Almost ran away, in fact.
That’s what he should have done when Anna had gone to kiss him. Ducked the gesture and gone.
So why did he feel relieved that he hadn’t even thought of doing so at the time?
Sleep proved elusive for Anna that night.
She couldn’t close her eyes without thinking about that kiss and thinking about it brought it unerringly back to life.
She could still feel it.
The way his lips had moved over hers. Exploring them. Claiming them.
The strength in his hands. Their sure grip when he had pulled her close.
That incredibly gentle touch of his thumbs on her breasts.
And every time she relived that particular moment, her nipples tingled and a shaft of desire pierced her belly. And every time it got stronger. Feeding on itself. Taking on a life of its own. Becoming so intense it was physically painful.
With a groan, Anna shifted her body, turning over in her bed yet again. She had to stop thinking about it before day broke and she found herself on duty having had no rest.
Becoming aware of an odd thumping sound a moment later, she dragged her eyes open to find another set of eyes disturbingly close to her own. A long, wet tongue emerged to lick her face and the thumping accelerated when Anna laughed and wiped her face on her pillow to dry it.
‘You’re supposed to be asleep, Crash. On your bed.’
The puppy wriggled with delight at hearing her voice. He obviously had no objection to being awake in the middle of the night.
‘It’s all right for you.’ Anna pulled her hand out from under her pillow and reached to stroke the dog. ‘You can sleep whenever you want to in the daytime. I need to sleep now and I can’t.’
Crash leaned against the side of the bed, his chin tilting up against the mattress.
‘He made out it was all my idea,’ Anna informed Crash indignantly. ‘And maybe it was, to start with, but you know what?’
Big ears twitched into their endearing sideways position and Anna smiled as she stroked them.
‘He liked it as much as I did, that’s what. He could have backed off and he didn’t. He kissed me back.’
And how!
Anna let her breath out in a long sigh. A release that was partly pure pleasure at the memory but it also held a good whisper of frustration and more than a hint of anxiety about the implications of it all.
Silence gathered around them both as Anna’s thoughts drifted on the breeze of that sigh. Her hand stilled and finally Crash heaved a sigh of his own, folding himself into a lumpy shape on the floor. He didn’t go back to his own bed. He was still there, right beside her, prepared to share any vigil.
But Anna’s eyes had drifted shut. One thing was certain. That kiss couldn’t be undone and it put her and Luke on new ground. Unexplored, potentially dangerous but undeniably exciting territory.
Was Luke awake right now?
Would he remember that kiss?
Oh, yes. Anna was as certain of that as she was about the fact that the kiss couldn’t be undone. Curiously, the knowledge was comforting and sleep finally came, but it didn’t quite erase the tiny smile curling her lips.
IF LOOKS could kill …
Anna had to bite back an ironic smile as she pressed her foot on the control to start the water flowing and reached for the small, soap-impregnated scrubbing brush.
She’d probably been glaring at Luke in a very similar fashion that first day they’d been in Theatre together. Resenting his presence. Resenting him. Knowing that she was perfectly capable of doing the job without him being there. Feeling demoted in some way.
Now it was his turn. This was his first theatre slot following that little talk they’d had after she’d chased after him out of the staff Christmas party. The issue had been ignored for the day or two since then. In fact, Anna had had the impression that Luke had been avoiding her and that had been fine because any embarrassment lingering from the kiss had been somehow watered down until it didn’t exist any more. Maybe he was hoping she would also forget her intention of scrubbing in with him for the safety of everyone involved but she hadn’t forgotten. She hadn’t waited for an invitation either, she had simply arrived.
Luke was apparently focused on scrubbing his hands and forearms with commendable thoroughness. Under his nails and between his fingers. Carefully angling the water flow so that it chased soap from the wrists up to his elbows and then dropping his hands to rinse from the wrists to his fingertips.
He muttered something under his breath as he reached for a sterile towel to dry his hands. It sounded like, ‘Blackmail’.
‘Sorry?’
‘Nothing,’ Luke growled. He stepped towards a theatre nurse waiting to help him don his gown and tie it. He cleared his throat and raised his voice. ‘Good that you had the time to join us this morning, Anna.’
‘Wouldn’t have wanted to miss it,’ she responded calmly. ‘Pretty complicated case. I’m sure I’m going to learn a lot.’
The nurse made an approving sound. ‘We all are,’ she said admiringly. ‘The gallery’s a very popular place today. Full house.’
Anna looked up and smiled at Luke.
See? the smile said. Nobody’s going to blink an eye at me being in Theatre with you. We are the only two people who know the real reason I have to be here and we both know why it has to be this way. Her smile faded but she held his gaze. Get used to it, she advised silently. You don’t have to like it but you do have to deal with it.
Not that she expected him to deal with it in quite the way he did. By making her the lead surgeon. Talking her through the more complex aspects but only taking over for a few minutes at a time. It was a long and complicated surgery. The middle-aged female patient had a tumour in one lung that had spread to send tentacles around the major vessels that returned blood to the heart. The diagnosis had not been made until the reduction in blood flow due to the compression had given her heart failure. Swollen ankles and shortness of breath had finally made her seek medical help.
Fortunately, they found no cardiac involvement, but the dissection needed to remove as much of the tumour as possible was tricky. The patient was on bypass for nearly five hours as Anna and Luke worked to free the blood vessels and remove a lobe of her lung. By the end of the procedure Anna was exhausted. It wasn’t until their patient was off bypass and her heart was beating again effectively that she could relax at all and it was then that she realised how Luke had ‘dealt’ with what he’d taken to be her supervision. He’d made her do the work and put so much pressure on her that she hadn’t had time to even think about how focused he had been.
If that was how he wanted to play this, it was fine by her. Brilliant, in fact. In order to watch her and challenge her to improve her own skills, he was having to focus just as intently as he would if he was doing the procedure alone. More so, in some ways, because he had to think ahead in several directions so that he could troubleshoot if she wasn’t on exactly the same wavelength.
Not that any major discrepancies in thinking had occurred. They had been amazingly in tune. So much so that Anna would have noticed instantly if Luke had lost focus. He hadn’t. She had been challenged. She’d learnt a lot. To outward appearances they had worked as a close, harmonious team. The initiative had been a huge success