Sexual Healing for Three (15 page)

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“I’m going to kill you, you bitch!”

These were the last words Donna heard before Luther Bryant, the husband of her latest client, Dehlia, went on a rampage, breaking
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away from the court officer who had been escorting him from the courtroom to go after Donna.

No one should have been surprised, least of all Donna, by Luther’s sudden attack, but he had managed to catch the court officer and her off guard nonetheless. Before anyone knew what his intentions were, Luther had his cuffed hands around Donna’s neck, squeezing tight for several endless moments before headbutting her into unconsciousness.

Donna wouldn’t use the fact that she had been preoccupied with Dehlia, hammering out the details of her client’s approaching stay at Safe Haven. She should have been prepared for an outburst, especially since Luther had seemed so cowed and subdued in the courtroom when the judge refused to set bail, barking orders at the court officers to take the defendant out of his sight as he’d banged his gavel.

Donna had been heartened by the motion, glad that at least this part of the system was working for Dehlia. But the victory was short-lived because Donna knew all that pent-up aggression that Luther usually let out on his wife had to be directed at someone. She was just glad it was her and not Dehlia. She didn’t think her client could take another beatdown or stay in the hospital away from her kids.

It wasn’t like Donna was so eager for a visit to the hospital herself. Aside from the knock on her noggin and a pounding headache that still had her woozy and seeing double a half an hour after the incident, she felt as fit as a fiddle and tried to convince the EMTs that were summoned to the scene to tend to her that she didn’t need to go to the hospital.

Just the thought of going to the nearest emergency room sent her internal organs pumping in a frenzy of confusion and lust, the insides of her thighs becoming slick at the mere idea of seeing Chance again, even briefly.

She had been successful at avoiding him only because, like a gift from the gods, she had had a slow couple of weeks, at least two weeks 114

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that didn’t necessitate her accompanying any new charges on a trip to her favorite hospital. Of course this didn’t mean the two weeks had been uneventful. Trips to court never came without their own set of obstacles and difficulties, though they were a totally different set of obstacles and difficulties than involved running into one irresistible doctor.

Right now Donna didn’t know which was worse—having to face down furious boyfriends, husbands, and their court-appointed attorneys in court before a judge she hoped was sympathetic enough to her clients to give them the tools they needed to keep the violent bastards off their doorstep, or having to face one sexy doctor in the emergency room when an Order of Protection failed to do its job and said boyfriends and husbands injured one of her clients.

She would have been more than happy facing down another Luther if it meant she didn’t have to risk seeing Chance. She had been ignoring his calls the last couple of weeks, trying to keep her distance and get some perspective on what had happened two Saturdays ago at her sister’s and later at her own house with Chance’s brother.

So far, staying away from the brothers had been easy, but she wasn’t fool enough to think that either of them would be giving up the ship any time soon. She remembered that incendiary kiss Chance had laid on her before leaving the barbecue. She remembered the hot, dark expression in Russ’s eyes before he left her house and realized how close she had come to jumping into the sack with someone she was nowhere near capable of handling.

The last should have been a good thing. She didn’t want a man she could
handle,
did she? Was she even sure what kind of man she wanted, if she wanted a man at all?

In her position daily guiding women through the legal system and sheltering others when it failed to protect them from the men who had sworn to, at the very least, care about them, she got an up-close-and-personal look at relationships gone horribly wrong. She’d like to think she was intelligent enough not to let the underbelly of life, the dark
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part of her job, influence her view of men, but it was difficult not to lump all of them under one negative category when she was surrounded by constant reminders of how cruel and uncaring some of them could be.

Reminding herself that it was only
some
men didn’t help. In fact, the only thing that did help was thinking of Chance and Russ and how different they were from all the other men she knew, how unique they were even from each other. Of course, this kind of defeated the purpose of keeping her distance if she was only going to pine for them in the long run anyway, holding them up as the standard of positive male role models and manhood.

“I know you’re nervous, but it’s just a precaution. Head injuries can be tricky. We just want to make sure you’re okay.”

Donna gave the EMT riding in back with her a weak smile. If he only knew the real reason her heart was playing hopscotch in her chest—the noise all but obliterating the sound of the ambulance’s sirens as it pulled into the back entrance of Belfiore Hospital—he’d be cautioning her about the drawbacks of putting her heart on the line rather than worrying about her head injury.

Donna took a deep breath as the back door opened and the driver helped his partner move the stretcher she was strapped to from the back of the ambulance, onto the pavement. They were all immediately met by two doctors from the hospital who accompanied them toward the pneumatic doors as one of the EMTs filled them in on her physical state.

Neither of the doctors was Chance, and Donna breathed a sigh of relief, temporary though it was since she was sure he was on duty and it was only a matter of time before they crossed paths. Unless she got this examination wrapped up as quickly as possible and managed to get discharged before seeing him.

The EMTs helped transfer her from their stretcher to a stretcher in one of the treatment rooms, and the doctors went to work looking into her eyes with a penlight, taking her blood pressure, listening to her 116

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heart, and performing a neurological exam to ascertain her motor skills and mental status. The mental part she passed with flying colors, remembering exactly what had happened to her, where she was, her name, and the day and date. Her coordination was a little off, however. This and the bruises on her head and around her neck had the doctors most concerned, so they ordered a CT scan to discern what kind of damage they were dealing with. She had lost consciousness, after all, and subdural hematoma was a possibility, however remote.

Donna lay in the bed now, counting ceiling tiles as the doctors went off to contact radiology and schedule the scan. She was tempted to get up and leave, but after the little staggering incident she’d had while walking across the floor for the doctors a few minutes ago, she thought better of it.

Damn it, she hated being vulnerable like this. She was trapped.

Chance could walk in any minute. He was the chief resident, and unless he was elbow- and knee-deep in an emergency or treating someone, it wouldn’t be beyond the realm of possibility for him to walk by the treatment room and spot her before they took her away to get the CT scan. It was only a miracle that he hadn’t seen her already.

The thought struck her suddenly that maybe he knew she was in his emergency room and was avoiding her, tit for tat. Not that she thought he was petty, but maybe, just maybe, he had gotten the message from her dodging his calls and decided to leave her alone.

Fat chance he’d gotten the message.

Something told Donna Chance wasn’t the type of man to give up that easily. Either he was busy in another area of the emergency room, or he was—

“What the hell happened to you?”

—on his way to see her now.

“Nice to see you too.” Donna tried to sound cool and unfazed, but at the sight of Chance, her salivary glands went into overdrive, and she got a watery sensation in her mouth. She put it down to the
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automatic drooling reaction she usually had when Chance was in the vicinity, but then she tasted bile in her throat and suddenly felt nauseous, and all thoughts of lust and romantic reunions flew right out of her traumatized head as she surged to a sitting position, and frantically looked around the room for the nearest receptacle in which to throw up.

Chance was either a mind reader or her face just looked that green because no sooner had she had the thought than he was across the room and magically wielding a shiny bed pan.

He gently collared the back of her neck with one hand and shoved the pan in front of her like a sacrificial offering with the other.

Donna didn’t think twice about heaving into it, didn’t think about all the tails under which it had been or the waste that had been bestowed upon it in another life. She just knew Chance wouldn’t put her in jeopardy and would take care of her, and nothing but a spic-and-span pan would do.

When she thought she had emptied pretty much everything she had ingested for breakfast and lunch earlier in the day, which wasn’t much, she leaned back on the inclined head of the bed..

Chance proffered a cup of cold water, and she took a few sips before he patted her perspiring face with a cool, damp cloth.

His hands were so tender against her face and totally belied his earlier angry tone. She wondered if he
had
been angry, or had it just been her imagination?

“I’m sorry I didn’t return any of your calls. It wasn’t you. It was me,” she blurted, and he grinned at her cliché.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“But you deserve an explanation.”

“We can talk about it later. Right now I want to know how you’re feeling.”

“I’ve been better.”

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“I’ll bet.” He gently guided her back against the hospital bed and lowered it to a reclining position. “Just lie back and relax. You need to rest.”

She thought to argue with him. How could she relax when she felt so lousy? How could she rest when she had a job to do and myriad Dehlias counting on her help and expertise?

But then Chance smoothed a hand against the bruise on her forehead, and she felt a rush of soothing heat radiating from his fingers directly to her brain cells, making her eyes so heavy she couldn’t keep them open a minute longer. She most definitely couldn’t dwell on what she thought was happening to her, what supernatural powers Chance seemed to be using on her.

Finally, she gave into blessed unconsciousness.

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Chance winced at the discoloration around Donna’s throat and wondered at the pressure that had to be exerted to put it there. He wondered at the monster who had exerted that pressure.

He gritted his teeth and cursed under his breath as he stood to draw the privacy curtain around her bed, still astonished that Donna had responded to his mental influence since he was so inexperienced, especially never having used it to put anyone to sleep.

He’d felt her brief struggle against his suggestion, the slight push he gave her toward slumber, his actions not unlike casting a spell with a melodious and repetitive psychic chant. Chance knew, had she been well and herself, she might have guessed what he was doing and fought a lot harder.

He went back to her side ready to work. Now that she was asleep, he could finish what he’d started when he first touched her forehead.

He sat down on the bed and reached out his hands to wrap around her throat, but instead of choking and doing damage, he circled his thumbs along the front of her neck in a gentle massage. He watched as the bruises gradually faded from black and blue to green and yellow until finally they disappeared entirely.

Chance closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and automatically grasped the crystal pendant around his neck in one hand. This next undertaking would involve a lot more concentration and energy than the largely cosmetic work he had just done on her throat.

He moved his hands to Donna’s face, cupping her head and psychically scanning her brain for any damage. He sighed with relief when he detected no bleeding or swelling, but there was no doubt she 120

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had a concussion and would be hurting when she woke up if he didn’t do something to heal the wound.

Not wanting her to suffer a moment longer than necessary, Chance reached out with mental fingers to lightly rub the surface of her brain, transmitting his healing energy directly to and smoothing the sore spot.

Donna frowned and moaned in her sleep. Chance felt her struggling to wake up, awed by her strength and will when she pushed against his psychic energy with her own as if testing him, or testing herself.

Chance visualized her power—a glowing red, sinuous cord that slithered toward his blue cord before pausing, then warily circling his pulsing thread. Establishing that it was okay to proceed, her red cord came closer and corkscrewed around his blue, supercoiling like a DNA double helix before melding.

He gasped at the unexpected contact, but didn’t retreat, instead twined around her, vibrating within her warm clutch, inviting her to tighten her hold. Tentatively, she contracted around him, her strand sensually stroking against his before slowly sliding away, leaving a trail of seductive essence in her wake.

He had never experienced anything so erotic without physical, sexual contact and was shocked that he was hard—as a stone.

Chance popped open his eyes and snatched his hands away from Donna’s head. His entire body was warm, flushed with desire and guilt. He felt dirty, as if he had molested an unconscious woman. He was felt like he was taking advantage of the defenseless, acting no better than a necrophiliac or a pedophile.

He leapt off the bed and took a couple of steps back, staring down at Donna’s serene features as his heart expanded in his chest so much he thought it would explode. He reached out to her, gently brushing over her mind to ensure that she wasn’t in any pain. Once he confirmed her condition, he motioned to leave, drawing open the
Sexual Healing for Three