Clinch (The Underground Book 2) (3 page)

How had she ever found him to be remotely attractive?

The man she’d left in her office would have been the polar opposite of what she normally found herself attracted to—until last night. And her opinion was completely reinforced this morning. Leo Gulin was built. Bulky muscles covered his entire body, making her want to run her hands over them to feel his sturdy strength and wipe away memories of ever having touched Marshall’s chest or even his hands.

She shuddered.

She realized several things at once. One, Marshall hadn’t noticed what she wore last night for their supposed date. He’d been so caught up in getting to the fight and ensuring he won that her bright dress hadn’t entered his radar. Dick.

Two, he had slept all night, not the least bit worried about her well-being until early this morning. It was surprising he’d shown up before noon.

And three, he was so self-important that it never dawned on him she might have a patient in her office. Why else would she be at work so early?

Marshall cocked his head to one side. “What’s gotten into you?”

“Me? Marshall, you need to leave. I’m exhausted. I don’t want to discuss this with you right now.” Besides, he was embarrassing her. She knew without a doubt Leo was lurking behind the door that led to her office and patient rooms. He could hear every word.

And Marshall wasn’t being quiet. “You owe me an explanation. I was worried about you.” He huffed, setting his hands on his hips.

“When did you start worrying about my welfare exactly? Because I’ve been here all night. Did you sleep well?”

“I slept fine. That’s not the point. You don’t just leave a bar when you’ve gone there with a date.”

“A date?” Her voice rose. “You call that a date? A date is dinner and a movie, not a night at some seedy underground illegal fight. And you’re really starting to piss me off.
You
left
me
, Marshall. Not the other way around. Go home.” She waved a hand in the air in front of him, taking in his clothes again. “Or go polish your yacht. I need a nap. I’ll have customers lined up outside soon.”

He flinched. “For your information, I was going to take you to breakfast. But obviously you’re in a mood this morning. And…” he leaned forward… “I don’t polish my own yacht. I have people who do it for me.”

“Marshall, just leave.” Her shoulders slumped. Why was he still standing in her clinic? He was an idiot. His parents were rich. He came from old money. In fact, he was so wealthy she shuddered to consider how much he’d bet on last night’s fight. Enough to make him sweat with nervousness.

Her mother thought he was the perfect match. But no way in hell would Katie ever marry such an asshole. Breakfast? Was he so fucking stupid it didn’t occur to him she normally saw patients on Saturday mornings? She’d never gone to breakfast with him or anyone on a Saturday.

She wanted to kick herself for getting into this situation in the first place. She’d been straddling two worlds, so to speak. The clinic was her life. Helping people was her passion. The fact that she’d ever for one moment thought to mollify her mother by dating this rich asshole made her cringe.

He’d never been right for her. They had nothing in common. He didn’t even approve of her job.

She was done. Way past done. She straightened her spine.

“It seems like maybe I should stay. You’re not thinking clearly. Did you drink too much?”

A deep voice behind her made her cringe. “It seems to me you should leave like the lady has requested several times, big guy.”

Leo.

Great.

The last thing Katie needed was to explain Leo’s presence to Marshall.

Marshall twisted to face Leo. “Who the fuck are you?”

Leo marched across the waiting room until he reached the front door. He didn’t speak until his palm was wrapped around the handle. “I’m a patient. I don’t have to answer that. Do you always harass doctors in the early hours of the morning?”

Marshall gasped, stomping closer to Leo—a man who was twice his size and had just referred to the skinny, rich asshole as “big guy,” the exact same term Katie had used minutes ago to refer to Leo.

She fought the urge to laugh. She really did need sleep.

At least Leo didn’t indicate there was anyone else in the building. Marshall would have a field day with that. He’d tell his parents, and hers too, before lunchtime. And then she’d be read the riot act for the billionth time for taking in strangers in the middle of the night.

Neither her parents nor his seemed to have any sense of her work at all. She was a physician first and foremost, and her calling to help the underprivileged citizens of Chicago had never been well received, especially by her mother.

“You don’t look sick,” Marshall retorted. And then he snapped his fingers. “Hey, I recognize you from last night. Did you fight? Are you the guy who won that kick-ass match? Volikov?”

He twisted to look at Katie again. “Did he get hurt?”

Leo cleared his throat. “You’ve got me mixed up with someone else, asshole. I didn’t fight anyone last night.”

It wasn’t a lie. It was Dmitry who had fought in the ring last night, though comparing their physiques, it would be easy to mix them up. Except Dmitry shaved his head.

She doubted Marshall had paid any attention to Dmitry’s baldness, however.

“Marshall,” she stepped forward, taking his arm and physically leading him toward the glass front door. “Go. I’m not talking to you anymore this morning. This man’s illness is none of your business.” She shoved Leo’s hand out of the way and opened the front door herself. “Go,” she repeated, pointing outside.

Unseasonably warm spring air wafted into her clinic.

Marshall stood his ground. “This isn’t over, Kathryn. Call me when you’re feeling more reasonable. My mother wants to have us over for dinner.”

“Marshall, there is no ‘us.’ There never was. There’s just
you
and whatever you want to do to steamroll everyone around you. If I had any doubts, you set me perfectly straight last night.” She pointed outside again, holding the door open wider.

Leo stood taller. His brow was furrowed tight. If Marshall didn’t get out of her clinic in about two seconds, there was a good chance she was going to have to watch another boxing match. And once was enough.

Marshall sighed with great exaggeration and stomped out the front door. He spun around when he got outside, his gaze meeting Katie’s. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Leo grabbed the door and yanked it closed, twisting the lock as soon as he cut Marshall’s voice off. “Don’t bother,” he muttered.

She fought the grin that spread across her lips. “My hero,” she teased.

Leo didn’t seem to find the situation funny, however. “Who is that jackass?”

“Until last night, I guess I would have said he was my boyfriend.”

“And then?”

“And then he dragged me to your friend’s stupid fight and forced me to watch sweaty, huge, muscular, sexy men beat each other to a bloody pulp.” She gasped as soon as she realized a few of her adjectives weren’t appropriate.

Leo’s mouth quirked on one side. “Sexy, huh?” He set a hand on her back and led her through the waiting room and toward her office. “You were on a date with that jackass?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Wearing that dress?” He pointed to the wrinkled material that suddenly seemed way too short and tight.

“On my behalf, he didn’t exactly tell me we would be sneaking into some speakeasy to watch an underground fight.”

“I see.”

She licked her lips as she shrugged free of him and slid around to her desk chair. She had no idea what he saw, but she saw a room filled with testosterone all packaged up in a body she wouldn’t ordinarily find attractive.

Or maybe she was kidding herself.

Maybe she’d always considered men like Leo attractive and had simply tamped down the feeling since there was no way in hell her parents would ever approve of her dating someone like him—an MMA fighter with muscles that went on forever.

She started to giggle at the visual of introducing him to her mother.

Maybe it would be worth it just for the shock value.

Five months later…

“How’s your friend?” Katie asked as she stuck a butterfly bandage on the fourth buff guy Leo brought into her clinic in the past two weeks. He had a small cut above his right eyebrow from sparring at the gym. Hardly necessary.

She had to struggle to keep from grinning. When she first told Leo he could bring his friends in to get stitched up as necessary, she hadn’t expected him to take her so literally. Half the time the men on her table had nothing more than a bruise.

Leo Gulin used anything as an excuse to come by.

“Dmitry, you mean? He’s good. I hear he thinks he’s totally healed. No more pain around his kidney at all. Lauren can’t keep him down any longer.”

She had no idea where Dmitry and Lauren had fled to the morning after she’d taken care of him. Once she and Leo had gotten rid of a very persistent Marshall, she’d declared Dmitry safe enough to travel. His urine output was fine. No evidence of blood. To be safe, she’d sent a blood sample to the lab for further testing, figuring she could get word to him later if there was anything he needed to know. The results from that blood work still made her shudder, but the important thing was his kidneys were functioning properly.

It was clear Dmitry and Lauren were on the run. Some Russian Mafia guy was after them. Leo never gave her many details, probably for her own protection, but she gathered they were far away in another country.

Katie smiled at the guy on her table as she finished cleaning up this latest man’s forehead. “What did you say your name was?”

“Ivan Belinsky, ma’am.” Ivan was another clone to Leo as far as she was concerned. From the neck down, they all looked alike. Ivan had brown eyes and slightly darker hair, but his olive skin was almost the same shade as Leo’s, and he was over six feet tall. Leo stood at about six four. Ivan was only a few inches shorter. Both men had the same distinctly Russian accent that made her panties wet. Their English was perfect, but their accents would never completely go away.

“Well, Ivan, I think you’re going to live. Keep the area clean for a few days.” She stepped back, pulled her gloves off, and dropped them in the trash can.

Ivan jumped down from the table and beelined for the door as if coming to see her hadn’t been his idea at all. In fact, she wondered if he’d cut himself intentionally to take one for the team and give Leo another excuse to come see her.

If Leo weren’t so cute and endearing, it would be annoying. Instead, she found she’d grown rather fond of him. Leo Gulin wasn’t just a pretty body. He was talented in ways that had come in quite handy in the last few months.

“You want me to take a look at that faucet in your bathroom while I’m here?” he asked.

“Sure. Give me a minute to finish up out front.” She led him from the patient room, down the hall, and into her office. He’d been in there dozens of times. He’d almost stopped looking ridiculously large sitting on her love seat.

Almost.

Five minutes later, she’d sent her staff home, locked the front door, set the alarm, and was leading Leo up the back stairs to her apartment.

The stairwell was narrow, and it always seemed like he had to turn sideways to get through.

“Katie, when are you going to move someplace safer?”

She rolled her eyes, though he couldn’t see her from behind. “Never. I like it here. It’s an easy commute to work.”

“It’s not a great neighborhood.”

She opened the door at the top and pushed it hard. It always stuck.

The building was old. But it was on the outskirts of downtown Chicago, an ideal location for a clinic. The majority of her patients were either homeless or down on their luck. Almost none had insurance.

“It wouldn’t do me any good to run a free clinic in a wealthy neighborhood, now would it?” she teased.

Leo shoved the door closed behind him with his ass. “I’ll look at your door again too.” He didn’t meet her gaze as he circled around her and headed for the only bathroom in her tiny apartment. He didn’t touch her either.

She bit her lower lip as she watched the muscles ripple across his back. He wore his usual tight black T-shirt and worn jeans. His boots were old and muddy. She rarely saw him wearing any other shoes.

Leo worked construction in the mornings most days and then headed over to the gym, which was only a few blocks from her clinic. At least once a week, he showed up in her office right as she was closing.

He was often surly, but today more than usual. As he lowered himself to the floor and stuck his head under her bathroom sink, he spoke again. “You don’t have to live in the clinic just because you own it, you know.”

She smiled down at him, even though his face wasn’t visible. He had a gruff exterior and tried to make it seem like nothing fazed him, but underneath, he cared. A lot. About a lot of people. And she found herself growing increasingly fonder of him by the day.

As he lifted his arms under her sink to fiddle with the pipes, she let her gaze wander down his body. His abs were a woman’s dream come true. His shirt rose, leaving several inches of sexy tanned skin exposed to her view. And his jeans hung low enough on his hips that she wondered if he was commando.

She almost moaned as her gaze landed on his package. Not for the first time, she wondered if he was always erect and horny or if his cock was that large in its flaccid state. If so, she felt sorry for his women.

She flinched at the thought.

Obviously the man had women. Probably dozens of them considering how smokin’ hot he was. Besides, women loved men who spent their evenings getting beat up in the ring.

“You have plans Friday night?” Leo asked the underside of her sink.

She didn’t move for a moment. Why was he asking?

He shoved himself out from under her vanity and met her gaze, lifting up on his elbow. His hands were smudged black, and he carefully held them out to keep from touching anything. “Katie?”

“Oh, um, I’m not sure yet.”

He lifted a brow. “Don’t tell me you’re still dating that Marshall guy. He’s a world-class asshole.”