hands didn’t stay for long on my hips. One went to the base of my spine to bring me hard against him while the other cupped my breast through my clothes. It wasn’t enough for me. I wanted his mouth on my breast. I tugged my shirt out of my jeans and guided his hand to my lace-covered breast.
He stroked his thumb over my budded nipple, creating a maelstrom of sensation that travelled through my body. He pushed my padded bra out of the way and lowered his head and took my breast in his mouth. Yes, it’s actually small enough to do that. Well, maybe not quite all the way into his mouth, but you get the idea. But it didn’t seem to matter to him that my breast was a little on the small side. He treated it like it was the most gorgeously ripe breast in the world. Seriously, you would’ve thought it was a Playboy Bunny’s breast. His tongue played with my nipple, circling it and teasing it into a tight pucker. I tilted back my head as he moved his mouth over the upper curve of my breast.
He did the same to the under-curve, which was even more tantalising. I hadn’t realised how sensitive my skin was there until his warm mouth and the sexily raspy skin of his chin and jaw moved against it.
He left my breast to come back to my mouth, subjecting it to a passionate onslaught that had me breathless and throbbing from head to toe with longing. I was aching with the need to have him inside me. I hadn’t even felt this turned on as a teenager. It was like discovering my female hormones for the first time. They were surging through my system like an unstoppable force. I wanted him and I wanted him now.
One of my hands went for the waistband of his trousers but he stilled my hand, pressing it against the turgid length of him. ‘Not here,’ he said.
The words brought me back to my senses like a slap across the cheek. What was I doing, undressing my boss in his office? What was wrong with me? Besides the fact he thought I was married, I wasn’t the type of girl to act so unprofessionally. I was annoyed that he was the one to bring things to a halt. In my mind it gave him the moral edge, making him far more principled than me. It made me feel as if I was the one who had no self-control, which was a whole lot nearer to the truth than I wanted it to be.
I relied on my usual cover-up tactic and gave him a disparaging look. ‘Do you really think I was going to let this go further than a kiss and a quick grope?’
His eyes were a dark blue-grey as they held mine, the pupils still widened in arousal. ‘If you change your mind you know where to find me. I’ll be home all evening.’ I drew in a scalding breath. ‘You’ll be waiting a long time before I make a house call.’
A hint of a smile lifted the edges of his mouth. ‘We’ll see.’ He went back around his desk and rolled out his chair. His eyes glinted as he added, ‘Close the door on your way out, will you?’
I huffed and puffed for a moment before I whipped round and stomped out of his office, but I didn’t close the door.
I slammed it.
‘GOOD GRACIOUS, BERTIE.’ Stuart McTaggart jumped about a foot in the air as the framed prints rattled on the wall as he came towards me. ‘What on earth’s the matter?’
I pressed my lips together so tightly they hurt. ‘Nothing,’ I muttered.
‘Is it about your project?’ He gave a chuckle not unlike Professor Cleary’s. It was the first time I’d heard him laugh, so at least I’d achieved something, I thought wryly. ‘I thought it was brilliant, actually. Very witty.’
‘I can assure you it wasn’t meant to be,’ I said, as I walked down the corridor with him.
‘I’ve just been in to see Jason Ryder,’ Stuart said. ‘His parents mentioned you want to try some new therapy with him.’
‘That’s if Dr Bishop will allow it,’ I said through tight lips.
Stuart stopped walking to look at me. ‘But he was very supportive of you in the meeting. He was the one who brought the meeting to order when we were all having a laugh about your research title. In fact, if I didn’t know you’d just come back from your honeymoon I would’ve said you and he were an item. Did you see that love bite on his neck?’ He gave another chuckle. ‘Takes me back to my old courting days.’
I could feel my blush like a spreading fire. ‘Personally, I think love bites are dreadfully tacky.’
He gave a grunt and continued walking. ‘So, what have you got in mind for Jason?’
I explained what I planned to do and he listened—patiently, for him—before giving me the go-ahead. ‘Can’t see how it can hurt,’ he said. He waited a beat before adding, ‘I hope to God the family don’t sue.’
I glanced at his worried expression. ‘They don’t seem the type and, besides, you didn’t do anything wrong. It’s a recognised complication of that type of neurosurgery.’
‘Doesn’t seem to matter to litigation lawyers, does it?’ He gave me a cynical look. ‘They want their pound of flesh and don’t care who they slice it off.’
‘I’m sure it won’t come to that, Stuart,’ I said, hoping it was true. Stuart was a highly competent surgeon but his gruff and autocratic manner often put people off side. When things went wrong, which they occasionally did because that kind of surgery on the human body wasn’t an exact science, some people thought their only option was to sue for damages, but they didn’t take into account the impact on the doctor.
Medicine today was far more of a team approach than in the past. Mistakes could be made anywhere along the chain of care but it was the doctor who ended up being the fall guy. It was especially difficult if the case was reported in the press. Biased reporting could smear a doctor’s reputation, tearing down a lifetime of hard work in a sensationalised phrase or two. And then there was the well-documented expert witness dripping with hindsight bias. And coroners’ cases, in which months could be taken over dissecting decisions that doctors had to make under pressure, in real time, with incomplete information in a badly constructed system. Insurance companies battled it out with their case-hardened lawyers but the doctor, usually with no medicolegal experience, was left as the scapegoat, with often devastating psychological fallout.
At my previous hospital a dedicated obstetrician had walked away from a thirty-year career after parents of a baby who suffered oxygen deprivation at birth and subsequent brain damage sued her for damages. The sensationalised reporting in the press besmirched her reputation to such a degree she felt she could no longer practise.
Stuart let out a tired-sounding sigh. ‘Well, I’d better get a move on. I’ve got a clinic and then a tutorial with the students and I’m on call for the second time this week. It’s a wonder my wife doesn’t call a divorce lawyer.’ He gave me a sideways glance. ‘How does your husband cope with the demands of your job?’
‘Erm …’
‘Should’ve married a doctor, Bertie.’
I gave him one of my strained smiles. ‘There’s a thought.’
For the next week I changed my roster to night shifts. I know it was cowardly but I really wasn’t ready to face Matt Bishop until I got my willpower under some semblance of control. Besides, there’s nothing more lust deadening than lack of sleep. One good side of working the night shift was that I could walk Freddy in daylight
