Cort Mason - Dr Delectable

Six more weeks of Emergency was something she could not do. Six more shifts, six more hours, six more minutes was bad enough, but six more weeks was nigh on impossible.

She thought about telling her friends, but she was so embarrassed. They all seemed to be breezing through. Tilly just loved midwifery and Ellie and Jess were loving their studies and placements too. How could she explain that she could very easily chuck it in this minute rather than face going back there tomorrow, let alone having to repeat?

She glanced down towards the beach and thought of the little shop she had worked in for a couple of years, selling jewellery and crystals and candles, and how much safer that had been, yet it hadn’t been quite enough.

She wanted so desperately to do mental health, wanted just to scrape through her emergency rotation so she could go on and study what she truly loved.

And then she saw it.

Hope hung in the sky in the shape of a new moon and Ruby smiled in relief.

‘Please.’ She made her wish. ‘Please get me through A and E. Please find a way for me to get through it.’

Cort walked out and found her standing talking to the sky and not remotely embarrassed at being caught.

‘I was just making my new-moon wishes.’

‘As you do,’ was Cort’s rather dry response, because it would never even have entered his head that as he’d walked along his own beach, just that very morning, he’d made, if not a wish, a promise. ‘‘Night, then. I’m off.’

He walked down the path and opened a squeaking gate and had every intention of heading down Hill Street and seeing if there was a taxi—it was his absolute intention, but he found himself turning around. ‘What did you wish for?’

‘You’re not supposed to tell anyone,’ Ruby explained, ‘or it won’t happen …’ She saw his brief nod, knew he would turn to go again, but she also knew that she didn’t want him to. ‘It was a sensible wish, though.’

‘Glad to hear it.’

Keep walking, he told himself, and his legs obeyed, just not in the direction he had intended because he was walking towards her.

‘Why were you crying when we came in?’

‘I wasn’t.’ Instantly she was defensive.

‘Ruby?’

‘Okay—why wouldn’t I be crying? A twenty-three-year-old is almost certainly going to lose his life … he’s my age.’

Cort nodded, because he knew how confronting that could be. Ruby was right, she had every reason to be sitting alone in tears over a patient. ‘Talk to people at work,’ Cort suggested. ‘We’ve got a good team—let them know …’ He saw her eyes shutter, saw her close off, so he decided there was nothing further to be said. She had given him a reason, he’d in turn given advice, except something told him there was more to it than just that.

‘What about Sheila?’ He saw her shrug. ‘Your assessment?’

All he got was silence and he was determined not to break it, just stood till after perhaps a full minute finally she responded.

‘She wants to see an improvement.’

‘In what area?’ Cort asked, and this time he gave in and broke the ensuing silence. ‘How much longer have you got in A and E?’

‘Two weeks. Well, just tomorrow and Monday, then I’m off for a while and back for three nights the following Monday.’

‘And then?’

‘Then I’m finished,’ Ruby said. ‘Then I start, I suppose—I want to be a mental health nurse.’ As he opened his mouth, she got in first. ‘I know, I know, the staff are as mad as the patients—’ she smiled as she said it ‘—so I’ll fit right in. Really, I’m just biding my time …’

‘Biding your time doesn’t work in A and E,’ Cort said. ‘And Sheila’s tough, but she’s good—listen to her.’

‘I will.’

‘Are you going back in?’ He didn’t like leaving her, didn’t understand why she would rather stand alone in the dark than join her friends.

‘I might just stay out here for a while.’ She thought of Siobhan and Connor and thought of going back in and doing the happy-clappy but she really couldn’t face it. ‘I might just go to bed.’

‘You’re not going to get much sleep with that noise.’

‘It’s not the noise that’ll disturb me. I’ll have Tilly coming up to find out what’s wrong, then Ellie then Jess. It’s just easier to …’ She gave another shrug. ‘I might go for a walk on the beach.’

‘Now, that really would be stupid—walking alone …’

‘Come with me, then.’ He could see the white of her teeth as she spoke, could hear the waves in the background, and for a moment he actually considered it, a bizarre moment because Cort didn’t do midnight walks. Well, he did, but not with company, except he did like talking to her.

‘I don’t think that’s a very good idea.’

‘I think it’s a very good idea,’ Ruby said, because he’d stepped a little bit closer and she didn’t want him to go. Cort had been the only solace in a day that had been horrible, and even if a while ago she had wanted to be alone, it was far, far nicer being here with him. ‘I like walking on the beach.’

‘I meant …’ Cort hesitated, ‘I meant you and me …’ He tried to change what he’d said, but only made matters worse. ‘Us,’ he attempted, and Ruby smiled.

‘As I said …’ She looked at his tie which was grey in the darkness, but which she knew was really a lovely lilac, and she did what she had wanted to do in the suture room—she put her hand up and felt the cool silk. She wanted him to go with her, wanted a little more of the peace she had found with him today. ‘I think it’s a very good idea.’

Cort wanted to go with her too, though not necessarily to the beach.

He didn’t do this type of thing.

He didn’t find himself at student nurse parties, neither did he find himself in situations such as this one because he didn’t put himself there.

He liked it now that he was, though.

Liked it a lot because the next thing he knew he was kissing her.

It was the nicest thing. It really was a lovely kiss. He sort of bent down and caught her, not completely by surprise because she’d felt his presence all night, or had it been before that? Ruby thought as his mouth roamed hers.

She’d never kissed anyone in a suit.

Never kissed anyone as lovely before, come to think of it.

She couldn’t hear the music from the house now, wasn’t aware of anything except the lovely circle his arms created around them and what was happening in the centre. He had a hand on the wall and one in her hair over her neck, and his kiss was measured and deep like its owner, but as his tongue met hers, as she tasted his breath, there was more passion in his kiss than she’d ever anticipated, more passion than she’d ever tasted, and that it came from Cort made it all the more wild, like a secret only she was privy to. He pulled her head closer just a fraction and his mouth welcomed her a whole lot more and Ruby wanted to climb up his chest to wrap herself around him. She wanted his tie off, she wanted his shirt off, she wanted the party to disappear … she wanted more.

He pulled back just a fraction, and if their mouths weren’t touching any more, they still thrummed. He looked down, not at a student nurse and a whole set of problems but into velvet-brown eyes and felt rare intimacy. It wasn’t just lust or a sudden urge. It was, quite simply, just nice to feel, and he hadn’t felt anything for so very long now—yet he was able to with her.

‘Do you want a nut?’ He could taste her words, could feel them because as she spoke her lips dusted his.

And in turn Ruby felt rather than saw him smile, felt his lips spread, and, yes, she would kiss them again in a moment, just not here. He was like her beloved pistachios, she decided, all brittle and hard but so readily cracked and such a reward to get to the delicious centre.

Cort was used to making rapid decisions—it was what he did for a living after all—but always his decisions were measured, tempered by outcomes and responsibilities. They just weren’t tonight.

‘I want you,’ Cort said.

Which he did.

It was as simple as that.

CHAPTER FOUR

SHE went in first and checked that the coast was clear. It was, well, sort of. There was a couple necking in the hall, but the rest were all gathered in the lounge room, so she waved him in and up the stairs and they bolted along the hall.

‘Won’t they all come up?’ Cort asked as they stepped into her bedroom. ‘To see how you are?’

‘No,’ Ruby said, and grabbed a scarf and tied it onto the handle. ‘That means don’t disturb …’

He wanted to kiss her again, wanted to see her, but as his hand groped for the light switch she stopped him.

‘Don’t,’ Ruby said. ‘Don’t break it.’

‘Break what?’

‘Just … whatever it is that we’ve got.’

He stood a touch unsure as she lit a candle in the corner and then another and another till the room was bathed in dancing fingers of orange and white. Then she hauled over a chair and, just to be sure, wedged it against the door handle.

It was a room called Ruby. There were drapes, curtains, cushions, candles and crystals, all things that usually did not interest him.

There was the beat of the music and noises from downstairs and he was too old, too jaded, too bitter for someone so light and so lovely, but she’d been crying, he reminded himself as she turned to him.

He was going to leave, Ruby knew that. He was going to change his mind, but he could change it in the morning, because she wanted him tonight.

She wanted him in a way she had never wanted someone before. It was an imperative, a knowledge that this was their only chance, and she was incredibly bold in a way she wasn’t usually. She took him by the hand and to a bed that was really rather small. She felt his hesitation and tension and she wanted it gone so she kissed him, and in that moment she welcomed him back in an instant, because out went trouble as he kissed her onto the bed and they tumbled into paradise.

Tongues and taste and the lovely wedge of his body blew cares away as he lay sort of over and beside her—backed into a corner in possibly the nicest of ways. She could feel the belt of his suit against her stomach, feel the roaming of his hands over her waist then sliding to her bottom then almost apologetically heading back to her waist. She could feel him holding back when he didn’t want to.

When she didn’t want him to.

She kissed his chin and up his cheek, moved his hand back to her bottom and heard the sigh of his breath, and she pressed just a little into him and kissed his eyes and his ears, and it was like tripping a switch, because suddenly he was on top of her, his mouth hungry and urgent. He kissed her throat and then up to her mouth and her body pressed into him some more, and then she could climb up and wrap herself around him as she had wanted to before, but she pulled back his head, wanted to see him again, to hear him again, before she kissed him again.

‘Why,’ she whispered, ‘are you always so crabby?’

‘Because I’m miserable?’ He stopped and smiled down at her.

‘But you’re not.’

‘I am,’ he insisted. ‘I really am.’

‘You’re not tonight,’ Ruby said, and he had to agree with her.

‘No. I’m not tonight.’

He wanted her skirt off, wanted to see her as she had been when he’d walked into the house, but it would seem Ruby had rules.

‘I’m not making love to a man in a suit—in a brown suit.’

‘Taupe.’ Cort smiled, not even a little smile but a full, wide smile that she had never before seen, and Ruby caught her breath because it completely changed him. She went for his tie, then changed her mind.

‘You do it,’ she said.

She wriggled from under him and climbed off the bed and left him lying there. She looked down at him and he undid his tie, but that was as far as he went.

‘You want it off …’ Cort said. ‘Come and get it.’

So she did, pulling it off before she went for his jacket next.

‘Shoes,’ he said, and she took off one. ‘Both of them.’

‘You’ve got more clothes than me.’

Wasn’t he supposed to be riddled with guilt, or aching with regret? Not sitting up just to get her to remove another sandal, which she did.

‘Shirt,’ Ruby said, and he obliged.

‘Skirt,’ Cort said, and so too did she.

She wanted to go over to the bed and climb onto him, she couldn’t have ever guessed just how wanton she could be, but he rewarded her not with this game but with his smile, with a Cort Mason she would never have guessed was there beneath the austere exterior. She liked standing before him, drunk on lust and shivering with want, teasing each other and making each other wait.

‘Belt,’ said Ruby.

‘Hardly fair on you,’ Cort said, because she was down to her halter and panties and he still had socks and shoes and trousers and belt, but Ruby didn’t seem to mind. In fact, she stopped him when he magnanimously went to undo his zipper.

‘Just the belt will do,’ Ruby said, and as with his tie he merely loosened it.

‘Take it off, then.’

Which meant she got to touch him. Slowly, very slowly she pulled loose the belt and she wanted to dive onto him then, but Cort reminded her it was her turn. She slid her top up slowly and she had to close her eyes at one point because, so close to him, she wanted to bend towards his mouth, wanted to climb into bed and be with him, but instead she took off her top and it was bizarre but she didn’t feel shy or stupid. Instead, with Cort she felt free.

She stared down and saw the lust and approval in the eyes that caressed her skin. Then she stared down at herself and saw two very small breasts that she now rather liked, because how could she not when Cort craved them so much that he reached out his hand and stroked one slowly, till she blew out a held breath and thought she’d sink to her knees.

‘I’ll help with your shoes.’

She bent over him and as he stroked her breast she took off his shoes and socks, and then she kissed his toes.

And he lay there about to pull away because how could he let her? Except her tongue was so sure.

Would he regret this?

He asked himself once as she stood again and then he answered, never, because this wasn’t sad or guilt ridden. There was no one else in his head but Ruby, nothing else but him and her.

He could never have thought it would be so magical.

That it could ever be so pure and good again.

That they would have their own rules and their own ways.

He watched her kneel and rummage in a drawer and come out with pistachios.

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