Australian Affairs: Tempted. Amy Andrews

He was at her neck and trailing his mouth down, she was stone-cold sober, yet almost topless and drunk on lust. He kissed back up to her mouth and she could feel the trail of wetness he had left on her chest—and how she wanted him. Her hands moved to his head and she felt the thick, long, jet-black hair that he refused to cut, felt the wedge of muscle of a man it would be so easy to be immoral with, understood exactly why women lost their heads to him, for she was losing hers.

      She moved her hand down to his shoulder, her fingers sliding to his neck, but Juan’s hands halted hers and moved them onto his chest. It jolted her, just a little, for in that moment not a fraction of their bodies had seemed out of bounds. Cate had been utterly lost but she returned to common sense and he felt it, their eyes opening together, and she saw the regret in his as she pulled her mouth back.

      ‘We could be so good together…’ His forehead was resting on hers and she was struggling to get her breath.

      Yes, they could be so good together but he would be so bad for her.

      Cate wasn’t looking for forever but neither was she looking for one night, or one week.

      She simply couldn’t do the casual thing, never had and never could. Could not walk into work tomorrow with everyone knowing she had succumbed to Juan’s undeniable charm.

      How she wanted to, though.

      How she wanted to give in to the urges that were pulsing through her as much as the music coming from his home, how she wanted to just say, yes, I can handle this. Except, stupid her, her body came attached to a heart that was already a bit bruised and did not need to be shattered by him.

      Oh, it would hurt to have him and then not. That much Cate knew.

      ‘Get over him, Cate!’ Juan said.

      She was so over Paul, not that he knew it. Cate did not dare reveal the truth, so she made a wry joke.

      ‘By getting under you?’

      ‘No,’ Juan said. ‘I want you on top. I want to watch you come.’

      He was bad.

      He was dangerous.

      He was everything she wanted and yet everything she didn’t.

      ‘Thanks for a lovely evening.’

      ‘Would you like to go out tomorrow?’ Juan offered.

      ‘No, thanks.’

      ‘Cate…’

      So she took a breath and told him, ‘I’m not what you’re looking for.’

      ‘You don’t know what I’m looking for.’

      ‘I don’t know what I’m looking for either,’ Cate admitted, ‘but it’s not…’ she tried to think of the right word and she didn’t know how best to say it ‘…you.’

      ‘Ouch.’

      Cate smiled and climbed into her car and caught the lingering fragrance of Juan from when he had been in her vehicle, the expensive note that overrode others.

      She knew that she hadn’t hurt him.

      Ouch would be sitting in the staffroom in a couple of weeks’ time, hearing who he’d slept with next, or, if they did last the little time he had left in Australia, ouch would be waving him off at the airport. Ouch would be having had him and then trying to move on.

      Cate had just ended one serious relationship—a rebound with the name Juan attached to it was heading way too far in the other direction.

      She reversed out and waved to him, and, yes, she regretted it plenty. She could see them alone in his bedroom. many times she had envisaged him kicking those boots to the floor and letting herself be a notch on his temporary bed; many times she had wanted to let loose and be as superficial and as laid back about things as Juan.

      So clearly she could see it now, could still taste him on her mouth as she drove off, her bra around her waist, her cheeks burning, her hands willing her to turn round and return to him.

      Instead, Cate chose safety.

       CHAPTER FOUR

      JUAN WOUND UP the party and did not invite anybody else to stay the night.

      As the last taxi pulled off, he didn’t even look at the clock or tidy up, he just undressed and headed to bed and tried to get Cate Nicholls out of his head.

      She was way too serious for him.

      Usually, he didn’t want to hear about promotions and brothers and parts of the woman’s history but with Cate somehow he did.

      He thought about her hand on his neck, her fingers about to meet the thick scar and, no, he didn’t want her knowing, would far prefer Cate thinking that he was shallow than to open up and confide in her…

      That wasn’t what this trip was about, he told himself as he lay there. Caught between awake and asleep, Juan was unsure if the kiss with Cate had been a dream, unsure even if his time in Australia was a mere figment of his imagination. He even wondered if Cate’s words to Reece would disappear the second he awoke and he would find out it was all just another dream—because he was back there again, back in his head, trapped in his mind with a body that refused to obey even the simplest command.

      In Juan’s dreams he ran, his feet pounding the warm pavement as he dragged in the humid air.

      In dreams, he threaded his beloved motorbike through lush Argentinian hills and made love to every single woman who had ever flirted with him—and there were many, perhaps Cate was one?

      In his dreams, Juan jumped off bridges and felt the sting of icy-cold water as he plunged in.

      In his dreams, he skied down mountains and did all the things he had never had time to do—Juan’s focus had always been Martina, family and work.

      He could hear the nurses, doing the two a.m. rounds, approaching the four-bedded ward, and Juan tried to haul himself out of the memory, tried to get back to kissing Cate, except he couldn’t dictate his dreams and he couldn’t erase his memories, and as the REM stage deepened a very natural reflex occurred.

      ‘Hey, Juan.’

      ‘I apologise.’ Juan didn’t need to look at the mirrors placed over his bed to know the sheet was tenting and that he was erect; instead, he stared at the ceiling as Graciela tried to catch his eye. ‘Juan, it’s natural,’ Graciela said. They spoke in Spanish, Graciela, as always, practical—she was nearing retirement and had worked on the spinal unit for years. Graciela was more than used to young men finding themselves paralysed, used to the strange sight of a beautiful, fit body that might never move independently again and the humiliation a new spinal-cord injury patient faced regularly.

      Yes, Graciela was kind and practical, it just didn’t help now as she and Manuel rolled him onto his side. Juan was burning with shame in a bed in the Buenos Aires hospital he worked at.

      Had once worked at.

      Juan didn’t want that part of his life over. Yes, he played upbeat for Martina and his family, insisted if there was a little improvement he could lecture and teach; but tonight the future, one where he could function independently, let alone hold another’s life in his hands, seemed an impossibly long way off.

      ‘Juan…’ Manuel tried to engage with Juan. ‘We still don’t know the extent of your injury. You have spinal swelling and until…’

      Juan closed his eyes. He didn’t want hope tonight, he felt guilty that compared to his roommates there was a thin hope that his paralysis was not permanent; he just wanted to close his eyes and go back to his dreams but he knew he would not get back to sleep, knew that this would be another long night.

      ‘You need a haircut,’ Graciela commented as she washed his face. ‘Do