Partners by Contract (16 page)

Weak or not, she managed to get a firm hold of his taut buttocks just before she felt him thrust forcefully into her body. Phoebe’s mind went blank. There was room for nothing but the raw, mind-blowing sensation of being filled by him.

She could hear someone talking—was it her? It was saying wild, crazy things as her hips moved to the dark, languid rhythm he set.

‘I want to have all of you!’

She gave a dismayed whimper of protest as he withdrew.

‘Then you shall,’ he promised.

Looking into his glittering, jewel-bright eyes, it quite literally paralysed her with lust. She even forgot how to breathe. He looked like man who would fulfil his promise. Her confidence was rewarded when moments later he plunged smoothly back into her body, penetrating to the very core of her.

A raw, exultant cry was wrenched from her throat as he rocked higher into her body, then she moaned and drew him in deeper.

‘Is that enough...?’

Her teeth sank into the soft flesh of her lower lip. ‘Enough?’ she gasped. ‘You’re too much, always were.’ Their eyes met and he laughed into her mouth as he claimed her lips.

Despite his earlier instructions, Phoebe closed her eyes tight, her focus on the explosive feelings building up inside her. Each thrust and stroke drove her further and further away from control. The struggle for satisfaction claimed her totally as she writhed beneath him.

‘If you stop I’ll kill you!’ she said through gritted teeth.

‘If I stop you won’t need to,’ he grunted.

When the climax to their frantic exertions, the culmination of their combined torment, finally came, it was both abrupt and shattering.

Phoebe’s pleasure-saturated body had already begun to grow limp when she felt him give a final shudder above her. As he helplessly cried out her name over and over she registered the heat of his pulsing liquid release deep inside her.

For a long time they lay there, sweat-slick limbs entwined, breathing hard. His head lay against her shoulder, his breath warm on her neck, his big, long-limbed body heavy above her.

‘Oh, my God,’ she whispered incredulously at intermittent intervals. She glowed rosily with a sense of total peace and completion. It hummed warmly through her veins. Never in her life had she experienced anything like this. And you won’t again, the voice of common sense added. Do you really think you’ve got a future? Could you be happy, knowing that Penny’s death purchased that happiness? the voice persisted.

Phoebe breathed in enough of Connor’s warm musky maleness to banish stark reality for a little longer. She refused to think beyond that moment in time. Making love
with Thierry had not prepared her for this. This wild yet tender coupling hadn’t been even distantly related to the warm companionable comfort she’d experienced with the Frenchman. This had been raw, electrifying excitement that had stretched her body, mind and soul to its limits and beyond!

Her limbs were still lax when Connor eventually slid to one side.

She belatedly recalled his injured knee and hoped their exertions hadn’t done too much damage. ‘Are you all right?’

‘If I’ve ever felt better I don’t recall the occasion.’

Maybe he was just being polite, but his sincerity was highly gratifying anyway.

CHAPTER EIGHT

C
ONNOR
stroked Phoebe’s bare back, loving the satiny texture of her skin under his fingers.

Considering things hadn’t gone according to his master plan, he felt pretty damned good—better than good actually, he decided, stretching lazily and relishing the feeling of post-coital relaxation.

Not that making love to Phoebe had been part of the plan—if he’d had any doubts on the score, walking around in a permanent state of semi-arousal, and not always semi, since he’d laid eyes on her the first day would have set him right! It was just that he firmly believed you couldn’t have a future until you’d sorted out the past. Negative things like guilt and mistrust thrived in an atmosphere of repressed emotions and half-truths, and he and Phoebe had enough unresolved issues to keep a firm of therapists in work for the better part of the decade! No, this time he was determined to have everything upfront—no room for misunderstandings.

He’d worked out all the arguments she might have made to them being together, and he had a slick, convincing answer for them all. He could now see that it had been pretty naïve of him not to make allowances for the lust factor. Instead of gently revealing the truth, he’d blurted out a traumatically shocking and disjointed version of it.

He felt Phoebe sigh and quiver as his hand dropped to the smooth peachy contours of her femininely curved behind. He’d better start talking soon before the lust factor started messing with his head again.

Phoebe buried her head in his chest when the doorbell rang.

‘Ignore it,’ she urged.

‘I will.’ Her hand slid sensually down his muscular flank and he felt his passions stir. Maybe the talking could be postponed for a little while yet...?

The ringing and knocking went on for several more minutes. Phoebe could feel the tension build in Connor’s lean frame. Ignoring the summons went against the grain for them both. After years of being on call, responding to an urgent summons was nothing short of a conditioned reflex.

Phoebe lifted her head to rest her chin on his shoulder. ‘It might be important...’ she suggested tentatively.

Connor exhaled a soft hiss of frustration but nodded.

While the banging continued Phoebe ran back and forth, recovering various garments belonging to them both. Inexplicably her naked state aroused no feelings of awkwardness or insecurity even though she was aware of Connor watching every move—he didn’t even make any attempt to pretend otherwise.

‘I’ll answer it.’ Connor, who was decent before her, hauled himself awkwardly off the low sofa.

Phoebe zipped up her jeans. ‘Fine,’ she panted. ‘I’m almost...’ with a little grunt she was on her feet, tucking her shirt into the waistband ‘...decent.’ It occurred to her that shameless and brazen might be more appropriate under the circumstances. ‘Connor...?’

Their eyes met... He was the most glorious-looking male she’d ever encountered, she decided as a helpless flood of longing washed over her. She shook her head. ‘Nothing,’ she said lamely. ‘You’d better go and answer that,’ she added as a fresh bout of hammering began.
Whoever it was was pretty persistent. Perhaps it was Ellen come to reclaim her property.

Phoebe couldn’t even raise a smile for her own joke, probably because it wasn’t funny. The idea of Connor marrying another woman would never be funny, but it would probably happen one day so she’d better get used to the idea, she told herself, repressing an urge to howl out loud at the unfairness of it.

It’s not as if she could ever marry Pen’s husband! Keep a grip on reality, Phoebe, she urged herself sternly.

Making love—no matter how marvellous—was one thing, building a long-term relationship was another, and she sincerely believed that theirs would be doomed to disaster. There was just too much guilt, too many ghosts. A guilty conscience did nasty, insidious things, and she couldn’t bear for something so perfect to degenerate into hostility and recriminations. Best all around to stop now while the only memories she had were good ones.

Contemplating a future minus Con was pretty bleak. Maybe I shouldn’t have let things go this far, she pondered glumly, then at least I wouldn’t have known what I was missing. Who are you kidding? she mocked herself. There was no way you could regret something so mind-blowingly perfect! And a memory was better than nothing. The stubbornly optimistic thought didn’t do much to raise her spirits.

Hopping on one leg, she thrust her foot into a boot and looked around for its partner. Although she couldn’t distinguish what they were saying, the voice of Connor’s caller held a note of urgency that made her speed up her efforts.

When Connor returned he was alone, and his expression was grave. He was carrying his medical bag.

‘Seems there’s been a accident at the Melton crossroads.’

Phoebe, one eye half-closed, her nose wrinkled, consulted her mental map of the area—a doctor on call learnt her way around remarkably quickly. ‘The one past the old chapel...?’ That wasn’t far away at all.

Connor nodded. ‘Several cars and a tanker, which has spilled its load. The road’s awash with something...’

‘Fire?’

‘Not yet,’ Connor responded grimly. ‘They’ve called the emergency services. Ben Wells drove up here on his tractor to get help.’

‘Injuries?’

‘He didn’t know. Will you drive?’ Phoebe already had hold of her car keys.

It only took them a couple of minutes to drive to the scene of the accident. Phoebe, conscious of the need not to obstruct the emergency services, parked some way back from the scene of destruction up on a grassy verge. The instant she stepped from the car her eyes and nose began to prickle.

‘Must be the chemical fumes.’ Con, experiencing the same symptoms, nodded towards the tanker. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Scared but functioning.’ Her smile was a long way from chirpy, but Connor could see she was more than capable of coping with the situation. But, then, she’d probably coped with worse than this—in fact, worse than anything he could imagine. The pride he felt was tinged with a gut-wrenching fear. He could have lost her...

A fire engine and police car were already on the scene. A uniformed officer approached with the obvious intention of warning them off. His attitude changed when he recognised Connor.

‘Dr Carlyle, am I glad to see you.’ His relief was palpable.

‘This is my colleague, Dr Miller.’ The policeman nodded towards Phoebe. ‘What’s the situation?’

‘One dead.’ The young officer nodded grimly towards a mangled piece of metal which was hard to identify as a car. Don’t know about the one in the Mini.’ He grimaced as he nodded towards the car trapped underneath the lorry. ‘It doesn’t look good. The fire crew want to wait until they get confirmation on the stuff leaking out before they go in. The tanker driver got out, but he’s passed out. The child in the Volvo seems all right—luckily, his baby chair was in the back seat. The fire crew are just assessing the driver, she’s bleeding pretty heavily.’

Connor nodded, his comprehensive glance assessing the scene of devastation. ‘Ambulance ETA?’

‘Another five minutes, I’m afraid.’

Phoebe and Connor exchanged glances.

‘Then we better get on with it,’ Phoebe said. ‘Is there a fire risk?’

‘’Fraid so.’

Phoebe and Connor made their way towards the Volvo, choosing a route that avoided contact with the chemical spill. The car was lying on its side in the ditch, its sturdy shell battered and buckled almost beyond recognition. Phoebe slithered and righted herself on the heavily waterlogged turf.

‘Carefully does it.’

Phoebe smiled her gratitude for the steadying arm. The young man in uniform was trying desperately to act as if he’d seen it all before when quite obviously he hadn’t. She couldn’t get over how incredibly young he looked. Wasn’t it a sign of advancing years when policemen started looking like schoolboys?

‘They think it must have rolled over several times.’

Phoebe came to a decision. ‘Obviously you can’t make it any further with your leg, Con. Let me do this one. You take a look at the driver and the child.’

After a moment’s pause Connor accepted her assessment, though his reluctance was obvious. ‘Be careful, and yell if you need me.’

And I’ll do what? Come limping to the rescue? His expression hardened with self-derisive frustration. While he’d never considered himself in the superman league, it struck him pretty forcibly that he was pretty useless at the moment—just when Phoebe and these people needed him.

The firemen had just removed the driver’s door when Phoebe reached the car and they were talking soothingly to the woman sitting behind the steering-wheel.

‘Dr Miller,’ she introduced herself, and tried not to think about the significance of the strong smell of petrol.

‘All yours, Doc,’ the uniformed figure nearest her said cheerfully, stepping to one side to let her approach. ‘This is Nell, Doc.’ He raised his voice. ‘The doctor’s here, Nell.’

The white-faced figure in the car opened her eyes.

‘Could you...?’ Phoebe looked questioningly at the nearest uniformed figure.

‘Bill, Doc,’ he responded immediately.

‘Could you get in the back, Bill, and keep her head still?’

‘You worried about spinal injuries?’

‘It always pays to be safe,’ Phoebe responded. There was a tinkle of breaking glass as the fireman smashed the rear window and reached inside to unlock the door. She nodded her approval as he climbed inside and with a gentle explanation reached forward to support the woman’s head against the head restraint.

‘Hello, Nell.’ Phoebe smiled at the youngish woman and touched her waxen, bloodstained cheek. ‘I’m Phoebe.’ She gently brushed some of the crushed glass off the woman’s chest.

‘Is my little boy all right?’ It was obvious that her own dilemma was secondary to her concern for her son.

‘My colleague is with him now,’ Phoebe soothed. ‘I’m sure he’ll be fine.’ And if he wasn’t, he had the best person with him—Phoebe’s belief in Connor’s skills was absolute. Maybe some of that belief showed, or maybe the woman had faith in the medical establishment, because she appeared to suddenly relax.

‘Thank God! Sorry.’ She sniffed gruffly as the tears of relief began to slide down her cheeks.

‘No apology necessary.’ There was lot of blood but, as far as Phoebe could see, most of it had come from the deep scalp laceration which, like many scalp wounds, had bled copiously. ‘Have you got any pain anywhere?’

‘Everywhere.’ The woman winced as she shifted her position.

Phoebe nodded sympathetically. ‘I’m just going to see what’s going on. If I hurt you, don’t keep quiet about it.’

‘You can rely on that,’ the woman responded with a brave attempt at humour.

‘Can you move your feet?’ The fact the patient was conscious and able to speak coherently made Phoebe’s job a lot easier.

‘Yes.’ The response was dry. ‘But I’d prefer not to,’ she joked with obvious bravado.