by Amy Andrews
Jess kept her eyes shut but inside her chest her heart bloomed and a trill of excitement lit her insides. She fluttered her eyelashes open as the cool sheet fell lightly against her heated flesh.
‘I won’t move a muscle,’ she murmured.
Jake clenched his fists as her gaze wandered over his body, lingering at the juncture of his thighs. He felt himself twitch beneath her sleepy appraisal.
‘Jess.’
‘Hmm?’ she asked innocently, suppressing a grin at the note of warning apparent in his husky voice.
Adam took a step towards the bed. How could he want her again so soon?
His gaze fanned over her, taking in the bedside table behind her and his alarm clock. He pulled himself up short, cursing under his breath.
‘God, is that the time?’ He shook his head to clear it of the fog of lust that was clouding more than just his vision. ‘I have to have a shower and get going. My round is supposed to start in half an hour.’
Jess watched him stalk off to the en suite and smiled. She hugged herself under the sheet. He found it hard to leave her. And he wanted her in his bed when he got back.
It wasn’t a wedding ring but it was more than she’d dared hope for.
She heard the water turn on and images of a wet and slippery Adam filled her head. An insidious voice that Adam had woken last night whispered, Shower sex. She’d seen it in movies and read it in books but never experienced it.
It took less than five seconds to kick off the sheet. And in ten she was sliding the shower door open.
‘I thought you weren’t moving a muscle,’ Adam said as she fused herself against his unprotesting body and kissed him deep and wet and hungry.
‘Shower sex,’ she murmured against his mouth.
It took Adam no time to boost her up the tiles. And no time for her legs to automatically circle his waist and lock tight.
‘I’m going to be so late,’ he groaned as his gaze zeroed in on a rosy nipple and his head descended.
Ruby was in the kitchen when Adam strode out of his bedroom twenty minutes later. He faltered slightly at the sight of her, his broken promise suddenly weighing heavily on his conscience.
‘There’s no coffee,’ Ruby grumbled, staring at the empty coffee pot in her hand.
‘Good morning to you too,’ Adam murmured.
Like his sister, he needed a coffee before heading to work as well but this morning he was running on sex.
‘There’s always coffee,’ Ruby continued. ‘Tilly or Jess always have one going by now.’
Adam ignored his sister. She wasn’t a morning person at the best of times and night duty did not bring out her sunny side. He didn’t think explaining to her that Jess hadn’t started the coffee this morning because she was sleeping very soundly and very, very naked in his bed would improve her mood.
‘Why don’t you just go straight to bed?’ he asked as he quickly popped two slices of bread into the toaster. He was already running late—he didn’t have time for his sister’s mood.
Ruby shook her head. ‘Not without a coffee.’
Adam sighed as Ruby looked at the pot like she didn’t know what to do with it. She was so not a night-duty person. He took the pot off her and busied himself with the percolator.
‘Won’t it keep you awake?’
Ruby snorted. ‘A brass band playing at the end of my bed wouldn’t keep me awake.’
He pressed the on button. ‘Coffee in two minutes,’ he announced.
Ruby sat at the kitchen table. ‘Thanks,’ she said as she flipped through the mail that someone had left on the table. There was one addressed to both Adam and herself and even as she opened it she knew it was from their parents.
‘Oh, hell,’ she grumbled as she opened and scanned the elegant, thick card. ‘Dad’s holding another one of his dreadful dinner parties.’ She passed it to Adam.
Adam looked at it with distaste. The very last thing he wanted was to spend an evening listening to his father being pompous and self-important in their pretentious house at Whale Beach while his mother ran herself ragged, trying to be the perfect hostess.
Something which his father never appreciated and only ever noticed when she was too busy with some stupid finicky detail to be by his side, stroking his ego.
Little wonder he chose to spend as much of his time out of the country as possible.
‘We’ll have to go, of course,’ Ruby sighed.
Adam tossed the card on the table. ‘Of course.’
He and Ruby couldn’t leave their poor mother to face something like that alone. She was a wonderful, warm, giving human being who deserved a medal for putting up with his father’s rubbish over the years.
She sure as hell didn’t deserve her husband.
But even after all these years she was still besotted with him.
‘Cort’s invited, I see,’ he said as he poured two cups of coffee.
‘Yes.’ Ruby stared morosely at the table. ‘Just as well he loves me.’
Adam plonked a coffee in front of Ruby and sat down opposite her in a gesture of silent solidarity.
What the hell, he was already late.
Ruby took a couple of sips of her coffee, inspecting the invitation again. ‘You’re a plus one, I see.’
‘Not going to happen.’ Adam’s thoughts slid to Jess curled up in his bed. The last time he’d brought a girl home it had been Caroline and his father had been an overbearing brute. The mere thought of subjecting Jess to the chief, to his parents’ screwed-up dynamic sent an itch up his spine.
Ruby rolled her eyes. She let the invitation slip from her fingers. ‘So how was the party last night? What time did it wind down?’
Adam looked into his coffee, avoiding his sister’s gaze. ‘I don’t know,’ he said evasively. ‘Pretty late. It was still going when I…went to bed.’
‘Jess was pretty high. I bet she lasted until the end. It might also explain why she’s not up yet. Normally she would have been up flitting around happy as a lark a couple of hours ago.’
Adam kept his gaze firmly fixed on his coffee as he toyed with being noncommittal. Saying something vague and getting the hell out of the house. But the truth was going to come out soon enough.
Especially as he intended spending more time in bed with Jess.
And this was his house. He wasn’t going to sneak around in it like a teenager.
He was thirty-five years old, for crying out loud.
Telling Ruby the truth in her current tired and grumpy state probably wasn’t the best timing but he had an opening.
Adam placed his mug on the table and looked at his sister. ‘She’s not up yet because she spent the night with me.’
Ruby blinked. ‘What?’
Adam stood, picking up his coffee. ‘You heard me,’ he said as he walked to the sink.
‘Adam! You promised,’ Ruby spluttered, also standing.
He kept his back to her as he took a couple of mouthfuls of his coffee. ‘I don’t have time for this now.’
‘You promised,’ Ruby repeated.
Adam turned, feeling guilt and exasperation in equal measure. ‘I don’t have to account for my actions to you, Ruby, and I’m not seeking your approval. I’m just letting you know because Jess and I are going to be spending a lot of time together.’
Ruby frowned. ‘What? But…you don’t do that.’
Adam understood her confusion. It was rare for him to spend more than a couple of nights with one woman. But there was something about Jess that made him want more.
‘Maybe I’ve changed.’
Ruby quirked an eyebrow. ‘Are you still leaving for God knows where in a matter of weeks?’
‘Of course.’
She shook her head. ‘You’re going to break her heart.’
‘She knows.’
‘Yes, but does she? Really?’ Ruby demanded.
Adam opened his mouth to tell his sister to stop being so damn theatrical and to mind her own business. That he and Jess were adult
s and that he’d talk to her about expectations. But his pager beeped.
He knew what it was about without having to pull it off his belt and look at the message. ‘I’m running late,’ he said impatiently, turning back to the sink and tipping the dregs of his coffee down the drain. ‘I’ll see you later.’
He didn’t give her a chance to reply, heading straight for the door and banging out of the house.
Adam flipped open his mobile as his long stride ate up the incline between the house and the hospital. He dialled the number on his pager and let his team know he was going to be another fifteen minutes.
Ruby’s accusation taunted him all the way up the hill.
You promised.
Does she? Really?
Guilt revisited. But, hell, it wasn’t like he’d deliberately planned it. Or that he hadn’t had every intention of keeping his promise.
It was just…life.
Sometimes the best-laid plans went awry.
For God’s sake, it wasn’t as if they were kids and they’d pinkie-promised or made some kind of blood oath. This was the real world. And in the real world promises got broken.
He was still mulling over it when he strode through the front entrance of Eastern Beaches to find his team waiting for him in a huddle.
‘Here he is,’ Paula teased. ‘Getting too old to party?’
Adam, who had no intention of explaining why he was late, chuckled. ‘I see you all pulled up okay. What time did it finish?’
‘I was one of the last ones to leave about two,’ Shamus said. ‘But you’d know that if you hadn’t piked.’
Adam smiled. ‘Too late for me.’ Even though he’d been awake, wide awake, long past that. ‘So,’ he said, taking the top chart from Shamus’s arms. ‘How are our patients this morning?’
With the subject smoothly changed, Adam shut everything from his mind—Ruby’s censure and Jess’s come-back-to-bed eyes—and got down to business.
Their first stops were the two surgical wards, male and female, where the eight surgical cases they’d done on Monday and Tuesday were recovering. Eight faces beamed at him and his team and despite the language barrier Adam felt their emotional gratitude right down to his toes.
He was pleased with all eight’s progress and was happy for them all to be discharged to their host families later today.
Host families had been arranged by one of the charities as a friendly, restful environment for the patients to recover in for a couple of days before flying back home. Big, modern hospitals were far from ideal places to convalesce for people who came from comparatively primitive circumstances.
Adam would see them all just prior to them flying home and again at the end of next month when his scheduled mission took him near their homes.
Next they made their way to the ICU to see Lai Ling. Adam had chosen to visit her last because he knew that the ICU round would be finished and he could consult with the on-coming intensivists.
Lai Ling was asleep when he approached her bed after talking to Dr Diane Cleary, the ICU consultant.
‘How’s our champion?’ Adam asked the bedside nurse, who happened to be someone he’d spent a night or two with a couple of years back.
She smiled at him and said, ‘Good morning, Doctor.’
Adam nodded, noting the fluttering eyelashes, the well, hello there look in her gaze, the flirty smile on her heavily painted mouth.
It did absolutely nothing for him.
‘Lorraine,’ he acknowledged. ‘Any issues?’
‘A slight fever overnight otherwise everything stable.’
Was it his imagination or had Lorraine put slight emphasis on the word fever? ‘We’ll keep an eye on the temperature,’ he said briskly. ‘She’s on triple antibiotics so she has pretty broad cover.’
He walked over to the bedside. Lai Ling was wired to a monitor and looked like a little girl instead of a nineteen-year-old woman amidst all the medical equipment.
‘Minimal ooze,’ he noted as he inspected the dressings.
Lai Ling’s eyes fluttered open. He smiled at her and, after a couple of seconds where she seemed momentarily confused, she smiled back.
‘Okay?’ Adam asked, aware that Lai Ling had only rudimentary English and there was no interpreter currently around.
Lai Ling smiled and nodded. She looked around at all the people surrounding her bed then looked back at Adam. ‘Jess?’
Adam felt that one soft enquiry sucker punch him unexpectedly as images from last night assailed him. He’d managed to put Jess from his mind for a little while but she was back—front and centre.
Sweet, sweet Jess. Home, waiting for him in his bed.
Naked.
Then Ruby’s Does she, really? rudely pushed its thorny finger into the lovely little bubble.
‘You’ll see her in a couple of days,’ Adam said, holding up two fingers.
Lai Ling smiled and nodded and promptly fell asleep again. Adam chuckled then looked up at his team. ‘Okay, so the ICU team is happy for her to be discharged to the ward some time today.’
‘How much longer do you think she’ll need to be an inpatient?’ Shamus asked.
‘’Bout five to seven days, I guess, depending on her progress,’ Adam confirmed. ‘Then she’ll go to a host family for a few more weeks, where we can do some regular follow-up. She should be able to fly home after that if all goes well.’
The round ended and his team scattered to deal with their regular patient loads. Adam went to his temporary office to review all the notes and jot down his own observations. He made some phone calls and attended a meeting with Gordon Meriwether to keep him up to date.
Two hours later he’d done all that had to be done. And it was time to go home. To Jess.
But.
Ruby’s voice hadn’t let up. It was on continual loop in the back of his head. He knew he was going to have to talk to Jess. To establish the boundaries of whatever the hell they were doing. To make sure she knew that he was out of here in a handful of weeks and would be gone for a couple of months.
He’d never had to do that with women like Lorraine. Women who played the game as hard as he did and knew the score. It was just unspoken.
But Jess was different.
It wasn’t a conversation he relished. Hell, it wasn’t a conversation he’d even had to have since Francine all those years ago.
He’d made sure of that.
No one was around when Adam opened the front door, for which he was grateful. He’d been practising his spiel all the way down the hill and he just wanted to get it over with. Not even the sound of gulls or the ocean roaring in the distance had been enough to distract him.
He crossed to his bedroom and quietly turned the doorknob. He felt a brief confusing moment of panic that she might not be there, which was quickly dispelled as his gaze connected with her slumbering perfection.
She had her back to the door and her legs curled up. The sheet was anchored under her arms, covering her front and her legs, but had slipped low on her back, just revealing a tantalising glimpse of the rise of her bottom and the slope of one sweet cheek.
Shafts of strong midday sun bathed her body in a golden spotlight. Her blonde hair shone like a halo. It was as if she’d been delivered by the gods, laid out for his pleasure.
Half-unwrapped.
He wanted nothing more than to shuck off his clothes and join her. Slide his legs in behind hers, glide a hand up her ribs and down her belly.
He gripped the doorknob hard. This was not helping. He shut the door and strode towards the bed, sitting down gently beside her. Her eyelashes fanned her cheeks and he could smell soap and shampoo. And sex.
She was close. So close.
The temptation factor increased tenfold.
‘Jess,’ he whispered. She didn’t stir. He reached out a hand to shake her shoulder but withdrew it—once his fingers hit her skin he doubted he’d have any kind of control over them.
He leaned forward instead and dropped a
light kiss on her shoulder. It was logistically easier to control his mouth than the long reach of his arms near all that tempting naked flesh.
‘Jess,’ he murmured against her skin. ‘Wake up.’
Jess stirred. Her eyelids fluttered open and Adam came into focus. Her heart did a crazy tap dance in her chest. ‘You’re here.’ She smiled.
Adam returned the smile. ‘I am.’
Jess shifted slightly so she was on her back, the sheet pulling across her body. ‘How’s Lai Ling?’
‘Asking about you.’
Her smile widened. ‘Really?’
Adam chuckled. ‘Yes really.’
His laughter reached deep inside her and oozed into all those places that had harboured doubt as she’d drifted off to sleep.
He was wearing the same clothes he’d left the room in. Dark grey trousers, an aubergine business shirt and a diamond-patterned dark green tie. He was incredibly sexy.
But way too clothed. She raised a hand to his face and stroked her fingers across his mouth. ‘I missed you.’
Adam’s breath hitched as his gaze searched her face. The sheet covering her slipped a little, exposing the slopes of her breasts. Her fingers toyed with his mouth and he pressed his lips against them before pulling back slightly.
‘We need to talk,’ he murmured.
Jess felt her heart skip a beat at the sudden seriousness clouding the golden flecks in his lapis lazuli gaze.
No. No, no, no.
Not yet. Not so soon.
Okay, so this was vintage Adam. After years of watching women come and go, she knew his pattern. Love them and leave them. But it was too soon. She wanted another night.
Hell, she’d settle for one more time in his arms.
She sat, letting the sheet fall to her waist, sliding her arms around his neck and leaning forward to press a kiss to his mouth. ‘Later,’ she whispered against his mouth.
Adam inhaled, his nostrils filling with her scent as her lips teased his. ‘Jess…’
‘Shh,’ she murmured, moving forward, rising to her knees, their lips still locked, throwing one leg over his lap until she was straddling him.
She swayed against him and Adam grabbed her hips to steady her.
Big mistake.
Because now his hands were full of her sweet, soft flesh and she was anchoring her arms around his shoulders, her breasts crushed to his chest, pressing kisses all over his face.