Nurse in a Million

by Jennifer Taylor

  ‘I think we’d better leave the rest until later, don’t you? When you’re not wired up to all those machines. I think they’re a bit jealous!’

  ‘And so they should be!’ She smiled back at him as he pressed a kiss into her palm. ‘We’re not…behaving very…well, are we?’

  ‘You might not be, but I’ve been a model of restraint so far,’ he contradicted her loftily. He touched a finger to her lips and chuckled when she gasped in outrage. ‘Now, now, no arguing. You’re supposed to be resting your throat, don’t forget.’

  She gave a little moue of disgust but obediently settled back against the pillows. ‘Then…the sooner I’m out of here the better—that’s all I can say.’

  ‘Amen to that,’ he replied, kissing her again. ‘Amen!’

  Two weeks later

  ‘I can manage now. Thank you.’

  Natalie straightened up after Rafferty finished helping her out of the car. After the days she’d spent lying in that hospital bed, it felt wonderful to be mobile again. Although she was still rather weak after her ordeal, she was feeling much better. But then it was hardly surprising in the circumstances, was it?

  A smile lit her eyes as she watched him walk around the car. He’d kept his promise and spent every possible minute with her these past two weeks. He’d only left her to grab a few hours’ sleep when she’d insisted, but more often than not if she’d woken during the night she’d found him sitting beside her bed. By tacit consent they hadn’t discussed what had gone on in Honduras but she was no longer worried that they wouldn’t be able to resolve their problems. The past two weeks had brought them closer than they’d ever been and talking about their feelings would no longer be the difficult task it had been in the past.

  ‘Think you can make it up the steps or do you want me to carry you?’

  Rafferty slid his arm around her waist as he helped her across the pavement. They’d decided to return to Natalie’s house for no other reason than that all her clothes were there. She’d have been just as happy to go back to his flat but simple logistics had made it the easier option. Now she grinned as she handed him her keys.

  ‘I should be able to manage the steps if you could deal with the alarm. I don’t fancy a repeat of what happened the last time you were here, do you?’

  ‘I most certainly don’t,’ he snorted, dropping a kiss onto her upturned face in loving punishment for the trick she’d played on him. ‘Being hustled into the back of a van by a couple of burly security guards wasn’t on my agenda this afternoon.’

  ‘Really?’ She batted her eyelashes at him. ‘Then may I enquire what was on your agenda?’

  ‘Not what you obviously have in mind,’ he retorted, ignoring her assurance that she could manage as he helped her up the steps. ‘You’re supposed to be convalescing, don’t forget.’

  ‘How could I forget when you’re obviously going to remind me every opportunity you get?’ She pouted. ‘You have a very cruel streak at times, Rafferty. Has nobody told you that?’

  ‘Hundreds of people.’ He dropped another kiss on her mouth and grinned at her. ‘But I told them the same thing I’m telling you: it’s for your own good. You won’t get round me—no matter what devious methods you employ!’

  He unlocked the door, ignoring her tut of displeasure at not getting her own way as he deactivated the alarm. Once that was done, he led her straight to the sitting room and got her settled on the couch.

  ‘Right. I’m going to make you a drink so what do you want? Tea or coffee?’

  ‘Neither. I don’t need a drink but I do need you.’ She held out her hand, watching the rapid play of emotions that crossed his face as he tried to stick to his principles and behave sensibly. ‘Come on, Rafferty, you know you want to,’ she coaxed.

  ‘I do. Too much!’ he admitted with a groan as he sat down beside her.

  Natalie sighed with pleasure as she snuggled up against him, savouring the fact that at last they were alone. ‘I feel fine, so there’s no need to worry. And I promise on my honour that I’ll be sensible and not do anything too taxing.’

  ‘I’ll hold you to that,’ he told her gruffly, putting his arms around her while he nuzzled her hair.

  ‘Mmm, that feels nice,’ she whispered, lifting her face for his kiss. The kiss must have lasted longer than he’d intended it to because he groaned when he let her go.

  ‘It’s just so hard to behave sensibly when I’m holding you like this, my darling. I want you too much.’

  ‘And I want you, too, just as much.’ She turned towards him, cradling his face between her hands. ‘I love you, Michael James Rafferty. I always have and I always will. I’m not sure what went wrong when we were away, but I think that you misunderstood what I was trying to tell you. Your background doesn’t make a scrap of difference to me. It never has. I love you for who you are and I don’t care about anything else. I just want us to be together and spend our lives making each other happy.’

  ‘That’s what I want as well. But are you sure I can make you happy? I know you believe that my background doesn’t matter, but I couldn’t bear to think that one day you might regret being with me.’

  ‘Why should I regret it?’ she demanded. ‘You’re everything I’ve ever wanted. You’re intelligent, handsome, sexy…’

  ‘Oh, so you think I’m sexy, do you?’ he growled, leering at her, and she giggled.

  ‘Mmm, I do. Although I doubt I’m the only woman to tell you that.’

  ‘You’re the only one that matters,’ he said softly, and she shivered when she heard the emotion in his voice.

  Leaning forward, she kissed him on the mouth, feeling his immediate response with a rush of pleasure. She twined her arms around his neck and drew his head down so she could deepen the kiss, gasping when she felt his tongue slide between her lips and tangle with hers. When his hand found her breast and began to gently stroke her hardening nipple she cried out and felt him suddenly go still. He drew back and she could hear the struggle he was having to regain control in the roughened timbre of his voice.

  ‘We were supposed to be behaving sensibly.’

  ‘We are. Loving you is the best medicine in the world, Rafferty. It makes all the bad times seem meaningless and puts everything that has happened into perspective.’ She pressed her fingers to his lips, shivered when she felt his tongue touch her skin because it was so erotic to feel its warmth there and know that soon she would feel it on other, more sensitive parts of her body. ‘I want you, my darling, and I don’t care if it’s going against all that sensible advice I was given at the hospital because I know in my heart that it’s what I need to help me heal.’

  ‘I want you, too, my love…so much…’

  The words faded into silence as his mouth found hers again. Natalie kissed him back, showing him through her actions that she’d been telling him the truth. Loving Rafferty and being loved by him was the best medicine in the world for her.

  He swept her up into his arms and carried her out of the sitting room and up the stairs. The curtains were drawn across her bedroom window and they didn’t bother opening them because there was enough light to see by as he laid her down on the huge old bed. Natalie didn’t say a word as she lay there and watched while he stripped off his clothes then just as quickly rid her of hers. They didn’t need words to put the seal on their love—just actions.

  Rafferty lay down beside her and his eyes were full of tenderness as he studied the reddened scar left by her recent surgery. It had healed well and she knew that it would fade in time but she didn’t feel embarrassed about him looking at it. A scar wouldn’t change how he felt about her, just as it wouldn’t have changed how she felt about him. Their love was too deep to be affected by external forces.

  ‘I love you, Natalie,’ he said softly as he turned to face her, and she smiled at him.

  ‘And I love you, too.’

  ‘I’ve made a lot of mistakes but the one thing I want you to remember is that I never meant to hurt you. Everything
I did, I did out of love for you.’

  ‘I know. And you weren’t the only one to make mistakes. We were both at fault, both too stubborn to admit that we had a problem and that we needed to resolve it.’

  She kissed his jaw, felt the tremor that passed through him and smiled a secret little smile, because in one respect nothing had changed—his desire for her was just as strong as it had always been, just as strong as her desire for him.

  The thought made her shudder and she felt his hand move down her body as he soothed her, yet the caress did little to ease the tension that was building inside her. When he kissed her throat she murmured in pleasure, encouraging him to continue—and he did. His mouth moved from her throat to her collar-bone, his lips skimming along the delicate bones, leaving behind a trail of fire, and the tension increased all the more.

  ‘Are you sure you feel all right?’ he whispered, drawing back just enough so that he could study her face.

  ‘Fine. Never better, in fact.’

  He laughed huskily so that goose-bumps suddenly broke out all over her body because it was the most deliciously sexy laugh she’d ever heard. ‘Good. Then I’ll carry on.’

  His mouth moved from her collar-bone to the upper swell of her breasts, so tantalising as it followed the slope that led to her right nipple which was blatantly awaiting its arrival. He drew her nipple into his mouth and she cried out when needles of pleasure shot through her as he suckled her, forerunners of all the pleasure that was still to come.

  His mouth moved on to her left breast where he repeated the process, and she gasped. With each movement of his tongue her passion was building and it was high time that she repaid the favour. Her hands slid down between them and she felt him stiffen when she began to stroke him intimately, his body quickening with the gentle rhythm until she could feel him pulsing against her, so hard and strong and vital that she couldn’t wait any longer. Her hands curved around his back as she urged him to her, but he resisted, shaking his head when she stared at him in surprise.

  ‘No. I don’t want to risk crushing you,’ he murmured, his hands cradling her face while he dropped kisses on her cheeks, her nose, her jaw.

  Natalie was about to protest that she could stand being crushed but couldn’t stand not making love to him when he suddenly rolled over, taking her with him so that she found herself lying on top of him.

  ‘That’s better,’ he whispered. ‘There’s no danger of you being hurt now, is there?’

  Natalie didn’t reply—she couldn’t because the tension that had been building inside her was fast reaching a peak. When Rafferty entered her in one long, slow thrust she gasped then everything seemed to go wild, colours pulsing and shimmering behind her eyes, her blood pounding inside her, her cries mingling with his. It took her a long time to come back down to earth after reaching such heights and when she did, she could tell that he’d been just as moved by their love-making as she’d been.

  ‘I love you,’ she told him with a catch in her voice, because in all the time she’d known him he’d never let her see him so vulnerable before.

  ‘And I love you, more than I’ve ever loved anyone in my life. You’re my whole world, Natalie. I’d be nothing without you, just an empty shell.’

  Tears filled her eyes when she heard that confession and she kissed him. ‘I’ll never leave you again. No matter what happens from this point on, we shall be together.’

  ‘We shall. I don’t care what we have to do to make our marriage work but we’ll do it.’

  ‘Marriage?’ she repeated in utter shock, and he grimaced.

  ‘Yes, marriage. If you’ll have me, of course.’

  He looked so unsure all of a sudden that she didn’t have the heart to make him wait for her reply. Maybe it wasn’t the most romantic proposal that had ever been made, but that didn’t matter. There was only one man she’d ever wanted to propose to her and he just had!

  She kissed him on the mouth then smiled at him with all the love she felt for him clear to see in her eyes. ‘I’ll have you, Michael James Rafferty. I’ll have to, because I can’t imagine anyone else putting up with you!’

  ‘Oh, can’t you indeed?’ He pulled her down to him, kissing her long and hungrily so that she was breathless when he let her go. ‘And that’s your only reason, is it? Because you’ve taken pity on me?’

  ‘No,’ she replied dreamily. ‘It’s not the only reason but it will have to suffice for now because when you kiss me like that I can’t think straight!’

  He chuckled, a definite smugness in his voice as he cradled her in his arms. ‘You’re excused from having to answer any more questions in that case.’

  ‘Mmm,’ she murmured, because there really wasn’t any need to say anything else. She was going to marry this man who made her feel as though she was on her head instead of her heels half the time and they were going to live happily ever afterwards. Frankly, that was the only thing that mattered!

  All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

  All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II B.V. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

  MILLS & BOON and MILLS & BOON with the Rose Device are registered trademarks of the publisher.

  © Jennifer Taylor 2005

  ISBN: 978-1-4603-5843-6