He lowered himself down, planting a knee between her legs, and felt himself harden further as her hips ground against it. He pushed his knee hard against her and smiled at the moan that escaped her lips. He grasped her shoulders and pulled her over with him.
And then his head hit a hard plastic object and it roared to life, throwing a kaleidoscope of colours around the room. ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ blared out in a piercing electronic voice. The fact that her body was lying on top of his, pressing and rubbing in all the right places, was temporarily forgotten.
It was like a bucket of cold water. The bucket of cold water he needed. What the hell are you doing? He moved abruptly out from underneath her, displacing her.
‘Sorry,’ Carrie said, groping for Dana’s favourite toy, her body already lamenting the distance. Her mouth and her breasts tingled. The buzz intensified, demanding to be sated.
‘No…I’m sorry…’ Charlie ran a frustrated hand through his hair. What the hell was he doing? What the hell had happened to his iron-clad self-control? He couldn’t do this. He still had over a week before he got his test results. And she had a kid. And even if he had been stupid enough to make one exception in this whole crazy year, he didn’t even have condoms with him. He deliberately didn’t carry them any more, so temptation was always kept at bay. He had to get out of there. Now.
Carrie found the ‘off’ button and the silence was suddenly deafening.
‘Dana’s?’ he asked, automatically looking at the offending toy while his mind frantically groped for a way out.
‘Yes,’ she said, standing and placing it in the basket beside her bed. She could tell by the way his gaze kept sliding to the doorway that there would be no more kissing tonight. She cringed, thinking about how easy she’d been. How desperate she must have seemed. And still every cell in her body hummed with arousal and she railed against her body’s betrayal.
God, what a mess. She looked so lovely, so desirable in the subdued light he wanted to push her back on the mattress and finish what he’d started. He clenched his fists to stop himself following through. ‘I’m sorry…’ he said, his breathing still ragged. ‘I have to go. I’m sorry…things got out of hand. I can’t do this.’
‘It’s OK, I understand,’ she dismissed, injecting a briskness into her voice that required supreme effort. Damn him to hell. Why did he have to tease her with the possibilities, and then snatch them away before she’d experienced their full potential?
Charlie drew a shaky hand through his hair. His body was still aroused and he was teetering on the edge, while she’d gone back to being Ms Pinstripe again. Ms Untouchable. For a moment there he’d had Ms Tie-Dye back, Ms Touch-Me-Everywhere, and he knew which one he preferred. How could she morph so quickly?
‘I don’t think you do.’
Carrie shrugged. ‘It was a reality check. A lot of men don’t want to get involved with single mothers.’
Was that what she thought? He opened his mouth to deny it and then shut it again. This thing between them was crazy. His life was on hold. And even if it came off hold next week, he didn’t need anything heavy in his life for a very long time. Perhaps never. And what did he have to offer a single mother and her daughter? He sure as hell didn’t have any great parenting examples to draw on. Maybe it was best for her to think the worst of him?
He reached out to touch her shoulder, dropping his hand when she took a step back. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
She heard the genuine note of regret in his voice and couldn’t bear it. She was frustrated and humiliated and just wanted to be alone. ‘Just go.’
Carrie heard the door close a few moments later. She kicked her shoes off and threw herself down on the bed, pulling her legs up into a foetal position, trying to ease the ache between them. Damn him, damn Charles Wentworth to hell.
How stupid was she? Had she learnt nothing from the whole Rupert disaster? How could she fall for the attentions of another posh doc? What the hell would he ever see in a girl from the wrong side of the tracks? No breeding. No pedigree. She’d had a child out of wedlock, for heaven’s sake. It’d be Rupert all over again. OK to warm his bed at every available opportunity, but not to promise until death did them part. Not to take home to meet Mummy and Daddy.
Thank goodness for Dana’s toy. If they hadn’t been interrupted she had no doubt that she would have gone all the way with Charlie. What the hell had she been thinking? She had to work with him. Probably put him out of business if the books were anything to go by. It was unprofessional. Probably unethical. Certainly it presented a complete conflict of interest.