Seduced by the Heart Surgeon

by Carol Marinelli

  ‘I didn’t like the idea of it,’ Freya said. ‘I’d never done it.’

  Zack frowned.

  ‘So in my office...’

  ‘It was my first time.’

  They’d never spoken about it. Sometimes, for Zack, it almost felt like a dream, only he knew that it hadn’t been. It had been the night they’d moved their relationship into work. They’d shifted the lines but in ways he hadn’t even known at the time.

  That should daunt him. No doubt it would soon—that something that was clearly an issue for her wasn’t when she was with him. Zack had thought oral the least intimate of sex, but not now.

  He slipped his hand between her legs and got the clamp of her thighs.

  ‘I don’t think I’d like it.’

  ‘Do you want to try?’

  Freya nodded.

  Her mind was going at a hundred miles an hour. She wanted everything while she had him. Always she stopped him, beneath the belly button a no-go zone for that beautiful mouth and she didn’t really know why.

  ‘I’m messed up, aren’t I?’ Freya said.

  ‘I told you the day I met you, that’s how I want you.’

  It hadn’t been what he’d meant then but it made her smile now. He kissed her long and deep until her thighs were loose to his hand. And then he moved down and her breasts were so tender, and Freya was starting to know why.

  Zack was oblivious, blissfully so. He just heard her fevered moans as he tasted and sucked and licked till she rolled from her side to her back.

  He slid down and paid the same attention to her stomach and then he moved lower and kissed her right up her thighs, nibbling at the top inner part that she had once hated so much.

  Zack made her body feel beautiful, every part of it. She had worked on herself for ever and had got to like herself enough, but he made her in love with it.

  ‘I don’t like it,’ Freya said when his mouth took possession, and he ignored her and probed at the tension, tasting her deep, and then back to her clitoris. Freya closed her thighs on his head and he burrowed in deeper and her hips lifted from the bed. She resisted the pleasure, she stayed tight to his tongue, and then Zack moaned into her.

  She felt the vibration, the sensual moan of his want and his turn-on. His focus was intent now and she succumbed. It was the most bliss she had known, to come to the most intimate kiss his mouth could give, to be tasted and adored.

  There was no triumphant smile as his mouth lifted, Zack was the one crossing his own lines now. He came up the bed and kissed her mouth as deeply as he had her sex. He had Freya taste herself on his lips, his cheeks, and then he moaned again as he slid in. The same moan he had given earlier, and they stopped holding back because this wasn’t just sex.

  ‘I’m going to come,’ Zack said, almost with regret, because he was loving her, he knew.

  Freya was frantic, coming, while making this strange attempt to climb out of arms that would one day let her go. They were saying each other’s names, breathing, kissing, coming and so close, so completely besotted and not fighting it now.

  ‘Zack...’ She pressed her lips together because she was going to say the wrong thing and lay there afterwards, with something else building—tears. The utter release to her body, the clearing of her mind and she was as close to crying as she dared to be.

  He held her so hard afterwards. ‘You can cry,’ Zack said.

  But she wouldn’t.

  He’d had everything, all of her, he had taken her right to the edge. She would not give him that.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ‘WHY DON’T YOU ditch the hotel?’ Freya said.

  She shouldn’t have.

  It was six a.m. and they lay chatting in the dark, talking about, of all things, his suits.

  ‘How much can you get into a backpack?’ Freya had asked. And then she’d found out he bought suits and that, when he moved on, he donated them.

  ‘It’s an expensive wardrobe.’

  ‘Yeah, well, it’s an up-to-date one.’

  And then he’d admitted that living out of a backpack was tiring at times, and had been about to say he was actually looking forward to going home for a few weeks, when someone, namely Freya, who had to fix everything this very minute, suggested he move in.

  ‘Freya,’ he half groaned in frustration.

  ‘I’m not asking you to move in as in live together, just...’ She could have kicked herself.

  Zack just lay there.

  ‘Forget it,’ Freya said. ‘I was just thinking out loud.’

  She simply could not stop thinking.

  About them.

  ‘I’m going to take Cleo out.’

  Freya stood in her dressing gown and she was too embarrassed to even admit to Cleo what she’d just said to Zack.

  ‘It’s not such a stupid idea,’ Freya said hopefully to her friend, but then gave in.

  Oh, it was such a stupid idea and, of all things, to say it on the first night that he’d come back to her apartment.

  Freya was worried, though.

  The clock was ticking on them and not only couldn’t she imagine him gone, Freya was rather worried that there might be a more permanent reason for them to keep in touch.

  She felt sick.

  Not a nervous sick feeling, more there was a taste in her mouth as she came back into the apartment.

  Cleo waddled into the bedroom and Zack lay there with his hands behind his head as she jumped up onto the bed.

  He was leaving LA at the end of his three months.

  He looked around the bedroom and he knew that he needed to head back to the hotel.

  ‘Hi.’ Freya came in, trying desperately to detract from the prior conversation. ‘I just got an email...’ Zack blinked, he was just waking up but Freya was in busy mode. ‘Do you remember when you were in Canada a few years back and that hockey player went into cardiac arrest...’

  Zack nodded. ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, I was just trying for a new angle. I get that you don’t want to be photographed with kids, but he’s here in LA and I thought we could get the two of you together.’

  ‘Freya,’ Zack said, sitting up, ‘how many ways can I say it? I don’t want to be a part of your publicity stunts. I’ll do the surgery—’

  ‘It’s just such a great opportunity.’

  ‘I don’t get involved, Freya, they don’t owe me anything. I do my best for them in Theatre, without obligation. I don’t want to be making small talk with some guy who had the misfortune to go into cardiac arrest in front of ten thousand people and now has to feel he needs to publicly thank me for doing my job.’

  Freya gave a tight shrug. ‘Just trying to do mine.’

  ‘It’s Sunday,’ he pointed out. ‘And I only get one off a month.’

  ‘Sure.’ Freya nodded. ‘Do you want some breakfast? I’m just making some.’

  ‘A coffee would be great.’

  He lay back on the bed again. She’d be in soon with a needle and thread to try and hem him in.

  Cleo waddled up to his chest and stared at him with her big pug eyes and he stroked her head and thought, What the hell am I doing?

  He’d told her stuff last night that he could never have envisaged telling another, he had made love, and Zack had not lied with his mouth, he’d adored her.

  It was all too close, and that was the very thing he avoided.

  He didn’t want to be tied down like his brother had been, or chained to a town as his father was. They were getting far too close and another couple of months of this and, Zack wasn’t stupid, his leaving was going to hurt her.

  And no hurt had ever been intended.

  It was time to call it now, Zack knew, before they got in any deeper than they were.

 
Cleo bared her teeth.

  She just stared him down and bared her teeth and it was as if she warned him, in or out?

  ‘Cleo!’ Freya threatened from the kitchen when she heard her growl. She went to make coffee but found she had none. Coffee wasn’t something she drank but she generally kept some in case of company.

  She added it to the list she kept on her phone and divided the drink she’d blended into two glasses as the toast popped up. For the first time in the kitchen she was distracted. Freya had bigger problems on her mind than food for once, and instead of preparing just one plate she made two plates and smeared on some avocado she’d mashed and added a shake of black pepper.

  She would go and get a pregnancy kit today and get this over and done with. Maybe when she’d found out it was a false alarm she could relax. Freya carried the tray into the bedroom. ‘I was thinking, maybe today we...’ And then she stopped because Zack was sitting on the edge of the bed with his jeans and boots on and he was pulling on his T-shirt.

  ‘I need to get back to the hotel,’ Zack said. ‘There’s some work I need—’

  ‘It’s Sunday,’ Freya pointed out, just as he had.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Have some breakfast.’

  ‘I don’t generally eat breakfast, and definitely not green ones.’ He was direct, he was honest and, yes, it hurt a lot. ‘It’s all too much, Freya.’

  ‘Zack—’

  ‘Freya, I made it clear. I don’t want a relationship, I don’t want someone making plans for my day off, I don’t want to have to account—’

  ‘You’re annoyed because I suggested you move out of the hotel.’

  ‘A bit,’ Zack said. ‘Do you know why I like it there, Freya?’ He looked at the tray she’d prepared. ‘If I ask for coffee, I get coffee. When I put the “Do not disturb” sign on the door, guess what? They don’t disturb...’

  They weren’t talking about coffee or signs on the door, Freya knew.

  Zack didn’t want more than sex. He’d been upfront from the start and she had been more than willing to go along with it.

  It was Freya whose wants had changed.

  And he told himself that on the drive back to the hotel.

  Last night had been amazing—dinner, conversation and the sex had been amazing.

  More than amazing.

  He wanted to turn the hired car around and go back there. He wanted to have a decent row with Freya and tell her to get out of fixing and sorting mode and get back to bed.

  Zack got back to the hotel, went up in the elevator and then passed the maid with her trolley, doling out the toiletries so that five hundred guests smelt the same.

  Then he stepped into the room that had been beautifully serviced and he thought about heading out for the day. Just driving into the hills, or taking a walk along the beach.

  He needed a shower, he smelt of sex, or rather he smelt of Freya.

  Zack did everything on his to-do list. He showered, changed and then headed for the hills, and that evening, instead of the hotel bar, he took a walk on the beach and told himself that this was the life he had chosen. And he had chosen it carefully. He never wanted to be tied down, or have people reliant on or beholden to him.

  Not his patients—he fixed what he could and let them get on with their lives.

  Not his family—they all knew how that had worked out.

  And certainly he did not need someone who decided what he might want to eat for breakfast!

  Damned cheek, Zack decided, and headed back to the hotel.

  He went to the bar because it really was that easy, only it wasn’t so easy tonight because he didn’t want company.

  Only his own.

  Back up to his room he went and the bed had been turned down, the towels and soaps all replaced, and Zack found himself kicking his backpack across the room.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  IT HURT.

  Far, far more than the end of any other relationship ever had.

  Even though Zack would insist that it hadn’t been a relationship because he didn’t do that type of thing.

  ‘Men!’ Freya said to Cleo as they stood in the little patch of garden early one morning, more than a week after their row.

  She carried her back up the stairs and, instead of driving to work, Freya decided that she would run. She hadn’t run all week, she’d been huddled on the sofa at night with Cleo and busy with work by day.

  It was time to get back on track with her schedules. She had a change of clothes at work so she pulled on her running gear and put in her earphones and did what she loved to do. She arrived at work all hot and sweaty and stood bent over in the stunning foyer.

  ‘James will have you using the side entrance,’ Zack said as he went past, and Freya actually laughed.

  She wasn’t the prettiest sight for such expensive surroundings but she felt better for a run and glad that she and Zack were almost at the point they could acknowledge each other in passing.

  There was a meeting with James this morning and Zack would be there so Freya wasn’t looking forward to it one bit.

  She walked into the changing rooms and they were like a luxury spa. There was soft music and fluffy towels and Freya stepped under the delicious jets of water, and then everything shifted.

  Her legs started to shake and Freya went dizzy. She didn’t even turn off the taps, she just stepped out and grabbed at a towel then sat on the bench with her head down.

  ‘Freya?’

  She could hear Stephanie’s voice and it seemed to be coming from a long way off, except her face was right next to her ear.

  ‘I’m okay,’ Freya said.

  ‘You’re ever so white.’

  ‘I just need a moment,’ Freya said. ‘Could you get me some tea?’

  The waiting rooms all had oolong tea, kept warm by a candle, and little glasses and so it was just a couple of moments before Stephanie returned.

  By then Freya had put on a robe and was a bit more together. ‘Sorry about that,’ she said.

  ‘It’s fine.’ Stephanie smiled. ‘I saw that you ran in. Maybe you overdid it.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Freya said, and she felt a twist of indignation because she knew the implication behind Stephanie’s words. She had, in fact, underdone things this week but it was always there, the feeling that everyone was waiting for her to slide back into ways of old.

  Even James, Freya thought.

  They made no mention of her past, it was a subject he avoided, but she could always see the concern in his eyes.

  She didn’t need it.

  And it was one of the things she had loved about Zack. He hadn’t raised his eyes at her ways, he had let her be, and she missed him so much.

  So much.

  Over and over she tried to tell herself it had just been a few weeks, that you couldn’t fall in love in that time, and certainly it wasn’t love if it was unrequited.

  ‘I’m fine now,’ Freya said, and put down the little cup but she knew she was going to throw up. ‘Honestly.’

  Please, go now, she thought.

  Freya walked to the toilet and closed the door and she wished Stephanie would leave as she threw up the tea as quietly as she could.

  No, Freya thought, she hadn’t overdone her run—the nausea and dizzy spells were for different reasons altogether.

  How the hell could she ever tell Zack that she was pregnant?

  Freya put on her grey dress with capped sleeves and did her hair and make-up and then she had another glass of tea and that one was nice.

  Feeling a whole lot better, she arrived at the meeting room.

  ‘Where’s Zack?’

  ‘He’s talking to your good friend Mila about another patient.’

  Freya ignored the d
ig and James got down to business and said he would, as of today, be starting to put out the feelers for a new cardiac surgeon to replace Zack. ‘Already?’

  ‘Well, if they have to give notice. I just asked Zack if he’d go on a month-to-month contract but he said no, he’s out of here at the end of March.

  ‘And it’s February today.’ James said.

  So it was.

  ‘Morning.’ Zack came into the meeting room with no apologies for being late and she and James shared a small smile.

  He was such an arrogant bastard.

  Even down to the fact they were having this meeting in a meeting room when usually they’d be in James’s office for such things.

  Zack played second fiddle to no one.

  ‘I can’t stay long,’ Zack said. ‘I’ve got a patient that’s not doing well on NICU.’

  ‘I heard,’ James said. ‘Are you going to operate?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve just spoken with Mila and we’re trying to schedule Bright Hope patients. I want to squeeze an ablation onto the end of the Sunday list on the fourteenth.’

  ‘That’s Valentine’s Day.’ James raised an eyebrow. ‘Won’t you want to be finishing up early?’

  ‘Same as any other day to me,’ Zack responded. ‘I’m an incurable unromantic.’

  James took a call and it would seem that it was a personal one because he excused himself and took it outside the office, leaving Freya bristling beside Zack.

  ‘Can you not do that?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Consistently point out...’ She was so incensed. ‘I get you don’t do romance but your little digs are unnecessary.’

  ‘I wasn’t digging, Freya.’ Zack gave a bored eye-roll at her drama. ‘I’ve used the same line for ten years. I’m not changing anything for your benefit.’

  That was a dig at the breakfast she’d made him.

  Oh, yes, it was because there was a small smirk on his lips as she opened her mouth to argue.

  Then she closed it and then, to hell with it, she said it. ‘I’d run out of coffee.’

  ‘What on earth are you talking about?’ Zack asked.

  He knew full well!

  ‘You overthink everything,’ he said.