Unknown (19 page)

Somehow, after the viciousness of Dawn's ambition, everything to do with Sophie seemed so normal, normal and benign, that he wanted to embrace it—and her—with all the fervour of his being.

When he perused the list of outpatients he had to see the next day, he saw that Mike Dolby was on the list. It was several months now since the initial operation for Crohn's disease, so if all was well tomorrow he would talk about putting Mike on a list to be operated on again, an operation to get rid of the ileostomy and reconnect the ends of the bowel. He liked to wait at least six months before doing the second operation as the inflammation could recur.

As he was contemplating this, a knock came on the door. 'Come in,' he called, getting up from his desk as Sophie came in. 'Hi!'

She was wearing a rain jacket, wet with rain, over her outdoor clothes, and her face was flushed, her hair whipped by the wind. Slowly his eyes went over her as he came round the side of his desk to greet her. 'I'm just about finished here,' he said. 'You remember Mike Dolby, the man with the Crohn's? You were the scrub nurse some weeks ago?'

Frowning in concentration, Sophie dumped her bag and umbrella on the floor. 'Yes, I do,' she said. 'Is he all right?'

'Yes. I'm thinking of doing a reconnection job in a few weeks' time.'

'That's great,' she said breathlessly. 'I hope I'll be the scrub nurse.'

'Perhaps I can arrange it,' he said, forcing a lightness to his tone as he stood near her, fighting the urge to pull her into his arms. When she smiled, he was unable to resist. Like a doomed man going willingly to his fate, he took a step to cover the distance between them.

'Sophie...' He said her name softly, urgently, so that she couldn't fail to understand his meaning. By silent mutual consent they went into each other's arms and their lips met in a shared need which had been held in check throughout the long, tiring, stressful day. She sighed as she gave herself to him.

Clay closed his eyes as he kissed her, covering her warm, soft mouth with his. As her arms crept up around his neck and he felt her softness against him, his hands encountered the bare skin between her cotton sweater and the band of her skirt. With a murmur of pleasure he smoothed his hands up over her back, feeling as though he were melting inside with desire, drawing her against the length of his body.

'You smell deliciously of soap, of the non-hospital variety,' he said, his voice shaking slightly, as he released her mouth to nuzzle against her damp hair, 'and I want to make love to you.' Careful, careful! he chastised himself to be cautious, as his physical arousal threatened to obliterate everything from his mind other than the overwhelming need to have her in his bed. Uncharacteristically, he was hesitant about what to do next.

Sophie drew back to look at him, holding both his hands. 'I'm here because I want to be,' she said, tuning in to his mood. 'Very much.'

'Will you come home with me now?' he said, meet
ing her intelligent, perceptive eyes which seemed to him to be soft with expectation, an expectation that gave him the courage he needed. 'Just for an hour or two? Can you manage that?'

The answer was there for him to see in her eyes. 'Yes,' she said, 'yes, please.'

It was raining heavily as they drove to his house. What was about to take place moved them both to silence. Clay strove to concentrate on manipulating his car as his need for her seemed to burn within him.

'There has never been another woman in this room with me,' he said truthfully as they stood in his bedroom and he began slowly to undress her, his hands shaking, taking his time to appreciate her beauty.

She had the curving figure and the full breasts of a woman who had borne a child. Unashamedly she stood before him so that he could look at her, then smiled as he fell on his knees in front of her to put his arms around her hips and kiss her bare abdomen.

'You're so lovely,' he murmured appreciatively, all his former cynicism gone.

Slowly her hands smoothed his unbuttoned shirt away from his shoulders and he shrugged out of it. Then he felt her hands in his hair as he kissed her. He felt at ease with her, not minding that she could see that he was trembling, that his breathing was uneven, that the desire and vulnerability in him blazed in his face. Being with her seemed so natural and right, as though he'd been waiting for this all his adult life.

With his own desire, there was the longing in him to please her. She'd said that with her husband the chemistry hadn't been right. Was it right with him? More than anything he wanted her to know that it could be.

'Clay...' Sophie knelt down on the floor so that her face was on a level with his, so that he could see the wild longing in her flushed face. 'I want you to know that I'm only here for one reason.'

'What?' he said softly, smiling at her, delighting in everything about her.

'I love you...I love you so much,' she said. 'I tried not to...' She stood up, pulling him with her.

'Oh, God...Sophie,' he said, as her hands undid the belt around his waist and then helped him to take off the remainder of his clothing. 'I want you. I'm not sure I know what love is.'

'It doesn't matter. I just wanted you to know,' she said. 'And I haven't been with a man like this for over four years.'

'That doesn't matter either,' he said.

They stood, clinging together, not wanting to lose contact for a moment, and he put his hands up to touch her tumbled hair which was like an aureole of dark auburn above her smooth, bare shoulders. He felt strangely shy, at a loss for words.

Nothing was real but the feel of her touching him and the warmth of her in his arms. He lifted her up then, effortlessly, as though she weighed next to nothing, and placed her on his wide bed, her head on a pillow. The room was in semi-darkness and rain pattered against the windows, all details of the scene heightened to him as though they all contributed to his personal pleasure that he would share with this woman. In some ways he felt as though he were doing this for the first time.

On the bed beside her he kissed her neck, her breasts, smoothing his hands over her. With delight he was acutely aware that her breathing stilled after she drew in a breath sharply and held it with surprise and pleasure for a long moment, before letting it out tremblingly. What male ego could fail to be gratified by her response? It contributed to the pure pleasure and urgency of his arousal. Forcing himself to hold back, his hands gently explored every part of her.

Sophie murmured her pleasure involuntarily, her cheek pressed against his, her hands tangled in his hair, her body moving to respond to his caressing fingers. As she did so, he felt as though he were melting with desire and that odd, unfamiliar gentleness that made him so acutely aware of every nuance of her behaviour and her response to him. Delighted, he eased her against him, his hand behind her hips, aware that he was smiling again that inane smile of the besotted.

'Colour-blind or not,' he said softly, 'you make me feel like the bull who has seen the flag.'

They both laughed like two children who'd discovered a jar of candies and had decided to raid it. Clay moved his hand down over her thigh, over her skin that felt like velvet.

'I love you...Clay,' she murmured the words distractedly. 'I love you.'

Taking his time, delicately, gently, he pleasured her, losing himself in her, unselfconscious, uninhibited. 'Sweetheart...' he whispered, 'nothing has ever felt so good, so right.'

She snuggled against him, her arms tightly round him, giving herself without restraint...

It was exquisite torture to him to hold back from his own urgent need, to prolong her enjoyment until she could reach fulfillment. Only then would he take his ultimate release from her. With his eyes closed, he lost himself in her joy, finding himself acutely sensitive to her needs.

Instinctively he understood that this first time could very possibly make or break the fledgling feelings that bonded them, the future of what he wanted so desperately, to be together with her again like this and-—yes, he had to admit—to allow for the possibility of something more. It was something he had never given himself time to think about before. Over the years of hard grind a lot of things had been lost.

Later she sobbed quietly in his arms, compliant and relaxed like a rag doll as he stroked her hair. And he, satiated, lay oblivious to all else but her, his mind blank of thought, aware only of pure sensation—of the drumming of his heart, his heightened breathing, the throbbing of his body as it recovered from that rare moment when a man and a woman escaped, briefly, from their essential aloneness and became mystically as one being.

They were slick with sweat, pleasantly warm. 'Darling... darling girl,' he murmured as she became quiet. 'Don't go to sleep. Soon we'll start again. It will be much longer next time... We'll start together and finish together.' Already he was planning it, smiling uncontrollably into her soft mass of damp hair. In reply she pressed her heated face against the side of his neck in acquiescence.

When that time came, he lowered his weight down onto her, looking into her face which was soft with satiated desire. He couldn't seem to stop smiling.

'We're both grinning again like a couple of idiots,' she said. 'I want to cry and laugh at the same time. You must think I'm mad.'

'No. We are a couple of idiots,' he said exultantly, 'for waiting so long.'

'Yes...'

When he began to make love to her again, just as he'd planned, she closed her eyes, still smiling.

'This is going to take a long time,' he said again, whispering the words against her ear, kissing it.

'Promise?'

'Sure.'

'Mmm...' she said dreamily, giving her assent.

After that, Clay couldn't get enough of Sophie. They met as often as they could after work, going either to his place or to hers when she was going to be alone there. Over that time he met Sophie's mother and daughter a few times, enough that he felt he was getting to know them. Sophie didn't make a point of bringing them together. On weekends she spent a fair amount of time with her daughter.

Sometimes they went out for a meal or a drink, but mostly they lay together. Always they talked, as though they wanted to share every idea and thought about every subject under the sun. Gradually they were getting to know each other as people, distinct from their professional relationship. Clay liked what he discovered.

The remainder of the year seemed to go by quickly. It was early December, the temperature dropping rapidly, a few snow flurries punctuating each day. Clay found himself extremely busy in the run-up to the Christmas holiday, as was normal for that time of the year, as the surgeons tried to get elective cases operated on so that they could recover in time for the holiday. In due course, Jeff Willoughby was appointed to the position of Chief of Surgery, a move about which Clay found he felt no particular emotion.

What he did mind about was that quite suddenly he found his time with Sophie curtailed from necessity. He saw her at work, of course, but then she was also extremely busy, asked to work extra days and hours when she could manage them. There could be no stolen kisses at the scrub sinks or in the coffee-room, and he missed the intimate contact with her when he went for more than two days without seeing her, more than he'd missed anything or anyone in his life. He missed her company, being able to discuss things with her or simply being with her. They had agreed to spend part of the Christmas holiday together with her family.

'Hey, stranger!' he said to her one morning prior to the operating list, catching her alone in the scrub room for a few moments of private conversation.

'Hello,' she said, her voice soft, smiling a greeting, as she prepared to scrub for his next case. 'I've missed you. I hope you're looking forward to the holiday as much as I am. Can you call me tonight to make up for lost time?'

'Try to
stop me,' he said, giving her a quick peck on the back of her neck as she bent over the sink. 'I've had an invitation from Jerry and his wife to a dinner party for Jeff Willoughby—a celebration—next week. He's asked me to bring my woman. Will you come?'

'Am I your woman, Clay?' Did he imagine it, or was there a certain wistfulness in her voice as she turned to look up at him? At the tone he felt a poignant stab of emotion that he was at a loss to explain to himself.

'The one and only,' he said.

'I'd like to come, Clay,' she added quietly. 'It should be interesting...from several aspects.'

'Yeah, very interesting,' he agreed thoughtfully, although he wasn't sure of all the things that would be interesting from her point of view. 'I'm on call this weekend, sweetheart. Can you come over to my place?'

'I'll try,' she said.

At that moment Rick burst into the room with his usual flourish. 'Morning, sir,' he said to Clay. 'Hi, doll,' he said to Sophie.

'Hi, pussy cat,' she said to him.

'Hey!' Clay intervened. 'What's with this "pussy cat" routine?'

'It's nurses' and junior doctors' appreciation week,' Rick said airily.

'First I've heard of it,' Clay said, preparing to scrub.

'That's because you live in a bit of an ivory tower, sir,' Rick said. 'Down nearer the ground all sorts of things are happening.'

'Is that right?'

Sophie was laughing. 'I think I'll go on calling you pussy cat, Rick,' she said as she went out.

'You do that,' Rick said. 'Nice young woman,' he added to Clay after she had gone.

'Very,' Clay agreed, picking up nuances in the younger man's tone. 'Are you trying to tell me something, Rick?'

'Could be, sir.'

'Don't get any ideas there, Rick.'

Rick looked at him sideways. 'I wouldn't dream of it, sir. If she's spoken for, that is.'

'She is,' Clay found himself saying. 'And stop calling me "sir" so much—it makes me feel old.'

'Right on,' Rick said.

Later in the day, as he was going down to the cafeteria for a very belated lunch, Clay encountered Jeff Willoughby in the corridor near the operating rooms. With him was Dawn Renton. Schooling his features into a mask of neutrality, happy to see her with Jeff, Clay came to a halt. 'Hi, Jeff,' he greeted his colleague. 'Congratulations on the new job.' They shook hands.