The Doctor's One Night to Remember

by Charlotte Hawkes

  So what other explanation could there be?

  And now he had that damned birthday card to deal with. Nikhil shook the unwelcome memories from his brain.

  Tonight wasn’t about revisiting his grubby past. Instead, tonight was about indulging in the unexpected seduction of this moment. And the temptation that was Isla. He intended to learn every millimetre of her oh-so-sensuous body. With his hands, his mouth, his tongue. He didn’t care which.

  Though preferably all three.

  He wanted to touch her and taste her. Lord, how he wanted to taste her. He wanted to drink her in as though he were a parched man and she was his oasis.

  ‘One night, Little Doc,’ he heard himself grind out, scarcely able to lift his head from her neck. So hot, so smooth, with the faintest tang of salt in the still-hot night.

  ‘Yes,’ she muttered, arching her body into him and letting her head tip back as if to grant him better access. As if half-afraid he was going to move away.

  ‘That means no recriminations once the morning comes,’ he repeated, only he wasn’t sure who he was reminding. Her? Or himself?

  ‘I’m well aware of what it means.’ She yanked her head up abruptly and scowled at him. ‘I’m not a gullible teenage girl. But I can’t control your morning tantrums.’

  ‘No, I meant you...’ It took him a moment to realise that she was teasing him. Playing him at his own game. He rather liked that. It was like a fresh kick of desire in his gut. Lower, if he was going to be honest.

  ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you,’ he growled, lowering his head back to that sensitive hollow at the base of her neck—where she seemed to like him the most.

  So far.

  ‘You should learn to stop talking,’ gasped Isla, slicking her fingers through his hair just rough enough. ‘One might think you’re overcompensating.’

  ‘Say again?’

  He lifted his head again, though he still kept her pinned to the wall with his body.

  ‘You’re building yourself up to be God’s gift,’ she continued, though he noted with some satisfaction that she couldn’t keep the desire from thickening her voice. ‘It would be a terrible disappointment to discover your mouth is making promises that your body can’t deliver.’

  Was she seriously questioning his prowess?

  ‘Oh, believe me, my body can deliver.’

  ‘So your mouth keeps saying—’ she heaved a deliberate sigh, and the shakiness of it shot through him all the more ‘—but your body...’

  ‘Trust me, Little Doc, my mouth can deliver too.’

  ‘Sorry?’ This time it was her turn to question.

  Just as he’d intended. He shot a smile that felt infinitely wolfish.

  ‘My body can deliver. And so can my mouth.’

  She stared at him for a moment, and then a deep stain spread over her cheeks and down the elegant line of her neck.

  ‘Oh...you mean...’

  ‘I intend to eat you alive, Little Doc. Until you sob my name.’

  ‘I won’t sob your name.’

  He wasn’t sure if that was meant to be a promise or a challenge. He found he didn’t care.

  ‘You will,’ he assured her with conviction. ‘And you won’t only sob it, but you’ll shout it, and you’ll scream it. Right before you beg me for more. And more again. I intend to make absolutely sure of that.’

  She made a delicious half-strangled sound, and he asked himself what it said about him that he wondered if that was the kind of sound he would hear again and again, as she broke apart in his arms.

  He was so hard that he ached. Barely able to resist the wicked urge to drop to his knees right here, lift that flimsy dress of hers and prove his point once and for all.

  If he wasn’t careful, he risked losing the last of his grip on some semblance of self-control. With a supreme effort, Nikhil peeled his body from Isla’s, took her hand and began to walk them down the street.

  ‘Come,’ he gritted out. ‘I suggest we get back to your hotel now, before we indulge in the middle of the street and embarrass both of us.’

  Although, for the very first time in his incredibly discreet professional life, Nikhil found he wouldn’t have cared if the whole city knew that Little Doc was his.

  Even if only for this one night.

  * * *

  Isla felt crazy. Wild. Out of control. Totally unlike herself.

  And it was so freeing.

  She’d spent her life trying to be different from her mother—as much as she loved her—trying to concentrate on her career rather than simply making a series of strategic marriages.

  She’d become known as Isla, the sensible one. And she’d prided herself on such a moniker.

  But now she didn’t feel sensible at all. She felt excited, and charged, and feverish. Her heart slammed madly in her chest. Her legs trembled like a newborn foal. And, far from terrifying her, as she suspected they ought to, they instead felt like truly joyous sensations. Every last one of them.

  She hurried along beside him, trying not to be so aware of the way his large hand enveloped her small one. Or how the click-clack of her heels seemed to echo with such titillating rudeness as she raced to keep up with his long strides. As though he could barely wait any longer than she could.

  Did he feel as though he was about to burst from the inside out, the way that she did?

  They moved swiftly through the narrow streets, with Nikhil weaving a path that kept them away from the melee of tourists, sparing them from being seen. Given that she suspected her desire was stamped blatantly on her face, Isla was eternally grateful. And then they were walking through the hotel doors.

  And upstairs was her bedroom.

  ‘Key card?’ he demanded, his voice low.

  ‘In my purse.’ She licked her suddenly parched lips.

  With a nod, he changed course slightly and made straight for the elevators on the far side where one was, mercifully, already there.

  An elderly couple were already stepping inside and Nikhil slowed his pace.

  ‘Which floor?’

  To her embarrassment, her mind went blank. Nikhil’s voice was hoarser than before, and she found herself too busy savouring the way it revealed more than she suspected he would have liked.

  ‘What floor, Isla?’ he repeated, with more urgency.

  Snapping back to the present, she shook her head before fumbling with the clasp of her clutch and fishing out her key card. She handed it to him discreetly, not trusting herself, and let him lead her forward for what felt the longest elevator-ride of her life.

  How did he manage, so easily, to respond as the elderly couple made pleasant conversation, when her own tongue felt as though it was glued to the roof of her mouth? Her body might as well have been on fire, and her brain could barely process their questions let alone formulate suitable responses. Yet Nikhil seemed more than comfortable engaging in small talk and suggesting some of the more tucked-away places to visit when they asked for his advice.

  It was only as they stood outside her tiny suite, the doors pinging behind them as it finally separated them from the elderly couple, that Nikhil handed her key card back to her. Without unlocking her door.

  She stared at the tiny rectangle of plastic without taking it, and frowned up at him. ‘You’ve changed your mind?’

  Coal-black eyes bored into her, making everything tingle all over again. ‘I have not.’ His voice was a low rumble. Full of promise. And barely contained restraint. ‘But I’m giving you one more chance to change yours.’

  Something like panic shot through her. ‘Why?’

  He lifted his shoulders. Not quite a shrug, but close enough. ‘You went so quiet in the lift. I thought you were having second thoughts.’

  A wave of relief crashed over her, and the panic was swept away in an instant. She struggled to contain the
grin as it tugged at the corners of her mouth. And with it came a welcome boost of confidence.

  Extending her fingers, Isla plucked the key card from his hand and slid it home, stepping over the threshold and turning to face him. Her hands lifting up until her palms were pressed against the warm, impossibly sculpted ridges of his chest.

  Moving over them.

  Acquainting herself with them.

  ‘I wasn’t,’ she murmured, raising herself on tiptoe and letting her lips graze his. ‘I didn’t change my mind for a moment. And I don’t intend to now.’

  Then, before he could answer, she closed her fists around his lapels and tugged him off balance, right over the threshold to her room.

  * * *

  Nikhil fully intended to take his time. To taste, to sample, to tend to Isla’s needs before he even began to think about his own. But, uncharacteristically, he found she’d caught him off-guard, his wondrous ‘Little Doc’, and he found himself fighting his own urgency.

  No other woman had ever made him feel so intoxicated. So possessed.

  Stumbling inside, he managed to close the door before spinning her around so that her back was against the door, his hands exploring her ravishing body.

  And she let him. She more than let him, she actively spurred him on, wrapping her arms around his neck and fitting herself to him. Moulding herself as though she were hand-crafted—just for him. The prospect should have been enough to set off warning bells, loud and clear, in his head.

  He deliberately didn’t stop to consider the fact that it hadn’t.

  Instead, Nikhil focused his entire thoughts on lowering his head to claim her mouth with his. Hot, demanding, hungry. From the slide of her lips to the slick of his tongue, all of which elicited from her the greediest little moans of approval, and all of which his body lapped up.

  He didn’t think he’d ever been so hard, so needy his entire life. How had this woman slid under his skin? It was ridiculous. He had to slow down.

  Setting one hand against the flimsy door beside her head, Nikhil slid the other down the side of her body, letting it curve around her waist, feeling her heat seep into him. His mouth never leaving hers. Slowly, he moved his fingers, a teasing caress, walking his way across her abdomen, not quite enough to tickle, but feeling her stomach clench sensitively nonetheless.

  Anticipation. Usually, he was all about it. All about the build-up. Today, with this woman, it was taking every bit of self-control he had not to simply rip her clothes off and bury himself inside her. The way her rocking body kept urging him on was enough to drive him out of his mind. Enough to make him forget he’d ever wanted any other woman in his life before her.

  He’d certainly never wanted them with this ferocity. And still she shifted and rolled her hips. Searing heat against the hardest part of himself.

  He made himself ignore it, though he had no idea how he managed it, choosing instead to concentrate on the feel of movement of her diaphragm beneath his hands as she breathed. Heavily, he noted with satisfaction. He took his time walking his fingers a little further, a little higher, and then he was pushing her bra aside and cupping her breast in his hand, testing it, letting his thumb pad rake over her hard, proud nipple.

  The urge to lower his head and take it in his mouth was overwhelming. And so he did. Tugging the flimsy material of the dress and the lace of the bra out of the way as he did.

  Isla gasped, her fingers raking through his hair and her head dropping back. Nikhil revelled in it. She tasted of pure desire. Ripe and unrestrained, and as Nikhil used his tongue to toy with the taut peak he couldn’t resist moving his hand to free her other breast from its fabric constraints and lavish upon it an equal amount of attention.

  The world seemed to stop, or maybe it spun faster, but he refused to be hurried. He might be teetering on the edge of control, but he’d be damned if he gave in to this overwhelming, aching desire for her, until he’d brought her pleasure first.

  Brushing his hand over her body, down her belly and to the hem of her skirt, he lifted it with a forced laziness, relishing the way Isla’s breath caught, and fractured.

  And then, so slowly, he grazed his fingers up the inside of her thigh and skimmed where she was so very hot, so very wet, that it was almost his undoing. He was so hard, so aching, that it was almost like pain, and he had no idea how he managed not to simply bury himself inside her.

  * * *

  Isla was going out of her mind. She was sure of it.

  She briefly wondered how Nikhil kept his control when she’d long since lost hers, but then he hooked his finger inside her panties and stroked her core, and she ignited. Over and over he stroked her, and she couldn’t speak, couldn’t think. It was like nothing that had ever gone before.

  Instead, lost between his mouth at her neck and his fingers on her sex, she simply let her body listen to the rhythm that he was setting. Meeting it. Matching it. And surely those needy, visceral noises couldn’t possibly be her?

  Still, he kept stroking her. Over and over, like the most exquisite kind of torture, driving her onward, and upward, until she realised—almost too late—that she was toppling over the edge.

  Isla just about managed to cling to Nikhil’s strong shoulders as she fell. Hurtling weightlessly, pleasure fragmenting around her. And she had absolutely no idea how long she fell, she was only vaguely aware of holding him tightly—as if afraid that if she let go he would disappear—as he wrapped her legs around his waist, and carried her to the huge bed in the middle of the room.

  She could only watch, spellbound, as he stripped her off. And then again, as he ruthlessly shed his own clothing. Naked, hard, and clearly ready for her. Undoubtedly the most beautiful man she’d ever known in her life.

  Isla reached for him.

  ‘What’s the rush, Little Doc?’ he drawled.

  But she heard the tightness in his tone, as though he wasn’t quite as restrained as he wanted to appear. It was a thrilling notion and one which she considered exploiting—right up until she watched him lodge himself between her legs, his mouth impossibly close to where she was already molten.

  ‘I don’t think I can again...’ she whispered shakily.

  There was no other way to describe his grin but as decidedly wicked.

  ‘I disagree,’ he murmured.

  Then, before she could add anything more, he lowered his head and licked his way into her.

  She screamed his name. It was impossible not to. And somehow her hands had made their way to his head as she threaded her fingers into his hair as if to give herself better purchase as she bucked her hips beneath him. Towards him.

  As if she was utterly incapable of doing anything less.

  As if he had completely taken over her. And she couldn’t have resisted, even if she’d wanted to.

  Was this what she’d been missing? All these years? It made a mockery of everything that had gone before. Had she really been happy to settle for less with Bradley—and not even realised it?

  For the first time, Isla felt as though her eyes had been opened. She felt alive. In a rush, she realised that, as transient as tonight would be, she would always remember Nikhil for showing her how much richer her life could be.

  And then she couldn’t think any more.

  She could only feel, as he used his mouth, his fingers, weaving some kind of spell around her, more carnal than she’d ever dreamed possible. With another sweep of his tongue he toppled her straight back into the flames, and she briefly considered that even if she burned alive she wouldn’t care.

  She bucked, and she let her hips roll. And this time when she gave herself up to him, breaking, splintering, she somehow knew that this was the way she was going to make herself anew.

  And for the first time in her life Isla let herself go completely.

  By the time she came to, Nikhil had moved his body up to cover her
s, carefully and gently, as though to give her time to regain her breath. Nonetheless the evidence of his desire pressed deliciously, like velvety steel, against her belly.

  Isla ran her hands over his body, taking it all in. From the knotted muscles of his back, to strong biceps, and then the solid bulk of his shoulders. She frowned slightly at the rough scar that adorned one of them. It was old, but it caught her doctor’s eye instantly.

  ‘What was this from?’

  She hated the way his eyes shuttered on her.

  ‘Old war wound, as they say.’

  ‘It looks like a knife wound. A deep one at that.’

  His eyes held hers. So intently that she almost forgot to breathe. And she didn’t know why it was so important to her, but she found herself urging him to talk to her. Not to shut her out again.

  ‘We’re not here for story-telling, Little Doc. We don’t have to share life stories.’

  Disappointment rolled through her, but she pasted on as much of a smile as she could.

  ‘I only asked what the scar was from. I wasn’t asking for your life story, Nikhil.’

  He watched her a little longer before offering an almost imperceptible dip of his head.

  ‘You’re right; it was a knife wound,’ he confirmed. ‘A kitchen accident with a carving knife. Does that satisfy your curiosity?’

  She wanted to say that it didn’t. That she hated the way he was pulling away from her. But she didn’t. She couldn’t. Nikhil was right. They weren’t here to share life stories; they were here for sex. Incredible sex. But still sex. She was an idiot for making it so personal. And now she’d broken the moment, and the mood.

  She cranked up her smile another notch.