Tame his Beast Part 1 Read online

  Jenna leaned in and placed a kiss on my cheek. “You’ll get used to it,” she said again soothingly. “Or you won’t and you’ll find your way in something else. We all have to try a few paths before we find the right one, Belle.”

  She set about making us both a coffee, and I took a huge mouthful of it when she passed it over to me. I only had a thirty-minute break, but I was determined to use as many of those as possible drinking caffeine.

  There was a metal clang out in the hallway—the unmistakable sound of one of the stretchers falling over—and Jenna frowned at me before putting down her coffee and heading to the doorway. I looked longingly at my own before doing the same thing and following her to the door.

  She pulled it open and we both stepped out into a warzone of shouting and scuffling.

  “What on earth is going on here!” she yelled, her voice loud even above the din around us.

  A hand immediately came up and wrapped around her throat, and her body was slammed back into the chest of a heavyset man who looked like he hadn’t bathed in weeks. She let out a yelp of surprise, but then to my and everyone else’s surprise, she reared back with her elbow and slammed it into the man’s ribs. He let her go with a grunt of pain. Jenna turned around, and as the man bent over to nurse his tender ribs, she reached back and hit him in the nose with a punch that almost took him off his feet.

  I gasped in surprise. I had never seen Jenna like this before. Sure, I knew she was tough and didn’t take crap from anyone, but this was a whole new Jenna altogether. She gripped him by the arm and twisted it up behind his back.

  “Okay, okay!” he cried out, suddenly not looking so scary after all.

  “Now you listen here, Roy. You sit down, and you wait for security to get here before I break this arm of yours, okay?” she snapped fiercely.

  He sat down on the floor, looking up at Jenna with his hands out placatingly, a small drip of blood coming from his now red and swollen nose.

  I looked around the hallway, shock and awe all rolled up into one. Was I dreaming? Was this a hallucination because I was so tired? The sound of booted feet stomping toward us had me looking up, and I watched as three security guards helped get the man—Roy—up.

  “You okay?” one of them asked Jenna as they led him away.

  “Of course,” she laughed, like that experience hadn’t terrified her. “Belle, come and help me with this,” Jenna said as she made her way to the fallen stretcher.

  “First of all, what was that!” I said, still in shock. I grabbed one side of the stretcher that had been tipped over and we pulled it upright altogether. “And secondly, who was that? And who are you, for that matter!”

  Jenna shook her head. “That there was Roy Milligan. Hot-headed, red-blooded, trouble-causing, no good man. That’s who that was. Always ends in up in here when he’s had a little too much to drink and is worse for wear. Probably got into a bar fight before passing out and waking up here.”

  “So he was just a drunk?” I said, dragging a hand down my tired face.

  “Yes, just a drunk. A drunk that likes to take his problems out on other people when it suits him.”

  I let her words sink in for a moment. “But you were…” I threw my hands up in exasperation. “Who are you?” I finally laughed.

  “I’m still Jenna. But here I’m Jenna who has to deal with distasteful individuals sometimes.”

  I was still staring at her, waiting for more of an explanation to the little She-Ra scene she’d just pulled on me. My godmother Jenna didn’t take crap from anyone, but she was also loving and kind, gentle and giving. I had never seen her hit someone—let alone a patient—in all my life. And since she’d brought me up from the age of three, that was a long time. Sixteen years, to be precise.

  Jenna chuckled and patted my arm. “Belle, sometimes, people just need to be put in their place.”

  “But you’re a nurse. You don’t go around punching your patients in the nose!” I snorted on a laugh. “He came here for help, not to get more injured.”

  “People like him don’t get the nice treatment, Belle. They get the this-is-all-you’re-getting treatment, which consists of sticking a Band-Aid on whatever he’s done to himself while drunk or high and sending him on his way. Trust me, he doesn’t deserve your sympathy.”

  “Maybe he just needs help,” I suggested, ignoring the scathing look she gave me. “Everyone needs help at times.”

  “Not him. He’s not a nice man and does not deserve your pity.”

  I frowned. I’d never known Jenna to be so cold about another person. I was discovering all kinds of new things today—like my godmother was a badass. A cruel badass, but a badass all the same.

  “I’m just saying…” I continued.

  Jenna turned to me with a scowl. “Not everyone is good, Belle, and you need to figure that out quickly. Some people are just bad through and through, right down to their bones. But we still do our job as well as we do with everyone else. We patch them up and send them on their way and we see them again the next time they hurt themselves. We just don’t have to wear a smile on our faces with the assholes. Look, what I’m saying is, we don’t have to like every patient—or every person, for that matter. We just have to make sure that we help make them better and send them back on their way.”

  We headed back into the break room, but just as we reached the doorway, Jenna’s beeper went off. She checked it and sighed.

  “I’m needed with a patient.” She paused, giving me a thoughtful look. “Come on, you can help out too. Let me show you how pointless your pity is on some people.”

  A chill ran down my spine at her words, but I nodded okay. There wasn’t anything she could show me that would make me believe that someone didn’t deserve pity and understanding, or even respect. People could be shitty human beings—I knew that more than most—but everyone deserved a second chance, didn’t they?

  And just because they were bad didn’t mean I had to change who I was, right?

  *

  The scent of sanitization hung heavily in the air as we passed by several closed doors until we reached one that had a man sitting outside it. He wore a leather waistcoat and blue jeans. A thick metal chain hung from the jeans and jangled noisily as he stood up. He was tall, muscular, and had a strong chiseled jaw that was getting a lot of action as he ground his back teeth together.

  “They won’t give him any more pain meds,” he said gruffly as Jenna and I approached, his gaze going briefly over me and then back to Jenna.

  “That’s because I told them that he needs to cut back,” Jenna replied without hesitation. “And you’re not helping him by giving him your little extra medicine on the side, so you quit that right now. I won’t tell you again.”

  “He’s in agony,” the man bit out, but in fairness he did look genuinely distressed about how much pain his friend was in.

  “Listen here,” Jenna said, pointing a gloved finger at him like she was scolding a child, “if you want him to get through this then you have to trust me, trust this hospital, and trust that we know a little more about getting him better than you do.”

  I wondered if this big burly man was going to reach up and snap her finger like a twig. He certainly sized her up like he was ready to. But instead, he took a step back and nodded like a scolded child.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he mumbled.

  Jenna reached out and patted his arm. “I know it’s hard…Gauge—wasn’t it?” He nodded, and she continued: “but he’ll get through this.”

  He sighed and sat back down in his seat, throwing one ankle over the other leg’s knee. “Just make him stop fuckin’ screamin’ all day and night. I can’t take it no more.”

  It was Jenna’s turn to sigh now, and she glanced back at me and looked like she was having second thoughts about me being there.

  “Listen, most of that pain he’s feeling is in his head now, and no pain meds are going to take that away.”

  Gauge looked up at her, his eyes sad and round
and his hair hanging around his face like curtains that he wanted to close. “So what will? ’Cause I’m not sure how much longer I can sit here listening to him screamin’ like this.”

  “Time. Time and rest. And probably a good head doctor at the end of it all to help with the nightmares and stop him from taking his temper out on everyone around him.”

  He nodded, his gaze falling to me again like he’d just remembered that I was there. “Who’s this?” he scowled, and I stood up straighter in a pathetic attempt at showing I was just as tough as my godmother. I wasn’t, though. Not even nearly as tough as her, apparently.

  Jenna turned to me with a pleased smile. “This here is my goddaughter, Belle. She’s helping me out today.”

  Gauge was still eyeing me, his gaze flared with hunger, but there was something cold and distant there too.

  “Pretty little thing like you looks like she needs to be shown a good time,” he snarled, his gaze dragging up and down my body. His expression was off, like he was looking at a side salad rather than a woman he wanted to take to bed.

  “That’s enough of that.” Jenna snapped her fingers in his face, drawing his attention back to her. “I’ve brought her to see that not everyone is good. That not everyone can be…saved, and that even those that can be saved, well, sometimes, no matter what we do, they just don’t want to be saved.”

  My jaw dropped open in shock at her cruel and heartless words.

  This was it.

  This was the end for Jenna and me, surely.

  But instead of pulling out his gun—a gun that I could see he was very obviously and shamelessly carrying—and blowing out our brains, Gauge began to laugh.

  I swallowed, not sure what to say.

  “Go on in, Jenna, let her see for herself.” He grinned, tugging his bottom lip into his mouth and keeping his heated gaze on me. “I’ll be right here ready to comfort you when you come back out, Belle.”

  “Come on then,” Jenna said to me like this weird little exchange was nothing to worry about. “It’s time you met Beast.” She put her hand on the door handle, but I gripped her wrist, a tremor of fear running through me.

  “Beast?” I stammered.

  “Yeah, Beast,” Gauge said, standing up again. “You’re gonna’ fuckin’ love him.”

  Chapter Three.

  ~ Belle ~

  Inside the room was much like every other room in the hospital: white, sterile, a curtain wrapped around a bed that was against the far wall. The walls were bare of paintings or pictures or a TV to keep people entertained—mostly because when people were in these rooms, the last thing they wanted to be was entertained.

  The bed hidden behind the curtain creaked, and I crept closer to Jenna, suddenly afraid of who or what was behind it.

  Beast.

  That’s what they had called him.

  Beast by name, beast by nature? I sure hoped not.

  Jenna pointed to the cart in the corner of the room filled with sterile bandages and creams, and she headed over to the bed. I grabbed the cart and pulled it forward before Jenna abruptly tugged the curtain back from around the bed.

  “The fuck?” Beast roared, his fury sounding like he’d just had his most prized possession stolen from him and not the curtain around his bed pulled back.

  “Oh, quit that right now,” Jenna tutted.

  I stood there, my knees knocking as I stared at the man on the bed with most of his body covered in bandages. And what could be seen looked purple and yellow from bruising. God, what had happened to him? A bandage was wrapped around his head, covering one of his eyes, and since I was standing on the bandaged side and he was so focused on Jenna, he didn’t notice me right away—but slowly his attention slid from her to me, his one good eye focusing in like a knife. It was bloodshot and it made him look even more frightening.

  “Who the fuck is this?” he growled at Jenna. “Who the fuck are you?” he snapped at me.

  Full-on growled like some kind of rabid dog ready to attack.

  In fact, I had no doubt that if he hadn’t been bandaged up like an Egyptian mummy he would have dove up and tore my throat out like the bloodthirsty animal he was.

  Jenna looked between me and Beast with a frown. “Watch your language,” she sniped at him, and his attention moved from me to her in a split second before he began to laugh. But there was nothing humorous about his laughter.

  “Watch my language? Are you fuckin’ kidding me, Nurse?” he snorted out a laugh, his mouth contorting into a sadistic smile that looked all the worse for the long red scars that covered his face.

  Jenna put her hands on her hips and glared down at him. “Do you like lying in your own pee, Beast? Because I’m quite happy to let you stay like this all day if you’re going to speak to me like that.”

  His smile faltered. “Fuck you.”

  “No, fuck you,” Jenna retorted. “Fuck you and that dirty potty mouth of yours. If you were hoping for pudding later, you’re very quickly talking yourself out of it, young man.”

  And that was that.

  Jenna busied herself filling a bowl with warm water and soaking some sponges in the sterile liquid while I stood there staring at Beast like an idiot.

  He looked away, his one-eyed gaze going out the window like he was sulking. Jenna snapped her fingers and I scurried to help her.

  “Okay, Beast, you know the drill,” Jenna said sternly, and he turned back to glare at her.

  It was weird, almost like there was a battle of wills going on between them. Who was going to be the most stubborn? The biggest asshole to the other? The meanest? I had no doubt that Beast was without a doubt the meanest, but I’d never really seen this hard side of Jenna either. We didn’t really get to work together, despite working in the same hospital.

  Beast looked back at us both, his one eye staring daggers at the two of us. I knew why; this was going to hurt.

  “I need pain relief,” he said.

  Jenna checked the board at the end of his bed and sighed. “You’ve already had more than enough for today.”

  “I need some fuckin’ pain relief!” he yelled.

  Jenna huffed. “Afterwards.”

  “Bitch, I’ma get out of this bed and—”

  “Oh, calm yourself down before you give yourself an aneurism. You’re not getting out of this bed anytime soon. You’re going to lie there and let us bathe you, and then afterwards I’ll let your little friend outside give you some of his special medicine, but not before, and that’s all you get until tomorrow.” She placed the board back on the hook at the end of his bed and came toward him, starting to unwrap some of the bandages without waiting for his acknowledgment.

  “I want some fucking pudding too,” he grumbled, and I almost laughed. His one eye narrowed in on me and I quickly hid my amusement and went to help Jenna.

  “I’ll do the right side, you do the left,” she said, all business, and I nodded.

  The right side of his body was covered in raised red scars that were still trying to heal. Purple bruising still shadowed most of his body too, and I soaked a sponge and gently lifted his arm up before wiping his skin down as carefully as possible.

  His hairs stood on end and goose bumps formed in the wake of the sponge. “Is the water okay?” I asked, trying to make the experience as pleasant as possible for him.

  He grunted a yes and I finished off his arm and moved over his hand and in between each finger before moving back up his arm to his armpit, where the scent of sweat was coming from. It should have been gross, but it was entirely masculine and strangely attractive.

  Jenna pulled the thin cotton cover back from his chest and set straight to work cleaning him, and I worked on my side. He was a big guy. Built like a bodybuilder and at one time had been covered with intricate tattoos across his chest and arms. Now it was hard to work out what the designs had ever been. Between the burns and the scars and the bruises, his body was a maze of pain.

  I dipped my sponge back into the water and softly wipe
d down his right side all the way to his hip, my eyes and hands roving over his body to make sure I cleaned him well.

  “Little lower, darlin’,” he grunted as my sponge paused on his hip bone, and I realized he wasn’t wearing any underwear.

  “Beast,” Jenna warned, and I blushed harder than a hooker in church. I glanced over to her and she nodded, because yes, I needed to clean all of him. Legs, butt, man bits and all.

  I reached for the cover hiding his crotch from me, ready to slide it down, when he reached over and grabbed my wrist in his hand. My gaze shot to his, my eyes going wide.

  “You got a good firm grip, girl?” he asked, his chest rumbling, his gaze holding me hostage.

  “I uh, I guess so.” I shrugged, my knees knocking together.

  “Good, because I’ve got a real big cock under there that could do with some attention from a sweetbutt like you,” he said with a lascivious laugh.

  “Beast!” Jenna snapped.

  “Oh!” I said in surprise as he thrust my hand down under the sheet and wrapped it around his soft girth. I quickly jerked my hand away, my cheeks burning with humiliation.

  “Beast! I warned you,” Jenna tutted.

  His chest rumbled with laughter and I stumbled back, not sure where to look or what to do.

  “Belle, I’ll finish him off,” Jenna said.

  “Now there’s an offer, but I’d much prefer her touch, Nurse,” Beast said with another sardonic laugh, even though I could see that every laugh hurt him.

  “Do you see what I was telling you now?” she asked me, ignoring Beast. “Some people don’t deserve the kindness. You fix them up and send them back out. Job done.”

  Beast stopped laughing now. “You sayin’ I don’t deserve your kindness? That’s shitty bedside manner if you ask me.”

  Jenna’s gaze shot to Beast. “I’m saying you’re a job. And that’s all some patients are. We fix you up and send you out and we’ll see you again real soon.”