it wasn’t. It was merely a stopping place.
But, damn, the burst of steam that zipped through his veins erased that notion in a split second. He suddenly didn’t care about stopping places or anything else. Instead, he shifted so that the angle was perfect.
And it was. Her lips were warm and giving and the tongue that had played peek-a-boo with his senses a second ago was back, coaxing him to sneak away with her, luring him just like those sirens of old. Without hesitation he ducked inside, finding heat and wetness that shoved his body further down a forbidden road, a growing pressure behind his zipper impossible to ignore.
Sara’s hands went behind his back and slid upward until they curved around his shoulders, her body coming into full contact with his.
Maybe she felt the same sudden urgency that he did.
It was only when one of his hands left her face to pull the door next to him shut, only to have it bounce off something with a loud clang, that he realized how far gone he was. How far gone they both were.
Their lips came apart at exactly the same time, Sara being the first to come to her senses, uncurling her arms and pushing at his chest.
He released her and tried to take a step back, but his butt hit the metal counter behind him, stopping him from retreating any further.
Her mouth was pink and moist, lips still parted as she drew in several breaths.
He glanced to the side to see what had happened with the door and realized the metal steps had stopped it from closing.
Graças a Deus. Because otherwise…
What exactly would he have done? Tossed her onto that counter and made love to her? In the hospital parking garage?
What the hell had he been thinking?
He hadn’t been. That was the problem. Just like the night of the wedding. He’d been operating off pure lust.
Gripping that very same metal counter, he tried to get his bearings. Saying he was sorry was going to be met with angry words. But what else could he do?
“I take it that wasn’t what you meant by ‘putting this behind us’.” She tossed her hair back over her shoulder.
“Not exactly. No.”
“So what do we do? I worked hard to get this estágio, and I’m not going to let a little thing like this make me run home with my tail tucked between my legs.”
A little thing like this? This was pretty damn huge in his book. He never mixed work with personal stuff. Ever. It was just the shock of being alone with her again. But it stopped right here.
“I would never ask you to go home. You’re here, and so am I. This project can’t go forward without both of us, so we are going to have to figure this thing out. Fast.”
“And how do you propose we do that?”
“By making sure we are alone as little as humanly possible.”
She blinked. “Isn’t that a little unrealistic? We’ll be driving around together in this thing—alone—in order to do our jobs.”
Maybe, but right now it was the only way. Because his head was still wrapped around the taste of her, the scent of her hair, the sounds of her breathing as they’d been fused together. “If you can think of a better option, I’m all ears.”
And mouth. And raging hormones.
She bit her lip. “I can’t.”
Neither could he. He was appalled that his body had responded with an immediacy that had yanked him from that fully-in-control-but-fake-as-hell persona he liked to cloak himself in. It had exposed the true Sebastian Texeira. And he didn’t like it. At all.
“We can still do this. We have to do this. Otherwise I might as well turn this mobile center back over to the hospital and forget I ever asked for the funds to try.”
“Which means there would be no reason for me to stay in São Paulo.” Her eyes sought his. “The hospital wouldn’t keep me on?”
“I could talk to them and ask—”
“No. I want to do this. I need to do this.”
“Why?” He wasn’t quite sure what had driven her to come here. She’d probably made more money in Rio Grande do Sul.
“When my dad was sick, I realized how isolated my little hospital was. Doing things the same way as they’d been doing them for decades. I want to make a difference.”
“I’m sure you already have.”
She shrugged. “Maybe, but I saw the effect you, Natália and Adam had on my father. I want to be a part of something like that. To take back new ideas and ways of doing things.” She motioned around the inside of the truck. “This is exactly what I’ve been looking for. And I’m not going to let an embarrassing lapse in judgment stand in the way of that. Neither one of us should, if you’re as serious as I think you are about doing this.”
“I am.”
“Then let’s focus on that, okay?”
She was right. He knew she was.
The only thing left was to get his body to agree to forget this “lapse in judgment”, as she’d put it, had ever happened.
Only he knew that was going to be almost impossible.
So he was just going to have to pull that cloak tighter and pretend. And hope to God that Sara never saw the truth.
SIX WEEKS.
That time frame rattled around in her head over and over as she sat in the cab of the truck beside Sebastian.
Stress. A change of jobs.
Working with a man she’d slept with.
Slept. With.
Those two words linked arms with the other two words and began to dance a little jig in her stomach. Right beside the butterflies that had never left.
Six weeks.
She couldn’t be. They’d used protection. All three times.
Oh, God.
“Have you ever visited a favela?”
The question slid past her before turning in a smooth circle and coming back at her. “I’m sorry?”
He glanced at her with a frown. “I asked if you’d ever been to a favela.”
“Yes.” She blinked back the growing fear. “I think all cities have some kind of slum. There was one a few miles from our house. It was fairly safe—run
