cynical look. ‘Are you joking?’
He frowned. ‘You’re doing it yourself?’
‘I’m trying to … but as you can see it’s not going according to plan.’ Was it my imagination or did the paint job I’d done the other night look patchy? There was a drip of paint on the skirting board I hadn’t noticed before.
‘It’s a big job for one person.’
‘Yes, well, it was supposed to be two people doing it but you know how that turned out.’
He took the wine out of the paper bag. ‘You want some help with it?’
I wasn’t sure what he was suggesting. But as olive branches went it was a good one—even better than the curry and the wine. ‘Don’t tell me you’re handy with a paintbrush, otherwise I mightn’t let you leave.’
He gave a sudden grin. ‘I did up my place in Notting Hill before I went to the US. I enjoyed it. It was a change from work, where stuff can’t always be fixed.’
I knew exactly what he meant. Sometimes the hopelessness of some patients’ situations ate away at me. ‘I spent some time with Jason’s wife today,’ I said, as I handed Matt a couple of wine glasses.
‘How’s she doing?’
‘I think she’s struggling a bit, as anyone would in her situation.’ I took the glass of wine he had poured for me.
He looked at me across the Formica kitchen table that separated us. ‘You’re doing a good job. I can see how the things you’ve set up help. The little touches that make people feel less alienated by the environment.’ He waited a beat and then continued, ‘I had a brother two years older than me. He died when I was fifteen.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘Jill told me. She said her sister-in-law is your mother’s school friend or something.’
He gave me a quirk of a smile. ‘What used to be six degrees of separation is now two with social media.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘Tell me about it.’
There was a little silence. I didn’t feel so uncomfortable with them now. But after a moment I asked, ‘What was it like for you and your parents when Tim was in ICU?’
He looked at the contents of his glass, swirling it as if searching for the memories in the dark cherry-coloured pool. ‘Awful. No one told us anything. It was different back then. Doctors didn’t always communicate that well with relatives. They only told us what they thought we needed to know. It wasn’t enough. My parents thought Tim was going to make it right up until the day he died of pneumonia. It made the grief so much harder for them to cope with. I felt that if only we’d been told from the outset that things were pretty hopeless the grief would have been dealt with earlier. Instead, it’s dragged on for years.’
‘Grief doesn’t have a use-by date.’
‘No, I know. But it might’ve helped my parents prepare themselves a little better.’ He put his glass down.
‘Did you think Tim was going to make it?’
His eyes met mine. ‘I hoped he would. I couldn’t imagine my life without him. We were close. I looked up to him. He was my role model, the one I turned to for advice or help with homework or whatever. My father was hopeless at that sort of thing. The bottom dropped out of my world when I walked out of the hospital that day. I swore I would do everything I could to make sure other people didn’t have to go through that the way we did.’
‘So you became an intensive care specialist with a reputation for telling it as it is.’
He gave me a rueful smile. ‘That pretty much sums it up.’
I came over to him and touched his shadowed jaw. He hadn’t shaved and the stubble caught on the skin of my palm, making something inside my belly shift like a foot slipping on a sheet of black ice. ‘Thanks for telling me about Tim. It helps to understand you better.’
He brushed a tendril of hair away from my face. ‘I haven’t spoken of him in years. It’s a no-go area at home. My father goes off his head if Tim’s name is mentioned. In his mind the wrong son died.’
‘Oh, no, that’s terrible,’ I said. ‘Did he actually say that?’
‘Only when he’s had one too many drinks.’
‘Is he an alcoholic?’
‘He wouldn’t say so, but I have my suspicion he sneaks a few empty bottles into the recycling bin without my mother knowing. Or maybe she does know but keeps quiet because it’s not worth the effort of standing up to him or the risk of losing her social standing or both.’ His mouth was set back in a grim line. ‘God, I hate talking about my family. We’re not a family any more. Not since Tim died. We’re just three people who happen to be related.’
I reached up and smoothed the taut muscles surrounding his tight mouth. ‘I’m sorry things have been so tough for you. But look at what you do for others. The way you work so hard, so tirelessly to save lives. So what if you don’t have a perfect family? Just wait till you meet mine.’
He smiled and I practically melted on the spot. I watched as his eyes darkened as they went to my mouth, the ink-dark pools of his pupils flaring as he brought his mouth down to mine. His hands buried themselves in my hair, his fingertips sliding along my scalp as he plundered my mouth with feverish intensity. His tongue played with mine, darting and diving and seducing it in a dance that made every cell in my body shudder in delight.
My arms went around his neck, my body pressed so tightly against him I could feel the buttons on his jacket digging into me. I began to undo them, roughly, urgently, impatient to get my hands on him. He shrugged off his jacket and tugged up his jumper and shirt, and I slid my hands along the flat plane of his chest and abdomen. He hauled the garments over his head and they fell to the floor. He set to work on my clothes: my jumper went first, followed by my top and bra. His hands were cold at first on my breasts but they soon warmed as I pressed into his caress.
I tugged at the belt on his trousers, sliding it out of the lugs and letting it slither to the floor. I unzipped him and freed him from his underwear, holding and stroking him as his mouth continued to subject mine to a sensual onslaught that made every hair on my head shiver at the roots.
This was the sort of passion I had been missing in my relationship with Andy. The firestorm of lust and longing that was totally consuming. Before I knew it, Matt had lifted me onto the kitchen counter, parting my thighs so he could come between them. Somehow he’d sourced a condom and got it on before he entered me with a fast, thick thrust that made me whoosh out a breathless gasp.
‘You okay?’
Okay? I was in heaven. ‘You feel so good,’ I said against his mouth, as he came back to kiss me.
He began to move inside me, taking me with him on a roller-coaster ride of passion. Every thrust brought me closer and closer to that final moment of oblivion. It was just frustratingly out of my reach, but then he slid his hands underneath my bottom, lifting my hips just enough to intensify the friction. I came in a cataclysmic storm of sensations that showered and shook and shuddered through me in turn. I felt his own orgasm as it powered through him, the deep quaking of his body and the sharply cut-off groan as he spilled, making my own body respond with another shudder of delight.
He let out a deep, satisfied sigh and leaned his forehead on mine. ‘Our dinner is probably cold by now.’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘It’s pretty hot in this kitchen.’
He smiled against my lips. ‘Damn right it is.’
I was walking down my street on my way to work the next morning when I ran into Margery, who was taking Freddy out for a walk. She gave me a look that was colder than the snow that had settled overnight. ‘A fine way to behave, I must say,’ she said. ‘And here I was thinking you were a nice old-fashioned girl. Seems I was