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“Fine, don’t trust your gut instinct,” he quickly corrected, not looking in the slightest deterred. He rolled, pinning her beneath him, but keeping his weight to where if she wanted to get free she could easily do so. He brushed the tip of his nose against hers. “Trust in me, Natalie.”
His plea sounded so simple, yet nothing could be less true. Everything about her spending time with Matthew was complicated, and trusting him? Ha! How could she when not only would her personal life be on the line, but also her professional one?
“Trust in this.” He kissed her. Softly, slowly, tenderly.
His lips felt so good on hers, so perfect.
She should tell him to stop, to not further muddy her mind with lust. But she didn’t want him to stop. She just wanted to feel, to squeeze every precious memory from the moment.
To give in to the lust.
It was just lust she was feeling, right?
“Promise you’ll give us a chance,” he whispered against her lips, pausing to drop another lingering kiss against her mouth.
She blinked up at him. “Are you using sex to seduce me into agreeing to continue to have sex with you?”
He chuckled. “I want you, Natalie. I’ll use whatever means necessary to convince you to agree with me.”
He set about doing just that, loving her so intently that Natalie was left gasping for air and wondering how she’d ever thought she could deny him anything.
Once they got out of bed, Matthew made Natalie breakfast, then drove her to her apartment to let her shower and change prior to their both going to the hospital, where they rounded on their patients and took care of paperwork. When done, Natalie headed to the cardiac computer lab to review the Harris case yet again.
Which was where Matthew found her.
“Tuesday morning would be a great day to schedule this.”
Glancing up from the computer screen, Natalie caught her breath at the vision of him leaning against the door jamb.
/> Her body had been all tangled up with his just hours before.
Lucky her. Only... No, she wasn’t going to think about that. Not right now. No doubt later logic would regain its strength and take the reins back, but for now she was going to pretend logic didn’t exist, had never existed.
She arched a brow. “You’re available that morning?”
Surprise at her comment lit in his eyes. Pleased surprise. “The first surgery of its kind performed at this hospital? I’d clear my schedule.”
She nodded. “The possibilities of where this could take treatments for transposed vessels is exciting, isn’t it?”
“Very. Walk me through the case.”
Natalie ran through the computer simulation, just as she’d done dozens of times before. Only this time Matthew was with her, offering praise, making suggestions, discussing possible scenarios that could come up and how they’d respond.
Natalie made mental notes, knew she’d be writing them down later, would be going back through the simulation at least a dozen times more prior to putting Delaine Harris on the operating table to repair her baby’s heart.
So many things could go wrong.
So many things could go right.
If she failed, Delaine’s baby would face even greater health issues than she would have had they waited until she was born. There was a risk the procedure could force her baby to be born much too soon.
If she succeeded, Delaine’s baby would never be a “blue baby”, would be able to go home with her parents much sooner, would have a much stronger heart due to the healing that would take place while she was still growing inside her mother, would have less complications later in life.
If what Natalie and several of her colleagues believed was true, the overall benefits of doing the repairs while the baby was still in utero rather than waiting until after birth far outweighed the risks.
But there were always things that came up that one wasn’t expecting. Which was why she kept running through the computer simulations, trying to plan for anything unexpected.
Matthew had been pioneering new pediatric heart surgery techniques for years. She’d draw on his experience, and would welcome his assistance. Because of Delaine and her baby, not because she’d had sex with him again.
