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Ali froze. She knew that voice. It had whispered deliciously naughty intentions into her ear not so very long ago.
Her eyes moved along the ground from where she knelt with Chris, her breath caught tight in her chest. Blood began to thunder between her ears as a pair of leather shoes came into view and walked to the opposite side of Chris. It was all she could do not to cry out as the owner of the shoes came into view as he kneeled across from her. Oh, she knew him, all right. She knew him intimately. And she didn’t know him at all.
As their eyes met Ali physically felt the breath being sucked out of her body.
The Suit.
Images flickered past her mind’s eye, of their bodies tangled together in a series of sexual acrobatics she’d never believed possible. A wash of pleasure rippled through her and it was all she could do to keep her jaw clamped firmly shut.
She’d never asked him his real name. Nor had he of her. That had been their deal. One night only.
Someone needed to pinch her. And fast.
“Take me through it.”
He was speaking to her, but looking at Chris. What was he doing here?
“I want to find my goggles.” Chris tried to push up from the ground again.
“No, you don’t!”
“No, you don’t!”
Ali could barely suppress a surprised smile as she and The Suit each pressed on a shoulder, keeping Chris on the ground.
“Not until we know what else you’ve done to yourself. How does the socket around your eye feel?” Ali pressed him down again, this time with her hands covered in purple nitrile gloves, before she gently palpated the area.
“Fine—it’s just the cut, Doc. Honestly. Dr. Tate—tell her.”
For a second time Ali felt her chest constrict.
“You’re Aidan Tate?”
Dr. Aidan Tate? The award-winning sports medicine expert whose articles on non-surgical sports injuries she’d devoured like chocolate? The North Stars’ Chief Medical Officer? And … wait for it … her new boss?
Well. This was a bit of a pickle.
The biggest freaking pickle in the whole entire universe!
Her tummy pirouetted and heated as she stared at him—only just managing to suppress a smile. A short, sharp shake shifted the X-rated images from her mind and she rapidly went back to swabbing away the blood from Chris’s forehead.
“Earth to Lockhart! Harty? What gives? Am I getting back into play or what? Where are my goggles?” he shouted to the other players, who leapt into action.
Ali looked up and caught the eyes of her new boss. His face was unreadable. Hmm … This was nothing short of awkward.
“Got ’em!” One of the Southern Cross players jogged over and handed the protective eyewear to Chris, complete with blood and a tuft of muddy grass. He plopped them on the front of his blood-smeared face and gave Ali a See? I’m Fine grin.
“Nice look, Chris.” Ali guffawed at the gruesomely comic sight, then looked across at Aidan Tate with a mortified expression. He was her new boss. Never mind that she’d seen him naked. He’d hired her to be a doctor, not to snicker at the players’ made-for-Halloween gruesome faces.
Way to make an impression, Lockhart.
She was surprised to see Aidan smirk his approval at her reaction to Chris. She guessed he wanted to make sure the new girly doc could play gross with the rest of the boys.
She glanced at Aidan again, and he nodded for her to proceed. She couldn’t help but feel whatever she said was going to be under microscopic examination. Which was fair enough. If she’d found out the man she’d had a sizzling one-night stand with was her shiny new employee she would probably have held him to a higher standard.
“The cut doesn’t look too deep. Let’s do the spine and concussion drills and then get you to the sidelines for a couple of stitches.” Then for good measure she added, “And maybe give your specs a bit of a bath.”
Ali trained her eyes on Chris and deftly carried out a thorough inspection of his neck and upper spine to make sure it was safe to move him.
“Any tingling sensations in your arms? Burning? Stinging?” She rattled through the checklist, all too aware of Aidan’s eyes on her.
“Nah,” Chris answered.
“Shortness of breath?” She tapped along his lungs. A pneumothorax would be an unwelcome complication.
Chris heaved in a deep breath of air and exhaled with a lion noise. His lungs were fine. “Nope.”
“Guess you’ve kept everything intact except your brain-box—lucky boy. Wiggle your toes.”
“I’m fine, Harty! We’re a breed apart from all your fluffy ballerinas. Made of tougher stuff, we are.”
“Oh, really? And here was me thinking you were only human.” She signaled to the stretcher lads. He was safe to move off the field for a more thorough consultation.
“No way!” Chris pushed himself up. “I’m walking off on my own two feet, thank you very much.”
He stood up between them—weaving ever so slightly—then raised his arms in a victory move and swaggered off the field to the roar of the crowd.
Which left her face-to-face with Dr. Aidan Tate.
Her stomach gave a life-affirming heave and she almost lost her balance, which—considering she was still kneeling—was quite a feat. The man took her breath away. There was no getting away from that. Salt and pepper hair she’d run her fingers through on their way to naughtier climes, coffee-black eyes and a perfect set of cheekbones. Oh—and had she mentioned his lips? They were very, very nice lips.
“Go on.” He pointed toward the sidelines, pushing up to a standing position. “You’ve got work to do.”
She rose and looked into his eyes—hoping for some answers to the thousands of questions whirling round her head, well aware that every part of her body was responding to seeing him again. Hearing him. Being close enough to touch him.
“You need to leave the pitch so all that stops.”
“What?” She looked around.
He lifted his chin in the direction of the stands, from where a flow of catcalls was pealing out. They were obviously aimed at Ali.
“You’re fine with that?” Aidan’s dark eyes crackled—the energy between them was as potent as it had been the first time they’d met.
“The shouting?”
“Yes.” His face was grim.
“I can barely hear them.” And it was the truth. All her senses were triangulating in one very specific direction.
“I’m not fine with it.” Aidan took her by the elbow, turned her around and began to walk her off the field.
“Hey! I can walk on my own, thank you very much!” Ali protested.
“You don’t need to make a bigger show of things than you already have,” Aidan bit out.
“I’m sorry?” Ali bridled. “I think the only ‘show’ was Chris’s head-bleed. Frog-marching me off the field is a pretty bad idea.”
And it was. Aidan dropped her elbow instantly and strode off the field. She could make her own way.
Dr. A. Lockhart. Dance injury specialist, sports medicine MD, and surgeon, brought in for a locum position. When he’d hired her he’d thought her ream of credentials made her perfect for fine-tuning the team’s training in the build-up to the final.
And now he knew she was very same woman who had slowly but surely been consuming every sane brain cell he had left since their night at the airport?
Miss Cosmopolitan.
She had actually rocked his world. Never before had a woman made such an impression on him. From the very moment he’d laid eyes on her.
She’d been sitting at the hotel bar, her eyes on the television weather report, lazily tracing a swizzle stick along her lips. He had become mesmerized by the movement as her mouth had responded to the touch of the little black straw. It had been just about the sexiest thing he’d thought he’d ever seen. Before he could give himself time to think better of it he’d sent her a drink. Ten … fifteen minutes couldn’t have passed before they’d been in the elevator and he’d been tracing a finger along her lips, hungry for more. Much more.
No names … no attachments. It wasn’t how he normally operated—had ever operated—but by the time they had been finished she had been worth every single nail scratch on his back.
He narrowed his eyes as he watched her disappear down the tunnel toward the changing rooms. Glossy black hair streaming in a thick swatch from beneath her team cap, crystal-clear blue eyes so bright they seemed lit from within, and a pair of raspberry-red lips which he could all too easily remember—
No you don’t! Stop.
“Doc! Watch it!”
Aidan nearly collided with Chris, who was trying to give his face a scrub with his filthy jersey.
“Sorry, mate. Away with the fairies.”
“Where’s Harty?” Chris looked around the sidelines.
“Who?”
“Dr. Lockhart,” Chris bit out, his tone abruptly changing.
“Chris, are you all right?” Aidan walked him over to a bench.
Ali had capably gone through the concussion test, he knew—he’d kept careful watch. But sometimes a clot could appear later, with devastating effect. He hoped that wasn’t the case.
“Yeah, fine.” Chris exhaled heavily as he sat. “I just want to get back out there. When’s Harty going to stitch me up?”
“Don’t you trust my stitches anymore?” As the words came out of his mouth Aidan knew they sat wrong, but the mention of Dr. Lockhart on such comfortable, friendly terms had riled him.
She’d been here—what?—a fortnight?—and already had a nickname? He’d been with the team five years and had barely managed to get the odd “Doc” out of the players. Then again—it wasn’t exactly as if he was the easiest person to get to know. He knew if he was more open with the players they would respond in kind—but he wasn’t there yet. Maybe he never would be. Maybe “closed off’ was just who he was.
Either way—he didn’t need to be behaving like a jealous doctor. Ali’s stitches … his stitches—it didn’t matter. She was a highly qualified doctor and he’d hired her for her skills. She clearly had the stomach for it. A “fluffy ballerina” type wouldn’t laugh at a face covered in blood. The best thing he could do was shake it all off. It would keep things professional. Unlike his response to Ali.
Feeling envious because the players got along with the new doctor …? Ridiculous. It was what anyone would hope for. Harmony between support staff and players.
He scraped a hand along his stubbled jawline.
Harmony?
Who was he kidding? The only way he could describe his response to Ali Lockhart was Class A caveman. And that wasn’t going to work. Not here. His reputation went hand in hand with the team’s. Work and emotions weren’t things he mixed. Ever. His annual fortnight of charity work in the Pacific Islands was an upfront-and-center reminder of that. Five years on and he still hadn’t shed a tear. Maybe he never would.
“Are you all right for me to do the stitches?”
Ali appeared by his side with a suture kit in her hands.
“Go ahead.” He nodded in Chris’s direction without looking at her. Those blue eyes spoke volumes and he couldn’t go there. Not now. “Do the concussion tests again before you okay him for play.”
“Would you rather do it?”
“You’re getting paid to look after these boys. You go on ahead.”
He kept his eyes on the field, arms tightly crossed over his chest as he watched the players get into formation at the referee’s whistle. It might look like mayhem to some, but he liked rugby. There was a system. A playbook. Rules.
He liked order, and Ali’s presence here was bringing nothing but chaos.
Ali wished she could scrub away the crimson heat racing into her cheeks. She wasn’t used to being spoken to like an underling.
The cheek! Her hands flew to her face. Her cheeks! Aaaargh!
She huffed out a sigh and started swabbing at Chris’s mud-and blood-covered forehead.
Working with Britain’s premier sports physician was meant to be professionally rewarding. Trying was more like it! On multiple levels.
“Ouch! Easy, Harty.”
“I thought you were a roughtie-toughtie?” Ali gave Chris an apologetic grin and tried to lighten her touch.
She couldn’t let Aidan get to her. Not on a professional front, anyway. Her job was the one thing Ali knew she excelled at, and she was not about to let some perfectly gorgeous chippy doctor from up here in the hinterlands boss her about. Even if she had spent several hot and steamy, never to be repeated, perfectly delicious hours of lovemaking with him.
She rubbed a numbing agent on Chris’s forehead, quickly put in the stiches and gave him another run through the concussion exam. She wasn’t one hundred percent convinced—not enough to prove to Aidan, anyway—so told him he’d have to sit out the rest of the game, and then she’d do the tests again.
“Safety first!” she quipped with a Doris Day grin. Or at least that was the look she was going for. Chris stuck his tongue out at her in response. Child …
Maybe coming here had been a mistake. Already she was getting attached to these big old lugheads, and that hadn’t been part of the plan. Not by a long shot. Nor had sleeping with her new boss, but it seemed that had happened, too. This was all going swimmingly!
Aidan Tate was The Suit.
Who would’ve believed it?
She’d been a secret admirer of his expertise for years. He’d sounded so caring and professional in the medical journals he was regularly published in. And he’d been oh, so very tender and attentive at three, four and five in the morning, when neither of them had felt the need to sleep. Humph! Double-humph!
She grabbed her phone from her coat pocket and did what she always did when things started to get emotional. She bashed out a message to her former mentor from dance school.
