A Woman Worth Waiting For

by Meredith Webber

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  MAX returned the cassettes to the plastic bag. He had nothing of any substance to report to Brent, but he doubted whether his cousin had expected anything to come of the exercise.

  Something in the quality of the silence in the room made him turn—to find Ginny studying him, a faint frown line suggesting she might not like what she was seeing.

  ‘Well?’ he asked, though perhaps he didn’t need to know what the frown signified.

  ‘I was looking at you, Max,’ she said softly. She stood up and came towards him, stopping within touching distance and putting up her hands to frame his face.

  ‘I know it’s been six years, and I’ve told you about my problems during that time, but they’ve not been easy years for you, have they, Max?’

  He looked into her eyes and saw concern reflected in them.

  Sighed.

  ‘Is it your work? Does the evil people do stay with you all the time, weighing you down?’

  He felt his lips twitch towards a rueful smile, covered her hands with his and squeezed her fingers.

  ‘I don’t only deal with serial offenders. I do lots of other stress-related work that’s interesting and rewarding and hopefully of help to the people I see.’

  He paused to see if she’d pursue the subject further, then decided, given the softness in her eyes, he could probably risk ending it another way.

  Grasping her hands and guiding them down to lie between them, he leaned forward and brushed the kiss lightly across her lips.

  Her eyes widened, but she didn’t step away.

  Neither did she kiss him back!

  ‘Is this OK?’ she asked. ‘I feel kind of weird—irresponsible—kissing like this in the middle of the afternoon. Especially when I’ve been no help whatsoever with the videos.’

  ‘I think it’s OK,’ Max assured her, drawing her closer so his words would have carried little puffs of air onto her skin. ‘And those tapes have nothing to do with you and me, or what’s between us.’

  ‘OK,’ she whispered, then she pressed against him, extracting her hands from his and threading them into his hair.

  Warmth turned to heat, and the slick oil fire of desire flamed in his body. His hands slid on the slippery fabric of her dress, gliding over her curves. She could have been naked, so lovingly did the material mould itself to her form.

  Now she kissed him back, and he wondered if he should have pushed for this result, as her kisses made him feel light-headed—out of control.

  An adolescent again!

  He banished the mental arguments and gave in to the desire burning within him, his lips and tongue exploring Ginny’s mouth, his hands learning the contours of her body. Her hands were doing some exploring of their own, her fingers feeling the flat sheaths of muscle on his shoulders, tracing down his spine—way down his spine.

  He held her close but one hand found her breast, felt the gasp of indrawn breath as his fingers rasped across a too-receptive nipple. Heard her groan as he caught the sensitive peak between his fingers and gently pressured it.

  ‘I don’t think kissing is going to be enough,’ she whispered, the uncertainty in the words warning him to stop teasing. He raised his head, seeking meaning beyond the words in her expression.

  Her clear skin was flushed, her eyes wide with a mix of excitement and uncertainty.

  ‘It’s up to you,’ he said, his body protesting violently about this interruption, but his mind regaining the upper hand—if only momentarily.

  ‘I don’t want it to be up to me.’

  Ginny heard her own lament and recognised the mix of whimper and entreaty.

  ‘It has to be up to you,’ Max said, his voice implacable though other bits of his body told her how much he wanted to go further.

  ‘Why?’

  Heavens! Any minute now she was going to self-combust, while Max seemed intent on carrying on a rational conversation.

  ‘Because you felt betrayed by my departure. You’re still doubtful about trusting me again. You’re not a one-nightstand kind of girl, and making love this afternoon will move our relationship onto another plane. Are you ready for that, lovely lady?’

  ‘Lovely lady?’ His husky words had reverberated in her heart and sent new warmth racing through her blood. ‘You’re talking about me? Little Ginny?’

  He reached out and put his arms around her, drawing her close.

  ‘There’s never been even a glimmer of a doubt in my mind about who you are, Ginny Willis. Or that you’re very definitely a lovely lady.’

  His voice was so deep, so full of emotion, it rasped across her skin.

  But still she needed reassurance.

  ‘Not a student nuisance who has to be treated with special care?’

  ‘Only the special care I’d expend on anything or anyone I loved, Ginny.’

  Love! He’d used the ‘l’ word!

  Max had used it in conjunction with her!

  Somewhere in her head, joy fizzed and popped like party favours, yet still she balked at the final hurdle, for underneath the tremulous excitement of making love to Max— finally and irrevocably—there was a lingering disquiet that maybe some of the sadness of the past might emerge and she might make a total idiot of herself.

  His kiss began as the previous one had, with a gentle, almost tentative touch, but the flame of their attraction, intensified by the years they’d spent apart, flared to something fierce and unstoppable. So this time when his fingers brushed across her breast, she pressed closer, silently demanding more, and this time her fingers dared to explore further, so she knew his need for her matched hers for him.

  He talked and murmured, reassured her wounded heart with words of love she’d never dreamed she’d hear, leading her through a slow exotic and erotic dance until she all but begged him to finish things, to take her—make her his.

  The oath he muttered—sharp, hard and resonating with anger—stunned her, while his movement—the space he put between them—left her weak and hopelessly forlorn.

  ‘Not you, me!’ he muttered as if that might explain all. He was stomping around the room like someone needing the physical release of movement to ease his frustration. ‘It’s one thing to feel like an adolescent, but to be behaving like one… Of all the totally irresponsible egg-heads…’

  Ginny watched this mystifying performance while the heat charge of emotion cooled in her body. Cooled enough for her to approach him, to touch him, even hold him.

  ‘Is all this fury something you can share?’

  She felt a small gurgle of laughter welling up inside her— so much passion, then zilch! There was a funny side.

  Max looked into her eyes, and she saw his anger fade, the gold flecks return—then dance with the same wry amusement she was feeling.

  ‘I’ve no protection,’ he admitted. ‘Nothing. And if you think I’m going to take the slightest risk you might become pregnant before we’ve sorted out our lives, forget it.’

  ‘Oh, Max!’

  She snuggled closer, unable to explain how—‘cherished’ was the only word for it—he’d made her feel.

  His arms wrapped around her, drawing her close, and though the kisses he pressed on her neck lacked the fiery passion of the earlier ones, they were infinitely sweet—infinitely acceptable.

  ‘We could go and get some now,’ she whispered as sweet again began to escalate to warm.

  ‘So we could,’ he whispered back, pressing her closer to prove his own desire was building nicely.

  ‘But not at the hospital pharmacy.’

  ‘Dispenser in the men’s toilets?’ he suggested, and she backed away, laughing openly now but also blushing that she could be having this conversation with Max, of all people.

  ‘Pharmacy in the city,’ she told him. ‘Come on. I’ll drive and you can go in and ask.’

  ‘You make it sound like a bank heist where you get to drive the getaway car,’ Max grumbled.

  ‘I’ve always seen myself in that role,’ Ginny
told him. She found her car keys and jiggled them at him. ‘Come on!’

  Ginny had thought driving was going to be the easy part of the exercise, but Max soon proved her wrong. While she concentrated on the road, he was free to concentrate on her, teasing and tormenting her with soft touches, fingertips gliding across the sensitive skin inside her forearm.

  ‘I’ll crash this car and we’ll end up in hospital and then where will we be?’ she demanded, slapping away a hand that had crept up to touch her inner thigh.

  ‘Maybe in the same ward?’ he suggested, loading his husky, accented voice with suggestive innuendo.

  ‘But best we crash on the way home,’ he added in more cheerful tones. ‘That way, wherever we end up, I’ll be prepared.’

  Ginny glanced his way, and saw that the light-hearted mood enveloping her was reflected on Max’s face. Not only was she having fun, but she was sharing that fun with someone special, which doubled—no, more than doubled, maybe quadrupled—the joy and value of it.

  ‘Fun?’

  ‘You read my mind,’ she admitted.

  ‘And there’s more ahead for both of us,’ he promised. ‘Look, there’s a space.’

  He pointed to a vacant parking space and she slid her little car efficiently into it. Max extracted his long, lanky frame then bent almost double to peer back into the car.

  ‘Is there anything you favour?’ he asked her. ‘Special design? Flavours? I believe they come in most fruits.’

  ‘Oh, get away!’ she snorted, waving her hand to emphasise the point. If the heat she could feel in her cheeks was any indication, she’d be the same colour as a strawberry right now.

  Max returned with such a look of satisfaction on his face that Ginny had to laugh.

  ‘Talk about the cat that swallowed the canary!’ she teased.

  ‘It’s not like that at all,’ he protested, but he, too, was smiling.

  Though not for long.

  ‘Will you look at this traffic?’ he complained, when they were stopped at the traffic lights for the fourth time since they’d turned the car around.

  ‘It’s peak hour. People going home from work,’ Ginny reminded him.

  ‘It can’t possibly be that late,’ Max grumbled.

  Ginny checked the time on the dashboard clock.

  ‘Look for yourself. It’s after six.’

  ‘After six!’ he groaned, his tone becoming gloomier and gloomier. ‘I don’t believe this.’

  Ginny concentrated on getting through the lane-changing city traffic, so it wasn’t until they were approaching the hospital that things eased enough for her to ask, ‘Why all the worry over the time?’

  ‘Why indeed,’ Max muttered. ‘Look for yourself. Lights on in Sarah’s flat. No lights shining in Paul’s flat, but he’s sure to appear any minute. What are we going to do? Sneak into yours or mine? Then hope Sarah doesn’t come innocently banging on the door to ask me a question or report to you on her day? While Paul Markham is almost certainly going to knock on yours to ask you out to dinner.’

  ‘I told Sarah we’d go to the Thai,’ Ginny remembered glumly, as the full implications of the time struck home.

  She pulled into her car space outside the flats, cut the engine and turned to Max.

  ‘And it gets worse, doesn’t it?’ she all but wailed. ‘Even at night, what can we do? Pretend to say goodnight to each other then one sneak back into the other’s flat? I know I’d be no good at that kind of thing, but until we know for sure how we feel about each other…’

  Max touched her lightly on the arm.

  ‘We don’t want to make it obvious!’ he finished for her. ‘I can understand that. In fact, I agree, though for different reasons. I think this beginning time is just for us—for the two of us to explore, and share, and treasure. No intrusions, even if they are well intentioned.’

  Ginny’s eyes, wide with wanting, gazed piteously into his.

  ‘So what do we do?’ she cried. ‘Pretend we’re not aching to leap into bed with each other? Go back to being just friends but be careful not to touch in case we self-combust? I don’t think I’ll be any good at this, Max!’

  He decided he didn’t care who might be watching and brushed his fingers down her cheek.

  ‘You’ll be wonderful,’ he promised her. ‘Incredibly believable. Let’s just start with tonight and see how we go. Then, as soon as you have time off again, we’ll go away. After we’ve decided for ourselves it’s what we want, it won’t matter who knows.’

  He saw the smile waver on her lips.

  ‘I could kiss you right now,’ she murmured. ‘Just for being you.’

  ‘Hold the thought,’ he told her, touching the tip of her nose with his forefinger. ‘Just hold that thought.’

  He tucked the pharmacy packet deep into his trousers and got out of the car—which was when he realised he was still sporting the beetroot stain.

  ‘I really must get my act together!’ he muttered to himself, but the memory of Ginny’s response to his kisses, and his response to her response, made the getting of acts together a remote possibility in the near future!

  Sarah greeted them as they reached the veranda.

  ‘My turn to invite people in,’ she said. ‘I’ve stocked up, thanks to one of the nurses who was going to the bottle shop. I’ve wine or coffee, even some light beer if you’d prefer it, Max, so shall we have a drink before we go out to dinner?’

  Max decided he’d be better off not glancing towards Ginny, but he did wave a hand towards his trousers.

  ‘After a shower and change of clothes,’ he said. ‘I can’t believe I’ve been running around in these grubby clothes for so long.’

  And as Ginny chuckled, no doubt remembering why he hadn’t had time to change, he quickly added, ‘And remind me—no beetroot on the sandwiches tomorrow.’

  That would show her how to play the pretending game.

  But as she turned to Sarah, her green eyes guileless, and asked, ‘Half an hour?’, he realised she’d probably be far better at it than he was.

  She was waltzing calmly off towards her flat, while he was having trouble controlling hands that wanted to reach out for her and a silly smirk that kept wanting to settle on his lips.

  ‘Off you go,’ Sarah said, in the kindly tone women used when they were pretending they understood all about men.

  He went, but not because she’d told him to. He went because the sooner he was showered and cleanly clad, the sooner he could be close to Ginny again—even if it was a ‘hands off’ kind of close.

  The next few days were torment for Max, being with Ginny, seeing her, stealing kisses at unexpected moments, while the memories of how close they’d come—not to mention how close they intended coming—to making love together, reduced his nerves to a twitching urgency that made work-related thought almost impossible.

  ‘If we don’t get this over and done with soon, I’ll have a nervous breakdown,’ he told her, catching her alone in one of the patient cubicles late on Friday morning. ‘I can’t believe you don’t have Saturday and Sunday off, like normal people.’

  ‘I’m having two days off on Monday and Tuesday,’ she reminded him, snuggling close for a minute. ‘But, better than that, Sarah’s having a real weekend off and she’s leaving tonight—going down to stay with her parents and James. I can’t believe Paul will hang around the flats over the weekend, so I thought maybe…’

  Her voice tailed away and he had to hug her hard because he couldn’t put the magnitude of his feelings into words.

  ‘It’s not the sex,’ he began, wanting to explain something of the overwhelming emotional tangle in which he found himself, but the arrival of a nurse stopped all conversation.

  ‘Well, I’m glad about that!’ the nurse said cheerily, which broke them apart and sent both of them scurrying back to work with reddened cheeks and even more elevated frustration levels.

  Max spent the afternoon in the little office, feeding details of his early findings on stress levels into
his laptop.

  It was a task he could have done back at the flat, but being in the department made him feel close to Ginny and he’d also be able to walk her home.

  At one stage, he saw Brent walk in and look around, then make a beeline for the rear section of the department. Not wanting to draw attention to his connection with the police, Max let him go. If Brent wanted him, he’d find him soon enough. He continued typing figures into a work sheet he’d set up to try to tabulate the patient population, but as the lights in the waiting room grew brighter, he realised night had fallen.

  Had Ginny been caught up with a patient?

  Or, worse, forgotten he was waiting for her?

  He closed down the work he was doing and shut the laptop, tucking it under his arm and gathering up his notebooks before setting out to find her.

  ‘I think she left some time ago,’ Brad told him. ‘There’s always a bit of a lull before the storm on Friday nights, so I guess she took advantage of it.’

  He thought for a moment, then added, ‘It must have been right after the policeman was here.’

  Anxiety stirred in Max’s stomach—anxiety and a tiny worm of fear.

  It wasn’t even properly dark, he told himself. She’d have been OK walking home alone.

  Though why?

  He couldn’t answer that one and the worm burrowed deeper, so his footsteps lengthened as he crossed the car park and dashed across the busy road at the first slight break in the traffic.

  Relief washed through him when he saw the light in Ginny’s window, but the ‘why’ question remained, burning on his lips as he leapt up the steps, strode across the veranda and knocked peremptorily on her door.

  ‘Should have used my own key!’ he muttered to himself when a murmur of voices—one male—answered his knock.

  Then Ginny was there, opening the door and peering at him as if he was the last person she expected to see.

  ‘Yes, Max?’ she said, enough ice in her voice to sink the Titanic all over again. ‘Did you want something?’

  Did he want something? He stared at her, probably with his mouth agape, while he tried to assimilate the question.