Devil's Plaything (Playthings, #1) (5 page)

At Dr. Rodgers’s—Shayla’s—expectant stare, she responded, “Oh, sorry, Shayla. My head is in the clouds, as usual.”

She smiled up at the doctor’s kind face and saw the look of concern. “You sure?” she asked as she settled in the brightly colored plastic chair next to Julie. So like Shayla. Most of the doctors, and a big swathe of the nurses, didn’t really bother with the orderlies and custodians, but Shayla took time for everyone, and over the last several years, she and Julie had built something of a friendship. As an emergency-room physician, Dr. Rodgers—Shayla, she had to keep reminding herself—worked constantly, but she and Julie had coffee or lunch at least a couple of times a week and had even gone to a couple of art festivals.

“No, I’m fine. I just didn’t get enough sleep last night. Thanks for asking though,” she said with what she hoped was a friendly smile.

Shayla looked unconvinced, and she was absolutely undeterrable until she got a satisfactory response. And while Julie was dying to talk to someone about her mysterious visitor, something—well, many things actually—held her back. She couldn’t imagine how someone else would react if she explained the situation, that she’d been sleeping with a man for over a year—God, had been
that
long?—and didn’t know his name, occupation, address, hell, that she even suspected he might be involved in some less-than-legal activities, and maybe was undocumented, but that she turned a blind eye because the sex was off the charts. It sounded
insane
in her head, but out loud, ugh, she didn’t even dare.

“Ugh, I heard there’s another festival next weekend. You up for it?” Not the smoothest effort at changing the subject, but maybe it would stick.

“Oh God, Julie,” Shayla leaned back in her chair and pursed her lips like she’d just sucked on a lemon. “Real talk: I hate art. It’s stupid. Wait, let me rephrase. It’s not stupid. It’s totally cool and entertaining... for people who aren’t me. I’d rather work a triple,” she grumbled.

Julie laughed and Shayla joined in. “So why do we go?” she asked after their laughter had calmed.

“You know, it’s the shit high-class folks are supposed to do, and I hear my grandmother’s voice in my ear extolling the virtues of ‘culture,’ but life’s too short. I mean, if I see another goddamned cat statute! That’s not even art!”

Mission accomplished. Shayla appeared to have been successfully diverted.

“And besides, there are better ways to spend time. Oh, for instance,” Shayla leaned forward excitedly, “Nurse Wilson is starting up a spades league. Wanna be my partner? Come on. It’ll be fun!”

Julie hesitated. Shayla was great, but she wasn’t sure about getting too social with others at the hospital.

“I recognize that face, Julie. Let’s just check it out, okay? If we hate it, we can join a bowling team or something.”

Shayla was a force of nature normally, but when focused, Julie was basically powerless to resist her. “Fine, fine. I’m in.”

“Yeah! Now why didn’t you get enough sleep last night?”

Mission unaccomplished.

“Oh, you didn’t think I was gonna let you hold out on me? No, ma’am. Spill it. I want it all—”

“Paging Dr. Rodgers. Dr. Rodgers, please report to the emergency room.”

“Saved by the bell,” Julie said with a smile.

“Temporary,” Shayla responded as she stood and tossed her cup into the nearest trash can. “Duty calls, but I will have satisfaction. And I’ll let you know about the card game. Tootles.”

“Bye, Shay,” Julie said, her spirits lifted by her friend’s visit.

Now she just had to keep them that way.

••••

T
he rest of the day went by uneventfully, and though her work was grueling, Julie found the sometimes-tedious tasks, broken up with an occasional conversation with a patient or their family as she cleaned the rooms, helped keep her mind focused and her thoughts off
him.
It was still light out, so she’d shower and walk home, and by the time she got there, she’d be too wiped to think.

As she walked through the long, winding hospital corridors, she decided to stop off at the emergency room to see Shayla before she headed out. She may not have the strength, or the desire, really, to end her strange affair, but that didn’t mean she had to stay cloistered inside, waiting. She turned a corner and stopped short, shock loosening her fingers and allowing her bag to slip free.

It was him.

There he sat, in her emergency room, boots, cargo pants, and T-shirt, as always. For a moment she thought he was a mirage, but no, he was there, and, wait, his shirt had blood on it. Julie’s heart started to race, and her lungs froze, air unwilling to leave her chest.

Oh God, he was hurt!

She started toward him, hand out, but he looked up, the briefest flare of surprise in his eyes before it was flattened to his usual placid expression. He flinched and shook his head. Every instinct screamed that she should go to him, but he shook his head again, this time more forcefully before he looked away. With dawning horror, Julie realized he didn’t want her to come to him, was insisting that she not.

She turned on her heel and ran straight into Shayla.

“You headed out?”

She nodded, and Shayla continued on excitedly, seemingly oblivious that anything was wrong.

“Okay. Have a good night and get some rest. See you tomorrow, and I’ll call about the card game.”

Julie nodded again, unable to form words in the face of what was unfolding. She looked back at him one last time. He’d averted his gaze and appeared to have no intention of glancing her way.

“Bye, Shay,” she said as she walked out through the double doors.

••••

T
he loud
click
of the doors closing was like a gunshot in D’yavol’s ears. The voices floating across the room, both of the sick and injured and their frazzled loved ones, sounded especially loud, and the harsh fluorescent lights were especially bright.

She’d been here. He’d felt that fizzle of awareness, felt goose bumps break out over his arms, and then he’d seen her, dressed in her medical scrubs much like that first day, her hair pulled back in a tight bun. The light cast a pallor over her skin, and he could see the signs of her physical exhaustion in the slump of her shoulders and the way she leaned to the side, but her beautiful brown eyes were as vital, alive, as they’d always been.

He’d wanted to hide, slink away before she saw him, but he couldn’t, was aware the instant she recognized him, saw the play of emotions: fear, worry, happiness, and finally rejection. If things were different, if he was different, he’d have gone to her, held her until that furrow in her brow smoothed and that soft, dreamy expression that he sometimes saw before she’d smile shyly and looked away returned.

But things weren’t different and neither was he, and as much as he wanted to touch her in the broad light of day he wouldn’t risk it—wouldn’t risk her—no matter that the hurt in her eyes, the fact that he’d put it there, ripped him apart.

D’yavol looked around and tried to refocus on the problem at hand. Julie aside, he shouldn’t be here. He avoided hospitals, an old habit that he’d found hard to shake even as he tried to drift further away from the rowdiness and violence of his past. But still, though he was probably unnecessarily paranoid, he felt it wasn’t good to be seen, especially in official places with official questions, but it had been a necessity this time. At practice today he’d been tired, unfocused, and one of the young upstarts had made him pay. A clean shot to the back of the head had stunned him momentarily, and the building had fallen silent, the air practically buzzing as they waited for his response. Which, ordinarily, would have been swift and brutal, but this time, the rage just hadn’t been there. Two quick left hooks to teach the kid a lesson, after which he’d gotten on with the sparring.

The warm trickle at the back of his neck had made him raise his hand, and his fingers had come away covered in blood. He’d stared down and saw the blood on his fingers, his own blood for once, and the anger, at himself, at the kid, at everything, had far outstripped the pain. The bleeding had continued, and Demon insisted he needed to go to the hospital. D’yavol had been reluctant, but Demon’s teasing about him dying alone in his sleep had convinced him. He’d never given much thought to death, at least not his own, but he’d imagined it then, had wondered if Julie would worry if he just never showed up again—something he’d tried to delude himself into believing he had the capacity to do—and been swayed. Besides, between the fake ID and the large indigent population the local charity hospital serviced, he shouldn’t face too many questions.

“Bob Lawrence.”

D’yavol looked up when he heard his fake name. The pretty doctor that Julie had been talking to held a clipboard and looked around the waiting area. He stood and walked toward her.

“I’m Dr. Rodgers, and I’ll be taking care of you today,” she said as she led him into a small triage room. The tiny cot in the room wouldn’t support him, so she said, “Here, just have a seat and we’ll take a look.”

He settled into the chair, and she pulled on latex gloves and started to remove the gauze he’d stuck over the wound to capture the blood.

“Looks like there still some light bleeding,” she said as she lightly probed the area, “but the cut doesn’t look too deep.”

She pulled over a stool and sat in front of him, flashing a light into his eyes.

“Pupils look good. Please follow the light.” He complied as she moved it left and right, up and down. “Any loss of consciousness? Dizziness? Nausea? Double vision?” she asked, and he responded that there wasn’t. “Okay, good. I don’t think there’s any head trauma, but you’ll need stitches.” She stared into his eyes. “Any chance you’ll tell me how this happened, Mr.
Lawrence
?”

D’yavol wanted to smile at her raised brow, but instead said, “Accident at work.”

She huffed and stood. “Ah, the generic work accident. And let me guess, you’re ‘self-employed,’ right? Or wait, you have no recollection of your employer’s name or the location of the accident or any of those other pesky details?” She leveled a withering glare at him, one he suspected usually got her what she wanted, but he stayed silent, and after a moment, she nodded. “Fair enough, I suppose. I need to debride the area and put in sutures. Let me get you something for the pain, and I should have you out shortly.”

“No medicine. Please just do what you need.”

She looked surprised momentarily, then nodded and begin setting up a tray with the necessary equipment. After a moment, she walked back over to him and again started to probe the wound.

“I’ll need to shave a bit of hair. Is that okay?”

He nodded, and the doctor proceeded. He let his mind drift, the surprise, then concern, then anguish on Julie’s face playing on a loop. For some reason, it had never occurred to him that Julie might care for him beyond sex. Which was stupid, probably willfully so. She’d been so patient, so undemanding, but D’yavol had convinced himself that it was just her personality, how she was with everyone. But that face today, that depth of emotion couldn’t be for just anyone. It was for him.

Because she felt something for him.

If he was even a tenth of the man she deserved, he’d never see her again, let her forget about him and live the life she deserved. But he wasn’t. He was a monster. He beat people up for the amusement of others. And he liked it. No, he loved it, coveted it, sought it out.

And he was selfish.

So selfish that as soon as he left this hospital, as dangerous and insane as it was, as exhausted as he was, he was going to Julie.

T
he walk home hadn’t done any good. The miles passed in a blur as she’d turned the incident over again and again. She’d been genuinely shocked to see him outside. It was silly, she knew, but she’d halfway convinced herself he was a ghost, a fantasy, but seeing him there, in the real world, in
her
hospital put that to rest. Surprisingly, when she thought back on it, she realized his physical magnetism was even more pronounced than when they were alone. She’d walked through that emergency room a thousand times, more, and rarely, if ever, did she pay much attention to the patients. But he’d drawn her eye like a beacon, and everything else had faded away. She cursed the attraction, the power he clearly held over her, and that was only compounded by his rejection.

The anger had burned through her like a forest fire at the thought. The tiny part of her that was still rational screamed that she didn’t even know his freaking name so what should she expect? But the other, much, much larger, part of her, would hear none of it. She deserved more, damn it. She wasn’t asking for his social security number, for God’s sake. To literally shoo her away, she couldn’t—wouldn’t—stand for it.

After arriving home, she flopped down on the love seat and turned on the television, needing something to break the silence. The overexaggerated laughter from some cheesy sitcom flooded the space and, if anything, made her feel even worse, as if they were mocking the sad state of her pathetic life. She stood and clicked the TV off and restlessly prowled her small home. Hoping a shower would help, she stripped off her scrubs and headed for the bathroom, a bit excited about standing under the spray. Her shower stall was one of the few benefits of the whole studio. It was small, very small, in fact, but her slightly below average height meant she could stand under the spray, and the ancient pipes provided extremely hot water, at least as long as there was water in the water heater. Hell, she decided she’d be decadent and wash and condition her hair while she was at it. It’d be a frizzy mass when she was done, but the routine was relaxing, and it’d give her something to do besides stew.

An hour later, scrubbed clean from head to toe and muscles relaxed from the pounding hot water, Julie decided to settle down for bed. It was early yet, but she wasn’t in the mood for television or reading. She pulled back the curtain and settled between the sheets, the coolness of the linen soothing on naked, slightly damp flesh. Lying on her left side, she looked out of the window. The streetlights had clicked on, and the sounds from the neighborhood were transitioning from day to night. She watched the shadows expand and eat up the light, her thoughts inevitably straying to him, them—not that there even was a
them
. How could she have been so stupid? She knew better than to hope, than to have expectations, especially if they involved someone else.