Page 13 of One Night with the Doctor

‘Now,’ Callie cried, her hips rising off the bed. ‘Condom.’

He didn’t argue or try to negotiate her out of something that was non-negotiable like some guys she’d been with had tried to do, just rolled away and Callie watched him roaming around in the buff very efficiently finding his jeans then his wallet. He extracted a condom, rolled it on and was back by her side in twenty seconds flat.

Callie was liking him more and more.

Dropping a string of kisses around the base of her throat, his tongue traced the line of her necklace. ‘Now,” he murmured. “Where were we?’

Heat licked rivers of fire through her veins which all converged at a point between her legs. ‘Here,’ she said, grasping the firm globes of his ass and rubbing herself against his erection.

He didn’t need any further invitation. He just slid inside, slow and deep and hard, filling her up, stretching her so damn good it ripped the breath from her lungs. And when she asked for more, he gave it, and when she wanted it faster, he picked up the pace, and when she cried out, his voice joined hers.

And when she went over the edge, he went with her.

It was quite some hours later before they finally lay sated in a post-coital drowse among tangled sheets. Callie lay on her back angled across the bed, Sebastian’s shoulder a perfect pillow. His arm, heavy across her chest was warm and vital and his fingers trailing up and down her bicep kept the hum in her cells, the thrum in her blood on a steady burn.

‘So. The bridge?’

Callie’s eyes snapped open, the malaise invading her bones and lulling her thought processes evaporating in a heartbeat. The hum and the thrum snuffed out.

‘Sebastian.’

‘Come on, Callie.’ He ran a finger down her arm but he stopped when she flinched. ‘Something happened back at the restaurant. If Geri’s to be believed, I think it has something to do with what happened on the bridge this morning.’

Callie vaulted up, pulling the sheet with her and leaving Sebastian exposed – not that she registered the fact. She squirmed to the side of the bed, her feet finding the floor. The only person who knew the story was Geri and her heart somersaulted in her chest at the mere thought of confiding in anyone else. She’d clutched it to herself too long.

‘Geri should mind her own damn business.’

She heard the slide of limbs against the sheets behind her and was conscious of him coming closer. She should get up and leave but, perversely, she wanted to stay.

It had been so nice here in Sebastian’s bed.

So, when his fingers tentatively touched the small of her back, she didn’t flinch and he grew bolder, running his palm up her spine to her shoulder blade. ‘Maybe Geri knows that sometimes talking to someone that you don’t know very well is easier.’

Callie snorted. ‘That’s a nice euphemism for virtual stranger.’

He ignored her sarcasm, giving her shoulder a squeeze before dropping his hand to the bed. ‘Okay. How about I guess?’

Callie shut her eyes. ‘Just leave it, Sebastian.’

‘I’m thinking that you lost a client on that bridge. Maybe recently? Maybe someone you were negotiating with at the time who decided to end it all anyway?’

Sudden tears pricked at her eyes, hot and scalding, as a flash of her brother’s anguished face flickered like an old movie reel in her head.

‘Someone you couldn’t help no matter how hard you tried.’

Callie heard Zack’s little voice asking for his daddy and sucked in a breath. She had tried. So hard.

‘We can’t be all things to all people, Callie. It wasn’t your fault.’

She knew that. She did. And there was something about the gentle understanding in his voice that told her he knew it, too.

On a deeply personal level, not just occupationally.

A familiar pain grew in her chest and the pressure build-up behind her eyes was almost unbearable. A tear trekked down her face as the urge to unburden grew to overwhelming force.

For God’s sake, she’d just shared the most intimate thing two human beings could share. She’d been as physically vulnerable as it was possible to be with a man. But to feel such an emotional connection?

This compulsion to open up was a whole new level of intimacy. So much so her hands trembled.