Paddington Children's Hospital Complete Collection. Kate Hardy

through him until he was nothing but a river of pulsating sensation. Her free hand wound its way through his hair, her fingers digging into his scalp as if she needed to hold on to something to keep herself tethered to earth.

      He understood exactly. Kissing her was like being in free fall. He returned her kiss with one of his own—deep, thorough and practiced until he heard a low guttural moan coming from Claire. Usually that sound made him smile and reinforced not only that he knew exactly what he was doing but that he was the one in total control.

      Not this time.

      His usual measured composure with women was unravelling faster than a skein of wool in the paws of a cat. He had the strangest awareness that somehow she’d turned the tables on him completely. What had started out as a quick and reassuring kiss to console her was now a kiss that was stripping him of the protective layers he’d spent five years cementing into place.

      Break the kiss. Now. Right now.

      But his body overruled him again, craving what was on offer and seizing it like a drowning man grips a life preserver. He slid the utilitarian black band from her ponytail, and as her hair fell to her shoulders in a sun-kissed cascade, it released its treasured aroma of spices and apples. Golden strands caressed his face and he breathed deeply. Claire’s sweet behind was now in his lap—he had no idea if he’d pulled her there, if she’d climbed in or if it was a bit of both. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was here, now and her.

      Her hand cupped the back of his neck, her fingers splayed. His hand, which had been gripping her hip, now slid under the loose top of her scrubs. His palm instantly tingled as it touched warm, smooth skin. He spider-walked his fingers along her spine, absorbing every rise and dip until he reached the wide strap of her bra.

      He’d never considered any piece of lingerie a challenge—more like an inconvenient barrier that he dismantled easily every time. His fingers rested on the hooks and he was just about to flick and twist when Claire ripped her hand out of his and hauled her mouth from his lips. It all happened so fast that he shivered from the loss of her intoxicating heat.

      Her lips, now bee-sting pouty and puffy from kissing and being kissed, gave her a sexy aura he’d never suspected even existed underneath her uptight personality. But despite how deliciously alluring it made her, it was the way her mussed hair fell softly, framing her face that got to him. It made her look younger than her years. She suddenly seemed fragile and vulnerable as if she expected the world as she knew it to end any second.

      In that instant, he knew the exact direction her thoughts had taken. He was her boss and she was his trainee. Hospitals had rules about this sort of thing to protect both parties from sexual harassment charges. Without meaning to, they’d both fallen over the line together, but there was no power play happening on either side. He’d stake his life she was as surprised as he was that the kiss had even happened.

      ‘It’s okay, Claire,’ he said, wanting to put her at ease, but his voice was rough, raspy and the antithesis of soothing.

      ‘Okay?’ Her voice rose with incredulity and her beautiful eyes reflected her turmoil. In a flurry of uncoordinated movements, which included her knee pressing into his inner thigh, she scrambled out of his lap as fast as if he was on fire and she was about to go up in flames too. The entire time she kept her arms outstretched in front of her as if she was scared he was going to try and touch her.

      ‘I... This... It.’ Her left hand covered her mouth for a moment before falling away. ‘Nothing about any of this is okay.’

      Still dazed from her kisses and with the majority of his circulating volume residing in his lap, he struggled to move beyond the basic functions of his reptilian brain. He tried a second time to reassure her. ‘I meant, we’re both adults.’ He shrugged. ‘Things happen.’

      She shook her head so hard and fast that her hair whipped around her head in a golden wave. ‘Nothing happened.’ Her voice trembled along with the rest of her. ‘Do you understand? Absolutely nothing.’

      As his blood pounded thickly through his body defying her words, both their pages beeped. The sound stopped Claire’s flight to the door. ‘Oh, no. The Walkers are here.’

      ‘Right.’ His voice sounded a long way away as his body lurched from lust to logic and the doctor overrode the man. Hell, he needed some time. ‘I’ll meet you in ICU in five minutes.’

      Relief and embarrassment tugged at her cheeks. ‘Yes. Good. Fine. I’ll be there.’ She disappeared into the corridor.

      Well, that went well, Alistair. Blowing out a long, slow breath he rubbed his face with his hands and tried to fathom how something so incredible had ended so badly.

       CHAPTER FIVE

      ‘DECAF THIS MORNING, please, Tony.’

      The friendly barista shot her a disbelieving look. ‘Is not coffee, mia bella.’

      She gave him an apologetic shrug. ‘Please.’ The last thing she needed was caffeine. It was barely seven and she was running on adrenaline. Her heart pounded, her chest was so tight breathing felt like lifting weights, she was as jumpy as a cat and she felt the telltale burn of reflux. That was always the stress marker.

      Occasionally, when she thought work was going well, she’d be surprised to get the liver-tip pain telling her that her body wasn’t as calm as her mind. Today, she didn’t need her medical degree to know the exact cause of her extreme agitation. She’d relived the reason over and over and over last night until exhaustion had somehow managed to claim her, providing a few hours of fitful sleep.

      She’d woken with a start to a foggy dawn and the weight of reality crushing down on her so hard and heavy she was surprised she wasn’t lying on the floor. Real life had decisively ended a wonderful dream where she’d felt unusually safe and secure. A utopia where she’d been able to be herself without the constant and nagging worry that someone was going to find out that despite all her hard work she was always only one step away from failing. Those tantalisingly peaceful feelings had vanished a second after she’d woken. Tranquillity had been torpedoed by the visual of her nestled in Alistair North’s lap, kissing him like he was the last man standing after the apocalypse.

      She’d jumped her boss. Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God.

      Hours later, she still wasn’t totally certain how it had happened.

      Oh, come on. Be honest. Bottom line, you abandoned your principles, you opened your mouth and took what you wanted. You sucked Alistair North’s marrow into you like he was oxygen.

      She barely recognised the woman she’d been last night, and she knew if it had been an option, she’d have climbed inside the man. Never before had she let go like that, giving up all thought and reason, and existing only for the streaming sensations of bliss that had consumed her. It was if she’d been drawing her life force from him. She’d certainly never kissed anyone with such intensity before.

      You’ve never been kissed like that before.

      Her mind retreated from the thought so fast she almost gave herself whiplash. Truth be told, despite her thirty-four years, her kissing experience was fairly limited. During her teenage years, her brother’s footy mates had considered her far too bookish and reserved to bother trying to kiss and her peers thought she was weird for studying so hard, so when she’d left Gundiwindi bound for Adelaide Uni, she’d been a kissing virgin as well as a sexual one.

      It had only taken one medical students’ society party to remedy the kissing situation. She’d discovered that having a tongue shoved unceremoniously down her throat by a drunk second year had been enough. Then and there she’d determined to wait until she met someone who, A, she actually liked and, B, had some experience and panache in the art of kissing.

      Michael had literally walked into her life five years later when she’d been hiking the Milford Track in the spectacular South Island of New Zealand. After two days spent laughing and talking