AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘A single one!’ This time she managed to wriggle free and she backed away from him, pushing a strand of hair away from her flushed face. ‘You’re single, Josh! And I’m not.’ Aware that her voice had risen, she took a deep breath and forced herself to speak calmly. ‘I have a son and he features in everything I do.’
‘He didn’t feature last night.’
She closed her eyes. She didn’t want to think about last night. ‘Last night was a one-off, we both know that.’
‘I don’t know that.’ His jaw was hard and uncompromising and there was a dangerous glint in his eyes.
She sighed. ‘You’re acting as though we have a relationship, and we both know that’s just ridiculous. We don’t have a relationship, Josh. It was just sex. That’s all it ever was.’
There was a brief silence while he scrutinised every inch of her face. ‘What we shared was much more than just sex,’ he purred softly, ‘and you know it, Kat.’
His tone was lethally smooth and she tugged away from him, desperate to put some distance between them. She couldn’t stand the way he was looking at her with those lazy, sexy, blue eyes. As if he wanted to throw her down on the floor and make love to every inch of her. As if this was the beginning of something. As if they had a future…
She gave herself a mental shake, infuriated with herself for fantasising again. It was definitely time to end the conversation.
‘Wait a minute.’ He caught her arm again, refusing to let her go. ‘Are you really saying that’s it? Are you serious? Last night was just a one-off?’
‘Of course it was.’ She looked at him in exasperation. ‘What else could it possibly be? Like I said, I have a child and you’re a single guy.’ A sexy, single guy. ‘End of story.’
His eyes were suddenly cold. ‘I can’t believe you mean that.’
For a moment her heart gave a little leap and then she remembered that this was probably a man thing. They always had to be the one in control.
‘Why? Because your ego is dented? Because you weren’t the one to finish it. It’s hard to finish what we never started.’
‘Ouch. I definitely need to work on my technique.’ His eyes lifted slowly and burned into hers and frustration and misery exploded inside her.
‘This isn’t about your technique, Josh!’ She virtually shouted the words and then groaned with embarrassment as a passing doctor from another department shot a startled look in their direction. ‘Oh, help, now everyone will know.’
He didn’t flinch. ‘And what if they do?’
‘I—have—a—child!’ she emphasised each word, wondering what it took for him to understand. ‘I don’t want him thinking that his mother is a—’ She broke off and he lifted an eyebrow.
‘A what? An attractive, intelligent, moral woman with a right to a grown-up life of her own?’
She closed her eyes. ‘It doesn’t work that way, Josh. It just isn’t that simple.’
‘So you won’t go out with a man unless there’s a proposal of marriage on the table?’
She stared at him blankly. ‘Marriage? Is that what you think? That I want marriage?’ She shook her head. ‘Forget it. A piece of paper doesn’t signify commitment. You can relax, Josh. I don’t want to marry you.’
If her heart hadn’t been in the process of being demolished, she would have laughed at the thought. Marriage? If that was what he thought she wanted, no wonder he looked so tense.
‘So what do you want?’
‘To go back to the way we were! To be able to sleep at night. I don’t know! I don’t know what I want.’ She raked her fingers through her hair, all the frustrations of the last few weeks pouring into her voice. ‘To be able to get you out of my mind for two minutes and concentrate on my work would be a good start!’
There was a long, pulsing silence and she bit back a groan as she realised just how much she’d revealed.
‘You’re not sleeping because you’re thinking of me?’
‘Josh, please…’
‘Is it true?’ His voice sounded strange and she looked at him wearily.
‘So what if it is? It doesn’t change anything.’
‘Yes, it does. It means you could be throwing away something that has a future.’
