‘But clearly, your sister thought you were the right choice.’
‘Not really. I was just the only choice Helen had.’
‘I can’t imagine...’ Flávia trailed off. ‘So your parents are...have passed away?’
The silence eked out between them. So long and so heavy that Flávia began to wonder if she could say something else until, finally, he spoke.
‘This isn’t a conversation you should be burdened with.’ He was too clipped, too crisp.
Clearly, he didn’t want to be having the conversation with her. But not wanting to and not needing to were two different things. That was something she knew for herself all too well.
‘We should go back,’ he rasped. Still not moving.
And Flávia didn’t answer, yet it was disconcerting the way those deep, dark cacao depths of hers seemed to pierce right through him. It felt as if she could see right through to his very soul.
So she slid her hand gently down his arm, covering his hand with hers, and she waited for him to pull away and head for the door.
But he didn’t move. And he didn’t pull away.
‘I have a sister,’ Flávia murmured at last when she thought he’d passed up enough chances to shut things down for good. ‘Her name is Maria, and she has two daughters. Julianna is nine and Marcie is six, and I love being the fun aunt. We’ve always been a close family.’
‘I’ve never been the fun uncle.’ She suspected that the words were out before he could bite them back.
‘I can’t even begin to think how I would feel if anything happened to any of them,’ Flávia continued softly. ‘I have an apartment in the city for when I’m not at the sanctuary. But most of the time I end up staying at their home, Maria and Luis’s—that’s my brother-in-law. Their guest room seems to have become my personal bedroom and I always get at least one of the girls sneaking in for a sleepover.’
She laughed and even to her own ears the love and warmth of the sound seemed to reverberate around the room. Like it was too big to be contained in this space.
Which was how it always felt to her.
However, Jake wasn’t smiling. He was grimacing. He pulled his hand free and rubbed his eyes wearily.
‘I’m pretty sure Brady couldn’t care less whether I was around or not.’
‘And yet, you just left this gala to make sure he was okay,’ she pointed out.
‘I made a phone call. I hardly dashed across the city.’
‘Why even call, then?’ she challenged softly, though a part of her already knew the answer.
He glowered at her for a moment before reluctantly conceding. ‘I just wanted to call and make sure he hadn’t woken up and panicked or become disoriented in the unfamiliar surroundings.’
‘Does he often wake?’
‘Pretty much never. At least, not any more.’
He didn’t need to voice the words for her to imagine how different things would have been straight after his mother’s death.
‘And he hadn’t woken tonight?’
‘No.’ Jake raked his hand through his hair in such a disarmingly boyish gesture. ‘It seems Patricia has it all in hand.’
She couldn’t pinpoint exactly why she sensed a slight undercurrent. She eyed him speculatively.
‘Surely, that’s a good thing?’
‘Of course it is.’ He bobbed his head as though the action could emphasise things even as his words failed to.
‘Then why do you look as though something about it bothers you?’ she pressed softly.
They were so close she could feel his breath on her cheek. Blowing over her eyelashes, and sizzling through her body.
An ache stole through her, settling in all the places it shouldn’t. Heating her from the inside out.
Jake opened his mouth to tell her she was wrong, she was sure of it, but then he simply closed it again. Closing his eyes for a moment, like he was working out whether to answer or not.
‘It doesn’t bother me,’ he denied eventually, his gaze snagging hers, and revealing all the things his lips were concealing.
Like the fact that his denial was a lie and there was nothing she could do about it. There was no way to help him. She didn’t even understand why she so desperately wanted to. Or why she so badly wanted those lips to drop down to meet hers.
It made her feel out of control, and she told herself that couldn’t be a good thing.
‘I... I think I ought to head home.’
‘During a welcome dinner?’ He stopped abruptly and she told herself that it was fanciful to believe he was disappointed.
‘The dinner is over,’ she pointed out. ‘I’ve done my duty. I’ve attended it and I’ve spoken to more people than I can remember tonight. I think I can safely sneak out without getting it in the neck from Isabella. Besides, I have a lecture to give soon. I can say I’m prepping for that.’
‘You haven’t prepared it?’ One eyebrow rose in a perfect arch, and Flávia had to clench her hand in a fist not to reach up and trace the curve. ‘I’d have thought you were the kind of person to have written it months ago, only needing to slip in new data as it emerged.’
Which was another way of saying he thought she was predictable, and nerdy. And though that was probably true, she suddenly, inexplicably, felt like doing something out of character. Something that would take this man, who seemed to think he had the measure of her, by surprise.
It made no sense, but Flávia didn’t care. She told herself it was the wine talking, or her sister’s well-intentioned advice, but deep down she knew neither were true.
And yet she found herself tilting her head back, meeting those piercing blue depths, and any last remaining voices in her head were silenced as she rolled up onto her toes and pressed her mouth to his.
Need punched through her in an instant—even before Jake angled his head and deepened the kiss. The slide of his tongue over hers making her blood tingle in her veins and a thrill zip around her body as his hands gripped her shoulders, pulling her in tighter.
She thought it would never end—she wished it could never end. Right up until the botanical gardens sprinkler system kicked into its nightly routine and showered them both. And even then, she didn’t notice immediately.
It was the kind of fine downpour that looked as though it couldn’t possibly even wet a leaf, but which ultimately soaked a person right through to the skin.
Flávia wasn’t sure who broke the kiss first, her or Jake. She only knew that it had been with great reluctance. And that his hands were still holding her shoulders, just as hers were pressed against his chest.
One of them had to speak, even if she had no idea what to say next.
‘So what now?’ She choked out a half-nervous, half-amused laugh.
Deus, but she could so easily lose herself in those electric-blue pools of his when he looked at her like that.
‘We are in a hotel,’ he managed thickly, at last.
Her heart practically launched itself at her ribs, hammering so loudly it was impossible to believe he couldn’t hear it. It was exciting. Thrilling. Her, the woman who hadn’t had a fling in her life, taking her sister up on the teasing dare to have a little fun.
And with Jake she felt naughty, and daring, and not at all like her usual buttoned-down self.
The sense of freedom was heady.
‘We are indeed,’ she agreed, barely recognising the desire in her own voice.
This time, Jake didn’t reply. Instead he took her hand, enveloped in his, and tucked her into his side as he hurried her across the floor and out of a hidden staff door to the side.
And all Flávia could do was follow. They were like two tree frogs hurrying to the shelter of a bark hollow to seek safety from a deluge.
CHAPTER FOUR
AS THEY STEPPED through the bedroom door, Jake deliberately ignor
ed that part of him demanding to know what the hell he thought he was playing at.
He had no idea how he’d managed to slow things down. He only knew that he needed to give her—and himself—time to think.
How had he let himself kiss her? More than that, when the sprinklers had started and they’d finally pulled apart, why had he decided the next best step was to usher her to the reception desk and book a suite upstairs for them?
As if he couldn’t help himself. As if he hadn’t risked any one of their colleagues walking out and seeing them. As if he wasn’t now responsible to a little boy across the other side of town.
So much for not letting Flávia Maura slide under his skin.
He didn’t know what had compelled him to book a suite for them, any more than he understood why he’d started to tell her things—like anything about Helen, and his irrational sense of guilt—that he’d never told anyone else in his life. Not even Oz.
Or, more to the point, he did know. He was just trying to pretend that he was still in control of himself—and not just the fact that he’d barely been able to keep his hands off her in the lift, enduring what had to be the longest elevator ride of his life.
This was the craziest thing he’d done in ten months—longer, really—and yet he couldn’t bring himself to feel guilty. Was it really so much to crave one night with a woman who made him feel...something again? Was it too much to want to feel normal again, instead of feeling as though he was constantly on the brink of drowning in the responsibility of a seven-year-old boy who barely liked him, let alone wanted him around?
And, of course, Brady didn’t want him. The poor kid just wanted his mother—and that was just one more thing for which Jake felt as though he’d failed his nephew.
Tonight.
One night.
With a woman who made him feel alive.
Closing the door behind them and leaning his head on the cool wood for a moment, he tried to make himself think. Only when he thought he finally had a grip on his uncharacteristically out-of-control libido did he finally turn.
Only to see Flávia clad in nothing more than the sexiest lace bra-and-panties set he could swear he’d ever seen in his life. And hold-ups, which practically stopped his heart in his chest. Her shimmering gown lay in a puddle around her sinfully high heels. Jake tried to force himself to think straight, but it wasn’t easy when the woman had the kind of eyes that pinned him to the spot, the thickest and glossiest curtain of chestnut curls and a body which ought to be illegal, it was so dangerous.
There was no doubt about it: Flávia was some kind of goddess that no red-blooded male could ever hope to resist.
Or want to.
Yet for all that, her hands were clutched almost self-consciously to her front, over the apex of her slender, tanned legs that seemed to go on for ever and, despite his best intentions, made him imagine hooking them over this shoulders as he engaged in far more carnal pursuits.
A fresh lick of attraction wound its way over his body—hardly helping matters. Blood pooled in the hardest part of him. She made him feel hotter, greedier, more alive, than he’d ever felt in his life.
Worse, he didn’t mind feeling so out of control—yet he surely should have minded.
Instead, all he could think of was how her skin would feel, right there in that inviting hollow of her neck, how those dark nipples—which were announcing themselves so proudly through the scrappy lace—might scrape the middle of his palms or under the pads of his thumbs, or how sweet she would taste if he crossed the room right now, lifted the hem of his tee and buried his face right there between those long, tanned thighs.
He snapped his eyes back up to hers, aware that he’d let them trail over her in a way to which she would no doubt object. But as those amber depths locked with his, his heart jolted. Because he didn’t see censure, or displeasure, in her gaze; instead, he saw something far more primal. Something far more like a mirror.
The proof that, just like down in the gardens, she ached for him just as much. It was all he could do not to give in to this raw need which scraped away inside him. And then she pulled her lower lip in with her teeth.
‘Is this...okay?’
It was incredible that she actually sounded uncertain. As if he might have, for some wholly ludicrous reason, changed his mind. Jake couldn’t hold himself back any longer.
He closed the gap between them in an instant.
Fresh attraction arced between them, so bright and so electrifying that for a split second he was astounded that it didn’t shock him where he stood. But then he was moving, gathering Flávia to him as he bent his mouth and tasted those honeyed lips for only the second time ever.
Yet as her body moulded all too willingly against his, Jake felt as if she’d been handcrafted just to fit him, and she was winding her arms around his neck as if hanging on for her life. And those small, needy sounds she was making in the back of her throat were doing nothing to help him regain any last scrap of self-control.
He’d put his life on hold for Brady for the past ten months, and he hadn’t resented it even if he’d struggled to see how he was the best person for the task. And tomorrow he would go back to sacrificing for his nephew, because that was what Brady deserved.
But tonight?
Tonight was his. And Flávia’s. To indulge and to be free. And he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to enjoy every last second of it.
* * *
The instant before he claimed her mouth with his, Flávia had been telling herself that she was being silly. That practically stripping for the man was insane. That she needed to get back into her dress and get out of there and back home before she did anything else totally out of character.
But all of that had happened before Jake Cooper had lowered his head and taken her mouth, so purposefully and so expertly, with his own.
And suddenly she was on fire, and all she could do was try to match him, flame for flame.
She might not have taken Maria’s suggestion to have fun seriously this afternoon, but she had every intention of following it to the letter right now. After all, when would she ever come across another guy like Jake, who had made her feel fluttery in her chest—and, all right, a damned sight lower—just from a first look?
Even after that horrid Silvio Delgado’s jungle woman jibe. In fact, Jake had been the one to turn it around and make her feel as though the work she did was the only thing he was interested in, in a room full of top-flight medical colleagues.
No, she wasn’t about to give him reason to suddenly wonder what he was doing up here with her now, when he could be with someone a little more cultured. So she gave herself up to every last sensation. Dancing in the flames of the same scalding hot desire that had been licking at her ever since that first moment in the bar. But now they weren’t merely licking at her, they were consuming her.
And Flávia never wanted the fire to die down. She lifted her hands and flattened them against the solid wall of his chest, revelling in the hard ridges and contours which seemed so opposed and yet perfectly paired to her soft palms.
It wasn’t mere heat. It was scorching. Tearing right through her like a blaze through dry tinder. The slow drag of his mouth over hers, the decadent tease of his tongue, the gentle pull of his teeth on her plump lower lip.
She gave herself over to every second of it. Meeting him and matching him. When he was done, she felt almost bereft, but then he repeated it, a little faster this time, a little harder, a little naughtier.
And then again. Each time angling his head a different way, causing new sensations and leaving her begging for more. Over and over, as if he was every bit as lost in the moment, as incandescent, as she was.
It still wasn’t enough. It should have scared her how much she wanted Jake, yet it didn’t.
Instead, with every kiss she felt surer of herself, and of what she wanted, t
han ever before. He swept his hands up and down her spine, then to the sides, as though he was learning every contour. And taking his sweet time doing so. When she wasn’t sure she could take any more, Flávia rolled onto the balls of her feet, lifting herself a fraction higher and pressing her body to his, moving a fraction closer. Wanting more but not knowing how to ask for it.
It was inexplicable.
She was hardly some untried virgin, but never had any of her few relationships ever made her feel this urgent, this greedy, this wanton. Not even Enrico. When Jake lifted up her arms to skim his fingers down her sides, her eyes locked with his and she revelled in the way his pupils darkened and his breathing sounded that little more ragged. Then he slowly, deliberately, lowered his head and took one upturned nipple deep into the heat of his mouth. Not even moving the fabric of her bra aside to do so.
Sensations exploded through Flávia.
Her back arched and she let her head fall back, losing herself in the magic of it. The way he toyed with her, teased her, sucking on her nipple, then grazing his teeth over it—pain and pleasure rolled into one. At some point, she realised he had deftly removed her bra, because when he lifted his mouth, cool air swirled around her nipple moments before he drew tiny whorls with his tongue. And all Flávia could do was gasp and run her fingers though his hair in a silent plea for him never to stop.
When he did, it was only to turn his attentions to her other breast, and repeat the whole glorious process all over again, those sensations in her core winding more and more taut. Fraught with need.
She had no idea how long they stayed like that, lost as she was in the moment. But suddenly he was lifting her up to wrap her legs around his waist, to nestle her softness against the hardest part of him, and as she heard the soft moan escape her lips she wondered how much longer she could hold out.
If at all.
‘Bed,’ Jake commanded brusquely, as if reading her mind.
She nodded, even as he was already on the move. Lifting her up and carrying her across the room like some kind of infinitely romantic gesture, before depositing her on the bed. She realised then that she was wearing nothing more than a skimpy metallic black scrap of material, whilst he was still in his full tuxedo.
Falling For The Single Dad Surgeon (A Summer In São Paulo Book 2) Page 5
