“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