‘No,’ she said, rolling her lips together for a moment. ‘You’re right. That wouldn’t have helped at all.’
‘Or we could go along with it,’ he suggested. ‘You know, pretend we really are having an affair.’
She looked at him, unable to think of anything to say.
‘When you think about it, it could solve your problem with Richard DeBurgh,’ he said. ‘He’ll back off once he hears we’re officially seeing each other.’
‘So …’ She ran her tongue over her dry lips before continuing. ‘What you’re suggesting is we pretend to be dating, right?’
‘Yeah, why not?’ he said. ‘You can let your flatmate in on the secret so you don’t lose the bet, but to all intents and purposes everyone else will believe we’re having a bit of a fling.’
She frowned at him. ‘And you don’t have a problem with that?’
‘Why should I have a problem with it? We’re both adults. The fact that you’re my registrar is neither here nor there. Work is work and play is play.’
‘But we’re not really playing,’ she pointed out. ‘We’re just pretending.’
‘Is that disappointment I hear in your tone?’
‘Of course not!’ she insisted. ‘Why on earth would I be disappointed?’
He stepped closer, his warm, damp body almost touching hers. ‘We could be pretty hot together, don’t you think, Georgie?’ he said in a low sexy rumble. ‘When we kissed last night I was so close to—’
She blocked his next word with her fingertip. ‘No,’ she said quickly and huskily. ‘Don’t say it … it’s like tempting fate.’
He captured her finger and sucked on it—hard—his eyes holding hers in the magnetic force field of his. ‘We can pretend or we can do it for real. Right now I’m thinking real would be good.’
‘No …’ she said, her stomach somersaulting as his tongue rolled over her fingertip. ‘No, it wouldn’t be good. We’re not right for each other. You know we’re not. You said it yourself—we come from completely different backgrounds.’
He blew his hot breath into the shell of her ear, his tongue snaking out to trace its delicate contours until her spine threatened to dissolve. ‘Haven’t you heard of the expression “opposites attract”?’
‘Yes …’ She shivered as his mouth hovered just above hers. ‘But it doesn’t mean it will last.’
‘I don’t know about that,’ he said, trailing a pathway of kisses down the side of her neck. ‘We could make it last.’
‘F-for how long?’ she asked, as her whole body shivered in reaction.
His hands skated over the swell of her breasts, his eyes burning into hers. ‘How long do you want it to last?’ he asked. ‘I … I don’t want to waste time on going-nowhere relationships,’ she said, running her hands over his chest, her fingertips relishing the hard contours of his body. ‘I’m twenty-seven years old. I have four years of study ahead of me. It’s … complicated …’
He planted a hot-as-fire kiss on her mouth. ‘We could take it one step at a time,’ he said.
‘I’m not ready for big steps …’
‘Baby steps, then,’ he said, capturing her bottom lip between his teeth and tugging gently. ‘Little tiny baby steps.’
Georgie could feel herself melting inside and out. Her legs were like two soggy noodles and her spine loosened to the point of collapse. ‘This is very tempting …’ she breathed.
She felt his smile like an imprint on her lips. ‘It’s supposed to be tempting,’ he said. ‘I want to sleep with you. I think I’ve wanted it from the moment you put that hard collar on me when you knocked me down. You’ve been keeping me awake more than my most difficult patients, do you realise that?’
She raised her mouth just enough to secure contact with his, lifting them off only long enough to say, ‘I think I’ve wanted you from the moment you called me Georgiana.’
He looked at her quizzically. ‘I thought you didn’t like being called by your full name?’
‘I don’t, but the way you said it made me want to grab you and shake you. I was so angry.’
‘But you’re not angry at me now?’