If this was what kissing a bad boy was like, she should have done it years ago.
She moved her head, kissing down his neck and releasing her other hand to slide it around his back. She was pulling him closer, working her hands under his scrub top, dancing her fingers up and down his spine.
She heard him groan and felt his muscles flex beneath her fingers. Somehow knowing she had some control made her feel bolder. She wanted to feel his skin against hers, she wanted to see his skin. She pulled at his scrub top, tugging it upwards until he’d no choice but to stop kissing her for a second and pull it over his head.
There. Just what she wanted. Sawyer, bare-chested.
She ran her fingers across the scattered dark hairs on his chest, wishing they were tickling her bare skin. But he hadn’t moved quite as quickly as she had. His fingers were just edging beneath her top. Her back arched automatically towards him, willing him on.
He gave her that lazy smile. Did this man know just how sexy he was? Then he bent and whispered in her ear. “Have a little patience, Callie.”
Patience. The last thing on her mind right now.
His voice was rugged, husky. A perfect voice for the middle of the night in a darkened room in a place that belonged to neither of them. It seemed all the more wicked. All the more illicit.
He started tugging her top over her head. His eyes widened at the pink satin push-up bra he revealed. Callie was a girl who loved her fancy matching underwear, no matter what clothes she was wearing on top. Thank heavens for small mercies. Just wait until he reached the thong.
He didn’t hesitate for a second. His gaze was fixed on her breasts enclosed in the pink satin. “So you have a thing for pale colors and matching sets? Last time I saw you half-dressed it was in lilac.”
His voice was lower. Growling. And it turned her on a lot. “I have lots of matching sets.” She raised her eyebrows and gave him a calculating smile. “What’s your favorite color?”
“Red,” he groaned, as his palms skirted the outside of the bra cups. Her breasts seemed to be swelling at his touch. But the appreciation of her underwear was momentary. Sawyer cut to the chase—his patience obviously as limited as hers. He reached behind her back and released the clasp, her bra flung aside a moment later, releasing her breasts into his clutches. As his teeth brushed against her peaked nipple she could begin to feel the throb between her legs.
“Or maybe emerald green.” He tweaked, licked and blew his hot breath across her as she moaned beneath him. Her hands kept trying to move, to make further contact with his skin, to get between them and reach down below. But he kept moving, changing position and diverting her attention.
This man had talent in the diverting attention stakes.
Her legs automatically widened and he moved from straddling her to bringing his legs between her thighs. Again she acted on instinct, raising her hips and tilting her pelvis towards him. Thin scrub trousers couldn’t disguise what lay beneath and she gave a little gasp.
His hand slid beneath her scrub trousers, sliding first across her pelvis then down along her thigh, his fingers tracing the line of her scar. But she didn’t flinch, she didn’t jerk the way she had when some other lover had touched it. This felt easy, this felt natural. His hand ran back up the inside of her leg, sending a rush of blood to her groin, working his way around her buttocks and smiling as he played with her thong. He gave a little tug and there was an instant ping, along with a loosening sensation. Thirty dollars gone in one tug. She could almost visualize the thin gossamer straps breaking. It only excited her more.
His fingers crept back around to the front, coming into contact with her pubic curls. She moaned and opened her legs, willing his fingers closer, and her frustration built.
The scrub trousers were annoying her now. She didn’t want any barrier between them. She didn’t want anything between them at all. She moved his arms out of the way to give her a clear path to where she wanted to go.
She pushed her hand down the front of his scrub trousers, ignoring his boxers and sliding right inside. She could feel his back arch and she wrapped her hand around him. Finally. Just what she wanted.
His mouth was moving lower now, his fingers still dancing a fine tune as she moaned in response. This bad boy certainly knew how to play her.
“Anyone home?” The door of the apartment slammed loudly.
They froze. For a few seconds neither of them moved.
Dan. It was Dan. The bright light flicked on, sending illumination over their bare skin. Sending them both into instant panic.
Sawyer pushed himself up, pulling his hand out of Callie’s scrub trousers and starting to stand. Callie’s head jerked from side to side, trying to find where Sawyer had flung her bra.
That was as far as they got.
Dan had obviously walked the few steps into the apartment and his jaw dropped.
Callie could have died.
She didn’t even have time to cover her breasts—her scrub top had been flung far behind in her in the midst of passion. Sawyer let out an expletive and stepped in front of her. “Give us a second, will you, Dan?”
Dan gulped. “Sure.” The color spread rapidly up his cheeks as he walked back outside in stunned silence.
Sawyer closed the apartment door and leaned against it.
Callie felt the tears rapidly building in her eyes. She wanted to die of embarrassment. She felt like some teenager caught in a compromising position.
The silence in the room was deafening. She moved quickly, threading her arms back through her bra, fastening it and pulling the crumpled scrub top over her head.
Dan’s face was haunting her. He’d seen her almost naked. A guy she hardly knew.
Sawyer was still standing with his back against the door, his eyes not meeting hers. The obvious bulge was still apparent in his thin scrub trousers. And the irony of it hit her. Another guy she hardly knew.
This wasn’t her. She didn’t act like this. She sometimes didn’t even kiss on the first date.
But Sawyer had literally been by her side since she’d arrived in Chicago and the attraction had been instant. Instant but ignored.
This was the worse possible time for her. She needed to be a leader—someone that people could respect and respond to. What if Dan told the others what he’d just seen? That the doctor in charge of the potential smallpox outbreak had been lying half-naked on the sofa with a guy she’d just met?
What if he told them that her mind certainly wasn’t on the job? That she was focusing on something else entirely?
She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to push the horrible thoughts from her mind. Could this be any worse?
Yes, it could.
Sawyer still couldn’t look her in the eye. He hadn’t even moved to pull his scrub top back on. He was just leaning against the door, his eyes fixed on the window straight ahead.
What was worse than getting caught in a compromising position with the bad boy?
Getting ignored by the man who’d just kissed you as if his life depended on it.
“Are you ready?” His voice startled her. It was almost a growl. Almost as if he thought this was all her fault.
It made her bristle. It made her defensive. It hurt.
She had to work with this man. She had to live with this man for the next two weeks. It would be so easy to hide her scarlet cheeks, put her head down and walk out of this room. But she couldn’t. Not like this.
“I’ll be ready to go when you can look me in the eye, Matt.”
His head shot up. He flinched. It was so unfair that he was still standing there, bare-chested, right before her eyes. Men had it easy. He looked startled by the use of his first name—she’d only ever called him that a few times.
Or was he just surprised she’d immediately called him on his reacti
on?
“Let’s not get into this now.” He turned his back on her, picked up his scrub top, clenching it in his fingers, and put his hand on the door.
“Why not?” She couldn’t think straight. Not after what had just happened.
“What?” He was beginning to look annoyed.
“Why not get into it now?” She gestured towards the door. “I’m really not looking forward to going out there and facing Dan. I don’t even want to think about how I’m going to have to appeal to his better nature not to tell everyone about this.” She shook her head. “My guess is that the last thing he’ll want to do is share an apartment with us. Who would? We’ve just behaved like a pair of hormone-crazed teenagers.”
She stepped forward and put her hand on his chest and he visibly flinched again. Actions spoke louder than words. It told her everything she needed to know.
“We have to work together, Matt. We’ve been stuck together in close proximity, under pressure, for the last two days. I guess we’re just going to have to chalk this up to experience.”
Her heart was thudding against her chest. She had no idea if she’d just played him right. She was trying to remain detached. She was trying to be rational. But she didn’t feel that way.
In truth, she was mortified.
Hot and heavy after a first kiss, after only a couple of days.
She didn’t need to justify herself. She didn’t need to explain herself. But she just couldn’t let him think that was her normal behavior.
“I guess there’s a first time for everything.” She kept her voice as steady as she could. He’d finally raised his eyes to meet hers but the shutters were well and truly down again. “It’s probably best for both our sakes, and for the people we’re responsible for, that there isn’t a repeat performance.”
His face remained blank. As if he was listening to her words but not really hearing them.
“If you will let me pass, I’ll go and face the music with Dan.”
He stepped out of her way, remaining silent.
She opened the door and stepped out into the corridor. His silence was angering her now. First he wouldn’t look at her. Now he wasn’t talking to her.
She turned her head to the side, praying he wouldn’t see the tears glistening in her eyes. “Maybe you’d better try and sort out other sleeping arrangements. This situation is untenable.”
* * *
On the outside Sawyer was frozen to the spot, but on the inside he was a bubbling cauldron, full of sulfur and about to explode.
Dan had appeared at the worst possible time—that much was obvious.
And Callie was right. They both had to pray that he would keep things to himself; otherwise Callie’s authority could disappear in the blink of an eye. And in a situation like this that could be disastrous.
He knew that she’d been hurt by his lack of response but the truth was that she was right, he couldn’t look her in the eye. And after what they’d just shared Callie would have wanted some kind of sign. A sign as to whether this had been just a one-off mistake or if it could lead somewhere.
And the truth was he just didn’t know.
Every nerve ending in his body was on fire. Every place that she’d touched his skin seemed to burn. She’d been so willing, so responsive. If Dan hadn’t appeared, chances were nothing would have stopped them.
And how would he have felt then?
Feel.
That was the problem.
Sawyer had been down this road before. Meet a woman in a bar, exchange small talk, have meaningless sex, sneak out before morning.
But all of a sudden the road had changed direction.
No, scrap that, this was an entirely new road.
In the space of a couple of days this woman had started to get under his skin. To invade his senses. To make him feel things that he hadn’t felt since he’d first met Helen.
And it felt like a betrayal. It didn’t matter that Helen had been dead for six years. It didn’t matter that she would have never have wanted him to lead this closed-off life. His impersonation of the walking dead was growing stale, even for him.
But on any of his chance encounters before, he’d never felt anything. Apart from the obvious. He’d just been going through the motions. Making sure everything still worked.
This was different. This was nothing like that.
From the moment Callie Turner had appeared on his radar everything had turned upside down.
At first he’d thought he was annoyed because Callum was sick, then he’d thought it was because she was inexperienced. Or struggling. Or getting things wrong. Or all of the above.
But the truth was he was looking for a reason—any reason—not to like Callie Turner.
He was fighting the way he was drawn to her—was curious about her and wanted to know more.
The sight of her getting changed into her scrubs. The scar on her leg. The almost kiss in the treatment room.
The way he’d felt as soon as his lips had touched hers. The way she’d reacted to his touch. The feel of her skin next to his. The arch of her back. The tilt of her pelvis. The small groan she’d made at the back of her throat.
All of it driving him crazy. All of it making him act on instinct. Something he hadn’t allowed to happen in a long time.
How could he have gotten into this? How could he have ended up in a specialist containment unit for a seemingly extinct disease? All of this was so unreal. This had bad movie written all over it.
Wrong place, wrong time.
The words danced around his brain again. He’d first thought them when he’d raised the alarm about the apparent smallpox cases. The words had been so in tune with how he had been feeling. He couldn’t wait to get out of Chicago General. He couldn’t wait to get away from the whole situation.
But now the words made him feel uncomfortable. He still didn’t want to do any of the infectious disease stuff. But his Hippocratic oath had him firmly by the short and curlies. He had to stay here and help look after these people. He had to work with the team from the DPA. He had a responsibility. To them. To the patients. To the staff. To Callie...
Everything came back to her. No matter where his head drifted off to, she was always the thing he came back to. Like an anchor point.
He could almost see the picture of Helen that still sat on his desk at home. Her smiling face, dark hair and dark eyes. Home? When was the last time he’d gone home? When was the last time it had felt like home?
He sagged against the wall again. Everything was bubbling to the surface, thanks to the way he was feeling towards Callie, and he just couldn’t deal with this—not on top of the DPA issue all over again.
Did she even realize how hard this was for him? To be amongst these people again? To be amongst the people that reminded him at every glance of how much he’d failed his wife?
What kind of a husband couldn’t save his wife? Maybe for a regular guy that could be acceptable. But he was a doctor. And his wife had died from a medical complaint. One that, under normal circumstances, could have been treated and her life saved.
For a few hours with Helen he’d felt as if they had been trapped on a runaway train.
They hadn’t got to experience the joy of a positive pregnancy test. They hadn’t got to celebrate their child’s arrival, planned or not. He felt cheated out of so many experiences—all because they’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Worst of all, he didn’t know who to be angry at most.
Himself? The DPA? Evan Hunter? Helen?
It had been Evan who had sent Helen into the field, not him. Even though she hadn’t been feeling one hundred percent. None of them had had any suspicion she might be pregnant—not even Helen. But their baby had decided to defy the odds of their contraceptive of choice. And
by the time they’d known, it had been too late.
A ruptured ectopic pregnancy in the middle of nowhere. There had only been one possible outcome.
He had to get past this. He had to move on. Everything about this situation was wrong.
He couldn’t begin to work out his feelings towards his past and the guilt he felt, in this new situation and his pull towards Callie. He felt pressured. Callie was pressured. It wasn’t the right time or the right place. He had to step back. He had to step away.
And from the hurt look in Callie’s eyes, he’d already done that. Whether he’d planned to or not.
He could hear mumbled voices through the door. They sent a cool breeze dancing over his skin, covering his chest and arms in goose-bumps. He grabbed his scrub top and pulled it over his head.
He had to go out there. He had to act as if nothing had happened. He had to try and help Callie save face, because if word of this ever got back to Evan Hunter...
He had no intention of being around to face the fallout.
He glanced at his watch. Forty-eight hours. That was how long he’d lasted when a beautiful woman had been dangled under his nose.
The pull was just too strong.
But everything about this was wrong. They would be together for the next fourteen days. Fourteen days and nights with Callie Turner.
And he’d just made it all worse.
His hand hesitated on the door handle.
Because now he knew how her skin felt. Now he knew how she reacted to his touch. Before he could only have imagined. And that could have kept him safe. That could have kept him on a reasonably even keel.
But now...
He closed his eyes. And it was Helen’s face he saw. Helen’s eyes. Helen’s smile. The instant image made him jump.
The sear in his chest was instant. Like his heart was being twisted inside his ribcage. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t do any of this.
Callie was a career girl. He used to be the same.
But now he was a getting-by kind of guy. In two weeks’ time, for the second time in his career, he would walk away from the constraints of the DPA. And nothing would give him greater pleasure.
THE MAVERICK DOCTOR AND MISS PRIM/ABOUT THAT NIGHT... Page 11
