“Some people get down on their knees to pray. Me—I got a tattoo.”
She acknowledged him with a nod. He stated it as fact, but there was sadness in his voice. She examined his bruised ribs, pushing her right palm against them. “Does this hurt?”
“A little.”
“Did you hear a popping noise? Do you feel like something’s moving?”
“No.”
There was discoloration on his skin, a patch of red that was beginning to turn blue. No swelling at least. She pushed harder on various spots. He didn’t flinch. His body was rock hard. “No fractures, just bruises.” She took a hospital gown from the counter and gave it to him. “Please put this on.”
He acquiesced.
“Okay, I’m going to stitch you up. Are you ready?”
“My life is in your hands.” He gave her an irresistible smile.
She stood before him. Their faces were so close to each other he could probably hear the hammering of her heart. She touched his wound to make sure the anesthesia was working. “Does this feel numb?”
“Yeah.”
He trained his eyes on her like a laser beam. Between his gaze and her galloping heart, how was she supposed to do her work? She tilted her head away from him. “Can you close your eyes, please?”
He smiled, then obeyed.
Fifteen minutes later, it was over. She examined the stitches, marveling at his face—high cheek bones, aquiline nose, beautiful lips that needed healing. No man as attractive as he had ever walked into her ER before. It was reason enough to make any woman, doctor or not, excited. Who was the Juggernaut? What was he all about?
“You can open your eyes now.”
When he did, she stepped back, unable to stand his gaze. “You have seven stitches. They have to be removed in five days. Come back here on Sunday.”
“I have to come back here?” He hopped off the bed, removed the hospital gown, and put on his shirt.
“You don’t have to, but your ER fee covers the removal of the stitches. If you go somewhere else, you’ll be paying for a service you’ve already paid for. It’s up to you.”
He nodded. “Will you be here on Sunday?”
“No. But another doctor will take care of you.”
He seemed disappointed, but he thanked her for the stitches.
She went to the sink to wash her hands, relieved the procedure was over. She turned around. “Put ice on your bruises. Take ibuprofen if your forehead hurts.”
He leaned against the bed, his gaze fastened on hers. “What does S stand for?”
“Excuse me?” The man liked to say things out of the blue.
He pointed at the left side of her scrub blouse.
She glanced down at the embroidery that read S. Carr, MD. “It stands for Siena, with one n. I was named after a small city in Italy.”
“Are you Italian?”
“No. But my parents love Italy. I’m very fond of it as well.” That was an understatement. She was bound to Italy spiritually. Every visit there was so exhilarating that it touched her soul.
“Siena.” His voice sounded like a caress; his stare was like a kiss.
Warmth spread across her face. “No sparring for at least two weeks, okay?”
“Two weeks?” He poked out his bottom lip. He looked like a boy.
Boyish face and sturdy physique. The combination was giving her palpitations. Good looks alone had never impressed her. This man had something else altogether—presence, disarming directness, power. If she stayed another second, she was in danger of proving Nancy and Jonah right. She must leave. Pronto.
“Good luck.” She turned on her heels.
“Siena!”
She stopped, glancing over her shoulder.
“Siena with one n. I like that very much.”
The words Excuse me? were on the tip of her tongue, but she caught herself. “Thank you.”
Determined not to give herself away, she left calmly, though her heart was far from serene.
Chapter 2
Tommy Raines was back inside the ER five days after he’d met Siena Carr. Although he knew she wouldn’t be there that day, his heart sank when a male doctor showed up to remove his stitches.
While the man fiddled with Tommy’s eyebrow, he closed his eyes and conjured up Siena’s image—face as delicate as a bone china cup, big brown eyes that sometimes looked innocent and sometimes sultry, and shoulder-length, golden brown hair. The two beauty marks, one on each cheek, made her twice as beautiful. She was around five-foot-three and probably weighed 110 pounds. He could bench-press two of her. It would be nice to “power lift” her onto his bed.
He smiled at the thought. She exuded the kind of sexuality that took him by surprise. Hell, ambush was more like it. In his vocabulary, the word “sexy” didn’t apply to a woman wearing shapeless scrubs and no makeup, no cleavage showing, no display of skin whatsoever. And yet she radiated sex.
The letter S embroidered on her blouse was now emblazoned in his mind. S for Siena. S for soft and sumptuous. S for all-night, all-weekend sex with her was the fantasy presently consuming him. He’d been imagining it from the moment he’d met her.
His lust was in overdrive. Not having any sexual relations in almost a year might have something to do with it. The abstinence was self-imposed. There was no shortage of women throwing themselves at his feet, but he’d learned the hard way he couldn’t train properly while he was dating.
He’d lived with his last girlfriend, Rachel, a hairstylist at a posh salon. She’d offered him a refuge from the stress of watching his mother die of cancer and from the pressures of training. She’d given him a haven, at least for a while.
Two months before the Olympics, she’d started dropping hints that she wanted a commitment from Tommy, as in an engagement ring on her finger. When he failed to produce, her hints had grown into demands, which had turned into crying fits that lasted for hours at a time.
He’d been so terribly distracted by the drama that his coach had threatened to pull him out of the competition. So when Rachel gave him an ultimatum, he’d moved out of her apartment and out of her life altogether.
It was the right thing to do. He had dominated the men’s middleweight competition and won America’s only gold medal in boxing.
On the day he began training full time to turn pro, he also started his abstinence from sex. The goal: to stay celibate until the Las Vegas fight. No deviations, romantic or otherwise, until then.
But now he’d been ambushed by a woman in scrubs. All he could think of was kissing those lips that looked so damn luscious whenever she said, “Excuse me?” She was so feminine and dainty that he could barely stop himself from scooping her up. No woman should look that beautiful in front of a man who was avoiding sex.
There were three long months of arduous training ahead of him before his big fight. What should he do? Could he wait to bed Siena that long?
By the time his stitches were removed and he opened his eyes, he knew the answer. No, he wouldn’t wait three agonizing months. He just couldn’t. He must see her now. It was Sunday afternoon, and the weekend was almost over. His fantasy of spending two days in bed with her would have to wait. Not for long, he hoped.
He scoured the busy corridors of the Emergency Department for either the nurse or the clerk