The Surgeon's One-Night Baby. Charlotte Hawkes
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can assure you, Archie, I do not...fall short. In any respect.’
Her name on his lips again. If only she had the guts to reach up and kiss him, to discover whether his mouth tasted just as good as she imagined. She tried to but her body wouldn’t move, probably due to this overriding need for him to recognise her properly. So in the end she simply stared back into eyes, which were all too familiar. In colour if not in expression.
‘Well, of course, you would think that.’
‘It isn’t a matter of what I think.’ His dark, indolent tone spiralled through her. Every inch of her body felt it wrapping around her. Pulling tighter. Drawing her closer. ‘It’s a matter of what I know.’
It was all she could do to offer a nonchalant eye-roll.
‘Let me guess. A hundred women hailing you as a deity in the throes of passion?’
She didn’t want to think of those stories the papers loved to run with. The fact that his sexual prowess was lauded quite as much by quite so many. Although, now he’d mentioned it, it didn’t add up that he should be quite such a driven, dedicated surgeon and yet have so much time for personal indulgences.
‘Bit of an exaggeration. Although, frankly, I wasn’t thinking of a single other woman. I was only interested in one. And she’s standing right in front of me.’
‘Oh, you are good,’ she conceded, hoping against hope she didn’t look half as flushed as she felt.
Hoping he couldn’t hear the drumming of her heart or the roaring of blood in her ears. Hoping he couldn’t read the lust pouring through her and making her nipples ache they were so tight. Hoping he couldn’t feel the heavy heat pooling at the apex of her legs the way no man had ever made her feel before. At least not quite so wantonly.
She had a terrible fear that perhaps no other man would make her feel that ever again.
‘Care to confirm that conclusion?’ he murmured, his voice pouring over her just the way she would imagine warm, melted chocolate would do.
If she’d ever been that sexually adventurous, of course. Which she never had been. She imagined this version of Kaspar was, though, and the thought made her pulse leap in her wrists, at her throat.
What was the matter with her?
Kaspar didn’t miss a thing. His eyes dropped to watch the accelerated beat, his face so close she could almost draw her breath as he exhaled his. His eyes never left hers, their intentions unmistakeable.
What wouldn’t she have given for Kaspar to look at her like this when they’d been kids and she’d been besotted with him? And now he was.
Before she could stop herself, she reached out to trace the scar Katie had mentioned earlier.
‘Is this really the result of some drunken bar brawl?’
‘What else could it be?’ His voice rasped over her as though his very fingers were inching down her spine. It was all she could do not to give in to a delicious shiver.
‘I don’t know, something more banal.’ Archie had no idea how she managed to execute such an atypically graceful and nonchalant shrug. ‘Like a childhood accident. Falling off a bike? Charging into a table? Tumbling from a tree?’
His eyes sharpened for a moment.
Something hanging there. Teetering between them.
‘You have brothers?’
Her breath caught in her chest. A tight ball of air. Was Kaspar finally remembering?
A slew of emotions rushed her. Feelings she’d thought long since dead and buried. Idealistic, romantic, intense fantasies she’d cherished as an adolescent fancying herself in love with the oblivious Kaspar.
He’d ruined her, without ever touching her. Archie was sure of it. His mother had hauled him back to America right at the peak of her crush on him. If that hadn’t happened, no doubt the infatuation would have run its course, as it did with most young girls. Instead, for years, she’d imagined she and Kaspar to be some kind of modern-day star-crossed Romeo and Juliet, torn away from each other before Kaspar had even had a chance to open his eyes and see what had been in front of him all along. She’d carried the ridiculous dream with her long after she should have let it die.
It was the reason she’d never had a serious boyfriend, always holding a part of herself back in her relationships. Until Joe, of course. But that had been tainted with other issues.
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