Special Deliveries: Her Gift, His Baby: Secrets of a Career Girl / For the Baby's Sake / A Very Special Delivery

Ethan clamped his teeth together because he was incredibly tempted to silently mouth something really inappropriate to her, just to see those burning cheeks flame further.

‘Penny?’ Mr Dean asked when the silence dragged on. ‘You said he was then given a bolus?’

‘That’s right.’ She snapped back to her presentation and apart from that, apart from nearly jumping off the stage and straddling Ethan, Penny got through the rest of her speech really well. Attempting to be normal, Ethan congratulated her a little while later.

‘Well done,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry if I offended you that day. I didn’t mean to just walk in and take over.’

‘But you didn’t offend me.’ Penny frowned and then remembered. ‘I was having a hot flash, Ethan.’ She watched his face break into a smile. ‘It was the drugs—that was a glimpse of menopausal Penny.’

‘Well, remind me, if we’re both still working here then, that it’s time for me to look for another job,’ Ethan said laughingly.

‘Are you heading off, Ethan?’ Mr Dean walked past. ‘You were here all night.’

‘Soon,’ Ethan said, then he looked at Penny. ‘If I go home now I’m going to crash and I won’t get back.’

‘I’m so sorry.’ He really did look exhausted.

‘I’m going to go into the on-call room and sleep,’ Ethan said. ‘Get everything ready and then come and get me at five to six.’

‘Thanks.’

She tried to ignore the on-call room, but every time she walked past, the thought of Ethan lying in there asleep flashed like a strobe light in her mind. If she was like this now, what the hell was she going to be like after the embryo transfer? She might be needing that straitjacket after all.

Penny set up her needle and swab and had it all laid out in her office and then, because she could at times be nice, she made Ethan a coffee before she knocked on the door of the on-call room. He was so zonked she could actually hear the low sounds of snoring.

‘Ethan.’ She knocked again and put her head around the door. ‘Ethan, it’s nearly six.’ He sat up and sort of shook himself awake.

‘Can you bring it in here?’ He just wanted to get the injection over and done with and then go back to sleep but then he changed his mind and with good reason. ‘I’ll be out in a minute.’

‘I brought you a coffee.’

She walked over in the darkness and he got a waft of her scent. He heard the slight rattle as she put his coffee down on the bedside table and it was right that her hand was shaking, Ethan thought, because she was seconds away from being pulled into his bed.

‘Thanks,’ Ethan said. ‘I’ll be there soon.’

He had to get himself under control—physically and mentally—before touching her.

Hurry home, Jasmine.

He’d never met Jed, let alone his mother, but he wished her the speediest, most uneventful of recoveries from her stroke. Ethan gulped his coffee and splashed his face in the sink and then walked to Penny’s office.

‘Ready?’

‘Yes.’ She was fiddling with the tie of her dress and he could hear her starting to cry, just sort of breathy sobs that she was trying to keep in.

‘Okay, then.’ He walked towards her, and she was a mess, a hot mess at that, Ethan thought as he looked at her eyes. They showed a mixture of fear and lust and if she said no to the injection this time, he would drop the needle.

He didn’t want her to do this.

He wanted her to stop so that they could do what people who fancied each other did.

A lot.

He wanted to go out and have more dinners and have nachos himself next time and go far too far in a car park and then go even further back home.

‘No.’ She pushed at his hand as it reached for her dress tie, and he was breathing very hard now—tired, turned on, pissed off. He didn’t want to do this either.

‘What do you want, Penny?’ He forgot he wasn’t supposed to ask, he was supposed to go ahead and give her the needle. Her hands were on his arm and he tried to ignore the feel of her fingers on his skin. He tried to undo the tie for her as if he hadn’t been thinking about doing just that all day.

She had on silver-grey knickers and a matching cami, and through the silk he could tell her chest was almost completely flat. He liked curves, Ethan told himself, except he wanted his mouth to lower to the thick nipples he could see rising out of the fabric, and as he swabbed her stomach he caught a glimpse of blonde hair above her panty line and he could see a bit through the lace too.

And he did not want to give her this needle. He could hear her gulping and soft whimpers and feel her breath on his cheek, and he did not want to do it.

But he’d signed up for the gig so he swabbed her skin and though he hesitated over her stomach, he finally stuck the needle in.

‘There,’ he said. ‘You’re done.’

Ethan rubbed her stomach and then she took over. His hand did not linger, he just wanted this over and done, wanted out and home. Maybe tonight he’d call Kelly, get this Penny fantasy out of his head once and for all.

Then he saw the lust in her eyes and her lips were moving towards his and he jerked his head backwards. ‘Penny!’ he warned.

She screwed her eyes closed at his rejection. She’d have to resign, it was all just so unlike her. ‘I’m so sorry, Ethan. I think it’s the drugs, it’s like I’m on heat.’

He’d embarrassed her, Ethan knew that, which he’d never wanted to do. She had no need to be embarrassed. He wanted her too, so he tried to soften things, except he was rock hard. ‘I just don’t want to start something with someone who’s trying for a baby.’

‘I know. I get that completely. I’m never like this …’ She attempted her excuses again as he dropped the needle into the dish behind her. ‘It’s the drugs.’

‘It’s not the drugs, Penny,’ Ethan said, because he wasn’t taking any, but hormones were certainly raging and he stopped fighting it then, his mouth coming down on hers the way it had wanted to last night.

She almost came just at the pressure of his mouth as her stomach hollowed with lust. It wasn’t a brief kiss, it wasn’t unsure and whatever the opposite of tentative was should be called Ethan, because his tongue was deliciously crude, his unshaven jaw surely shredding her skin. Penny was no saint either. Her hands were in his hair, her scantily clad body pressing into him, feeling his fierce erection, and he pulled away just a little.

‘Penny …’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘I know this is going nowhere.’

‘You understand?’

‘Of course.’ She was in her office, with her dress undone, and it was all so inappropriate, especially for someone like Penny, so much so that she fought an incredible urge to laugh. Then she stopped fighting and laughed a little bit. ‘If you knew me, you’d know that it is the drugs. I’m going to be so embarrassed later.’

‘Why?’ He smiled down. ‘It’s just a kiss,’ Ethan said, ‘a one-off.’

‘An anomaly,’ Penny said. ‘Never to be repeated or mentioned again. As soon as you walk out the door we’re done.’

‘I’m not out the door yet.’

She was more than happy with the ground rules, just for the bliss of the return of his mouth.

It was just a kiss but it was a kiss with a secret. His fingers were working her nipples through the silk of her cami till she moaned in his mouth and then he slipped his hand up the cami so that skin could meet skin. He worked them a little more firmly. Normally she loathed that, hated the beat of disappointment when they found out that she really was quite flat-chested, but it just didn’t matter right now. If anything he was even more turned on because he pressed his erection hard into her, and she almost came undone—a ball of hot tension in his arms.