‘So we just stay...?’
Maggie wasn’t quite sure how to define it. ‘Friends?’
Nash eased back too, rolling on his side, propped on one elbow, while his other hand held the bowl. ‘With benefits?’
All the air sucked from Maggie’s lungs. God, he was beautiful, looking at her with the promise of an unrivalled sexual adventure. Could she really pass that up? ‘Maybe. Occasionally. I don’t know.’
It wasn’t much of a concession but Nash grinned. He was so addicted to Maggie he’d take whatever crumb she threw him at the moment. And then he’d make her so crazed with passion she’d be begging him to take up residence in her bed.
Until January anyway.
‘Maybe I could help to persuade you,’ he murmured.
Placing his nearly empty bowl on the bed, Nash slowly pulled the sheet away. He watched her watching him, desire making her eyes glazed and fluttering her eyelids to half-mast. Scooping his spoon into the bowl, he filled it with soft ice cream.
She was still watching him with those slumberous eyes and Nash felt a fist turn in his groin.
‘I’ve been wanting to do this for ages,’ he murmured as he held the spoon above her chest and watched the cold, gooey ice cream slide off and land dead centre. It practically sizzled.
Maggie gasped. ‘That’s freezing.’
Nash smiled as her nipples turned to engorged dusky icicles before his eyes. ‘Not for long.’ Already a brown puddle was gathering at the base of the cold glob.
‘I hate being cold.’
But Nash could hear the desire trembling in her voice and watched as she stared at the melting ice cream, her bottom lip caught between her teeth.
‘Are you just going to leave it there?’ she demanded in a voice husky with need.
Mash dropped his head and kissed a creamy shoulder. ‘Until it melts, and then I’m going to lick it all off.’
A rivulet escaped then and slowly trekked down the slope of her left breast. It was like warmed mud found in expensive spas and Nash watched its torturously slow trip, salivating. Finally, it pooled at the base of her puckered nipple.
Grinning at her, he dropped his head again to suck the melted ice cream from her nipple. Her back arched forcing the sweet, hard, elongated contours deeper into his mouth and Nash groaned. When he’d removed the chocolate coating he shifted slightly, trailing the flat of his tongue back up the muddy pathway that had traversed her breast.
Nash lifted his head, satisfied he’d lapped up every last morsel, only to find tributaries of warmed chocolate oozing everywhere now. Over both breasts, towards her neck and down her ribcage like a sweet sticky web.
He glanced at her, seeking her eyes but they were shut now. Her mouth was open though, her breathing rough and her hands were fisted into the sheets. ‘Now, this is the only way to eat ice cream,’ he murmured.
Maggie was seeing stars behind her closed lids as the cool trickle felt like hundreds of fingers caressing her skin. Wherever his tongue trailed it seared like a brand. Her hands were clenched, her toes curled. ‘Don’t stop,’ she urged.
‘Oh, honey,’ Nash said, his lips against her nipple, pausing for a moment to lave it with more attention, enthralled by her whimper of ecstasy. ‘I have no intention of stopping.’
And he proceeded to use his tongue all over, devouring every sweet drop.
And when he was done with that, he went lower.
***
A month passed. Their relationship blossomed. Slowly at first, as Maggie tried to ration their time together, resisting the strong attraction that tugged at her continuously. But as they worked together more and more, their shifts coinciding more and more, walking to the car park together at the end of the shift, it seemed only natural to go back to her place together.
Still, it was clandestine. Maggie had some pride. She wasn’t stupid, she knew it was no love match and had no desire for all and sundry to know. When he left she didn’t want to face a barrage of poor Maggie whispers or sympathetic how-are- you looks?
So they never went to dinner or the movies or anything that resembled a proper date. And that was fine by her. This was an affair — pure and simple. And both of them wanted the same thing — as much naked time as possible.
Maggie wasn’t interested in getting to know him. She didn’t want to pepper him with questions about his dead sister, or his home, or his parents, or his grandmother, who he mentioned sometimes with such great affection. Or his plans for his flying paediatrician service.
What was the point when he was leaving?
They went to her place, steamed up the bedroom windows well into the night - or day, depending on their shifts - and then did it all over again the next time.
As far as Maggie was concerned, the less she knew, the easier it would be when he got on that flight to London.
Because one thing was for certain, she was going to miss the physical side of their relationship fiercely. Waking up to his wandering hands, the magic of his kiss, the feel of him deep inside her.
After being asexual for so long, he’d awoken a raging nymph that was going to be hard enough to deny. She didn’t want to miss the non-physical aspect of Nash as well.
The first day in December dawned bright and early as Maggie watched it through the windows at work. The sunrise was glorious but she knew pretty soon she’d have to twist the knob and shut the blinds as the rays would be poking their intense fingers between the slats, stabbing the dilated pupils of her nocturnal staff with laser-like intensity.
Night duty, hideous at the best of times, was worse in summer. In winter, when the sun finally made an appearance it was a sign the shift was almost over and it had an instant reviving affect, like a magic wand. In summer the big yellow ball made an appearance at four a.m. with hours to go until knock-off time.
In summer it sat low in the sky, mocking them all.
‘Are you going to help me with this tree or what?’
Maggie sighed and shut the blinds, blocking out the depressingly early sunshine. God, she hated this hour of the morning. Between four and six was the hardest. It was the time when things most often went wrong. When the hours dragged the most. When she felt cold and hungry and even occasionally downright nauseous.
A Christmas tree was a great distraction from four-in-the-morning misery. ‘Yep,’ she said. ‘Let’s do it.’
She passed Nash at the central station hunched over his computer. He was rubbing at his jaw, looking haggard and tired and eminently sexy. He winked at her as she went by and her stomach did its wild jig thing.
Not a good combination in its already delicate state.
Luckily the unit was quiet tonight, only three patients. That could all change in a matter of hours so it was nice to have lulls, no matter how brief, when they had time for frivolous things like Christmas decorations.
From where the tree was set up she could see all their patients. Bed three was still occupied by Toby, whose condition had continued to worsen. He was now on high-frequency ventilation and nitric-oxide therapy. The duff-duff noise of his ventilator reverberated through the unit like a stereo system as the pistoning membrane delivered a couple hundred breaths per minute.
His kidneys had also started to fail and a dialysis machine whirred quietly in complete contrast to the ventilator. It efficiently extracted, cleaned and returned Toby’s blood via the vascath in his groin. Things were looking grim for the little boy and Maggie’s gaze moved away quickly.