‘You love Anouk?’
‘Don’t be stupid,’ Sol scoffed. ‘I’m not saying that. It’s just hypothetical.’
He hated himself for not sounding more convincing. It ought to—it was the truth after all. There was no way he could be in love with anyone. Let alone Anouk. Whatever they shared between the two of them, it wasn’t love. Was it?
Sol waited for the harmless jeering but it didn’t come. Instead, Malachi eyed him morosely.
‘Hypothetically, I don’t even know if we have that capacity,’ Malachi gritted out unexpectedly. ‘But maybe the question should be, do we deserve it?’
Sol didn’t know how to answer, but it didn’t matter because his brother was speaking again.
‘More pertinently, does any woman deserve to be subjected to our love, bratik? Such as we know what that is.’
If his brother had punched him in the gut Sol couldn’t have felt any more winded. As if the air had been sucked from his very lungs.
Was Mal right? Would his love be more of a curse than any sort of a gift?
His mind was so full of conflicting thoughts that he simply let them jostle, his eyes scanning the room almost as a distraction. Which was when they alighted again on the Christmas tree.
‘So, you and Saskia?’
‘I don’t wish to discuss it.’ Malachi cut him off harshly.
‘But you need to,’ Sol answered. He rarely stood up to his brother, he rarely needed to. This, he felt, was different. This mattered. To both of them. ‘Right here, right now. Our mother ruined both of our childhoods. It’s time we both decided whether we’re going to let her ruin our futures, too.’
* * *
‘What have we got?’ Sol asked, rounding the corner to the bay. It had been a hectic shift so far, but he thrived on that.
The young doctor running the case looked relieved.
‘Darren, nineteen, he suffers from epilepsy and this morning he had two back-to-back seizures, which is out of the norm for him. Full tonic-clonic seizures usually months apart and often only if there’s already something going on in the body, like an infection.’
‘Has he got an infection?’ Sol checked.
‘I think an ear infection.’
‘And you’ve started a course of antibiotics?’
‘Yes.’
‘So, possibly not neuro at this point. But keep me in the loop,’ Sol confirmed. ‘Okay, let me go and check in the next bay. I had a call for them, as well.’
* * *
He slipped around the curtain just as Anouk glanced up. Surprise swept over her face for a moment but she regrouped quickly.
‘This is Jack, twenty-five. He was drinking and playing football in the park with a group of mates when he collided with a tree. Loss of consciousness for about five minutes. Pupils are unequal and reactive and he’s agitated. We’re taking him up to CT now.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ Sol confirmed.
Unequal pupils suggested a bleed on the brain, which might be pushing against the brain itself.
‘Great.’ Anouk nodded, turning back to her team and issuing her final instructions. ‘Let’s go.’
‘He isn’t responding to us verbally, although he does react physically if we ask him to do something. I don’t know if the verbal is about the alcohol or a possible injury.’
* * *
‘Are you going to the centre tonight?’ she asked quietly as they strode along the corridors behind the patient.
‘Yes, why?’
‘I was thinking of going.’
‘Do you need a lift?’ He frowned, not liking her caginess.
It felt like a huge step backwards, but he couldn’t pinpoint why.
‘No, I just thought that...maybe you’d prefer it if we weren’t there together.’
‘Why not?’
It shouldn’t gnaw at him the way it did. He understood why she might think it should bother him.
‘If that was going to be an issue then I wouldn’t have invited you to visit in the first instance,’ he told her.
Except he still didn’t know what had motivated him to ask her. He refused to accept that it was some uncharacteristic need to have her see a different side to him. That didn’t make sense.
Although it seemed the most logical conclusion.
‘I just wasn’t sure.’ She lowered her voice even further as the team reached the CT department and people began to congregate. ‘After our...one-night stand.’
Her sudden whisper almost made him laugh. Any other time it probably would have done. But Sol was too busy thinking how dismal the term sounded on Anouk’s lips. It felt inadequate to describe either of their encounters that way.
One-night stand—admittedly lasting longer than just the one ‘night’ sounded, frankly, a little pitiful.
What was happening to him? Why was he reading so much into everything? They’d had a good time together. Twice. Surely he should be more than happy to accept it for what it was?
‘I’m heading down there after work,’ he informed her. ‘I’ll drive you, too.’
‘Oh, it’s okay, I can walk.’
‘I’ll come down to the department when I’m done. If I’m caught up with a case, wait for me, we’ll go together.’
It wasn’t a request and they both knew it.
Still, when she flashed him a shy smile it twisted inside him, like a ribbon on a maypole. Delicate and pretty.
Sol snorted to himself as he stepped into the room. He was going to have to watch himself. If he wasn’t careful then he risked Anouk wrapping herself around him in more ways than either of them could ever have anticipated.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE CENTRE MIGHT as well have been Santa’s grotto itself, Sol thought, surveying the scene in front of him—a hive of excitement and activity, it felt like the very epicentre of Christmas for the whole of Moorlands Wood.
And there, sitting on the floor, with Libby firmly wedged on one side of her and Katie on the other, pressing against her as though each claiming her as their own, was Anouk. It struck him that the girls’ easy acceptance of her said more about Anouk than anything a person could say. These kids dealt with so much at such a young age that they often seemed to develop sixth senses about people.
This had to explain why he had let her slip under his skin without realising it. As he’d told Malachi, it wasn’t anything as nonsensical as love.
Nevertheless, there was a draw there, a magnetism that pulled him in despite his vows to keep his distance. Which meant that, even now, he couldn’t tear his gaze away.
Anouk looked totally engrossed in what she was doing. And what she was doing, he realised after a few moments’ scrutiny, was measuring chocolate balls into a jar, before gluing reindeer antlers, funny eyes, and a big red nose onto the glass.
By the look of the full box in front of them, the trio had been working together for some time and were so focussed on the task in hand that none of them noticed him. And so he was free to stand and admire this fascinating woman who appeared, bizarrely, to have so captured his attention.
Without warning, Anouk looked up and her eyes—wide with surprise—locked with his. He didn’t think, he didn’t consider, he just reacted, flashing her a wide grin; something bursting inside him as she responded instinctively with a hint of a smile, her cheeks taking on a delicately pink hue.
Before he realised where he was, he had crossed the room and was standing in front of the trio. Still, it took him a supreme effort to tear his gaze from Anouk and greet the two young girls still nestled so lovingly on either side of her, as though seeking protection from her metaphorical wings.
‘So we’re making reindeer chocolate jars, are we?’ he managed brightly.
‘We’ve just finished.’ Katie cast her arm over the full box solemnly. ‘Now we’re going to make beaded friend
ship bracelets for each other.’
‘Kruto! Wow, they look amazing. Can I join in?’ He felt Anouk’s sharp gaze but he kept his eyes fixed on the girls, gratified when they nodded excitedly and got to their feet.
‘We’ll go and get the beads and the thread.’ Libby grabbed Katie’s arm. ‘Why don’t we use all green and red, like a Christmas theme?’
‘Okay, but we should still have silver thread—that will make it brighter,’ Katie advised as the two of them hurried off, lost in the carefree happiness of the moment and oblivious to the undertones that swirled around Sol and Anouk.
He settled himself on the floor next to her leaving a decent foot between them, but he still noticed her pulse leap at her throat as she deliberately avoided eye contact with him, inching another fraction away, as though she couldn’t trust them to be so close to each other. It offered him a perverse kind of exultation.
At least he wasn’t the only one feeling undercut by the intensity of the last week.
‘Did you know this thing between Saskia and my brother is serious?’
He hadn’t intended to say anything, but Malachi’s revelations were still bubbling in his head and he couldn’t help but wonder how much Anouk knew.
‘Saskia and Malachi? No, how could I know?’ Anouk frowned. ‘I’ve been with you, and when I did return home she wasn’t there.’
There was no reason for his body to tauten at the mere memory, surely?
‘I hope he doesn’t hurt her,’ continued Anouk, obliviously. ‘Saskia isn’t as airy and tough as she might appear.’
‘Funny, I was going to say the same thing about Malachi.’
She arched her eyebrows at him, waiting for some punchline. But he didn’t have one. He was worried about his brother for the first time in for ever.
They weren’t prepared for this...thing. Whatever it was. He might not have a name for it yet but he knew it was powerful. It assailed him at the most inopportune moments. Punching through him like a fist through wet paper. Like when he’d seen the naked sadness in her eyes when Anouk had told him about her father, or yesterday when he’d caught sight of her caring for her patient from across the ward, or today when she’d been so caught up with the girls that she hadn’t even noticed anyone else in the room.
It wasn’t love, but Sol imagined it was something in that family. He certainly cared for Anouk. So if whatever Mal felt for Saskia was anything like it, then he pitied his brother.
‘Malachi won’t hurt her. He isn’t like me.’
The words came out automatically. Because he might once have believed them, although now he wasn’t so sure.
‘Because he isn’t a playboy like you are, you mean?’
Why was it that it sounded so...hollow, coming off her tongue? Especially after the conversation they’d had in his apartment that night. It occurred to him that she might be testing him, but he had no idea how he was supposed to answer.
‘You could say that,’ he conceded, shocked at how much it cost him to sound so nonchalant.
‘The Smoking Gun,’ she added, and she didn’t need to add a roll of her eyes. Her words spoke loud and clear all on their own. As if she was reminding herself of his reputation. Cautioning herself.
And it bothered him. Especially after their time together.
For years he had revelled in his reputation as a playboy, had been proud of the fact that he’d come out of his childhood with such a strong sense of self. He had never pretended to be something he wasn’t. He loved being with women, but he had always hated the idea of a relationship with them—how much more honest could a man be?
Yet now, something had shifted and the names sounded toneless, even uncomfortable. Like a familiar old jacket that no longer suited—or fitted—him, but that he’d been trying to hold onto nonetheless.
His head was unusually hazy. As if some of its connections had been unexpectedly broken and it was trying to rewire itself using different paths.
He still wasn’t quite sure what it meant.
‘Great nickname, wasn’t it?’ he challenged, but the words seemed to leave an unpleasant, metallic taste in his mouth.
This was absurd.
The...thing he felt for Anouk was absurd.
With her sweet smile and gentle demeanour she had succeeded in hooking him in a way he would not have believed possible a mere week ago. If he wasn’t careful, she was the kind of woman who could easily tame him long enough to put him on a leash. But what had Malachi warned him? That a leopard didn’t change its spots? That he was under some kind of spell now, but that when he came around again, all hell would break loose and the person he would most likely end up hurting would be Anouk herself?
And the idea of hurting her made him feel physically sick.
He needed to get up and move away. Now. Before it was too late.
Instead, he sat, perfectly still, not making even a sound. And still something swirled around them. He could feel it and he knew she could, too.
‘We got loads of beads,’ Libby’s excited voice reached his ears from across the room.
Just one more night, he promised himself. Just one last time with Anouk, and then he’d find a way to end it without anyone getting hurt.
And when his eyes caught hers, widening a fraction, the pulse leaping at her throat, he knew she was thinking the same thing.
‘Come home with me.’ His voice was low and urgent, more a command than a request.
Anouk nodded, seconds before the girls raced back across the gallery floor to rejoin them, and he’d never wished for two hours to pass so expediently.
* * *
Last time they had barely got through the door before Sol had pulled her to him. This time, they barely made it to the lift.
Sol claimed her with such reverent kisses it was as though he was committing every detail of her touch to memory. Inscribing himself on her soul and she couldn’t seem to get enough of him.
She could never seem to get enough. And that was the essential problem.
Even now, as he peeled off her clothing to kiss every last millimetre of her body, laying waste to her resolve and tearing down every last barrier between them, she couldn’t do anything but let him.
A slave to him. Or a slave to her desire for him. Either way, it amounted to the same thing. He was making her forget their arrangement. He was making her want more.
And more again.
Worse, Anouk couldn’t bring herself to care. So when he scooped her up to carry her through to the bedroom, muttering hoarsely about not making it past the hallway otherwise, all she could do was cling to him, pressing her body to his and meeting his possessive mouth with her own, greedy demands.
It was all she could do to ignore the tight emotions that tumbled through her when he laid her down so very reverently on the bed, removing the last of her clothes until she was naked before him, and rolling back to gaze at her, spread out before him as if she was his own personal feast.
‘I’ve waited for this all day, zolotse,’ he muttered, before lowering his mouth to her neck, kissing and licking the column of her throat, and fitting his palms to her breasts as if he couldn’t bear not to touch her a moment longer.
He trailed scorching little kisses down her neck and to the sensitive hollow at the base, taking his time, until she was urging him on with little moans. He moved across her shoulder and over the swell of her chest, inch by exquisite inch, as if he didn’t want to skip over a single millimetre of her body until finally—finally—his mouth took over from his hands.
First he sucked one hard, aching nipple into his mouth, grazing his teeth over it gently but not too gently, flicking over it with his tongue, lavishing attention on her. And only when he seemed truly satisfied did he turn his attention to the other side, to repeat the same, adoring process.
And Anouk arched up to him as though to offer u
p more of herself, her whole body feeling heavy and restless and wanting more. So much more. But he held her in place, deliberately trapping her legs so she couldn’t part them around him, couldn’t draw him against her, couldn’t nestle him where she burned for him most.
Like some kind of exquisite torture.
But if he didn’t slide inside her soon, filling her up where all these wild sensations jousted in her, she didn’t know if she could survive it.
Anouk didn’t know when it occurred to her that if he could torment her so wantonly, then surely she, too, could tease him?
Slowly, carefully, she ran her hands over his back, indulging, just for a moment or two, in reacquainting herself with those hewn muscles that not even his bespoke suit and waistcoat could conceal.
And when he murmured his approval, he answered her long and low, reverberating through her breasts and into her already molten core.
With deliberate care she slid one hand around his waist and wrapped her fingers delicately around his sex. The effect was instantaneous, making her feel womanly and powerful all at once.
‘If you do that, you’ll find this won’t last anywhere as long as it could,’ he growled, and she loved the rawness in his tone.
‘That’s the idea,’ she whispered. ‘Because I don’t think I can hold out much longer.’
A primal sound slipped from his throat as he shifted from her, easing down her body and using his hand to move her legs apart.
‘At last,’ she sighed, waiting for him to settle between them.
But instead of his body, he edged down with his shoulders, lifting his head only long enough for her to see the wicked gleam in his eyes.
‘You can last,’ he rasped. ‘I insist on it.’
And then he buried his mouth, his tongue, into her heat, before she could answer, and she heard herself cry out.
Anouk had no idea how long he stayed there, paying homage to her as she could only clutch at his hair, his head, his shoulders, her raspy breath and abandoned cry the only sounds to break the silence. His murmurs of approval echoed through her, against her, as he feasted all the more making her shatter once, twice against his tongue then his fingers.
Unwrapping the Neurosurgeon's Heart Page 14