His mouth continued its sensual assault, not once lifting, just changing position until she was breathless and dizzy with whirling sensations.
His hands left the bench, cupping her face instead, adding a touch of tenderness that was unexpected and, because of it, all the more enthralling. His tongue circled hers, gently, cajolingly, until she found a rhythm that matched his: slow and sensual, then fast and furious, backing off to pace the passion and then grinding down again with ravenous need.
Erin’s lips felt swollen but she kept on kissing him, her heart thumping like a madly swinging anvil when his hands moved from her face to settle just below her ribcage. His splayed fingers were so close to her breasts, making them pulse with an ache she had never felt before. Her nipples were tight and sensitive; just the pressure of his chest against hers was enough to make every nerve ending twitch in fevered response.
His mouth softened on hers, slowing down the hectic pace as his hands gently cupped her breasts. She dared not breathe in case he stopped; the slow roll of his thumbs over her distended nipples made her head reel.
She whimpered into his mouth as he moved aside her clothing, that first touch of skin on skin making her insides quiver. His hand was warm and dry and very, very determined. She loved the feel of him exploring her softness, the way she was a perfect fit for his palm. She loved the way his fingers were slightly calloused, as if he was no stranger to physical labour. It reminded her of his arrant masculinity, of the way he was so overwhelmingly male and not for a moment ashamed of it.
His mouth hardened as he deepened his kiss; the grind of his hips against hers and the low, deep groan he gave made her skin tighten with pleasure. It was reckless and foolish to respond so wantonly but she couldn’t help it. It was like trying to stop a runaway train; the momentum was gathering inexorably as each second passed.
His hands moved from her breasts and settled against her hips, pulling her against his burgeoning heat with unmistakable purpose. She felt the frantic flutter of her pulse as his body signalled its need of hers, the increasing pressure of his mouth and the sexy stab and thrust of his tongue against hers sending her into a wheel-spin. Her body was slick with moisture; she could feel it pooling like warmed honey between her thighs. She had never felt such an overwhelming response; the sheer force of it took her completely by surprise. Was it her hormones raging out of control? Was it because she had not experienced red-hot passion like this before? Did she want him just because she wanted him? Was there no other reason than just the most basic pull of primal need to mate with someone potent, to be tamed by the leader of the pack, to be brought to sobbing submission in mind-blowing pleasure?
It was all of that and more, but it didn’t mean Erin was going to give in to it. She had good reason not to. All her adult life she had fought against the instincts of the flesh, knowing how damaging they could be to one’s freedom in the long run. She had seen it first-hand: the devastation of not being able to withstand temptation, the way a life could suddenly spiral out of control, never to be the same again.
She pushed her hands against Eamon’s chest, fighting with herself all the way as she felt the play of hard muscle under her palms. She tightened her resolve, pulling her mouth out from under his. ‘Sorry,’ she said, her voice, not surprisingly, sounding husky.
‘Time to stop?’ he asked, still holding her by the hips.
Erin could feel the throb of his hardened flesh, so close to the achingly empty heart of her. ‘Um…possibly shouldn’t have started,’ she said, running her tongue over her swollen lips, tasting him, tasting temptation, and only just resisting it.
He gave a chuckle of laughter that rumbled against her chest. ‘Don’t you like to live a little dangerously sometimes, Dr Taylor?’
She slipped out of his hold, folding her arms across her chest as she faced him. How like him to laugh at her. To make fun of her, to make light of what to her was so significant she didn’t dare take it further. ‘No, I don’t,’ she stated flatly.
‘Erin…’ He raked a hand through his hair in an endearing, almost boyish manner. ‘Maybe I overdid it a bit. I’m sorry, but you have a very kissable mouth.’
Erin tightened her arms like whalebone stays across her body. ‘There are plenty of kissable mouths you can choose from, but this one is now off-limits.’
He shook his head at her as if admonishing a small, recalcitrant child. ‘You were the one who gave me the go ahead, remember?’
She summoned up a glare but it wasn’t her best effort. ‘One kiss, not a marathon. My lips feel bruised.’
He closed the distance between them, lifting his hand to trace the outline of her lips in a touch so gentle she could only just feel it. ‘Maybe you’re a little out of practice,’ he said. ‘When was the last time you were kissed?’
Erin felt her colour rise. Had he thought her responses clumsy and inexperienced? How embarrassing! No doubt he was used to very experienced, streetwise lovers, women who knew how to take and give pleasure. ‘I don’t have to answer that,’ she said, stepping away from him again.
‘You don’t have to be ashamed of not putting it out there, Erin,’ he said. ‘I’m forever telling my two still-single sisters they should hold back. Men respect it, believe me. We might try it on, but deep down we don’t want the woman we have a one-night stand with to end up being the mother of our children.’
Erin felt a funny sensation in the pit of her stomach as she looked at him. He would make some lucky girl a wonderful husband and father of her children. He had all the qualities that counted, and besides that he came from a rock-steady background. She knew how important good role-modelling was. She had seen the results of generational violence or addictive behaviour or both. Eamon was so lucky to have a solid foundation to build on. It made her feel the loneliness and isolation of her situation all the more acutely. ‘Thanks for the morality lecture, but you’ve been preaching to the choir,’ she said. ‘I don’t do one-night stands and I have no intention of having children.’
He gave her one of his thoughtful looks. ‘Funny, but I didn’t have you pegged as a career girl.’
‘What makes you say that?’ she asked, frowning at him. ‘My career is very important to me. It always has been and always will be.’
He continued to hold her gaze as if he was peeling back the layers to the truth. ‘If your career was so important to you, it would make sense that you would do everything in your power to enhance your chance of promotion. But word has it you’ve had issues with every director you’ve worked under. Not very wise if you want to advance your career.’
Erin pulled her lips into a tight line. ‘If for once a director was hired who had less of an ego and more of a desire to bring about genuinely good outcomes for patients, I would not hesitate to follow orders.’
‘I am all about good outcomes for patients,’ he said. ‘As to the ego, well, don’t all good leaders need one in order to lead solidly and dependably?’
‘Time will see,’ she said with an arch look. ‘So far all I’ve seen is great inconvenience to staff.’
His brows drew down over his eyes. ‘That’s rather rich coming from you, isn’t it? You haven’t yet attended one ward-round or information breakfast.’
She pressed her lips together before responding. ‘I am under no obligation to do so when I’m on night duty.’
His frown became darker, more threatening. ‘You’ve switched to nights?’
She raised her chin. ‘I read in the document you passed around that the follow-through-care proposal didn’t apply to doctors on night duty. The handover will remain as it stands, given the activity at that time of morning on the wards with the changeover of staff and breakfast and so on.’
His expression tightened, making a white-tipped nerve flicker like beating wings beneath the skin at the edge of his mouth. ‘You really are determined to do things your way, aren’t you?’ he asked.
‘My way works for me.’
‘But what if it doesn’t wor
k for the patients?’ he asked. ‘You lose all contact with them the moment you hand them over. You’ve been lucky so far, Erin, but what if the next patient suffers as a result of something you missed in the primary or secondary survey?’
Erin held his challenging look although she dearly would have liked to shift her gaze from the steely probe of his. ‘I am always very thorough in my assessment and management of patients.’
His eyes became more intent on hers, more focused. ‘What about the pain incident Arthur Gourlay referred to? Mrs Pappas, wasn’t it?’
She opened her mouth, and then closed it, thinking carefully before she spoke. ‘I know for a fact I signed for her pain-relief. I remember doing it.’
‘Are you saying there are times when you don’t remember?’
Erin heard the suspicion cleverly stitched in between each word of his question. Had Lydia Hislop spoken to him about their conversation in A&E about Mrs Fuller’s follow-up pethidine shot? She liked Lydia—she was one of the few nurses she could see herself having a friendship with outside of work—but it didn’t mean the nurse might not have used a private conversation to score some brownie points with the new boss. ‘A&E, as you know, is a busy, often frantic place at times,’ she said, choosing her words with care. ‘And at those times it is a little difficult to remember every single detail—that’s why the drug documentation protocol is in place.’
‘That’s if everyone is using it as it should be used,’ he said.
She frowned. ‘What are you implying? That I’m somehow not following hospital procedure?’
His penetrating eyes surveyed her for a pulsing moment. Erin felt as if she was under a powerful microscope. Every flaw, every chink in her armour, was being pulled apart and examined under intense scrutiny.
It worried her that she had become less meticulous due to the long hours she had worked recently. She had always set such high standards for herself. She hated thinking she might not have performed her job at maximum capacity. It had been a trying time with the death of the young man the other day; her concentration might have slipped. It was understandable; there had been such a lot going on, especially with the news of a new director arriving. And now she had made herself seem even more unprofessional by responding to Eamon Chapman’s kiss with such wantonness.
Sydney was a big city but the medical world was small. It would only take one person to see them together and it would be all over the hospital. She already hated the gossip the hospital fraternity generated; she hated the stupid innuendoes that people went on about once they suspected two people were involved. Besides that, she hated mixing her private life with her professional one. She liked her life in neat, ordered compartments. She didn’t like blurred boundaries. It made her feel insecure. And kissing Eamon Chapman made her feel very, very insecure. He was clearly toying with her. How convenient was it for him to have her living right next door to call over to play doctors with him whenever he felt like it? And what if he was only flirting with her to get her to see things his way? Did he see her as a challenge to conquer? A trophy he had to collect to show how proficient he was at his job? If so, he was in for a bigger challenge than he realised.
‘That is not what I’m implying at all,’ Eamon said into the tight silence. ‘I am merely saying the system is not completely foolproof.’
‘I know exactly what you’re implying and why.’ She scooped up her purse and keys. ‘I’ve changed my mind about dinner.’
Eamon frowned. ‘Hey, wait a minute. You can’t walk out just like that. Steph’s gone to a lot of trouble. What am I supposed to say to her?’
She gave him a hard little glare as she opened the front door. ‘Tell her she’s right—you were starting to bore the hell out of me.’ And before he could say another word she shut the door in his face.
CHAPTER SIX
WHEN Erin arrived for night duty A&E was already full and had been for several hours. Michelle Oliver was the senior nurse on duty, a woman she had worked with many times before. Michelle was competent and steady under pressure but the downside was that she was one of the main arteries of the hospital gossip-network.
‘Well, well, well, aren’t you a lucky girl?’ Michelle said as soon as Erin placed her bag in the lockable drawer at the doctors’ station.
Erin kept her features as blank as possible as she straightened from the drawer. ‘Why is that?’
Michelle folded her arms across her chest and gave her a conspiratorial smile. ‘A little bird told me you had dinner with the new director last night.’
Erin felt a muscle ticking in her cheek but fought it back under control. What little bird? she wondered. Or had it been the man himself? ‘Dr Chapman rents the apartment next to mine,’ she said. ‘His sister was visiting and invited me over. But your source is wrong because I didn’t stay for dinner.’
Michelle’s light blue eyes twinkled. ‘Word has it he’s determined to win you over to his plans for the department, it seems, by fair means or foul.’
Erin looped her stethoscope around her neck, trying to keep her expression coolly detached. ‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘I have patients to see.’
‘There’s a bet running on how long it will take him to do it,’ Michelle called out after her.
Erin stopped and turned around to face the grinning nurse. ‘A…a bet?’ she asked with cold incredulity.
Michelle nodded. ‘The residents and registrars set it up. You’re the only one who’s against the changes. There’s a carton of beer riding on how long it will take Dr Chapman to get you on side.’
Erin aligned her shoulders in a rigid stance. ‘Does Dr Chapman know about this bet?’
Michelle met her gaze with equanimity. ‘Who do you think is providing the beer?’
Erin threw herself into seeing the line-up of patients, determined not to think about what Michelle had said, but even so whenever she had a spare moment her anger would kick in like a hot blast of fuel near dry tinder. To think Eamon Chapman was secretly reeling her in for the sake of a game, a puerile locker-room joke that would no doubt be laughed about for months on end. Each time she encountered a resident or registrar in the department, she felt as if they were sniggering behind their professional façades. How many people knew about this stupid bet? Was everyone laughing at her, like they had done in medical school after her one disastrous date?
She ricocheted with fury, determined to take Eamon Chapman on head-to-head. He was not going to make a fool of her—not professionally, and certainly not personally. Not if she could help it.
Just when Erin thought she had things more or less under control in A&E, news came in of a high-speed-motorcycle-accident victim due to arrive via ambulance within minutes. She felt the rush of adrenalin flood her system as she mentally began to prepare herself. Motorcycle accidents were often serious, especially high-speed ones. It would take all of her concentration and professional training to set aside her private issues while she dealt with a life-and-death situation. This was not the time to be ruminating over Eamon Chapman’s despicable ploy to get her on side. A patient’s life was about to be placed in her hands; the responsibility had never felt more daunting. Only her experience at dealing with similar situations bolstered her confidence. The staff working with her were competent, especially Michelle, and the registrar, Tom Brightman, was one who had shown great promise right from his intern days.
The doors to A&E swung open as the ambulance personnel wheeled in the male victim, the more senior officer calling out the patient’s details.
‘Approximately twenty-five-or-six-year-old male involved in a motorcycle accident. He was found twenty metres from the bike, which appeared to have struck a guardrail after clipping a car. He was unconscious with a GCS of seven; the helmet was badly damaged. His right thigh was angled at thirty degrees with a compound fracture—we’ve splinted it and bandaged it to control blood loss. His left ankle was at forty degrees and also compound, and the foot pulse is weak. His pulse was a hundred and forty and BP eig
hty systolic. We’ve put in a fourteen-gauge canula and run in two litres of saline. He’s been bagged and masked with high-flow oxygen. It took fifteen minutes to stabilise him and the trip took another ten.’
‘Thanks,’ Erin said, donning gloves, a mask and a face shield.
The patient was on a spine board and had a Donway splint on his right leg and a blow-up splint on his left ankle. He had been fitted with a hard collar to stabilise his neck. With the staff’s help they shifted the victim to a resus bed as Erin prepared to intubate him, suctioning the mouth to clear his airway.
Tom Brightman came in after being called up to the ward by the nursing staff. ‘What’s going on?’
Erin filled him in as she began to intubate the victim, which was proving more difficult than she had first realised, as his face was so badly injured. She felt the tension build in her body; beads of perspiration trickled down between her shoulder blades as each precious second passed. ‘He’s not intubatable. I’m going to do a cricothyroidotomy,’ she said. ‘Michelle, get me a scalpel and size-six tracheostomy tube, stat. Tom, undo that collar, but keep his neck stabilised. What’s his BP?’
‘Seventy systolic,’ the other nurse said. ‘His shock is getting worse.’
Erin stabilised the trachea with her left hand and made a transverse stab incision into the cricothyroid membrane. She lengthened the incision, then spread it open using artery forceps and inserted a size-six tracheostomy tube and connected it to the oxygen. Relief flooded her as the patient’s chest inflated with each squeeze of the bag. ‘We’ve got an airway, thank God,’ she said.
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