The Surgeon's One-Night Baby

‘Top drawer.’ He jerked his head towards the nightstand, before adding unnecessarily, ‘The pack Catherine gave you.’

As though he needed her to know he hadn’t bought them for anyone else. In actual fact, he had never brought anyone else into this space.

He watched her open the foil packet, fumbling slightly with her shaking fingers, rolling it down his length with excruciating care. And then Archie was moving over him, guiding him inside as he watched her face for any sign of discomfort. When he finally, finally slid inside her wet heat, felt her stretching around him, gripping him tightly despite the slightly shallower depth, he wasn’t sure he would last at all. Experimentally, she began to move.

‘Okay?’ he checked.

She nodded, tentatively increasing the pace, and it was all Kaspar could do not to move inside her the way his body longed to do. He wanted to move faster, thrust into her deeper and harder until she shattered around him. But he couldn’t. Not yet. He tensed with the effort, only realising it when she stroked his jawline, a soft laugh escaping her lips.

‘Relax, I’m fine.’

‘Sure?’

She nodded again and Kaspar let his hands trail over her body until his thumbs were circling in the soft hair between her legs, her head slumping slightly forward, her breath coming shallow and quick. He dipped lower, playing with her even as he moved inside her, her body thrilling to his touch, tightening around him, moving faster on top of him.

He was so close. So incredibly close. Everything about Archie turned him on in a way he hadn’t previously known was possible. And as they moved together in flawless harmony, the initial soft shudders of her body giving way to something far more urgent, and unrelenting, he imagined that this, here now, her, would be all he would ever need.

It was the last thought he had as she finally came apart around him. Her body arched as she surrendered to him, crying out, rocking over him and against his fingers and her hands braced against his chest as though she thought she might otherwise collapse. And just as Archie seemed to start coming down, he changed his rhythm and hurled her over the edge all over again.

This time, when she cried his name, Kaspar couldn’t contain himself any longer. He tumbled off the cliff edge with her, better than leaping out of any plane. He released himself into her, and the flames roared and surged through him and he feared they could never be quenched.

Dangerous, even lethal. Yet blissful perfection.

He might have known it could never last.

CHAPTER TWELVE

ARCHIE AWOKE THE next morning to the sun streaming through the curtains, the call of early morning seabirds. And the fact that she was alone. Again.

But this time she didn’t worry. Instead she stretched languorously as rarely used muscles lazily grunted their objections, and recalled an hour earlier when she’d awoken to the feel of a warm, solid body behind her.

Kaspar, pressed to her back and his hand cradling her bump. She’d snuggled back, his reaction even in sleep unmistakeable, and tried to drift back off into slumber. As much as they might want to make love again and again, they couldn’t. Light and infrequent, that was what Catherine had advised.

At some point, she could just about remember him mentioning going for a run. His attempt to distract his urgent body. And now here she was finally awake, what had to be several hours later. Her ears strained for the sound of the shower or for him in the kitchen, but she heard nothing.

Then again, marathons weren’t unusual for Kaspar.

Abruptly she realised what had woken her.

The low, insistent humming of her phone tumbled through the room and though there was no reason at all for the sense of foreboding that flooded through her, she nevertheless shivered under the sheets, despite the warmth of the sunlit room. At this hour, what were the chances it would be the press? Especially after last night’s little scene? Kaspar had wordlessly unplugged the phone last night and turned his own cell off, but it wouldn’t have taken them much to get her number. She knew what they were like.

So Archie sat, her knees hugged tightly under her chest, waiting. Only breathing again once the drumming finally fell silent.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

Throwing off the sheets, she crossed the room to look out of the window, seeing the golden beach spread out below her like the most luxurious picnic mat in the world. The sight of Kaspar racing powerfully along the sand, the only figure on the private beach, an unexpected but welcome sight.

Her fingers pressed against the glass as her eyes drank him in, from his muscled thighs to the wide, bare, olive chest that glistened from the exertion, all sending images of last night hurtling around her feverish mind.

But then she caught sight of the expression on his face. Dark, brooding, even angry. And her stomach flip-flopped.

Slowly she backed up, across the room, so that by the time he had powered up the hillside to vault over the small balcony and to the picture-height glass doors, she was already edging to the door. As though, somehow, the distance could silence whatever words he was about to utter. Words, she already knew, she didn’t want to hear.