But the stress level had risen and when they were finally done, they all suffered let-down.
‘We need better information before we cut,’ Alex said later, when the team was gathered in the lounge after the final operation. They were all still in various degrees of theatre garb, as a caffeine fix had seemed more important than a shower.
‘Better echo pictures,’ Rachel said. ‘Surely subsidiary vessels that size would have shown up in echocardiograms.’
‘They should have,’ Phil said, ‘but when you think of the maze of vessels running around, into and out of a baby’s heart, it’s a wonder we get as much information as we do.’
‘You’re right,’ Alex said, ‘but maybe in future we should try to build a model of the situation so we’ve a three-dimensional representation of what we’ll find before we get in there.’
‘We don’t have time for model-building in most situations,’ Phil reminded him.
‘And with patients like that baby—Andrew, wasn’t he?—most of the information we had to hand was from the transferring hospital.’
‘I know, but we still have to do better.’
Alex turned to Luca.
‘In your clinic will you have your own specialist radiologist—an echocardiologist—so you can ask for the pictures you want?’
‘He’s already appointed and, like me, is currently expanding his knowledge, but in a hospital in London.’
‘That’s good,’ Alex told him. ‘We have our own man back home, but I’m beginning to believe to make a small unit like this work properly we need an echocardiologist attached to the team. He’ll soon learn exactly what we need, and can do the follow-up scans on the patients and also be used in the cath lab for catheterisations. There’d be enough work.’
Alex sounded tired, although he hadn’t been in Theatre for the final operation.
Luca looked around the room and realised just how much of themselves this team put into their work. It was already after eight at night, and they all still had to shower and dress and make their way home. Although he suspected Alex would remain at the hospital until he was sure all today’s patients were stable.
It was what he, Luca, would have done in the circumstances.
But these were not his circumstances, and as Alex declared a day off for the whole team for the following day, Luca glanced across at Rachel, who met his eyes and smiled.
Just a smile, but his body responded with a burst of testosterone that had his heart thudding in his chest.
Dio! He was hardly so frustrated that a smile could do this to him! Even with the promise behind the smile, he should not have been affected quite so strongly.
Was it more than lust he felt for Rachel?
Not that it was just lust—he liked her a lot. She was already, he thought, a friend.
But beyond lust?
Unable to answer any of the questions in his head, he stood up and headed for the changing rooms. He’d have a shower, dress, then walk her home. Maybe tonight they’d get to the Spanish restaurant. It was sure to be open late.
And after that, with a free day ahead tomorrow—well, who knew?
More excitement stirred and he hurried to the showers.
Rachel sat in the lounge while the team filtered out, timing their moves for when they thought the showers would be free.
Kurt, who’d followed Luca out, returned, all shiny clean and with the air of a man with fun on his mind.
‘Don’t expect me home,’ he said to Rachel, bending to drop a kiss on her head. ‘And if you’ve got an ounce of sense, you won’t be home tonight either.’
Rachel looked up at him, and saw concern as well as mischief in his eyes.
‘I’m scared about this,’ she told him, and he sat down on the couch beside her and put his arm around her shoulders.
‘Of course you are. You’re practically a virgin, for all you’ve been married and had a baby. And you’ve still got all the old hang-ups in your head. Will he still respect me in the morning, and all that rubbish. Forget it, Rach, and go into it to have fun. Think pleasure and enjoyment. You’re not Cinderella. You’ve got a full and rewarding life, so you don’t need rescuing from the kitchen, but you do need some relaxation.’
Rachel laughed.
‘I guess that’s one way of putting it, but aren’t there deep-breathing techniques for relaxation? Or I could take up yoga.’
‘You know what I mean,’ Kurt growled at her. ‘And if he asks you out somewhere swish to dinner, wear the black. Do not climb into your ancient jeans and that green T you’re so fond of. And take that sexy black trench coat I bought you for your birthday if you need warmth, not your old, bulky knit cardigan.’
‘Yes, master!’ Rachel saluted him, but his words had given her confidence. OK, her jeans and the green T might give her more confidence, but the fact that Kurt cared and, knowing that whatever happened, he’d always be there for her filled her with gladness.
He kissed her cheek and departed, leaving Rachel alone in the lounge, knowing she had to shower and change back into civvies, then…
Then what? Maybe she was making mountains out of molehills—cliché central!—and Luca hadn’t even waited for her.
Maybe she’d misread the sub-titles earlier and all he intended teaching her was how to accept compliments gracefully.
She stood up and walked through to the changing room, deserted now except for Maggie who, as the anaesthetist, always saw their young patients safely back to the PICU so was always last to shower and change.
‘Going to do something exciting on your day off?’ Rachel asked her, and Maggie nodded.
‘Very exciting, as far as I’m concerned. I’m going to spend the entire day in bed. The problems we’ve had lately, I can’t think when I last had a sleep-in, let alone a day in bed.’
Then she blushed and Rachel laughed.
‘I pictured you sleeping, not doing anything else,’ she hurried to assure her friend.
Maggie smiled at her.
‘Well,’ she admitted shyly, ‘there might be a little of something else.’ Then she changed the subject. ‘And you? Any plans?’
Rachel felt the heat start in her abdomen and rise towards her face so she was certain her whole body was blushing.
‘Nothing special,’ she managed to gulp, then she dashed into the shower cubicle and turned on the taps.
Luca, no doubt guessing she’d eventually return to their rooms to sign off on the operation, was waiting for her there.
‘You’ve been thinking new thoughts about the situation between us?’ he said quietly. ‘I said before I wouldn’t rush you.’
‘Second thoughts, we call them.’ She was slightly put out by the ease with which he seemed to read her mind. ‘I suppose I have, but you’re not rushing me.’
He smiled and she felt the last resisting chips of ice around her heart melt, and her body go on full alert, her nerve-endings so attuned to him that her nipples tightened.
‘I refuse to kiss you here, for if we start we may not get home. We’ll eat first. You will show me your Spanish restaurant, then let the night unfold as it will.’
He waited while she tidied her desk then they left the rooms together, not touching at all, though Rachel was so sensitised to his presence that every movement he made sent tingling messages of desire through her body.
Let’s forget dinner, she wanted to say, although common sense told her she needed food, but when they exited the hospital they were barely on their way to the front gate before Luca guided her into the shadow of a thick bush beside the path. He took her in his arms, and common sense was forgotten.
His kiss met and matched the urgency her body had been experiencing and she trembled in his grasp, her need so great she thought her knees might give way.
‘Let’s forget dinner,’ she managed to whisper, though her lungs were strangling in the tightness of desire and her breath was coming in little desperate gasps.
‘I have food at my apartment—beyond what w
e know is in your pantry. You will come there?’
Still held tightly to him in the shadows, she nodded against his shoulder. He turned her and, with his arm firmly around her waist, guided her back to the path and along the road towards his temporary home.
‘I suppose we’d look silly if we ran,’ Rachel said, hoping even a weak joke might break the tension.
‘Extremely so,’ Luca said, his arm tightening momentarily as if in appreciation of her comment. ‘Especially as I’m not at all graceful in my movements.’
‘But you’ve got great hands in Theatre,’ Rachel told him, feeling one compliment deserved another then flushing when she realised the implication behind the words.
They didn’t run, but it seemed no time before they were at his apartment, and Rachel, who’d imagined this might be the moment when doubts and second thoughts reared their heads, found her excitement, far from abating, had grown, and Kurt’s admonition to have fun was ringing in her head.
‘What a beautiful place,’ she said, when Luca opened the door to the penthouse and she saw the view out across her much smaller building. To the north were the city lights and to the east the seaside suburbs, the foreshores brightly lit and the moon shining on the night-dark ocean.
‘It is sufficient,’ Luca said, so offhandedly she knew he was used to such luxury—to places as luxurious as this, and maybe even more so! But the difference in their lives was not going to bother her tonight. She was going into this affair with Luca with her eyes wide open. She was going to have fun!
‘Champagne?’
‘Why not?’ she said, walking towards the kitchen where he had the fridge door open and a bottle held aloft in one hand.
‘And some things to nibble on while we drink a toast.’
He handed her the bottle, and bent again to the fridge, bringing out a large plate with an array of tiny, tempting hors d’oeuvres.
The implication of this platter struck her like a blow to the head. He’d planned for her to be here. The talk of the Spanish restaurant had been just that! No doubt there was an apartment manager somewhere in this building, part of whose job was to provide whatever food a tenant wanted.
Seduction food!
Luca must have heard her thoughts, for he put the platter on the bench and took the champagne from her, placing it on the bench as well, then he pulled her to him and held her close while he explained.
‘I asked the manager to organise some food for our supper—I was thinking supper, not a meal, but our hunger for each other—well, it brought us here, and it was mutual, wasn’t it?’
He had tilted her head so he could look into her eyes as he asked that last question, and looking into his eyes—dark with sincerity—Rachel couldn’t doubt him.
She smiled, and shrugged.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I seem to be thinking either in fairy-tales or clichés these days and the champagne and tiny nibbles—a seduction cliché if ever I saw one.’
Luca answered her smile with a warm one of his own.
‘Then I shall proceed to seduce you, my beautiful Rachel. With champagne and nibbles and compliments that will make your skin glow with colour, and your eyes sparkle like bright jewels.’
He leaned forward and kissed her gently on the lips then drew away, opening the champagne, pouring out two glasses, peeling the plastic wrap from the platter and setting it in front of her.
He passed her a brimming glass, and lifted his own in salute.
‘To seduction!’ he teased, and Rachel felt the colour he’d spoken of heat her cheeks.
‘To seduction,’ she echoed, but the fun seemed to have gone out of things. She sipped the champagne—dry bubbles fizzing off her tongue—and thought back, realising that perhaps she’d harboured in her heart the thought this might be more than a seduction—realising she’d been more caught up in the Cinderella story than she’d thought she’d been!
No, it wasn’t that, she decided as Luca pressed her to take from the plate a tiny biscuit with soft cheese and a strawberry topping it. She didn’t want the castle, or a prince, but being with Luca, working with him, seeing him with her friends—somewhere along the line she’d fallen just a little bit in love with him, and her silly heart must have harboured thoughts of love returned.
So the seduction scenario had struck deeper than it should have, although her head knew damn well an affair was all there’d be between them.
It was also all she wanted between them, she reminded herself.
He had guided her, while her thoughts had run riot, to a couch that looked out through wide glass windows towards the view, and was over by a CD player, organising music.
He’d put the food on a coffee-table in front of her, and the champagne was in an ice bucket beside it. Soon he’d come and sit beside her and, she had no doubt, she’d be an equal partner in whatever seduction might take place. But deep inside she felt a thin layer of ice building up again around her heart, and her head chided her for her folly in letting it melt in the first place.
‘You are sad now, thinking perhaps of your husband, and of the pain he caused you,’ Luca murmured, settling beside her on the couch, the warmth from his body transferring to hers where their thighs touched.
‘No way!’ she told him, glad she could answer honestly. ‘Jake’s a closed book as far as I’m concerned. I realised later that I was never really in love with him.’
‘I’m glad,’ Luca said, taking her empty glass from her fingers and setting it on the table, ‘for I don’t want thoughts of him coming between us.’
He held her gently and his kiss was more an exploration than a seduction, though as his hands touched her body, feeling their way across her shoulders, neck and back, she knew it was seduction.
But such sweet seduction, especially now his hands had slid across her belly and circled breasts that ached for his touch. So she became a participant instead of an onlooker and through touch explored his shape—broad shoulders and the strong bones of his skull, neat ears flat against his head, soft hair as black as midnight.
She caught her breath as he brushed his thumbs across her demanding nipples, and bit his lip—gently but with insistence—wanting more, wanting pain herself, feeling pain from frustration.
‘Strong, soft and beautiful,’ Luca whispered, his hands beneath her shirt now, warm on her skin. ‘You are a very special woman, Rachel, and so enticing—so exciting.’
His lips, parted from hers for speech, moved to her neck, where a nibble against her pulse had her crying out in need. Then he was gone—but not gone far, simply standing up and taking her hand, helping her up off the couch and guiding her towards a bedroom.
‘Where we will be more comfortable,’ she heard him say, though her mind had gone AWOL and her body simply followed where he led.
The bed was the size of Texas, but she had little time to take much notice of it, for Luca was undressing her, undoing buttons, kissing and murmuring endearments against her lips as he did it—stripping away any faint strands of resistance she might have been able to muster as he stripped away her clothes.
‘Beautiful—I knew you would be,’ he said, when he had her naked and she stood before him, embarrassed yet somehow proud he found her beautiful. ‘Now it is your turn,’ he said, holding out his arms, so serious she almost laughed.
But stripping Luca, she soon discovered, was no laughing matter. His body called to hers, his skin, like satin beneath her fingertips, tempting her to press her lips against it. And if she had any doubts about his readiness for love-making, they vanished when she put her hands against the black silk of his briefs.
Desire rendered her light-headed, almost dizzy, but then Luca was kissing her again, and together, naked and entwined, they found the bed.
‘You will make the pace, remember,’ he whispered, as he drew a line with his finger from her breast to the junction of her thighs. ‘You’ll tell me to go fast or go slow.’
‘I can barely think, let alone talk,’ Rachel replied,
teasing him in turn. ‘Let’s just go with the flow.’
‘Go with the flow,’ Luca repeated, moving his mouth from her lips to one pebble-hard nipple and slowly teasing it to even greater excitement with the tip of his tongue.
Rachel felt herself drowning in sensation, her nerves singing with anticipatory delight, the world reduced to here and now—to this bed, and the man who was making magic in her body.
‘Ah, so sweet, so giving,’ he murmured, though even without the words she knew her response was delighting him.
Then touching and kissing was no longer enough, and as Luca’s fingers teased her open and his exploring thumb found the tight nub of her desire, she cried out his name, and helped him slide inside, deeper and deeper until he filled her to overflowing, his movements matching hers, bringing more and more delight until she shattered into a million glittering pieces, clutching him tight, crying his name now, feeling him expand to help her explode again, only this time he cried her name, and clung to her as if he needed an anchor to keep him tethered to the earth.
‘Crikey!’ she managed to croak when she finally drew breath. She hoped her attempt at weak humour might hide the awe she felt at what had just occurred. She’d just had an orgasm of truly seismic proportions—so what was she supposed to say?
Thank you?
She probably should, but right now it was all she could do to breathe and cling to the man who’d lifted her to such incredible heights.
He moved so his weight was no longer on her, but kept his arms around her, holding as tightly to her as she clung to him. His chest rose and fell as he drew in deep breaths, and for once the man who always seemed to have so many words at his command said nothing.
But the kisses he pressed on her hair and her skin were gentle—even loving—and she knew from the tremors she’d felt in his body that his satisfaction had been as great as hers.
He lifted himself on one elbow and looked down into her face, tracing her profile with his finger.
‘If I get the champagne and food, will you be upset?’
She couldn’t read his eyes as the only light in the room came from beyond the open door, but she could hear uncertainty in his voice.
The Italian Surgeon Page 9