Page 38 of Seeley


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This time, he let me go.

And there was no rational reason for the disappointment that coursed through me as his grip fell away.

I busied myself to ease the awareness of those feelings, though, by gathering supplies and making my way back over toward where he was lounging back on the exam table.

I did not notice the way his muscles twitched and moved as he breathed. Nope. Not me. And I damn sure didn’t follow the trail of his Adonis Belt to where those deep lines disappeared into the waistband of his pants.

Because that would have been insane.

“This isn’t going to be pleasant,” I warned him as I reached for the tweezers to pull off the parts of the gauze that were still on after his shower.

“It can’t be that—“ he started, then trailed off on a hiss as I started to pull.

It didn’t stick. You didn’t put sticky gauze on a wound like this. But it was exposing the wounds to the air. Which, in and of itself, stung.

“You can curse,” I told him. “Trust me, I’ve heard it all before,” I said. “I once had a guy call me a cunt-face when I was cleaning out his infected wound. But that was better than the time a guy straight-up slapped me when I was doing a nose swab test.”

“He what?” Seeley asked, voice rough, making me chance a look up at him. Sure enough, that was anger on his stupidly good-looking face.

“He didn’t mean to. And he couldn’t have apologized more. He said I was poking his brain with the swab,” I added, able to laugh about it now that it had been over a year. At the time, I’d been a little shocked. Then, later, when I was going over it in my head, more than a little aware of how badly something could go with a patient in just a blink.

That time, it had just been a slap.

But it could be worse.

It had been worse after that.

Like the man in a mental health crisis who’d held me against the wall by my throat until the guard, Michael, and one of the guys from another exam room came over and pulled him off of me.

I’d held it together that shift. But I’d sobbed in my shower that night.

That patient was part of the reason I was trying so hard to save up to buy the clinic, to expand it to include mental health. Because a lack of comprehensive mental health care meant that other medical professionals were the first providers these patients saw, most of us completely incapable of knowing how to de-escalate that sort of situation without a heady dose of drugs.

“Did I lose you?” Seeley asked, making me quite literally shake myself out of my thoughts.

“A little.”

“Where?” he asked.

And, for some reason, I told him.

“I was thinking about the time a patient strangled me.”

“I’m sorry. What the fuck did you say? He strangled you?”

“How’d you know it was a he?” I asked, trying to play it off since he was clearly riled again, if his jaw and his hand curled into a tight fist were anything to go by.

“Ama… what the fuck?” he asked.

“I mean, you’ve been shot. Which sort of trumps my little strangling.”

“This is my lifestyle. You’re a fucking doctor. Why isn’t there better security here?”

“Better security means we’d need more money. We’re lucky we have who we have now. And the metal detector.”

“Which might protect you from guns or knives, but not strangulation.”

“It’s fine,” I assured him, even though I was charmed by his protectiveness.

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