key he’d forgotten to hand over to his successor when he’d moved out…
He gave a silent snort of derision when he realised that he wasn’t fooling himself with that tale. He hadn’t forgotten to hand over the key at all. Something inside him had wanted to hang onto it as the last tangible evidence that he’d once lived next to Maggie ffrench, had slept just inches away from her on the other side of a wall that was so poorly soundproofed that he’d been convinced he could hear her every time she turned over in her sleep. And if that wasn’t a pathetic admission for a rational adult man, then nothing was.
If he hadn’t been so concerned about her, then the way she’d greeted him at the door last night—spitting like an angry cat—would have made him laugh.
She wasn’t a big woman by any means—at least a head shorter than he was in her stockinged feet—and she was slender and willowy, too, but she obviously didn’t see that as a reason to back down in an argument. There had been more than one obstreperous patient who had discovered that about the petite A and E doctor to his cost, drunkard or bully or both.
The fact that she’d stood her ground last night had relieved him on one score—she wasn’t going to allow her aborted marriage to defeat her spirit, even though it seemed to have dented her belief in their friendship.
But when he’d stripped her coffee-soaked dressing-gown off her last night and seen her standing in the shower, every slender inch of her naked, every curve gleaming with rivulets of water while she’d struggled with his shirt buttons…
It had been every erotic dream he’d had over the last two years come to life in front of him…everything he’d ever wanted since the day he’d first met her…everything he knew he couldn’t have…
It would have been all right if she hadn’t still been trembling so much, her eyes wide with shock. A scalding cup of coffee tipped over her had obviously been one trauma too many after the evening’s revelations.
He’d recognised the combination of hurt and vulnerability in those fascinating blue-green eyes, but it had been the unexpected desire he’d seen blossoming in their widely dilated pupils that had sent his common sense scattering to the winds.
He knew there could never be a permanent relationship between the two of them, had known ever since the first time he’d seen the eagerness in her face when she’d spoken about the family she wanted to have one day. The trouble was, in spite of the attraction between them, he knew he could never be what she wanted…what she needed.
The fact that she was everything that he’d ever wanted and needed just didn’t come into it. He’d known for years that his career was going to be the most important part of his life and there was nothing he could do to change that. It was far too late.
When she woke up he was going to have to find the words to tell her that this was all there could be between them.
Find the words? Ha! As if there were words to put a pretty face on the fact that this was going to have to be a one-night stand. A totally out-of-this-world, mind-blowing, one-of-a-kind one-night stand that, no matter how utterly perfect it had been, was going to leave him laden with guilt for the rest of his life.
What sort of man was he? How could he have given in to temptation when he’d known how vulnerable she was? It didn’t matter that he’d desired her for two long years—she didn’t know that. He’d made very certain that she understood that he could only offer friendship.
Oh, but it was so tempting to pretend for just a little bit longer that there could be a more intimate relationship between them. It was just too easy to lift his head a little bit to look all the way down Maggie’s slender back to the perfect twin curves of her bottom.
He knew, now, how well those curves fitted his hands, and would remember for ever the husky purring sound she made in her throat when he tightened his grip on them to brace her for his possession.
He stifled a groan of his own when he felt his body responding anew to the graphic thought. She was still asleep, for heaven’s sake! She was going to think he was a sex maniac on some sort of hormonal overload if he carried on like this, certainly not a mature thirty-three-year-old who should know better. And the fact that this was the first time he’d been to bed with a woman since he’d met Maggie was no excuse either.
As if she was picking up the intensity of his thoughts, Maggie began to stir, her silky flesh sliding over his rougher planes with a thoroughly arousing friction as she woke.
‘Mmm, nice,’ she murmured huskily against his throat as she angled her hips against him, clearly only too willing to continue where they’d left off when she’d finally fallen asleep.
His soul-searching ground to an instant halt. Gone were all thoughts of telling her that this couldn’t happen again when it obviously was.
Without him even having to think about it, his hands were already cupping her, stroking her, positioning her for his—
‘Jake?’ Suddenly, she was stiffening against him. ‘Is that your pager?’
He’d been totally deaf to anything but her soft murmurs and the blood pounding through his veins, but now he could hear the wretched thing, too.
‘I don’t believe it!’ he groaned as he dropped his head back on the pillow, squeezing his eyes tight shut against the enticing view.
‘It can’t be mine,’ she reasoned. ‘I didn’t bring one home with me because I’m not on duty for two weeks.’
‘Well, I’m not due on for hours yet,’ he growled in frustration. If this was all he was ever going to have of Maggie, he really didn’t want anyone or anything interrupting…
The ringing of Maggie’s phone halted his unhappy thoughts.
‘We’ll just have to remember where we were, so we can take up where we left off,’ she suggested with a fascinating blush—a blush that amazed him when he remembered all the things the two of them had done since he’d joined her in the shower last night. He’d never had such a generous lover before, or such an eager one, and if he allowed himself to think about all he would be missing for the rest of his life without Maggie in it, he would probably want to slit his throat.
He would just have to settle for slitting the throat of whoever had misread the on-duty roster and dialled his number instead.
He padded across the room to retrieve the insistent thing from his trouser pocket.
‘Whoever this is, I’ll get them off the line as soon as possible so you can make your call,’ Maggie said, modestly tugging the duvet over herself with one hand as she reached for the phone with the other.
When he saw her disappear behind thoroughly rumpled cotton Jake stifled another groan. The mood had been well and truly broken now, and that dreaded ‘this shouldn’t have happened’ conversation was suddenly imminent.
‘Hi, Karen!’ Maggie said, and he grimaced at the thought that he was probably going to have to work out what to say to Maggie’s friend, too. After all, Karen knew that he’d intended speaking to Maggie last night, and if she found out that he’d spent the night…
‘No, you didn’t wake me. What can I do for—? Oh, no!’ she exclaimed suddenly, dragging him out of his tangled thoughts. ‘Of course I’ll come in—I’m not doing anything important today after all. I should
