I want you. I want you...’
He muttered something in Italian and his hands reached down, bunching up her dress as his mouth plundered hers and his body rocked against her, pressing her up against him. She could feel his hands on her skin, cradling her bottom, sliding up around her waist as he lifted her easily and turned, settling her on the edge of the examination couch where he had been.
Her legs wrapped around his waist, holding him tightly against her, the pressure building as her fingers found the ends of his bow tie and tugged it undone. She couldn’t do the buttons, her fingers were shaking too much, and with a little scream of frustration she ripped his shirt open, her nails raking down his chest in the process.
‘Dio, Alice—’
He buried his hands in her hair and rocked against her, his body tight against her most intimate places as his mouth took hers again, his tongue searching, delving, and she wanted him closer. Needed him closer. Needed him...
‘I want you,’ she said, her breath hissing out between her teeth. ‘Marco, please, now. I want you—’
He swore softly and pulled away a fraction. ‘Don’t move.’
She dropped her head back and closed her eyes, the breath shuddering out of her body as he let her go and stepped away, and she clenched her legs together against the raging need and waited. She could hear him doing something, heard the snap of a wallet, the soft rasp of a zip, a slight rustle.
A condom. Of all the tragic ironies. She nearly laughed, only it wasn’t funny. He didn’t need it—except to protect her and himself from the other unintended consequences of random sex. Nothing else...
She opened her eyes and moaned again, her body throbbing with need as she reached for him, gripping the firm shaft of his erection and sliding her hand down it, unrolling the condom along its length. He swore softly in Italian and eased away the scrap of silk that passed for her underwear, his hips nudging her legs apart again as he slid his fingers deep inside her.
She gasped and tried to clench her legs together to quell the waves of sensation but there was no way because he was there, his body filling her at last, making her sob with need as he thrust into her, slowly at first and then faster, harder, again and again, his hands cradling her bottom and holding her tight against him, rocking as her control splintered into pieces and she convulsed around him.
He caught her cry in his mouth, his body tensing, shuddering with the force of his climax, and then as it passed he let out a long, fractured sigh, dropped his head against her shoulder and cradled her close, his mouth against her ear murmuring soft words she didn’t understand.
She couldn’t speak, couldn’t think, couldn’t move. Her body was a seething mass of sensation so intense that even now she could feel the shockwaves rippling through her, and as he finally eased away she couldn’t look at him.
What had she done?
She’d never felt like that. Never responded like that, so wildly, so spontaneously, so freely it had felt like she was flying.
Not now, though. Not any more.
Now she’d come down to earth with a bump, crippled with self-consciousness, and she slid off the edge of the couch, rescued her underwear from the floor and pulled it on hastily. As she tugged her dress straight with shaking hands, she felt a nail catching on the delicate fabric.
‘Cara?’
Gentle fingers caught her chin, lifting her face up so he could read her eyes, and he sighed and drew her back into his arms. ‘You’re buttoning up again,’ he murmured, his voice heavy with regret, and she tried to push him away.
‘I have to. I’m your boss, Marco! I can’t just sleep with you—’
‘Who said anything about sleeping? I think we were both wide awake just then. And don’t even try and tell me you didn’t enjoy it.’
She didn’t. She wasn’t a liar, and he’d only laugh at her anyway.
‘It was a mistake,’ she said, knowing instantly that he’d argue, but he didn’t. Instead he bent his head and kissed her tenderly, nearly trashing her resolve.
‘Yes. It was. You deserved better than a—’ He broke off, and she could almost see him rearranging the words in his mouth. ‘I should have taken you for dinner, taken you back to my house and made love to you slowly, for hours. Explored every part of you, kissed every inch of your skin, made you come for me again and again and again—’
‘It would still have been a mistake,’ she said, her insides weeping at the thought of him loving her so thoroughly, so tenderly, so meticulously. ‘We can’t do this, Marco. I agree we have to find a way to work together without fighting, but this isn’t it. This isn’t the way. We can’t do it again.’
She stood motionless, and after a second or two his arms dropped and he stepped back, glanced down at his ripped shirt with a rueful smile, shrugged and opened the door.
‘I’m sorry. Not for doing it. I can’t regret that. But if that’s what you want it won’t happen again, I promise you. Goodnight, Alice.’
And with that he walked out, headed through the door at the end and left her standing there wondering what on earth she’d done, and why it suddenly felt as if, by letting him go, she’d thrown away a chance at happiness that she hadn’t even known was there...
Five weeks later...
‘DO YOU WANT me to close?’
‘What, because you imagine you can do it better than me?’
His eyes crinkled above his mask. ‘Because I know I can do it better than you,’ he said, and she could hear the smile in his voice. It was odd, but since that night five weeks ago their sparring had changed to a mutual and much more gentle teasing, almost as if they’d called a truce and were carefully tiptoeing around each other’s feelings. Even his flirting had toned down, which was a shame. She almost missed it, but she knew why he’d done it. It was too dangerous now, after what had happened. It would be fanning the flames of a fire that had to be allowed to die. A fire that hadn’t, sadly, burned itself out.
‘You’re so arrogant,’ she said mildly, stepping away and stripping off her gloves. She tried so hard not to smile, but he just chuckled as if he could see it and held out his hand to the scrub nurse.
‘Three-oh Prolene, please,’ he said, and the nurse placed the suture in his hand and he dropped his eyes and began meticulously drawing the wound edges together, layer by layer.
He was right, he was better than her at suturing, but only by a hair and she had a feeling it was a simple matter of Italian pride that prevented him from failing. And not to be better than her would be failure in his eyes.
She dragged her gaze away. She couldn’t watch him, couldn’t watch those sensitive, intelligent hands delicately repairing the boy’s abdomen. So skilful. So focused. Just as they’d been on her body—
‘I’ll go and talk to his parents.’
