The Surgeon's Love-Child

by Lilian Darcy

  He was doing it before he even finished talking about it, nuzzling her behind her ear, whispering his lips across her neck to reach her jawline, wrapping her hair loosely around his hands and using it to pull her close and find her mouth.

  She gasped at the firmness and confidence and nutty sweetness of his lips. He released her hair so that it streamed over her shoulders and down her back, then brought his hands across her collarbone and down to brush lightly across her full breasts. They already ached.

  Now he was pulling her to her feet and she went without hesitation, needing his strength against her body.

  'Steve,' she murmured incoherently. 'Steve...'

  'Mmm, you taste like the sea.'

  'So do you. Salted peanuts, or something.'

  'I could lick it off every inch of you.'

  His hands rested lightly on her shoulders and his mouth tangled with hers, tongue and teeth and lips and tongue again. She felt as if this had been building between them for weeks or months instead of days, knew that her legs and mouth and hands were trembling.

  'Every single inch,' he repeated, and slid the straps of her swimsuit from her shoulders, nuzzling at the salt on her neck as he peeled the straps lower with aching slowness.

  Soon, soon, he would touch her breasts and feel just what this was doing to her. Soon...except that she couldn't wait another second. She arched her back and heard him groan with need as her fullness spilled into his hands.

  He held her breasts almost reverently, lifted their generous weight in his hands then touched his lips to the swollen curves, drifting lower until he reached one throbbing nipple then moving across to the other. She flung her head to one side and gasped again, could have let it go on and on.

  A car swished past on the road and a ragged thought entered her mind that anyone could have seen them here. Anyone could still see them. It was dark, cloudy now after that magnificent sunset, but all the same, if someone came along the sidewalk, looked up and saw their two shadowy figures and the tell-tale paleness of her bared flesh, that person would be in no doubt about what was happening up here on this open deck.

  'Come inside,' Steve whispered. 'There are things I want to do to you that definitely aren't for public consumption.'

  'I think you've already—'

  'I know. It was so good. It's...' He broke off and his gaze swept down from her face to the pale, rounded shapes of her bared breasts, still heavy with need and tight against the chill of the air. 'Still very, very good.'

  His hands drifted lightly up from her waist once more, whispered across her thrusting, pebble-hard nipples and came to rest on her shoulders. She was throbbing, on fire, desperate to touch him, too, in all the places that had drawn her unwilling gaze over the past few days. The hollow at the small of his back, his tanned shoulders, delicious backside, square jaw, steady mouth. But his touch on her sensitive skin seemed to paralyse her, and she couldn't find the will to move.

  !Come inside now, please...' he whispered.

  He didn't wait for her assent, just scooped one arm around her thighs and lifted her a step or two, then set her down again, locked her in his arms and almost dragged her to the bedroom.

  Not that she was reluctant. Oh, no! But her legs were still shaky and half-numb. Her head just kept coming down to rest on his shoulder so she could press her mouth into the pad of muscle there, and taste the warring scents of salt and male skin.

  The bedroom seemed too far away to wait for. There was a charge like an electric current between them and she wanted to pull off his clothes and wrap herself around him, claim him with her hands, feel his heat, hold him and never let go.

  They barely made it to the bed, and were both far too impatient to take it slowly. He had come prepared for this. He had brought protection, and she didn't resent it. Of course he had come prepared! If she'd been a man she would have done the same. If she'd been a woman with more confidence in her own perceptions about their chemistry, she would have thought ahead and considered the issue herself.

  So she was grateful for his forethought, in the twelve seconds she managed to give to the question, and then all of it—everything else in the entire world—became meaningless against the flood tide of their shared release.

  They made love twice more that night. Candace was astonished at how rapidly their need for each other moved from being thoroughly sated to building to a conflagration once more. After the second time, they ate supper in bed— tall glasses of cold milk and that frozen chocolate cheesecake he had eyed in her shopping cart the previous week.

  Then they went out and sprawled in each other's arms in the cane lounging chair on the deck for half an hour and talked. Silly stuff, not worth remembering or repeating.

  After midnight, after making love, it was hard to manage earth-shattering conversation.

  It was lovely, though. Just...quietly...lovely. She wore nothing but a simple sarong knotted across her breasts and he had slipped back into his dry swim shorts. It became too cold eventually, so they had a giggly shower together to warm themselves up, and it led inevitably back to square one.

  Finally, then, they slept until morning.

  Morning.

  The clouds had disappeared again overnight, and the day was already bright, even before seven. Candace had forgotten how strong the morning light was in this country. Glorious, she'd thought on other mornings. Today it seemed cruelly bright, and it hid nothing.

  It probably didn't matter to Steve. He was still asleep, his body flung out in her bed as trusting as a child's. Almost as flawless as a child's, too. No crow's feet. No scars. No sags...

  Candace fled to the bathroom for another shower and couldn't help pausing before the big mirror to take a merciless inventory of all she saw there. Hair like a bush. Creases around her mouth. And there was a mark on her left breast, a tiny bruise.

  No, a love bite.

  Hesitantly, she touched the spot with her fingers and remembered how Steve's lips and teeth had lingered there, and elsewhere, making her writhe. Today, it just looked like a bruise. Her breasts, with their nipples still darkened by the friction of Steve's mouth, seemed too heavy and large, too womanly, too pale. Hips and thighs as well.

  'Lord, I need to lose weight!' she muttered, then laughed at herself. A few pounds, maybe, but that wasn't the problem.

  The problem was that this body of hers was thirty-eight years old, not twenty-five, and the harsh Australian light would never let her forget it.

  A rap sounded on the bathroom door, like someone casually tossing a handful of pebbles.

  'Steve?' she questioned, cupping her hands instinctively over her breasts.

  As if it could be anyone else! And as if there was any point in hiding this small segment of her nakedness from him!

  'Can I open?'

  'Uh...yes, fine.' She darted into the clear glass shower enclosure and turned the water on. It hid nothing.

  'Hi...' he thwarted any attempt at concealment straight away, opening the glass door and gazing at her '...gorgeous.'

  Was that a nickname or a commentary? Whatever it was, she blushed darkly, happy and on edge at the same time.

  'I have to head off,' he continued. 'I'm rostered to the emergency department today, and I've just been paged. Not totally urgent, but I'll have to cancel the full American breakfast.'

  'Was I offering a full American...?'

  'Sort of hoped you were,' he murmured, on a huskily suggestive note. 'But I'll see you tonight, OK?'

  He reached confidently into the shower enclosure and pulled her close enough to kiss her wet face.

  'No!'

  The vehemence of it surprised both of them. Candace wrenched off the faucets, although most of her body was barely wet. She stepped quickly past him and reached for a towel. Lapping it around her body and holding it tightly in place, she left the bathroom. He followed her.

  'Hey! Last night was great, wasn't it?' he said.

  'Yes. Yes, it was.'

  'Then what's the pr
oblem...hey, Candace?' The last two words were soft, sweet, like the way he'd spoken—those incoherent snatches of words—as they'd made love last night.

  'You're m-making too many assumptions,' she stammered. 'Way too many. I'm not— We need to think about— If this is anything, it's just an affair, OK? And I don't want to take it—'

  'Maybe I should just kiss you again, or something? That seemed to work pretty well yesterday.'

  'Work? As a technique, you mean? A strategy for getting me to—?'

  'No!'

  It was his turn to rebel, and he did it more effectively than she had. He gripped her shoulders, tilted his head, brought his mouth to within an inch or two of hers. 'No, Candee,' he said softly.

  'I hate that!'

  'Candy?'

  'Yes.'

  'Not when I say it like this. Candee. Spelled double E. It's so sweet, can't you hear? And I mean it. Sweet Candee. Let me kiss you...'

  'Mmm.' She turned her head away, pressed her mouth shut, but she was still in his arms and they were tight now, holding her, inviting her to lean on him. She could feel his heat, the elastic hardness of his muscles, the strong length of his bones beneath the fragrant skin she'd explored so thoroughly with her mouth and hands last night. The towel began to slip and, heaven help her, she no longer cared.

  'Tell me it wasn't one of the best nights of your life,' he went on, his voice low. Its caressing lilt brought back flashes of memory—the intimate touch of his tongue, the power of his hips—making her shudder. 'Tell me we didn't light bonfires and set off rockets and make orchestras burst into symphony.'

  'Yes, and it's wrong!' she retorted. 'I don't do that. I don't leap into bed with people... men... younger men...when I've only known them a week.'

  'Less,' he pointed out.

  'Less,' she agreed.

  'So maybe it's time you did. Not all younger men, by any means. But me, definitely.'

  'Why? Why?'

  'Because it's good,' he said simply. He ran a finger lazily down from her throat to the top of the towel, which had slipped another three inches. Sensation stabbed deep within her. 'I thought it would be, and it is. I have to go.'

  'Mmm.'

  'Think about it, OK?'

  She did. All day.

  She thought about it in between seeing several of Terry's patients, as he was still in Sydney with Myrna. Terry's wife had had surgery yesterday—a lumpectomy and removal of the lymph nodes. She thought about it driving south on a winding highway through fragrant eucalyptus forests to Harpoon Bay. She had a surgical list scheduled there on Friday morning and wanted to make sure she knew the route and the hospital and staff a little. She thought about it driving north to Narralee again.

  By the time Steve rang at six that evening, she was able to say at once, 'I'm sorry.'

  'That's all right.'

  'You see, I was married for nearly seventeen years and I didn't get a lot of practice at this and...' She stumbled to a halt.

  'Am I seeing you, then?' he asked, as if this was all that mattered.

  Maybe it was.

  She took a deep breath. 'Yes. I'd like that. As long as there are no expectations. And as long as we keep it to ourselves. Strictly to ourselves.'

  She didn't want anyone else judging or making assumptions.

  'Yeah, I was going to say that, too. There are...reasons for that to be a good idea, aren't there?'

  'Not that it's something I particularly—'

  'Hey, let's not analyse it, Candace,' he said, his voice low. 'Not yet, anyway. Come over, and we'll have fish and chips on the beach.'

  'Are you going to be at the hospital today?' Steve heard, at the other end of the phone. He recognized his brother Matt's voice.

  It was seven on a Tuesday morning, a week after his first fabulous night with Candace. On Friday, she'd received the pathology report on Andrea Johnson's tumour and had phoned him to ask, 'Would you like to tell her, since she's your patient? It was benign. She should have no further problems at all.'

  'That's great news, Candace! Yes, I'll tell her. Thanks for letting me know.'

  'Well, you know, it's a real hardship for me to have to call you, Steve!' He loved that low suggestive note in her voice.

  'Is that why we've both been doing it at least twice a day for the past forty-eight hours?' he'd answered her softly.

  And, in fact, he'd expected this call to be Candace. To be honest, he was slightly irritable in his disappointment that it wasn't her voice he'd heard. Seven was early for his brother to be phoning.

  'Yes, I'm rostered for surgery,' he answered Matt shortly, still not quite awake.

  He could still smell Candace's sweet scent on his body. She hadn't stayed last night. Had left his place at one in the morning, with the imprint of her head on his pillow and his sheets tangled from the way she writhed at his touch.

  'I really have to get some sleep, Steve!' she'd said, her voice low and husky with regret.

  Just thinking about her—her responsiveness, the way her eyes went so wide and dark, the erotic charge that hit him every time he had his face in her hair, or touched the creases at the tops of her thighs, or held those fabulous breasts—made him throb with need. He wasn't yet trying to work out where this was going—Candace had mentioned the word 'affair' and he hadn't felt any need to challenge it—but he sure liked where it was at the moment!

  'Might see you,' Matt said his voice a study in casual intonation.

  Finally Steve woke up properly and the penny dropped.

  'Hey, Helen's had the baby!' Steve's focus shifted at once, with a head-spinning wrench.

  'No, not yet, but she's in serious labor, and it's pretty full on. Won't be long. We're heading for the car now. Her mother has just arrived to look after the big kids.'

  Matt and Helen had a six-year-old son and twin daughters aged three, but still considered parenting a breeze and were ready for more.

  'I'll try and drop in to see you, if things are quiet,' Steve promised.

  'They won't be quiet at our end,' Matt answered. 'Helen's doubling up every two minutes now.'

  'Get going, then, and I'll see you.'

  He shook off the last vestiges of sleep—definitely hadn't been getting enough of it over the past few days, Candace was quite right—dived into his clothes, downed his cereal, skipped coffee altogether and left the house. Candace had a short list this morning, followed by Linda Gardner who had a couple of scheduled gynae procedures.

  Sometimes there was a cancellation. A patient's preadmission check-up might reveal a problem which made the surgery unsafe. Occasionally, some patients just didn't show up and had to be rescheduled for a later date. This morning, Steve found himself hoping that something like this would happen.

  Helen didn't have long labours, and he would be an uncle again before the scheduled list was completed. The sight of a sister-in-law he was very fond of and a brother he'd always been close to holding their much-wanted newborn baby was a pleasure he didn't want to put off for too long.

  First, though, surgery with Candace at the helm...

  I'm nervous, Candace realised as she scrubbed. When am I ever nervous before surgery? We're doing two vasectomies and stripping some varicose veins. Quick, simple procedures that I could do in my sleep. When am I ever nervous?

  When the man I'm sleeping with—no, staying awake with, while we cling to each other and make all that wildness and ecstasy together—is behind one of those masks... That's when I'm nervous.

  It had never happened to her before. Todd was a lawyer, her first and only sexual partner until last week, and their love-making had long since settled into the safe and predictable, well before his adultery with Brittany.

  I can't bring this into the operating theatre with me. I hate distractions.

  Even during the process of her separation and divorce, at least she'd never actually had to face Todd over the operating table. What if it was impossible?

  Steve was already inside, gowned, capped and masked. All sh
e could see were his eyes. So blue, so hot, so knowing. The patient was on the table, chattering and joking.

  More nervous than I am? I don't think so!

  'Hi,' Steve said to her. His tone was a caress, under the cover of some instructions from nurse to patient.

  'Help me, OK?' Candace said. 'I'm—'

  'You're fine. Come on.'

  That was all. He just muttered the words, not even looking at her.

  But at the familiar sound of his voice something clicked and shifted and she realised inwardly, Yes, of course I'm fine. I'm manufacturing a problem out of thin air, and there's no reason for it.

  After this, the floor felt solid under her feet, the surgical instruments seemed to mould themselves to fit her hand and all three procedures ran as smooth as silk. She finished ahead of schedule. Linda's first gynae patient wasn't prepped yet, and Linda herself wasn't here.

  'Great!' Steve announced to everyone. 'Because there's some action going on in the delivery suite today that I'm pretty interested in. My sister-in-law went into labour early this morning.'

  There was a chorus of questions, but he shook his head. 'I'll tell you all about it when I get back, OK?'

  The nurses, two friendly women in their fifties named Doreen Malvern and Pat Lister, began to prepare Theatre One for Linda's first procedure, while the previous patient was set up in Recovery with Robyn Wallace and Sue Smith. Candace filled in her notes and made a couple of phone calls, then Linda's patient arrived, drowsy from her pre-med and surrounded by snowy pillows.

  'OK, now, one more lucky last time,' Doreen said. 'Janine, can you tell us your full name?'

  'Janine Marie Prowse.'

  'And your date of birth?'

  'April the 18th, 1965.'

  'And what are you having done here today?'

  'My tubes tied.'

  'Where's Dr Colton?' Candace heard Pat ask the anaesthesia nurse, Netta Robertson.

  'Not back. I guess he's cluckier than we thought. But Linda's not here yet either.'

  'On her way.' Robyn Wallace had just put down the phone. 'Five minutes, she says.'