Page 9 of Sinful in Scrubs

I found Jason in the living room, playing the video game his sister had been adamant about limiting his time on. Only this time, she wasn’t harassing him, and instead of blasting the volume, he wore a set of sound-dampening headphones. I left him to his game and headed to the kitchen.

Grabbing a beer out of the fridge, I peered through the lid of the crockpot to see what Lily had been making for dinner before heading upstairs to check in with her. Since moving to the city, she had taken on a lot of responsibility, and I knew it hadn’t been easy.

When I tapped on her bedroom door and didn’t get an answer, I gently pushed it open. Lily sat at her desk, wearing a pair of those same sound-dampening headphones. Instead of playing a game, she was lip-syncing to her music, her head bobbing in time, while she appeared to be doing homework. Smiling to myself, I quietly closed the door so as not to disturb her.

The next morning at the hospital, I searched for Dr. Chen. When I finally found her, she glanced up at me, raising an eyebrow.

“What do you mean, you’ve been looking for me?” she asked.

5

EMMA

“Dr. Chen. Can we talk about intake protocols?” Dr. Walker’s voice had a condescending tone to it.

“What about them?” I may have snapped.

“I observed you yesterday. Damn, you are smooth.” Marcus Walker’s voice had a growl in it that was simply not fair. I refused to let anything about this man affect me, especially that rumble.

“Smooth as silk,” I retorted.

“Are you this driven in all aspects of your life? I’ve found that drive and passion go hand in hand.”

Damn it, had his voice gotten even deeper in tone? I needed this man to take a step back. His proximity felt confining. And it seemed that I wanted to lean in. No, not happening. No entanglements, no leaning into deep, rich voices. I straightened my spine.

“My private life is just that, private. Good day, Dr. Walker.” I spun on my heel and began walking away, head up, shoulders back.

His footfalls were heavy drumbeats on the floor behind me. And then he was next to me again and in my personal space.

“Let me buy you dinner,” he said.

I kept walking, barely glancing over at him. I had to tilt my head to see his face. Deep voice, great shoulders, and tall. He wasn’t being fair.

“I don’t date doctors,” I said as flatly as I could muster.

“First off, I didn’t say it was a date. I wanted to talk to you about establishing some intake protocols.”

I stopped and shot a glare in his direction.

He held his hands up defensively. “Okay, okay, I did ask to buy you dinner. But that’s funny, seeing how you are a doctor yourself.”

“I don’t date myself, so the dating rule still applies.” I started walking again.

Marcus matched my pace. “I like a good challenge.”

“That wasn’t a challenge, Dr. Walker.” I stopped and faced him, tipping my face ever so slightly to look up into his eyes and then narrowing my own. “That’s a boundary.”

I didn’t wait for his response. My heart was pounding heavily and loudly, and my breathing echoed in my ears. I didn’t want him to hear just how loud my body was being at the moment, afraid that if he did, he would know I was faking it all. Who the hell did that man think he was, telling me that we needed intake protocols for the trauma department?

I was not going to let this new doctor get under my skin, no matter how much my skin seemed to want it to happen.

I could just hear Sarah chuckling in the back of my head. He wants to work with you. He wants to collaborate.

“Is that what you’re calling it these days, collaboration?” I muttered. “We used to just call it hooking up.”

I scrunched my face and tried to shut up the inner voice that sounded entirely too much like my best friend. I didn’t want to collaborate or hook up with Dr. Marcus Walker. Well, maybe I did, and that was the real problem.

No, I didn’t want to collaborate or hook up with that man. I was done collaborating with other doctors. After all, that was what got me into trouble with Kevin.

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