Lanning, but she wouldn’t have wished that on anyone. “Where exactly are you abducting me to?”
“I’m not abducting you to anywhere. I’m whisking you away in a daring rescue. It’s all in how you look at things. Perspective, Nurse Izadora.”
“I still don’t know why you. You’re not exactly my Galahad, or anything like that.” Well. Technically he’d rescued her like Caine had rescued Nikkie Jean and the mayor had rescued Annie.
A few times now. A few really huge times now.
It wasn’t something romantic like it had been with Turner and Caine. It had mostly been circumstances. Rotten luck. Karma getting back at Izzie for some small slight she didn’t even remember. Maybe for something Izzie had done in a past life or something.
There was no way Izzie wanted romantic with the man next to her. The very idea had the habitual hives she’d had all her life flaring again.
No. This was not happening now.
56
Izzie wasn’t afraid of Allen. Nor was she going doofy over him anytime soon. On any level. She’d figured him out pretty early on—the man he’d been three years ago when she’d first started working at FCGH stuck out in her mind. He’d been one of the elite, the entitled, the men who thought they were better than all the little people—especially the nurses, assistants, and others who were just entering the medical fields—and arrogant.
Oh, he had walked around, thinking he was the king back then. Izzie had seen that from the very beginning.
Allen and his best buddy, Logan, had been beyond arrogant. They had never called anyone by name. Just, “Nurse, do this or that.”
She and Annie and Jillian had laughed about that so many times in those early years on second and third shift together. Even though they had all known that Allen certainly remembered Jillian’s name after about a year.
Izzie had thought it was a matter of time before they’d hooked up.
He sure didn’t look like he had back then, though. Not now. In the jeans and long-sleeve shirt, he looked stronger, harder—she’d heard through the Nikkie Jean grapevine that he’d taken to studying martial arts of some sort and lifting weights after Logan Lanning’s death. She could see where that exercise had made him even harder and toned. Whatever skills he’d picked up in martial arts had certainly paid off tonight.
Apparently, he’d kicked ass just fine. Otherwise, she’d not be sitting there right now.
He was hard as a rock. Big. Strong.
Physically, there was no way she would ever be able to win against him—especially with both arms in casts and a knee that burned every time she shifted her weight.
She considered it. She wouldn’t deny that she considered it for a long moment.
He watched her out of those eyes of his—and waited.
It was probably better to not even try. Tonight. He could pick her up and put her wherever he wanted her.
That would lead to things Izzie was not going to think about.
Like the two of them wrestling around on gray silk or something.
She’d thought about nothing else since they’d started driving through the long, rainy night. Until she’d drifted off, thoughts of him and her and that bed twisting her dreams like crazy.
She’d slept the last several hours, too. While he’d driven. She’d not wakened until he’d pulled into where here actually was.
Through the night. Through the storm. After being in a fight with three attackers.
Hell, he probably was tired. Not to mention that he was doing this to protect her. Nikkie Jean had asked him to. He hadn’t had to agree. Hadn’t had to upend his entire life—for her.
Hard to get past that.
Izzie didn’t have much of a choice. If she kept fighting him, wouldn’t that make her an evil, ungrateful bitch?
That was the last thing she wanted to be.
For some reason, Allen somehow brought out the worst in her. With the way they’d been twisted together in her dreams earlier, she was starting to suspect why.
Maybe she was as bad as the doofy first-shifters who did nothing but drool over the hottest doctors in the building. There was even a secret Top Ten of FCGH going around in text messages.
She’d been sent it fourteen times already.
Izzie hated social media.
Allen had been ranked #2—right after Rafe.
She can so see that. Although, honestly, she thought Allen was more traditionally handsome than the chief of medicine. She wasn’t ever going to tell him that.
“Fine, but you stay on top of the blankets. Your hands stay in your own bubble.” Yeah, Dr. Magic-Hands likely