“If you promise not to climb anymore roofs,” she said, “I promise to come back next week in the tightest jeans I own. Deal?”
“Bloody oath,” Reg agreed with an enthusiastic grin, followed immediately by a hissing wince.
“Oh, Reg,” his wife tsked.
Tash dropped him a wink and then, without looking at Matt, exited the McGuire’s bedroom. Better not to look at the good doctor in case she saw that same intimate heat in his eyes again. If she did, she might do something stupid like actually let him know she liked him.
Huh. Like? Lust is more accurate. Long for, desire, ache for…oh my God, woman, stop it!
Hurrying for the front door, she heard him delivering calm instructions to the elderly couple. Heard his gentle chuckle at no doubt another joke from Old Man Dingo. Heard a scramble of claws on the polished wooden floor as the injured stockman’s pet dingoes rushed for the door she’d just opened, bumping off her calves as they ran across the threshold.
They loped about her feet as if trying to get her attention for tummy rubs. By the time she’d made it to the pickup and the stock hand waiting in it to take her and Matt back to the plane, she was grinning with delight at their canine exuberance. She loved dogs. Would have a dog of her own if she could, a scruffy mutt she’d call Doofus who would share her bed, sit in the co-pilot seat on call-outs and whose goofy doggy smile would make the doc laugh every time he climbed into the plane.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t possible. For a whole world of sucky reasons.
Another cough sounded in her chest. Damn, it was tight today, probably thanks to the ridiculous amount of dust the dingoes kicked up, as well as the dander from their bodies dancing on the air around them. Still, a tight chest due to animal fluff and dust was preferable to a tight chest from a ridiculous sexual fantasy, that was for certain, even if it was a tad more…dangerous.
“Dingo gonna be okay?”
Tash lifted her smile from the raucous dingoes at her feet to the stock hand who had driven them from the property’s small runway to the homestead. “I suspect so. Dingo dislocated his right hip and Dr. Corvin suspects he’s also fractured his tailbone. And he now has five stitches in the back of his head, but he was very lucky.”
“Silly old bugger,” the stock hand grumbled, pushing himself off the pickup’s passenger door. “No one knew he was up there.”
Tash couldn’t decide if the grumble in the hired hand’s voice was from concern or contempt. Who knew with the cowboys out here?
“Hopefully, he won’t get up there again,” she answered as one of the dingoes nudged her hand with its dusty muzzle, begging for a pat.
She looked down into the dingo’s amber eyes, the open desire for her attention in them making her sad. “Sorry, boy,” she whispered. “I’d love to give you a pat, but I’ve maxed out on my canine interaction today. I just can’t risk it. I’ve got to fly the doc back to Wallaby Ridge and I can’t do that if I’m—”
“Ready, Tash?”
She let out a little squeal at the sound of Matt’s voice behind her. At her feet, the dingoes pranced about some more, tails whipping side-to-side as they gave him doggy grins.
The dingo that had been silently pleading with her for a pat abandoned its efforts and ran to Matt and leaped up to ram its dirty front paws right in the middle of his crotch.
Right on the not-quite-so subtle bulge in his jeans Tash knew to be his groin.
Two things happened. Matt burst out laughing even as he doubled over in surprised pain, and Tash sucked in a sharp breath. A breath that turned into a sharp cough.
Her chest tightened.
Not just a little, but too much.
Way too much.
There was a split-second of frozen weight, a heartbeat of crushing pressure, and then Tash’s lungs refused to work.
Oh no. Not again…
Terror and panic and self-hate flooded her. What didn’t flood her however, was air.
She spun on her heel and hurried away from the dingoes, Matt and the pickup. Doing her best to keep her strides purposeful, not staggering lurches, she shoved her hand—shaking, damn it—into her jacket’s inside pocket.
“Tash?”
She waved her other hand without turning, hoping to God it appeared dismissive and irritated. Better he think she was taking a private phone call than know she was really…defective.
The brutal word her mother had used to describe her, the last word her mother ever spoke to her, lashed through Tash’s head. Chest growing tighter, she closed her fingers around the inhaler in her insider pocket and yanked it free.
Defective.
“Tash?”
Oh crap, he was hurrying towards her.
Her vision blooming with black smudges, she pulled the cap from her asthma inhaler, shook the small device with furious urgency and then shoved its end in her mouth and sealed her lips around it.
She depressed the canister and sucked in a long, slow breath.
Did it all again. Swallowed the medication she both hated and couldn’t live without with desperate greed. Inhaled the Albuterol into her horrible, useless lungs.
Lungs that instantly relaxed. Lungs that decided they actually wanted to do their job after all the second the short-acting beta-agonists flowed through her wretched bronchial tubes.
She pulled another breath, slower, deeper, her vision clearing, the panic seeping from her. A little.
And then Matt was right beside her, curling his fingers around her upper arm, cupping his other hand around her face, and it wasn’t the fear of dying that gripped her any more.
It was embarrassment.
And the overwhelming need to throw herself into his arms and let him do what he did best—make a person, even one as faulty as her, feel better.
Chapter 2
Matt studied Tash’s profile, noting the way she scrunched up her face with dismay even as she tried to hide the fact she was having difficulty drawing normal breath.
His heart beat faster, far from his typical reaction to a medical situation. Less clinical detachment and more personal concern. “How long have you had asthma, Tash?”
His pilot shrugged her arm free of his loose grip and turned away, shaking her head. “It’s nothing.”
He captured her hand with his, tugging her back to face him, an action she didn’t like at all, given the way she scowled at him. “It is something,” he said, releasing her hand to place his palms on her cheeks.
Her skin was flushed. A little clammy. He rested his thumbs on her cheekbones, just under her bottom eyelids and pulled the skin down a little to peer at her eyes.
She slapped his hands away, her scowl turning to a glare. “Stop it.”
He fixed her with a level look, pressing the pads of his index and middle fingers to the pulse in her neck. “Sure. When you tell me how long you’ve had asthma.”
“Everything okay?” the cowboy who’d driven them to the main homestead called.
“Yes,” Tash called back, still glaring at Matt.
Letting out a slow breath, Matt turned to give the other man a relaxed smile. “Any chance you can give us an hour, Ted? Before taking us back to the runway?”
“Matt,” Tash growled behind him. She was not happy with him.
The cowboy tapped the brim of his hat and nodded. “Sure thing, Doc. I’ll go grab something to eat. Come get me at the work hands’ kitchen when you’re ready.”
Behind Matt, Tash let out a muttered curse. “What are you doing?”
He turned back to her, checking her eyes again without asking. “Waiting for an answer from you,” he murmured, tilting her head toward the sun a little as he studied her right pupil.
Not dilated. Clear. If one didn’t count simmering anger.
Oh yeah, she was not happy with him at all.
“Stop that.” She jerked her head away, her glare turning icy. Murderous, even.
Letting out a ragged sigh, Matt shoved his hands to his hips and fixed her with his own le
ss-murderous glare. “Tash. You’ve just had an asthma attack. I know that because I’m a doctor. If you think you can pretend you didn’t, perhaps I need to arrange for a CAT scan and a MRI, because clearly there’s something not functioning correctly—” he risked physical injury by tapping her forehead with his index finger, “—up there.”
Her jaw bunched, turning her beautiful face—a face he saw in his dreams most nights—into a mask of enraged contempt. And then, with a wry grunt, all the rage melted from her face and her shoulders slumped. “Yes,” she muttered. “It was an asthma attack.”
Relief swept through Matt. And worry.
Because he knew what sucking down two blasts of short-acting beta-agonists did to a person. The asthma attack may have passed, but Tash’s body—and her mind, to a lesser extent—was about to react to the SABA hit. The jitters would come first, followed by an excess of energy that would cause her to be almost hyperactive. Her body would have difficulty remaining calm, as would her brain. She’d be like a charged wire, thrumming with a vigor that would border on manic. And then the crash would come. When her body burnt up all the SABAs in her system, she would, essentially, crumple in a drained heap.
Physically, emotionally and psychologically exhausted.
Risking her ire again, he raised her face with a gentle finger under her chin. Her eyes were still clear. Good. “Is this your first of the day?”
This time, she didn’t pull away from his scrutiny. “Yes. First of the month, in fact.”
That would explain why he’d never seen signs of her being an asthma sufferer before now. What with the hours they spent together, both in the air and on the ground dealing with patients, he was bound to have seen something before now. Unless she was having attacks in the middle of the night when he wasn’t with her…
An image of Tash stretched out on her bed filled his head, her limbs bare, the sheets tangled about her long legs, her lips parted, her eyes shuttered, her chest heaving as she fought for breath. Part wildly arousing, part medically traumatic, it caused his stomach to clench and his balls to rise.
It was singularly the most messed-up image Matt had ever experienced, and with his horrific history, that was saying something.
He really needed to get his act together and focus on the situation at hand—his pilot, the asthma attack and the aftereffects of said attack.
Slipping his fingers to the side of Tash’s neck, he counted her pulse rate. Yep, it was increasing. Growing erratic.
“I’m fine now,” she said, even though she stood still and allowed his fingers to touch her flesh. She sounded husky.
He lifted his gaze to her face again. And once again, his groin tightened. Told him in no uncertain terms it was thoroughly enjoying the chance to touch her.
She stared back at him. Swallowed. The heat from her body, the velvety-smooth texture of her skin, played with his senses and he ground his teeth.
Drew a slow breath.
Trailed his fingers down her throat, to her collarbone.
And sucked in another breath as her pupils dilated and her lips parted.
“Matt,” she whispered, holding his gaze.
Jerking his hand from her throat, he stepped back.
Fuck, what was he doing? He’d been about to feel her up. Right there. Out in the McGuire’s front yard. Mere moments after she’d had an asthma attack.
What the fuck was he doing?
“C’mon,” he said, turning away. “Let’s walk it off.”
“It?”
The one-word question scraped at his sense. As did her ambiguous tone.
Did she think he meant the sudden and damn near suffocating sexual tension between them? Did she even feel it? The way he did?
Her eyes had dilated. Which means she was in fact—
“The post-attack rollercoaster,” he threw over his shoulder as he walked away from her and the homestead, forcing his voice to sound humoured. “Let’s get it out of your system before we climb back into the plane.”
“You don’t think I can fly the bird post-attack?”
He didn’t turn at her agitated call.
If he did, he might be inclined to succumb to the need to touch her again. Instead, he kept walking, heading for the small, willow-tree-shaded billabong half a mile down the dirt road.
His whole body thrummed, a sexual urgency, an awareness he’d been able to suppress for six weeks suddenly turning his blood hot. It had been easier to make it through each day lusting after his pilot when he thought she’d placed him on the same level as navel lint. Now, seeing her physical reaction to his touch…
At the sound of crunching dry grass under stomping feet, he shot a glance to his left.
She’d caught up to him, her strides matching his, her stare fixed straight ahead.
With a practiced eye, he looked for signs of fatigue. What he saw instead was much more stressful—a stunningly gorgeous woman with a seriously pissed-off glare and a really bad case of post-attack twitches.
He could detect it in her, an inability to keep her head still. She walked beside him, shaking it, rolling her neck. Flicking out her hands, curling and uncurling her fingers.
The jitters. Coupled with a tension that had never been there before between them.
If she’d been just a patient, he’d halt their walk and tell her to sit down as the physical side effects of the SABAs wrought their havoc on her body. But she wasn’t just a patient. She was his pilot, a professional associate and the object of a six-week long sexual fantasy. He wasn’t sure he could trust himself if he touched her now.
“I hate this part.”
Her bleak mutter yanked his thoughts away from what would happen if he did, in fact, place his hands on her body, even if only to take her pulse.
“The jitteriness?”
She surprised him with a soft chuckle, and a quick grin. “Is that the medical term for it, Doc?”
He grinned back, his groin tight. “No, the medical term is post-exacerbation hyper activity, but I think jitteriness is more fun.”
She laughed again, even as she raked a shaky hand through her hair and twitched her head a little again. “You should be a pediatrician, Doc.”
He pulled an expression of mock confusion. “You think I should only work with feet?”
A warm wave of relieved happiness rushed through him when she rolled her eyes and let out a melodramatic groan, her grin returning. “You should definitely never ever think of becoming a comedian,” she said.
“Stick to what I know best then?” he asked, scrutinizing her as close as a sideways glance would allow. The SABAs were really starting to impact on her. He could see the wired energy in her body, like she couldn’t stay calm in her own skin. How long would it last before the next stage hit her? It varied with every inhaler user. And how hard would the crash be when it came?
“Stick to what you… Oh, wow.”
Her open-mouth stare took him by surprise, and he jerked his surreptitious inspection of her profile away, looking instead at what had filled her with such awe.
“Wow,” she murmured again, walking past him into the dappled shade of a massive weeping willow perched on the edge of a small waterhole. Arms out, she pirouetted a few times and then turned to smile at him. “This is beautiful.”
You’re beautiful.
Matt barely caught the words before they could fall from his lips. He swallowed, watching her walk closer to the billabong’s edge. His body reacted to the exquisite sight of her. His heart responded to the incredible thought of her.
Her. His pilot.
He’d come to the Outback, to the most isolated job he could find while still practicing medicine, to keep his wounded heart safe as it healed, and here he was, running the risk of falling undeniably and utterly head over heels in love with his pilot in just six weeks.
Fuck, he was in trouble.
*
The lush grass felt cool under her bare feet. Matt had insisted she take her boots and socks off and wrigg
le her toes in the soft blades. They’d both checked for snakes first, of course. Any Australian, whether from the city or bush, knew it was both foolish and dangerous to plant their feet in long grass without first searching for snakes and spiders. Matt had given the all clear with a smile before crossing his arms over his chest, affecting a serious expression and ordering her to begin barefoot toe wriggling.
“It’ll help your body relax,” he’d said with the same tone she’d heard him use with Reg and Beryl McGuire, a wonderful mix of firm command and warm comfort.
How many times had she heard him talk that way to patients and felt her soul respond to it? How many times had she played that tone over and over in her head, her body aching for a connection she hadn’t known she’d wanted until Matt entered her life?
How many times had she pretended he’d spoken to her in that tone, telling her to strip naked, to stretch out on her bed, to spread her legs so he could fuck her with his mouth?
Too many times. She’d gone through a truckload of batteries on that one fantasy alone.
And now here she was, thinking of it again, her body—already wired on a post-inhaler blast—thrumming with charged need and her vibrator six hundred and fifty kilometres away.
But the subject of those fantasies is here, Tash. Right here. In the flesh.
She shot the doc a quick look and her breath caught. Not due to her traitorous lungs, but because of the open hunger in his eyes.
Oh God, did he—
“Fuck it,” he muttered, a second before he closed the distance between them—barely a few feet—in two long strides, buried his hands in her hair and crushed her lips with his.
He swept his tongue into her mouth, a dominating invasion of greedy desire. He pushed his hips to her, the rigid pole of his erection nudging her belly. She whimpered into the kiss, clinging to his shoulders.
A raw groan tore from him, vibrating deep in his chest, and then he dragged his lips from hers and stepped backwards, putting distance between them once again.
“I’m sorry, Natacha,” he ground out, head turned away from her. The muscles in his jaw bunched. His eyebrows dipped in a frown. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
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