‘Wait,’ she said, and sat up, grabbed her shirt and tugged it on.
Two Flight-Aid shirts. Colleagues.
‘Needs must,’ she said, lying down and turned her back, letting him tug her into him. He felt her force herself to relax. Muscle by muscle.
He was doing the same himself. The smell of her hair, soft and clean and with a scent so faint… if he wasn’t this close he could never have smelled it.
‘Tell me about Lucy,’ she said, with sudden asperity, and he wondered if she realised what he was thinking.
If she had, then a man was wise to stop thinking it. Right now. Tell her about Lucy.
‘She’s my daughter.’
‘I know that much.’ She sounded amused.
‘She’s beautiful. She’s dark and tall and slim. Maybe a bit too thin.’ According to the one photograph he’d seen. What would he know?
‘How often do you see her?’
‘Never. I didn’t know she existed until three months ago.’
‘Wow!’ She didn’t sound judgmental. She just sounded… interested. It was the right reaction, he thought. She made it sound like not knowing you had a daughter was almost normal. That came from years of medical training, he thought. Nothing shocks.
‘Wow’s right.’
‘Harry says she’s coming tomorrow.’
‘So it seems,’ he said harshly. ‘Let’s talk of something else.’
‘Something else.’ She was silent for a while. Absorbing an absent daughter? He wondered if she was drifting into sleep, but apparently not.
‘So what about your parents?’ she asked.
‘What about them?’
‘Where are they?’
‘My mother’s in Perth. Last time I heard, my father was in New Zealand but that was twenty years back.’
‘Not a close family, huh?’
‘You could say that.’ Family wasn’t something he chose to talk about but if it stopped the trembling… This was therapy, he decided, and tugged her tighter and thought, Yep, medical necessity.
‘You’re so warm,’ she murmured, and she was relaxing a little, warming a little, tension easing.
‘So tell me about your family,’ he said, deciding to turn the tables.
‘What do you want to know?’
‘Why your mother didn’t get on that plane and come. She knew how close you’d come to death.’
‘Just as long as it didn’t hit the papers. That’s all she’d care about.’
‘Not close either?’
‘Too close. They should have had more children. Only one… it’s all your eggs in one basket and a girl can’t live up to it.’
‘Do they like you being a nurse?’
‘They hate me being a nurse.’ The tension was back again. ‘I wanted to do medicine so badly but there was no way they’d support me. I was to go into the family business. That was my grandfather’s decree. It’s my grandfather who pulls the strings. I’ve had to work my way through nursing. He fought me every step of the way.’
‘But you’re doing something you love.’
‘I’m not sure,’ she whispered. ‘Or… I am but I’m not doing enough. When I was trying to stop myself drowning, there was a part of me thinking… If I get out of here, I want to make a difference. Not just… be.’
‘I can’t imagine you just being,’ he said, and she sighed and yawned and snuggled.
‘It’d be so easy to sink into my parents’ world. Like my hotel room. I have three different types of bath foam.’
‘Really?’
‘Really.’ She snuggled again. His body was reacting. Of course his body was reacting. He’d have to be inhuman for it not to react.
He was wearing heavy-duty pants with a heavy-duty zipper. He was becoming exceedingly grateful that he didn’t routinely pack pyjamas.
‘I’m so warm,’ she murmured. ‘I shouldn’t let you do this.’
‘My pleasure.’
‘I’m sure it’s not.’ Her voice was starting to slur. ‘I’m sure it’s just that you’re a very nice man and a fine doctor. You saved my life and you’ve rescued me from my nightmare. Now you’re making me feel wonderful. I’m so sorry you didn’t know about your daughter.’
‘I’m seeing her tomorrow. She’s the guest I told Coral about.’
‘That’s great.’ She sighed again, a long, sleepy, languorous sigh that made the night feel impossibly sensual. ‘That’s wonderful. Tomorrow you’ll turn into a father. You’re a lifesaver, a doctor, a father, a guy with pecs to die for… and you’re holding me. Like three types of bath foam… what more could a girl desire?’
She was making no sense at all. ‘Go to sleep.’
‘I will.’ She smiled-he heard her smile. ‘I am. But I first I need to say thank you.’
‘It’s okay.’
‘No, but tomorrow you’ll be a father,’ she said. ‘And a doctor again, and a lifesaver, and I need to say thank you now.’
‘Pippa…’
‘You saved my life.’ She was no longer even trying to make sense, he thought. She was simply saying what came into her head. ‘You saved me from Roger. I could have married him.’
‘That was hardly me…’
‘You were part of it. If you hadn’t been there for me… Apart from being dead… if it hadn’t been you I might even have been weak enough to let him come. He might have bullied me into believing in him again. Marriage for the sake of family. Ugh.’ She shuddered and clung.
‘Not now, though. You’ve shown me how… ordinary it all was. Just ordinary.’ Her voice was a husky whisper, part of the dreaming. Filled with pleasure and warmth and something more… ‘Today… Not only am I alive, not only do I not have to marry Roger, there’s a whole world you’re showing me. You’re showing me how it is to be alive. New. Wanting…’
‘Pippa…’
Was she still dreaming? She wasn’t, he knew she wasn’t, but still she was in some dreamlike state where normal boundaries didn’t apply. Saying exactly what she thought. Feeling what she wanted to feel. Loving the way she was feeling and letting him know that, too.
Her body was heating against his, and he knew… he knew…
That he should leave, now. Put her away from him. Let reality take over again. But she was holding him, needing him, wanting him, and how strong would he have to be to put her away? She was a mature woman. She was melting against him, sensual, languorous, seductive…
Seductive?
‘Thank you,’ she murmured again, and before he could realise what she intended she twisted in his arms. She wound her arms around his neck, then pushed herself up, just a little, so she was gazing down at him in the moonlight.
And before he could even think how to stop her, or even if he wanted to stop her-she kissed him.
She surely kissed him.
For this was no kiss of thanks, a polite brushing of lips, fleeting contact and then pulling away.
This was a kiss of a woman wanting a man.
More.
It was the kiss of a woman claiming her man.
Her lips met his and the contact burned.
Maybe his whole body had been heating before this point, and now… It was like the heat suddenly exploded into flame and the point of flame was his mouth, her lips, the melding of the two together.
