The Baby of Their Dreams (Contemporary Medical Romance) (4 page)

His fingers ran lightly down her bare back and it felt utterly blissful.

‘Fourteen hours later than I’d have preferred,’ Dominic said into her ear, because that was how long it had been since he’d first itched for the feel of that sexy spine beneath his fingers.

‘Well, I’m glad for your sake that you waited,’ she said, imagining her reaction had he been so bold.

His touch didn’t feel bold now; it felt right.

When the music ended they made it back to their table and when the bill came Cat did her usual and put her card down.

‘We can go halves,’ she said as he picked up the card to hand it back to her.

‘Don’t do that, Cat.’

‘What?’

‘Ruin a perfectly good night.’

If she were setting the ground rules for the future, she’d have insisted on paying her way.

Instead, they were setting the ground rules for tonight and she shivered in the warm night air as they headed for the hotel.

They walked back along the beach. It was after eleven but not really dark thanks to a near full moon and, despite the hour, the beach was far from deserted.

‘There are some gorgeous beaches not far from here,’ he said. ‘Are you still determined to head back without seeing the place?’

‘I am, though I wish I’d known just how much I’d like it,’ she admitted. ‘I’m going to come again but next time for a holiday. You’re here a lot, then?’

‘Quite a bit,’ Dominic said. ‘I have family here.’

‘Oh.’

She ached to know more about him but Reticent was possibly his middle name because, apart from long conversations about everything and nothing, he gave away little.

The only thing she was sure of was their attraction.

‘Which is why,’ he continued, ‘when I saw the conference was being held this year in Barcelona I decided to combine both. I’m very glad now that I did.’ He turned her around and she looked into his dark eyes and his face. He was unreadable. ‘I wish you had got here on Thursday.’

‘Why?’ she asked, her brain a bit sluggish with his mouth so close. She was far too used to focusing on work and she assumed that she must have missed some spectacular talk, or some cutting-edge revelation. The answer was far more basic than that.

‘We could have had three nights instead of one.’

Still, he didn’t kiss her, though she ached,
ached
for him to do so, but he just smiled in the dark like a beautiful devil and then they walked on.

Back at the hotel Cat was breathless, though not from walking, as they stepped into the foyer. They went through Reception and there was a lot of noise coming from the bar from their fellow attendees.

‘Did you want to go to the bar?’ Dominic offered.

‘Yes.’

‘Again,’ he said, ‘she lies.’

Cat smiled. ‘She does.’

They headed for the elevators.

No, he didn’t ask her for her floor.

He pressed his.

They stood backs against opposite walls facing each other as the lift groaned its way up, letting people in, letting people out.

And his eyes never left her face.

With three floors remaining they were finally alone and still he did not beckon.

Stay,
Cat told herself, though she felt like a Labrador waiting for Christmas dinner.

Ping!

She walked slowly only because he did.

And his very steady hand swiped the card and opened the door to his room.

Would he offer her a drink? Cat wondered as she looked around.

The room was the same as hers, except it smelt of his cologne and there was a suitcase on the floor.

And then there was no time for further observation because he turned her to him and finally there was the bliss of his mouth. It was the roughest ever kiss and tasted divine. His tongue, his lips, his hands, the hunger in him was so consuming that there was no room for thought. She hadn’t been kissed like this since—well, since for ever. His tongue was wicked, his hands pressing into her head and his body just primed and ready, because she could feel him.

She ached to feel him, so much so that the three garments of clothing she’d assumed he was wearing—was it only this morning?—were being unbuttoned and unzipped by Cat as his mouth never left her face.

He halted her briefly, long enough to retrieve his wallet, because of course he carried condoms, and she watched as he deftly put one on and so thick and hard was he that she played with him for a moment as he removed her dress.

She heard a brief tear and knew she would be up all week sewing Gemma’s dress as it was now a white puddle on the floor.

She’d think about that later. Right now she was concentrating on him as his tongue met with her ear and she just about came in midair at the thought of him inside her.

Her bra was gone. She knew that because his mouth was on her breast as his hands slid her panties down.

And then she felt herself being lifted.

Not just onto him, but lifted out herself.

Out of grief, out of control, out of everything she knew.

Her shoulders met the wall and then he entered her and filled her, so rapidly and completely that it hurt enough to shout.

‘Yes,’ he said, and his mouth moved under her hair and his fingers met the back of her neck as he ground into her.

Cat wasn’t used to being so thoroughly taken. A bit of foreplay might have been nice, but then she’d never been so close to coming in her life.

She was thoroughly rattled in the nicest of ways. He just kept thrusting in and she held on to her own hands behind his neck and then of her own accord was grinding down.

It felt amazing.

Just that.

It felt so amazing that he knew, more than she did herself, about what she liked.

Oh, she liked it rough.

She liked the intensity of him and the deep, rapid thrusts and the way he stopped kissing her and stared her down.

He felt the tension and thank God for that because he was past consideration. He could feel the clamp of her thighs around him and the heat of her centre and had moved to the point of no return just as she started to pulse.

He loved orgasms, he met them regularly, but there was something so intense about hers, something so intrinsically matched to his, that she drove him on to more.

To get back to her mouth and rougher kisses and deeper thrusts and then he felt it, the slight collapse of her spinal column and the slump of her shoulders as she rested her head on his and he knew she was smiling.

Even as he shot the last of himself into her, he knew she was smiling and somehow that made him smile too.

No guilt, no regret, they met each other’s eyes and kissed again but without haste this time.

Then he took her to bed and they lay there a moment before she was back to his mouth, down to his hips, and they did it all over again.

And again.

CHAPTER FOUR

D
ESPITE
HAVING
SLEPT
for all of an hour, Dominic woke before sunrise.

Just as he always did.

Even if he went back to sleep afterwards, his body clock still dictated that he watch the sun come in.

He glanced at the clock and it was just after four and he knew where he needed to be.

Where they needed to be.

‘Cat,’ he said. ‘Cat...’ He watched her slowly stretch like her namesake. ‘Get dressed...’

She could have, given the circumstances, assumed her use-by date had expired and she was being thrown out, but he gave her a kiss to awaken her and told her to hurry as he picked up the phone.

Her Spanish was...well, it wasn’t, but she knew the word ‘coffee’ when she heard it in any language.

‘Where are we going?’ she asked as, doing up her espadrilles in the elevator, they made their way down.

‘You need to see more of this city.’

‘At 4:30 a.m.?’

‘We could do it tomorrow if you’d stay another night.’

He hoped she would stay another night but they both knew that that wasn’t happening.

Cat blinked as the doorman handed them two take-out coffees and Dominic took her hand and they walked to a car.

‘You’ve hired a car.’

He didn’t answer and when she got in she realised that it wasn’t a hire car because there were coffee cups and papers and it looked pretty much like the inside of hers.

‘Just how long are you here for?’ she started to ask.

‘Ask no questions,’ he said.

Yes, she reminded herself, that was what they were about—fun, freedom...

And yet he intrigued her.

He spoke Spanish and he drove like a local through the dim city streets and she drank her coffee and tried to get her brain into gear.

‘Come on.’ He parked the car and took her hand and she was happy to just go with the adventure.

Without him she’d still be asleep.

Instead, she was wide-awake, walking up a hill and wondering just what the hell was going on, and then she remembered it was one of
those
days.

There was a tiny fracture to her mind, an angry inward curse that she could have made it through almost forty minutes of being awake without remembering the day that it was.

‘This is Collserola,’ Dominic explained. ‘It is a national park—the green jewel of Barcelona...’

And it wasn’t exclusively here for them because, as they climbed the hill, Cat found herself behind a group of tourists and it became clear as they chose their spot and sat on mossy ground that this was the place to be at sunrise.

And it was.

The city twinkled its night lights, the cars weaved in orange lines and beyond that, slowly, the dark ocean started to turn to blue as around them woodland came to life.

‘It’s amazing,’ she said, and then turned to him but Dominic didn’t answer.

He sat watching and tried to tell himself that he shouldn’t have brought her, that he should feel guilt. Oh, there it was, this clutch of guilt in his chest had arrived. He had no issues with last night; it was the morning he was wrestling with.

And Cat didn’t notice his lack of answer because as the world came to light she was on the edge of crying.

I miss you every single day.

I miss you this very second.

Just not every second.

Not every moment.

And sometimes moments run into hours but I still miss you every single day and will for ever.

How can that be?
both wondered.

When did the seconds start to join up? When did that first full minute devoid of grief arrive and your leaving go unthought-of for an hour?

At what point did a cruel world start to turn beautiful again?

‘To think I could have left without seeing this.’ Cat broke the strange silence they were wrapped in and he turned then and looked at her.

And the clutch of guilt in his chest released.

It just went.

He would regret it later, Dominic decided.

Right now they shared a kiss.

A deep kiss that chased her softly to the ground and she could feel damp grass beneath bare shoulders and for them both all was right with the world.

It was a kiss unlike last night’s, soft and tender, and she opened her eyes in the middle and saw his closed and wondered how it might be to be loved by this man.

It felt as if she was, it was the strangest glimpse of it. Her hands were in his hair and his mouth was still over hers, and if there hadn’t been a lot of tourists present and two hundred cameras clicking, he would have made love to her, Cat knew.

He would have peeled off her dress and just slipped inside her.

She’d never come to a kiss, but the deep, sensual press of his mouth persisted. The roam of his hands was gentle, pressing into the side of her. In public, somehow shielded, she just came to private thoughts that she dared not examine and he nearly did too just feeling her slight rise and then the stillness in his arms.

It was a long, lingering kiss that had to stop and as his lips left hers she looked up into his eyes and she wished she could stay here for ever.

So did he.

Of course they couldn’t.

‘We have to get back,’ he said, and waited for the clutch of guilt to return but it had escaped.

‘We do.’

It was rather odd to step back into normality.

This time she pressed the lift button for her floor and there were others in there with them. When they arrived at her floor they shared a sort of odd wave as Cat got out.

Oh, my,
she thought as she saw the damage to Gemma’s dress. There were grass stains up the back, a tear near the bust, and then she looked at her face.

Yikes.

She looked as if she had spent the night having torrid sex with a stranger.

She had!

It was this morning that disconcerted her, though in the very nicest of ways.

She had a shower, wearing a shower cap, and then got out and picked half a forest out of her hair.

She had love bites on her breasts and she remembered his mouth there and suddenly she wanted him all over again.

She put on her lilac dress and went downstairs and took her seat in a talk she had been very much looking forward to.

But how did you concentrate on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation? Cat thought. Dominic was off doing whatever he was doing but he might as well have been sitting next to her because that’s where her thoughts were.

She felt the buzz of her phone in her bag and she sneakily pulled it out.

Of course it couldn’t be him, suggesting they sneak away, she reminded herself.

He didn’t even know her number.

It just felt as if he should.

Instead, it was Gemma.

Are you okay?

Yes, but your dress isn’t,
Cat was tempted to reply. She thought of the tear he had made in it last night and the grass stains today.

She just hoped they had another one at Gatwick.

All good,
Cat answered without thought, and then she guiltily fired another text.

It seems wrong to say that today.

She smiled when Gemma replied.

You awful person. Go to your room and be miserable this very minute. xxx

No, Cat didn’t want to go to her room and cry away the day.

She closed her eyes.

She flew at seven and it seemed far, far too soon.

He wasn’t around at lunchtime and thankfully Gordon was telling his story to someone else. There was a sag of disappointment in Cat, though, as she lined up for lunch, for the few remaining hours they were missing out on.

Still, there was always something to smile about and smile she did when she saw a lovely full silver platter of delectable paella and she held out her plate to the waiter.

‘My room, now...’

She hadn’t even heard him come up behind her and the low whisper in her ear was like an audible hallucination.

‘I’m not going to get my paella, am I?’ she said, but he’d gone.

No, she wasn’t going to get her paella.

Two minutes later, with only sixteen minutes to spare before the afternoon session started, she was kneeling on the floor, hands splayed on his bed as he took her from behind.

He wasn’t a considerate lover, just a very, very good one.

If they’d had time, Cat would have turned her head to tell him that usually she wouldn’t...

Wouldn’t what?

She did turn, though, and she saw his look of intense concentration, felt his fingers on her clitoris, urging her to come, and then she didn’t even bother thinking. She just closed her eyes to the pleasure of being taken.

Her head was on her forearm and he was pounding her from behind and, Cat thought as she started to come, it was blissful to be that woman, even if just for a little while.

His.

* * *

They skipped the afternoon sessions.

Like bunking off school, they took his car again and drove for half an hour to a beach and sat there, eating ice cream and then rubbing suntan lotion into each other with sticky hands.

And on one of the saddest days in her calendar year she found bliss.

‘So your parents are both doctors?’ Dominic said as they lay on towels and stared at each other, and she nodded.

‘Were they high achievers?’

‘God, yes. They still are. It’s easier to ring their secretaries to schedule lunch than try to do it myself.’

‘You are joking?’ he checked.

‘Half.’ She smiled. ‘What about yours?’

He seemed to think before answering.

He was.

They really hadn’t spoken about anything other than themselves but it felt quite normal to have her ask.

‘I don’t really know where to start,’ he admitted. ‘Well, my mother never worked. Her sole job was to look beautiful for my father. He was an arrogant bastard. Growing up, I hardly ever saw him—he worked on the stock market and would bring his stress home, worrying about the yen or the pound dropping a quarter of a percentage point.’ Her eyes were so patient, Dominic thought. She didn’t ask questions; she just lay there, staring.

Because she loved his voice.

Because anything he said she wanted to hear.

‘Anyway, then he had the absolute fortune of collapsing with a heart attack and going into full cardiac arrest.’

‘Fortune?’

‘We always joke now that he had a personality transplant because, while his illness made me switch from physics to biology and suddenly become very interested in medicine and saving the world, my father completely changed. He was very depressed at first and he had to see a psychologist and things but then he completely turned his life around. He sold up, got out of the money game, and he and my mother fell in love all over again, and now...’

He hesitated. He didn’t want to give too many specifics. He didn’t want to say that he was looking forward to Monday and heading over to see his slightly eccentric parents or rather, disconcertingly, he did want to tell her just that.

There was a part of Dominic that wanted to extend this conversation, which meant extending them, and that wasn’t what this weekend was about so he kept things light.

‘They started an internet dating service. Or rather it wasn’t by internet initially, it was more a word-of-mouth thing. They used to set up their friends and anyone coming over to Spain...’

‘Stop!’ Cat laughed.

‘It’s true, though. Now they run this very exclusive dating site for the over fifties...’

To hear this rather detached man talking about his crazy parents made Cat start to
really
laugh.

Oh, she laughed at times, of course she did.

Just not like this.

They lay then in silence and Dominic thought about the six months after Heather had died.

After the funeral, instead of throwing himself into work, as had been his initial plan, he had accepted his parents’ suggestion to come and stay in Spain with them.

At first they had infuriated him with their calm acceptance of the terrible facts. Of course they had been upset but not once had they matched his anger.

As he had raged and paced around the villa, or slept in well past midday, they had simply accepted him and whatever place he was in—providing conversation when needed and meals that appeared whether he felt he needed them or not.

And finally, when the anger had gone, Dominic had been very grateful for their presence and calm, which had allowed him to heal in his own time.

He had spent days walking and watching the ocean as he slowly come back to join a world that had altered for ever. Yet move on he had, catching himself the first time he’d found himself laughing along at a joke or smiling at a thought that had popped into his head.

And a smile stretched his lips as he thought of them now.

‘They’re amazing people,’ he admitted. ‘So, yes, what seemed like the most terrible disaster at the time turned out to be a blessing.’

They stared at each other, they found each other, right there in that moment.

‘Don’t leave tonight...’ he said, but even before the words were out he was changing his mind and even as she heard them there was confusion in her eyes because it was supposed to be a one-night stand.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s go in the water.’

There they could be apart and think.

There she could work out how to articulate the million reasons that she had to go back. How did she tell him that the woman he had met this weekend didn’t actually exist, that she wasn’t floaty and feminine and spontaneous?

She was rigid and brittle and meticulous.

And Dominic too, as they ran to the water, was wondering what had possessed him to ask her to stay.

But not even the sea could keep them apart because ten strides in they were waist deep in water, limbs around each other, kissing in the sun, out on display, and there was no reason in the world why she should leave.

The water was idyllic, just a shade cooler than the temperature of skin, and she could feel the sun beating on her shoulders.

She’d heard about the magical seven. Seven waves in, seven out, seven years since love had died and today it felt as if it was being born again.