So close, she had to tilt back her head to look up at him. And as she did, her breasts brushed against the hard plane of his chest, sinking a liquid finger of excitement and lust into her sex.
“Or,” he said, so low she could barely make out his voice, “I could…”
“Kiss me?” she suggested in a whisper.
He reached out with one hand, snagged the thick, braided bun of her hair, and crushed her lips with his.
Hey-o! Totally not what she was expecting.
She opened to him with impatient hunger. His tongue sought out hers with dominating demand and she gave it to him. She’d never been kissed like this before. Like she was totally his, like nothing existed but their tongues and lips together.
She strained closer, aching to feel his tall, hard body against hers. She’d imagined it so often; would it be everything she’d fantasied?
Holy crap, it was better. So much better. Whatever he did when not working or in surgery, it clearly involved a lot of hard, physical activity. She didn’t need to see him without his clothes to know he was built like a freaking sex god under his suit.
Under his suit…
Oh boy.
The longest, thickest, hardest erection she’d ever encountered ground against her belly as she pressed closer to him.
He growled into her mouth and, like an animal suddenly unleashed, his kiss turned wild.
He grabbed her arse and yanked her closer, his tongue battling hers. Oh God, she was so up for that battle. A willing participant. More than willing. Eager, in fact.
Groaning, she rolled her hips, the rigid pole of his erection against her stomach like an electrical charge, detonating the most carnal sexual hunger she’d ever experienced.
It shook her. To her very core. Shifted her whole perspective on pleasure.
And freaking petrified her.
Jerking out of his arms, she staggered back a step. And another.
Oh God, what…what was she doing?
What are you doing? You just stopped the most incredible kiss of your—
“Bebe.”
A shiver ran up her spine at the guttural way he said her name.
Their eyes clashed in the muted shadows of his office, his expression as unreadable as his body language. He fixed her with a level, direct gaze, his body motionless. If he was as unsettled as she was by what had just happened, he sure as hell wasn’t showing it.
Bebe, on the other hand? She was struggling to even breathe. Her entire being screamed at her to throw herself back at him. Wrap around him like cling wrap and beg him to fuck her right there, on his desk.
She ached for that very thing.
“I have to go,” she said, although it sounded more like a ragged breath. “I’m sorry for…”
She didn’t finish the sentence. She couldn’t. She didn’t trust herself. Instead, she ran from his office.
Ran. Like a scared little girl. Which was ridiculous, because she wasn’t a naïve innocent virgin, and Erik Murphy wasn’t the boogie man. Nor was he a sexual predator preying on her. Everything he’d done, she’d wanted. Hell, she wanted more, goddamn it. So much more.
But he was a surgeon, the head surgeon of an entire department, and she was a rookie nurse finally finding her way in this crazy-arse experience called life.
Whatever it was that had just occurred between them, it couldn’t happen again. She had to stick to her guns. She was all about being a grownup now, and grownups didn’t throw away their future no matter how intense and incredible and perfect a kiss was.
Fuzzbucket.
* * * *
What the hell did he just do?
Kissed a nurse.
No, more than just kissed a nurse. He’d kissed Bebe Wells. Damn near tongue-fucked her mouth.
He hadn’t planned on closing the distance between them. But she’d kept biting that damn gorgeous lip of hers and he’d needed to see if it glistened after each pull from her teeth.
He hadn’t planned on kissing her, but she’d made that awkwardly adorable joke about oral sex and them seeing each other again.
He hadn’t planned on surrendering to his need, but the second—the very second—her mouth opened to his, the second her tongue touched his, he was lost to base, primitive lust.
Jaysus, it was intense. And so fecking good. And she wanted it as much as he did. He could tell by her lips, her tongue, the way she rolled her hips, grinding her body against his.
And then she ran.
Shite.
What did he do now?
Sucking in a deep breath, he clawed at his hair.
Christ, he wanted her. Craved her. Every breath he took tasted of her. The scent of her hair still lingered on his fingers.
His cock pulsed at the thought of smelling other parts of her body on his fingers.
He closed his eyes, allowing himself a few moments to imagine slowly undressing her, exploring her body with his hands, his lips…
“Christ,” he groaned, sinking into his chair. Dumb move, thinking something like that. Especially when he couldn’t go after her.
They were both at work.
But she finishes at six.
She was a nurse. And he had his rule.
Ah, but the way she kissed. The way she responded…
“Christ,” he groaned again.
What the hell was he going to do?
Before he could conceive any kind of sane, logical answer, his phone rang. Snatching it up, he let out a dry laugh at the name on the screen. As far as distractions go, the Head of Orthopaedic Surgery was a good one.
Connecting the call with a jab of his thumb, he pressed the phone to his ear. “Gabe.”
Alfonsi didn’t waste words. “I’ve got a five-year-old with a suspected fifth-degree neurotmesis to the ulnar nerve in ER, Murphy. I need your help.”
Okay, the distraction could be just what the doctor ordered.
Huh. Doctor.
The surgery ate up the rest of the night, which was exactly what Erik needed. By the time Alfonsi closed up the patient, however, it was close to six-thirty a.m.
Disappointment sheared through Erik, but he swallowed it, cupping Alfonsi’s shoulder as he gave him a nod. “Well done, boyo.” He broadened his Irish accent a tad, grinning behind his mask. He and Alfonsi had an ongoing thing about their foreign heritage. Irish versus Italy. As far as Erik was concerned, there was no real contest. “You did good.”
Alfonsi snorted. “Bite me, Murphy.”
Erik was almost out of the operating room when Alfonsi said, “True that bella rookie nurse caught you getting blown in the lounge earlier?”
Shite.
Drawing to a halt, Erik threw him a casual look. “Which one?”
Alfonsi laughed.
Forcing out a chuckle, his gut a tight knot, Erik got the hell out of there.
How many people knew what happened? Did he need to track down Brogan earlier than planned and give him a piece of his mind? Or was it Bebe herself telling people what she’d walked in on?
Something about that possibility felt off. She wouldn’t do that. It wasn’t in her personality. In fact, he’d noticed she rarely interacted with people. The nurse she’d been with earlier—Glen Wilcox—seemed to be her closest colleague. Was she the same away from the hospital?
He stripped off his scrubs, washed up, and then headed back to his office. Normally, he’d chat with whoever happened to be walking his way after surgery. It helped temper the adrenaline rush of operating, but not today.
She was in his head. Bebe Wells.
Thirty minutes ago, she’d finished her shift. Was she still in the building? On the grounds? Had she had breakfast yet?
Had she washed the taste of their kiss from her mouth with coffee? Tea?
Another wave of disappointment hit him as he entered his office. She wasn’t there, of course.
Why did you think she would be?
Shaking his head, he crossed his office, pulling his tie from his neck. Christ
, he was in trouble. One kiss and he was unravelling.
And obsessed. After just one kiss.
“Ha,” he muttered, raking his hands through his hair. “I was already obsessed. It’s one of the reasons I’ve tried so fecking hard to keep her away from me.”
And how’s that working out, huh?
“Ha,” he muttered again, crossing to the mini-bar fridge he kept in his office, filled with sparkling mineral water.
He downed a bottle without pause. He had two options, as he saw it. Go find something physically active to do to burn off the energy turning him into a charged wire—skydiving, rock climbing, MMA cage fighting, wrestle a Great White—or go to Bebe’s place.
Knock on her door.
Pin her to the wall.
Fuck her out of his system.
“Yeah, right.” Like that was even a possibility. With just one kiss he was obsessed. One tumble between the sheets and he’d never recover.
“Skydiving it is.” There was bugger-all chance of finding an MMA ring in town, and he was a card-carrying World Animal Protection member, so fighting a shark was off the table.
Once again, he avoided chitchat as he walked through the hospital to the main exit. Thankfully, Brogan Whittaker didn’t cross his path. What he’d do to the pranking bastard when he saw him, he wasn’t sure.
Smack the shit out of him? Thank him?
If he was the orchestrator of what had happened in the specialists’ lounge with Gretchen Shultz and Bebe—and Erik’s gut told him he was—he had no idea what he’d started.
Hell, Erik didn’t even know. But whatever it was, it dwarfed the previous lust he’d felt for Bebe. Turned it into a gnawing desire, a potent craving he didn’t think he’d be able to deny.
Shite.
“…got sucky news, girls. Bebe got talked into doing a double shift, so it’s just us.”
He ground to a halt at the name Bebe, spoken by a familiar female voice. Scanning the space around him, he spotted the tall blonde nurse Bebe had been eating with in the cafeteria earlier. Glen Wilcox. She and two other young women were talking together as they walked across the outside courtyard, clearly finished for the day, based on their attire and handbags.
Bebe got talked into doing a double shift.
Glen’s words whispered through his head, and his chest tightened. Did that mean Bebe was still there? In the hospital?
Heart smashing hard in his throat, he swiped an almost-trembling hand over his mouth and looked back in the direction he’d just come.
He could go home, like he’d planned, and go skydiving. He should go home, go skydiving.
Or he could be an idiot and go back into Central Perth Hospital.
He swiped his mouth again, this time with a hand that really was shaking. He knew exactly what decision he should make.
Christ, who knew he was an actual idiot?
He strode back into the hospital, taking only a couple of minutes to discover Bebe’s location—still in Paediatrics.
What’s your plan here?
He had no bloody clue, but that didn’t stop him from making his way to the kids’ ward.
The rooms were filled with injured and sick children, some terminally. It took a special kind of person with a special heart to work there. How could a person spend day in and day out witnessing a child’s pain and not walk away emotionally scarred? From what he’d heard, Bebe shone in the department, the talk amongst the specialists—on those rare occasions when they got together to talk shop—always glowing when it came to her. As always, he’d never engaged in conversation directly about her. He was brilliant at poker, but he doubted he’d be able to keep his damn-near primitive need for her off his face if he actually spoke her name to his colleagues.
The fact she was already making a name for herself in the Paediatrics ward somehow intensified what he felt for her. Made it more potent.
Ah, Christ, why had he walked back into the hospital? He should be skydiving, for Pete’s sake. Not tempting fate. Again.
God help him.
He heard Bebe before he saw her. Or more to the point, he heard her laugh. Christ, it was beautiful. Full of life and warmth. He’d only heard her laugh once before. The time a little kid was paying attention to something else—as little kids are wont to do—and he’d wrapped himself around her leg, thinking she was his mother. She’d laughed, ruffled the little kid’s hair, and tapped him on his nose with a wink and a grin.
Erik almost fell in love with her that day. Spent the rest of it working out at the gym, beating the shit out of a punching bag trying to erase her laugh, her smile, the sight of her with the little kid from his mind.
Wherever she was now, she laughed again. He was drawn to it, like he was to her, and found her in a four-bed room beside the bed of a little boy with his right leg and left arm in freshly set casts. The little lad was talking to her, his face animated, as she fixed his sheets.
Pausing at the entry, Erik drew a slow breath. The smile on her face did things to his heart he still struggled to comprehend. Their kiss in his office had shaken him to his core, but surely that was a purely physical reaction? What did it mean that he was just as aroused by Bebe’s smile? Her laugh?
“So, what happened next?” Bebe asked the young boy as she tucked in his bedsheets.
Leaning against the doorframe, Erik flicked the small whiteboard on the wall behind the little boy’s bed a quick glance: Jared Lucas. Age: 9.
“Then I told Aiden I could do it better than his dog,” Jared answered, his grin growing wide as he raptly watched her adjusting the right corner of his bed. Yep, it was clear as day—Jared was besotted.
Erik let out a silent chuckle. Who was he to judge?
I know how you feel, kid. You’ve got excellent taste.
“Better than his dog?” Bebe straightened from fixing the sheet, pressed her hands to her hips and looked at him, still unaware of Erik’s presence. “Please tell me you didn’t—”
Nodding, Jared laughed. If he nodded with any more enthusiasm and joy, his head would come off. “I did.”
“And that’s how you broke your arm and leg?” Bebe moved to the other side of his bed. All it would take is one slight shift in focus from Jared and she would see Erik. Thank God she didn’t. He was enjoying watching her interact with the little lad too much for it to end so soon. “By trying to catch a Frisbee in your mouth while jumping over a fence?”
Jared wriggled with glee—as much as a nine-year-old laboured down with two full-limb casts could wriggle, that was. “Yep.”
Bebe laughed a third time, and Erik bit back a groan. Everything about her made him feel…good.
Hell, he really could fall in love with her if he wasn’t careful.
Get out of here, a panicked voice ordered deep in his head. Now.
“And who is this young man,” he said instead, pushing himself from the doorframe and walking over to the bed, “who vies for my fair lady’s attention with tales of danger?”
Bebe startled. A soft gasp escaped, her gaze flicking to his face, and then she quickly cast Jared a conspiratorial look. Whatever Erik’s presence there was doing to her, she kept it hidden. “Watch it, Jared. The doc’s here.”
Jared giggled. “Hi, Doc. Is Bebe your girlfriend?”
Erik’s heart banged against his chest at the word. “Hmmm,” he said, stopping on the opposite side of Jared’s bed to Bebe. “Do you think I’m good-looking enough for her?”
Jared studied him, narrow-eyed for a few seconds, and then shrugged. “Can you grow a beard?”
Bebe burst out laughing. “That solves it then. From now on, Jared, you are responsible for selecting my future boyfriends.” Her eyes met Erik’s for a split second. “And deciding if they’re worth my time.” She smiled wider at Jared. “Deal?”
He beamed. “Deal!” Swinging his attention to Erik, he fixed him in a hard stare. “Do you like dogs?”
“Love them.” No lie there. He did. “Want to own a Great Dane one day. O
r a Chihuahua.”
Jared laughed again. “Do you like Batman?”
“Who doesn’t?”
Bebe chuckled. “I’m more partial to Captain America myself.”
“Is it the cape and cowl that you don’t like?” Erik smiled at her. Hell, this was awesome. Just playful chatting. When had he ever done this with anyone? When had he ever wanted to? “Or the gravelly voice?” he asked, making his voice sound as much as he could like Batman’s from the last movie he’d seen.
Both Jared and Bebe laughed.
Erik pulled a puzzled face. “Actually, it’s been a while since I’ve watched a Batman movie. Does he still talk like that? Or,” he slipped into a very thick Irish accent, “does he talk like this now?”
“That’s cool,” Jared enthused. “You sound like Shrek!”
“Oi, Shrek is Scottish,” Erik pointed out, even as a smile tugged at his lips.
“Well, then he must be Shrek’s Irish uncle.” Bebe smiled up at him. “Look at his ears.”
Straight away, Jared looked at Erik’s ears—left, then right, then left again.
“Hey.” Pretending to be wounded, he cupped his ears with his hands. “My ears are fantastic.”
Jared grinned. Bebe smiled wider. Holy hell did Erik want to kiss her. Right there and then. Like he’d never wanted anything in his life.
Their eyes connected again, longer this time. A silence fell between them, one Bebe broke with a soft clearing of her throat. She dropped her gaze to Jared and gently placed her hand on his shoulder. “On to my next patient, Jared. You know how to buzz a nurse if you need one, yes?”
He nodded. “I press the button. Will you come if I press it?”
“I’ll do my best. Promise. In the meantime, how ’bout I see if I can get you some ice cream for breakfast.” Her eyes twinkled with mischief. “Or do you prefer dog treats.”
“Ewww!” Jared laughed. “Funny. Ha ha.”
She gave Erik a small smile and dipped her head. “Doctor.”
“Fair lady.”
Jared giggled again.
Standing still, Erik watched her walk to the bed beside Jared’s, where another boy—this one about thirteen—was stretched out, staring fiercely at his smartphone. “So, do you think she was dazzled by my charms?” he asked Jared in a loud whisper.
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