Picking up the Pieces. Caroline Anderson

murmured. ‘To be captured and dragged off on to the high seas, condemned to a life of sexual slavery at the hands of the autocratic pirate king?’

      She snorted inelegantly. ‘Sounds like your private fantasy to me,’ she told him bluntly.

      His grin was wicked. ‘You’ve found me out. Finish your breakfast — I promise not to ogle.’

      But her appetite had gone, replaced instead by another hunger, one long suppressed.

      ‘I don’t want any more,’ she told him, and pushed back her chair, glancing at her watch. ‘It hardly seems worth going to bed,’ she said rashly, and could have bitten her tongue out as his brows arched speculatively.

      ‘Oh, I don’t know.’

      She glared at him, trying hard to ignore the beating of her heart and the slow spread of warmth through her veins.

      He stood up too. ‘I’ll walk you back to your room.’

      ‘There’s no need.’

      ‘There’s every need. I don’t know where you sleep. How can I indulge my fantasies without knowing where you sleep?’

      ‘Precisely my point,’ she retorted, but her heart beat even faster. She had to get away.

      ‘I’ll follow you,’ he taunted softly.

      She turned to glare at him, hands on hips, and met the challenge in his laughing eyes.

      She chuckled, defeated. ‘You would, as well. All right, you can walk me to the door, but you’re not coming in.’

      ‘Of course not.’

      ‘Hmph.’

      They made their way through the corridors of the awakening hospital, bustling now with the new shift coming on, the cleaners timing their assault on the floors to coincide exactly with the busiest period.

      It was worse in the residence, with doors banging and water running, radios blaring, occasional laughter, the odd plea for quiet from some overhung young reveller desperate for a few more hours of oblivion.

      ‘Here we are,’ she said, and turned her back to the door. ‘My flat — or “flatette”. It isn’t really big enough to be called a flat, but it’s home, and it’s a sight cheaper and cleaner than the only sort of hovel I could find in London —’ I’m babbling, she thought frantically, but she didn’t know how to get rid of him. Try the blunt approach, she told herself. She forced herself to meet those lazy, knowing blue eyes.

      ‘Thank you for breakfast. Goodbye —’

      ‘But you’re not safely in. You might have lost your keys, or you could have had an intruder —’

      ‘Nice try, Mr Davidson. Bye-bye.’

      He grinned appealingly. ‘Thirty seconds? There’s something I have to say to you.’

      ‘Can’t you say it out here?’

      He pulled a thoughtful face. ‘It’s a little sensitive. It’s about your — er — lapse in Theatre.’

      She whipped the door open and dragged him in, shutting the door and leaning back against it.

      ‘I’m sorry about that. I was…’

      ‘Distracted?’ he supplied helpfully. ‘So was I. I believe I owe you an apology. I’m sorry I lost my temper. I was rather unkind to you, and it was just because I was…’

      ‘Distracted?’ she suggested, and his mouth softened.

      ‘Completely. All I could think about was the feel of your body pressed up against me, and every time I tried to shift away from you you followed me —’

      ‘I didn’t! I was trying to get away, and you kept following me!’ Heat flared in her cheeks. His voice was like a caress, and she could feel again the heat of his thigh against hers, the shift of his hip, the hardness of his leg muscles as he braced himself …

      ‘You could have moved the trolley. Whatever, I’m sorry I embarrassed you publicly.’

      She blinked. That was it? She had expected a mild reproof, at the very least, if not an outright dressing-down — certainly not what amounted to a full-scale apology! And in that soft, coaxing voice, like rough velvet.

      He had turned and was looking round her bed-sitting-room with interest.

      As well he might, she thought with a sudden flare of embarrassment. Her undies were draped over the radiator to dry, scraps of silk and lace, her one major weakness. Hurriedly she scooped them up and shoved them into a drawer, her cheeks flaming.

      He was looking at her Christmas cards, his mouth twitching as he pretended to ignore her embarrassment.

      ‘Um …’ she began, but then floundered to a halt. How could she get rid of him before she made a total fool of herself?

      He straightened, as if he read her mind. ‘I’m just going, but before I do, one last thing.’

      He crossed the room slowly, purposefully, and held out a card to her.

      ‘See this?’ he said softly.

      It was a picture of a sprig of mistletoe. Belatedly it dawned on her what he was going to do, but she was too late to move, and anyway, she wasn’t sure she wanted to.

      ‘Happy New Year,’ he murmured, and, holding the card over their heads, he wrapped his other arm round her, drew her up against his chest and lowered his mouth to hers.

      The sensation was electric, his lips soft and yet firm against hers, and she could feel his heartbeat against her own. She gave a little cry, and he took instant advantage to deepen the kiss.

      Dimly she was aware of the card fluttering to the floor as his hands came up to cup her face and steady her against his onslaught, and then she was aware of nothing except the heat of his mouth, the urgent rhythm of his tongue and the way her body ached to know him.

      Her hands were on his back, and through the soft cotton of his sweater she could feel the muscles ripple as she kneaded them with her palms.

      ‘Cassie,’ he groaned, and his hands left her face, one sliding down her back to ease her hips more firmly against his, the other coming round to cup her breast in his large, skilful hand.

      One hard thigh nudged between hers, and his mouth abandoned its exploration of her jaw to return to her lips, sucking and nibbling, then soothing with the moist velvet of his tongue.

      He was trembling, his body taut with passion, and she arched against him, desperate to eradicate even the tiny space still left between them. There was no thought of stopping him, no way she could find the resolve to push him aside. Her mind had surrendered absolutely to her body’s needs, and at that moment in time, she needed this almost-stranger with the laughing eyes and the ready wit and the clever, clever mouth.

      Just then his clever mouth lifted from hers, and he rested his cheek on her hair, his hand leaving her breast to cup the back of her head and tenderly smooth the tousled curls.

      Oh, Cassie,’ he said softly after several minutes, and then eased away from her.

      His mouth was softly swollen from their kisses, his hair mussed, his eyes dark with wanting.

      ‘You were right,’ he told her gently, and his voice shook. ‘You shouldn’t have let me in.’

      Then he was gone, the door closing softly behind him, and she sat down with a plonk on the edge of the bed, stunned.

      She tried to analyse what had happened, but her brain didn’t seem able to co-operate. She was awash with sensation, her body alive and tingling, and the only thing that penetrated her awareness was the dull ache of longing that kept her awake for the rest of the day.

       CHAPTER