With a frown, George considered before answering with, “No. No, I’m fine. Go on home.”
Purnima hesitated but finally turned and left the room, returning shortly with Andrew Blane in tow.
“Come in,” George said with what she hoped was placid concern.
He stepped inside, disheveled and sweaty and… Oh, geez. Something else. Not hot, but heated maybe? Intense.
“I’m sorry,” he said, remaining in the doorway.
“It’s okay.”
“No, I mean, I’m…” He looked away. “I shouldn’t have missed yesterday. I had no excuse.”
“All right, well…” She swallowed hard, avoided his eyes, and then, maybe because he’d hurt her and she wanted to hurt him back, she said, “You’ll have to pay for the missed time.”
“Of course.” He waited, just stood there breathing hard, and she couldn’t help but notice his chest beneath his sleeveless T-shirt, moving.
“Can you take me today?”
“Have you put on the cream?”
“No, but…” His smile, dry and cracked, pulled at something deep inside her. “But I can’t reach most of my back anyway, so it’s all the same, isn’t it?”
“Oh. You don’t have anyone who can—”
“No, Doc. Got nobody to rub my back for me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Are you?” he said with a bigger smile.
“Of course I am. I’ve—” She stopped herself from talking. “Oh.” God, why was she so dense? Was he flirting with her? And if so, why on earth would he bother flirting with someone like her? A swallow failed to wet her throat enough, and her voice, when it came out, was ragged. “I’ve got to finish up some…paperwork here, so…” Another throat clearing.
“Got all the time in the world.”
“Good. Perfect. I’ll just…apply the numbing cream, and we’ll wait for it to take effect.”
“Sounds good.”
“All right, follow me.”
He barely moved back to let her through the door, and that, even that, felt like flirtation, unfamiliar and dangerous, but so, so titillating.
In the examination room, she moved to the sink, washed her hands, and didn’t watch as he settled back on the table. From a cupboard, she grabbed a new tube of cream and a roll of plastic wrap. “I’ll just apply this, and you can wait about half an hour. Have you had issues with the others we’ve worked on?”
He shook his head, eyes steady on hers.
“Take off your shirt and lie down on your front, please. If it’s not too painful.” The words came out close to a whisper. Quickly, she pulled on a pair of latex gloves, waited for him to disrobe, and forced herself to breathe. Deep, slow. Okay, his chest was blistering and starting to scab, she noted before he settled onto the bench. The ink was nearly gone in some areas—the lighter applications—but others were dark. She hoped, for his sake, that they’d eventually disappear.
Although he stiffened at the contact, the first swipe of cream was easy. A thick layer of it, directly over the big, black triangle in the center of his back. If she concentrated on the cream instead of him, it was doable. But it was hard to ignore every line of his perfection—this anatomy book illustration come to life.
She watched as his skin pebbled up into goose bumps. Another swipe, over the spider web on his neck, then across a shoulder blade, and her hand couldn’t help but enjoy the rigid planes, the swell of muscle, the strength. And then there was how he smelled. He’d looked sweaty when he’d come in, but it wasn’t bad. No, it was…
George pulled her hand away as if stung, took a step back, and breathed through her mouth, although even that was intimate. Past the medical odor of the cream, she had smelled soap, maybe some cheap shampoo, and then…sex. He smelled the way she remembered sex smelling. Not the musky odor of genitals, but the scent of desire.
Man as animal. He smelled solid, real, warm. Right. He smelled right. So right, in fact, that her body did things, perking in places that hadn’t perked in so long she’d thought they were dead. It was cool in the clinic, thank God, because at least she’d have an excuse for her nipples. But not for the slippery weight in her abdomen. Lower.
“Everything okay?” the man asked, craning his neck to look at her, and rather than face those eyes again head-on, she placed her clean hand to the back of his head and pressed. Gently. Firmly.
