Читать книгу Paddington Children's Hospital Complete Collection - Kate Hardy - Страница 12

CHAPTER THREE

DOMINIC HAD BEEN about to make his way home after visiting his patients on the wards but, not ready to face it yet, he had decided to spend some time in a place that was starting to become familiar.

He had never expected to see Victoria, yet here she was. Despite the heels and coat and that her hair was down, and despite that he could only see her back and that it was dark, still he recognised her.

But it seemed clear, not just from the location, but from the way her hand rested against the window, and Victoria’s pensive stance, that she wanted to be alone.

‘Excuse me,’ Dominic said, and she turned at the sound of his voice. ‘I didn’t think anyone was up here.’

‘It’s fine.’ Victoria gave him a thin smile.

‘I’ll leave you,’ he offered, but Victoria shook her head.

‘You don’t have to do that.’

He walked across the wooden floor and came and joined her at the window.

He was still in scrubs and she could see that he was tired.

‘I thought only I knew about this place,’ Victoria said. ‘It would seem not.’

‘I don’t think many people know about it,’ he said. ‘At least, I’ve never seen anyone up here and it looks pretty undisturbed.’

‘How did you find it?’

Dominic didn’t answer.

They stood in mutual silence, staring ahead, though not really taking in the view of London at night.

Unlike the thick modern glass in the main hospital, here the windows were thin and there were a couple of cracked ones. The shower had turned to rain and the air was cold but it was incredibly peaceful.

‘Where did you work before here?’ Victoria asked him.

‘Edinburgh.’

‘So you’re used to wonderful views.’

He thought of the city he loved built around the castle, and of Arthur’s Seat rising above the city, and he nodded and then turned his head and looked at something just as beautiful, though he could see that she was sad.

‘Are you okay?’ he asked, and Victoria was about to nod and say she was fine but changed her mind and gave a small shrug.

‘I’m just a bit flat.’

She offered no more than that.

‘Has a patient upset you?’

She frowned at the very suggestion and turned to look at him.

‘Penny?’ he checked, because he had found out this evening that the little girl had wormed her way into a lot of the staff’s hearts here at Paddington’s. But Victoria shook her head.

‘I don’t get upset over patients and certainly not over a routine transfer. If I did, then I’d really be in the wrong job!’

‘And I doubt it was me that upset you,’ he said, and she gave a little laugh.

‘No, you I can handle.’

And then Victoria was glad that it was dark because she had started to blush at her own innuendo, even though she hadn’t meant it in that way. And so, to swiftly move on from that, she offered more information as to her mood. ‘If you must know it’s this place that I’m upset about. I can’t believe it might be knocked down or turned into apartments. I was practically raised here.’

‘You were sick as a child?’

‘No! My father worked here in A&E and he used to bring me in with him. Sometimes I’d sneak up here.’ She didn’t add just how often it had happened. How her childhood had been spent being half-watched by whatever nurse, domestic, secretary, receptionist or whoever was available.

And she certainly didn’t mention her mother.

Victoria did all she could never to think, let alone discuss, the woman who had simply upped and walked away.

‘My father now works at Riverside—Professor Christie.’

She turned and saw the raise of his eyes.

It wasn’t an impressed raise.

Dominic had spoken to him on occasion and knew that Professor Christie wasn’t the most pleasant of people.

‘He’s crabby too,’ Victoria said.

And Dominic decided to make one thing very clear. ‘At the risk of causing offence, I might be crabby, Victoria, but I’m not cold to the bone.’

Dominic did not cause offence. It was, in fact, rather a relief to hear it voiced as, given her father’s status, people tended to praise him rather than criticise, and that had been terribly confusing to a younger Victoria.

It still confused her even now.

She had stood at the award ceremony yesterday hearing all the marvellous things being said about him. Afterwards, at the reception, more praise had been heaped.

The emperor had really had on no clothes, though there was not a person brave enough to voice it.

Until now.

‘Well,’ Victoria said, ‘I saw him yesterday and he seems to think the merge is going to go ahead.’

Dominic nodded; he had heard the same. ‘It’s a shame.’

‘It’s more than a shame,’ Victoria said, and for the first time he heard the sound of her voice when upset—even when they had argued she had remained calm. ‘This place is more than just a facility,’ Victoria insisted. ‘Families feel safe when they know their children are here. It can’t just close.’

‘Do something about it, then.’

‘Me?’

She looked down at the protestors and wondered if she should join them. But in her heart, Victoria knew it wasn’t enough and that more needed to be done.

‘If you care so much,’ Dominic said, ‘then fight for what matters to you.’

It did matter to her, Victoria thought.

Paddington’s really mattered.

And it was nice to be up here and not alone with her thoughts, but rather to be sharing them with him.

‘How did you find this room?’ Victoria asked again.

He still hadn’t told her, and now when he did it came as a surprise.

‘I saw you sneak behind the shelves a couple of months ago and I wondered where you’d gone. When I got a chance I went and had a look for myself.’

‘You can’t have seen me.’ Victoria shook her head at the impossibility of his explanation. ‘I always make sure that no one does. Anyway, I’d have known if you were around...’ And she halted, because that was admitting that any time she was at this hospital she was aware of where he was.

‘I was in the waiting room talking to a parent,’ he said. ‘I saw you through the glass...’

‘I guess I stand out in those green overalls.’

‘I don’t think it’s the green overalls, Victoria.’

She gave a soft laugh.

She was dressed in black now after all.

Yet he was confirming that he noticed her too.

‘Did you see me come up tonight?’ Victoria asked.

‘No. I just wanted some space. I thought you were finished for the night.’

‘I am. I was supposed to be going out,’ Victoria said, explaining the reason for heels and things. ‘But I cancelled.’

And now he thought he knew the real reason she was sad.

‘Have you just broken up with someone?’

‘I don’t think you can really call it a break-up if you cancel a second date.’

No, she wasn’t sad about that; Dominic could tell from her dismissive shrug. It would seem it really was just the building.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘I’m sure he’s very disappointed.’

And then he went to retract that because it came out wrong, as if he was alluding to how stunning she looked.

‘What I meant was that—’

He stopped; whatever way he said it would sound like flirting, and he was avoiding all that.

‘I think I’ve done us both a favour,’ Victoria said. ‘He didn’t seem to understand the concept of shift work. So,’ she asked, ‘if it wasn’t me, then what brought you up here?’ She wanted to know more about those difficult days he had alluded to.

‘I’m in the middle of something right now...’ Dominic said. ‘Well, not in the middle—I’ve taken myself out of the equation. I’m staying back from getting involved with anyone.’

‘Good,’ Victoria said, ‘because I don’t like to get involved with anyone at work.’

Yet here they were and the tension that had been in the annexe wrapped and slivered around them.

‘Are you married?’ she asked.

It was a very specific question and the answer was important to Victoria, because the cold air had turned warm.

‘No.’

‘Seeing someone?’

‘Of course not,’ Dominic said, or he would not be doing this—and his hand moved to her cheek. ‘You got your earring back.’

‘They were a gift from my father.’

‘That’s nice,’ Dominic said.

‘Not really, it was just a duty gift when I turned eighteen. Had he bothered to get to know me, then he’d have known that I don’t like diamonds.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t believe in fairytales and I don’t believe in for ever.’

There was, to Victoria’s mind, no such thing.

She held her breath as his fingers came to her cheek and lightly brushed the lobe as he examined the stone.

If it were anyone else she would have pushed his hand away.

Anyone else.

Yet she provoked.

‘It was the other earring that I lost.’

And he turned her face and his hands went to the other.

This was foolish, both knew.

Neither wanted to get close to someone they had to work alongside but the attraction between them was intense.

Both knew the reason for their rows and terse exchanges; it was physical attraction at its most raw.

‘Victoria, I’m in no position to get involved with anyone.’

They were standing looking at each other and his hands were on her cheeks and his fingers were warm on her ears. There was a thrum between them and she knew he was telling her they would go nowhere.

‘That’s okay.’

And that was okay.

‘If you don’t like diamonds, then what do you like?’ he asked. His mouth was so close to hers and though it was cold she could feel the heat in the space between them.

‘This.’

Their mouths met and she felt the warm, light pressure and it felt blissful. That musky, soapy scent of him had been imprinted and, this close, it made her dizzy. His tongue sliding in made her move closer and the fingers of one hand reached into her hair as the other hand slid around her waist.

It was almost like setting up to dance, as if the teacher had come in and said, Place your hands here.

But not.

Because then she hadn’t felt a tremble, no matter how warm the palm.

They kissed softly at first as his hand bunched in her hair; he explored with his tongue and it met with hers and he tasted all that had been missing.

Passion coiled them tight; his palm took the weight of her head and pressed her in at the same time.

The pent-up rows and the terse exchanges had been many and could not be dispersed with a single kiss.

It was a deep slow kiss and it birthed impatience in both. He held her head very steady and kissed her hard, and the scratch of his unshaven jaw and the probe of his tongue was sublime. But then, unlike with most men, she tasted resistance.

There was resistance, because Dominic knew very well where they were leading. ‘I don’t have anything with me,’ he said.

And she wanted to feel him unleashed.

‘I do.’

And when most would kiss harder, instead Dominic made her burn with his stealth. He stepped back and moved her coat down her shoulders and did not drop it to the dusty floor. Instead he placed it on the window ledge and she went for her purse that was there.

He came up behind her as she rifled through her purse, praying that the condom was still there and trying to find it. One hand wrapped around her and rested on her stomach as his other hand slid up between her inner thighs to the damp in the middle. His fingers stroked her and she closed her eyes to the bliss.

‘Here.’ She had never been so pleased to find a condom as he peeled her knickers down and she straightened up and stepped out of them.

Still he stood behind her and he lifted her hair and kissed her low on her neck. His hand pressed into her stomach and she could feel him hard against her bottom. Victoria was shaking a little, wanting to turn to him, yet wanting to linger in this bliss.

‘Come away from the window,’ he said, and took her over to a wall in the shadows and he kissed her hard against it. His hands held her hips and now Victoria felt the delicious hardness of him against her stomach. She stretched up onto tiptoe and he moved his hips down so he met her heat.

It was nice, so nice, to be so raw and open with him.

He caressed her breast through the fabric and, since he could feel no zipper on her dress, with a moan of want he just slid his hand inside and it was the most thorough and deliberate grope of her life. Meanwhile, Victoria was doing the same to him; she was trying to hold on to the condom as she freed him from his scrubs and underwear.

Finally, she held him in her palm, and her hand was soft on skin that was so very firm to her touch.

‘I want this dress off...’ Dominic gasped, but it was impossible because they could not move their mouths for more than a second from each other.

They wanted nakedness and hours to explore, but their bodies would only give them minutes.

He took the condom and began sheathing himself, while she was pulling up her dress, and when he was done, he lifted her thigh and placed her leg around his hip.

And they were not dancing!

She balanced on one stiletto but his grip of her was firm and the wall behind her solid. Then her hips angled and both were just as urgent as the other as Dominic thrust and took her.

Victoria had never felt anything so powerful. He was rough and delicious and she felt matched for the first time in her life, because he held nothing back.

Everything he delivered.

Dominic’s hand was behind her back and he could feel the scratch of stone on his knuckles but that was so far from his mind that it barely registered.

‘There...’ she said in a voice that was both demanding and urgent.

He met that demand and heightened it too.

She felt amazing. Dominic was rather more used to holding back, but Victoria invited intensity. It had been ages for Dominic, and he had wanted her for a very long time.

There was almost anger in him for how much she made him want her, so he thrust hard and fast and then harder still to the sound of her pleasurable moans, and then he lifted her.

Victoria had never had both feet off the ground like this; she had never been so consumed. His fingers were digging into her bottom as he took her hard against the wall.

Their faces were side by side and she wanted to find his mouth, but there was no time for that as she was starting to come. Never had she climaxed so deeply, and if she were not wrapped around him she would have folded in two at the pleasure.

He released to her deep shudder and together they hit high, and finally she found his mouth, tasted the cool of his tongue as she drank in his kiss. They rested their foreheads together, sharing those last beats of pleasure and breathing the same air until gently he lowered her down.

With long slow kisses he moved them away from the wall now. She pulled down her dress and then they broke contact and she moved out of the shadows.

Victoria picked up her discarded knickers but had to lean on the ledge, not just so she could put them on, but because her legs were shaky and she was still breathless.

She had never let herself go like that, she had never come so hard and she had certainly never been made love to so thoroughly.

When Dominic emerged from the shadows he, too, was dressed, though his hair was rumpled. It should have been really awkward between them, yet it was not.

‘I look like I’ve been in a fight,’ he said as he examined his hands in the moonlight. Victoria took his fingers and looked at them, and made him smile with what she said.

‘You’re going to have some trouble explaining those injuries, Doctor,’ she teased, because it really did look, to her trained eyes, as if he had punched the walls.

Yes, it should have been really awkward but instead he came and sat beside her on the ledge.

‘Victoria...’ he started, but really he did not know what to say. Dominic was in no position to start anything. And what had just taken place was very far removed from his usual nature.

He felt amazing though, as if on the top of a high mountain.

And she saw him struggle with what to say, so she said it for him.

‘You don’t have to explain anything,’ Victoria said. She was not referring to his knuckles, but still she smiled.

‘You’re sure?’ he checked.

‘Yes.’

What had happened was something she could never have imagined, something so far removed from her usual wary approach to intimacy, but he did not need to know all of that.

She felt liberated.

And feminine.

With him she felt she had found herself.

So, instead of an awkward parting they shared a kiss that was deep, long and slow, and ended by her.

‘I’m going to go,’ Victoria said, and stood.

And still she waited for awkwardness, even as she walked to the door.

So did he, yet awkward did not exist in this room.

‘So, if you don’t like diamonds,’ Dominic called. ‘What do you like?’

And she opened the door and laughed as he went back to the original question.

‘Pearls.’

He sat in the room and looked around. The moon shone through the window and the air was still stirred and seductive from them; his knuckles were grazed and he was somewhat reeling.

Dominic had never really given pearls any thought before.

They were just something his mother or grandmother wore for weddings and such occasions.

Certainly he had never considered them sexy.

He did now.