Simon’s face was pleasant with a ready smile that put everyone at ease. It oozed nice. Skater guy’s was sexy with a wicked smile that put her on edge and made her forget all about nice. Simon was your average good-looking guy.
There was absolutely nothing average about this man.
And in their whole ten years as a couple Simon had never made her body hum like it was right now.
Madeline frowned, confused by her uncharacteristic feelings. Labourers were not her type. Buff wasn’t her type. Men that knew their way around skate parks weren’t her type. Men with children weren’t her type.
What the hell was happening to her?
‘May I help you?’
His voice was rich and deep and barely contained his obvious amusement at her appraisal. She was standing a few metres away but the caress of the air currents his voice had disturbed, swayed over her seductively.
It was as if he had physically touched her.
She blinked at him blankly, trying to remember why she was there. His amused gaze eventually worked its way into her consciousness and Maddy made an effort to pull herself together. So, the man had a nice body. She’d come to talk to the naturopath, not to ogle the removalist or the decorator or whoever in the hell this man was.
‘Ah...no. I came to talk to Dr Hunt, but it appears he’s not here...so I’ll let you get back to your...duties.’
Marcus smothered a smile, suppressing the urge to throw back his head and laugh out loud. Put in your place, dude. This woman had just looked him over, summed him up and dismissed him as nothing in about thirty seconds flat!
What a snob. What a sexy, beautiful snob.
She was tall, her head crowned with the most magnificent red hair he’d ever seen. It was curly and looked slightly wild despite her efforts to tame it into a neat bundle at the back of her head and he had a sudden vision of it spread over his chest.
And his pillows.
Emerald-green eyes sparkled above high cheekbones and two luscious lips. Kissable lips. Very kissable lips.
Her serious, obviously expensive suit did nothing to hide her fantastic figure. Marcus’s loins stirred as he speculated on the bits of her long legs that were hidden by her skirt. She looked prim and proper and he was hit by the urge to get her dirty and messy.
It was powerful, bordering on primitive.
She looked tired but there was an undercurrent, a vibe of tension around her that was almost palpable. Like a fully wound spring ready to unfurl at a second’s notice.
He’d never met anyone so uptight in his life.
A large diamond flashed on the ring finger of her left hand. Surely someone getting regular sex couldn’t be this tense?
‘I’m Dr Marcus Hunt,’ he stated, burying his left hand deep into his shorts pocket.
Madeline watched the movement hypnotically, until she became aware that she was staring at a particular part of his anatomy that she should not be staring at and dragged her eyes off him, shocked at her behaviour.
He found it amusing, she could tell. His grin, barely suppressed, adding a sparkle to those blue, blue eyes. ‘You’re Dr Hunt?’ Maddy’s tone found the perfect mix of sarcasm and disbelief.
She had to get back some control here.
‘Yes.’ He swapped the paintbrush to his left hand, wiped his right on his denim-covered buttock and offered it to her.
She ignored it, her rudeness seeming to amuse him even further. Madeline got the impression that nothing fazed Marcus Hunt.
‘And you are?’
‘Madeline Harrington. Dr Madeline Harrington.’
‘Oh, right...from next door.’ He smiled. ‘We’ll be neighbours, then.’ The thought, despite the bling on her hand, was immensely appealing.
‘Ah, no...I don’t think so.’
‘Oh?’ Marcus queried, not particularly worried. ‘Problem?’
‘Two, actually. One...’ Madeline held up one finger. ‘I object, most strenuously, to you using the title of Doctor. Naturopaths or any other alternative medicine nuts are not permitted to call themselves doctors.’
‘They can if they hold a medical degree,’ he stated matter-of-factly. ‘And I’m a homeopath, actually.’
Madeline blinked. ‘You’re...a real doctor?’
Apparently not insulted by her frank incredulity, he threw back his head and laughed. The long column of his neck was exposed to her view and, despite her irritation, an errant brain cell dared her to lick it.
‘Is that so hard to believe?’
‘Quite frankly, yes,’ Madeline admitted. He didn’t look like any kind of doctor she had ever known. Her father had been a doctor, his two nearing-retirement partners were doctors. Simon was a doctor!
Those men were what doctors looked like.
‘I believe there was a second?’ Marcus prompted after some time had elapsed and Madeline hadn’t continued.
She made a supreme effort to drag her eyes away from his mouth and concentrate on the conversation. ‘Yes. Secondly.’ She cleared her throat, her chin jutting determinedly ‘It will be a cold day in hell before I will allow you to practise this...quackery, this medieval...mumbo-jumbo, right next door to our practice. My partners and I will not legitimise this hocus-pocus by allowing you premises next to ours.’
Marcus stared intently at Madeline Harrington, listening carefully as she laid down the law. Two red spots of colour stained her cheeks and there was a fine tremble husking up her voice. He wondered what it would be like to have her breath trembling against his skin. His loins stirred again and he had to remind himself she was not on the market.
‘And just how do you propose to stop me, Maddy?’
She opened her mouth to lay down exactly how she intended to see that he didn’t practise his faux style of medicine and stopped abruptly at his casual familiarity. No one - no one - had called her that since Abby. Sorrow and pain lanced through her as an image of her younger sister formed in her
