Sydney Harbour Hospital: Lexi's Secret (18 page)

Evie sucked in a quick little breath that felt like it had tiny rose thorns attached as he moved just that little bit closer. His hard, muscular chest brushed against the swell of her breasts and his belt buckle poked her in the belly, an erotic hint of what would happen if she allowed him any nearer. Her body flared with heat at his disturbing proximity, her skin tingling with awareness, her scalp prickling all over. His eyes were a deep and dangerous blue sea of male desire as they held hers. Her heart started to flap at the wall of her chest like a shredded truck tyre against bitumen. And her mouth went totally dry as his loomed inexorably closer …

A rumble of voices in the background suddenly lifted Finn’s head. ‘Might want to open that door, Evie,’ he drawled mockingly as he stepped back from her. ‘Your
team
might be wondering what’s keeping you from doing your job.’

Evie moved aside to let him pass, her heart still flip-flopping against her ribcage as she sent him a contentious glare. ‘Go to hell, Finn.’

He flicked her cheek with a lazy finger on the way past. ‘Been there, done that and thrown away the T-shirt long, long ago,’ he said, and then he left.

‘What’s been eating at Finn Kennedy lately?’ Julie, one of the nurses on duty, asked Evie a little while later as they were clearing up a cubicle after a patient had been transferred to ICU. ‘He’s been wandering around like a bear with a sore head.’

Evie peeled off her gloves and tossed them in the bin. ‘I have no idea,’ she said. ‘He’s always been a law unto himself.’

A head popped through the curtains from the next cubicle. It was one of the other nurses who had worked with Finn earlier. ‘That’s because he
has
got a sore head,’ she said. ‘I saw him pop a couple of paracetamol before he left. Mind you, who wouldn’t get a headache working here? Patients are lined up three deep in the waiting room and there are no beds.’

Evie frowned. ‘Finn had a headache?’

The nurse nodded. ‘He saw me looking at him while he was getting the painkillers and said he was fighting a migraine.’

Evie let out a breath and sank her teeth into her bottom lip. ‘He should have said something …’

Julie gave a snort as she bundled up the linen in her arms. ‘Yeah, right, that sounds like something Finn Kennedy would do.’

Evie took off her stethoscope and ran the rubber tubing
through her fingers. Finn had seemed particularly snarly this evening. And she had gone at him all guns blazing. If he was struggling with a migraine it was no wonder he had lost his temper with the junior nurse. And he’d had to take Mr Reid to Theatre. It would have been a nightmare for him if he hadn’t been feeling well.

She glanced at her watch. Her shift was nearly over. It was late but not too late to deliver an apology in person.

Finn’s penthouse apartment light was on. Evie had checked before she had knocked on the door but it seemed a decade or two before he answered.

The door swung open and he scowled down at her. ‘What do you want?’

‘How’s your headache?’ she asked.

His frown deepened. ‘What headache?’

‘The headache that made you act like an absolute boor in A and E earlier this evening,’ she said.

His hand fell away from the door and tunnelled through his hair. ‘It’s fine,’ he said in a gruff tone. ‘I’ve taken something for it. It’s almost gone.’

Evie sidled past him in the doorway.

‘What are you doing?’ he asked, shooting her a glare.

‘I’ve come to apologise.’

‘For what?’

‘For laying into you the way I did,’ she said. ‘I didn’t realise you were ill.’

His brows snapped together. ‘I’m not ill.’

‘You have a headache.’

‘So?’

‘Doesn’t that qualify as being ill?’

‘Not if it doesn’t interfere with my work,’ he said.

‘But it does interfere with your work,’ she argued. ‘The way you spoke to that poor girl was—’

He opened the door and jerked his head for her to leave. ‘Don’t let me keep you.’

Evie ignored the open door. ‘Have you had migraines before?’ she asked.

‘Go home, Evie,’ he said grimly. ‘I don’t need a diagnosis. I had a tension headache. I get them occasionally. Everyone does. Now leave.’

‘There have been a number of times at work when I’ve seen you struggling with your co-ordination,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen you drop things. And that facial stitching you abandoned that time? It was like you couldn’t get your fingers to work. Now you’re having migraines. Have you thought of having some scans done to rule out anything sinister?’

Finn let out an impatient curse. ‘I haven’t got a brain tumour,’ he said. ‘I haven’t got anything. Now get out of here before I lose my temper.’

Evie moved even further into his apartment, trailing her fingers over the leather sofa as she walked by to look out of the bank of windows overlooking the harbour. She affected an air of calm she was nowhere near feeling. Finn was intimidating at the best of times, but in this mood he was lethal. He reminded her of an alpha wolf who had taken himself away to lick his wounds without the cynosure of critical eyes. The thing she had to establish was if the wound he was hiding was self-inflicted. That was the one question she dreaded asking but ask it she must.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Finn asked.

Evie turned and looked at him, taking a deep breath
before she asked, ‘Is it alcohol? Have you got a hangover?’

His expression became thunderous. ‘What are you implying?’ he asked.

Evie rolled her lips together for a moment. ‘You know what people are like, Finn,’ she said. ‘They talk, gossip, spread rumours.’

‘Then they can bloody well talk,’ he said. ‘I don’t drink on the job. Never have, never will.’

‘I want to believe you but—’

‘I don’t give a rat’s backside if you believe me or not,’ he shot back. ‘Now, I’m going to say this one more time. Leave.’

Evie folded her arms and eyeballed him. ‘Aren’t you going to offer me a cup of coffee or something?’

His face was a blank canvas. ‘No.’

‘You don’t give a damn about anyone, do you?’ she asked.

‘Not particularly.’

‘I’m trying to understand you,’ she said, her voice rising in frustration. ‘But you’re so damned obstructive. Why can’t you at least meet me halfway?’

Finn shut the door with a definitive click; the gunshot sound of it making Evie flinch. She drew in an uneven breath as he sauntered over to where she was standing, his long legs eating up the distance in a matter of strides.

His features were harsh as he looked down at her, his cold, unfathomable eyes nailing hers. ‘What is it you really want, Evie?’ he asked. ‘A cosy chat over coffee or a quick tumble in the sack to let off some steam?’

Evie felt her face flash with heat. ‘You think I came here to sleep with you?’ she asked.

‘Yeah, that’s what I think.’ His eyes flicked to her
mouth before coming back to mesh with hers, challenging her, provoking her,
arousing
her.

She straightened her spine and sent him a withering look. ‘Strange as it may seem, Finn, I don’t want to dive headfirst into your bed,’ she said. ‘Call me picky but I don’t care for where you’ve been just lately.’

He gave her a devilish smile as he stepped into her body space. She tried to move away but the sofa was in the way. He captured some strands of her hair and looped them around his fingertip, a disturbingly intimate tether that sent her heart into an erratic rhythm. ‘Liar,’ he said. ‘We both know why you’re here, princess. You want me to finish what I started back in the office.’

Evie ran her tongue out over the chalk-dry surface of her lips. ‘Y-you’re totally wrong,’ she said in a husky whisper that didn’t really help her denial one little bit. ‘I just wanted to check that you were all right. I was concerned about you.’

He fisted some of her hair in his hands; the tugging should have been painful but instead it was intensely erotic against her scalp. His eyes dipped to her mouth, lingering there for a he art-stopping moment before he came back to her gaze. ‘Keep your concern for someone who wants it,’ he said. ‘I have no need or desire to be taken care of and certainly not by you.’

‘Why must you block anyone getting close to you?’ Evie asked.

His fist tightened on her hair, making her toes curl inside her shoes. His eyes blazed with heat as they bored into hers. ‘I’m not blocking you now, princess,’ he drawled. ‘You can get as close to me as you want. I won’t stop you.’

Evie snatched in a prickly breath. ‘I’m not talking about physical closeness.’

He bent his head to her neck, his lips nibbling on her skin in a teasing caress that sent a shiver down the length of her spine. ‘It’s the only type of closeness I want,’ he said. ‘And you want it too, don’t you, Evie, hmm?’

Evie wished she could deny it but her legs were already folding beneath her as his tongue moved across her lower jaw, making every nerve spring to attention. She tilted her head to one side to give him better access, her eyes closing as ripples of pleasure flowed through her body. He got closer and closer to her mouth without actually touching her lips. It was a torturous assault on her senses. She felt her lips buzzing with need as he advanced and retreated, again and again and again, until with a little whimper of desperation she finally took matters into her own hands and pressed her mouth to his.

Fireworks went off in her body as he took control of the kiss. His lips moved against hers with bruising pressure, his tongue not asking for entry but taking it in one savage thrust that lifted every hair on her head, including the ones he still had fisted in his hand.

He turned her in one deft movement and began walking her backwards to the nearest wall, his muscled thighs moving against hers in a commanding and totally provocative manner. She felt the surge of his erection against her belly as her back hit the wall, the rock-hard length of him pulsing with the drumbeats of raw, primal, male need. Her body was aflame, her feminine core already seeping with the dew of her longing. It was a raging fever in her blood, a full-throttle rush of sexual need on a scale she had never felt before. She felt
wanton and wild with his mouth crushing hers. She gave another whimper as his mouth ground against hers with savage intent, his tongue demanding hers submit to his. She fought him every step of the way for supremacy. She used her teeth, small nippy bites and harder ones, but he refused to allow her control.

‘Damn you,’ he growled against her mouth as he tugged at her top to uncover her breasts. ‘Damn you to hell.’

‘Damn you right back,’ she said as she held her arms up over her head so he could remove her top with a reckless abandon she suspected she might regret later when common sense returned.

He kicked the top away with his foot as his mouth ground against hers, his hands roughly caressing her breasts through the lace of her bra. It was exhilarating to feel his warm hands on her but she wanted more. She wanted to feel him skin on skin. She wanted no barriers between them.

Evie put her hands behind her back to unhook her bra, letting it drop to the floor at her feet. Finn murmured with approval and left her mouth to suck savagely on her right breast. She gasped out loud at the impact of his hot mouth on her puckered flesh. He swirled his tongue round her nipple, his teeth nipping at her, tugging, pulling and teasing in a cycle of pleasure and pain that had her totally at his mercy. His mouth was ruthless, hot and insistent, determined and dangerous as it toyed with her sensitive flesh.

She didn’t waste time on his shirt; instead her hands went straight to the waistband of his trousers, fumbling over the fastening in her desperate haste to feel him under her fingertips. He was so hard it made her insides quiver in a combination of anticipation and trepidation.
She could feel the pulsing heart of him pressing against the restraint of the fabric of his underwear as she undid his zipper.

A hot burst enflamed her insides as she finally uncovered him. The arrantly male jut of his body was smooth as satin but as hard as steel. Her hand moved up and down his length, slowly at first, exploring him, delighting in how aroused he was.

He gave a guttural groan and wrenched her hand away, pushing her almost roughly back against the wall as he lifted her skirt, his fingers pushing aside her knickers to slip with devastating thoroughness into the hot, wet heart of her.

Evie arched up in aching need to feel more, to have more of him, to have all of him. She could feel the tension building inside her, the dizzying rush of her blood, the emptying of her brain but for the fiery sensations coursing through her.

His mouth came back to hers in a hard kiss that had an undertow of desperation in it. His tongue duelled with hers in an erotic mimic of how he wanted to possess her. Her body thrilled at the sensual promise, the inner walls of her core pulsing with the need to feel him moving inside her. Every nerve in her body was screaming for more. For more of his touch, for more of his branding kisses, for the release she wanted more than her next breath.

He made another rough male sound deep in his throat as she moved urgently against him. He hoisted one of her legs around his waist, positioning himself before driving so deeply into her silky warmth her head banged against the wall.

Her gasp was swallowed by his mouth as it plundered hers. The friction of his body within hers sent shockwaves
of delight through her. She felt pleasure in every part of her from her curling toes to her prickling scalp where one of his hands had locked onto her hair to anchor himself.

It was a rough coupling, a desperate, urgent mating that bordered on animalistic. He thrust deeper and deeper, and harder and harder, his breath a hot gust near her ear as he laboured over her.

Evie felt the first faint flutters of orgasm, the tiny ripples that rolled through her, gathering speed with each pounding movement of his body within hers. She felt her body chase the delicious feeling, all her intimate muscles tensing for the freefall into ecstasy.

Suddenly it consumed her.

It picked her up like a giant wave and thrashed her about before spitting her out the other side, spent and limbless.