by Annie O'Neil
One ticket for Matteo the Dreamboat Ride, please!
Her eyes widened. Not exactly a hostess with the mostest moment.
“You shouldn’t have paid the bill!” She started digging in her handbag for her purse and felt his hand slip down her shoulder to her wrist, stopping her frantic movements. If there was such a thing as sexy lava it was pouring through her everywhere Matteo’s fingers had touched and doing a swirly, pooling thing in her belly. She didn’t dare look at him. She was superimposing far too much on him. It was easy to make someone into perfection when you only had eight hours together. Eight amazing hours. The knowledge that they would quickly come to an end all but brought a cry of despair to her throat. She curled her lips in past her teeth, dragging them back out, no doubt pale with the absence of blood in them. Feeling the sting of pain at what she’d never have.
“How do you fancy a walk along the river?” She used her best tour-guide voice. “It’s really lovely at night. I’m sure you’ll just love the Houses of Parliament!”
* * *
It wasn’t much of a surprise to Matteo that their riverside walk was both bereft of conversation and came to an end at St. Nick’s. Something had passed between them after dinner and Harriet hadn’t looked him in the eye once since then.
He watched, smiling, as she peeked into each of the children’s rooms, pulling up a bit of duvet here or there, tucking in a wayward teddy bear or two. It was obvious to see the place was Harriet’s go-to comfort zone.
He couldn’t really judge. He actually lived at the original Casita Verde. The fact that it had been a monastery in its former life appealed to him. Solidified his future. Not that his life was entirely monk-like...he saw women. Occasionally. Women who wanted nothing more than a fling—because he never promised more. The likelihood of a woman agreeing to live at Casita Verde and never have children of her own? Pretty slim. So monk’s quarters suited him just fine.
“Now we have to be very, very quiet.” Harriet held a slim finger to her lips as they made their way across the open common area. “This bit of flooring is super-creaky and I promised the other nurses I wouldn’t come back.”
“Why?” Matteo grinned down at her, all hunched shoulders and poised on tiptoe. “Are you the big bad boss?”
“The research nurse with no life is more like it.” Harriet’s mouth shot into an apologetic oops position. A perfect red moue.
This time he laid a finger on her lips. She had a life, she just didn’t have confidence, and Harriet was a woman who should have confidence in herself.
In the instant their eyes met the atmosphere went taut with something he knew he didn’t want to fight again. Something that had been fizzing and crackling away between them from the moment they’d met.
Beneath the pad of his finger he felt the accelerated rhythm of her pulse beating in sync with her heart. Her pupils were dilated in the dim light of the corridor, nearly eclipsing the luminous blue irises. Her breath was held so tightly in her chest he could feel the release against his own when she let finally let herself breathe again. She blinked a couple of times, lips still pressed to his finger. It took him a moment to appreciate she hadn’t pulled back. She was responding to his touch.
Before he could stop himself he was kissing her with an urgency he hadn’t thought himself capable of. His hands slid up and along her back, straight up the center of her spine, enjoying the feeling of her body responding to the movement of his hands as he did so. Holding her slender frame against his own felt entirely natural. And unbelievably satisfying.
He was surprised at the surge of desire eclipsing his ever-present pragmatism. After tonight, the chances they’d see each other again were slim to nil. More likely nil. But meeting Harriet, he was shocked to realize, had meant something to him. The fact he’d come to find her to see if she was all right after the speech, insisting they go to dinner, talking and walking for hours were absolutely out of the ordinary. He didn’t hunt down complications. He never sought love. And now here he was, kissing her as if his life depended on it.
“We shouldn’t be doing this.”
Harriet’s lips moved against his as he teased kiss after kiss out of her.
“Why not?”
“The children?”
“Are you asking me or telling me?” Matteo murmured as his thumb gently pressed and moved along her jawline, exposing the creamy expanse of neck he was itching to kiss and explore with his tongue.
A low gasp of pleasure vibrated along Harriet’s throat as he nibbled and tasted his way towards the nook between her neck and the extra-sensitive spot just below her earlobe. When his teeth gave her earlobe a little tug, the resonance of her response deepened to a groan of unmistakable pleasure.
“Let’s go to your office.”
He felt her entire body tense then, as she made a swift decision, turn electric with intent.
* * *
It was all Harriet could do to stop herself from jumping up, wrapping her legs round Matteo’s sexy waist and begging him to take her right there and then. She settled for exercising the most self-control she’d ever had to use for the thirty-second race-walk to her office.
This was a carpe diem moment if ever there was one. The chances of a man like Matteo igniting her intellect and her body coming around again? Non-existent to...ooooh, never again in her lifetime! Especially with months—years—of diapers, laundry, feedings and who knew what else that would consume her time once her sister arrived with the twins. She’d be back to being Harriet the Reliable. Tonight she wanted to be Harriet the Wild One. Harriet the Brave.
Kissing and touching and being held by a man who had made her believe in herself for a few ridiculously perfect hours? It was an emotional risk she was going to take.
Just once.
She owed herself that. To see what it felt like to live.
The door to her office had barely clicked shut before Matteo had her pressed up against the wall, the fingers of one hand teasing along the décolletage of her wraparound dress. Her breasts were instinctively pressing up against the suggestion of a touch, practically begging him to caress them as his other hand held both of hers above her head in a surprisingly sexy clinch. Fully clothed, aching for more and wholly aware of the growing urgency of desire between them had her feeling saucy and emboldened.
She had never, not once, ever, in her deeply practical life had naughty sex. And right now it was all she wanted. If there had been a pair of pink feathery cuffs in her desk drawer she would be pleading with him to use them. She wished she’d worn her sexy-girl boots her sister had given her, but she’d never felt scrumptious enough to dare. Until now. Matteo was bringing her body alive in a way she hadn’t dreamed possible.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” She was surprised at the husky sound of her voice. Where had that come from?
“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” Matteo replied smoothly with a tropically heated wink.
How did he even do that?
The look that passed between them as he lazily traced a finger across her collarbones said they both knew what was happening here. They were two consenting adults who would never see each other again. After tonight they could go back to being strangers who occasionally saw one another’s names in medical journals.
Would it have been amazing to go to Argentina and dazzle him with her research? Absolutely. Would she trade that for the kisses and touches bringing her body to heightened levels of response? Not that she really had a choice in the matter, but, Oh, yes! Again and again and again.
Unexpectedly, Matteo’s hand slipped beneath the fabric of her dress and cupped her breast. Harriet had to stop herself from crying out as he swept the fabric aside, unclipped the front clasp of her bra and took her breast in his mouth. Her nails dug into his hand, still holding hers tight against the wall. The last thing she felt like wa
s a captor. She wanted to be taken. She wanted to be his.
Her breath quickened as his tongue took its lazy time exploring first one breast, then the other, her nipples instantly peaking at each touch of his tongue. If her hands had been freed she would have dragged him up to receive countless hungry, insatiable kisses. Held against the wall, she understood, for the first time, the luxury of only being able to respond, reveling in the generosity of the layers of pleasure he was unwrapping within her.
Matteo’s free hand shifted away the fabric belt and then the skirt section of her dress, his fingers moving along her stomach, her hipbone, her— Oh! His mouth covered hers the instant her cry of response became a moan of sheer, undiluted longing. His fingers slipped and slid, explored and discovered, as her brain short-circuited with need. All her body could do was respond to his touch. She flicked off her heels and went on tiptoe as her legs parted to receive the strokes and cupping of his hand, the shift of fingers, until she couldn’t bear it any longer and was forced to give in to heated wave after wave of release.
“Please,” she whispered. “I want you.”
“Are you sure you want to do this?”
A twist of panic caught up with her longing. Protection. Her nurse’s brain kicked into turbo gear. She’d given a few classes on safe sex to the older residents. Did she have anything in her office? She definitely didn’t in her handbag. Had never even presumed to have something in her handbag.
“I’m not sure I have protection.”
“We have to use something.” Matteo’s voice was thick with emotion. “Practice what we preach.”
“Of course. Absolutely!” A nervous giggle leapt past her lips. “The voice of reason speaks!” She was grateful to see a smile playing upon his lips as well. Wouldn’t that be rich? A nurse working with orphans getting pregnant from unprotected sex with a man she would most likely never see again. The tabloids would love a naughty nurse scandal. For about thirty seconds. And then she’d have to deal with everything on her own. Just like her sister—
Stop!
She had to stop thinking. Thinking too much was what had made her The Sensible One. The one who didn’t take risks.
Tonight? She wanted to be the one who finally, at long last, came out of her cocoon. Sensibility be damned!
At least for tonight.
She wiggled out of his hold, her dress shifting along her sides, the cool evening air sending a tickle of goose pimples across her belly. Unbelievably she didn’t feel like a class-A idiot.
She felt sexy.
All barefoot and tiptoeing across her office to scrabble in the back reaches of her desk for a condom? This was better than a soap opera! She pulled the wide, central desk drawer open. The one with the dull-from-use pencils, the pen caps without an owner, the mishmash of medical brochures she’d not read yet, or might not ever have a chance to read.
As she stretched and reached into the farther reaches of the drawer she felt Matteo’s hands glide over her hips and across her buttocks. Her body swayed along with the exploratory cadence his hands made along her body, bringing out a great desire to find the blinkin’ protection as soon as humanly possible. Urgency overtook the need to be tidy. Office supplies were flying out of her hands any which way. Where were the condoms?
The more intimately Matteo’s hands explored, the faster she expelled items from the drawer until, after what felt like forever, she felt a foil-lined packet with a familiar shape. She grabbed it triumphantly and turned around, holding it between them like a trophy.
Matteo tugged his fingers through the twisted tendrils of her hair, the pins plinking to the floor as he pressed himself against Harriet’s body. The red-blooded Latin side of him surged to the fore. He wouldn’t be able to leave without having her. Feeling her skin against his as she responded to his caresses forced a decision.
“Me quiero que seas mío.” His voice was gruff with desire. He wanted her and he wanted her to know how much.
Harriet pressed herself against his erection, her teeth taking hold of one of the buttons of his shirt in an untethered, primal attempt to get closer. He almost laughed at the wonderfulness of it. Had he seen the tigress in her when they’d first met? The kitten maybe. Now she was ready to roar.
He ripped his shirt up and over his head. Another two seconds and Matteo had dispensed with both of their sets of clothes. He turned Harriet round to face the wall, hands shifting along the shivers that accompanied his touch. He was moved by her response to him. Again it struck him how real, how true a person she was. Harriet could only be herself. A part of him regretted that they would never know each other beyond this night. The thought doubled the intensity of his desire. He wanted to know he could tap the part of his mind busy memorizing the feel of her skin, her scent, her gasps and soft cries of pleasure at his touch. He’d take his time, give them each plenty to remember.
Restraint was harder to exercise in practice. The tigress was well and truly alive in Harriet. Having already brought her to one peak of desire, Matteo was soon clear she had more than enough energy to burn. As he pressed against her, luxuriously enjoying the sensation of her bum shifting and wiggling against his erection, she trapped two of his fingers in her mouth and began to suck them in an achingly slow foreshadowing of what he would be feeling when he was finally inside her.
Wicked thoughts of Harriet in a nun’s habit flashed past his mind’s eye, sending long pulses of heat straight through to his very marrow. If she’d been all prim-and-proper nursey this morning, she was anything but tonight.
He whipped her round to face him, cupped her buttocks and pulled her up until her legs encircled his waist. When he went to kiss her, he saw she held the wrapped condom between her teeth, eyes glinting with anticipation. One swift move and he cleared her desk of the debris she’d covered it in. Being tidy was the last thing on his mind.
From the luxuriously slow cadence with which Harriet was unwrapping the packet, Matteo could see she was savoring each moment they had together. Yes, it was to be a one-off—but, by God, it would be memorable.
She touched and tasted the length of his erection, before beginning the excruciatingly sexy act of sheathing him. He marveled that he’d ever thought her shy at all. Now wearing only a single strand of necklace gently weighted with a tiny locket, Harriet Monticello was a first-class seductress.
Unable to hold back any longer, Matteo lifted her in his arms, slowly lowering her until they were together, exchanging heat, sharing a heartbeat. He backed her against the wall, moving slowly at first then swiftly, deeply, until his only option was to join her in an intense, full-bodied release. He felt her teeth dig into his shoulder, her breasts pressed into his chest as he came inside her again and again. When their breathing had steadied, he stayed inside her, unwilling to break the spell. Once they said goodbye, he would never see her again.
Just thinking it hurt. Going through it would hurt more. But he didn’t do relationships. And he didn’t do love. All it led to was heartbreak.
Work. It was the only way he was ever going to heal the hole his sister’s death had left in his soul. The only way he could try to make things right.
He tipped his head back, enjoying the sensation of Harriet’s fingers tracing the muscles of his back, his sides. She asked for nothing. She seemed to be completely at one with the intimacy they had just shared and he found himself fighting the feeling of completion it elicited in his heart.
How could he do it? Expose himself to the pain loving someone inevitably brought? He tugged her a bit more tightly into his chest and enjoyed her body’s response. A little shimmy and nestling into the angle of his neck and shoulder as he lowered them both to the floor, her legs still wrapped tightly round his waist as if she would never let him go. Perhaps she was coming to terms with saying goodbye as well.
He closed his eyes and breathed Harriet in, painfully aware h
e was in danger of losing the battle of wills with himself. If anyone was able to handle the extremes of his life, he believed it would be Harriet. The incredible highs. The lows haunting him to this day.
Would she understand that was who he was? Both light and shade? Someone very likely in need of a good woman to help ground him? Someone at risk of drowning in his own vain efforts to make his sister’s death be of some value? Someone who would never bring another child into this world?
No. She deserved more. She deserved everything her heart desired and, blinkered as he was, he couldn’t see a way to give her a world of happiness.
“Amorcito.” Matteo gently unlocked her feet, still twisted at the base of his spine, and slowly began the inevitable separation, finishing with a soft kiss on her forehead so he could avoid the questions in her eyes. “I must go.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“HARRIET!”
Thunk.
“Oops! Are you all right there? I didn’t mean to make you bang your head.”
Harriet reversed out from beneath her desk. Funny the things that had turned up there this morning.
“Are you all right?”
Dr. Bailey’s voice was a bit too bright for first thing in the morning. She looked up at him and attempted a smile.
“You’re looking well!”
Check that. Far too bright.
Harriet wasn’t nursing a hangover—she’d steered clear of drowning her sorrows. What she was nursing? Something much more debilitating. A what? A sex-over? It wasn’t like she was used to having wanton sex in her office. Or, more accurately, it wasn’t like she was used to having wanton sex, full stop.
Or was everything she was feeling post Matteo’s abrupt departure a twenty-four-hour version of a broken heart? When he’d left, it had felt as if her personal wattage had been lowered to dim. She hadn’t even bothered going home. A sneaky shower in the surgical ward, a pair of scrubs and one of the sofas had seen her through until dawn. Opening her eyes to a new day hadn’t been the rose-colored wonder she’d been banking on.