Midwives On-Call. Alison Roberts

almost be the night they’d met for he had been wearing black pants and a white shirt then. He was just as toned, just as sensual, just as confident as he had been that night as he walked over to her, removed her now empty glass from her hand and placed it on a small table. His hands returned to her hips as they had that night, only his mouth did not take hers.

      ‘So …’ Alessi looked at her. ‘Here we are again.’

      He was going to keep to his word, Isla realised as his lips did nothing to meet hers.

      ‘Up to you, Isla.’

      Her lips actually ached from his ignoring them, and her body wanted to twitch from the lack of attention she craved. His hands were warm on her hips, his fingers just at the curve of her buttocks, and he moved not a muscle yet he stirred her deep on the inside. ‘I thought you were the great seducer,’ Isla said, willing her voice to be even, begging her heart to slow down.

      ‘So it’s my job to turn you on?’ Alessi checked, staring into her eyes.

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘But I already have.’

      Was it that simple? Isla thought. Because, yes, he already had.

      ‘You will make the move, Isla.’

      Was she here to be served her just deserts, was payback on his mind? She voiced just one of her many fears about this night. ‘So you can blow me off this time?’

      ‘God, no.’ The need in his voice put paid to that fear and so did his words. ‘I wanted you then and I want you now.’

      Her eyes told Alessi she wanted him, too. ‘So what do you have to say about that night?’

      ‘I’m not going to apologise.’

      He shrugged his shoulders but he didn’t move and she thought she might die if their lips didn’t meet, so she offered her haughty best.

      ‘Sorry!’

      ‘That’s a poor excuse for an apology,’ Alessi said. ‘Say it with your mouth on mine.’

      ‘Alessi …’ Isla cringed. She had no idea what was happening, no idea what his game was. She wanted to put up her hand and take a time-out, to consult the rule book, phone a friend, but there was only one other player in this game and she could hardly consult him.

       I’ve never done this before, Alessi, she wanted to reveal. Apart from one kiss with you, I’ve never really been intimate or affectionate with a man before …

      Only that wasn’t true.

      Thirty seconds ago she had never been this intimate or affectionate but now she was pressing her lips to his mouth as if it was the most natural thing in the world. ‘Sorry,’ Isla breathed, feeling his lips stretch into a smile beneath hers as she joined in the game.

      And she’d just been intimate again because her hands were running over his back as she whispered to his lips again.

      ‘I can’t hear you,’ Alessi said, and her lips moved to his ear, to the lovely, soft lobe, such a contrast to the scratch of his jaw, and she was saying the same word again.

      ‘Sorry.’

      Sorry for being a bitch, sorry for shutting you out, sorry for a year of deprivation when it was so easy after all.

      She was unbuttoning his shirt as her mouth moved to his neck. It really was that simple. He shrugged out of his shirt and she ran her hands over the lean chest, stroking his hardening nipples, and all she had to be, Isla realised, was herself, and she knew what she wanted.

      It was Isla’s fingers rather than Alessi’s that undid the halter neck to her dress and the feel of skin, of his firm chest against her naked one, matched the moan that escaped from him, and then she removed her mouth from his neck and stood, taking in the feast going on in his eyes as he looked at her bare breasts.

      ‘I’ve run out of sorries,’ Isla said.

      ‘I haven’t.’ Alessi’s eyes lifted to hers. ‘I’m sorry for every terrible thought I have had about you and I’m even sorry for the inappropriate ones—they didn’t do you justice …’

      His mouth came down on hers then, so hard that Isla thought she might taste blood. Almost a year of anger and pent-up frustration was unleashed from Alessi and for Isla it was electrifying and completely consuming to be so thoroughly kissed. His fierce tongue claimed her as her breasts were crushed to his chest. One of Alessi’s hands was at the back of her head, the other on her bottom, yet it was Isla who was pushing in.

      She resented the bottom half of her dress for coming between them. She loathed both his trousers and his belt. She wanted them gone, she wanted them both naked, she wanted her legs wrapped around him.

      Alessi pulled back and her mouth chased him for more.

      ‘Get on the bed,’ he ordered, his words harsh but necessary or they’d be doing it up the wall.

      ‘Where is it?’

      He was as disorientated as she and it took a second for him to fathom the familiar route and it was hard getting there while being down each other’s throats on the way.

      They stripped at the bedroom door, with the same glee and abandon as if they were taking their clothes off to jump in a river on a hot summer’s day. Isla’s nerves left her at the door and they dived onto his bed together, want tumbling them over and over, only tearing their mouths from each other to drink in glimpses of the other’s nakedness. He loved her large pink areolas and the blonde curls between her legs, and she in turn loved the darkness of his erection that nudged for attention even as his fingers slid inside her.

      Isla simply forgot her own inexperience, forgot that she didn’t know what to do, or shouldn’t know what to do, for all that she could do was try and remember to breathe as his fingers deeply stroked her and his mouth noisily worked her breasts.

      He touched her where, and in a way, she had never touched herself, and her body flared at the delicious invasion. Her spine seemed to turn to lava and she rocked to his hand.

      ‘Come,’ he ordered, and yet she had never done so. ‘Come,’ he said urgently, ‘because then I’m going to take you …’

      She looked down at his fingers sliding in and out of her yet she couldn’t relax to his hand, no matter how she wanted to. ‘Take me now …’

      They were side on and facing each other, and Alessi required no second invitation. His leg nudged hers apart so they scissored his and his fingers moved from deep within and held his thick base and teased, stroking her clitoris, toying at her entrance, till her own hand was closed over his and urged him inside.

      ‘Condom …’ He went to reach for one, but that meant rolling, that meant leaving, and her hand stayed steady over his, for she could not bear to break the spell. He nudged in just a little way and her throat closed on itself as she glimpsed how much this was going to hurt. Pain was confirmed again with the second, deeper thrust.

      Alessi felt her tension and misread it. Common sense paid a very brief visit and he reached for a condom. The pause as he slid it on was enough for Isla to catch her breath. She didn’t like the pale pink of the sheath, she wanted the lovely darkness of before, the softness of his wet skin and the hard feel of him inside. It was that simple, but as he squeezed into her those wants were pale compared to the pleasurable hurt of being taken.

      Alessi closed his eyes in pleasure at how tight she was, her moan, her sob, the bite of Isla’s teeth on his shoulder spoke not of pain to him.

      Or to her.

      Yes, it hurt, yes, she wanted a second to regroup, but the salt of his skin in her mouth and the immeasurable force of him thrusting within was a small price to pay for no rest. There were no thoughts to be gathered; he was driving her towards something and Isla was the most willing passenger. She could feel her first orgasm building, each deep stroke of him taking her to the edge of what was surely inevitable,