, while I pierced his skin with a needle.

I looked away. My face burned.

Don't stare. Don't react. He doesn't need to know you saw.

But I couldn't stop stealing glances. The line of his jaw. The way his throat moved when he swallowed. The dark hair falling across his forehead, slightly damp with sweat. His handsGod, his handslarge, veins visible along the backs, fingers curled into fists on the table.

He was the most beautiful man I'd ever seen.

And he was aroused.

By me.

Or maybe by the pain. Maybe it had nothing to do with me at all.

The thought shouldn't have disappointed me.

"Your vitals are spiking," I said, aiming for clinical. My voice came out rougher than I intended.

"I know."

"This is a physiological response to"

"To you." He opened his eyes, and I forgot how to breathe. "You could hurt me right now. Slip. Cause real damage. And you won't. Because you're good at what you do. But here's the question."

I waited.

"What does it feel like," he asked softly, "to know you could?"

My hand didn't shake. But somewhere behind my ribs, something cracked open.

I finished the suture. Tied it off. Cut the thread.

Then I stepped back, stripped off my gloves, and wrote his chart with a hand that was absolutely steady.

"You'll need to stay for observation," I said. "Twenty-four hours. I want to monitor your vitals overnight."

He didn't argue. Didn't ask me to come back. Just watched me with those whiskey-dark eyes, his body still half-exposed, his erection still visible beneath the thin gown.

I didn't look.

I didn't.

"Dr. Ford."

I stopped at the door. Didn't turn around.

"Thank you," he said quietly. "For not flinching."

I walked out.

I made it to the elevator before my hands started shaking.

The Ford Estate was dark when I got home.

Three in the morning. Delson's car was in the driveway, which meant he'd come home earlyalways a bad sign. Early meant bored. Bored meant restless. Restless meant he'd find something to punish me for.

I slipped off my heels in the foyer. Padded barefoot up the stairs. Opened the bedroom door as quietly as I could.

The lamp on his side clicked on.

"Lara."

Delson was sitting up in bed, shirt open, jaw tight. Handsome in the way expensive things were handsomepolished, cold, designed to intimidate. Blond hair. Blue eyes. A mouth that smiled for cameras and nothing else.

He looked nothing like Elijah Roosevelt.

The thought came unbidden. I crushed it.

"You're late."

"There was a trauma admission. I couldn't leave."

"A trauma admission." He swung his legs over the side of the bed. Crossed to me in three long strides. His hand found my chin, tilted my face up to his. "I heard Elijah Roosevelt was admitted to your hospital tonight."

My heart stopped.

How?

"I wouldn't know," I said carefully. "I wasn't told the patient's name until I arrived."

"And when you arrived?"

"I treated him. He's stable." I kept my voice flat. "Is there a reason you're asking?"

His thumb traced my lower lip. Gentle. Almost loving.

That was how I knew I should be afraid.

"Elijah Roosevelt is my enemy, Lara. He's tried to take everything from memy business, my reputation, my father's approval." His thumb stopped moving. "If I find out you touched him any more than medicine requiredif I find out you enjoyed touching himI will make you regret the day your father sold you to me."

I didn't flinch.

I'd learned not to.

"Of course," I said. "May I shower now? I smell like antiseptic."

Delson studied me for a long, terrible moment. Then he smiledthat smile I'd learned to dread, the one that meant he'd already decided I was guilty and was just choosing the punishment.

"Shower," he said. "Then come to bed. I have needs too, wife."