‘Send them in,’ he called, his eyes devouring the thoroughly kissed look on her face.
Carrie felt paralysed by the look of pure craving in his eyes.
‘Better straighten up.’ He grinned. ‘You look like you’ve just been ravaged.’
She nodded, still not able to move.
He chuckled and reached out to straighten her collar, pull her jacket into place and hand her her clasp. He removed a trace of smeared lipstick from her mouth with his finger. Her eyes flared as he pushed the digit into her mouth and he felt a kick in his groin as she sucked it clean. He swayed towards her.
A knock sounded at the door again. Carrie gathered herself at last. ‘Yes, well…’ She cleared her throat, turning her back to him and pulling open the door. ‘I’ll get right on that, Dr Wentworth.’ She smiled at the two police officers who were standing in Charlie’s doorway as she departed. Carrie felt Angela’s narrow-eyed stare as she slunk down the hallway.
As the week progressed their ‘just friends’ pact was continually breached. On Tuesday it was Joe who caught them. He’d come in the back door via the basketball court to find them in an intimate clinch in the staffroom doorway.
He slammed the door loudly and they both jumped. ‘Well, well, well. Lookee here.’ Joe grinned. He shook his head. ‘Pinstripes. Should have guessed.’
‘Hi, Joe,’ Carrie said, straightening her shirt. ‘This isn’t what it looks like.’
Joe laughed. ‘Oh? Trying to remove an obstruction from his airway with your tongue?’
Charlie laughed, too. Carrie turned and pushed his chest. ‘You are not helping.’
‘Next time get a room.’ Joe was still grinning.
‘There won’t be a next time,’ she said primly. ‘We’re just friends. Aren’t we, Charlie?’
‘Right…friends.’
Joe shrugged. ‘OK. Whatever.’
On Thursday morning Charlie’s office was empty as she passed and she popped in to look for some paperwork in his filing cabinet. He found her there a few minutes later and trapped her against it.
‘Charlie, we really have to stop this,’ she said as she came up for air. She was going to explode from sexual frustration if they kept this up.
He smiled and nuzzled her neck. His hand worked its way under her jacket at the back. ‘I agree. This is bad…very bad.’ His fingers moved round and found a lace-covered breast and he stroked it.
Carrie shut her eyes against a surge of desire. ‘Charlie!’
He laughed and cut off her husky protest with his mouth. He felt himself harden as she sighed against his lips.
‘Ahem.’
Charlie froze. He’d know that disapproving noise anywhere. Carrie pressed desperately against him to get away. ‘I really need a lock on that door,’ he announced loudly enough for his father to hear.
‘Maybe a little self-control wouldn’t go astray, either.’
Charlie made sure Carrie was together and smiled at her before he turned around. ‘Hello, Father.’
Oh, God! Mr Wentworth, Charlie’s father, eminent thoracic surgeon, had caught them necking like a pair of horny teenagers.
‘Charles.’
‘This is Carrie,’ Charlie said calmly.
‘Who is just leaving,’ Carrie said, her legs shaking as she made a quick escape.
At Friday lunchtime Carrie was sitting at the table, trying to concentrate on a bunch of exceedingly boring, exceedingly depressing figures. Damn it. The hospital board was going to have a field day. The centre wasn’t viable. The previous year’s figures were a mess. She knew she would have to make a recommendation to the board that would destroy Charlie and his beloved centre.
And their so-called friendship. And most definitely their snogging. After she delivered her verdict she was pretty sure he’d never want to see her again—never mind kiss her.
It was developing into a true conflict of interest for her. She was torn. Torn between what the figures told her, the black and white, and what she knew about Charlie and his goals and aims for the centre—the grey.
A few weeks ago she’d been nothing but a bottom-line girl. A black and white girl. But the longer she spent at the centre and witnessed the difference Charlie and the centre made, she knew she couldn’t be objective. She had gone to the grey side.
She threw down her pen and glared at the stack of paperwork in front of her. The jukebox thumped away in the background and somewhere outside a car backfired. How the hell was she going to tell him?
Maybe this was an easy out for her? This crazy passion-fuelled supposed friendship they had now couldn’t go on. Their issues hadn’t changed. Her time there was almost up. If she left, putting the final nail in the centre’s coffin, it would achieve what they’d so far not managed to achieve. The end of their impossible, never-going-to-happen relationship.