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She narrowed her eyes at me, and it was hot. “Kiss me, Kerr.”

She’d barely uttered the last syllable when my mouth was on hers, swallowing up my name on her lips as I slid my hand into her hair, under the warmth of her hat. I crushed her lips to mine and she let out a little whimper, not unlike the one she’d made when she had been asleep in my car the day before. Is this what she had been dreaming about? Kissing me? Doing something more with me?

The mere idea that I might inhabit her dreams the way she did mine made my blood burn white-​hot, and I kissed her hungrily, devouring her mouth as she shifted nearer, her arms going around my neck and pulling me in as she returned the kiss with equal intensity. She opened her mouth willingly for me when I ran my tongue along the seam of her lips, more of a demand than an invitation.

As I stroked my tongue against hers, she emitted another delicious little moan. She tasted sweet, with a hint of the coffee we’d both just been drinking. I hadn’t even seen where she’d placed her mug before I’d hauled her mouth onto mine, and I didn’t give a shit. The sense of urgency and need she was conveying coiled tighter and tighter deep down in my belly, making me ache for her. Making me strain hard against my joggers as all the blood in my body rushed in that direction.

Then she swung her leg over me to settle on my lap, grazing her inner thigh over my arousal and making me groan with need.

I fisted my hand in her hair, tugging her head back and making her inhale sharply. Goose bumps erupted along her neck and I gave in to the temptation to taste them, running my tongue over her pebbled skin and making her shudder in my arms, her hands gripping my shoulders so hard I could almost feel her fingernails through my layers.

I sucked the skin at the base of her throat, just above where her collar met her neck, marking her as mine.

“Kerr,” she mumbled, and rolled her hips against mine, another aching brush over where I was granite-​hard.

A hot stinging sensation hit my leg, making me jerk away from her, and I turned my head to look down, realizing then where she had put her coffee—​her spilled mug lay next to my thigh on the blanket. She must have knocked it over when she ground against me.

“Shit,” I said, breaking contact and brushing briefly at my leg, then clamping my hand down on her thigh and then lower, onto her calf, wanting to make sure she hadn’t gotten the hot liquid on her.

“What is it?” she said, eyes wide, hair tousled and woolly hat fallen onto the blanket. Her lips were bee-​stung and inviting me in for more, but I resisted.

“Did it get you?” I asked, searching her face for signs of pain and ignoring the stinging on my thigh.

She glanced to the side, taking in her spilled mug and the dark stain on my jogging bottoms. “Oh God! I’m so sorry,” she said, eyes widening and immediately clambering off me, leaving me bereft. “I’m such an idiot.” She delved into her bag, bringing out some tissues and pressing them to my leg. “Are you hurt? Let me look at it.”

I let her roll up my trouser leg and inspect my thigh, which was slightly pink but completely fine. The last of the coffee had cooled pretty quickly in the cold air. But I let her touch my skin to make sure—​she was a nurse, after all. And I liked the feel of her hands on me.

She stood and went to the water’s edge, dipping the tissues in and then coming back to press the cold, wet material to my leg. “How’s that?” she asked, lifting her head to meet my gaze.

“Feels good,” I told her, heat lacing my words. I watched her pupils dilate, black swallowing up cocoa brown.

A rustling sound from the parking area indicated another car pulling up, others no doubt coming to enjoy the waters. I brought my eyes back onto her. “We’d better go,” I said, the bitter sting of disappointment dampening the arousal rushing through my entire body.

“Okay,” she said, also sounding disappointed. Hope sparked in my chest that she seemed to wish we could carry on and didn’t regret what had happened between us.

I got my trouser leg back down and we packed up quickly, Nisa rolling up the blanket and putting away the thermos and mugs as I got the tent down. We headed back up the short beach to the car, greeting the other wild swimmers as they carried their stuff onto the sand.

Dumping all the gear in the boot, I went round to the driver’s side and climbed in, pleased to find her eyes already on me as I looked at her. “Ready?” There was the hint of a bruise peeking up from the inner edge of her collarbone, where I had marked her with my mouth.

“All set,” she said, a shy smile on her face as we pulled away.

22

Nisa

“AND THEN WHAT happened?” Rona asked, eyes wide as saucers.

“Shh,” I said as the cleaner moved past the nurses’ station with his mop and bucket, giving us a wave. I waved back, waiting for him to pass. “Then he drove us home and walked me to my door like the perfect gentleman.”

Rona frowned. “No goodbye kiss?”

I flooded with disappointment at the memory. “No. I think I was waiting for him to instigate it and he was waiting for me.” In hindsight, after Kerr had been so determined to take my lead and let me ask for what I wanted, I should have realized that he wouldn’t initiate anything further without my say-so. I suppose I had just thought that what I wanted was perfectly clear after I had mounted him on his picnic blanket.

He was grumpy and sexy and kind of rough on the outside but an absolute gentleman on the inside. Kerr was so measured in his actions, and I longed to see him come undone—​the way he had in my sexy dream when I’d fallen asleep in his car on the way home from visiting Aisha in hospital. My cheeks heated just thinking about the things we had done to each other in my sleep. When I’d awoken and seen him sitting next to me in his car, for a brief moment I’d not realized it had been a dream. Had I made any noises in my sleep that might have alerted him to what I had been dreaming about? More to the point, did I even care if I had?

“What are you going to do?” Rona asked in a stage whisper. “Do you want to see him again? I mean, not as in see him across the road as your neighbor or in your house as a friendly neighborhood handyman, but see him in like, a date kind of way?”

That was an excellent point. Kerr was due to come back to my place to finish the work in the living room, but I also wanted to see him with the primary objective of spending more quality time together. Not just in the context of his performing voluntary labor for me. Plus, I needed to return the favor after that lovely (though bloody freezing) morning at the loch, and for the work he was doing on my house, of course.