Doctored Vows - Chapter 22

“I don’t know how you do it, Dr. Hoffman, but you have a way of looking past the gobbledygook to find the real source of the issue under the mess.”

I smile at Dr. Lipovsky’s praise before farewelling her with a wave and pushing through the door of the interns’ locker room. Today has been a good day. With food in her stomach and a course of antibiotics for a urinary infection, Yulia’s recovery was swift enough for her to be discharged earlier tonight.

I doubt Dr. Lipovsky’s praise would have been as high if she knew how I had tempted Yulia to eat. Donut holes should never be a staple in anyone’s household, but you run with them when they can tempt a child to eat after days of sickness.

It felt good watching Yulia enjoy the treats I had Alla purchase on her way in, and since I made out it was on the hospital’s dime, her father didn’t hesitate to assist me in devouring the leftovers.

During our carb fest, some of the causes for Yulia’s symptoms were unearthed. With Lev’s position made redundant before the latest winter storms, most of his family’s food budget went to keep the heat on in their home. When his pantry stock got low, he started using a local food bank to top off supplies.

Although they’re a godsend for people short on funds, I personally know their stock isn’t the best on offer. Most produce is usually a week or more old and rarely stored correctly.

There are fewer issues consuming incorrectly stored food products in the winter months, but the same can’t be said in spring and summer. It can cause a range of stomach issues and can eventually do more harm than good.

When I explained to Lev that even products that appear fresh can still house parasites, he promised he would be more selective with the foods he accepted from the food bank.

I genuinely believe he has Yulia’s best interests at heart, so I shared the items I accepted at food banks during my first two years of college. It was more breads, cereals, and dried pasta instead of the vegetables, fruits, and meats most people seek help with, but Lev was confident it would only be a matter of time until he found a new position, so his family could survive on less for the time being.

His praise for my help is why I wanted to become a doctor. It’s never been about the money. It has always been about helping people who have none.

Bewilderment swamps me when I open my locker. The black credit card I left on the bedside table this morning is propped up against my purse, in direct eyesight.

“Ready, Mrs. Ivanov?”

I jump out of my skin before spinning to face the voice. “Ano.” I clutch my chest to ensure my heart remains in its rightful place. “You scared the poop out of me.”

Ano is far younger than most of Maksim’s staff. His shaven face could be leading me off the scent, but he appears to be in his late teens, if not younger. He is as tall as Maksim but not as bulky, and instead of donning tailored suits, he favors designer sweats and jeans and a cap he wears backward even while inside.

Ano smiles for barely a second about my fright before it is replaced with worry. “I wasn’t sure if you knew where the underground garage was since I dropped you off at the side entrance, so I thought I should meet with you. Was that wrong of me to do?”

“No, not at all.” He exhales deeply, the panic scouring his face softening. “But maybe next time, warn a girl before you sneak up on her.”

“Perhaps I could place a bell around my neck?” I smile when he murmurs, “That’s Maksim’s suggestion any time I sneak up on him unaware.”

After watching me gather my belongings out of my locker, he leads us to the underground parking. During our brief walk, I strive to learn more about the man who’s always seen in the background but rarely takes center stage. “Have you worked with Maksim long?”

He hums like he’s unsure how to answer my question rather than murmuring in agreement. “I’ve known him for about six years.”

“How old were you when you met?”

He smothers my curiosity nicely. “Sixteen.” He chuckles when I can’t hold back my shocked huff that he is older than perceived. “It’s the baby face. I’ve tried to grow a beard, but I hate the itchy stage and end up shaving it off before it can cast a shadow.”

We enter the elevator, and although he gains many admiring eyes, he loses them just as fast. It isn’t because he is ugly. He has a cut jaw, icy-blue eyes, and a swagger that announces a ton of trouble. He just appears too young for people who have attended medical school for four years to lust over.

No one wants to be accused of cradle snatching.

“Guess I might have to give it another whirl.”

“Wouldn’t hurt,” I murmur in agreement when I shadow him out of the elevator and into the underground garage. “Is Ano short for anything?”

He opens the back door of the SUV like his baseball cap is a chauffeur’s hat before his throat works through a slow swallow. After I’m seated, he murmurs, “Anonymous.”

“Your mother called you Anonymous?” I hate myself the instant the question leaves my mouth. He clearly feels uncomfortable with the direction our conversation has taken, but I continue to push.

I’m a cow.

“No,” Ano answers. “It’s what Maksim called me when he found me naked, beaten, and with no recollection of my prior sixteen years in the back alley of one of his clubs.” He smiles to assure me my sympathies aren’t needed before he shrugs like it’s no big deal. “It kinda stuck.”

He closes my door before I can ask another violating question, and then he slips into the driver’s seat and commences our short trip home.

“Are you not coming in?” I ask Ano when he closes the door I opened for myself, but he doesn’t trace my steps to the elevator.

“No. I’ve still got a few more hours on my shift.”

“And then you’ll go…?” I can’t help but mother him. It is a natural instinct of anyone in the health profession.

He rubs his hands together like he appreciates my smothering ways before he says, “Then I’ll come up.”

“You’re staying here?” Once again, the words leave my mouth before I can stop them.

His smile is brighter than the light haloing his head. “Oh, you still think Maksim only bought the top two floors of this building?” When I nod, too shocked for a worded response, he murmurs, “That’s cute.” Before I can grill him further, he ends the possibility. “Goodnight, Mrs. Ivanov.”

I could push him, but since I know I’ll get more answers from Maksim than from him, I tell him to call me Nikita, return his farewell, and then enter the elevator once again manned by an attendant.

He doesn’t ask me what floor. He selects the penthouse suite before announcing, “Mr. Ivanov suggested you should visit your grandparents before joining him for dinner.” A hue hits both of our cheeks when he finalizes his statement. “Since you will be preoccupied for the remainder of the evening, he doesn’t want you to miss seeing them.”

“Thank you. That… works.” I grimace at my poor choice of words before watching the elevator climb the many floors from the garage to the top floor. “Have you worked here long?” Since my apartment was in the basement, I only associated with the doorman.

“For several years now.”

“So you know most of the occupants?”

He smiles as fondness glistens in his eyes. “Yes. Almost all of them.”

“What is the ratio of tenants to owners?”

The elevator attendant seems put off by my question. “Umm… I’m not entirely sure.”

“I don’t need exact numbers. Just a ballpark figure.”

Before he can speak, a deliciously raspy voice sounds out of the emergency speaker on the elevator panel. “Is there something you want to know, Doc?”

My eyes bounce around the elevator cabin before they stop at the blinking red contraption on the far front corner. Maksim could be solely listening in, but I feel his gaze on me, so I stare at the camera while asking, “Did you buy every apartment in my building?”

“Yes,” he answers without pause for thought, shocking both me and the attendant.

“Why?”

There’s no delay in this answer, either. “Because I like to know who is surrounding me. Are they good people who don’t turn their noses down at others not as well off as them? Or are they leeches who’d walk past a boy lying lifeless without a stitch of clothing and not do a damn thing to help him.” His reply exposes he isn’t solely watching my ride in the elevator. He has eyes on me everywhere. “Do you have any more questions?”

“Just a few.” I wait for his exhale to stop rustling through the speaker before asking, “Can you see my grandfather?”

Two clicks sound before he answers, “Yes.”

“Is he sleeping?”

You shouldn’t be able to hear a smirk, but I swear I hear Maksim’s before he answers, “Yes.”

“Good.” There’s no doubt you can hear someone’s grin when I lean across the attendant to select the floor below the penthouse.

“Have a pleasant evening,” the attendant murmurs when the elevator arrives at the floor of the apartment I share with Maksim.

I almost veer for the door on the right but instead take a left. My instincts have never steered me wrong, so I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

My heart beats double time when I enter the area a construction crew is transforming into an office space. The floor plan has been completely reworked, and numerous walls have been removed or replaced. There are even a handful of new access points.

I startle when a rich, velvety voice says, “That will be a secondary entrance to our apartment.” With the agility a man his size shouldn’t have, Maksim sneaks up on me, pulls back the strands that fell from my bun, and then replaces their tickling presence on my neck with his lips. “Then I’ll have immediate access to you as often as my heart desires.”

“One hallway too much distance?” I ask, pretending I’m not loving his neediness.

“Yes.” He kisses my neck and breathes in my scent before he walks us to the door I was staring at when he interrupted my perusal of his space.

I gasp in an excited breath when he pushes open the door. It doesn’t just give him access to our apartment. It takes him directly to the primary suite.

“It feels naughty,” I murmur, smiling when I realize the desperation I showcased only seconds ago has nothing on Maksim’s level of need. His groping hands and wandering mouth expose that our time apart was as painful for him as it was for me. “I like it.”

“Good, because it is staying even if you didn’t.” Moving us closer to the bed, he confesses, “I had planned to take down the entire wall, but Zoya said it was a bad idea.” He unlatches his lips from my neck and then peers down at me. “For some strange reason, she seems to think you’re shy.”

“I am shy.”

He flattens his hand on my chest and pushes me onto the mattress before placing his knee between the large gap of my splayed thighs. “Still a shit liar, Doc.” He searches for the heat he knows my cheeks are about to get as he says, “I’m barely touching you, and I already know you’re ready for me.” He tilts in so close a fire burns through me. “I can smell how aroused you are.”

“What has that got to do with being shy?” I roll my shoulders back, thrusting my chest out before saying with a confidence I never thought I’d have, “I’m wet for you. That has nothing to do with anyone else.”

He lunges for me in an instant, groping, kissing, and stroking his length against the damp patch in the crotch of my scrubs.

Our speed is reckless, our needs too great to ignore.

In under a minute, the pants of my uniform are tugged to my knees, and Maksim’s fat cock is notching at the opening of my vagina.

When he enters me as fast as he stripped me bare, I call out.

I suck in a deep breath, feeling divinely stretched, before digging the heels of my shoes into his ass, encouraging him to go faster.

I want to be ravished by him.

Claimed.

I want to feel where he’s been for days.

When I say that to Maksim, he bites out a cuss word before he pulls out to the tip and then slams back in. Spasms dart across my womb and zap up my spine when he’s deep enough to bruise my uterus, but I continue to encourage his recklessness by squeezing the walls of my vagina around him.

“Christ, Doc. You’re so fucking tight.”

He pounds into me on repeat, slapping my ass with his balls before he adds a flick to his hips that drives me crazy.

“Yes. Please. Oh god.”

He grips my ass firmer, marking me. “Almost, but we’re not quite there yet.”

Tingles skate across my skin when he flattens his hand low on my stomach before his thumb toys with my clit. It is so responsive to his touch that within seconds I’m chanting his name so loud it will ring in his ears for a week.

“Better.” His gasped word exposes his restraint is holding on by barely a thread.

He is as aroused as I am, as hot and as tender.

“You just need a little bit more.”

I clench around him when he doubles the effort of his thumb while thrusting in and out of me hard enough for stars to form. His pumps are perfect and precise. Without warning, I freefall into ecstasy.

He watches every pleasing jerk of my body while praising how beautiful I look when I come.

“You’re so fucking perfect, Doc. So sexy, beautiful, and smart.”

His thigh muscles flex and release as he prolongs the sparks of passion burning through my veins.

“Look at how well you’re taking me.”

His beautiful body moves with such primal, animalistic traits that expose he was designed for precisely this.

To unravel me.

“You’re doing so well. I just need a little more.”

My back arches, and my head is tossed back when he unexpectedly withdraws before he buries his head between my legs. The sensation is almost too much. It is overwhelming, but for the life of me, I weave my fingers through his hair and hold him hostage to my pussy instead of yanking him away.

My clit pounds in rhythm to my raging heart as he licks, pokes, and teases me with his mouth. Everything tightens as the hungry, needy storm in my lower stomach builds again.

I flatten my body into the mattress when he draws my clit into his mouth and sucks it gently. His controlled pace is my undoing. I writhe against the sheets and his mouth as another orgasm jolts through me.

Maksim doesn’t stop, though. He continues nuzzling my aching flesh with his lips and tongue, forcing my orgasm to never let go.

“No,” I push out on a breathless moan when he replaces his tongue with his fingers. He slides them inside me, not facing an ounce of resistance, before he sets the pace somewhere between the manic fucking we were doing before he commenced eating me and the slow, leisured pace that saw me climaxing so hard and long the bedding under my backside is wet. “No more. I… can’t.”

“One more,” he demands, still groping, still teasing. “Then we’ll fuck, you’ll nap on me for an hour while I’m still inside you, and then we’ll eat.”

“I can’t…”

His words battering my swollen flesh almost make an instant liar out of me. “Yeah, you can, Doc. Because I’m not going to stop until you do.”

My knuckles go white when he returns his mouth to my clit. He blows a hot breath over the nervy bud before he suckles it into his mouth.

His pace should be too slow to get me off, too gentle, but the orgasm it coerces from me is just as leisured. It pulses through me like liquid ecstasy, tensing and relaxing every limb that brought it to life.

Its slow, tortuous pace doesn’t make it any less energy-draining. I’m a sticky, floppy mess when Maksim crawls up my body with a lazy, Sunday-afternoon-drive smile spread across his face.

He knows he won, and I’m too exhausted to try to pretend he didn’t.

He parts me with his fingers, his thumb hovering over my clit, before he slowly inches inside me. “Christ,” he bites out as he adjusts my legs wrapped around his waist, angling my hips so he can slide in even deeper. “It just gets better and better.”

While moaning in agreement, I swivel my hips to lessen the fragment of pain associated with taking a man of his length and girth. He’s the biggest I’ve ever been with, and even if everything falls to pieces between us, I don’t see that ever changing.

He’d have to have a monster dick to top Maksim, and even then, I still don’t see it being enough.

His cock is as savagely beautiful as the rest of him.

My legs shake as he pushes in deep, stretching me more.

“You’re so deep,” I breathe out, dangerously close to climaxing again.

He pumps into me while staring down at me, his closeness almost too intimate to bear. Every light in our apartment is on. There isn’t a single shadow to hide in, but I relish the brightness instead of hating that there is no coverage.

I can see every lash fanning Maksim’s dark eyes. Every perfect pore producing the sweat glistening on his panty-wetting face and body. I watch his muscles contract and release as he uses them to make me come undone. And how his gorgeous face strains when he gets as close to the edge as I am.

I drink in every devastating feature until I climax with a cry, my entire body shaking.

My vision distorts as moans roll up my chest and escape my gaped mouth.

My moans set Maksim off. He grinds into me another three times before he pins my hips to the mattress and grunts through a release so fiery and hot that we undertake a second round before collapsing from exhaustion.

Maksim glances at me over his shoulder when I say, “I’ve been meaning to ask how your mother is.” He scrapes our leftovers into the trash, his back moving as elegantly as it did when he fucked me into a state of unconsciousness. “Did she experience any side effects from the B12 serum she was administered today?”

He continues clearing away the dishes before replying, “Not as far as I am aware. She appears to be handling them well.” He stacks the scraped clean plates into the dishwasher before drying his hands with a tea towel. “Is there anything specific I should look for?”

“There are no visual indicators of a B12 deficiency or surplus until the levels are either extremely low or high, but there are indicators that could expose which way her levels are moving. She would have to share those symptoms, though. They’re more felt by the patient than physically visual.”

After tossing down the tea towel, he huffs. “Then your guess will be as good as mine.”

“Stubborn?” I ask, reading between the lines.

Maksim smiles, taking my comment as intended. “Who do you think I inherited it from?” He plucks me from the floor, sits on the couch our backs braced against while eating, and then pulls me into his chest. “If you say my father, I may kill you.”

There’s an edge of malice in his tone, but since it appears more directed at his father than me, I let his threat slide. “The main indicators are weakness, tiredness, and lightheadedness. Constipation, diarrhea, loss of appetite…” My words trail off when many of the symptoms I spout off match the ones shared with me today.

Maksim groans when I leap off him and race into the room where I dumped my purse when he started ravishing my neck, but remains quiet when I tug my cell phone out of my purse and select a frequently called number.

A nurse in the pediatric ward answers a short time later. “Pediatric department, Nurse Kelley speaking.”

“Was Yulia Petrovitch’s insurance company billed for an MMA or homocysteine test?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Yulia Petrovitch, the patient from Room 3A, were her B12 levels checked?”

I groan in frustration when she asks, “Who is this?”

“It is Dr. Hoffman.” Maksim’s growl is deeper and sterner than my bark when a department nurse fails to keep abreast with the patients in the ward. “Yulia was brought in with severe stomach cramps and abdominal distention. Her initial diagnosis was food poisoning with cystitis of the lower tract, but her symptoms are mimicking ones of a patient I diagnosed earlier this month. She could also have a B12 deficiency.”

Nurse Kelley takes her time replying, so I expect more than a blasé response. “Yulia was discharged this evening.”

“I am aware of that. I wrote her discharge paperwork. But that isn’t what I’m asking. Did her blood workup include the MMA or homocysteine tests?”

“No. There is no indication either of those tests were performed.”

Her tone indicates she doesn’t like being shouted at, but since it is effective, I don’t offer an apology. I simply lower the volume of my voice to a respectable level. “Can you please request the additional tests.”

She assumes I am asking a question. I am not. “The patient has been discharged⁠—”

“So? That doesn’t mean our medical care ends the instant she leaves the hospital.”

“With all due respect, Dr. Hoffman, I believe you are wrong.” No buzzes of patients’ bells or code blue alarms sound, but she acts like they’re ringing off the hook. “I have patients who require my assistance.”

She hangs up on me, making me fuming mad.

“She… That… Ugh!” I grip my cell phone hard enough that I almost crack the screen. “Can you believe the hide of that woman? She’s one of those people who should leave the profession the instant she no longer cares. They’re the people giving the rest of us a bad…” My words trail off when my twist to face Maksim unearths that he is on a call. I didn’t hear him dial a number, much less speak.

I mouth an apology before slumping onto a couch that’s so new I wouldn’t be surprised to learn it still has its price tag attached.

I’ve only just cradled my head in my hands when Maksim crouches down in front of me. “Which test does the hospital generally use?”

When I peer at him, lost, a unique accent sounds out of his iPhone. “It will be less suspicious to the insurance assessor if we use the standard billing code Myasnikov Private uses.”

I’m completely and utterly lost, and my stupidity deepens when Maksim opens his laptop and spins it to face me. He’s logged into HIS, Myasnikov Private’s health information system, and in the program where doctors and nurses order blood workups for inpatients.

“Which one?” Maksim asks as the cursor bounces between the MMA and homocysteine check boxes.

He isn’t moving the cursor. His finger isn’t close to the trackpad of his MacBook Pro, so it must be being controlled remotely.

Too shocked not to interrogate, I ask, “How do you have access to HIS? That is a private server.”

“A private server with shit security. It didn’t even take me two seconds to bypass their outdated firewall,” answers a southern voice from Maksim’s cell.

After bouncing his eyes between my wide gaze for several heart-thumping seconds, Maksim asks, “Do you want to test Yulia for a B12 deficiency?”

“Yes,” I answer, since it is the truth.

But I don’t know if I can do it like this.

I don’t know if I can break the law to help a patient.

When my heart calls me a liar two seconds before my head, I say, “The second one. These tests are rarely approved, but that’s the one they used to diagnose your mother’s condition.”

“Irina is s⁠—”

“Order the test, and if you face any trouble with the billing side of things, make sure those inquiries are forwarded directly to me,” Maksim interrupts, his tone stern.

“There won’t be any issues.” Keys being clicked sound out of Maksim’s phone before the unnamed man says, “You know where to reach me if you need me.”

He hangs up on Maksim as quickly as the nurse did me, but Maksim seems more relieved than annoyed.

In the silence, the reality of what we just did crashes down on me.

“Did we just break the law?”

Maksim squashes his finger against my lips. “We helped a patient. That’s all we did.”

The simplicity of his reply doesn’t alter the honesty of it.

That is precisely what we did.

We helped someone—someone extremely deserving of our assistance.

The reminder instantly removes any angst I’m feeling. I am more ecstatic than worried. It is nice to know I have more than me on my patients’ side. If there had been someone like Maksim on Stefania’s side when she got sick, maybe she would still be here.

With a smirk that makes me needy, Maksim nudges his head to the primary suite. “Your alarm is set to go off in a little over six hours. You should head to bed.”

“I’m not tired.”

My lie tumbles from my mouth so fast you’d have no clue it is a lie if Maksim wasn’t the master of detecting deceit. “You’re a shit liar, Doc.”

He marches me into our room and turns down the sheets someone must have snuck in to make after we messed them, before he nudges his head to the opening, wordlessly demanding my entrance.

I bow to his demand, exhausted from multiple orgasms.

“Are you not coming to bed?” I ask when he presses his lips to my temple like he does anytime he’s planning to leave me alone for longer than five minutes.

He heads to the door before spinning back around. “I have some stuff I need to take care of. I’ll join you shortly.”

I try not to pout like a whiny baby.

It is a hard feat I only achieve because Maksim adds, “Take your panties off. I don’t want anything in my way when I come back.”

Since he appears to be struggling as much as I am, I don’t object when he commences closing the door a second after I slide my panties down my thighs.

“Maksim,” I blurt out just before the door shuts.

“Yeah.”

I can’t see his face, but I feel his smile when I reply, “Thank you.”