To Play With Fire

“Oh...um.” After a moment’s hesitation, she worked through her answer. “Yes. I have a question about one of our patients’s treatment.”

Our.

He’d been slowly letting out the reins and giving Maggie more responsibility, especially with international patients. Which served as a blessing, since it gave him some breathing space—time when he wasn’t constantly aware of her scent...of the soft, sexy accent when she spoke his language.

The memory of her straddling his hips in the cramped confines of his car as they’d hammered out all the reasons she should be careful about using certain hand gestures caused a visceral reaction low in his gut. One that came on so fast he had to grit his teeth to fight his way through it. Beads of sweat broke out on his upper lip as the images of that day swept over him.

Get past it, Marcos.

Forcing his thoughts back to the here and now, he focused on a safer subject: her language abilities.

She was doing well, but there were still treatment methods she wasn’t familiar with...words she struggled to translate in her head. And hearing her refer to his patient in a joint sense made something in his stomach shift. His eyes followed suit, moving lower for a split second to where Maggie’s fingers were unconsciously fiddling with one of the buttons on her silky green blouse. Just below the swell of her breasts. Breasts that had filled his hands to perfection.

Hell.

He dragged his gaze back to her face. “Which patient are you referring to?”

“Ana Leandro.”

“What’s the question?” He pushed away from the door and took a step closer, his eyes narrowing when Maggie moved back a pace, her bottom hitting the edge of his desk. She glanced down at the wooden surface in surprise then reached back and gripped it with both hands, sending all kinds of images ricocheting through his skull.

Very bad images. Of him. And her...

And that desk.

“You have her physical therapy scheduled for once a week. But she’s handling it well. Should we bump it up a bit and be a little more aggressive?”

He struggled to remember the patient’s diagnosis, closing his eyes to pull up a physical description of the young woman. Marcos had always been a visual learner, committing things to memory in a way that most people couldn’t. There’d been no books at their house, so he and his brother had both become adept at memorizing images and then trying to outdo the other.

He wondered if Lucas could still...

It didn’t matter. Nothing did, except keeping his mind trained on the task at hand.

“Where’s her chart?” She’d come into the room empty-handed, which was unusual. The woman was nothing if not meticulously efficient. Even the way she’d made love had been a study in efficiency—not a movement wasted. Not a sound made. Only the reflexive closing of her eyes as she’d lowered herself onto him one final time, the tightening of her hands on his shoulders and the sudden soft convulsions of her body telling him that she’d climaxed.

And her frieza, that cool, aloof manner that seemed so at odds with someone who had hair the color of burning embers had made the experience even hotter. Made him want to break through that icy wall and make her lose all control.

His body reacted again, and he took a steadying breath as he waited for her answer.

“Ana is in PT right now. I thought we might go and see her together.”

“Together...” His brow lifted. “Right now?” Why he felt the need to goad her was a mystery. Maybe it was irritation at the reaction she seemed to draw from him every time she was near.

Maggie’s lips parted, her teeth sinking deep into the lower one.

Okay, so maybe his thoughts weren’t the only ones edging toward a very dangerous cliff. Although that might not be a good thing because he might just be tempted to leap over the edge, and take her with him.

“I would like us to go and see her. Together.” Said as if she needed to clarify what she wanted to do with him.

Pity.

“Graciela was my last patient until after lunch, so...” He put a hand on the doorknob and pulled, the normal chaotic sounds of the hospital slipping through the opening and grounding him.

Just like they always did.

Silence was not his friend. Marcos was used to sound. Lots of it. His earliest memories were of his home in the favela, where the thin walls and corrugated metal roof had done nothing to dampen the sounds of life...and death. And afterwards, the orphanage where he’d been raised had been a boiling caldron of activity, the noise levels sometimes rising to the point where his ears had rung.

Which made Maggie’s quiet manner and even quieter lovemaking seem otherworldly...as if a cool marble statue carved by some gifted sculptor had come to life. What would she think of his world? His background?

Not something he wanted to dwell on.

“After you.” He motioned toward the open door.

“Oh. So you’ll see her?”

“That is what you were asking me to do.” He allowed the corners of his mouth to lift as his gaze trailed across her pale skin. “Isn’t it?”

She colored, right on cue. His lips edged higher. At least that was one reaction he could wring from her. There were things that even Maggie Pfeiffer couldn’t hide. The pucker of her nipples as he’d unbuttoned her blouse and let his fingers trail over her skin. The moist heat he’d discovered at the apex of those lean thighs as he’d pushed deep inside her.

“Yes. Of course it was.” She let go of the desk and slid her palms down the fabric of her grey pencil skirt, drawing his attention once again to areas he should avoid. At all costs.

She swished by him, the economy of her steps matching everything else he knew of her. Maggie didn’t waste her time on things that weren’t important.

Like her own wants and needs?

Maybe that’s why she’d fascinated him from the time he’d laid eyes on her all those months ago.

Brazilians were a hot people. And he’d grown up in an atmosphere where that heat had been fanned by the winds of desperation. People in the favelas clawed out happiness wherever they found it and devoured it whole. You didn’t wait to be asked. You took. Eased whatever pain you had...whether it was in your belly or in your loins.

And right now that pain was definitely south of his stomach.

But he’d sworn to himself that Maggie was off-limits from now on. He’d had her once.

And that had been more than enough.

* * *

Maggie’s legs were a quivering mass of nerves, but she forced them to keep moving down the long hospital corridor...to keep her body in motion. If she didn’t stop, he wouldn’t see her shake.

What the hell was it about the man that intimidated her? What was it about those brown eyes that made her insides heat?

Just because he reminded her of the dark knight from her dreams who came to rescue her from those horrible nights that seemed to never end—the ones where she tried so hard to keep quiet—was no excuse. Which was probably why she’d fallen prey to Marcos in the first place.

No. Prey was the wrong term. It had been nothing like that. Nothing like those nights from her past.

How she’d ended up kissing Marcos as they’d discussed a cultural mistake she’d made was still foggy in her head. Maybe it was some strange, unknown effect of embarrassment. One minute they’d been in his car in the staff parking garage, getting ready to drive to the apartment the hospital had secured for her. Nervous, she’d dropped her water bottle, and it had rolled into the well by his feet.

As they’d both leaned down to retrieve it, their cheeks had brushed, and heat had bloomed inside her. Marcos’s head had come up as if he’d sensed her reaction, his brown eyes staring deep into hers. The rest had been a blur of movement. A hot, fast shifting of clothes. His hands on her hips, lifting her up and over him, undoing the buttons of her blouse—she swallowed hard—sliding into her. Her body’s instant response.