The Doctor's One Night to Remember

The full force of his gaze sent a primitive wave of heat crashing through her.

Isla forced herself to laugh. ‘What for? Doing my job?’

‘Doing it so quietly that none of the other guests have felt panicked enough to return to the ship along with Mr Camberwell. It happens,’ he added when she frowned in surprise.

‘Oh.’

It was all she could think of. Her mind had gone blank.

‘You are always so discreet, Isla. It’s a surprising quality, particularly on a cruise ship like ours, I find.’

The compliment was as unexpected as it was sincere, catching Isla off-guard. For a moment she flailed around for a response.

‘Careful, Nikhil.’ She swallowed at last. ‘That almost sounded like a compliment.’

‘Perhaps because it was a compliment. Though I’m glad to hear you’ve dispensed with the Mr Dara nonsense.’

Isla opened her mouth to object, but a gurgle of laughter came bubbling out instead. Unintended but, it turned out, the perfect way to break the tension.

‘I could have called you sir; you are the First Officer, after all.’

He let out a low, deep chuckle of his own and before she could stop herself she seized it, filing it away somewhe

re special like the dragon hoarding its treasure. Or the chimera hiding the lost Inca gold, that Reginald had been telling them all about after his return from his day-trip to Peru.

‘You wouldn’t call me sir even if you had to,’ he noted. Accurately, as it turned out.

‘Not even if you commanded me,’ she agreed.

But she wasn’t prepared for the way his eyes suddenly grew hot. Hungry. Reflecting all the things she was trying to keep stuffed down, so deep inside.

‘And what commands would you obey, Isla? If I uttered them?’

‘None,’ she retorted.

But her voice was hoarser than normal. A fact of which they were both aware.

She had no intention of adding any more, but then her mouth started talking all of its own accord.

‘And what about you, Nikhil? What commands would you obey if I issued them?’

He took a step closer to her, and the whole world suddenly receded until it was just her and Nikhil. No one else existed for Isla. Not the plantation, not the workers, not even the tour group, only just out of sight around that corner.

‘Do you really want to know?’

His tone was so heavy, so loaded, that it fired straight through Isla, pooling between her legs. Making her molten in an instant.

‘Yes.’ But it was barely more than a whisper.

It was odd, the way everything seemed so loud and yet so still. She could hear monkeys calling to each other, birds singing the most wondrous songs and insects chirping and squeaking. Yet at the same time she didn’t think she could hear anything above the roaring in her ears.

She had no idea how long they stood there, staring at each other, some invisible thread binding them together, tighter and tighter, until she couldn’t move.

Or didn’t want to.

And still he didn’t answer. He didn’t speak at all. Yet she could hear his thoughts swirling through her. All the things he wanted to do to her, right there. All the things she wanted too.

Just when she’d begun to think he was never going to speak, he opened his mouth and murmured the words, only loud enough for her to hear.