by Sarah Morgan
He leaned closer. ‘Listen to me, Georgie. You’re making a big mistake, getting involved with Ben. What will your father say?’
She put her chin up but her confidence was already starting to sag. ‘He’ll be happy if I am happy.’
Richard shook his head at her. ‘Somehow I can’t see your father accepting Ben Blackwood as a future son-in-law,’ he said. ‘Have you told him about your relationship with the man he thought would never make it as a neurosurgeon?’
She gritted her teeth and said, ‘I am not having a relationship with Mr Blackwood and I think my father did think he would make it. He just wanted Ben to have a few more months to hone his skills.’
‘You seem like a sensible girl, Georgie,’ he said. ‘Don’t waste yourself on someone like Ben Blackwood. If you’re after a quick little affair to boost your career prospects, come and see me. I’d be more than happy to oblige.’
Georgie stared at him in shock, wondering if she had heard correctly. ‘Excuse me?’ she said, narrowing her eyes slightly.
His smile was smooth but again didn’t involve his eyes. ‘I met your ex-partner, Andrew McNally, at an old boys’ function from the cathedral school we both attended. He told me all about you.’ He paused as his gaze slid over her before adding, ‘About how much fun you were.’
She felt her throat go dry as she scrambled to her feet. ‘I think you’ve got the wrong idea, Mr DeBurgh,’ she said, and headed for the door.
‘Think about it, Georgie,’ he called out after her. ‘I’ll leave the offer open if you change your mind.’
She answered by closing the door firmly behind her.
‘What’s wrong?’ Rhiannon asked as soon as Georgie came into the apartment that evening. ‘You look like you’re about to throttle someone.’
Georgie began to pace the room. ‘I am so angry I could scream,’ she ground out furiously. ‘That obnoxious creep! How could I have got it so wrong about him? He’s nothing but a sleazy silver-tongued snake.’
‘So what did Ben do now?’ Rhiannon asked.
Georgie stopped pacing, her face draining of colour when she suddenly remembered she was supposed to have been waiting in Ben’s office for him. ‘Oh, no!’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I was supposed to meet Ben in his office and I completely forgot when one of the senior surgeons came on to me.’ She gave a little shudder and added, ‘Ben warned me about him but I thought he had it completely wrong.’
‘Eeuw, gross!’ Rhiannon said with feeling. ‘Why don’t you report him for sexual harassment?’
‘I might just do that,’ Georgie said as she reached for her mobile and dialled Ben’s number, but it went straight to the message service. She put the phone back in her bag and let out a frustrated sigh. ‘I wish I could see him face to face to explain.’
‘Do you know which apartment block he lives in?’ Rhiannon asked.
‘No, but I’ll ask the hospital switchboard,’ Georgie answered, and reached for her phone again.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
BEN answered the door with a towel hitched around his hips, his hair still dripping from his shower.
‘Oh … sorry …’ Georgie bit her lip and tried to keep her eyes north of the border. ‘Um … I picked a bad time to drop in on you.’
‘Not at all,’ he said, stepping aside to let her in. ‘I just got back from the gym.’ He closed the door and added, ‘I thought I might have seen you there. You didn’t hang around at the hospital so I thought you’d gone straight there.’
‘I’m so sorry I didn’t keep our appointment,’ she said. ‘I got a bit distracted by … by something that happened just after I left you with Mr Tander.’
He frowned as he looked down at her. ‘Jonathan Tander didn’t have another go at you, did he? I left him with the hospital chaplain in the relatives’ lounge. Did he somehow track you down again?’
She shook her head and cupped her elbows with her crossed-over hands. ‘I had a bit of a run-in with Richard DeBurgh … well, not exactly a run-in, more of a misunderstanding … of sorts …’
‘What sort of misunderstanding?’
Georgie stared at the droplets of water trickling down his muscular chest, her stomach tilting with the desire to follow each one with the tip of her tongue. How would he taste? She wondered. Salty or tangy or. ‘Georgie?’ he prompted.
She dragged her eyes up to his. ‘He offered me an affair,’ she told him bluntly.
His frown deepened. ‘He what?’
‘He seemed to think I would be interested in giving my career a bit of a boost by sleeping with him,’ she said.
‘You should report him.’
‘I’m still thinking about it.’
‘You have enough to deal with right now without unwanted attention from men who should know better,’ he said, raking a hand through his damp hair, leaving deep finger grooves in the jet-black strands.
‘It’s all right, Ben. I can handle men like Richard. Heaven knows, I’ve met plenty of them before.’
His eyes caught and held hers. ‘I suppose you know the rumours are flying thick and fast about us at the hospital?’
She drew in a fluttering breath. ‘Yes … I had heard something along those lines.’
‘What do you think we should do about it?’
‘I don’t know …’ She captured her bottom lip once more. ‘What do you think we should do?’
‘We could deny it strenuously,’ he said, looking down at her mouth.
‘I guess that could work …’
‘Of course, it didn’t help that we were seen by your flatmate, who has no doubt told my intern.’
‘No,’ she said, rolling her lips together for a moment. ‘You’re right. That wouldn’t have helped at all.’
‘Or we could go along with it,’ he suggested. ‘You know, pretend we really are having an affair.’
She looked at him, unable to think of anything to say.
‘When you think about it, it could solve your problem with Richard DeBurgh,’ he said. ‘He’ll back off once he hears we’re officially seeing each other.’
‘So …’ She ran her tongue over her dry lips before continuing. ‘What you’re suggesting is we pretend to be dating, right?’
‘Yeah, why not?’ he said. ‘You can let your flatmate in on the secret so you don’t lose the bet, but to all intents and purposes everyone else will believe we’re having a bit of a fling.’
She frowned at him. ‘And you don’t have a problem with that?’
‘Why should I have a problem with it? We’re both adults. The fact that you’re my registrar is neither here nor there. Work is work and play is play.’
‘But we’re not really playing,’ she pointed out. ‘We’re just pretending.’
‘Is that disappointment I hear in your tone?’
‘Of course not!’ she insisted. ‘Why on earth would I be disappointed?’
He stepped closer, his warm, damp body almost touching hers. ‘We could be pretty hot together, don’t you think, Georgie?’ he said in a low sexy rumble. ‘When we kissed last night I was so close to—’
She blocked his next word with her fingertip. ‘No,’ she said quickly and huskily. ‘Don’t say it … it’s like tempting fate.’
He captured her finger and sucked on it—hard—his eyes holding hers in the magnetic force field of his. ‘We can pretend or we can do it for real. Right now I’m thinking real would be good.’
‘No …’ she said, her stomach somersaulting as his tongue rolled over her fingertip. ‘No, it wouldn’t be good. We’re not right for each other. You know we’re not. You said it yourself—we come from completely different backgrounds.’
He blew his hot breath into the shell of her ear, his tongue snaking out to trace its delicate contours until her spine threatened to dissolve. ‘Haven’t you heard of the expression “opposites attract”?’
‘Yes …’ She shivered as his mouth hovered just above hers. ‘But it doesn’t mean it will last.’
<
br /> ‘I don’t know about that,’ he said, trailing a pathway of kisses down the side of her neck. ‘We could make it last.’
‘F-for how long?’ she asked, as her whole body shivered in reaction.
His hands skated over the swell of her breasts, his eyes burning into hers. ‘How long do you want it to last?’ he asked. ‘I … I don’t want to waste time on going-nowhere relationships,’ she said, running her hands over his chest, her fingertips relishing the hard contours of his body. ‘I’m twenty-seven years old. I have four years of study ahead of me. It’s … complicated …’
He planted a hot-as-fire kiss on her mouth. ‘We could take it one step at a time,’ he said.
‘I’m not ready for big steps …’
‘Baby steps, then,’ he said, capturing her bottom lip between his teeth and tugging gently. ‘Little tiny baby steps.’
Georgie could feel herself melting inside and out. Her legs were like two soggy noodles and her spine loosened to the point of collapse. ‘This is very tempting …’ she breathed.
She felt his smile like an imprint on her lips. ‘It’s supposed to be tempting,’ he said. ‘I want to sleep with you. I think I’ve wanted it from the moment you put that hard collar on me when you knocked me down. You’ve been keeping me awake more than my most difficult patients, do you realise that?’
She raised her mouth just enough to secure contact with his, lifting them off only long enough to say, ‘I think I’ve wanted you from the moment you called me Georgiana.’
He looked at her quizzically. ‘I thought you didn’t like being called by your full name?’
‘I don’t, but the way you said it made me want to grab you and shake you. I was so angry.’
‘But you’re not angry at me now?’
She looked at the sensual curve of his mouth. ‘No, I’m not angry.’
‘So what are you feeling?’ he asked after a two-beat pause.
‘I’m feeling like I’m sinking in over my head,’ she confessed as his breath caressed her face. ‘I want to step forward but I’m scared I’m going to make another big mistake.’
‘Don’t be scared, sweetheart,’ he said, cupping her face with his hand. ‘Let’s just take things slowly.’
‘Slowly sounds good,’ Georgie said as he kissed her neck again, each whisper-soft press of his lips making her shiver all over again.
‘Is this slow enough for you?’ he asked, as he began a leisurely exploration of her bottom lip with the tip of his tongue.
Her belly exploded with desire at the exquisite touch, her legs sagging beneath her. ‘Maybe we could speed it up a tiny bit,’ she said as her tongue brushed against his.
‘How much?’ he asked, pulling on her top lip this time with his mouth, in a tug and release action that sent a hot river of sensation rushing down her spine.
She pressed herself closer, the heated trajectory of his erection sending her into a tailspin. She opened her mouth as his came down, whimpering softly as his tongue swept hers up into a toe-curling duel that left her totally breathless.
His hands cupped her bottom and pulled her into his hardness, the pulsing urgency of his body making her wonder how she had resisted him this long. Was it possible to fall in love so rapidly? she wondered. She had made the mistake before of allowing physical attraction to take precedence, but somehow with Ben she knew her feelings for him were not just physical. He was everything she most admired in a man. He might come from a completely different background from hers but he had qualities that made every other man she’d dated seem shallow and self-serving in comparison.
‘Am I going too fast?’ Ben asked as he cupped her breast with the warmth of his palm.
‘No,’ she said, looking dreamily into his smouldering gaze. ‘Not fast enough.’
He rubbed his thumb over the tight point of her nipple, back and forth in a caressing movement that made her ache to feel his hand on her without the barrier of clothes. ‘If I speed up, I might not be able to stop,’ he warned. ‘You have this amazing effect on me, Dr Willoughby. I can’t seem to control myself around you.’
She smiled as she nestled closer to him. ‘You have the same effect on me. I feel like ripping that towel off your body and kissing you all over.’
‘Don’t let me stop you,’ he said, holding his hands up in surrender. ‘Go ahead, make my day.’
She trailed her fingers down his chest, lingering over each dark brown pebbly nipple, pressing her mouth to each one, rolling her tongue over them in turn, her stomach kicking in excitement when she heard his groan of pleasure rumble from deep within his chest.
‘Am I going too fast for you, Mr Blackwood?’ she asked playfully, tiptoeing her fingertips to the trail of dark hair that went from his navel to beneath the precariously hung towel.
‘Not fast enough,’ he growled, and, picking her up in his arms, he carried her to his bedroom, knocking over a lamp in his haste.
Georgie helped him remove her clothes with fumbling fingers that shook in anticipation. She gasped when his hands found her naked skin, the feel of his palms on her breasts as he explored them making her breath catch in her throat. His touch was gentle but determined, tender and yet urgent.
‘God, I can’t believe I’m doing this,’ he groaned as he brought his mouth to her breast, his hot breath dancing over the aching point of her nipple. ‘You should be pushing me away.’
She arched her body as his mouth closed over her nipple. ‘Do you want me to push you away?’
‘No,’ he groaned, as he moved to her other breast. ‘You’ve got the most beautiful body. I’ve been lying awake at night, thinking of how you looked in that barely there bikini of yours. Just as well my sister was there otherwise I would have been doing this then.’
She gasped as his hands moved to the final lacy barrier that shielded her femininity from his burning gaze. He hooked one finger in the elastic of her knickers and pulled them down, his hand cupping her gently as she pulsed with longing against him.
She gasped again when he slowly inserted one of his long fingers into her silky warmth, the tantalising movement mimicking what he longed to do with his aroused length. She reached down between them to pull away the towel that was still covering him, her stomach tilting in delight when she felt his naked body pressing against her skin. Her hands skated over him, touching him, exploring his hard contours, her fingertip encountering the bead of moisture that signalled how very aroused he was.
He pulled her hand away and covered her mouth with his, the weight of his body on hers making her feel utterly feminine and totally desirable as his hard thighs wrapped around hers. She could feel his body probing for entry but he kept control, his kiss deepening until she was writhing beneath him.
He tore his mouth off hers long enough to reach across her to the bedside drawer in search of a condom. He rustled around the drawer for ages before he finally found one, holding it up with a victorious grin. ‘For a moment there I thought we were going to have to suspend proceedings while I dashed out to the pharmacy down the road for supplies.’
Georgie was somehow touched that she was the first woman he had considered making love with since his break-up. It was a nice feeling to know he hadn’t been bedding every woman he could in the past nine months. It made her feel incredibly special.
She ran her hands over his flat stomach as she watched him put on the condom, her belly flip-flopping all over again at the sight of him fully aroused.
He kissed her again, his mouth full of sensual promise as it moved down her body, until he came to her tender folds hidden behind a tiny landing strip of dark curls. She drew in a sharp little breath when his tongue parted her, the sensation of his mouth on her most secret place sending her heart rate way out of her training zone. She clutched at his silky dark head as he subjected her to a passionate assault on her senses, every nerve jangling and screaming for release. The tension built and built until with a cut-off cry she came, her body arching and jerking beneath his exquisite c
aress.
‘Good?’ he asked as he moved over her to settle between her still trembling thighs.
‘The best …'she breathed in wonder as her eyes locked with his. ‘I’ve never been able to … you know … do it that way …’
His dark eyes glinted with satisfaction. ‘Like I said before, Georgie, you press my buttons so it’s only fair I press yours.’
She let out a rapturous gasp as he entered her in a single thrust, her body grabbing at him greedily, wanting all of him to fill her aching need. ‘Oh … wow …’
‘Too fast?’ he asked, his breathing becoming rapid.
‘No … It’s just you feel so … so … so good.’
‘It’s feeling pretty good from my side, too,’ he said, trying to hold back. ‘I’m going to come too soon if you don’t stop wriggling like that against me.’
‘I want you to come,’ she said, grabbing at his buttocks and digging her fingers in.
‘We’re supposed to be taking things slowly,’ he said, speeding up.
‘I know …’ she panted, as she began to climb the summit again.
‘Whose idea was that anyway?’ he said, as he felt himself teetering on the edge.
‘I can’t remember,’ she gasped as he surged deeply, filling her completely. ‘I think it might have been mine. Dumb, huh?’
‘You’re not dumb, baby, you’re gorgeous.’ He sucked in a harsh breath. ‘And I think I’m losing control here.’
She arched up to meet his next downward thrust, her whole world splintering into a thousand pieces, her cry of release just a couple of seconds ahead of his. She felt the shudders of his release reverberate through his body where it was pressed against hers, the pumping action of his pelvis so deliciously male she shivered all over with delight.
She held him close, her fingers caressing his hair, his neck and his shoulders, her heart rate struggling to return to normal.
So this was what being in love felt like, she thought in amazement. No wonder she’d got it so wrong with Andrew. She mentally cringed as she thought about the few times they had made love, almost mechanically, as if following a manual. There had been no emotional connection, no meeting on a level that was beyond the physical.
