The Nurse's Christmas Wish (The Cornish Consultants)

‘Louisa!’ His tone was exasperated. ‘I’m trying to stop you freezing to death!’

‘Well, I can’t undress with you watching me,’ she shot back, scraping her sodden hair out of her eyes with a shaking hand. ‘Turn your back.’

Mac exhaled slowly, his eyes suddenly very dark. ‘I’m a doctor.’

‘You’re also a man, Mac!’ And a man she wanted so much she ached for his touch. But not like this. Not when she was so vulnerable. She felt shy, awkward. ‘I’m an old-fashioned girl! I can’t undress with you watching!’

His jaw hardened and his eyes clashed with hers for a long moment. Then he muttered something under his breath and turned round as she’d instructed. ‘Just get in the shower,’ he growled, running a hand over the back of his neck, ‘or I’ll be taking you back to A and E and I’ve had enough of the place for one day.’

She undid her bra, stepped out of her panties and walked into the shower, her body still shuddering with the cold. Hot needles of water stung her freezing flesh and she gasped.

‘Are you all right?’ He turned and she suddenly realised that he was soaked through, too, and she hadn’t even noticed. His dark hair was flattened to his head and his previously pristine dinner suit clung to his broad shoulders.

His jaw was rough and dark and his eyes were restless. He looked dishevelled, more than a little disreputable and all the man she’d ever wanted.

She felt a sudden jolt and desire overwhelmed shyness with the force of a tidal wave.

‘You need a shower, too.’ Gradually her body was warming up and the shivers lessened.

‘I’ll live.’

‘Mac.’ Her voice was pure female invitation and his eyes locked with hers. Something passed between them. She saw the heat flash in his eyes, registered the sudden tension in his broad shoulders. Then he lifted his hands and slowly, deliberately, unbuttoned his shirt.

Her heart beat a hectic rhythm and her body started to shiver again, but this time it was nothing to do with the cold.

His eyes still on hers, he let the shirt slip off his shoulders and dealt with his trousers.

He was all hard muscle and masculine perfection and Louisa felt her legs weaken. When he stepped into the cubicle with her, she closed her eyes.

The first purposeful slide of his hand down her bare back made her gasp with anticipation. Her whole body throbbed with awareness, her senses sang and excitement coiled and uncoiled low in her pelvis.

‘Are you warming up yet?’ His voice was husky and sexy and reflected everything that was happening between them.

Her eyes opened and locked on his.

‘Oh, yes.’ She didn’t even question what she was doing. There was nothing to question.

The tension that had been building for days hovered between them and then it tightened and snapped.

His mouth came down on hers with ruthless intent, taking, ravaging, rough in his hunger for her. She didn’t mind. She welcomed the force that consumed them both. She wouldn’t have wanted less.

And she’d always known that Mac was a man who wouldn’t hold back. A man whose passions ran deep.

Her pulse hammering, she dug her fingers in his sleek flesh, loving the hardness, the maleness, the contrast to her own body. Her mouth opened under his and she gave back willingly, welcoming his lead, matching his fierce passion.

He pressed her back against the tiled wall, trapping her with his body. He was all hard strength and masculinity and she slid her hands over the smooth muscle of his shoulders, grasping, seeking, wanting more.

She felt the nip of his teeth on her neck and then the brush of his mouth as it trailed downwards, and then his mouth closed over the tip of one breast, sucking her into darkness and another world. Heat sizzled and burned deep inside her and she cried out her need and pressed against him. Her eyes closed, her soft lips parted and her fingers tangled in his sleek hair as she strained against him.

‘Louisa.’ The rough sound of her name on his lips was somewhere between a curse and a promise and his strong hands skimmed down her body until he found what he wanted.

And he took.

With a skilled touch he learned and discovered, building the level of intimacy until she could no longer breathe properly, until her body was a shivering, seething mass of uncontrollable need.

She flung back her head and gasped his name in a plea that came perilously close to begging.

His hands were hard on her hips as he lifted her, his breathing harsh, his eyes darkened by a passion stronger than both of them.