tone brisk and businesslike. ‘You just about done here?’
She looked startled at his announcement but he admired her quick affirmative response. ‘Five minutes?’ she said, only the bob of her throat betraying her nervousness.
He nodded. ‘I’ll set up.’
But then Brett, the triage admin officer, distracted him with a charting issue and it was ten minutes before he headed back to the drunk teenager with the banged-up forehead. He noticed Billie disappearing behind the curtain and cursed under his breath, hurrying to catch her up.
He hadn’t cleaned the wound yet and the patient looked pretty gruesome.
When he joined her behind the curtain seconds later, Billie was staring down at the matted mess of clotted blood and hair that he’d left covered temporarily with a green surgical towel. ‘I’m sorry,’ he apologised. ‘I haven’t had a chance to clean it up yet.’
She dragged her eyes away from the messy laceration and looked at him, her freckles suddenly emphasised by her pallor, her nostrils flaring as she sucked in air. ‘I’ll be … right back,’ she said.
She brushed past him on her way out and Gareth shut his eyes briefly. Great. He glanced at the sleeping patient, snoring drunkenly and oblivious to the turmoil his stupid split head had just caused.
Gareth followed her, taking a guess that she’d headed for the staffroom again. The door was shut when he reached it. He turned the handle but it was locked. ‘Billie,’ he said, keeping his voice low, ‘it’s me, open up.’
The lock turned and the door opened a crack and Gareth slipped into the room. She was just on the other side and her back pushed the door shut again as she leaned against it.
Billie looked up at him, the swimmy sensation in her head and the nausea clearing. ‘I’m fine,’ she dismissed, taking deep, even steady breaths.
‘I’m sorry. I had every intention of cleaning it up … so it looked better.’
Billie nodded. ‘It’s okay. I’m fine,’ she repeated. ‘I just need a moment.’
Gareth nodded as he watched her suck air in and out through pursed lips. She lifted her hand to smooth her hair and he couldn’t help but notice how alarmingly it shook.
She didn’t look okay to him.
‘You look kind of freaked out,’ he said. ‘Do you need a paper bag to blow into? Are your fingers tingly?’
She glared at him. ‘I’m not having a panic attack. I just wasn’t expecting … that. I’m better if I’m mentally prepared. But I’ll be fine.’ She turned those big brown eyes on him. ‘Just give me a moment, okay?’
‘Okay.’
She nodded again and he noticed tears swim in her eyes. Clearly she was disappointed in herself, in not being able to master her affliction.
Gareth shoved a hand through his hair, feeling helpless as she struggled for control. ‘Try not to think about it like it is,’ he said. ‘Next time you go out there it’ll be all cleaned up. No blood. No gore.’
She nodded. ‘Okay.’
But her wide eyes told him she was still picturing it. ‘You’re still thinking about it,’ he said.
‘I’m not,’ she denied, chewing on her bottom lip.
Gareth took a step closer to her, wanting to reach for her but clenching his hands at his sides. ‘Yes, you are.’
She gnawed on her lip some more and he noticed she’d chewed all her gloss off.
‘Look. I’m trying, okay?’ she said, placing her palm flat against his chest. ‘Just back off for a moment.’
Her hand felt warm against his chest and he waited for her to push against him but her fingers curled into the fabric of his scrub top instead and Gareth felt a jolt much further south. As if she’d put her hand down his scrubs bottoms.
Oh, hell. Just hell.
Now he was thinking very bad things. Very bad ways to calm her down, to take her mind off it.
For crying out loud, she was a freaked-out second-year resident who needed to get back to the lac and get the stupid thing sutured so he could free up a bed. Gareth had dealt with a lot of freaked-out people in his life—the wounded, the addled, the grieving.
He was good with the freaked out.
But not like this. Not the way he was thinking.
Hell.
And that’s exactly where he was going—do not pass ‘Go’, do not collect any money—because all he could think about now was her mouth.
Kissing it. Giving her a way to really forget what was beyond the door.
It was wildly inappropriate.
They were at work, for crying out loud. But her husky ‘Gareth?’ reflected the confusion and turmoil stirring unrest inside him.
The look changed on her face as her gaze fixed on his mouth. Her fingers in his shirt seemed to pull him nearer and those freckles were so damn irresistible.
‘Oh, screw it,’ he muttered, caution falling away like confetti around him as he stepped forward, crowding her back against the door, his body aligning with hers, his palms sliding onto her cheeks as he dropped his head.
Billie whimpered as Gareth’s lips made contact with hers. She couldn’t have stopped it had her life depended on it. Her pulse fluttered madly at the base of her throat and at her temples. Everything was forgotten in those lingering moments as his mouth opened and his tongue brushed along her bottom lip.
Back and forth. Back and forth. Again and again.
Maddening. Hypnotic. Perfect.
The kiss sucking away her breath and her thoughts and her sense. Transporting her to a place where only he and his lips and his heat existed. The press of his thighs against hers was heady, her breasts ached to be touched and her belly twisted hard, tensing in anticipation.
She didn’t think she’d ever been kissed like this. And she never wanted it to stop.
She slid her hands onto his waist, anchoring them against his hips bones, feeling the broad bony crests in her palms, using them to pull him in closer, revel in the power of his thighs hard against her, fitting their bodies together more intimately.
A groan escaped his mouth, deep and tortured, as if it was torn from his throat and then Gareth pulled away, breathing hard as he placed his forehead against hers, staying close, keeping their intimate connection, not saying anything, just catching his breath as she caught hers.
‘You okay now?’ he asked after a moment, looking down into her face.
Billie blinked as she struggled to recall what had happened before the kiss. To recall if there had been anything at all—ever—in her life before this kiss.
