After she knocked, she walked into the room with confidence she didn’t feel, her head up, her spine straight, her unease camo’d by a combo of posture and professional focus.

“How are you this evening?” she said, as she looked the patient right in the eye.

The instant his amethyst stare met hers, she couldn’t have told a soul what had just come out of her mouth or whether he replied. Rehvenge, son of Rempoon, sucked the thought right out of her head, sure as if he’d drained the tank of her brain’s generator and left her with nothing to catch a mental spark off of.

And then he smiled.

He was a cobra, this male; he truly was…mesmerizing because he was deadly and because he was beautiful. With that mohawk and his hard, smart face and his big body, he was sex and power and unpredictability all wrapped up in…well, a black pin-striped suit that clearly had been made for him.

“I’m good, thank you,” he said, solving the mystery as to what she’d asked him. “And you?”

As she paused, he smiled a little, no doubt because he was fully aware that none of the nurses liked being in the same enclosed space with him, and evidently he enjoyed this fact. At least, that was how she read his controlled, hooded expression.

“I asked how you were doing?” he drawled.

Ehlena put his chart down on the desk and took her stethoscope out of her pocket. “I’m very well.”

“You sure about that.”

“Absolutely positive.” Turning to him, she said, “I’m just going to take your blood pressure and your heart rate.”

“My temperature, too.”

“Yes.”

“Do you want me to open my mouth for you now?”

Ehlena’s skin flushed, and she told herself it was not because that deep voice of his made the question seem as sexual as a lazy stroke over a naked breast. “Er…no.”

“Pity.”

“Please take off your jacket.”

“What a great idea. I totally take back the ‘pity.’”

Good plan, she thought, or she was liable to feed the word back to him with the thermometer.

Rehvenge’s shoulders rolled as he did what she’d asked him to, and with a casual flick of the hand, he tossed what was clearly a piece of menswear art onto the sable coat he’d carefully draped over a chair. It was odd: No matter what the season was, he always had one of those furs on.

Things were worth more than the house Ehlena rented.

As his long fingers went to the diamond cuff link on his right wrist, she stopped him.

“Could you please roll up the one on the other side?” She nodded toward the wall beside him. “More space for me on your left.”

He hesitated, then went to work on his opposite sleeve. Taking the black silk up past his elbow and onto his thick biceps, he kept his arm turned into his torso.

Ehlena took the blood pressure equipment from a drawer and ripped it open as she approached him. Touching him was always an experience, and she rubbed her hand on her hip to get ready. Didn’t help. When she came in contact with his wrist, as usual the current that licked up her arm landed in her heart, James Browning the damn thing until the shimmy-shimmies had her sucking back a gasp.

With a prayer that this wouldn’t take long, she moved his arm into position for the cuff and-“Good…Lord.”

The veins running up through the crook of his elbow were decimated from overuse, swollen, black-and-blue, as ragged as if he’d been using nails, not needles on himself.

Her eyes shot to his. “You must be in such pain.”

He rolled his wrist out of her grasp. “Nope. Doesn’t bother me.”

Tough guy. Like she was surprised? “Well, I can understand why you wanted to come in to see Havers.”

Pointedly, she reached out and rotated his arm back around, gently prodding at a red line that was traveling up his biceps, heading in the direction of his heart.

“There are signs of infection.”

“I’ll be fine.”

All she could do was raise her eyebrows. “You ever hear of sepsis?”

“The indie band? Sure, but I wouldn’t think you’d have.”

She shot him a look. “Sepsis as in an infection of the blood?”

“Hmm, you want to lean over the desk a little and draw me a picture?” His eyes drifted down her legs. “I think I’d find that…very educational.”

If any other male had pulled that kind of line, she’d have slapped them down until they saw stars. Unfortunately, when it was that heavenly bass voice doing the talking and that amethyst stare doing the walking, she didn’t really feel leched upon.

She felt caressed by a lover.

Ehlena resisted the urge to V8 her forehead. What the hell was she doing? She had a date tonight. With a nice, reasonable, civilian male who’d been nothing but nice, reasonable, and very civil.

“I don’t have to draw you a picture.” She nodded down at his arm. “You can see for yourself right there. If you don’t treat this, it’s going to go systemic.”

And even though he wore fine clothes like every tailor’s dream mannequin, death’s cold gray cloak would not look good on him.

He held his arm against his tight abs. “I’ll take that under advisement.”

Ehlena shook her head and reminded herself that she couldn’t save people from their own stupidity just because she had a white coat hanging from her shoulders and the letters RN at the end of her name. Besides, Havers was going to see that in all its gory glory when the doctor examined him.

“Fine, but let’s take your reading on the other arm. And I’m going to have to ask you to take your shirt off. The doctor’s going to want to see how far up that infection goes.”

Rehvenge’s mouth lifted in a smile as he reached for his top button. “You keep this up and I’ll be naked.”

Ehlena looked away fast and wished like hell she found him sleazy. She could sure use an injection of righteous indignation to help fend him off.

“You know, I’m not shy,” he said in that low voice of his. “You can watch if you like.”

“No, thank you.”

“Pity.” In a darker tone, he added, “I wouldn’t mind you watching me.”

As the sound of silk moving against flesh rose up from the exam table, Ehlena made busywork going through his chart, double-checking things that were absolutely correct.

It was weird. From what the other nurses had said, he didn’t pull this lothario stuff with them. In fact, he barely talked to her colleagues, and that was part of the reason they were anxious around him. With a male this big, silence read as menacing. Fact of life. And that was before you added the tat/mohawk chaser.

“I’m ready,” he said.

Ehlena pivoted around and kept her eyes pinned on the wall next to his head. Her peripheral vision, however, worked just fine, and it was hard not to be grateful. Rehvenge’s chest was magnificent, the skin a warm golden brown, with muscles that were defined even though his body was relaxed. On each of his pecs he had a five-pointed red star tattooed on the upper part, and she knew he had more ink.

On his stomach.

Not that she’d looked.

Right, because actually, she’d been gawking.

“Are you gong to examine my arm?” he said softly.

“No, that’s for the doctor.” She waited for him to say, “Pity,” again.

“I think I’ve used that word enough around you.”

Now her eyes shifted to his. It was the rare vampire who could read his own species’ minds, but somehow it didn’t surprise her that this male was among that small, rarified group.

“Don’t be rude,” she said. “And I do not want you to do that again.”

“I’m sorry.”

Ehlena slipped the cuff around his biceps, plugged her stethoscope into her ears, and took his blood pressure. With the little piff-piff-piff of the balloon inflating the sleeve until it was tight, she felt the edge in him, the tense power, and her heart tripped over itself. He was particularly sharp tonight, and she wondered why.

Except that was not her business, was it.

As she released the valve and the cuff let out a long, slow hiss of relief, she took a step back from him. He was just…too much, all the way around. Especially right now.