She ought to feel embarrassed. She wasn’t the kind of woman who had been especially comfortable parading around in front of her—albeit it two—serious boyfriends in such a scanty bit of lace. Yet with Jake she felt bold. Even naughty.
‘I feel you’re a little overdressed,’ she managed huskily.
He looked down as if he hadn’t even realised, then cast that rich gaze over her, all over again.
‘Perhaps that’s something you should remedy.’
An instruction, a command. And she’d never been so happy to obey.
Sitting up, she reached forward and hooked her fingers into his waistband, tugging him forward, not that he put up much resistance, and concentrated on undoing each button of his shirt. Her fingers actually shaking with anticipation as she pushed the sides open.
My God, he is glorious.
Hard ridges and sculpted contours drew her hands, and Flávia imagined she could spend a whole lifetime acquainting herself with the ever-delicious delineation. And another tasting it. She dipped her head and ran her tongue over one defined line and sensations burst in her mouth.
Salt and fire, and everything in between.
Jake.
She wanted more. As he concentrated on shucking off his top half, Flávia dipped her head and she traced more of him, learning the relief of his chest with her mouth and her hands, moving lower. And lower again. Until she was at the top of the deep V that led her tantalisingly down until it disappeared below the waistband of his trousers.
Her hands were shaking even more as she tried to work the zip, but she was determined not to let him see it. Not to let him realise how little experience she actually had. She had heard the rumours about Jake Cooper, and whilst he wasn’t exactly a playboy, she knew he’d had at least a couple of high-profile...partners over the years.
For one night only, she was going to have that same kind of fun.
Pushing his trousers down with renewed confidence, she cradled his straining boxers and finally released him from his material cage. Yet nothing had quite prepared her for precisely how impressive the man was.
So hard, so velvety and so very, very hot. She wanted to touch him, to feel him, to taste him. But before she could do any of it, he was taking a step back.
‘I don’t have any protection,’ he gritted out as though it was all only just occurring to him.
‘Sorry...’ Her head was swimming, not quite following.
‘Condoms,’ he bit out. ‘I don’t have any.’
Later, she would consider that it was a good sign that he hadn’t been prepared for her or anyone else that night. Later. But not in that moment.
‘In my clutch.’ The words surfaced hazily. ‘Over there.’
His eyes flickered but he turned with a harsh, ‘Don’t move.’
Not that she had any intention of moving.
‘Do you always go around carrying so many condoms with you?’ he demanded a few moments later as he unfolded them from the little purse like a magician producing ream after ream of coloured silk.
She flushed. ‘Does it matter?
‘Call it male ego,’ he quipped, but she was sure there was an edge to his tone.
‘My sister put them there,’ Flávia managed.
‘Ah...’ His face cleared and, however fanciful it seemed, she felt it was like the sun coming out on a grey day.
‘She might have been a touch overenthusiastic.’
‘Yeah, well—’ he discarded his remaining clothes and approached the bed ‘—I, for one, am pretty grateful right now.’
Anything else she might have said was chased from her head as he reached down and took her bottom, pulling it towards him until she was lying on her back, her hips raised whilst he removed the triangle of lace. And then he was alongside her, his mouth catching hers, demanding, and imprinting.
The kind of kiss her sister had waxed lyrical over but that she herself had never—until now—actually believed existed. It made her whole body sing. Soar. And when his hand skimmed over her belly, everything clenched and fizzled inside her.
He took his time, just like before. Only, this time, Flávia didn’t think she could wait. She already knew the muscled chest, and the corded neck. She had acquainted herself with those strong arms. But now she needed more.
So much more.
Reaching down between them she took hold of him, her fingers curling around his thickness. Surely, she had never felt anything so silken steel.
The man was incomparable.
‘Slow down, jungle woman,’ he teased, trailing kisses down her neck and to the sensitive hollow where she shivered with desire. But his voice was thick and, somehow, just like before, he made the name sound utterly sexy and not at all insulting when it dropped from his lips. ‘I’m not sure I can hold out for long if you touch me like that.’
Flávia had no idea what took her over in that moment, yet suddenly she felt a boldness she’d never known before.
‘That’s what I’m counting on.’
A low, infinitely feral sound rumbled from his chest. Flávia felt it low in her belly. It pooled between her legs.
‘Is that so?’ he demanded gruffly, shifting position before she could answer.
Then his fingers were moving, travelling down her body. Over her stomach, and her lower abdomen, then lower still, until he was dancing long, clever fingers where the lace had recently covered, before dipping into her wet heat.
‘Jake...’ A whisper and an exaltation all at once. She arched her back, and moved against his hand.
‘Patience,’ he instructed, playing with her.
Teasing her entrance, slowly at first, like he had all night and he intended to take his time. She wanted to tell him she needed more, but the words didn’t materialise. Instead she moved against him, letting him build the rhythm inside her. A little faster now, dipping in once. Twice. Then returning to play with the core of her need.
And all the while, his lips were still paying homage to her mouth, her neck, her breasts. Like an exquisite assault from every direction.
She wasn’t sure when it went from fire building to a blaze. It was as though it had been glowing for so long that she hadn’t realised how close she was to combusting. Like starting a fire in the bush from a couple of sticks and a fluff of wool. One moment it’s merely smouldering, and the next moment it’s bursting into flames.
A yearning rushed her. Flávia shifted and jerked, raising up to meet his hand, knowing he was catapulting her to the edge and helpless to do anything but let him. She slid her hand up and under the pillows above her head. She was close. So close. And it was the most carnal thing she’d ever known. Then he flicked his wrist and slid two fingers inside her without letting up the pressure of his thumb caressing the centre of her need.
Flávia shattered.
She heard herself cry out, felt her whole body react, tensing, releasing and then tingling. From the top of her head right down to her toes, which were actually curling into the down cover, which they hadn’t even bothered to remove.
Who knew that wasn’t just a myth? she thought in wonder as she floated somewhere out there where no one had ever taken her before. She had no idea how long she stayed there, but when she came back to herself, Jake had moved. Settled over her, but propped up so that he wasn’t crushing her.
She wanted to say something, but she couldn’t. She could only take her hands from above her head and wind them around his neck, pulling him closer again. Right up until she felt him right there. Hot and ready, the hardest part of him against the softest part of her.
‘Ready, Flávia?’ he muttered, and for the first time she realised quite how hard Jake was fighting to stay in control.
It made her feel good. More than good.
‘I don’t know,’ she teased. ‘You might have to give me a bit longer to recover.’
As he slid inside her, slowly and carefully at first, giving her a chance to shift, to accommodate him, a tenseness coiled itself around her belly again. So many sensations that she couldn’t begin to identify them.
He began to move faster then. Sliding in, then out. Then in, and out. Stoking the fire that she now realised had only been lying dormant. She could barely move, barely even breathe. All she could do was wrap her legs around him, her fingers biting into those strong shoulders, and match him, stroke for incredible stroke.
Faster and deeper. Until she was grazing her hands down his back to clutch at him, and pull him in deeper.
‘Flávia...’ he groaned her name, her unexpected action making him jerk and thrust that little bit harder.
And sending Flávia that bit closer to the edge.
She repeated it with the same effect. All that bright sensation so close now she could almost touch it.
‘Don’t stop,’ she muttered, her hands gripping him tightly, her bottom raising up to meet him, to match him.
She heard the guttural groan as he slid his way home for the last time, sending her soaring just like before.
And this time, when she fell off the edge, Jake went with her.
CHAPTER FIVE
‘LIGHTS, PLEASE,’ instructed Jake Cooper.
The operating room went dark, almost eerily so, with only the glow of the large operating monitors lighting up the space. And then Jake shone the near-infrared light over his patient’s mouth.
One solid area glowed a purplish hue, with a tiny purplish dot slightly to the side. His patient’s squamous cell carcinoma.
‘There’s our villain,’ Jake announced to the gallery of residents watching this surgery to learn.
Once his team had removed it, along with part of the patient’s jaw, he would pass the surgery on to Krysta Simpson, for her team to start reconstructing a new jaw based off a titanium plate.
All in all, it would be a circa ten-hour, multidisciplinary operation, but if he was honest with himself, he was relieved to be able to concentrate on something other than Flávia Maura.
Memories of that night had haunted him all week, and only his surgeries—demonstrating his clinical trial for residents and esteemed colleagues alike—gave him something else for his focus. So much for his promise to himself of one night, and then his entire focus would be on his responsibility for Brady.
He couldn’t get Flávia out of his head. He even dreamed about her.
It was insanity.
Ejecting the thoughts from his head, Jake focused on the patient in front of him. It was an operation he’d performed many times in the past, but still he never stopped respecting what could happen with any patient on that operating table.
‘That smaller dot there, that’s where the tumour has started to metastasise?’ one of the residents noted via the intercom from the gallery.
‘Right.’ Jake nodded. ‘Too small to show up on any MRIs or CTs pre-op, if we didn’t have the fluorescent contrast agent to light it up, we wouldn’t have known it was there. We’d have resected assuming margins, and then had to wait for the pathology to come back to tell us if those margins were clear. At best, we’d have taken more than we needed, leaving our patient here with more of his jaw missing. At worst, we’d have taken too little and left some tumour in there, and we’d have only found out when the cancer recurred.’
‘So that’s it?’ someone else asked. ‘That tumour dye shows up exactly where the SCC is, and if we take everything that glows, we’ve got it? No need for margins?’
‘That, ladies and gents, is what we’re in this clinical study to determine,’ Jake agreed. ‘But so far, it’s looking good. Anybody know what the national figures are for positive resections following surgery in head and neck squamous cell carcinomas?’
The intercom clicked a few times and then a female voice spoke.
‘I read it was somewhere between fifteen and thirty percent with poor outcomes, ultimately necessitating some form or another of additional therapy.’
‘Gold star, that woman,’ Jake confirmed. ‘So to combat that, we take greater margins and leave the patient with more disfigurement leading to a lowering of quality of life. Now, hopefully, we won’t need to. We can see exactly what we’re doing.’
‘And leave the oral and maxillofacial reconstruction team with more to play with?’ the female added.
‘Right. We’ll be doing a segmental mandibulectomy with a modified radical neck dissection on the left side of the mandibular structure. The reconstruction team are intending to use a plate reconstruction, so our goal is to leave them as much as possible.’
‘Osseointegrated dental implants?’ someone asked.
‘Again, that’ll be up to the OMS team. However, in this case, resection will likely result in significant loss of mandibular support to the teeth—though with this dye showing us exactly where the tumour is, we’ll be able to really keep that to a minimum. Nevertheless, I think we can expect to lose all but one, maybe two molars, and a couple of root stumps, so conventional dental solutions will be unfeasible.’
* * *
Jake worked steadily for hours, careful to take all the tumour but leave as much healthy tissue as he could, and ensuring he stayed away from any major nerves which, if damaged, could leave the patient with facial paralysis, and finally he was on the last bit, and Krysta and her team were entering the OR ready for handover.
‘How’s it going?’ Krysta asked.
‘It’s gone well,’ Jake confirmed. ‘We’re completing a type-L modified neck dissection. The patient has remained stable throughout and there have been no complications. I’ve concentrated on areas here, and here, which is where the contrast agent highlighted areas outside of the normal scans.’
‘Nice,’ Krysta approved.
‘I’ve left as much of the ascending ramus and condyle as possible.’
‘Excellent.’ She nodded. ‘That gives me more than I was expecting to work with.’
Running through the remaining points, Jake finished up his team’s part of the operation and moved to clean up. If he was quick, he realised, he could probably catch Brady for lunch.
And if that was another means of occupying his attention and avoiding Flávia, then he pretended he didn’t notice.
It was only once he found himself scanning the cafeteria that he realised he was looking for Flávia.
As he always did.
Everywhere he went in this place, it seemed that he was scanning for her, listening for her, disenchanted when he didn’t see her. It was foolish. Added to that, it was dangerous. This wanting...more.
He never wanted more. Not from any woman.
He wouldn’t have categorised himself as a playboy by any standards, but he never went in for long-term relationships. When did he ever have time? Even before, when he’d been a so-called carefree bachelor. And certainly not now that he had to be responsible for his nephew.
Yet he searched for Flávia, all the same. Like he wanted their one night together to be something that it wasn’t.
It was insane.
He’d even tried telling himself that the unexpected intensity of the attraction was because, since he’d become sole guardian to Brady, he hadn’t had any women in his personal life, at all. The poor kid had been through enough turmoil without having his uncle bringing random women home.
Yet the other night, he’d gone and booked a suite just so he could take Flávia, a virtual stranger, to bed.
As if he hadn’t been able to help himself.
He gripped his cup, willing the memories away. This attraction had to stop now. For Brady’
s sake, if nothing else.
As if to consolidate the idea, his nephew chose that very moment to walk through the cafeteria doors, but there were too many people milling around and Brady didn’t see him. Jake stood, ready to wave, but then he saw his nephew stop dead, his attention clearly arrested by someone or something.
Standing resolutely, Jake picked up his coffee cup and strode across to the tray corral. He could still just about see Brady but now, to his surprise, the characteristically serious, silent nephew was chatting—somewhat animatedly. Jake watched, but it was next to impossible to spot people from this distance. Even so, his stomach dipped oddly when he caught sight of the back of a head sporting long, glossy waves just like Flávia’s. He craned his neck for a better glimpse, but there were too many people and he still couldn’t tell who the boy was talking to.
He was seeing ghosts, he reprimanded himself sharply. He’d been thinking about Flávia and so his imagination had conjured her up.
But he was here for Brady. Not her.
He would not just stay here, hoping that this woman would walk through the door any moment. He would attend her lecture, like every other doctor there using the summer programme as a chance to broaden their knowledge base and keep up to date. But other than that, he wasn’t interested in seeing Flávia Maura again.
Then, tossing his rubbish into the bins, Jake weaved his way through the tables.
* * *
Flávia had been scanning through her lecture notes in the cafeteria when the young voice had penetrated her concentration.
‘Did you know that the terms venom, poison and toxin aren’t synonyms?’
She had looked up slowly, taking in a young kid with an English accent who was wearing cargo pants and A Bug’s Life tee, which probably explained his opening question. She had followed his gaze as it flickered onto her laptop case, the VenomSci logo emblazoned on the pristine black material, then she’d glanced back at him.
Falling For The Single Dad Surgeon (A Summer In São Paulo Book 2) Page 6
