The Best Of The Year - Medical Romance. Carol Marinelli
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CANDY HAD NEVER slept better than she did when Steele was beside her. His breathing, his heartbeat, the way he held her through the night were like a delicious white noise that blocked out everything else other than them. They wrapped themselves around each other, then unwrapped themselves when they got too hot and then when they got too cold found the other again. It was a seamless dance that lasted a full ten hours and had them on a slow sultry simmer that, by morning, started to rise to boiling point.
Candy awoke slowly, face down on the pillow and with her arms over her head. Steele’s arm lay over her waist. The scent in her nostrils was Steele and as she started to wake up she remembered what they had been talking about before she’d fallen asleep. She knew it wasn’t something that he’d discussed with others and the privilege of him confiding in her gave her a warm feeling. She loved it that he’d told her. She loved lying in bed next to him and feeling him start to wake up. She loved every minute of her time with him.
She felt his hand roam her spine. Steele’s slow, lazy explorations made her melt into the mattress. It was as if each vertebra, right down to the lowest, was an individual treasure worth examining. His hand moved up her back and then to the exposed flesh on her side. Her rib cage received a significantly slower perusal, and his fingers found the softness of her flattened breast. She wanted to lift herself up to let his hand in but he rolled heavily onto her. His mouth buried beneath her hair, reaching for her neck, and then kissed his way to her ear.
‘You do talk in your sleep.’ His lovely voice greeted her ear and was just as effective in turning her on as his hands.
‘Don’t believe a word I say.’ Candy smiled as he whispered to her the rude things that she hadn’t said.
‘How are you feeling now?’ he asked, because it had been a very long sleep after all.
‘Better than I ever have,’ she admitted. ‘I never want to move.’
‘Then don’t.’
There was a thrill low in her belly and Candy, who had never, till Steele, had morning sex, was fast becoming a fan as, still face down on the pillow, she felt Steele’s delicious weight come fully on top of her.
Temptation beckoned as she parted her legs just a little, closing her eyes as his fingers checked that she was ready, which of course she was. Clearly last night’s conversation was still on his mind because there was no pause in proceedings to reach for a condom and put it on. Instead, she felt his naked warmth nudging her.
He entered her slowly and Candy let out a moan and so too did Steele, because to feel her wet warmth along his length was intimate, way more intimate than he had been in a very long time.
His mouth was at her ear. ‘Cross your ankles,’ he said.
Candy did so and she thought she might collapse with the pleasure as together they started to rock—she could feel every long generous inch of him, hear his ragged breathing. Her face was red and sweaty in the pillow, and Steele took her hand and placed it between her legs and got to work on her breasts.
Oh!
She’d feel guilty later, Candy decided, but he didn’t seem to mind a bit that she touched herself. They were barely moving, just rocking, his mouth was at her ear, his fingers stretching her nipples, and then his fingers slid down and took over from hers.
‘You’re bad for my conscience,’ she said.
‘No conscience needed,’ he said.
He could go for ever like this.
Usually.
Her buttocks were so soft and ripe and they started to lift and press into his groin, and the soft muffled moans of pleasure had Steele tip just as she did and it was bliss to feel him come unsheathed inside her.
‘Oh …’ Candy lay feeling his weight on her and never wanting him gone. Even the alarm clock that was going off seemed a mile away.
‘Can you wake me up like that tomorrow?’ she said.
‘I can.’
He rolled off and they lay, Candy still on her stomach, facing each other, and sharing a smile.
‘I’m going to try and swap so I can get this weekend off,’ Steele said, because she flew out the following Friday. ‘It’s not long now till you go.’
She didn’t want to go.
Well, she did, because she was probably going to spend the entire first week of her holiday in bed. With all these extra shifts and sex marathons she was looking forward to sleeping round the clock.
She just wished that her holiday was scheduled for after he’d gone.
Then she stared into his eyes and wondered who she was kidding because she knew that she was going to spend her entire holiday sobbing. Despite starting off with the best of intentions to keep things light, to simply enjoy, Candy knew she was in way over her head. Her feelings for this man were so intense, so instinctively right that she simply could not imagine how she was possibly going to begin to get over him.
‘Steele …’ She took a breath. She wasn’t sure if what she was about to say would sound too pushy, but she’d never held back from the truth with him and she chose not to now. ‘Why don’t you come for a few days?’
‘To Hawaii?’
‘Yes.’ Candy nodded.
‘I don’t want to intrude on your holiday …’
‘It wouldn’t be intruding. It would be nice if you came in the middle. You’ve got a long weekend coming up.’
‘It would be nice,’ Steele said. ‘I’d be pretty wrecked, though.’
‘Well, I’ll have slept for a week by the time you get there,’ Candy said. ‘I’ll have enough energy for both of us. Think about it,’ she offered, and then she climbed out of bed and grimaced when she saw the time. ‘I’m going to be late. I’ll have a quick shower and then I need to stop by my flat.’
‘I’ll drive you in,’ Steele said. To keep things well away from work Candy was still taking the Underground and he watched the little flash of worry flare in her eyes.
‘We might be seen,’ she said. ‘Steele, you’ve no idea how gossip spreads at that place.’
‘I’m sure I do.’ He smiled. ‘It doesn’t bother me if we’re seen, unless of course it’s a problem for you.’
She thought about it for a moment. ‘Actually, no.’
‘I can have broken your heart and put you off seeing anyone for ages after I’ve gone.’ Steele grinned, giving her an excuse to give to Gerry if he pushed her to go out with him when he returned from Greece. But then Steele met her eyes and his tone changed slightly and she, though late for work, stood there in the bedroom and felt her heartbeat quicken. ‘You could even say you were still seeing me,’ he said, and they just looked at each other.
‘I guess he wouldn’t know either way,’ Candy said, though something told her this conversation had little to do with excuses to give to Gerry.
There were two, possibly three, conversations going on.
That Steele would be gone and that Candy could say what she liked about them if it made things easier for her with Gerry.
That he would be gone, Steele thought, and he was saying that possibly this might last longer.
That he would be gone, Candy thought, and she didn’t want him to be.
‘Get ready,’ he said.
They stopped at her flat and Candy quickly changed into jeans, which was what she usually wore for arriving at work, and rubbed some serum