by Amy Andrews
Her breath was warm against his chest. ‘Patience, humility, that doctors don’t know everything.’
She let that sink in. Surgeons weren’t known for their humility. ‘Did you have chemo?’
Alex nodded. ‘I had some node involvement. I had chemo and radium.’
His husky words softened the ugliness of their meaning, but Isobella felt compelled to comfort him anyway. She draped her arm across his chest, her hand resting on the warm round prominence of his opposite shoulder. ‘Sounds bad.’
Alex lay very still as her fingers absently stroked his skin. ‘It was.’
She was quiet for a few moments, absorbing his brief but angst-loaded words. She listened to the suck of the waves on the beach that had so freaked her out in the darkness not that long ago. ‘So what else did you learn?’
Alex thought for a moment. ‘I learnt who my friends were.’
Isobella felt him tense beneath her touch even before the bitterness in his tone affected her. ‘Sonya?’
His lips twisted as Sonya’s betrayal revisited him. ‘She barely waited until I’d been shifted from Intensive Care before she gave me back my ring. Told me she hadn’t signed up for an invalid.’
Isobella gave a horrified gasp. ‘Ouch.’
Alex gave a half-laugh. ‘Indeed. Sonya wanted the glamour of being Dr and Mrs—the prestige of being married to a hotshot surgeon. She hadn’t counted on the worse part of for better or worse rearing its ugly head quite so soon.’
Isobella cringed. ‘I’m sorry.’
He remembered how she’d apologised over the same thing at the hotel. ‘Don’t be.’ He was surprised how little it hurt now, when it had gutted him so badly a decade ago. ‘It made me a better person. The cancer. Sonya. It taught me two important lessons.’
‘Oh?’
‘Life’s short. And guard your heart closely.’
Her chest ached for him. ‘We’re not all like that, you know.’ She would never have squandered his love. Left him when he needed her most. ‘Not all women leave.’
Funnily enough, lying here next to her like this, he could almost believe it. There’d been an honesty between them tonight that had never existed between him and Sonya. Maybe she was right? Still, the first cut was always the deepest.
‘I’d prefer not to put it to the test again. I think I’ll stick with my game plan.’
‘Ah. That would be the old catch-kiss-and-throw-back game plan?’
Alex chuckled at the derision in her voice. ‘That would be it.’
Isobella yawned. The last thing she wanted right now was to get into a discussion about the idiocy of his theory, when her avoidance of fishing altogether wasn’t any more healthy.
‘I wonder what the time is?’ she murmured.
Alex lifted his arm and pushed a button on the side of his watch. ‘Nearly one a.m.’
They were silent for a few minutes, contemplating the long night still ahead of them. ‘Thank you, Alex,’ she whispered.
Alex nodded. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to talk about the dream?’
Isobella shook her head. ‘Thanks, but no.’ What good would it do? ‘I think I’m just going to go to sleep.’
Alex listened as her breathing evened out and her head grew heavy against his chest. He envied her that as he lay awake, staring into the impossible blackness and listening to the storm rage outside whilst simultaneously ignoring the one raging inside him.
Alex’s eyelids snapped open an hour later. The noise from the Cyclone was disorientating, and it took a second or two to realise what exactly had woken him. Isobella’s hand had crept perilously close to a part of his anatomy that was now more than aware of her nearness. He was painfully hard. He swallowed, shutting his eyes and reaching for a modicum of sanity.
She muttered something in her sleep and shifted, her knuckles grazing the length of him. He opened his eyes again, and bit his lip to stifle a groan. He tried hard not to think about her grasping his erection, running her hand up and down the length of it, testing its girth, relishing in its contours.
Enough! He might be practising his gentlemanly ways, but there were limits!
He gingerly picked up her lifeless, uninterested hand and removed it from the proximity of his very interested appendage. She muttered something and then shifted, rolling on her side, her back to him. Alex was so grateful that all her interesting bits were now not squashed into him that he too rolled on his side, his back to her back.
At least it would make it easier to sleep.
CHAPTER EIGHT
ANOTHER hour passed, and Isobella woke to utter blackness. She was conscious that they’d both moved during their sleep. She was on her side, Alex’s arm heavy around her waist, his frame curled around hers. The noises from outside still raged. The wind whipped around the building like a hundred angry ghosts, and the sea pounded its fury against the shore.
But she was safe and warm in Alex’s embrace. The nightmare of earlier had completely receded, and she snuggled back against him. She became aware of the sudden tightening of his arm at the same time she became aware of the hard rod pressed into the cleft of her bottom.
She stilled, even as her heart pounded clear out of her chest. The evidence of his arousal was as fascinating as it was terrifying. The lab geek in her wanted to leap out of bed and cross herself, but the woman, the lacy lingerie woman, who despite her best efforts still thrived beneath the white-coated exterior, wanted to move again, stretch against him, reach for him.
Was he even awake? Men got erections in their sleep without their knowledge all the time. Everyone knew that—it was just a fact of life. It had nothing to do with her as a woman and everything to do with a man’s biology and diurnal rhythms. He’d probably have an erection at this hour of the morning regardless of whether she was there or not.
Still, she’d be lying if she didn’t admit that part of her, the vain ex-model part, wanted it to be because of her. And before she could stop herself she wiggled against him. Alex’s erection surged against her, and she could have sworn she heard him groan.
‘Alex?’
‘Quit moving.’ Alex was awake again. Very awake. God, this night was going on for ever.
The low growl slithered down her spine. His lips were just beside her ear. She turned her head to apologise, but even that slight twist bought their pelvises together again, causing a delightful friction.
‘Damn it, Isobella, don’t do that.’
He was just flesh and blood. Didn’t she realise what kind of fire she was playing with? Her body was loose and relaxed for a change, and the way the cheeks of her bottom cradled him was as sinful as the waft of her perfume. Her head was tucked firmly beneath his chin, and the urge to bury his face in her neck, to kiss her there, was overwhelming. He removed his arm and rolled on to his back, putting temptation out of reach. Sort of.
Isobella noted the strain in his voice even as she lamented the loss of contact. He sounded annoyed. And of course he had a right to be. This must be his worst nightmare. Having to babysit an employee who had become a screaming nutter on him, and then being put in a position where his normal bodily functions embarrassed him.
She silently cringed. She had to make this better. They had to work together, for crying out loud. She opened her eyes, staring into the dark abyss, and rolled over towards him, propping herself up on her elbow.
‘I’m sorry, Alex. This isn’t your fault. I understand. You don’t have to worry. I know that men have…urges that come upon them with no real control a lot of the time. It’s okay, we both have medical backgrounds and we’re both adults. I know you’re…you’re…just experiencing normal night-time activity. You’re a healthy male with…normal male appetites, and this…this…problem has nothing to do with me personally but…’
Alex listened to her stuttering and stammering through her speech, making as much of a wreck of it as Cyclone Mary was to Piccolo. What the hell was she going on about? ‘Isobella, what are you talking about?’
Isobella was pleased for the darkness for the first time tonight as her cheeks heated up. She was making a total hash of it.
Alex frowned. What the—? Physiological occurrence? Normal night-time activity? Did she seriously think his hard on was anything other than pure male lust for the woman in his bed, plastered to his side? The woman who’d been driving him crazy for the last week? She’d been hiding behind those clothes for too long.
‘Isobella,’ he said patiently, barely making out her face in the inky night. ‘I can assure you this has nothing to do with male rhythms.’
Isobella wasn’t sure if it was the erotic scrape of his words on her skin, the latent electricity from the storm outside or what he’d said, but suddenly there was a hum in her blood, prickling at her skin.
‘Of course it is,’ she babbled nervously. Because what if it wasn’t? She didn’t want to think about what if it wasn’t…
She’d had a crush on this man for ever. The last man who’d desired her had run away at a very crucial moment, and even though she was safe from that humiliation in the blackened room the mere thought that Alex might desire her back was beyond her conception.
‘No. It’s not.’
Isobella swallowed at the gravelly denial, trying to talk and breathe and think double-time to convince him he was only experiencing a natural phenomena. ‘I can see why you might be confused. I mean, I read this study once—’
‘Isobella.’
‘No, no,’ she insisted. ‘It was really very interesting. They were looking at male arousal patterns, and did these studies on monkeys, and—’
Alex raised his head in the general direction of her voice, found her lips and kissed her. Hard.
Isobella was too stunned to pull away. Too stunned to even join in. Her brain activity froze as a surge of undiluted desire turned everything to sludge.
No, no, no. Pull back, pull back, pull back.
With superhuman effort Isobella broke away. She was breathing hard, still fighting through the fog in her brain. She could hear Alex’s breathing too. His face was still close, she could feel his warm breath on her cheek.
‘Look, Alex, r…really this is normal male behaviour.’ Isobella finally broke the silence, her voice almost as husky as his. ‘You don’t have to pretend it’s anything else. That study said—’
He kissed her again. Quick and hard. ‘Shut up, Isobella.’ He ran his thumb over the swollen contours of her mouth and was gratified to hear a faint whimper somewhere in the back of her throat. ‘This isn’t about male arousal patterns or physiology or monkeys. This is about me wanting you.’ He kissed her again briefly, for good measure, pleased to feel the almost slavish way she responded. ‘And you wanting me.’
His voice coming out at her from the inky night seemed even more sinful. Like a whisper in the dark. He wanted her. And he knew she wanted him.
‘So what are we going to do about it?’
His voice growled low in her ear, and her fingers curled into her palm as her lower abdominal muscles squeezed tight. She wanted to devour him on the spot. Years of celibacy and an ugly duckling complex had made her ripe for this moment. Alex Zaphirides wanted her. Alex Zaphirides, who could have anyone. It just didn’t make sense.
‘Are you sure this isn’t an any port in a storm thing?’
Alex sighed. ‘Isobella, I’ve been wanting to get your god-awful clothes off all week.’
Isobella supposed she should take offence at his dig over her clothes, but the revelation that he’d wanted her all week stirred her long-suppressed hormones and completely blunted her cognitive powers.
‘But why?’ Once upon a time she wouldn’t have had to ask that question, but it had been a long time since a man had noticed her.
He heard the genuine bewilderment in her voice. She sounded small and impossibly young in the big, dark night. ‘Maybe because I can see beneath all that camouflage? Behind the big glasses, baggy clothes and white coat. You are a beautiful woman, Isobella Nolan.’
How many years had it been since she’d been told that? She’d heard it so often in her younger years she’d never really appreciated it. Until now. And Alex Zaphirides thought she was beautiful.
Her hand was on his bare chest, resting near his shoulder, and he was warm and solid. And he wanted her. He thought she was beautiful. Was he spinning her some pretty lies? No. She believed him. She’d heard enough false platitudes during her modelling years to know sincerity when she heard it.
‘Isobella?’
She heard the question in his raspy voice. The ball was in her court. The sensible thing, of course, would be to get out of bed right now and put as much distance between them as possible. He was her boss, and it was entirely inappropriate. But how often had she dreamed about this? How often had she denied herself the normal urges of a healthy young woman?
It could only be tonight. She knew that. Alex had made himself more than clear on his attitude to relationships, and she wasn’t stupid enough to think that she would be any more than one of Alex’s catch-kiss-and-throw-back girls. And that was fine. In fact it might be just what the doctor had ordered. Get this unhealthy crush out of her system once and for all. And then get back to what was really important—her work.
And what better place then here in the pitch-black? In this haven safe from the raging cyclone and her past? Here she could be an equal. Not poor, scarred Isobella, to pity or recoil from, but a woman indulging her sexual side free from all her usual bodily hang-ups. In the darkness she could be Izzy again.
Emboldened by the impenetrable night and by years of suppressing her feminine side, she trailed her hand down his chest.
Alex felt each and every muscle ripple beneath her hand in turn as it passed over them. ‘Isobella.’
The gravel in his voice was like the rub of sandpaper against her belly, her nipples, her inner thigh. She inched lower.
Alex swallowed as her finger prodded at the waistband to his boxers. ‘Isobella…’
She heard the strained warning and it somehow made her bolder. She pushed into his boxers and her fingers sought a way into his underwear.
Alex swallowed as the tips of her fingers grazed his swollen head. ‘Isobella.’
This time it was a groan. A groan so ragged it was a physical entity stroking, deep inside her. She finally reached her destination, her hand nudging the solid length of him and then enclosing him, her palm filling with his girth.
She sighed and squeezed. He felt like velvet over steel and her hand revelled in the sensation. The moan rumbling from his mouth empowered her further. She moved her closed hand down the length of him. Then back up again. Then down again.
‘Isobella!’ Alex was almost delirious from her touch. It was torture. ‘You’d better be prepared to follow through if you keep doing—’
It was her turn to interrupt him, cutting him off with her mouth, softly at first, tentatively, then with growing confidence as his mouth joined in, his head lifting off the bed to devour her more thoroughly. She broke away as dizziness spun stars in front of her. ‘How was that for follow-through?’ she teased.
Alex grinned into the darkness. The taste of her on his lips was making him greedy for more as he speared his fingers into her hair.
He raised his mouth again to plunder her lips, driven by her hand squeezing, stroking, teasing his hardness. Their passion ignited, their kisses elevating to even more feverish planes. Alex could bear the torture of her hand no longer, and flipped her on to her back in the narrow bed, kicking out of his clothes.
‘Oh.’ Isobella clutched at his shoulders as he settled his naked pelvis against the cradle of hers, his erection pushing against her. His mouth rejoined hers and she dug her fingers into his bare back as his mouth wreaked havoc on her lips, her face, her ne
ck.
The ridge of his hardness taunted her. She squirmed, rubbing herself against him, trying to get closer, trying to ease the ache, the burning between her legs that only he could extinguish.
Alex pushed his hand beneath her shirt, inching it up out of the way as his fingers felt the ridges between each rib. He hit soft satin. ‘I wish I could see you,’ he groaned against her mouth as he kissed down her neck. He wanted to see what her breasts looked like encased in black satin and leopard print, and then he wanted to watch as they fell free into his eager hands, his eager mouth.
Isobella moaned out loud as he pushed the bra cups up out of the way in the general direction of her shirt. His mouth closed over a nipple and she was exceedingly grateful for the eerie blackness. It was the only way this would be possible for her. This way she got to be beautiful in his eyes—not scarred or a victim or a freak. This way she got to be the woman she’d always been underneath. The one who adored fine silks and lace against her skin. Passionate. Desirable. Beautiful.
He moved lower, dropping kisses down the centre of her stomach, his hands still stroking the fullness of her breasts. She felt the heat between her legs crank up even further in anticipation. Her hands raked through his hair, feeling the sensuous glide of his locks against the sensitive pads of her fingers.
He traversed her belly, pressing searing kisses there, and she tensed despite the impossible blackness around her. The scars weren’t raised, and she knew there was no way he could make them out in this light, but years of conditioning had taken their toll.
‘You’re beautiful,’ he murmured against her belly, turning his head to kiss the slope of her hip. He’d known she’d be like this under all those layers—smooth and supple and soft. His body warred with the desire to be inside her. But he wanted to taste every inch of her. He wanted to see every inch of her, and cursed the darkness.
His mouth reached the bow on her knickers and he laved it with his tongue, torn between ripping it off and undoing it with his teeth. Her scent was driving him wild, and her moans were making him crazy. He hooked his finger under the waistband of her knickers and peeled them off.