The Last Doctor She Should Ever Date (5 page)

Trying hard not to inhale his smell or relish the heat emanating from his body that in turn stoked a fire in her belly, she brushed past him into the empty landing.

Somehow his arms folded round her. ‘Dani?’

‘Yes?’ She found her voice, but it was cracked and hoarse, thick with desire. His face was a heartbeat from hers; the soft breeze of his breath caressed her skin.

She wouldn’t lose her heart to him. Would not. She could protect herself well; she had enough willpower and self-control to keep from ever being vulnerable again.

But, hell, she wanted him. An innate physical ache. Her heart did the macarena as she palmed his chest, stepped her fingers down his shirt. Hot body. Soft shirt. Hard... ‘Is there something you want, Zac?’

‘I keep telling myself no. But...damn it. Yes.’ His eyes held just one question now and she still didn’t know the answer, didn’t know what was right or wrong, up or down, didn’t know anything except that the ache to seal her lips against his wouldn’t leave her.

Nice morphed into naughty. With one swift move he flicked her baseball cap off her head, then shook her curls loose and tangled his fingers in her hair. At the gentle touch of his hands she closed her eyes, her body pulsing with a raging need that both startled and threatened to overwhelm her. Her self-control pooled into nothing...Zac was too much to refuse. This was too much to refuse.

He paused, his mouth inches away from hers. The tiny pulse at the base of his neck beat wildly, his breathing ragged. Tension and anger and desire rebounded off him and fuelled her need for him. ‘About that list.’

‘The sex-free sex list?’

‘Yes. I’m adding to it all the time.’ His tongue traced a tender path along her bottom lip. ‘Kissing?’

‘Aha.’

‘Sucking.’ He sucked her lip into his mouth, then nipped it gently between his teeth. Let it go and smiled. ‘Biting.’

‘
God
. Yes.’

Then his lips were on hers. Gentle at first, a tender pressure that deepened as she opened her mouth to him. The first touch of his tongue sent electricity zinging through her veins. His hands circled her waist and pulled her closer, his arousal evident in the hardness pressing against her belly. She opened her eyes, reached up on her tiptoes and watched the look of exquisite joy on his face as she deepened the kiss. He tasted just like she knew he would, of man and sex and something exquisite. A deep groan erupted from his throat, sending shock waves of want spiralling through her body.

Eventually she ripped her mouth away, inhaled deeply to steady herself. Looked up into those dark eyes that stole her breath. ‘Well, wow, Dr Price. Not half bad. Is this the way you say goodnight to all your colleagues?’

‘Nah, I heard Matt’s a rubbish kisser. You, however...’ He leaned back in for round two. ‘And I thought you weren’t even tempted? Tut tut,’ he murmured into her mouth, then his lips traced a trail of kisses down her neck. ‘So much for me being on my best behaviour. You’re leading me astray.’

She curled into his heat. ‘It’s a temporary lapse. I’ll be right back to normal.... Oooh, this is heaven.’ This was intoxicating. Addictive.

This was... A red light up in the corner of the ceiling distracted her. A smoke alarm? A CCTV camera? Anger mixed with the fire surging through her. Would she ever be allowed some privacy?

This was way past stupid.

She pushed her palms against his chest and stepped back, swiped her hand against swollen lips. ‘I’ve got to go.’

‘Hey. What does that mean?’

She waited for him to call her a tease, but he just stared at her, confusion and the dying traces of desire in his eyes.

It means I’m losing my marbles.
‘It means I’m going to bed. It means this shouldn’t have happened and it won’t ever happen again. Think of your job. Of Davide.’

She stumbled to her hotel room door, all the while feeling the glare of his disappointed gaze on her back. The fading heat of the kiss, the fun of doing something dangerous and unpredictable, fizzled into the dry stale air. This time the swipe card worked like a dream. But once again she leaned back against the door and pressed her fingertips around her temples trying to calm down, to rid herself of the intense hum zipping through her body.

‘Three hundred. Two hundred and ninety-nine. Two hundred and ninety-bloody-eight...’

After two rounds she was back in control.

She stalked to the bathroom and shoved a glass under the cold water tap, ran the rim over her forehead. ‘Go to hell with your stupid list, and leave me alone.’

She stared at her reflection in the mirror, at her dishevelled hair and bruised lips, so unused to kissing. The telltale misty eyes that told her she’d been on a hiding to nothing. No way would she allow a man to disrupt the life she’d made for herself. No way would she fall under the spell of yet another gold-digger, or plain outright liar.

The kiss had been a minor slip. Straightening her shoulders as she scrubbed make-up remover over her cheeks she talked sense to herself. ‘Daniella Danatello, you are a good person. You have not failed. One smoking-hot kiss does not mean you have no self-control.’

One smoking-hot kiss would not change the fact that men were off limits.

One smoking-hot kiss did not break her father’s celibacy rule.

One smoking-hot kiss... But damn, it had been good.

CHAPTER FIVE

‘S
O
,
SPILL
THE
goss. What’s Dr Delicious like to work with? Soooo cute.’ Desere sighed, and checked herself in the gaudy gilt-edged hotel bathroom mirror as she applied the glossiest red lipstick Dani had ever seen.

Dani deflected the conversation away from Zac. With a bit of luck Desere wouldn’t notice. ‘Nice lippy. Suits you.’

‘Gorgeous, isn’t it? Freebie from Fashion Week.’ Her sister waved the lipstick in front of Dani’s face. All thoughts of previous conversations clearly evaporated at the mention of make-up. ‘Only twenty in the whole country and the waiting list is huge. You should put your name down.’

‘Hmm. I can wait.’

Desere smoothed down her two-sizes-too-small tee and checked her sprayed-on snakeskin jeans-clad backside from all angles. ‘Ohmygod, this lighting is a disaster. I look terrible.’

Dani tried to mould her frown into a saintly smile. But failed, badly. Why did everything have to revolve around how her sister looked and not what she did? But then what did Desere do, apart from smile and preen in designer dresses and do her father’s bidding? Desere made vacuous an art form. Thankfully. At least now Zac was lost somewhere in the empty corners of her sister’s brain. ‘Deanna, you look amazing. As always.’

‘And you could too. If only you’d make an effort. Look at that tracksuit. So shapeless.’ She unzipped Dani’s top to expose a bit of cleavage. ‘Doesn’t show off your best assets. Next year we’ll get Luigi to design the team outfit’he’d know how to work it for you. Now, we need to get going.’

‘I don’t need assets when I’m working and I need to be comfortable on a team-bonding trip...wait...’ Dani zipped her top up to her chin, then held up her finger. ‘
We
need to get going?’ Reality seeped into her muddled head. Thinking straight since Zac’s kiss two days ago had been almost impossible. For some reason every time she found herself next to him in the treatment room she wanted to add things to his stupid list. ‘Firstly, wives and girlfriends are supposed to be banned from the hotel. And secondly, you’re dressed...
down
. You didn’t just drop by to say hello to me, did you? You’re coming with us? On the helicopter sky tour and the jet-boat ride?’ She struggled to control the irritation. Typical Desere to muscle in on the perks of the job. When would she stop interfering in her life?

‘Daddy wanted all his girls here to up the
wow
factor for the media coverage. It’s our last chance before you go into closed camp in Rotorua tomorrow. So, I guess you could say I’m working too.’ She smiled the famous Desere Danatello smile, slightly tilted jaw, perfect teeth and come-to-bed eyes. The spontaneous look she’d spent years perfecting. ‘We can’t all indulge ourselves with a little
profession.
Some of us need to uphold the family reputation.’

Desere tapped Dani on the nose as if she were her pesky chihuahua. And for a moment, Dani imagined how wonderful it would be to run off back to her cosy anonymous cottage, and leave them all to it. Her sisters, father, the whole charade. But leaving them without a physio would only bring more shame on the Danatello name’like she hadn’t made a profession out of that already.

Her big sister scrutinised her. ‘Okay, let me wield some magic. Just a little hitch of the strap here. A stray lock of hair here. A smudge of lip gloss. Pinked-up cheeks.’

‘Desere, I can manage quite well on my own.’

‘Never turn down an offer of help from an expert, darling.’ Dani had given up trying to stop her doing this. She sucked in the nightmare’as soon as Desere was gone she’d wipe the mess off. Easier to do that than to have her sister sulking. Desere stepped back to admire her handiwork. ‘Pretty. And I don’t think I’m the only one to think so.’

Dani’s heart hammered against her rib cage. ‘Oh?’

‘Oh? Dr Delicious, oh? Dr you’re-just-too-good-to-be-true. Dr can’t-take-my-eyes-off-you.’ And now the nightmare came with a cheesy soundtrack. ‘Come on, Dani, the man’s hot for you.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘Strange, I know, when you spend the day wearing shapeless tracksuits. But hey, who am I to judge?’

‘Because that’s what you do best.’ What the whole Danatello clan did. Poor? Don’t bother speaking to us. Unimportant? Average? Get in line.

Years ago Dani had longed for a regular sister she could confide in. To talk about things like the earth-shattering kiss. About the confusion Zac had wreaked in her body and her head. To ask what to do. What to say. How to feel. But Desere surely wasn’t the right person. Had never been. Since the death of their mother Desere had moulded herself into being Daddy’s right-hand woman.

In the end Dani had learned it was easier to keep her own counsel’or share with her friends, the people she could truly trust, back home in Wellington. Far away from this madness. ‘Zac’s just a colleague.’

‘Don’t frown, darling. You’ll get premature lines. Maybe you should start with some fillers soon?’ Desere blotted her lips on a tissue from the jewel-encrusted tissue box. Stacked high with cologne, deodorant, fluffy startlingly white face cloths, the executive suite bathroom lacked nothing. ‘Colleague or not. The man’s a god.’

A god with a dirty mind. And hot hands. And a list... Dani bit the inside of her cheek and held back the smile. ‘Haven’t noticed.’

‘Then you need your eyes tested. Okay. Let’s go.’ Picking up her clutch her sister opened the bathroom door.

But she wouldn’t let the Zac subject drop.

In the hallway. ‘‘Do you know how highly Daddy rates him? Word is, as soon as this tournament’s over the doc’s jumping ship.’

This was news. ‘Oh? To where?’

‘Bigger and better. National teams? Olympic committee?’

Dani shouldn’t have been surprised. He was good at what he did. At
everything
he did. Seduction. Kissing...

In the lift. ‘He’d be a great asset if he were to stay here permanently. If you know what I mean.’ She winked.

Getting tired of the innuendo Dani went for plain talking. ‘Let’s get this straight. You want me to ask him to stay on? Like what I say to him will make a difference? I’m sure Zac will do whatever he wants to without me interfering.’

‘I’m not asking you to interfere. But there are other things you could do to make it more...attractive for him to stay.’

Was this for real? Desere honestly thought it would be that easy to entice a man into signing a contract? But then, heck, she’d done it with Joseph. But what about the life Dani had so carefully created for herself? In Wellington? Far away from the Auckland Jets. ‘You want me to seduce him? Does Daddy know? What about his rules?’

‘Since when did you ever follow Daddy’s rules, sweetie?’

‘Ouch.’ But sure, she had a point. And Dani had set her heart on finding favour with Davide again. But not like this. There was a limit to how far she was willing to take this thing she had for Zac. And it ended with that kiss. ‘No way. No way.’

In the lobby. ‘I’m just saying, you could
encourage
him to stay after the tournament. It wouldn’t be such a hardship. Just look at him.’

Dani followed her sister’s gaze to the huddle of men waiting for them in the middle of the hotel lobby. Without intending to, without seeking him out, he was the first man her eyes settled on. As broad and tall as the players any other man might have faded into the mass of testosterone and sharp shaven jaws. But Zac stood out, radiating charisma and confidence. His smile, as always, turning her steady heart rate to a jumping mess. Damn him.

Desere’s voice lowered as she wrapped Dani into a hug. ‘Think about it, sis. It’s not all about you. It’s about family. Family’s what’s important. Keep the doctor here. What is it they say? Take one for the team. Do it for Daddy.’

Love her or hate her, and Dani regularly veered between the two, Desere knew exactly where to stick the knife. Dani rose above her sister’s stupid idea, looked beyond her and over to Zac. If anything happened between them it would be pure and based on honesty.

‘No, Des. Not happening. I’m not prostituting myself for anyone. Ever. Paul’s fake proposal was bad enough.’ There’d been too much pretence in her love life already. She’d never do that willingly. Even if it meant the rift between herself and Davide never healed.

But now wasn’t the time or the place to further this conversation. There were cameras. And even though on the red carpet she’d let them get to her, she was never going to allow that again. She jutted her chin, sucked in her stomach and breathed in. This time she would show them.

‘Give them your best smile, Daniella. And think about it. Catching a man for Daddy would be easy payback.’ Desere pulled away slightly. A frown line she would have been mortified to know about appeared on her forehead; the light in her green eyes dulled a little. For the first time ever, Dani glimpsed a flicker of weariness. ‘It’s not so bad. Honestly.’

* * *

So plan A hadn’t quite panned out the way Zac had imagined. The whole
colleagues
thing had morphed suddenly into way more than that. Crazy didn’t describe it. One minute he’d vowed not to flirt. The next he’d had her in his arms.

It had taken hours to slow his tachycardia, to deal with the excess adrenalin surging round his body. And he’d given up trying to extinguish the image of her face from his brain; it was getting close to a point where he couldn’t think straight. There was a duel raging between his head and his heart.

Which was why he needed to have that conversation with her. The one that went,
Great kiss, but...

Before he got in any deeper.

Trouble was, she’d perfected the art of avoidance. Or tried to wither him with a stare any time he got too close.

And now with Davide and Matt at some important coaches’ meeting, he and Dani were playing minders to a bunch of hyped-up athletes.

Having been assigned the last helicopter he was running late but caught up with her at the front of the jet-boat queue trying to keep twenty-two men under control.

She nodded towards him but her manner was as cold as the ocean. ‘Joseph, get back here, the boat’s leaving in a minute. Manu, put the ball away. It’ll end up in the water and you with it.’

Zac shook his head. Since she only responded to anything rugby-related at the moment he went for that. ‘Don’t worry, princess, they’ll quieten down once they’re on the boat. Nothing like a thick metal seatbelt to inflict restraint.’

She fixed him with that stare again. ‘Sorry. You talking to me?’

‘Don’t see anyone else who might fit that description. Apart from possibly our new superstar game maker turned diva, Jaxon. Or your lovely sister.’ He nodded over to where Desere stood in the shade in the highest heels and tightest jeans he’d ever seen. Whoever christened her as demure needed their eyes tested. And as for dazzling Deanna...Dani beat them in both stakes, hands down.

Desere waved her middle three fingers and winked. At him? No. At Dani. Strange. But that was sisters for you. ‘She just winked.’

‘Ignore her. She’ll be going soon. For a start she’ll never get on the boat in those shoes, and secondly, the wind and the spray will ruin her hair and she’d never let that happen. She’s only here for the photos. But I’m sure she’d love to talk to you. She’s a big fan. Apparently. Go ahead. Meanwhile I’ll attempt to do our job and control the mob. Any time you feel like helping, jump right in.’

‘So I guess this isn’t a good time to talk about that kiss?’

‘What...?’ She held his gaze. He watched the temptation to soften flicker across her eyes, the desire to talk about what was simmering between them, the determination not to. ‘No. Never will be.’

She folded her arms over her chest and stared into middle distance as if something really important had snatched her focus. Then she gasped and stalked up to one of the players. ‘Joseph. Is that...?’ she hissed, obviously trying not to alert the circling media to the crisis. ‘A hip flask? Give it to me. No alcohol. You know the rules.’

Okay, backup needed. Knowing how much the success of this trip meant to Dani, and knowing when to call a halt to high jinks, Zac stepped in. He took the silver canister out of the flanker’s hand and slipped it into his pocket. His good humour failing fast. ‘What the hell are you doing? Where did you get this? You know it’s out of bounds.’

Joseph shrugged. But his eyes flitted over to his wife, and back. Before Zac could intervene Dani was at her sister’s side. Or rather, in her sister’s face. ‘You brought this for him? Well, thanks for the support.’

Desere flicked her hand nonchalantly. ‘Let loose a little, sis. I was trying to help. He’s missing me and needs to chill out. Like you.’

Clearly her sister didn’t realise the importance of this for Daniella. ‘Desere, alcohol is strictly banned. The others are bound to get jealous if Joseph flouts the rules. That could cause a ruck and bad morale.’

‘Yes, Zac. I know. I’m very sorry.’ She pouted and for a second Zac really thought she meant it. But the light in her eyes belied her true feelings. Like her father, Desere said the right things but you never quite knew what was going on behind the eyes.

Whereas Daniella was so different; everything she felt or thought was written on her face plain as day. And, weird, he kind of just knew with her. Knew when to get close, knew when to back off. When to kiss her. When to tease. Knew how much she wanted him. How much she pretended not to.

He’d never had that before. Understood someone so completely. It was unnerving and comforting at the same time. And he didn’t know what to do with it. Walking away was proving all kinds of difficult.

Desere’s pout changed to a smile. ‘And sex is banned too, that right, Dani?’ Her pupils flared like she was sharing some kind of private joke. She tapped the side of her nose. ‘But we both know we can get round it if we want to...’

From where he was standing he could see Dani’s hands fisting at her sides. She closed her eyes as red seeped into her cheeks. No’slammed into her cheeks, ears, tip of her nose.

She stepped forward, her shoulders rigid. Her mouth a thin taut line. And he wrestled down the need to speak out for her. The need to help. But what he knew of Dani so far was that she wouldn’t thank him for fighting her battles. No matter how painful it was to be on the sideline.