This was the most sexy, the most alive she’d felt in too long. The most amazing. The most thrilling. And if they didn’t stop soon they’d be making love on that black and chrome steel.
Was she crazy?
Yes. She probably was. But she needed this, needed him, needed a night when she could be a sexy woman instead of a grieving widow. When she could feel and be held and be wanted. When she could take what she wanted, be herself instead of trying to fit into someone else’s mould. Where she could have Declan Underwood in her bed.
She put some space between them—just enough so she could speak. Her hands didn’t leave his body; her eyes didn’t leave his face. She barely recognised her own voice, ‘Do you want to come upstairs? For...?’
He stilled and closed his eyes for a second, knowing that coffee was not on the menu. When he opened them again she knew his answer before he even said the words.
‘I should go.’
No. ‘But—’ The heat coursing through her veins ran cold with embarrassment and disappointment. He didn’t want this after all—didn’t want her. And she’d made yet another fool of herself in front of her boss.
His palms stroked over her shoulders. ‘Go, Kara. Go now, before we do something we’ll both regret.’
‘Right. Thanks.’ Rubbing a hand across her swollen mouth, she held back the sarcastic laugh. She didn’t think she could ever regret spending the night with him.
‘You know what I mean. We agreed this would be very unwise. Look, I’m not easy to get on with. I don’t answer calls. I don’t make promises. I’m not there when I’m needed. Except in my job. I’m always there for my job. The truth is, you don’t need me in your life.’
‘It was just a kiss, Declan.’ Although she got the feeling that their kiss was just the tip of the breath-sapping, heart-stopping, wet and wild iceberg.
‘And very nearly something else.’
He gave her a wavering smile. Not a let’s-get-naked smile. Not a promising-three-times-a-night kind of smile. The kind of smile, she suspected, he gave his patients before he broke bad news. Or the kind of smile he’d given to one of his sisters when the pet goldfish died. It was not the smile she wanted.
‘Go to bed. I’ll see you tomorrow. Nice and early.’
And before she could answer he’d pulled on his motorbike helmet and disappeared into the night. Leaving her hot and definitely bothered and with no clue how she was going to face him in the morning.
* * *
She needn’t have worried. He was far too engrossed in his work to bother about the events of the previous night.
They stood in a large group in Safia’s room, trying to get the teenager to vent her feelings. No such luck.
Clean-shaven, hair wrangled into smart submission, and wearing a dark charcoal suit, crisp white shirt and silver-grey tie, Declan looked as if he’d stepped out of the cover of a magazine. Kara remembered how his rough jaw had felt across her cheek, how he’d smelt of leather and heat, the way he’d tasted of adventure, the way he’d whispered her name into the night. How his eyes had blazed with a heat that had threatened to engulf her.
Today, however, he looked rested, calm and perfectly unaffected. Kara, on the other hand, was well aware she had dark smudges under her eyes from a restless night. From dreams about getting hot and heavy under sheets of a substantially lower thread count than the Sheikha was used to.
His voice was soft as he spoke to their client. ‘So, Safia, how are you feeling today?’
Dressed in casual clothes, rather than her country’s traditional heavily jewelled dress, the young girl sat in a chair and stared out of the window, her arms elevated for optimum healing. So far this morning she’d refused to speak or even to look at the surgical team. Thick tears ran down her face and she made no attempt to stop them.
Kara relayed what she’d learnt from the nursing staff earlier that morning, ‘Safia didn’t have a great night. She reports having little pain, but she’s...well, she’s generally not having the best of days. Temperature’s fine, though. Bloods are normal. There’s no sign of infection. Physically she’s making good progress.’
‘Ach, Safi...’ Declan drew up a chair and sat next to her. ‘Everything is going well. So what’s the matter?’
‘You wouldn’t understand.’
‘No? Try me.’
He ushered out the attending nurses, the medical students, the physio and even the Sheikha’s parents. Kara waited for an indication of what he wanted her to do—stay or leave. God, a re-run of the night before.
This time nothing flashed behind those eyes that made her feel she should be embarrassed, but there was no reassurance there either. He was nothing but the consummate professional. Heat rose to her cheeks and she picked up her papers and made for the door.
What the hell had she been thinking?
Nothing. She’d thought of nothing past touching her mouth to his, being wrapped in those arms. Nothing about her responsibilities to the team, to Ethan, to her patients. To her job. To everything she’d sacrificed. She’d been willing to throw all that aside and give in to temptation without a thought for the next minute, never mind the next day, just to have one more kiss with Declan.
Well, it wouldn’t happen again.
Out in the corridor a nurse stopped and asked Kara to sign a prescription chart. Then a patient’s relative asked for an update. Seemed everyone wanted to talk to her except Declan.
She turned for one quick look back into Safia’s room and something about the way he was sitting close to his patient, his voice so gentle, rooted Kara to the spot.
He leaned close and took the girl’s hand, looking out across the city and not directly at Safia. A ploy, Kara thought, not to stress the girl out by focusing on her too intently, but to cajole her somehow into talking.
‘I see a lot of things in this job, Safia. I see people who have survived terrible accidents, who have lost everything except the ability to haul breath into smoke-damaged lungs. And some are not even capable of that. I see carelessness that leads to injury and I see beautiful people who believe they can’t go on but who still have the rest of their lives to live, somehow. And it makes me sad.’
‘So why do you do it?’ The Princess blinked and wiped her bandaged fist across her eyes, wrestling control over the sobs that had racked her chest. ‘Why don’t you do something else for a job? Although don’t try singing—you do really suck at that.’
‘Yeah, I know. Liam’s job is safe for now. Truth is, there’s nothing else I want to do.’ He smiled and turned to her. ‘Because when someone can’t stay strong for themselves they need someone else to help them along. I kind of see myself as doing that. I stay strong for you until you can find the strength in yourself.’ He shrugged. ‘Oh, and it just so happens that I’m a genius with a scalpel too. That definitely helps.’ He winked at her. ‘You’re doing fine, Safia. You will be fine. This is the hardest bit, you know. Coming to terms with it all.’
‘I don’t want to come to terms. I want it to have not happened at all.’
He shook his head. ‘Ah, sweetheart, I know you do. I know how hard it is. Trust me, I know.’
‘How? How do you know? You’re a doctor. You’re not burned. You don’t look like...this.’
Kara squeezed a folder to her chest and watched as emotion bled from his face.
But he didn’t shy away from Safia’s question. Instead he ran a hand across the back of his neck and nodded. ‘Okay...I don’t tell everyone this, but it might help you. I hope it does...’ He inhaled sharply. ‘When I was thirteen we had a fire at our house. I got the little ones out safely, but I just couldn’t get to my mammy—my mum—in time...and she got burnt, like you, on her face and her hands...’
Oh, God. Kara’s heart thumped and squeezed. She imagined Declan as a young, innocent kid, fighting to save t
he lives of his family, going back into a burning house to save them. How utterly terrifying.
Blinking back tears, she focused on the blurry piece of paper in front of her. ‘Temperature normal. Blood pressure within normal limits...low mood...healing well...’
Her own reasons for becoming a surgeon paled into the background as she learnt the real reason he fought every day to save people, to try to piece them back together again. And every day the horror of that fire must be somewhere in his mind, spurring him on. She imagined he’d almost lost them in the black smoke and the heat, and realising he hadn’t managed to save his mother from being hurt must have bitten deep.
For a man like Declan that would have been a failure. But instead of running away from those demons he forced himself to face them every day.
But he was in London, not back home in Ireland. Had he moved here so he didn’t have to face her every day instead? And what about his father? Declan hadn’t mentioned him. Hadn’t mentioned his dad’s role in all of this.
So many questions buzzed around her head.
‘So what happened after that?’ Safia’s voice had lost a little of its self-pity as she stared into Declan’s face. ‘Is she okay now?’
‘She spent a lot of time in hospital and she was very troubled by everything that happened and more. They were hard times, Safia. How she looked on the outside greatly affected how she felt on the inside.’
He waited until the ramifications of that statement settled on Safia’s face.
‘She wouldn’t do her physio, she wouldn’t try any more treatments, so her hands and fingers got stiff and sore. She basically lost the strength to carry on. For a long time she let her appearance and her residual pain rule her life.’
Safia’s eyebrows rose. ‘That’s very sad.’
‘Yes, it was. She struggled to find that strength within her to make the best of things. That’s why I have to be strong, eh?’
He gave her the kindest smile Kara had ever seen.
‘But you’ve got the whole of your life to look forward to. You have very important things to do—I know this—and a happy life to grasp. You will get through this, Safia, believe me. You will get through this with dignity and grace and you will make a wonderful life for yourself.’
And until she could he would be there for her...being strong when she couldn’t find strength within herself.
Small wonder the young girl looked up at him now with something akin to adoration. ‘I’ll try.’
‘Promise me?’
‘Yes. Yes, I promise.’ It was a small voice but a big victory.
Kara breathed out slowly. It seemed that the more she learnt about Declan Underwood, the more involved she wanted to become. So she was grateful that he’d stopped talking, because if he was as damaged as she thought he was—and even half as damaged as she was—she could open herself up to a whole new world of hurt.
He turned and caught Kara standing there watching. His mouth opened in surprise, then tightened into a thin line. A torrent of emotion swam across his gaze and solidified into anger.
‘Ms Stephens?’
‘Yes? Sorry. I...er...’ She wanted to tell him she hadn’t heard, but he knew she had—knew she’d been listening to him bare his soul. And that, she surmised, was like rubbing his wound raw again.
Then he shook his head and with that swift action flicked the anger off. His shoulders were smoothed down, his features took on their normal ridges and planes.
‘Okay, Safia, so we’ll be back later to see how you’re doing. In the meantime I’ll send the physiotherapist in and you can start some gentle exercises to help regain the range of movement in that hand. Now, Ms Stephens, we have a surgery to do.’
‘Yes, of course.’
Kara hurried in front of him and headed to the operating theatre, where she could bury herself deeper in her job and forget about the red-hot desire burning through her. Forget about the flash of pain and his subsequent refusal to acknowledge it.
Then, when she was finished for the day, she would work out the best way to stop herself from falling headlong into disaster.
CHAPTER SIX
‘YOU WANT TO request a transfer? Are you mad?’ Declan exhaled long and hard. Now his day was definitely going to the dogs. His day never went to the dogs. Work was the one thing he could control in his life: easy, predictable, calm.
He couldn’t help thinking this downward trajectory had all started with the appearance of a certain Kara Stephens. The way she’d looked at him after he’d spoken about his mother... God, such pity in those green eyes. He didn’t do this—didn’t open up old wounds, didn’t want sympathy. Never.
Damn. What was she doing to him? What the hell was he doing?
He didn’t want drama. And no doubt that was what he’d have got if he’d blathered on any longer. That and memories causing a fist of pain under his ribcage.
He’d been trying to help a young girl, not much younger than his sisters, who reminded him of their feisty spirit, who had got under his skin a little. And along with helping her he’d blown open the secrets of his heart.
Damn. Damn.
So much for escaping to London and putting his troubles behind him.
He glared over the sleek smoky glass desk in his Hunter Clinic office, barely able to comprehend what Kara was saying. Or to reconcile his rapid tachycardia and the thud in his stomach as she spoke in that cute accent that dipped and rose like the County Dublin hills.
‘I know it’s going to be difficult and will leave you short-staffed, Declan, but I just thought it might be better if I went back to my old team.’
‘You’re out of your mind.’ But, really, he must have been too, to have kissed her back so completely. So totally and completely. And to be sitting here now, wanting to do it again regardless of the fact she’d seen him raw and open.
He didn’t want her to leave. Okay, to be brutally honest, he wanted to have her, here in his plush white and light office. To slowly peel off her cream silky top, to strip off her tight black skirt...leaving the beige heels on, though... Man, his thoughts were X-rated...
He was at work, goddamn it.
He leant back in his chair. It had been a long day of holding back and he was reaching the end of his self-control. ‘So why do you want to transfer?’
‘Because of last night.’
‘You want to leave because of one kiss?’
‘Two kisses, actually.’
She held up two fingers, as if to ram home the point. A lesser woman would blush or shy away from the subject, but this was Kara and it seemed she always tackled things head-on. He thought he saw a smile waiting in the background there too, in the slight twitch of her mouth and a startling sparkle in her eyes. But then it was gone, replaced by steel.
‘Two. Kisses.’ She shook her head. ‘I kissed you twice.’
‘I know. I mastered counting single numbers in reception class. Personally, I thought they were pretty damned good.’
He rested his chin on his hands as his eyes met hers. If this wasn’t such a serious conversation he could have some fun here. Hell, it had been hard enough to walk away yesterday and now here she was, trying to make it easier for him, and all he could think of was that he wanted more. A lot more. A lot more of everything. Particularly those slender legs, that tight nip of a waist. That cocky, forthright mouth.
What the hell was happening to him? She made a mockery of his self-control and a challenge to every promise he’d ever made to himself about getting in too deep.
‘But a kiss is definitely not something I’d want to leave my job over.’
‘I would hardly be leaving my job. It’s just a sideways move to a different consultant and team. Don’t get me wrong, Declan, the kisses were great. But I think we’re struggling to draw a line here. This is w
ork, our jobs...we can’t stuff that up. If I go and work with someone else then we can put a stop to this...kissing thing.’
‘Whoa...so, let me get this right. You want to leave me high and dry, with no junior surgeon and a heavy caseload, at the beck and call of a royal family, with a frightened patient who has developed a great rapport with you...’ God forgive him for using Safia in this ‘...just because we had a kiss? In our free time? As consenting adults?’
‘Two kisses. And I’m trying to do the right thing. The professional thing. What happens if this...attraction spills over to work? We can’t afford to let it distract us.’
It was too late for that. And why he suddenly felt a need to defend their actions he didn’t know.
‘It won’t. People have work liaisons all the time and it doesn’t interfere with their ability to do their job.’
‘No? Do you want to kiss me now?’
He checked his watch. ‘It’s after five and we’re not technically required to be here... And you’re an attractive woman. Any man would want to kiss you.’
‘Not helpful. We’re supposed to be having a meeting. At work.’ She frowned. ‘Safia is almost headed in the right direction now, so she doesn’t need me, and besides it’s you she has the real rapport with anyway. I’m sure they can find a replacement. I’ll swap with someone. There are plenty of doctors who’d jump at the chance of working with you.’
‘But you’re not one of them.’
Her shoulders slumped forward. ‘Of course I am, and I’ve loved every minute of it. But, come on, Declan. We both have jobs to do and this could get in the way. This...this is crazy.’
And the rest. He never spent more than a few minutes thinking about a woman. His life had no space for this. His heart certainly didn’t.
200 Harley Street: The Shameless Maverick Page 7
