‘Good.’
The need to get into the bathroom and lock the door behind him was so strong that Blake started moving a little more quickly than he’d intended. A single stride brought him right into Sam’s path and she swerved to avoid him. Only he swerved as well, at the same moment and in the same direction.
It was a moment that held the same kind of awkwardness that it did on a crowded pavement. Like a dance move that had gone wrong. If they both moved again, it was highly likely that they’d do it all over again, so Blake froze to let Sam choose which way to go.
Only she froze as well.
And there they were. Face to face. Staring at each other as if the rest of the world had just ceased to exist. Wearing nothing but towels that could be removed with a single, casual flick of a hand.
Whatever simmering attraction or interest or whatever it was between them had suddenly exploded into a wildfire that was becoming more out of control with every passing heartbeat.
Blake was certainly losing any ability to control whatever was happening here. He couldn’t even think about how to make his body move. He was drowning in the scent of Sam’s skin, the warmth he could feel coming from her and...what looked like a mirror of his own desire being reflected back from eyes that had darkened to a blue more intense than anything he’d ever seen before.
His voice sounded weird. So strained he couldn’t recognise it.
‘This...can’t happen.’
She was holding his gaze. Her voice came out in a husky whisper.
‘Not even...once?’
It was like a ‘get out of jail free’ card being offered. A one-off. A way to satisfy what was the worst craving he’d ever experienced and for there not to be any consequences.
And Sam wanted it as much as he did?
His voice went from strained to hoarse.
‘Just once?’
‘Mmm...’
‘And what happens here...stays here?’
‘Absolutely.’
Sam caught her bottom lip with her teeth as if she was trying not to smile. And then she released it slowly and that was it. Blake lost any vestige of common sense. His gaze was locked onto her lips but he could sense the way her eyelids fluttered shut as he lowered his head to kiss her. The towel around her hair came loose as she tilted her head back to meet his mouth with hers. Long strands of damp hair cascaded over his arm as he cradled her head with his hand but it didn’t dampen the fire of desire in any way.
If anything, it made it even hotter.
* * *
Nothing had ever felt like this before.
That gentleness with which her head was being cradled made Sam feel like a precious piece of china but the strength in those hands told her that Blake Cooper had a control over his body that was the sexiest thing she’d ever been aware of.
And then his lips touched hers and a very different kind of sensation pushed everything else into non-existence. A featherlike brush and then another and then his lips settled on hers and the first touch of his tongue sparked a flash of need so powerful it was actually scary.
She shouldn’t be doing this and perhaps that heightened this desire. She’d never really rebelled in her life. Well...not since Alistair’s tragic death, anyway. She’d kept herself safe. Chosen safe boyfriends and resisted any pull towards someone like Blake.
A maverick.
A bad boy.
Someone with whom a relationship would be unthinkable.
But this wasn’t the opening dance of any kind of relationship. This was a one-off. Two adults who’d discovered an overpowering attraction for each other that needed...sating.
This was going to be the only time Sam would experience something like this—an encounter that was pretty much in forbidden territory.
And, dammit, she was going to make the most of it.
She kissed Blake back, her tongue tangling with his, a groan of desire coming from her own throat that she might have been embarrassed by in her old life.
Her fingers caught in the now dishevelled ponytail at the back of his head, so she pulled the band free and then raked her fingers through that delicious length of his hair. She pressed herself against the bare skin of his chest and inhaled the musky scent of unwashed maleness. Her hands were moving without any conscious direction now, slipping down his chest to the knot in that towel. It took only a swift tug for it to fall free and this time the groan came from Blake’s throat.
A sexy growl that brought a huff of sound like laughter from Sam. And then she squeaked as he broke the passionate kiss only to scoop her up into his arms, carry her to the bed in just a couple of long strides, and practically throw her onto it. The move to pull her towel free a moment later was just as smooth and then, for a long moment, Blake seemed to freeze—simply staring down as he knelt over her.
Her own gaze was just as caught—by the naked, totally ripped and totally aroused body looming over her own.
She’d never seen anything so beautiful.
This was fantasy sex that was about to get very, very real and she’d never wanted anything as much as this.
But then her gaze lifted and locked with a set of dark, dark eyes.
This wasn’t just sex, was it?
She was with Blake...
The most extraordinary man she’d ever met.
So it wasn’t simply sex. This was a connection that suddenly felt overwhelmingly significant.
But she couldn’t let Blake know that. She had promised that this was a one-off encounter, never to be mentioned again. It had to be simply about the sex.
So she smiled slowly. Lifted her hands to his head and pulled him down towards her, closing her eyes as she did so, so he wouldn’t see anything that wasn’t supposed to be a part of this.
When he bypassed her lips to go straight to her breasts, Sam let her head fall back against the pillows as she cried out in ecstasy. Who knew that the touch of a hand or lips or a tongue could be capable of creating such a powerful mix of bliss but also a need for more.
For everything.
She wanted a closer touch. She wanted to feel Blake right inside her. But she also wanted this to last for ever. To build and build this exquisite wanting, until the culmination would be the closest thing to paradise that could be found on earth.
And it was.
For the longest time, a long time later, Sam could only lie in Blake’s arms, waiting for her pounding heart to settle and her gasping to become normal breathing again. She had no idea how long they’d been making love but, if they’d missed their flight, she couldn’t have cared less.
Maybe the fact that so much of their skin was still in contact gave Blake an avenue for some kind of telepathy because she felt the movement of his arm as he tilted his wrist to glance at his watch.
The sound he made was like someone hearing the alarm clock sound when all they wanted to do was roll over and go back to a deep sleep.
‘We need to get moving,’ he murmured. ‘I’m going to grab a quick shower and then we need to go and check in.’ He kissed Sam’s shoulder as he peeled himself away from her body. ‘Or do you want another shower first?’
‘I’m okay.’ Sam kept her eyes closed. ‘I can wait till I get home.’
Because that way, she could keep the scent of Blake’s skin on her own for a little longer?
He swung his feet to the floor and got up. Took a step towards the bathroom but then paused and looked back. The half-smile and raised eyebrow was an unspoken question.
Another heartbeat and then he spoke, sounding almost surprised.
‘You know, don’t you?’
Sam let out her breath. ‘Yeah... I know. What happened here stays here. I get it. It’s fine.’
But he shook his head. ‘You know how gorgeous you are, don’t you?’
Sam shrugged. Managed a s
mile. ‘You’re not so bad yourself, mate.’
A wave of what felt like disappointment dimmed the glow she’d been basking in as she lay there for a minute longer, listening to the sound of the shower running.
This had only been a physical attraction for Blake, hadn’t it? It wasn’t that she was hoping for more—he’d made it very clear that this was just going to be a one-off sexual encounter and she was fine with that. It wasn’t as if she was looking for a relationship with anyone and, if she was, he’d be the last person she would have chosen.
Perhaps the disappointment came from realising that he was more like every other man than she’d recognised. He wasn’t such a maverick, after all.
And, if she was honest, her attraction to him had been purely physical at first, too. But something had changed over the course of this weekend. She’d seen beneath the gorgeous package. To a man who walked alone.
And possibly didn’t even realise how lonely he was.
CHAPTER SIX
WHAT HAD HAPPENED there had stayed there.
And it was easier than Blake could have anticipated.
Okay, it felt a little weird when his path had crossed with Sam’s in the corridor outside Emergency on that first Monday morning back at work. He’d avoided all but the most fleeting eye contact and had merely nodded and greeted her the way he would any other colleague, without breaking his forward movement in any way.
She’d been just as casual.
So casual, in fact, that Blake was left wondering for a moment if that steamy encounter in his hotel room had actually happened. Or had he dreamed it?
It certainly felt like a dream in retrospect.
The sexiest damn dream he’d ever had in his life.
The fantasy sex had lived up to any expectations he might have been harbouring. Exceeded them, in fact.
The level of ultimate satisfaction that had stayed with him for the journey home and right through the night had convinced him that it had been the right thing to do. He didn’t have to wonder any more what it would be like to have the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen in his bed. What her skin felt like. Tasted like. What it would feel like to have her touching him. What tiny sounds of need or pleasure or ecstasy she might make...
Now he knew.
And that was that.
They could go back to working in the same department just as they had been before the USAR course weekend. Albeit with a secret between them but Blake was not a stranger to such secrets. Sam had just joined a club he wasn’t particularly proud of—the women who worked at this hospital that he’d become a little more than friendly with for a brief time.
It seemed to work very well for that first day. And for the next couple of days. But then Blake began to notice something different.
The fantasy sex hadn’t stayed in that hotel room.
It was haunting his dreams.
It was in his head, refusing to be compartmentalised into a place that was merely a memory that he could choose—or choose not—to revisit.
The memory popped into his consciousness at unexpected moments. Like when he saw Sam in the department, going past wheeling an IV stand, for example. Or simply standing still, checking the patient board to see what patients she’d been assigned, like she was right now.
It was stronger when he heard the sound of her voice when he walked past a cubicle she was working in. Even worse, when he heard the sound of her laughter. He’d heard that delicious gurgle under such very different circumstances and he’d had to curl his fingers the first time he’d heard it again because they just itched to tickle her in a place where her skin was so incredibly soft and sensitive.
It should be getting easier to get past what they’d both agreed was no more than a one-night stand.
But it was getting more and more irritating that, for the first time ever, he wasn’t quite managing to.
Maybe it was because Sam seemed to have done it without any effort at all. In the past, he’d always caught lingering looks from such partners. They’d appeared in his path far more often than could be coincidental. There’d been tears, even. Or, they had gone out of their way to avoid him and, if they couldn’t, he’d be on the receiving end of a death glare.
Not Sam. She was here, doing her job, day after day. Competent, cheerful and exactly the way she’d been before their time together. Nobody would ever guess what had happened in Brisbane and it seemed like it hadn’t ever happened as far as Sam was concerned.
Perhaps that was what was really bothering him. Not that he couldn’t move on and forget it but that Sam already had because it had meant nothing.
* * *
It was getting harder with every passing day.
How crazy had it been to think that ‘just once’ would have been enough. That she could have walked away from that hotel room in Brisbane and been able to pretend that it had never happened.
Sam had known that it would be a bit weird on that Monday morning, the first time she saw Blake again, but she hadn’t expected how devastating it would feel when he’d just walked past her in the corridor with a polite nod and barely a glance.
As crushing as anything that had happened back in those teenage years when she had been learning the hard way that dreams of finding true love and living happily ever after were exactly that—only dreams.
She had held her head high, however, and, if her smile had felt a little forced for the rest of that day with both her colleagues and her patients, it had been even brighter than usual. Nobody could have guessed the way her skin prickled at catching a glimpse of Blake on the other side of the department, or the deep twist in her gut when she heard the sound of his voice.
It wasn’t as if she was allowing herself to remember how it felt to be touched by this man—not in the daytime, anyway. Nights were a very different story. No, it was more like he had touched every cell in her body and the awareness was no more controllable than, say, being aware of heat if you stepped into direct sunshine on a summer’s day.
It should have got easier as the days went by but, if anything, that awareness was growing stronger. Getting laced with a longing to do it all again...
Sam thought she was hiding the struggle perfectly well but Harriet wasn’t fooled by that overly bright smile when she finally caught up with her friend for a lunch break a few days into that week.
‘What’s up?’ Harriet asked as they found a shady tree in the grounds to sit beneath to eat their sandwiches.
‘Nothing.’ Sam tried to look surprised.
She wanted to confess to her best friend—of course she did. But Harriet had warned her about Blake, hadn’t she? She’d said nobody got close to him and those who tried only ended up with a broken heart. She’d be able to say ‘I told you so’ and Sam would have to agree. She’d have to admit she’d been stupid and, if she started feeling ashamed of herself, she’d feel even worse than she did now. On top of that, the memory of that extraordinary experience would be tarnished and it would change how it made her feel when she lay in her own bed and relived every moment.
And Harriet was part of the SDR team. Sam knew she would keep a secret if asked but what if it just slipped out somehow by a knowing glance or something? If certain other people knew, it might damage her chances of joining the team. Who would want someone on the team that might have an ulterior motive of distracting the team leader?
So she smiled at Harriet again and then shrugged. ‘I guess I’m still a bit tired. That USAR course was full on and I’ve been working every day since.’
Harriet nodded. ‘Of course. Sorry, I haven’t had the chance to talk to you about it what with being so wrapped up with my new flatmate.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘I’m a bad friend.’
‘Don’t be daft. This is a special time for you and Pete. That’s why I didn’t call you.’
That wasn’t quite the truth, though, wa
s it? If she’d spoken to Harriet before the thrill of that encounter with Blake had been dented by his dismissive attitude at work, she might well have confessed everything, even knowing that she would have had to field the ‘I told you so’ response.
‘I remember how full on it is. But did you like it?’
‘Are you kidding? I loved it. Every moment of it.’
Some more than others, mind you. Sam chewed the inside of her cheek for a moment, focusing on peeling the seal from the plastic triangle that contained her sandwiches. It would be weird if she didn’t mention who the instructor had been but this was going to be a real test of how well she could keep her own secret.
‘You won’t believe it, but the instructor was Blake Cooper.’
‘No way... In Brisbane?’
‘He was filling in for someone who’d been injured.’
‘Wow. That must have been...um...interesting?’
‘Mmm.’ A mouthful of bread, tuna and mayonnaise was a great way of avoiding giving anything away.
‘I’ll bet he was surprised to see you there.’
‘Mmm.’
‘Was he nice to you?’
‘He made me work hard. But...yeah...he was nicer than I expected him to be. Phew...’ Sam reached for her water bottle when what she really wanted to do was fan her face with her hand. ‘It’s hot today, isn’t it?’
‘Sure is. So did you pass the test?’
‘A hundred per cent.’
‘Go, you. That’ll be a feather in your cap when you decide to apply to join the team.’
‘I hope so.’
‘So when are you going to do it?’
‘Um...not just yet.’
Oddly, making the team wasn’t first and foremost in her thoughts currently. Blake Cooper had taken that spot. And she couldn’t get her name put forward in the immediate aftermath of sleeping with one of the key people responsible for that decision, could she? It might make it seem like that was the only reason she’d encouraged that one-night stand. As if she was the kind of girl who thought sleeping her way to the top was acceptable.
The Shy Nurse's Rebel Doc Page 9