Just a little side story starring our very own resident sex god Lester Santos...Enjoy the smutty goodness!

Disclaimer: I do not own any of Janet Evanovich's characters, especially the Merry Men. I'll think about returning Lester to her after I'm done with him, though…

Rating for eventual sexually explicit situations and language.

"Flesh wound," Bobby announced. "Needs it dug out and stitched." He was kneeling on his knee in front of Hal, examining the entry wound of a nine-millimeter bullet. Hal looked pale, but otherwise okay. He was shaken up. Several feet in front of us stood two Trenton P.D. uniforms and Ranger, hovering over Lewis Kerrigan. Kerrigan was an FTA of heroic proportions, and was known to fire off shots at someone just for the hell of it. Ranger had Kerrigan trussed up like a Christmas goose in handcuffs and ankle chains.

"Get him to St. Francis," Ranger barked. "Santos, take him in your truck."

"Yes, sir," I replied. I was off-duty that night, but had raced to the scene of the shooting with Tank and Bobby when I heard that Hal had gotten shot. Bobby and I helped Hal up.

"Shit, Hal," I panted. "Help us out here, man!" Hal leaned on my side, nursing the shallow bullet wound that had taken a small chunk out of his thigh. We shuffled Hal over to my new black Escalade and I aimed the keyless entry remote to unlock the doors.

"I'm trying," he gasped. "I take it you've never been shot?"

"Too many times to count," I replied. "Bobby, get him into the front seat."

"You want a towel or something to put over the seat?" Bobby asked me.

"There's a clean gym towel in the backseat," I replied. Bobby located the towel and spread it over the passenger's seat to keep dirt and blood from getting onto my leather. Hal hoisted himself into my SUV and moaned when he unbent his knee.

"We'll get you to the ER in a minute, buddy," Bobby reassured Hal. "Just don't move a whole lot." Hal nodded. Bobby shut Hal into the passenger's seat and jumped into the back. "Santos, be careful of the bumps."

I put the Escalade in gear and slowly motored out of the parking lot, watching Ranger throw Kerrigan into the back of his Cayenne in my rearview mirror.

At St. Francis, Hal was quickly taken to a room by several nurses who whisked him down the hall in a wheelchair. Bobby and I were stuck filling out forms in the lobby. The young receptionist unabashedly stared at Bobby in his RangeMan uniform, looking terrified at the sight of all his weapons and muscles.

"Hal…Hal what?" I asked Bobby. "I know it's Dominguez, but how do you spell that?" I began panicking as I tried to fill out the stupid admitting paperwork, nearly succeeding in screwing up the first damn question.

"If you don't know that, Santos, I'm not sure what the hell you're doing working at RangeMan." Bobby snatched the clipboard and pen from me and plopped down onto a plastic waiting room chair. "Leave the forms to me, I'm the medic here."

"You're right. I'm going to go look for a vending machine." I left Bobby with the forms and found a door that read Triage across it. What the hell was Triage? I gingerly pushed it open and peeked inside. Several empty cubicles, curtained off by ugly-patterned drapes hanging from the ceiling, were behind the door. Each cubicle held a stretcher and some medical equipment. To the right was the same hallway that they took Hal down. To my left, I heard voices coming from cubicle number four.

"Mr. Dominguez, how old are you?" a young female nurse's voice was demanding. Hal was back there! I quietly shut the Triage door behind me and tiptoed over to cubicle number four to listen in. I stood just out of view behind the drawn curtain and suddenly, the nurse who had been asking Hal all the questions gasped.

"Get the ammonia," someone yelled. "He's going down."

"Mr. Dominguez…Hal!" Another nurse ran into the cubicle from around the corner and rushed into Hal's cubicle.

"Get him on the stretcher," the second nurse said. My stomach flip-flopped and I began to worry about Hal. I still couldn't see anything, and if the nurses saw me they probably would have kicked me out for being nosy.

"He's coming around," the first nurse said. "Mr. Dominguez, how many fingers am I holding up?"

I heard Hal's voice answer groggily. "Two."

"Good," the nurse replied. "On a scale of one to ten, how much pain are you in?"

"An eight."

"Do you know who shot you?"

"Lewis K-Kerrigan," Hal stammered. "Damn, can I get some m-morphine?"

"In a little bit." The young-sounding nurse suddenly whipped back the cubicle's curtain and saw me. Shit. Busted.

"Um, sorry," I stammered. Her blue-green eyes widened and she gasped.

"Oh," she said lightly. "I didn't expect someone to be standing there."

"I can wait in the hall, if…"

"No! I mean, no, you don't have to. Are you with Mr. Dominguez?" she asked me.

"Yeah. Not with, you know. Friends, co-workers. Not…partners." I couldn't believe I just said all that. It was as if someone else was running my speech for me.

"Good to know," the nurse replied, giving me a strange smile before disappearing down the hallway. I smacked my forehead with the heel of my hand and dashed into Hal's cubicle. He was alone, lying in a semi-Fowler's position on the stretcher. He had a cool compress on his forehead and part of his pants leg was cut away where his wound was.

"Dude, you okay?" I asked him. "Did you pass out?"

"I guess," Hal mumbled. "Where's Brown?"

"Filling out your forms in the lobby."

"And Ranger?"

"Taking Kerrigan to T.P.D. headquarters to get booked in." Just then, my iPhone rang. I looked at the readout. Ranger.

"Yo," I said to him.

"Santos," he replied. "Give me a report on Dominguez."

"They have him in the prep-area right now, just to check him out. I'm assuming they're gonna move him to the treatment area later to get sewn up."

"Good. Is it busy there tonight?"

"Not really, the waiting room wasn't that full."

"Good," Ranger said again. "I'll be in touch." He disconnected. I stuck my phone back in my pocket and sat on a small rolling stool next to Hal's bed.

"Dude, who was that fucking hot nurse that was in here with you? In the pink outfit?" I whispered to Hal. "I don't come to the ER often, but I'm SURE I've never seen her here before."

"I dunno, but I think she pressed her tit against my arm by accident before I passed out."

Christ. "What did it feel like, man?"

"I don't remember." Hal grimaced. I could tell his leg was hurting.

"She is seriously gorgeous," I told him. "You sure you can't remember anything? Was it soft? Squishy? Real or fake?"

"Fuck, Lester! I've got a bullet in my leg!" Hal whined.

"Okay, okay." I sighed.

"Fucking horn-dog," I heard Hal grumble.

The young nurse who had witnessed my word diarrhea earlier came back into Hal's cubicle, carrying a box of sterile gauze and a bottle of sterile saline solution. She smiled at me.

"So, how did your friend here get shot?" she asked me. She placed the gauze and the saline bottle on a bedside table and crossed her arms in front of her, her foot sticking out to the side.

"He was apprehending a fugitive."

Her eyes lit up. "Oh, yeah?"

"We work for a security company," I explained. Damn, she was sexy.

"So where're your fatigues and weapons, then?" she asked me, checking out my new black Nike Shoxx, baggy blue jeans, and tight white t-shirt. I had my favorite White Sox baseball cap on backwards with my trusty mirrored-lens Oakleys on stand-by, resting on the bill.

"I'm off-duty tonight." I grinned and she smiled back.

"Well, that explains it." She turned around to face Hal. "I'm just going to clean your wound a little bit and put some gauze over it, and then we'll wheel you into the treatment area, okay?"

Hal nodded weakly.

"Sorry I can't get you any pain meds yet, but Dr. Schiff will make sure that doesn't get overlooked." The young nurse put a reassuring hand on Hal's shoulder.

"Thanks," Hal grumbled. Nurse Beautiful selected a pair of disposable gloves from a box on the counter and slid them over her hands. She needed to get to the other side of the bed, but I was blocking her from doing so.

"Sorry," I said, stepping to the side as she brushed past me. She smelled so good. I caught a glimpse of her hospital ID badge. Dayna Marrero, RN, BSN. She glanced up at me as she passed, giving me a look at the longest eyelashes I'd ever seen on a woman. She had full pink lips that begged to be sucked on, sparkling blue-green eyes, and long dirty-blonde hair that hung down her back in thick waves. Her baby-pink nurse's uniform hugged her perfect, slender frame and her shoes were similar to mine, but with pink in them. She wore a black long-sleeved shirt under her pink top, the sleeves pushed back to her elbows. And, for the record, I was pretty sure her tits were real.

"So," Dayna said. She ripped the paper covering off of the box of sterile gauze and twisted open the cap of the saline solution. She poured some saline into the box of gauze to soak the gauze squares and recapped the bottle. "Ex-military?" She eyed the diamond studs in each of my earlobes.

"Special Forces," I supplied.

"How impressive." Dayna took a few squares of the soaked gauze out of the box and lightly dabbed them on Hal's gunshot wound. "My father was a S.E.A.L."

"Oooh, a military brat," I remarked, a teasing grin spread across my face.

"Something like that." Dayna continued to dab Hal's wound, trying hard not to cause him pain, being as careful as possible. "I was born in Panama."

"You don't look Panamanian," I said to her. She looked up from Hal's leg.

"That's because I'm not." Dayna raised an eyebrow at me and gave a slight smile. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name."

"It's Lester," I replied. "The guys usually just call me Santos."

"Santos." I loved the way she pronounced it, letting it roll off her tongue. "Sounds Panamanian."

This girl had jokes.

"It's not," I said, somewhat defensively. "I'm originally from Chicago."

"Puerto Rican?" she asked.

"Of course, one-hundred percent."

She rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. "How did I guess?"

"Maybe it's my dark, exotic good looks. Or my sensual-sounding last name." I smirked.

"No. That's not it. I think it's the egotistical, in-love-with-yourself attitude." Dayna smirked back and snapped her gloves off. She threw away all of the supplies and whooshed out of the cubicle, leaving a sweet-smelling trail behind her.

Ouch.

"Damn," Hal grumbled. "Nurse fine-as-fuck, one. Lester Santos, zero."

"Her name is Dayna."

"And I'm next to positive that's as far as you'll get with her."

What do you all think? Should I continue? Lol Lester's not having much luck with her!

** Written for my fabulously-wonderful muse, my coworker and fellow Lester-luster! Love ya, Babe!