Waking Up With Dr Off-Limits

Jess felt her cheeks grow even hotter. Her heart drummed a heavy beat in her ears. She swallowed hard. Her nipples tightened and she was pleased for the thickness of the towelling as she imagined standing before him with nothing on.

Naked in front of a man.

In front of Adam.

‘Would you like a hand?’ he teased as Jess’s fingers clutched ever tighter at the fastening of the towel. Jess frowned as a heavy fog of confusion muddled her brain. He was smiling, his voice was light and teasing. She risked a brief glance at his face—there was a glint in his eyes.

Was he flirting with her?

But why?

He never flirted with her. Hell, he barely contained himself from ruffling her hair and patting her on the head on those rare occasions he was home and graced the rest of the house with his presence. Instead of being holed up behind closed doors, going for gold in the sexual Olympics.

He must be jet-lagged. And she was obviously delirious!

It would be foolish to read too much into any of these crazy last minutes.

Although dropping the towel just to wipe the smug smile off his face was exceedingly tempting.

She dropped her gaze instead. To the floor. Desperate to gain some composure.

Who knew she’d actually find her salvation?

She smiled and then squatted down, picking up two of her throw cushions and lobbing them at him. ‘These should do the trick.’

Adam caught them automatically as they hit him square in the chest. They’d been an irritation a couple of hours ago when he’d been trying to off load them so he could get horizontal as quickly as possible. Like an insurmountable mountain.

‘Look at that,’ he murmured, his gaze locking with hers. ‘They do serve a purpose.’

And then, his eyes never leaving her face, he rose in one fluid moment, one cushion clutched to his front, the other to his back.

Jess took a step back as his superior height overwhelmed her. At five-six in her bare feet she wasn’t exactly short—but she felt positively diminutive in the presence of his all-encompassing maleness.

‘Sweet dreams.’ He winked and turned on his heel, sauntering out.

Jess followed his retreat, amazed that somehow he still managed to look one hundred per cent male even with a purple cushion covering what she knew to be one hell of a swagger.

Not even her door shutting quietly, blocking her view, was going to be enough to erase that image from her brain. Groaning, her heart tripping, her hands trembling, Jess collapsed on her back on the bed.

She picked up her pillow and plonked it over her head. Adam’s edgy masculine scent filled her nostrils and she sucked in big, deep lungfuls of him. She threw it aside in disgust, rolling onto her stomach.

The same tantalising aroma wafted up from the sheet wrapping her in Adam.

She couldn’t decide if it was heaven or if it was hell.

She did know she was never going to wash these sheets. Ever again.

CHAPTER TWO

THE next morning Adam sat on his board out to sea with a line of other eager early morning surfers, waiting for the next wave to come in.

It was probably going to be a while.

The surf was non-existent. The ocean was flat and glassy, with just an occasional gentle swell bobbing him in the water.

But for Adam, surfing was about more than the waves. Sure, he liked the exhilaration of riding a monster wave as much as the next guy, but what he enjoyed most was this. The sense of stillness, of the world waking up, of being connected to the planet, in tune with its pulse.

The sun was rising rapidly in the sky behind him, spreading golden fingers over a still sleepy Coogee. It was already warm on his shoulders, shaping up to be another scorcher no doubt.

The light murmur of his fellow surfers melded perfectly with the distant sounds of the sea lapping against the beach.

Everything was as it should be.

Except for that damn image of Jess in nothing but a towel, with water droplets clinging to her skin, that had lodged itself stubbornly into his grey matter.

Prior to yesterday Adam had probably never given Jessica Donaldson a second thought. Sure, she was a nice enough kid but he doubted they’d ever said more than a handful of things to each other in the last three years.

Jess was just a friend of his sister’s who, along with Ellie and Tilly, had helped Ruby with the rent in his Hill St house.

Why had he never noticed her incredible bone structure before? Or how hot that little pink mouth was?

Because.

Adam gave himself a shake.

Because she was barely out of her teens, that’s why! Twenty-three, for crying out loud.

The only other time he’d dated a woman in her early twenties, Francine, it had been an unmitigated disaster—one that he had no intention of repeating.

Once bitten, twice smart.

Younger women were complicated. They had romantic stars in their eyes. They wanted things. Like declarations of love.

They were needy. He didn’t do needy.

He did sophisticated. Worldly. Independent.

Women. Not girls.

And he wasn’t about to start just because he’d dreamed about Jess and that mouth all through his marathon eighteen-hour sleep.

He felt things begin to stir beneath his boardies as they had earlier, prodding him from his slumber, and he looked up at the headlands either side of Coogee bay, determined to distract himself. To focus on something—anything—other than Jess.

He could see a couple at the monument to the Bali bombing victims and further back towards the front a lone jogger pounded the footpath, the majestic Norfolk pines forming a dramatic backdrop. His gaze lifted higher, to the hilly suburban sprawl behind and the Eastern Beaches Hospital perched atop, dominating it all. He could even see his house from here, his eyes easily locating the double-storey monstrosity badly in need of some TLC.

His gaze fell on Jess’s window and he found himself wondering if she was still asleep.

Did she sleep nude, like he did?

Had it been her plan yesterday to shimmy the towel off her body and just drop straight into bed?

He closed his eyes as a vision of him brushing his mouth across a bare shoulder blade assailed him. Her skin would be cool from the kiss of the air-con and he could almost feel the tiny hairs feathering her skin brush his mouth as they stood to attention beneath his lips.

His groin stirred again and he almost groaned out loud. This was madness!

What he really needed was a date. Obviously it had been too long if he was lusting after a woman—a young woman—twelve years his junior.

And it’d been a long time since he’d had any female company.

His time away with Saving Face was always frantic and there was never time for socialising. Long days of operating, often well into the night, followed by travelling on to the next place and repeating it all over again wasn’t conducive to sexual liaisons.

Frankly, even if he didn’t have a strict no-sleeping-with-colleagues rule, he was too exhausted for anything other than snatching vital hours of sleep whenever he could.

But when he came home between missions, that was a different story. That was his down time. Time to surf, top up his tan, spend time with Ruby, see his mother, tolerate his father and date pretty women.

Time for liaisons.

‘Wave!’

Adam looked over his shoulder as the excited cry worked its way down the line. He felt his adrenaline kick in as the mediocre wave emerged from the ocean behind him and he flattened his belly against the board in anticipation.

He welcomed it. Riding a wave was an all-consuming pastime and he welcomed the break from his internal dialogue. No time for thoughts of Jess and her cute pink mouth.

Just him and the ocean.

He felt the drag, could feel the kick in his chest as his pulse picked up a notch. His board started to lift at the back and he paddled frantically to position himself perfectly for when the wave crested.

He leapt to his feet at just the right moment, bending his legs, cutting across the face as if he’d been born with fins. The wind ruffled his hair and he could taste salt on his tongue.

It was just him and the wave.

He whooped out of sheer exhilaration as he conquered the wall of water. He was unstoppable.

Until the second he wondered if Jess could surf.

And then he promptly lost his balance and tumbled off his board head first into the ocean.

‘Good morning,’ Jess chirped as she flipped over some frying bacon.

‘How on earth can you be so damn happy at this ungodly hour of the morning?’ Ruby bitched as she shuffled into the kitchen and headed straight for the coffee pot she knew Jess would have brewing.

Jess laughed. She didn’t have to tell her friend that back home she would have been up two hours ago. ‘This is the best part of the day.’

Ruby shook her head. ‘You country chicks are mad.’ But she smiled as she took her first fortifying sip.

Jess loaded up her plate with the bacon and waited for the eggs to cook. ‘What are you doing up this early anyway?’

‘Cort got called in at four. I haven’t been able to get back to sleep since.’

Jess frowned. ‘Everything okay?’

‘‘Course,’ Ruby dismissed. ‘Just can’t sleep without him.’

‘Oh,’ Jess murmured. ‘That’s so sweet.’

She envied Ruby. And Tilly and Ellie. They’d all found love this past year. Oh, she was thrilled for them too but it was a little hard to be the single one in a house full of couples.

And she wanted what they had. What her parents had. What her grandparents had.

The fairy-tale.

Was that so wrong?

No.

But who she wanted it with was just plain, never-going-to-happen crazy.

Jess turned back to the pan. ‘Do you want some bacon?’ she asked as she lifted her eggs onto the plate. ‘I’ve cooked too much.’

Ruby shook her head. ‘I don’t know how you have a greasy cooked breakfast every morning and manage to stay so skinny.’

Jess grinned. ‘Good metabolism.’

The door that led from the side of the house into the kitchen was pushed open and Jess swung around in time to see all her happily-ever-after fantasies in all his six-foot-two glory entering the house.

His wet boardies, riding low on his belly, barely hung onto his hips as they clung to meaty quads. Great slabs of muscular flesh—shoulders, pectorals, abs—were exposed to her view as they had been yesterday.

A tantalising trail of hair drew her eyes down from his belly button.

Down, down, down.

‘That smells amazing,’ Adam said. ‘Don’t suppose there’s any extra?’

Jess dragged her gaze up, up up and nodded dumbly. ‘Bacon.’

‘Great.’ Adam smiled. ‘I’ll have a quick shower and throw on some eggs.’ He ruffled Ruby’s hair as he went past and earned a grumpy glare.

Jess stood in the middle of the kitchen, staring after his straight tanned back as it disappeared from view.

Tilly passed Adam and entered the kitchen dressed in a strappy little beach-dress thrown over her bikini, ready for her regular morning dip in the bay. She shook her head. ‘It should be illegal for your brother to go shirtless, Ruby.’

Jess couldn’t have agreed more.

She plonked her plate on the bench and went to the fridge for eggs.

‘What are you doing?’ Ruby frowned.

‘I might as well do his eggs,’ Jess said. ‘It won’t take a jiffy.’

Ruby rolled her eyes. ‘He’s a thirty-five-year-old man whose skill with a scalpel has given countless people all around the world a better life. I’m pretty sure he can handle an egg flip. Sit and eat before your breakfast gets cold.’

‘But—’

‘No buts,’ Ruby said crankily, thinking how their mother had waited on their father hand and foot all their married life and how he’d let her.

She and Adam hated him for it. And they hated how their mother had allowed herself to be completely absorbed by him, totally losing herself in the process.

He doubted Adam would thank Jess for her ministrations.

‘Sit,’ Ruby said when it looked like Jess was about to object again.

Jess raised an eyebrow at Tilly, who turned to Ruby. ‘More coffee,’ she suggested, sweeping Ruby’s cup up as Jess placed her meal on the table and sat. A few minutes later they were chatting about their rare day off together when Adam swaggered back into the kitchen. He was wearing dry boardies and a snug T-shirt and Jess’s throat suddenly felt as dry as the toast she was eating.

‘These are yours, I believe,’ he said, handing Jess her two cushions as he passed her by.

Jess, aware of the speculative gaze of her friends, blushed furiously. The thought of just where those cushions had been deepened the colour to scarlet as she dropped her gaze to her plate.

‘Thank you,’ she murmured.

‘So,’ Ruby, said looking from Adam to Jess then back to Adam again, ‘what’re you up to today?’

Adam smiled to himself as he opened the fridge door and reached for the eggs. Jess’s blush was so damn cute it made him want to tease her more.

A lot more.

‘I have an appointment with Gordon Meriwether later today about organising some visiting surgeon rights.’

All three of them sat up a little straighter. Jess almost inhaled a piece of bacon. Was he coming to work at Eastern Beaches? In the operating theatres?

Her operating theatres?

‘Dr Meriwether from up the hill?’ she clarified.

Adam nodded as he sauntered to the fry pan and turned up the heat. ‘As I was saying yesterday, we had to abort this last mission due to some unrest. There were quite a few cases that we’d reviewed a few months ago that were scheduled to be done. Some bad burns contractures from a horrific fire that wiped out a couple of villages and one really major reconstruction case. We had to leave them.’ He shrugged. ‘That’s not ideal.’ Jess ignored more speculative glances between Tilly and Ruby at Adam’s referral to yesterday. The plight of the people that Adam spoke about turned her already soft heart to complete mush. ‘Oh, how awful,’ she murmured.

‘So … you’re going to do them at Eastern Beaches?’ Ruby asked.

Adam nodded as he cracked his eggs into the pan. ‘That’s the plan. We’ve negotiated with some international charities to bring the patients to Australia, I just need to tee it up with Gordon to use his theatres.’

‘Can’t see that will be a problem,’ Tilly said with a wry smile. ‘Gordon does like publicity.’

Adam smiled back. ‘That’s what I figured. Plenty of photo ops make Gordon a happy boy.’

Jess head was spinning. So … the man she’d fallen head over heels for ever since Ruby had introduced her brother three years ago, the man who had been naked in her bed just yesterday, was going to be walking the same sterile corridors as her?

Maybe the universe was trying to tell her something? Seize the day? Maybe it was her turn to find happiness?

‘So you’ll be working at the hospital soon?’ Jess was pretty sure she managed to keep the squeak out of her voice.

Adam flipped his eggs. He knew Jess had been in the operating theatres for the last few months. He tried to picture her in blue theatre scrubs and failed.

All he could see was that damn towel.

‘If all goes ahead it’ll be a PR exercise so there’ll be a couple of weeks of settling in and fanfare with the obligatory interviews in women’s magazines and for current-affairs television. And the usual press conferences for both the charities and the hospital.’

‘That’s fair,’ Ruby said.

Adam, used to schmoozing and pandering to whatever interests could fund Operation New Faces, simply nodded. He knew full well how this game was played and was prepared to do whatever was required to see that the organisation he’d dedicated the last six years of his life to thrived.

He slipped his cooked eggs onto the plate and joined the women at the table. Jess was studiously mopping up every last scrap of yolk with a piece of toast.

He had a sudden urge to know her. To know Jess, the nurse. Not Jess, his sister’s friend, or Jess, the farm girl, or Jess, the blushing housemate.

Jess, the competent professional.

He didn’t understand why.

Had someone put a gun to his head he wouldn’t have been able to explain it. But suddenly he seemed to want to know everything about her.

Not least of all what was beneath that towel.

And how the hell she cleared her bed so quickly of all those damn cushions when the occasion arose. As she must most assuredly on a reasonably regular basis.

Unless all male staff at Eastern Beaches were completely blind. Or stupid.

‘It’ll be a few days’ worth of surgery—there’s nine major operations all up. I’ll need a team. Are you interested?’

Jess looked up sharply from her plate. Interested? She’d give up her claim to the family farm to work with him. Just to be in the same operating theatre as him as he unleashed his magic would be a supreme honour.

‘I’ve only been in Theatre for a few months. I doubt I’m experienced enough for you.’

As soon as the prophetic words were out, Jess wished she could take them back. On so many levels, she just wasn’t up to his skill set.

Adam stilled. He could see pink tinging her high cheekbones again and he suddenly wasn’t thinking about the job. Suddenly he was thinking about all the things he could teach her.

Her teeth sank into the lushness of her bottom lip and his brain temporarily short circuited.

After a moment he blinked and forced himself to shrug casually. ‘Eastern Beaches is a teaching hospital. It doesn’t have any facio-maxillary specialists so it’s not something you’ll probably ever see if you choose to stay at the hospital. It’ll be good experience. Are you up for it?’

Jess forgot all about her plan, which did not involve staying at Eastern Beaches at all. The outback was her first love—red dust ran in her veins—and once she’d completed a year each in the OR, Emergency and ICU she was going home to the chronically understaffed bush.

All she heard was his Are you up for it?

She was up for anything he was offering. Three years of barely even recognising her and suddenly he was offering her a place on his surgical team?

It wasn’t anything romantic, she knew that. But after existing on crumbs for the last few years this was her chance to prove herself worthy. To finally be noticed.

Maybe even as a woman too?

‘I’m up for it.’

Adam had to remind himself as Jess looked at him like he’d created the moon and the stars that she was young and impressionable and very, very off-limits.

Remember Francine.

Remember Ruby.

He inclined his head. ‘I’ll see if I can swing it.’ Jess smiled at him and for a moment he forgot what he’d agreed to do as he smiled back.

Ruby and Tilly exchanged looks. ‘Hot date tonight?’ Ruby asked.

Adam glanced at his sister. Normally a hot date was the only thing on his mind after he’d caught up on some sleep. And sometimes even before that. There’d been more than one occasion he’d pulled up in a taxi outside his Coogee residence not so fresh from the international airport, dragging a woman through the perennially squeaky front gate.

But with Jess smiling at him across the table in her sweet, innocent way, suddenly the names in his little black book didn’t seem as appealing.

And that was stupid with a capital S.

‘You know me.’ He shrugged, thankful for Ruby reminding him of who he was. ‘Work hard. Play harder.’

Jess felt his words slam into her heart as if they’d been delivered by a sledgehammer.

Adam Carmichael was a player.

Not the handsome prince!

The following week Jess hurried along to the staffroom. She was late. The orthopaedic list she’d been scrubbing for had run a little over time. James Leonardi, Ellie’s orthopaedic surgeon fiancé, usually ran a tight ship but sometimes these things happened.

The soft, well-washed cotton of her baggy blue scrubs shifted against her body as she moved, the clip-clop of her clogs reverberated down the corridor.

All the occupants of the room looked up as she entered but she only had eyes for one. ‘Sorry,’ she apologised to Adam, smoothing her theatre cap self-consciously.

‘No worries.’ Adam smiled. ‘We haven’t started yet.’

Jess smiled shyly back at him and Adam felt a strange kick in the centre of his chest. Her theatre cap obscured her hair and exposed her face in a way he’d not seen before. Her eyes, the exact shade of her scrubs, practically glowed beneath the fringe of mocha lashes, and her flawless skin flowed over high cheekbones and dipped into interesting hollows near her mouth.

And that mouth. Man, that mouth! All wide and pink with full soft lips that pulled at him like a homing beacon. She didn’t wear any make-up and her gaze was open and honest with absolutely no artifice.

She was just plain … lovely.

Lovely?

‘Shall we begin?’ prompted Martha Cosgrove, the NUM of the operating theatres.

It took a moment for Adam’s brain to realise the room had fallen silent and people were looking at him expectantly. ‘Of course,’ he said.

He turned and headed for the whiteboard attached to the far wall, castigating himself as he went.

Since when did he do lovely?

Hot, sexy, bodacious. These were things he did. Lovely? Definitely not. He turned to face the room, his gaze somehow automatically finding Jess. She was now sitting on one of the low chairs that lined the walls. Her legs were crossed and she was looking at him with interest. And suddenly, sitting amidst her nursing colleagues, dressed in her scrubs and cap, she didn’t look so young any more. Gone were the jeans and Ts and the ever-present ponytail that made her look like she was still stuck in her teens.

She looked like a professional. Capable. Confident.

She looked all grown up.

‘I’d like to thank you for joining me today,’ he said dragging his gaze from her and getting back on task. ‘Congratulations, you’re all part of a team that’s going to make a huge difference to the lives of nine human beings who would otherwise be outcasts amongst their own people.’

A feeling that she was doing something worthwhile consumed Jess and she started to clap. Others followed and she took the opportunity to look around her at Adam’s team. An anaesthetist, five nurses—three senior, two junior—a surgical registrar and a surgical resident.

She flicked her gaze back to Adam. It was the first time she’d ever seen him in his theatre garb and his magnificence was breathtaking. She’d thought nothing could top the floral sheets but the scrubs definitely made the man.

He looked like every charismatic screen doctor she’d ever watched on television rolled into one. He oozed sexiness and virility and that special brand of confidence that highly skilled surgeons exuded so effortlessly.

In some doctors it would be described as arrogance.

In Adam it was pure self-belief.

‘We’re hoping to begin the three days of surgery in a fortnight,’ Adam continued. ‘There’s a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes—dotting all the Is and crossing all the Ts with the different charities involved and from a humanitarian visa point of view and certainly for Lai Ling, our most complicated case, there needs to be further imaging and bio-modelling to be done before it can go ahead.’

As he spoke Jess was distracted by wisps of his sandy blond hair that had escaped the theatre cap. She was reminded of how it had looked lying against her pillow. All shaggy and badly in need of a cut and crying out to be ruffled.