He looked at her cautiously, but her face revealed nothing but professional concern.
‘I want to examine the rest of you. Lie back for me.’ Her expression serious, her hands moved down his body, sliding and pressing. ‘Does this hurt?’
‘Everything hurts.’ Feeling her cool fingers on his abdomen, Alessandro sucked in a breath. How low did she intend to go?
Lust slammed through him and Alessandro grabbed the duvet and pulled it higher, ignoring the avalanche of pain that rained down on him. ‘I’m fine. I can manage. Go to bed. You must be tired.’ He wished she’d step back a bit. Her scent was playing havoc with his libido and this close he could see the smoothness of her skin. How the hell could a guy be aroused when his broken ribs were virtually impaling his lungs? ‘Goodnight, Tasha. Thanks for all your help.’
‘If the pain changes, let me know.’
The pain had changed. Suddenly it was all concentrated below his waist and it had nothing to do with being trampled by a four-legged animal. ‘Get some sleep.’
‘Don’t hesitate to wake me up if you need to.’ She walked briskly across the room to close the blinds.
‘Leave them—I prefer to keep the doors open.’
‘You won’t be able to sleep.’
He didn’t tell her that he rarely slept. ‘I’ll be fine. I like the fresh air.’
‘Well, if you change your mind, just shout out.’ Her hips swayed as she walked from window to door. She held a stethoscope in her hand but she walked like a seductress. ‘I hope you have a really good night’s sleep. I’ve chosen the bedroom right across the hall and I’ll leave the door open so I’ll hear you if you shout.’
Great. There were three guest bedrooms, the other two at the far end of the house. Couldn’t she have chosen one of those?
After she left, Alessandro spent a frustrating and agonising fifteen minutes removing his shorts. Exhausted, he didn’t bother replacing them with the pyjamas. Instead he flopped back against the pillows, drained of energy.
He lay without moving until a noise from across the corridor made him look up.
Tasha was walking across the guest room towards the en suite bathroom, undressing as she walked. First she pulled off the scarlet jumper and dropped it in a heap. Her full breasts pushed against a silken wisp of a bra. When her hands moved to the snap of her jeans, Alessandro wanted to groan out a request that she stop, but he couldn’t make a sound and the jeans went the way of the jumper and this time the lace was so brief it was almost irrelevant.
His muscles tensed, sending spasms of pain shooting down his bruised body.
Finding it impossible to breathe, Alessandro wondered if one of his broken ribs had suddenly punctured his lung. There was no air in the room. He was suffocating. He lifted his hand to undo his collar and then remembered that he was naked.
As he watched, she stretched upwards to clip her hair on top of her head, the movement accentuating her lean, flat stomach and her long, slim legs. He felt like a voyeur at an erotic floor show. Clearly she’d forgotten that she had both doors open. Either that or she was just assuming he was asleep.
If he called out, he’d embarrass her, and he couldn’t look away because his head refused to move.
Telling himself that any moment now she was going to lock the bathroom door, Alessandro kept watching. And he was still watching when she turned her back to him, unfastened her bra and stepped out of her knickers.
MEGAN’S hand shook as she opened the door that led to the neonatal intensive care unit.
All day she’d been in a daze of happiness. A daze of happiness that nothing could blunt—not even the knowledge that technically she’d slept with a married man.
Married, but not together, she told herself, wondering why the fact that Josh and Rebecca were almost divorced didn’t make her feel any better.
Her head was in a spin and she’d found it almost impossible to concentrate.
She’d thought of nothing else all day, ever since that knock on the door that had sent Josh springing from the bed before they’d had the opportunity to talk about what they’d shared. She had no idea who had been at the door, but whoever it was had been important enough to make sure that Josh didn’t return.
Megan had waited for twenty minutes then dressed quickly and exited the on-call room quietly. Her heart had been working double time all the way back to the paediatric ward but she was fairly confident that no one had seen her.
She’d spent the rest of her day stopping herself from checking her phone every two minutes to see if Josh had called. It was like being a teenager all over again.
The extended silence made her jittery and sent her imagination into overdrive.
Was he embarrassed? Did he regret what they’d done?
Reminding herself that Josh was a senior doctor whose working day was ridiculously intense and demanding, she tried to rationalise the fact that he hadn’t called. She told herself that it wasn’t surprising that he didn’t want to publicise their relationship. They were colleagues after all, and affairs between colleagues could so easily become messy.
Having convinced herself that she wasn’t likely to see him that day, it came as a shock to see Josh sitting at the computer at the nurses’ station.
Megan felt a tiny thrill of excitement bloom inside her.
He wasn’t avoiding her. He was here, on her ward.
Her heart pounded against her chest and she was relieved that the other staff appeared to be occupied elsewhere.
Just for this first encounter she wanted to be alone with him. She didn’t want to share the memories of the night with anyone but Josh.
Remembering the look he’d given her just before he’d left the on-call room, she gave a little smile and her stomach fluttered with anticipation.
‘Hello, Josh.’
‘Ah, Megan, I’m glad you’re here. We had an emergency delivery in the department. Thirty-four-weeker.’ He turned to her, his tone crisp and professional. ‘Showing signs of respiratory distress, so we’ve transferred him to you.’
There was nothing intimate in his gaze—nothing to hint that they’d spent the night together.
Taken aback, Megan glanced behind her but there was no one within earshot.
The baby was ill, she reasoned, and he was an exceptional doctor. Josh would never put his personal life before the well-being of a patient.
Slowly, she put her bag on the floor, controlling her disappointment. ‘Was it a normal delivery?’
As he told her, she found herself looking at his hands and the dark hairs dusting his forearms. Those same hands had touched her. Everywhere. Held her. It had been genuine, she had no doubt about that. She still remembered the look in his eyes as he’d driven her wild.
That knowledge gave her confidence. ‘Josh—’
‘I need to get back.’ He rose quickly to his feet, interrupting her before she could finish her sentence. ‘You might want to spend some time with the mother. She’s very upset. The whole thing took
about twenty minutes from start to finish. Precipitate doesn’t begin to describe it.’
It was a verbal dismissal but it may as well have been a physical slap for the pain it caused.
‘Of course.’ Megan pushed the words through stiff lips and stood frozen to the spot as he walked past her,