‘What are you doing?’ she demanded, but her voice sounded odd, a little frantic.
He hit the button to close the doors. ‘What does it look like? I’m following you.’
‘Why?’
Her voice was breathless, a slight catch in it, and he smiled a little grimly. ‘Because I need to apologise properly. Not just about the fighting, but about this, too.’
He stabbed the button for the ground floor and folded his arms just to stop himself reaching out to her.
‘What this? I don’t understand.’
He sighed again. ‘Yes, you do, Alice, because it’s just here, between us, all the time,’ he told her, waving his hand back and forth between them, ‘and it’s getting in the way of our work. We need to talk about it.’
‘You’re imagining it,’ she said, but she couldn’t hold his eyes, and he unfolded his arms and reached out and turned her head gently to face him.
‘Am I?’ he murmured. ‘Am I really? I don’t think so, Alice. I think you want me as much as I want you, and what we have to do is work out how we’re going to deal with it, because we have to, one way or the other, because it’s getting in the way all the time and it can’t go on like this.’
* * *
It was there again in his eyes, that flash of something she’d seen just before he’d asked her to dance, briefly pushed aside by regret but back again now, with bells on.
Heat. Smouldering heat in the black depths of his eyes, his pupils flared, his chest rising and falling as he studied her silently, those eyes reeling her in.
‘Why would you want me?’ she asked, her voice annoyingly breathless again. ‘Of all the women in this hospital, why me, Marco?’
His eyebrows shot up. ‘Why? Because you’re beautiful and sexy and funny and sharp and clever and—because you keep your distance, button yourself up, bottle up everything that I can see raging inside you, and all I can think about is unbuttoning all those tiny little buttons holding you together and seeing what would happen if I set those feelings free.’
Set them free? The thought terrified her, because he was right, they were there, raging inside her, and every day, every minute, every time she saw him, this beautiful, magnificent, tempestuous, arrogant man, she wanted him.
And it was never going to happen—
‘You’re wrong. You don’t really want me,’ she whispered, but he just laughed and took her hand and pressed it firmly against his chest so she could feel the pounding of his heart.
‘Can you feel that, cara? Can you feel how I want you? Always,’ he murmured, his eyes softening, ‘every minute of every day,’ and then he lowered his head, his hands cradling her face, just as the lift pinged a warning.
He wrenched his head up and moved away, slid his hand down her arm and threaded his fingers through hers, nodded to the people waiting to go up and walked with her briskly out of the lift, across the central foyer and into the consulting room area.
He pulled his lanyard out of his pocket, swiped the security lock with the magnetic card and opened the doors, then pushed the nearest consulting room door open and ushered her through it.
She heard it click shut, then nothing, just the suspense that swirled around them in the air and robbed her brain of oxygen.
What did he want from her?
A deep, slow sigh cut through the silence and she heard the examination couch creak behind her as he sat on it.
‘What do we do, Alice?’ he asked, his voice low and, oh, so sexy, unravelling her rigid self-control and leaving her open and vulnerable.
‘I don’t know. What do you want from me, Marco?’
He laughed softly, and the sound teased her nerve endings and sent shivers of need through her body. ‘I have no idea. Well, I have, but that’s not going to happen, we both know that.’
Was that regret in his voice? She couldn’t tell without looking into his eyes, so she turned and searched them, and then wished she hadn’t because the humour, the teasing that seemed to dance almost permanently in them was gone, leaving something far more dangerous to her self-control and peace of mind.
Desire, white-hot and irresistible. She swallowed and took a step back, bumping into the desk and sitting down abruptly on the edge of it before her legs gave out.
‘So what do we do?’
He laughed again, a wry huff of sound that unravelled her a little further, then met her eyes again.
‘I don’t know, but I know we can’t go on like this, fighting all the time about nothing and dancing round the elephant in the room. I want you, Alice, and I don’t seem to be able to put that on one side, and I don’t think you can, either.’
His eyes held her, the need in them so openly expressed she was in no doubt about it. He wasn’t toying with her. He really meant it, and his words had so accurately expressed her own feelings that she felt as if he could see into her soul.
He was right. She couldn’t put it on one side, couldn’t ignore it any longer. Didn’t want to ignore it any longer.
As if he saw the moment she crumbled, he held out his hand silently, and she stood up, her legs shaking, and walked over to him, taking his hand and letting him draw her up against him, standing between his legs as he was propped on the edge of the couch, his warmth enclosing her.
He raised a hand and traced the line of her jaw, lifting a stray lock of hair away and tucking it back behind her ear. The caress was so tender, so gentle that it made her want to cry. It had been so long since anyone had touched her like that, as if she was something precious and fragile. If ever...
She met his eyes again, and he stared into hers for an age, then drew her nearer, lowered his head and touched his lips to hers.
She moaned softly against his mouth, parting her lips to him, and she felt his hands cradle her cheeks as he deepened the kiss. She met him touch for touch, stroke for stroke, their tongues searching, duelling.
They always duelled, but not like this, not—
‘Marco...’
‘I want you, Alice,’ he groaned softly. ‘Tell me you want me, too.’
‘No—yes—Marco, I—’
‘Alice, you’re killing me...’
He kissed her again, his lips coaxing, trailing fire down her throat, over her shoulders, in that delicate, sensitive place behind her ear. She arched her neck to give him better access, his name a sob in her throat. ‘Marco...’
‘Tell me, Alice,’ he said, his voice low, scraping over her senses like gravel and bringing everything to life. ‘Tell me you want me. Tell me you want this, too, before I go crazy—’
‘Yes.’
