at his head, his thick wavy hair tousled from their ministrations. It was suddenly absurdly funny and she felt a bubble of laughter rise in her chest. She bit down on her lip to stop it from spilling out.
But her ribcage shook with the effort to keep it in and it bubbled up anyway.
Luca felt the vibration against his forehead and glanced up just as she laughed. Their breathing was still erratic, they were both half-undressed and thoroughly bedraggled, he had a raging hard-on—and she was laughing.
It was absurd. So he laughed too.
‘You’re crazy,’ he said after their laughter had died down.
Mia shook her head. ‘This is crazy.’
Luca had to agree. Even if his hard-on didn’t. ‘You want to stop?’ he murmured.
His husky voice thickened his accent and a surge of lust welled deep down low in her. Mia shook her head. She couldn’t have stopped now even if a bus had crashed right through the walls of the on-call room.
She was a healthy adult woman, and it had been a couple of weeks since her last liaison. ‘That would be even crazier.’
Luca grinned, dropping his mouth to her chest, running his nose lightly along the slope of a breast and upwards to nuzzle her neck. ‘Pure insanity.’
She stretched her neck to give him better access. ‘Certifiable,’ she agreed.
Luca laved the pulse half way up her neck with his tongue. ‘Utter lunacy.’
‘I think we should get the door, though,’ she managed through the haze of lust descending on her.
Luca’s head snapped to the doorway. He swore softly against her neck at its partially open state and was rewarded with another throaty laugh. He kissed her hard on the mouth.
‘Take your clothes off,’ he said, before pushing off her, padding over to the door and locking it.
‘You do realise this is a one-off, right?’ she said as she tried to wiggle out of her jeans essentially one-handed.
Luca turned and watched her. He could clearly see her nipples through the lace of her bra and it made him harder.
He undid his zip and peeled off his jeans. ‘Of course. My bedpost is littered with one-offs. Or hadn’t you heard?’
Mia went to grin but it died on her lips as the pure male beauty of his physique was fully exposed to her. Long, lean legs, dusted with black hair. Flat, flat belly. Broad in the shoulder, narrow in the hip.
And if the bulge in his snug cotton boxers was anything to go by, large, in all the right places.
She’d seen a marble statue just like him in Rome many years before. Luca di Angelo had Made in Italy stamped all over him.
Then he came to her, towering over her, snapping the lamp off, helping her out of her jeans, kissing her everywhere, arching her back over the arm of the lounge, thrusting her breasts upwards towards his eager mouth. Making her sigh. Making her whimper. Making her come.
And, best of all, making her forget.
Three days later Dr Finn Kennedy, chief of Surgery, strode into the emergency department on what he was sure was going to be a fool’s errand. He was tired. His upper arm had ached all night despite several shots of whisky, and he rubbed at it absently. His eyes felt scratchy and his damn nuisance thumb was numb and tingly.
He pulled up short as Evie approached him. Great, just what he needed. Dr Evie Lockheart. Princess Evie. Born with a silver spoon in her mouth, working in her granddaddy’s hospital, a place still generously supported by the Lockheart family trust and her father in particular, who was treated like royalty by the boffins upstairs.
With absolutely no idea how hard ordinary people had it.
And the only woman in the entire hospital who seemed to be able to push his buttons. She didn’t simper or cower. Just looked at him patiently with those damn hazel eyes.
‘Dr Kennedy,’ she greeted him.
‘There’s a consult for me?’ he asked, not bothering to acknowledge her greeting. He had a feeling that she saw beyond his curt exterior and he didn’t like it.
The only other woman to have done that had been Lydia—his brother’s widow—and that had been an unmitigated disaster.
Evie refused to give Finn the satisfaction of seeing how his brusqueness grated. He wasn’t in the army any more and she wasn’t one of his soldiers to be ordered around. Instead, she launched straight into her spiel. Still, it didn’t stop her heart from pounding like a runaway train in her chest—she’d made an amazing incidental find and despite his gruffness she was desperate for his approval.
‘Twenty-two-year-old female, with a painful lump in her breast. Ultrasound identified a small benign cyst—’
‘Are you kidding me?’ Finn glared down at her, hands on hips. ‘You do know I’m a cardiac surgeon, right? That means stuff to do with the heart.’
Evie held his gaze and her tongue and continued as if he hadn’t just rudely interrupted her. ‘She also complained of fatigue, shortness of breath and intermittent chest pains. Incidental finding reveals bicuspid aortic valve with associated ascending aortic aneurysm.’
Finn stared at her. Was in hell was she on about? ‘Sure,’ he said sarcastically as he held out his hand. ‘Radiographer report?’
‘There isn’t one. Radiology was backlogged and the ultrasound was performed in the department.’
‘I see. By who, exactly?’ he demanded.
Evie’s gaze didn’t waver as his piercing blue eyes dared her to blink. ‘By me.’
Finn snorted. ‘You? You diagnosed a complex heart condition through a breast ultrasound?’
Evie crossed her arms too. ‘Yes.’
‘That’s not even remotely possible,’ he snapped.
Until right now, Evie would have agreed. ‘It is if the woman in question has very small breasts.’
Finn glared at her. Princess Evie—her place at the prestigious SHH emergency department no doubt paid for by her father’s huge donations—wasting his time. ‘Where’s the patient?’
‘Cubicle fifteen,’ she said calmly.
‘What have you told her that I’m going to have to untell her?’ he asked silkily.
‘I told her I couldn’t get a good enough angle and I was going to call for someone more experienced,’ Evie bristled. ‘I did go to medical school, Dr Kennedy,’ she said frostily.
‘Really? Daddy couldn’t fast-track you, then?’
Evie ignored the dig. ‘I graduated top of my year.’
‘He gives to the university too, then?’ Finn retorted,
