Top-Notch Men!: In Her Boss's Special Care

With a gargantuan effort he forced the images of their bodies locked in passion from his mind and asked, ‘What did you want to see me about?’

‘I want you to remove Ruth Tilley from Kate Lowe’s room,’ she said implacably. ‘In fact, not just Kate’s room but ICTU altogether.’

His brow wrinkled as he brought the senior nurse’s features to mind, mentally reminding himself of her impressive capabilities. He’d seen her manage a trauma patient with multiple injuries almost single-handedly the previous week when several multi-trauma patients had arrived simultaneously and the medical staff had been stretched beyond the limits. She had saved a young man’s life and surely didn’t deserve the indignity of being dismissed from the unit without a very good reason. ‘Why? Have you some sort of issue with her?’ ‘Yes, I do, actually. She’s got the wrong attitude.’ His features hardened. ‘According to who?’ Allegra could feel his intransigence like an impenetrable wall being built brick by brick between them. She drew herself up to her full height and bit out, ‘According to me.’

‘Let me guess.’ His mouth quirked a fraction. ‘Her aura is off centre, is it?’

Allegra had had enough. ‘Don’t you dare make fun of me, Addison. If anyone’s aura is askew, it’s yours.’

He looked down at her flashing green eyes and his smile tilted even further. ‘Are you threatening me, Dr Tallis?’

She held his taunting brown gaze for several heart-chugging seconds, the atmosphere tightening around them to snapping point. The air was thick with it. She couldn’t even breathe properly. Her chest felt restricted, her head light as if not enough oxygen was getting through to her brain. Deep and low in her belly a throbbing pulse had begun a tattoo that triggered a silky liquid response between her thighs, which she suddenly realised with a jolt of awareness were way too close to his. Their hard muscled presence alerted her too late to the hot sexual current charging between their bodies, a current that she had tried desperately to ignore because of what she knew it signified.

She tried to step back but both of his hands countered it by coming down on her hips and with one short hard tug bringing her up against him.

‘Who’s going to throw the first punch, Allegra?’ he asked, staring at her mouth as if mesmerised. ‘Or should we kiss and make up instead?’

She moistened her lips nervously, her heart leaping in her chest as he brought his head down, her breath consumed by the greedy hunger of his mouth as it captured hers.

CHAPTER TWELVE

HIS kiss was a searing reminder of her escalating feelings for him, feelings she had never expected to feel for anyone, or at least not at this level of intensity. She wasn’t cynical enough to discount the prospect of ever falling in love, but never had she expected to do so in such a short space of time. She had not been in love with anyone before, although she had slept with previous boyfriends, more because of their expectations than anything she’d felt herself. But somehow Joel Addison, the one man who stood in the way of what she wanted to achieve, had stolen her heart without her being able to do anything to prevent it. She hadn’t even seen it coming. It had crept up on her with every look he’d sent her way, every word he’d spoken and with every nuance of his face as she’d watched him deal sensitively with patients and relatives and staff.

She wasn’t fool enough to imagine he had similar feelings for her. She knew enough about male hormones to recognise full-on lust when she saw it. Every determined stroke of his tongue against hers reminded her of how his body would feel inside the silky cocoon of hers. No rational argument was going to be enough to fight this overwhelming attraction that had crackled constantly between them almost from the first moment they’d met.

She returned his kiss with the same fire as his, her tongue dancing with his, her small teeth nipping at his bottom lip in response to the similar tantalising treatment by his. It was a primitive sort of exchange, at times bordering on the edge of pain, as if they were both trying to find each other’s boundaries.

Allegra imagined he would be a demanding but totally enthralling lover. She could feel it in his hands as they ruthlessly tugged her shirt out of her skirt, his warm palms possessing the aching weight of her breasts until her stomach caved in with out-of-control desire.

Her fingers curled into the thickness of his hair as she struggled to control her reaction to him. She was within a second of begging him to take her then and there when he dragged himself away to look down at her with glittering eyes, a dull flush of colour beneath the tan of his face.

‘Maybe I should have let you punch me instead,’ he said with a rueful smile that melted her almost as much as his kisses had done. ‘It might have been less complicated.’

She tidied her clothes as best as she could, trying her best to sound casual even while her stomach was still crawling with desire. ‘I don’t believe in violence,’ she said. ‘I would never have hit you.’

‘That’s very reassuring. For a moment there I thought I was going to have to make an emergency appointment with my orthodontist.’

She gave him a shame-faced look from beneath her lashes as she tucked in her blouse with unsteady hands. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t have a good night’s sleep and Ruth Tilley’s attitude towards Kate Lowe this morning upset me. I took it out on you.’

‘You can take it out on me any time you like if you choose the same modus operandi,’ he said. ‘In fact, how about we have dinner tonight and we can pick another fight? Is it your turn to choose or mine?’

‘I think it might be your turn,’ she said, unable to affect a reproving look in time and smiling at him instead.

He gave her an answering smile and brushed her cheek with the back of his hand. ‘Let’s keep this out of the corridors, OK? I don’t want to have to deal with the speculation right now. There are other pressing matters I have to concentrate on, but that’s not to say that during out of working hours we can come to some arrangement that is mutually satisfying.’

She lowered her gaze. ‘I understand …’

He tipped up her chin and looked deeply into her eyes. ‘I’m not sure you do, Allegra Tallis. I don’t think you have a clue about what I’m thinking right now.’

‘You don’t think I can read your mind?’

His eyes became like dark, unfathomable pools as he held her gaze. ‘It’s been a long time since I’ve been in a relationship, for a variety of reasons which I won’t go into now. Suffice it to say you don’t know me very well. I don’t want you to think I’m someone I’m not.’

‘We all have baggage,’ she said, trying to read his expression, but it was as if a mask had come down over his face, effectively shutting her out.

‘Maybe, but being involved with me involves sacrifices most women don’t have the fortitude to take. Believe me, I know it from experience.’

‘Has someone hurt you in the past?’ she asked softly.

‘I’m not the broken-hearted sort,’ he said. ‘I’m just aware of my own limitations in what I can offer another person in an intimate relationship.’

‘You’re a nice man, a decent gorgeous man …’ She gave him a spontaneous hug, leaning her cheek against his chest where she could feel his heart beating. ‘I’m willing to take the chance.’

He put her from him with a gentleness that was girded with firmness, his eyes meeting hers once more. ‘We’ll see.’

Allegra looked up at him, the shadows in his eyes worrying her. She eased herself away, feeling embarrassed and far too exposed. ‘I’m sorry … If you’re not interested, just say so. I can handle it.’

‘I don’t suppose there’s any hope of me denying my attraction to you with any efficacy,’ he said. ‘After all, you have the physical evidence which has been to date both repeatable and provable.’

She smiled crookedly in spite of her inner pain. ‘Ever the scientist, aren’t you?’

He pulled her close for one last kiss. ‘You’d better believe it, baby.’

‘I believe it but I still think there’s room for the grey areas that science overlooks.’

‘I’ve never said science has all the answers, Allegra. I just don’t want you to inadvertently bring disrepute on the unit, especially not now when every calculating eye is on it.’

‘You make it sound as if I’m a complete amateur who has no clue what she is doing.’

‘Do you know what you’re doing?’

She frowned at him. ‘Of course I do. I want what is best for both the patient and their loved ones.’

‘But what if the patient and loved ones have totally different needs, what then?’

‘Surely they would want the same things?’ she said. ‘Life is not a dress rehearsal. This is it. We get one chance at it. Life is precious in all its forms.’

She felt his sigh as if it had happened in her own chest, even though he was now at least half a metre away from her.

‘There’s a part of me that admires your commitment to what you believe in,’ he said heavily. ‘But another part—the realistic part—wants to shake you into the real world and show you that what you’re searching for doesn’t exist.’

‘Miracles, you mean?’

‘Miracles, fairy dust, aromatherapy—the tools of your moonlighting trade,’ he said. ‘They just don’t bring about the results people are desperate for, and I hate the thought of anyone being fooled into believing they can. It’s unspeakably cruel to offer hope when there is none. Lives get destroyed, hanging on the thin thread of a hope that just doesn’t exist.’

‘I’m not fooling anyone.’

He gave her one of his arched-brow expressions as he opened the door to leave. ‘Only yourself, and maybe in the end that is the worst sort of deception of all.’