Baby for the Midwife. Fiona McArthur

      ‘Yes.’ She nodded and buried her face back into his shirt.

      ‘So friends trust each other and your worries are my worries. But we do need to communicate. It is very hard to help you when you shut me out.’

      ‘I know.’ She straightened and he hugged her one last time before he forced himself to let her go.

      ‘Come and eat. Then we’ll talk. Unless we feed all this food to the dog, Mrs White will find out we didn’t enjoy her hard labour.’

      ‘I couldn’t eat a thing.’

      Max stared down at her and she looked so forlorn and lost that his heart ached to ease her pain.

      He leant forward again and kissed her gently on the lips with all the tenderness she inspired in him. She sighed against him and didn’t pull away, and when he drew back she turned her face towards him and leaned up to kiss him back. He forced back the desire to pull her into his arms and really kiss her so she could forget the man that stood between them.

      ‘I’m scared, Max.’ Georgia leant her head on his chest again.

      ‘I know, darling.’ He had felt her tremble beneath his lips when their lips had met. He couldn’t see how one man could inspire such dread but Georgia obviously could.

      ‘Hold me,’ she whispered.

      He’d imagined holding her in his arms many times, but not for this reason. Poor baby. ‘Any time you want, Georgia. You only have to give me a sign.’ He gathered her in and she rested her cheek against him. Then she turned to look up at him.

      When she closed her eyes and invited another kiss, he could no more stem his response than stop the waves on the beach he could hear in the distance.

      He cupped her chin and traced the pure lines of her face with his mouth as he’d longed to do since Monday night. Her skin felt like velvet and glowed like cream, and he wanted to taste both. He brushed her eyebrows with his lips and then the tip of her nose before settling on her lips in homecoming.

      She tasted divine, as he’d known she would, and he searched deeper, always waiting in case she pulled away, but she responded with a hunger that smouldered like his own. Her response tore at him so strongly it was difficult to remember he had to hold back.

      When he raised his lips from hers to stand back, she murmured in denial, still with her eyes closed, so he leaned forward and took her mouth again in a kiss that left them both breathless and stunned by the connection between them.

      They stood, wrapped in each other’s arms, breathing as one, and for Max it was as if he were standing under the full brunt of a waterfall, and he could no more hold back the water than he could hold back the urge to carry Georgia to his bed and make her his.

      ‘I need you to take me, Max.’ Her words echoed his own desire, but the need in her voice inflamed him as nothing else could have. When he lifted her into his arms her head lay back to expose the soft column of her throat, and he brushed his face against the tender skin there to inhale the perfume of her skin before straightening.

      She sighed into him with such softness and warmth he pulled her against his body and whisked her up the stairs before either of them came to their senses.

      When he placed her gently on his bed she reached up for him without hesitation, but a brief moment of sanity stilled his hand before she tugged at him and he lowered himself down beside her.

      ‘Are you sure?’

      ‘Kiss me, Max.’

      He’d dreamed many times that he would hold her in his arms and protect her from the world. Yet though he wanted to make her his, he needed to ensure her own feelings of self-belief were restored. That was more important than anything. For him this was right, but what of her?

      For Georgia, all intrusion from Sol had vanished with the safety of Max around her. Somewhere in the distance her brain disagreed, but the last time Max had lowered his mouth she’d felt the leashed force of his need and that had made her forget. She wanted that again. She pulled him closer and answered the call without permission from any inner voice.

      She slaked his hunger with her own and when, peripherally, she felt her clothing move and then his bare skin against hers, she could no more stop her response than she could stop her own heart beating.

      His chest was rock hard against her and flattened her breasts gloriously against him. Her fingers skimmed the V of hair on his belly and she exulted in his caressing hands as she caressed him.

      It wasn’t enough.

      Suddenly there was no time for niceties, neither did she want them. She wanted Max.

      She wanted Max over her, in her, joined to her, and she wanted him now. She’d never felt a need as strong and overpowering as this before, but the need was ancient and she demanded his response to wipe out all that had come before.

      She could feel Max try to slow the pace but deep inside her a dark fear despaired that something would prevent their union, that some sinister force would tear them apart, and the very least she wanted was this consummation to make her whole again.

      Max rose above her and she stared up at him. His strong throat soared above her and his chiselled features were outlined in the darkened room. His golden eyes stared down at her with all the fierce need for possession she’d stoked in him with her own need.

      Their eyes locked and she reached up to savour the bulge of taut muscles in his arms as he lowered himself gently against her. Her eyes widened as he entered her, slowly, intimately questing, deeper and deeper, until his whispered name escaped her.

      He stared down and the adoration in his face made the tears slip beneath her lids and then he withdrew until she protested. He smiled and entered her again. Slow and steady and deep until again she moaned his name and only then did he quicken the pace.

      Georgia clutched at his back to stay with him and they rose and fell together in a long slow erotic dance that drove everything out of their minds except the feel of each other in union.

      When it was over they lay together, her head on his chest and his arm encircling her as if he’d never let her go.

      She knew the moment he slept and she turned her head and kissed his chest. ‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ she whispered. ‘Maybe there is hope. We’ll see.’

      Through the night they joined again, but this time in a slow dance of discovery that scaled the heights again in a different way until much later they slept, entwined.

      This time Max lay awake until the morning when he watched her wake up to see if he had been a fool.

      He’d promised he would keep her safe and what had he done at the first temptation but taken her like a caveman bearing his prize? He hadn’t been able to resist and now he scanned her precious face for any sign of regret.

      At least he couldn’t make her pregnant. He winced with the pain that reflection brought, but the pain was nothing to the thought of losing Georgia.

      She’d been mind-blowing and incredible but even in the midst of their magical storm he’d feared she’d only wanted to escape from her memories and that he’d taken advantage of her when he should have waited for the right time.

      Now he was afraid he had created more dilemmas for her, which was the last thing he had intended.

      He knew he loved this woman above all things but he also accepted he had to create an out for her if that was what she needed. No matter that it would rip out his heart to put distance between them again—a greater risk was destroying any chance of their future.

      Not when he’d found the one woman he’d never known had been out there. He could not taint that again with her regret.

      ‘Good morning?’ He couldn’t help the question mark at the end of his greeting and inside his head a devil mocked him.

      ‘Good morning, Max.’ Georgia chewed