Tempted by Mr. Off-Limits

by Amy Andrews

  ‘But?’ Two cinnamon eyebrows rose in query.

  She let out a breath. Just say it! ‘Your sister knows we slept together.’

  His face went blank for a second before his eyebrows lifted in surprise this time. ‘You told Grace we slept together?’

  ‘No.’ Lola shook her head. ‘Not exactly. She kinda guessed.’

  ‘Ah. Yeah...she’s like a bulldog when she scents blood.’

  ‘I denied it. Told her there wasn’t anything going on but... I’m sure you’ll be hearing from her so I thought you might like some prior notice.’

  ‘I have a missed call from her actually. I was going to ring her soon.’

  ‘Well...that’s probably why.’

  He gave a soft snort. ‘She always was one of those pain-in-the-ass, know-it-all little sisters.’

  Lola laughed. ‘Well, like I said, I did deny it. I just don’t think she believed me so...sorry if you cop some flak from her.’

  ‘Don’t worry.’ He grinned. ‘I know how to handle Gracie.’

  In Lola’s experience men tended to underestimate a woman’s tenacity when her mind was made up but that was between him and his sister and, to be honest, it was good to be able to pass that hot potato on to someone else.

  ‘All right. I’ll hit the shower.’

  She didn’t watch him go. She stared straight ahead at the trees silhouetted against a velvety purple sky. Did he have to constantly announce his intention to take a shower? Couldn’t he just go and do it without informing her all the time?

  Planting images in her head. Naked images. Wet images.

  It was going to be a very long two months.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  A FEW WEEKS later Hamish was sitting in the work vehicle, eating lunch under a shady tree. It was exceptionally hot today and they were between jobs. He was flicking through images on his phone to show Jenny some pictures of the feed lot his family ran back in Toowoomba. He came across the one he’d taken of Lola that day with jacaranda flowers in her hair and smiled.

  Things had been a little weird to start with between them but they seemed to have settled down into an easy kind of co-existence. It wasn’t the flirty banter of their relationship a few months ago, or sex on the couch, which he probably wouldn’t say no to, but it was something he could walk away from when his time in Sydney was up.

  Because the more he got to know Lola, the more he knew, she was city right down to her bootstraps. And it didn’t matter how wicked his thoughts got alone in his room each night, Lola wasn’t going country for anyone.

  Just then a call came over the radio and Jenny threw the last of her sandwich down her neck. ‘Buckle up,’ she said as they climbed into the vehicle and she flicked on the siren.

  Hamish turned his phone off, shutting down thoughts of Lola as adrenaline flushed into his system and he concentrated on that as they screamed through the Sydney streets.

  They arrived at the home of a fifty-six-year-old man called Robert twelve minutes later. He’d had a probable MI—myocardial infarction or heart attack. He had no pulse and wasn’t breathing.

  It was Hamish and Jenny’s second of the day. The heat wave they were experiencing was no doubt contributing to that.

  Two advanced care paramedics were already on scene. They’d arrived six minutes previously and were administering CPR, having taken over from the patient’s wife and a neighbour who was a nurse.

  The fact that Robert had had lifesaving measures carried out immediately on collapsing could probably mean the difference between him dying today and living.

  Jenny quickly intubated the patient and stayed at the head, delivering puffs of oxygen into Robert’s lungs via the breathing tube, while one of the advanced care paramedics, another woman, continued to do compressions. The other was busy inserting a couple of intravenous lines and Hamish was managing the emergency drugs and the defibrillator, which had already been connected when they’d arrived.

  ‘Recommends another shock,’ he said, as he flipped the lids on another mini-jet of adrenaline and wiped his brow with his forearm. It was stiflingly hot in the little, inner-suburban shoebox house.

  Jenny gave a few quick hyper-inflating puffs of oxygen before she joined the others, who had shuffled out of contact with the body. ‘All clear,’ Hamish called, double checking everyone was away before he pushed the button and delivered the recommended shock.

  The patient’s body jerked slightly—not quite like the dramatic arch seen on TV shows—and all eyes watched the heart trace on the monitor.

  A hot flood of relief washed over Hamish as the previous frenetic, squiggly line suddenly flipped into an organised pattern. ‘Sinus tachy,’ he announced, although he didn’t need to. Everyone there knew how to read an ECG trace.

  Jenny and the other female paramedic high-fived before she said, ‘Okay, let’s get him locked and loaded.’

  They’d revived the patient, brought Robert back from the brink, but heart-attack patients were notoriously unstable in the hours immediately after the heart muscle dying, which meant Robert needed a tertiary care facility pronto. Somewhere with a cath lab, a cardiac surgeon and an intensive care unit.

  ‘We’ll take him to Kirribilli General,’ Jenny said.

  They unloaded the patient in the emergency department twenty minutes later. Hamish listened to Jenny’s rapid-fire handover to the team. Lola was right, she was an excellent paramedic.

  ‘I wonder where the third one’s going to be,’ Hamish said as they headed back to the ambulance.

  Because these things tended to come in threes.

  ‘Somewhere with air-con, I hope,’ Jenny quipped.

  Hamish laughed. It was nice working with someone who was not only good at their job but also knew how to make light of a situation.

  It was the kind of job that needed it.

  A call came over the radio as soon as they were seated. Another suspected MI. ‘No rest for the wicked,’ Jenny said, flicking the sirens on.

  And Hamish’s thoughts went straight to Lola.

  * * *

  Hamish sighed as he entered the apartment later that evening. It was good to be home. It was still warm outside but their apartment was getting a nice breeze from the direction of the beach and Lola had all the doors and windows open to catch it.

  The sheer curtain at the sliding door to the balcony was billowing with it and Lola was shimmying in the kitchen to some music she was obviously listening to via her ear buds. She had her back to him as she stood at the counter, a bottle of beer in one hand and a fork in the other, attacking a container of leftover Chinese takeaway.

  She’d obviously had a shower. Her hair was wet and she was wearing her short gown that brushed her legs at mid-thigh. He didn’t know for sure what she wore underneath it but he had spent a lot of time speculating over it.

  Tank top and lacy thong were his current picks.

  She looked cool and relaxed and was a sight for sore eyes after a long day. Something he wouldn’t mind coming home to every day, in fact...

  He shoved his shoulder against the doorframe. ‘You’re chipper today.’

  She startled and whipped around. ‘Bloody hell, Hamish. You scared the living daylights out of me.’

  She brought the hand holding her beer to her chest and Hamish’s temperature kicked up a notch as the action pulled the gown taut across her cleavage and the tight buds of two erect nipples.

  He dragged his gaze upwards. ‘Is your patient improving?’

  Lola had told him about the woman waiting for a heart transplant. Not any particulars of her identity, just her situation, and he could tell by how fondly she talked about the family and how often she seemed to be assigned to the case that this particular patient had slipped under Lola’s barriers.

  A hazard of the job. He’d been there himself.

  ‘Yeah.
’ She grinned as she pulled her ear buds out and her face lit up. His breath hitched. ‘She’s really turned a corner. She’s coming along in leaps and bounds now. Still needs a heart, of course, but...’

  Hamish nodded. The imminent threat to her life had passed but she needed a transplant to survive going forward. He hoped she got one and that the family got something extra-special to celebrate as the festive season approached. Even if it meant some other family would have the worst Christmas of their life.

  He remembered when his sister-in-law, Merridy, had got her kidney. In her case, his brother Lachlan had fortunately been a tissue match for her and had been able to donate one of his. What a joy, a relief, it had been, knowing they hadn’t had to wait for somebody to die to give Merridy that gift. But also how sobering it had been for everyone, knowing that others weren’t so lucky.

  ‘You’re drinking beer?’ He’d only ever seen her drinking wine.

  Why was there something hot about a chick drinking beer?

  ‘That’s because it’s Die Hard marathon night.’

  Hamish laughed. ‘And that requires beer?’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘You think John MacClane drinks Sauvignon Blanc?’

  ‘I wouldn’t think so.’ They both smiled and Hamish ground his feet into the floor as the urge to walk over and kiss her almost overwhelmed him. ‘I thought we were out of beer? I meant to get some on my way home.’

  ‘I picked some up from the liquor warehouse on my way home.’

  Hamish grimaced. That place gave him the willies. A football stadium of booze was mind-boggling. ‘Rather you than me.’

  ‘It’s okay, Country.’ A smile hovered on her mouth. ‘I know you don’t get shops that big where you come from. I’ve got your back.’

  Hamish laughed. Her teasing set a warm glow in the centre of his chest. ‘Toowoomba isn’t exactly a two-horse town. It’s a fairly decent size.’

  ‘You’re going to be moving to a two-horse town, though, right? Once your course is done?’

  ‘Hopefully. Those jobs don’t come up very often. People don’t tend to leave them once they’re in.’ Hamish laughed at her visible shudder. ‘Newsflash, City, some people like living in small towns.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘Plus, it’s a professional challenge. Out there, it’ll be just me on shift, no back-up. The next ambulance service could be a couple of hundred kilometres away.’

  ‘Sounds terrifying.’

  ‘Nah. There’ll be a doctor and Flying Doctor back-up but the autonomy...the skills I’ll acquire can only make me a better paramedic.’

  ‘I think that would drive me nuts. I like working with a team. I thrive on being a small part in a well-oiled machine. I like the people I work with. I enjoy their company. I wouldn’t want to work in isolation.’

  Hamish shrugged. ‘I don’t want to do it for ever necessarily. But I’d like to do it for a while.’ Clearly, though, she didn’t. And it bothered him more than it should have.

  ‘Well...’ She looked at him like he was a little crazy. ‘Each to their own, I guess.’ She took a slug of her beer. ‘Are you joining me tonight?’

  ‘Die Hard marathon?’ He grinned, shaking off the urban-rural divide between them. ‘Absolutely! I’ll just have a shower.’

  She nodded. ‘I’ll pop the corn.’

  * * *

  Lola watched him go. Good Lord! The man took more showers than a teenage boy who’d just discovered the Victoria’s Secret catalogue. Which led her down a whole other path she did not want to go...

  She got busy in the kitchen instead, putting the popcorn bag in the microwave and grabbing two frosty long-necked bottles out of the fridge. When her mind started to wander to his shower, she distracted herself by rereading the latest postcard from May stuck on the fridge. She was in Mongolia, the usual Wish you were here in her lovely loopy handwriting making Lola smile.

  By the time the popcorn had popped and been decanted into a bowl, Lola had cracked the lids off the beers, and the first movie was queued, Hamish was out of the shower. He reappeared in a T-shirt and loose basketball shorts that fell to just above his knee but clung a little due to the humidity.

  It was what he usually wore after his shower—just a little more indecent tonight.

  But that wasn’t a particularly helpful thought right now as he stood there, temptation incarnate, his hair damp and curling against his neck. She had to remind herself that this thing she felt could go nowhere.

  That they lived very different lives. Wanted very different things.

  Still, the lights were out and the glow from the television caught the ginger highlights of his stubbly jawline and he smelled like coconut and the deodorant he used that reminded her of fresh Alpine air, heavy with the scent of pine.

  How could a man smell like the beach and the Alps all at once?

  ‘Beer?’ Lola thrust a long-necked bottle at him.

  ‘You read my mind.’

  He took it from her and they clinked. He took a pull of his as he sat beside her, the popcorn bowl between them. It was a large bowl but it still put him closer than was good for her sanity. Of course, if he thought about what they’d done on this couch half as much as she did, no amount of space was adequate.

  ‘Okay, roll it,’ he said.

  Lola laughed and pressed ‘play’, taking a long cool swallow of her beer as the credits did their thing. She could do this. She could sit here on this couch with Hamish, where they’d done the wild thing a few months ago, and watch one of her favourite movies as if they’d never laid hands on each other.

  A sudden thought occurred to her and she turned to face him slightly. ‘You are a Die Hard fan, right?’

  He smiled and her heart skipped a beat as he raised his bottle to her. ‘Yippie-ki-yay.’ He tapped it against hers again and settled back against the couch, grabbing a handful of popcorn.

  Lola was so damn happy she actually sighed.

  * * *

  After two of the most entertaining hours of her life, Lola was sad to see the end of the movie. Normally she and Grace just sat and watched it, gobbling it up like they gobbled the popcorn. But Hamish was a much more active consumer. He kept up a running commentary of interesting asides about the films or the actors and mimicked his favourite lines, even adlibbing better ones.

  They’d also had a serious discussion about it being a rom-com. He’d been horrified in an endearingly masculine way when Lola had dared to suggest it.

  ‘Well...thank you very much for your insights into the movie,’ he said, as Lola hit ‘stop’ on the DVD remote. ‘They’re wrong, of course...’ his lips quirked ‘...but it’s given me a whole different perspective on it.’

  Lola laughed and threw a kernel of popcorn at him. It was a spontaneous thing that fitted the mood of the moment but one she regretted immediately as the glitter of laughter in his eyes changed to a competitive gleam.

  ‘Oh, it’s going to be like that, is it?’ He dug into their second bowl of popcorn and grabbed a handful of kernels.

  ‘Hamish.’

  If he heard the warning note in her voice he chose to ignore it as he slowly lifted his hand above her head.

  ‘Don’t you dare.’

  He just smiled and opened it. Popcorn fell around her like snow. When they settled he plucked one out of her hair and ate it, his eyes goading her to do something about it.

  ‘Right.’ She grinned at him, plunging both hands into the frothing bowl and coming out with two fistfuls. ‘You asked for it.’

  He laughed, which only encouraged her further. He was prepared to swerve and duck, obviously, but not prepared for her to grab his T-shirt and dump the popcorn down his front.

  ‘Well, now,’ Hamish muttered, ‘this is war.’

  He reached for the front of her gown with one hand and the popcorn with the other. Lol
a half laughed, half squealed, flinging herself back, trying to twist away, but Hamish was bigger and stronger and more determined, laughing as he followed her down, sending the popcorn bowl flying as he anchored her squirming body to the couch and stuffed a handful of kernels down the front of her gown.

  Lola joined him in laughter as the popcorn scratched against her skin. She tried to remove it but he just shook his head and said, ‘Nuh-uh,’ as he grabbed her hands.

  They were both panting and laughing hard from their playful struggle so it took a moment to register that he had her well and truly pinned, his hips over hers, one big thigh shoved between her legs, his hands entwined in hers above their heads.

  He seemed to realise at the same time, the glitter in his eyes different now—not light or teasing.

  Darker. Hotter.

  Their gazes locked and Lola’s heart punched against her rib cage, nothing but the sounds of their breathing between them now. Panting had turned into something rougher, more needy as she stared at him looming over her. An ache roared to life between her legs, right where his knee was shoved, and she couldn’t fight the urge to squirm against the pressure to relieve the ache.

  His eyes widened at the action and he pressed his knee against her harder. She gasped at the heat and friction building between her legs and he pushed again.

  ‘Lola,’ he muttered, his breathing as rough as sandpaper, his gaze boring into hers. Then, as if something had snapped, he swooped down and kissed her.

  Lola flared like a lit match beneath the onslaught, moaning his name. Her hands, suddenly free from his, slid into the back of his hair, holding him there. His hands found her hips, gripping them tight as he ground his knee against her over and over.

  Lights popped and flared behind Lola’s eyes, her whole world melting down as his mouth and his body worked hers. She was hot, too hot, and her heart was beating too fast. There were too many clothes. She wanted them gone. Wanted them off. Wanted him naked and inside her, pounding away, calling her name.

  She reached down between them for his shorts, needing them gone while she could still think, while his kisses hadn’t quite stolen her capacity to participate. Her hand connected with his erection and she made a triumphant noise at the back of her throat as she grabbed it and fondled him through his shorts. He groaned, breaking off the kiss, dropping his forehead to her neck, his lips warm against the frantic beat of her pulse at the base of her throat.