Innocent 'til Proven Otherwise

by Amy Andrews

  Ali placed the spoon on the saucer and finally lifted her gaze to his. ‘What do you want, Max?’

  Max opened his mouth to tell her, to say they’re appealing, but he shied away from the directness of it all. His gaze searched her face. She seemed weary and he wondered if she was getting as little sleep as him.

  ‘I’ve missed you,’ he murmured.

  Ali’s pulse kicked up a notch, her heart threatening to fly at the encouraging comment, but her head remained stubbornly level. ‘Is that what you came to tell me?’

  He paused. No, it wasn’t, but it didn’t make it any less true. ‘I—’

  A sudden commotion—a plate smashing, a woman crying out—interrupted what he’d been about to say and both he and Ali turned to identify the source of the intrusion. A group of people were huddled around a man on the ground who appeared to be having a seizure.

  ‘Ali!’ Kat called as she rushed from behind the cash register towards the table of uni students who’d been celebrating a birthday.

  But Ali was already on her feet, moving towards the emergency, Max hot on her heels.

  ‘What’s happening?’ a woman wailed.

  ‘He’ll swallow his tongue—here, put this spoon in his mouth,’ someone else said.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Ali said, her voice permeating the panic that had erupted as people at the table all reacted at once. ‘Step aside,’ she urged, a natural authority in her voice as she removed the spoon from the offending hand and pushed her way into the huddle. ‘I’m a doctor.’

  She got down on the floor beside the flailing young man and turned his head to the side while lifting his jaw a little to prevent his tongue from blocking his airway.

  ‘Max, can you time the duration of the fit, please?’ she asked. ‘Kat, get my bag.’ She smiled at the nearest girl, who was crying. ‘It’s okay—he’s having a seizure but it shouldn’t last too long. Clear some space for him so he doesn’t hurt himself. Does he have epilepsy?’ she asked.

  There was a collective no. ‘He did play football earlier today and got crunched pretty bad in a tackle,’ one of the party admitted. ‘He was out of it for a few seconds.’

  Ali kept her smile firmly in place despite the alarming news. ‘Max, call an ambulance please.’

  Max flipped out his phone and dialled. By the time he got through to triple zero the seizure had stopped and Ali was putting the young man into the recovery position. She calmly soothed everyone’s frazzled nerves and explained that Josh, as he was called, would be very sleepy for a while as she shone a penlight she’d extracted from her bag into Josh’s eyes.

  Fortunately it was only minutes before the sound of a siren rent the air and two paramedics arrived on the scene. Max watched Ali as she worked in tandem with the paramedics, inserting a drip and getting a drowsy Josh onto the gurney while rattling off a lot of medical jargon.

  It was now, right in this moment, watching her work methodically and efficiently, utterly engaged with the situation, that he finally got how devastating the Cullen case must have been to her.

  How devastating the news of an appeal would be.

  Working with medico-legal cases had blinded him to the emotional impact on the individuals working at the coalface. For him it was simple—in this big, bad, litigious world, doctors got sued. It was just the way it was now. And should be something every doctor prepared for.

  But if Ali gave her all to every patient as she was right now, to Josh, a complete stranger—and watching her, how could he believe anything else?—then Nathaniel Cullen’s death would have been a personal tragedy to her too.

  Dr Aleisha Gregory was one hell of a doctor and he finally understood how much it must have damaged her to have had it snatched away.

  How scary it would be to return after being ripped to shreds.

  How gutting the appeal was going to be.

  The ambulance departed in a screaming hurry fifteen minutes later and Ali watched from the bottom step of the café entrance as the red strobing became more distant. She rubbed at her arms as the adrenaline that had kept her sharp and focused dissipated, leaving her cold and shaky.

  Still she hadn’t felt this alive, this engaged, this … right … in a long time.

  Max watched her from the café’s open glass doors staring at the disappearing ambulance. After a moment he joined her, coming to a halt on the step behind. He placed his hands on her shoulders, then tentatively took over the rubbing action.

  He expected her to protest, but when her hands fell to her sides he became bolder, rubbing briskly. They didn’t say anything for a while, just watched the diminishing lights.

  ‘Will he be okay?’ Max asked when the lights finally faded.

  She shrugged. ‘Depends … if it’s just concussion, sure, if it’s something more serious … It’s too hard to tell without looking at CT scans.’

  Max applied gentle pressure to her arms and turned her around until he was looking down into her face. ‘Are you okay?’

  Ali felt a rush of love at his gentle enquiry. It bloomed in her chest like a mushroom cloud. ‘Sure,’ she said, swallowing hard against the block of emotion threatening to clog her throat.

  As okay as she was ever going to be.

  Max felt the raw, husky timbre of her voice reach right inside him. He pushed back that unruly curl flopping in her eye, lightly brushing her forehead as he went. It was gratifying to see her sway slightly towards him as she shut her eyes.

  ‘You were awesome tonight,’ he murmured.

  Ali’s eyes fluttered open. ‘I did what anyone would have done,’ she dismissed.

  Max shook his head. ‘No, Ali. You did what a doctor would do.’

  Ali knew he was right. Knew that she was a doctor right down to her DNA. Knew that nothing she ever did would beat saving people’s lives.

  And it scared her witless.

  To her complete and utter horror, she burst into tears.

  ‘Hey, hey.’ Max frowned as Ali’s face crumpled and a primal mewing sob escaped her mouth like an injured kitten. He pulled her against him, rocking and crooning, dropping kisses on her hair as she cried as if the end of the world were nigh.

  Love, pure and simple, rose up in his chest and rippled through every cell in his body and he held her tighter as the thought terrified and tantalised in equal measure.

  He wasn’t ready for something like this. God alone knew he didn’t need it. His heart was still battered from his divorce and he wanted to protect it from the slings and arrows of another love.

  But somehow, she made it feel whole again.

  The fact was undisputable—he loved Dr Aleisha Gregory. With everything he had.

  ‘She okay?’ Kat asked, interrupting Max’s staggering revelation.

  Max startled. He wasn’t sure about Ali but he knew he was far from okay!

  Ali pulled away from his chest with great reluctance. ‘Sorry,’ she murmured, avoiding his gaze as she patted at her damp cheeks. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Why don’t you both come inside?’ Kat suggested.

  ‘You look like you need a good stiff drink.’

  Ali would have liked nothing more. But even after a few minutes back in Max’s arms her heart was already bleeding—she didn’t want to sit opposite him and make small talk when all she’d want to do was drag him into the River Breeze storeroom and have her way with him.

  She just had to get away from him.

  ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m going to go home to bed if the boss will allow it. I forgot how exhausting an emergency can be.’

  And going home was much safer than drinking under the influence of her sex-starved libido.

  Max watched the bounce of her butterscotch curls and wished he could go home with her, but the mention of the emergency brought his reason for being here back into sharp focus. In all the excitement of the last half an hour, and particularly the last few minutes, he’d forgotten it entirely.

  And he doubted very much she was going to welcome him into
her bed after that particular piece of news.

  But it still had to be done.

  ‘Could I bum a lift back to my apartment?’

  Ali shot him an alarmed look. For crying out loud, why didn’t he just leave her to suffer this one-sided love alone?

  ‘Don’t you need the exercise?’ she enquired stiffly.

  The question seemed to require that she check him out for proof, which she did. But all she found was a vest top that sat snug against a broad chest and a flat male belly and solid masculine quads outlined to perfection in thigh-hugging skins.

  None of them appeared to require exercise.

  She dragged her gaze back to his face to find one eyebrow quirked at her.

  Max smiled, encouraged by her interest. ‘No.’

  Ali fought a surge of desire at his staggering self-assurance and a wicked whisper urging her to push him into the dark clump of trees she could see in the background and kiss that smug smile right off his face.

  Why? Why did she fall for emotionally unavailable men?

  ‘Fine,’ she huffed.

  It was impossible to deny the man who had fought for her innocence such a simple request. But she didn’t have to like it.

  ‘Shall we go?’ he asked as she continued to glare at him.

  His lazy smile and deep voice swept over her like the long low note of a saxophone and went straight to her pelvic floor. ‘Fine,’ she muttered again.

  Max waited until they’d been driving for a few minutes before he brought up the incident at the River Breeze again. He’d run through the whole situation in detail and was still blown away by her skill.

  It was that or think about the other thing that had blown him away tonight and he couldn’t do that with her sitting beside him as if she were made from concrete.

  ‘It felt good, didn’t it?’ he said into the silence. ‘Josh?’

  Ali flinched internally at his insight and contemplated lying. The last thing she wanted to do was talk about her future with the one man who wasn’t going to be part of it—it just hurt too damn much. But the glow from helping out with Josh still warmed her.

  She nodded. ‘I felt … normal again.’ She lifted a hand off the steering wheel and pressed it to her chest as her heart beat a little faster at the memory of it all. ‘Like a doctor again. I was nervous but … I knew … I just knew it was me.’

  Max smiled at her profile. ‘You never stopped being a doctor, Ali.’

  She shook her head. ‘I did in my heart.’

  ‘No, you didn’t. Your head maybe, but not your heart. Every day you were dishing out some piece of medical advice or other. A Band-Aid here, a mole check there. You’ve lived and breathed it, Ali. It’s what you are. And you’re too good at it to throw it all in and become a waitress or whatever the hell else takes your fancy for twenty-four hours.’

  Ali felt tears at the backs of her eyes. She knew he was right. ‘I know,’ she whispered.

  Max lifted a hand to her shoulder. ‘Thank goodness,’ he murmured.

  She gave him a watery smile as she pulled up in front of his apartment complex and turned the ignition off. The glow from her foray back into medicine had dissipated with the knowledge that she had to go back and face her demons but another glow had taken over.

  A very unwelcome one at that.

  His hand on her shoulder was warm and heavy and causing havoc everywhere. His heady male scent filled her little car and she had to grip the steering wheel hard to stop her doing something crazy like leaning over and gnawing on his bare bicep.

  It would be easy if it were just sexual attraction. But she needed more. She needed him to love her with the same soul-deep, wrenching agony she loved him. She needed his all.

  Max, who had fought the urge to touch her, to drop his hand on her knee, run it up the length of her thigh, for the entire ten-minute car journey broke the growing silence. ‘I’ve missed you, Ali.’

  Ali shut her eyes. ‘Don’t.’

  ‘Come up with me,’ he murmured.

  Ali shook her head against the illicit image of them making love one more time. ‘No.’

  ‘I know you said in your note that you think we were just distractions for each other but the truth is … I really like you, Ali.’

  It was a complete understatement and an outright lie but he sensed she was poised to flee and he didn’t want to frighten her away with the other L word.

  Why would she believe him? She’d been hurt and scarred and was trying to get her life back on track. It was too much to dump on her tonight, especially following the huge revelation that medicine was her calling.

  He needed to go slow with her. Woo her. Give her the time and space and support she needed. And hope that out of the attraction she felt for him, something stronger would grow.

  Ali gripped the steering wheel tighter. She wanted to feel his mouth against hers again. Feel his weight on her, his hardness buried inside her. But she had her pride. She wouldn’t accept crumbs from him.

  Not when some other woman was getting the cake.

  Max lifted his hand slowly and pushed a floppy curl out of her eye. He wanted to be able to erase the frown from her forehead. Love her with his body if that was all she allowed.

  ‘Ali,’ he whispered. He cupped her cheek and stroked the pad of his thumb along her cheekbone. ‘Please, Ali.’

  Sensing that she wanted it as much as he did, he moved in towards her, no longer able to resist the heady female smell of her that teased his nostrils and stoked his libido. He nuzzled her neck, inhaling deeply, dizzy with her scent. He licked up her neck, stroked his tongue over the lobe of her ear.

  ‘I want to kiss you, Ali,’ he murmured. ‘I want to kiss you all night. Everywhere.’

  Ali, hands still gripping the steering wheel, shut her eyes and her mind to his serpent-like treachery. She couldn’t succumb. If she did, it was a slippery slope to oblivion.

  ‘Let me love you, Ali.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ALI whimpered at his choice of words. Not fair, not fair, she wanted to cry as all her resistance melted to liquid.

  Yes, she knew he didn’t mean love. But he was just too near, too irresistible, too damn Max.

  Max heard the noise at the back of her throat and felt Ali tense. He cursed the slip of his tongue but it had seemed the most natural thing in the world to say.

  For a second, he thought he’d lost her.

  But then her hands dropped from the wheel and she turned her head and her lips were seeking his and then they were on him and she was opening to him, leaning closer, clutching at his shirt, moaning as his tongue duelled with hers.

  The kiss ignited and in seconds they were pawing at each other like horny teenagers. The temperature rose a degree or two as their noisy ragged breathing fogged up the windows.

  Max pulled away as Ali’s fingers stroked him through his shorts. He grabbed her hand, stopping the torture, but pressing it close, his head spinning from the delicious friction. ‘My apartment,’ he gasped. ‘Now.’

  Ali, her brain jumbled, her resistance melted, didn’t even think of denying him. Of denying herself. She’d missed him. Missed this. She groped blindly for the door handle and stumbled out of the car.

  Max was beside her, reaching for her hand, then hurrying her into the building. The lift was waiting for them and he dragged her in, not even waiting for the doors to close before he started kissing her again.

  Ali hung on as he hiked her up the wall, balancing her on the cold metal hand rail. She locked her legs around his waist as the lift zoomed to the top floor and his kisses completely shorted out any rational thoughts. He kissed down her neck as his hands pushed under her T-shirt and boldly sought her breasts.

  The lift arrived just as he freed one to his gaze and sucked hard on the puckered nipple. Ali threw back her head and cried out.

  Then he was yanking her shirt down and lifting her off the hand rail and pulling her along behind him until they were at his door and then inside his door
and then inside his bedroom.

  ‘Take your clothes off,’ he demanded, kissing her hard and deep as he pulled at his own.

  His husky command and soul-drugging kiss made her legs go weak and she fumbled ineffectually with them. All that mattered was his mouth and the delicious havoc it was creating. Everything else was paralysed.

  When Max finished with his clothes he worked on hers until she was finally naked, finally exposed to his greedy eyes, his greedy hands, his greedy mouth.

  He pushed her back on his bed and watched as everything bounced and shifted just the way he liked it. ‘God, I’ve missed you,’ he whispered.

  And then Ali reached for him and there were no more words, no more thoughts. Just moans and licks and gasps and whimpers. Delicious sensations sprinkling down on them like fairy dust. Holding on tight as their bodies moved to a rhythm uniquely theirs.

  Building and building and building until they could no longer stay earthbound but flew up into the cosmos and floated amongst the stars.

  Ali held onto Max, onto the stars, as long as she could. Even when he went to move off her she tightened her arms around him. ‘No,’ she protested. ‘Not yet.’

  She didn’t want to ever let go. She wanted to imprint this moment on her brain for ever. Remember his weight and the warmth of his breath on her neck and the delicious sensation of him still being inside her.

  Max held on tight trying to absorb her into his cells. He wanted to remember this moment too. Remember how his love was so overwhelming it felt as if it were spilling out of his pores, being released on his breath.

  He bit down hard on the desire to tell her. It was too soon. She wasn’t ready to hear it.

  She shifted under him and he eased off, this time ignoring her protests. ‘Shh,’ he murmured, scooping her close, his hand automatically spearing into her hair, then running down the length of her spine and back up to her hair again.

  Ali sighed as her orgasm and Max’s magic touch lulled her doubts into oblivion. Her eyelids fluttered closed. And it was in this drowsy state her subconscious threw up a nagging question.