‘The second one we’ll have made in less than a month,’ she pointed out shakily. ‘But we still have next month to work together. And the month after that.’
‘Do you have a point, Birdie?’ he rasped. ‘Or are you just pointing out my failings? Failings I never had, I should point out, before you came along.’
It was the most backhanded compliment she’d ever heard, although she was sure he hadn’t intended it as a compliment at all.
‘I was thinking that I could ask to transfer.’
For a long moment he merely stared at her. His blue gaze darkened by the moment as he pinned her to the spot.
‘Say that again?’
She ran her tongue over her suddenly parched lips and wished he didn’t follow the movement so intently. It made her want things she knew she couldn’t have.
‘I could swap job roles.’
Bridget had absolutely no way to read what that almost infinitesimal shift in facial expression meant, she just knew it had happened. In the silence she heard herself adding more.
‘If it would make things easier.’
And still Hayden didn’t reply.
‘It’s just that, when I left our patient heading into surgery earlier tonight, one of the project coordinators was telling me that a new role had opened up in a different camp and she wondered if Mandy might want to send anyone from Jukrem to fill the gap.’
‘And you volunteered?’
‘No, I just...said I’d ask Mandy once we return. But now...well... I just thought that if I left Jukrem it might make things easier.’
‘Do you want to leave Jukrem?’ he asked simply, breaking the silence at last.
Everything tilted inside her.
‘No,’ she admitted.
She just hoped he didn’t ask why, because she wasn’t as ashamed as she should probably be to admit that that he factored into that choice more than he
had any right to.
‘I don’t want you to leave, either,’ he ground out instead, taking her by surprise.
Then, before she could answer, he strode across the room, cupped her face and lowered his mouth to hers.
CHAPTER TWELVE
AS EVERYTHING EXPLODED around her, all Bridget could do was cling to him. A thousand tiny detonations burst out of her like her own body wasn’t enough to contain them.
His tongue invaded her mouth, scraping against her own, and she welcomed it. When he angled his head to deepen the kiss, she rejoiced in it. It was like her entire being was singing an aria that it only knew when Hayden was there to conduct.
But it wasn’t enough, she wanted to be closer. Sliding her hands from his shoulders, she let her palms graze their way down over his rock-hard abdomen, tugging gently to pull them out.
Abruptly, Hayden wrenched himself away, leaving her feeling bereft and confused. But then he headed for the door, spinning a chair around and lifting it up in one hand as he went. Jamming it under the doorhandle and testing the improvised lock with impressive dexterity.
They weren’t likely to get interrupted, but Bridget was grateful for his additional care.
And then he was back with her, his mouth fusing once more with hers and hands releasing her hair from its confines and tangling his fingers into it as he let it tumble around her shoulders. As if he couldn’t get enough of her.
It was an intoxicating experience.
At some point, without her even realising it, his hands moved from her hair and over her body, like he was trying to learn its contours. The slope of her shoulders, the indentation of her waist, the dip in the hollow of her back. And then they were moving over her chest, testing the shape of her breasts through the thin tee, grazing her hard nipples with the pads of his thumbs and making them both groan a little in appreciation.