The Passion of Patrick MacNeill (6 page)

She hugged the plush toy cradled in her arms: Finn MacCool, a sign of little Iron Man's bravery, a talisman against things that went bump in the night.

Don't be such a coward, Katie, she told herself, and hurried for the stairs.

Chapter 5

«
^
»

T
he carpeted steps absorbed the squeak of Kate's sensible shoes. On the landing, a lamp cast a pool of yellow light. She hesitated at the top of the stairs, reluctant to trespass beyond that lit circle into the shadowed hall.

A door clicked shut. Glancing toward the sound, she saw the dark profile of Patrick MacNeill outside his son's bedroom. He leaned against the door frame as if, Kate thought with a queer twist of heart, for that one private moment he needed its support. His strong head bowed.

Something fierce kindled to life inside her, surprising her with sudden heat. Impelled by a surgeon's need to heal, a woman's need to touch, she bustled down the hall with Jack's bear in her arms.

"Mr.—Patrick?"

He whirled at her whisper, head snapped back.

Kate stopped three feet away. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to intrude. It's just I found this downstairs and I thought…" He regarded her impassively. She extended the toy, feeling foolish and inadequate. "Does Jack need it?"

His tense shoulders eased. His teeth glimmered in his shadowed face. "Trying to make things all better again, Doctor?"

If only she could. "That's my job."

His long fingers reached out and plucked the bear from her grasp. "Thank you," he said, so gravely she wondered if he mocked her. "It was thoughtful."

Dismissed.
She watched as he tapped on the paneled door and went in. "Hey, Jack-o, missing somebody?"

"MacCool!"

The boy's happiness reached all the way into the hall. Smiling, Kate leaned against the wall. She should go downstairs, she thought, listening to Jack's muffled explanations and his father's soft, rumbling reply. She would go downstairs, in just a minute.

She stayed where she was, heart heating high and fast.

Patrick backed out of the open doorway, shoulders blocking the faint glow of the boy's night-light. "‘Night, now, buddy."

"‘Night, Daddy. Tell Dr. Kate thank you."

"I will. Sleep tight."

He pulled the door shut, the click of the lock unnaturally loud in the stillness of the hall, and turned.

"You're still here."

Kate felt a flare in her stomach that wasn't indigestion and swallowed her excitement. "Looks like it."

"Missing somebody?" he taunted gently.

She didn't answer. He rested one hand on the wall above her, close enough for her to feel the warmth emanating from his body, close enough for his breath to touch her face. She saw his eyes, with their thick, short lashes, his pupils nearly swallowing the blazing blue. Her stomach squeezed into her chest, crowding her lungs. She couldn't breathe. She felt the warmth of his arm, close by her head. She heard her blood thundering in her ears, and the rasp of his quickly indrawn breath.

He kissed her.

It was over before she could say if she liked it, before she had time to react. He lifted his head, and she felt the absence of his mouth more keenly than she had felt its pressure a moment before.

"Well?"

She lifted her chin. She had to, to meet his gaze. "Well, what?"

His firm, well-shaped lips curved at the corners. "Are you going to object?"

She dug deep for a cool response, her hands pressed flat to the wall behind her. He was probably the most vital, potent man she'd ever met, and she was merely unattractive Katie Sue Sinclair, too smart for her own good and stupid with men. She couldn't let him see how he got to her, how she was affected by his nearness. He would eat her alive.

Maybe she wanted him to.

Greatly daring, she replied, "To what? You didn't give me much to go on."

The arm above her tensed with surprise. Good, Kate thought, savoring the heady, unfamiliar awareness of feminine power. And then his mouth came down on hers, and her brief satisfaction caught like paper and went up in smoke.

Hot. His mouth was so incredibly hot and moist. Her own temperature shot up several degrees in response. His teeth nipped at her lower lip. His tongue thrust into her mouth. With hold, lavish strokes, he fed and consumed her. Thought fled, and the darkness behind her closed lids was streaked with fire.

"I can give you more," he promised.

Muscled and heavy and hot, he pressed all along the front of her, crushing her against the smooth, cool wall at her back. The contrast made her toes curl. Her hands abandoned the painted plaster for the hard curve of his shoulders.

He made an encouraging sound deep in his throat, tangling his fingers in her hair, angling her head to take more of him. She wanted more. She wanted everything. Blanketed by sensation, covered by his body, she ignited. Her hands flashed over him, the long muscles of his back, the taut, high buttocks.

Greedy, grasping, as if she could gather him up and into her.
It wasn't enough.

He widened his stance, letting her feel the ridge of his desire. Oh, glory. She was not a passionate woman. She wasn't. But as his rough hand glided up from her waist to cover her breast, she shuddered at the intimacy, arching her back to push her aching nipple into his palm.

He tore his mouth away and leaned his forehead against hers. His was damp with sweat. Maybe hers was, too. Dropping her head, she nuzzled the strong column of his throat, intoxicated by the smell of soap and skin.

"Not here," he murmured.

Reason blipped across her mind like the warning tone of a heart monitor. She opened her eyes. "What?"

"Not in the hall, Kate." He sounded patient, almost amused. She might have believed in his good humor if she hadn't felt his impatience pressing against her stomach. "Not when I've got a perfectly good bed to take you to."

Panic.
She wasn't ready for this. She wasn't good at this. "Is that what you think you're doing? Taking me to bed?" Her voice was too high.
Shaky.
She hated it.

He eased up on her slightly so that she no longer felt him warm and close. She shivered in reaction, in longing, her body protesting the loss of his heat.

"Aren't I?" he asked coolly.

She hugged her elbows, not meeting his eyes. "No. I'm sorry. It wouldn't be… It's a completely understandable assumption for you to make, given the way I was grabbing at you. But—"

"I didn't mind," he interrupted her.

She felt the slow, betraying crawl of blood in her cheeks. "Yes, well, I shouldn't have done it. It was unprofessional. I realize I aroused, um, created expectations that I had no intentions of satisfying, but—"

His arm dropped from the wall beside her head. He took a step back. "Kate, relax. What do you think I'm going to do? Jump my child's doctor outside his bedroom?"

"No, of course not."
She drew a deep breath. "I'm sorry," she said again.

Patrick bit back his frustration. His blood pooled in his loins and pounded in his veins. He could ignore it. What he couldn't dismiss was Kate's obvious distress. He didn't like seeing the brisk and bossy lady doctor so miserable and uncertain. What bastard in her past had convinced her that his erection was her responsibility?

"Not a problem," he assured her roughly. "Let's go downstairs."

Her neat white teeth bit down on her lower lip. Patrick wanted to soothe the tiny sting with his tongue.

His hands clenched at his sides. Sweet heaven, did she have any idea what it did to a man's guts to look at her, with her tidy blouse rumpled and her wavy hair slipping free and her intelligent eyes dark and cloudy with desire?

Of course she did. No wonder she couldn't wait to get away. He jeered his eager body. In his present state, hard as a rocket and ready to burn, he wasn't fit for a first-time lover. It had been too damn long.

"Downstairs," he repeated firmly. "I'll make us coffee."

Straightening her shoulders, she nodded, still not quite meeting his gaze. She marched down the steps in front of him like she was going to her own court martial. He would have laughed if he hadn't found her discipline so endearing, if he weren't still struggling for his own control.

"You want to wait in the dining room? I'll bring it in."

She needed the space, he figured, to reestablish some professional distance between them. He needed the time to cool down.

So he waved her into the dining room while he went into the kitchen. He rinsed out the coffeemaker, counting on the small domestic routine to distract his ready body. Who would have guessed the tart-tongued, prickly doctor would have this effect on him?

He caught himself grinning like a fool at his reflection in the coffeepot. He shook his head in disbelief, jolted as much by the force of his desire as by its unlikely object. The last time the MacNeill clan had gathered he'd flown Jack to his parents' house for Easter—his worried mother had made her oldest son's celibacy a topic of family concern.

"Four years is a long time,
Padraig
," she'd said in her forthright way, using his Gaelic name.
"Too long for a man to do without.
It's not healthy."

Sean, seeing the warning light in his brother's eye, spoke up. "That's not what you told us in high school, Mom."

And Con, closer in age, added in his cool, assessing way, "Give it time. He might surprise you.
Or himself."

At the time, Patrick had appreciated his brothers' intervention without giving much weight to their words. Holly's accident had killed his desire. All his energy and attention since then had been focused on Jack. It was disconcerting to discover that all systems were
go
again.

Not that he was going anywhere. Kate Sinclair had called a halt to that.

Patrick spooned grounds into a paper filter, the rich aroma sharp to his heightened senses. He should be glad. He had no heart for a serious relationship, and she struck him as a woman who took most things seriously. Pushy, opinionated and probing, she was the worst woman in the world for him.

Yet he was oddly grateful to her. There was something reassuring about his body's almost painful response to that unexpectedly passionate kiss in the hall. Patrick grinned derisively. Sort of like completing a successful pre-flight inspection when you had no intention of taking off.

When the coffee finished dripping, he filled two mugs and carried them through to the dining room. Kate turned quickly from her examination of the pine breakfront to accept the proffered cup. She was wearing her doctor's face again, he noted, interested and polite.

"Black, right?"

"Yes. Thank you." She blew on the coffee before sipping. "You have some lovely pieces here," she added, nodding toward the cabinet.

He had a bowl and a jug of blue-glazed
North Carolina
pottery, a
Waterford
bud vase he'd given Holly on their first anniversary and an incomplete set of his grandmother's china. Nothing, Patrick thought, to arouse much excitement.
Which probably explained the doctor's intense interest in them now.

"Thanks," he said wryly.

She actually tossed her head, so that her light brown curls danced above her shoulders, and stabbed one slim finger at the glass.
"Yours?"

He moved closer to see what had brought that note of challenge into her voice. A miniature tea set was displayed on the second shelf, its delicate, creamy porcelain painted with twining shamrocks.

"My mother's."

She inspected it, her face softening. "It's very pretty," she said, almost wistfully.

Her yearning expression pulled another admission from him. "She gave it to us when Holly was pregnant. Said she hoped it would encourage us to produce a female grandchild."

"Oh, that's sweet."

Kate was sweet, Patrick thought with a shock. Her wavy hair, scented by some
citrusy
shampoo, brushed his shoulder. Her face was open as a child's. Her very vulnerability made her dangerous in a way her no-nonsense competence did not. He tightened his hands on his coffee mug until it seared his palms and stepped back, away from her.

"
We going
to talk about tea sets all night?"

"No, of course not.
Actually…" She squared her shoulders. "I felt we should talk about what happened upstairs just now."

He lifted an eyebrow. He couldn't resist. The workings of this woman's mind were a mystery and delight to him. "What happened?"

"What
didn't
happen," she clarified. "What isn't
going
to
happen.
"

Amusement loosened the knot in his gut.
"Fine.
What isn't going to happen?"

"We're not going to have a relationship. Apart from Jack being a patient at the burn center, I mean."

He'd just finished telling himself the same thing. So why did it irk him to hear it from her?

"And how are we not going to do that?"