Broken Lion Read online

  Contents

  Title

  Copyright kd

  Dedication

  Broken Lion

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Epilogue

  Get Devon's Newest Book

  Connect with Devon

  Devon's Books

  Acknowledgements

  Broken

  Lion

  Devon Hartford

  COPYRIGHT NOTICE

  Copyright © 2016 Devon Hartford

  Cover Copyright © 2016 Devon Hartford

  Cover Model: Myles Leask

  Cover Photo by Matt Marsh

  All rights reserved, worldwide. No part of this ebook may be reproduced, copied, or transmitted in any medium, whether electronic, internet, or otherwise, without the expressed permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, locations, and names occurring in this book are a product of the author’s imagination, or are the property of their respective owners and are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual events, locations, or persons (living or dead), is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author. All trademarks and trade names are used in a fictitious manner and are in no way endorsed by or an endorsement of their respective owners.

  Please support the arts by purchasing a copy of this ebook from an authorized online reseller in your country.

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  DEDICATION

  To Anna Lamonica for asking me to write a wounded hero novel. Here it is, Anna. This one’s for you. :-)

  Broken Lion

  Bestselling author Devon Hartford brings you another scorching hot and scandalous standalone romance.

  SOME SECRETS ARE TOO HARD TO KEEP

  The night the EMTs wheeled Lion Maxwell into my Emergency Room turned my life upside down. Although he was bloody and battered from defending his title as the reigning cruiserweight champion of Mixed Martial Arts, his cocky grin lit up the room.

  And every cell in my body.

  Our fiery chemistry was off the charts.

  The ER staff sensed it.

  Lion’s entourage and his drooling groupies sensed it too.

  If the two of us had been alone, I might have done something entirely unprofessional and completely unethical right there in the exam room. But I was his attending physician. A sexual or romantic relationship with him was grounds for my termination or worse, revoking my medical license. I wouldn’t risk my career on a moment of passion. It didn’t stop that arrogant caveman from doing everything he could to get me into his hospital bed.

  After denying his advances for weeks, the last thing I expected were the wild nights he would be spending in my bed.

  It was supposed to be nothing more than a secret fling.

  I knew it couldn’t last.

  He was still my patient.

  What we were doing was wrong.

  If anyone found out, it could ruin my life.

  But we couldn’t let go.

  We were bound to each other on some primal level that consumed us.

  Sometimes love is tragic.

  Sometimes two people aren’t meant to be together.

  But sometimes, two people overcome all adversity and build a love that lasts forever.

  Deep in my heart I knew that Lion Maxwell could be my forever love.

  As long as we kept our love a secret.

  I wish I’d known beforehand that some secrets are too hard to keep…

  Due to sexual content and adult language, BROKEN LION is recommended for ages 18+

  Chapter 1

  BRIGID

  I didn’t have time for men.

  As an attending physician at the busy Los Angeles Central Hospital, I had too many responsibilities. Caring for my patients was always my top priority. For me, dating was an afterthought.

  But I wasn’t a robot.

  I noticed men all the time.

  For example, several of the EMTs who wheeled patients into the Emergency Care Unit every night were to die for. The boys in blue were just as yummy, ember-eyed Officer Noah Murdock being the yummiest.

  The firemen from the LAFD were even more gorgeous. My favorites were Troy and Rick from Station 10. Both were regulars here in the ECU. Both were also smoking hot and known not only for saving lives and putting out fires, but for starting fires—in women’s panties, and not just mine. Ask any of the women on the ECU team (and some of the men). Troy and Rick were also known for appearing topless in the LAFD Firefighter’s calendar hanging in our team break room. In it, both men sported oiled-up abs and bulging shoulders while looking rugged and sweaty and deadly sexy in their suspiciously low hanging firemen’s pants. Troy was Mother’s Day May and Rick was I wish me a Merry Christmas December. Yes, I skipped ahead to check. Several times a week.

  Like I said, I noticed men all the time.

  But I was too busy doing my job to date any.

  When I wasn’t here at the hospital, I was the on call physician and had to come in at the most unexpected times. Not ideal for dating. Most weeks it seemed like I lived here.

  After setting a broken arm in exam room 102, I walked out to fill out the relevant paperwork before taking my next patient.

  Latisha Brown, the charge nurse, fell into step beside me and said, “Girl, you gonna wet yourself when you get a look at the fine man in 109. Mmm, mmm, mmm.” She muttered it in a low voice as we walked toward the nurses station. Latisha and I gossiped about hot men all the time. It helped keep things light when they got too serious. “Man brought a whole entourage with him.”

  I glanced over at the door to 109. A dozen people crowded the entrance. More were packed inside the room. “Is he somebody famous?”

  “Not that I know. But he oughta be a model, the way he looks. Or an actor. Or my next hookup. Mmm, mmm, I’m telling you, girl.” Her eyes glimmered with desire. “I had to change my drawers after helping Allison check his vitals.”

  “Why?” I snickered.

  “On account of my lady parts was perspiring.” She winked.

  “He can’t be that hot.”

  “You ain’t seen him yet. The way he looks, that boy must live in a gym. Allison’s hands were shaking so bad when she tried to slide the blood pressure cuff up his arm, I had to do it for her.”

  “I’m sure you hated every second of it.”

  “Every last one.” She chuckled.

  “Do you have his medical record?” Now I was curious.

  She reached over the
counter of the nurses station and grabbed a chart off the rack. “Here you go. Before you go in, I should warn you about the python in his pants.”

  “Python? An actual python?” From time to time, patients came into the ECU with the strangest things attached to or inserted inside themselves. The obvious: nipple clamps, cock rings, dildos, vibrators, anal beads, condoms, tampons. The not so obvious: fruits, vegetables, latex gloves, flashlights, a toy car, a glass light bulb. Yes, an actual light bulb. When I extracted it, Latisha was on hand. I held it up and said, “This gives me an idea.” Latisha struggled not to laugh. The patient was half passed out on muscle relaxants (we were worried about shattering the lightbulb) and he lay face down on the bed. The light bulb was a first for everyone on staff that night. But top of the list for Latisha and me went a step weirder. Two summers ago, we performed a Rectal Foreign Body Removal of a smallish garden gnome, complete with red pointy hat, from a male patient. The man had said he “fell on it” while gardening. By “fell” he meant “sat down.” On purpose. Multiple times. After discharging him and sending the man home with his gnome, I warned him to be more careful while “gardening” in the future. In private, I’d asked Latisha if she thought the man did his “gardening” in the nude. She said no, he probably wore assless chaps at the very least, so as to protect him from thorns and thistles. I had said, but not from gnomes? We had both broken into laughter at that point.

  “You remembering that nasty ass gnome, ain’t you?”

  “Sadly.” I chuckled.

  “Don’t worry, the python in 109 is warm blooded. But I’ll get you the anti-venom kit, just in case.”

  “Tisha, pythons aren’t warm blooded and they don’t have venom.”

  “This one does.” Her eyes flared for a moment before she swallowed a ticking snicker, doing her best to maintain a professional demeanor. It wasn’t working. “And it spits like a cobra if you get it all riled up.” We both giggled naughtily.

  “When was the last time you got any? You sound completely desperate.”

  “More recently than you. And that ain’t saying much.”

  “Don’t remind me.” I groaned while flipping through the man’s chart. I read his name out loud. “Lion Maxwell? That can’t be his real name.”

  “I think it is.”

  “Who names their child Lion?”

  “Shoulda named him Snake,” she said seriously.

  I glared at her and struggled not to laugh as I walked toward the crowd outside 109. It consisted of several men wearing matching gold on black T-shirts emblazoned with a roaring lion and the slogan #TeamLion - FEEL THE BEAST.

  Why did that sound vaguely sexual?

  The other men standing outside wore suits or blazers and slacks. There were also a few women best described as trashy strippers: tight micro skirts, flashy bedazzled tops with too much cleavage, fake boobs, spray tans, garish makeup, etc. I’m sure a significant portion of the male population found women like these highly desirable, but to me they looked like sparkly clowns.

  One of the strippers had a strategically messy pile of dark hair on her head that was the largest I’d seen since the late 1980s. On her, somehow it worked. Her eyes raked over me with obvious judgement and a hint of a challenge, like she saw me as competition. Competition for what, I wasn’t sure. She sneered, “Who are you?”

  I wanted to say, Was the stethoscope and white lab coat not enough of a giveaway? But I was a professional and kept it to myself. “I’m the doctor.”

  “Oh.”

  “Mind if I see my patient?”

  “Whatever,” she huffed and turned her back to me.

  I squeezed past her into the exam room. More burly men in #TeamLion T-shirts filled the room.

  Latisha was right.

  One look at the nearly naked man reclining on the hospital bed said it all. He made my favorite firefighters Troy and Rick look like regular Joes. Lion Maxwell was in another league. He was dangerously gorgeous. Emphasis on danger. Thick dark hair and equally dark eyes added a brooding quality. A number of contusions and cuts were scattered over his face and torso, but on him it looked good, like they belonged there. This man was a warrior and he’d obviously been in a fight. Even lying down, he exuded a masculine energy that said Do not mess with me or I will destroy you. Add to that his perfect body that was hard and scarred and chiseled in the extreme. Exactly what you would expect from the king of the beasts.

  A wave of desire rained down from my head to my toes. I pushed it away. I was here to work, not languish in his good looks.

  My eyes focused on his splinted knee. The EMS team had already stabilized the knee joint with orange board splints and stretch bandages. Lion’s chart had said dislocation of the joint with possible torn ligaments and/or tibial avulsion fracture, which meant the kneecap tendon contracted so hard it tore off a chunk of bone from the lower leg. The swelling was bad enough it could be any or all of those things. Only an MRI would reveal the full extent of the injury.

  “Who ordered the foxy doctor?” Lion said from the bed, relaxed and amused. His voice was deep and slightly gravelly. It shook me out of my diagnostic train of thought and did things to me that were entirely inappropriate.

  The men surrounding him all turned to face me like a pack of jackals. All had hungry eyes.

  Welcome to the lion’s den.

  I’d never felt so much testosterone in one room. Most of it came from Lion and made me feel like a piece of meat, the kind that gets hunted down by ravenous carnivores on the plains of the Serengeti.

  Lion’s dark and dangerous eyes roamed all over me. “Please tell me you’re my doctor.”

  His men chuckled approval. Obviously, Lion was the king of these beasts. But I needed to get this situation under control. Not a problem. I was in my element.

  “I’m Dr. Flanagan. What happened to you, Mr. Maxwell?”

  “Call me Lion. Everybody does.” That voice. It oozed confidence and resonated in my chest like he was invading me.

  If he kept talking in that sexy voice of his, I was going to be the one doing the oozing. I needed to stay focused. I was a doctor, not a giddy teenager. So I took a moment to collect myself in case I started babbling like one.

  Lion smirked at me. A hungry sexy smirk.

  I offered a curt smile and swallowed hard. The giddy teenager in me wanted desperately to bat my eyelashes at this gorgeous man.

  More chuckles rumbled from Lion’s men as they watched me trying to hold it together. One said, “Go easy on her, Lion.”

  Another: “She looks fragile. You don’t wanna spook her.”

  Spook me? What, like I was some kind of dainty deer wandering through the forest, scared of the big bad mountain Lion? Not even close. I was the opposite of fragile.

  Lion said, “What’s the matter, Doc? Cat got your tongue?”

  I smirked. “Very funny, Mr. Maxwell. I was just taking a moment to ignore your arrogance in hopes that it would go away. But we all know wishful thinking never works.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ve got more where that came from.”

  More what, I didn’t want to know. Mainly because I was afraid I would like it, whatever it was.

  One of the other men said, “Don’t mind him. He’s always like this with the ladies.”

  Lion laughed easily. “You trying to make me look bad, Cahill?”

  Cahill chortled. “When it comes to looking like a tool, you don’t need any help from me.”

  “But if I did, you’d be the first man I’d ask for lessons.”

  The men laughed again. Cahill laughed too. Clearly, this group was the best of friends. Or frat brothers. All they needed was a keg and a stack of plastic cups to get this party started.

  “So, Mr. Maxwell. About your knee.” I said it loud enough to get everyone’s attention. “Can you tell me what happened?”

  “Busted it up in the cage tonight.”

  “Championship fight,” Cahill added. The nice thing about having an entourage of your own w
as that they could parade your ego around for you, so you didn’t look arrogant. I wasn’t fooled. They were on his payroll.

  Being polite, I said, “Did you win?”

  “Do you have to ask?” Lion cocked his bad boy grin.

  Had there been any women in the room, the sound of panties dropping would’ve been overwhelming. Obviously I was wrong about him needing his men to parade his ego around. He was more than happy to do it himself.

  I was over it. “I take it you won. But your knee looks like the biggest loser tonight, Mr. Maxwell.”

  “You afraid to say my name, Doc?”

  “I just did.”

  Hoots from the men. One said, “She bad, Lion. Watch out she don’t bite you.”

  Lion stared at me, eyes locked on mine. “She can bite me all she wants.” He shifted on the bed and let his uninjured knee fall to the side, opening his legs. He wore only skin tight gold lycra shorts. Otherwise, he was entirely naked.

  I kept my eyes locked on his. I didn’t have to look directly to see he was packing. His huge bulge practically filled the room. Latisha hadn’t been exaggerating about him having a python.

  “Like what you see, Doc?”

  I wasn’t taking the bait and I wasn’t going to look. But I was going to stare him down.

  More muttering from the men as they watched our staring contest.

  I was aware that nothing was going to get accomplished if I didn’t put my foot down and stop this frat party. In a strong voice I said, “Gentlemen! Do I have to clear the room?!”

  They looked shocked.

  Lion was as cool as a cat. “You trying to get me alone, Doc?”

  “No. I’m just trying to do my job, Mr. Maxwell.”

  “You don’t have to deny it, Doc. I could tell you wanted me the second you laid eyes on me,”

  Not anymore, I don’t. And, could you be any more cocky? I mean, aside from the python in your pants? And did he really think using sexually suggestive words like “laid” was going to work on me? Was that his idea of hypnotism? Did he really think it would make me imagine having sex with him? Hardly.