Three

It felt strange, her bare feet against the carpet, her nude body moving as she walked, nothing covering her but the plaster on her arms. By the time she reached the living room, walking slowly, because she was feeling just a little dizzy, she was actually starting to enjoy herself. It still had an edge to naughtiness about it – a “look Ma! No clothes!” feel to it, and a slight element of discomfort, but it felt free, too. She was walking around naked in her own home, and it felt good. She smiled, walked over to her favourite chair and sat down, the material rough against her bare backside. She leaned back and crossed her legs. Yes, that felt good too. Particularly since her head was swimming. Those painkillers really did have a lingering effect. She supposed that Richard might have had a point about her staying in bed. But still.

She looked around the room, at the rich, square rug that took up most of the floor, the paintings on the wall. All of them had been lovingly chosen. All of them were hers, except for a photograph of Fiona and herself on a holiday at the beach. They had joint ownership of that.

Waiting until she felt completely steady again, Allie stood up to walk over to look at one of her favourite paintings, a waterfall scene, rendered in oils, all blues and greens and frothy whites. She’d picked it up at a market once, from the artist herself, and while she genuinely believed that it was going to appreciate in value, she had admitted to herself some time ago that she had no intention of parting with it. She was a hoarder, and she knew it. She was smiling at the thought when she heard the door pushed open behind her.

Every muscle tightened, but she forced herself to stay where she was, her back still to the door.

Callum had seen her naked more times than anyone in history, and she knew he was going to be annoyed that his ploy to keep her in her room by leaving her naked had failed. That pleased her, even though she knew he was going to tease her mercilessly. She really liked the idea of proving him wrong in his assumption that she wasn’t going to have the strength to face this particular demon. So, she took a breath, spun around, and with her arms wide, said “Well, it didn’t work, did….” and froze.

Her boss, Mr Arnold Carter, owner of Carter and Associates, Architects and Designers, stood transfixed in the doorway, his jaw on his chest and his eyes on her breasts. Allie dropped into a crouch, one plaster cast over her chest, her other hand hanging low.

“Ummm….” No words were coming, and from the look of him, he was having the same trouble.

Fortunately Callum, walking into the open door behind him, didn’t suffer the same problem.

“Oh no,” he said, advancing fast and dropping his file on a chair. “I’m sorry, Allie. Oh geez, I’m a poor excuse for a nurse, aren’t I?” He pulled his t-shirt over his head as he walked, and he brushed past Mr Carter, crossed the room to her and tugged it over her head. He gave her a quick hug, willing some life back into that still, bright red face. He turned back to the visitor, talking fast.

“I’m supposed to be helping her, but I went upstairs to my flat while she was in the shower, and she can’t manage to open doors or put clothes on by herself, so she must have had to move around to dry off. Is that what happened, Allie?”

“Yes,” she managed to say quietly. “Mr Carter, this is Callum Webster. Callum, this is my boss.” Callum had obviously worked that out already. He wouldn’t have wasted an explanation like that on someone he thought was a door to door salesman.

“Mr Carter?” he asked. “You’re an hour early.” He walked towards him, hand out.

“Yes,” Mr Carter recovered his voice. “My meetings finished faster than I had thought. I’m sorry to surprise you. Good to meet you, Callum.”
”And you,” Callum said. “Would you like to take a seat? I’ll just put some coffee on and then help Allie to get some clothes on.”

“No, don’t bother,” he said, obviously conscious of Allie’s embarrassment as well as of his own discomfort. “I only dropped in to see if Allison is on the mend. I didn’t intend to stay.”

“Please,” Allie found her voice. “Please stay for a coffee, Mr Carter. I’d really like to catch up on what’s been happening at work.” She knew that if she didn’t face him now, she was never going to be able to in future.

“The coffee won’t take long,” Callum added his voice. Mr Carter looked at him, then back at Allie, and smiled.

“Of course,” he said politely.

He sat down while Callum followed Allie into her room.

“Not a word,” she said under her breath as he closed the door. “Not a single word.”
”I wouldn’t dream of it,” he said, eyes full of laughter. “At least, not until he’s left. What do you want to put on, Al?”

“A habit,” she said. “Or something like Muslim women wear. With a veil.” He grinned.

“How about some jeans and a shirt?” he suggested as she sank down on the bed. Despite Allie feeling as if her limbs were never going to work again (and that she probably wasn’t going to either), she was dressed in a matter of minutes. Callum was getting good at it. He even brushed her hair before he settled her into bed and brought Mr Carter into the room.

Allie’s face was still red and her voice still hesitant. She decided to get it over quickly.

“I’m so sorry about that,” she said, as he sat down in a chair Callum had put at the foot of the bed. Mr Carter smiled. He was a nice man, middle-aged and single, “married to the job” as he often put it, and he had taken an interest in her design work on a number of occasions.

“Would it be un-gentlemanly of me to say that I’m not?” he responded, his eyes twinkling behind his glasses. “Ah, now I’ve made you blush again. I’m sorry, Allison. I shouldn’t have come in without knocking, but the door was open.”
“Callum left it open so he could hear me if I called,” she said. “Because I can’t manage door handles yet.” She held up her arms, recently used as body covers.

“Are they mending okay?” Mr Carter asked, nicely changing the subject. She nodded. They talked for a while about the accident itself, about her pain levels, about a broken leg he’d had several years before.

“Anyway, the swelling hasn’t gone down enough for me to move my fingers yet, so I’m totally reliant on my friend here,” Allie said. Callum was coming through the door with a tray on which three coffee mugs were steaming.

”You’re a nurse?” Mr Carter directed that to Callum, who laughed.

“No, I’m an accountant,” he said. “But I live upstairs and I’m a friend of Allie’s, so I stepped into the breach when she discharged herself from hospital.”
”I heard that you discharged yourself,” Mr Carter said, looking concerned. “That doesn’t seem like a sensible thing to do, Allison?”
”No, it wasn’t,” she conceded. “But I hated it there, and Callum was nice enough to take time off to help me, so it’s worked out okay.”

“But he’s not a nurse?” Mr Carter seemed perturbed. His face brightened. “Would you like me to hire a nurse to take care of you instead? The company will pay, of course.” Allie didn’t know what to say. Callum said it for her.

“It’s not necessary, Mr Carter. As she said, I’ve taken time off work, and apart from my silliness in deserting her while she was showering, we’ve got most of the process worked out between us, haven’t we, Allie?” She considered that for a few seconds, thinking through the indignities of being dressed by him, bathed by him and tended by him in all manner of personal, private ways. And she thought about the fact that he’d put himself out to look after her, and that having a nurse would mean being handled by a stranger. And she looked into his familiar, smiling face and smiled back at him.

“Yes, we have,” she said. “But thank you for offering, Mr Carter.” The owner of her company had missed nothing in the exchange of looks between the two of them and was rapidly coming to his own conclusions about their relationship. It was evident in his expression, but neither of them bothered to correct him.

“How is the Mollison job going?” Allie asked.

“Not as well as it was when you were calming David Mollison down on a daily basis,” Mr Carter smiled ruefully. “No-one else seems to have quite your touch with him. And Margaret O’Connor rang me personally to complain that you’d been taken off her job too.” Allie beamed, unable to conceal her pleasure.

“They both like to talk things through a lot,” she said. “Neither of the jobs is huge, but they’re very important to both of them.”

“And they’re important to us,” her boss agreed. “They’re both influential people, and word of mouth is the best advertising anyone can have. Even in accountancy I would think?” He looked at Callum.

“Definitely,” Callum agreed. “Although Stokes, Miller and Henderson still spends a small fortune on advertising.”
”You’re with SMH?” Mr Carter was obviously surprised. The accountancy firm was the top one of its kind in the city and had the reputation of employing only top flight whiz-kids. The young man sitting on the bed wearing an old t-shirt and ratty jeans did not seem to fit the bill.

“He’s a junior partner there,” Allie offered, proud of her friend. Callum shot her a side-long look of amusement.

“Really?” Mr Carter was obviously surprised. Then his forehead crinkled as he thought of something. “Now that I think about it, I’ve heard of you. You did the start-up work for that big legal firm, didn’t you?”
”Hodges and Hughes, yes,” Callum nodded. He had worked, breathed, eaten and dreamt of nothing else for almost three months. It had earned him his promotion.

“They were very impressed,” the older man commended him. “They’ve been singing your praises everywhere.”
”That’s nice of them,” Callum looked slightly embarrassed. He stood up. “Anyway, I should leave you to talk work for a while,” he said. “Yell out if you need anything.”

Mr Carter ended up staying for almost an hour, talking through a range of issues to do with the jobs Allie had been working on, as well as several she had only heard of. She was astonished when he actually asked her opinion on a few of them, and was even more surprised to find that he had a nice, gentle sense of humour and was very easy to talk to. She was sorry when he eventually looked at his watch and said that he really had to leave.

“Thank you for visiting me,” she smiled at him.

“Several people have been wanting to, but I claimed the right to be the first visitor,” he said. His eyes crinkled with amusement. “And I’m very pleased I did,” he added. Allie almost blushed, but sighed instead. Mr Carter laughed, an infectious chuckle.

“That’s right,” he approved. “It’s always best to laugh it off, Allison.” He walked around the side of the bed, reached out for her hand and realised in time that it wasn’t a good idea. Instead, he patted her shoulder gently.

“Get better soon, my dear,” he said. “And as soon as you’re feeling up to it, I’ll send you some work over for your ideas and input. How would that be?”
”That would be wonderful!” Allie was thrilled at the thought. “Why don’t you send some over straight away?” Mr Carter smiled and shook his head.

”You just relax and let your young man look after you for a while,” he advised. “He can let me know when you’re ready. He’s obviously got a very good head on his shoulders.”

”I’d like a tape of you saying that,” Callum said, walking into the room again. “So I can play it to her every time she argues with me.” Mr Carter laughed, patted Allie’s shoulder again and left, making Callum promise to call him if she needed anything. Anything at all.

It was only after he was gone that Allie permitted herself to sink down into the pillows and wallow in the mortification of the memory of exposing herself to the owner of the business she worked for. Callum came back into the bedroom, took one look at her, and burst out laughing.

“It’s too late for that now, Allie,” he said, crossing over to the bed, climbing on it and pulling her into his arms for a hug.

“I can’t believe that happened,” she moaned into his shoulder. “He saw me NAKED, Callum!”

“And I’m sure it made his day,” Callum assured her. He rubbed her back soothingly. “I know it makes my day every time I see you naked.” She growled, making him grin. “And yes, I know that it was my fault,” he added. She was struggling against him. He held her there. “But if you hadn’t gone out of this bedroom…”

“He’d have walked in here and seen me lying naked on the bed!” she ended for him.

“Well yes, there is that,” he conceded. He eased her back onto the pillows, then bent down and kissed her nose.

“I’m sorry,” he said, sounding sincere. “My intentions were good and he was early, but I’m sorry.” Allie narrowed her eyes at him, not sure whether to believe him. She decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.

“It turned out well anyway,” she admitted.

“It did,” he agreed. “Perhaps you should strip off in front of him more often?” He backed off the bed, laughing as she bared her teeth at him.

………………….

Against his better judgement, Callum allowed himself to be talked into opening a bottle of wine with dinner. Given that dinner consisted of two rounds of toasted cheese sandwiches, it certainly benefited from the accompaniment. The wine, an Australian chardonnay from Fiona’s collection, was chilled, crisp and dry, and Callum had helped Allie to down a second glass before he really thought about it. She was drinking it fast, enjoying the taste after more than a week of hospital food and then Callum’s cooking.

“You know, I’m sure you’re not supposed to drink alcohol when you’re on painkillers,” he said. He hadn’t had a lot of experience with things medical, but he was fairly certain of this.

“Does it say anything on the injections?” Allie asked.

“No,” he conceded. “But it did on the tablets.”
”I’m not on the tablets any more,” she pointed out. “Can I have some more?”
”No,” he said, putting the bottle down. “And I won’t either.”
”So we’re just going to waste it?” Allie eyed the bottle in horror. “Fiona would kill us!”
”Fiona isn’t here,” he replied. “And yes, we’re going to waste it. Now, Schwarzenegger or Van Damme?”

They settled for Arnold, and Callum turned the bedroom lights off and the volume up. The bed was the best place to view the television from, so he stretched out beside her, pillows propping him up. The movie was no more than twenty minutes in when Allie sighed loudly.

“What?” Callum asked, looking away from the carnage on the screen.

“Nothing,” she said sweetly. He returned his attention to the screen, then narrowed his eyes and looked back at her.

“Allie?” he asked.

“Hmmmmm?” she responded, smiling.

“Oh shit,” he muttered. He knew that glazed look. The combination of strong painkillers and two glasses of wine had obviously been too much for her. Allie kept smiling at him, then directed her unfocused gaze back at the television screen.

“Let’s get you ready for sleep,” Callum said. “That way you can just doze off any time and I won’t have to wake you.” By the way her eyes were closing, he thought that the “doze-off” was going to happen any minute. He knelt up, undid the clasp of the jeans she was still wearing and tugged them down her legs. He tugged too hard and pulled her with them, down off the pillows and onto the mattress, making her giggle. He ignored her, shaking his head as he dragged the jeans off her, only realising as he was pulling them over her feet that her panties were tangled up in them too. The light from the television screen provided more than enough illumination as he glanced up and saw that her t-shirt was hiked up around her navel, providing him with a comprehensive view of several miles of legs…and quite a bit more.

He decided he’d get the undressing part out of the way while she was still giggling to herself and happy, and he’d dress her again in a minute. He crawled back up the bed and pulled her up into a sitting position, lifting the t-shirt up and over her head.

“You’re always taking my clothes off,” Allie commented.
”Seems like it,” Callum agreed. He held her up with one hand while he undid her bra with the other. She let herself fall back down on the mattress as he took the last item off her, and her breasts bounced as she landed.

“They do that all the time,” she said conversationally, looking down at them.

“They do,” Callum said, still being agreeable. He picked up her t-shirt again, ready to put it back on her. Allie was still staring down at her breasts.

“Sit up, Al,” he said. “So I can put this on you.”
”Do you like them?” she asked, looking straight into his face. Callum blinked, and then grinned. Fiona was the heavy drinker of the two of them, but he’d certainly seen Allie in a state of inebriation on a number of occasions. She usually went through an argumentative stage before becoming cuddly and friendly and earnest like this. One New Years Eve, she’d spent an hour sitting on his lap telling him how much she liked everyone in the room, especially him. And she’d stroked his face all the time she was talking. She’d been mortified in the morning, and he’d teased her about it for ages. On this occasion, the combination of alcohol and drugs had obviously made her bypass the argumentative stage.

“Yes, I like them,” he said. “They’re lovely.”
”You think so?” she asked, looking down again. “They’re a bit big, I think.”
”I don’t,” he said. “Here, lean forward, Allie.” She shook her head vigorously.

“There they go again,” she said as her breasts moved. Callum swallowed a laugh and tried to put the t-shirt over her head again. She leaned away from him.

“I like it when you hold them,” she told him. “You know when you put a bra on me and you lift them up to make them comfy?” He nodded, not trusting himself to say anything in case she remembered any of this in the morning. “Well, I like that.”
”I do too,” he said.

“I didn’t like it the first time,” she said. “Well, I did, but I was embarrassed. And I was still embarrassed when you did it today, but it felt nice.”
”That’s nice,” Callum humoured her. He almost had the t-shirt over her head that time, but she suddenly rolled away from him, so fast he had to lunge to catch her around the middle with one arm before she fell off the bed.

“My butt’s definitely too big, though,” she said, craning back to look over her shoulder and down. Unable to stop himself from laughing this time, Callum shook his head.

“No it isn’t,” he assured her. “It’s perfect.”
”It isn’t,” she argued. “Look at it. It’s huge.” Obediently, he looked down. It was white and curvy and cute.

“It’s perfect,” he said again. “Al, let me put some clothes on you. Come on, roll back this way.” She rolled back, just as fast, rolling right against him, her face into his shoulder.

“I don’t like my body,” she confided. Even if she was drunk, that wasn’t something Callum found easy to accept.
”Why not?” he asked. The body in question was pressed against his now, plastered against him, and he had to move back a little to look down. “It’s a beautiful body.” She shook her head.

“Men look at me, but not many of them ask me out,” she said sadly. She sighed loudly.

“They do so,” Callum said, exasperated. He finally trapped her head with the t-shirt and tugged it over.

“They don’t,” she said through the material travelling over her face. “Well, some do, but not a lot.”

“What’s a lot?” Callum asked. He picked up one of her arms and tried to thread it through a sleeve of the t-shirt. It wasn’t easy when she didn’t co-operate.

“Well, I haven’t had as many boyfriends as Fiona,” she said.

“Madonna hasn’t had as many boyfriends as Fiona,” Callum pointed out. Allie considered this, then nodded.

“You’re probably right,” she said. “But still. Look at it. Just look at it.” She sat up suddenly, almost head-butting him. She looked down again. “It’s all white and pale and white.”

“It is,” he agreed, still trying to get her hand through the sleeve. “Allie, keep still, babe. I just need to get this on you so you can go to sleep.” Because he was concentrating, he didn’t see her next move in time, and when she launched herself at him, literally throwing herself against him, he fell back onto the bed with his arms full of her. She was lying full-length on top of him.

“You’re a nice mattress,” she commented, snuggling her head into his shoulder. Callum shut his eyes for a few seconds and laughed, letting his arms travel around her and hug her close against him. She wriggled and snuggled closer. He sighed, ran his hands down her back, cupped her bottom and rolled over, sitting her up again.

“Sit still, Allie,” he said firmly. “Now help me put this t-shirt on.” She slumped, shoulders down, making it even harder.

“See?” she said quietly. “Even you don’t like me.” Cursing to himself, Callum put one hand under her chin and tilted her face up to his.

“I like you lots,” he said.

“You don’t,” she disagreed vehemently, her voice rising. She was on the verge of drowning out a particularly loud battle scene on the television. Callum grinned down into her serious little face, then bent and kissed her on the mouth, hard.

“Mmmm,” Allie said, as if she’d just tasted something pleasant. She leaned up. “Do that again.” So he did, gentling off this time and pulling away only as her lips opened under his.

“You need to sleep, Allie,” he said. “Now help me put this t-shirt on you, or I swear I am going to leave you to sleep naked again tonight.” But she wouldn’t. No matter how much he tried to convince her, she wouldn’t stay still long enough for him to dress her, and he didn’t want to force her hands through the sleeves for fear of hurting her arms. Eventually, he gave up. He pulled the t-shirt off her head again and contented himself with tucking the covers over her firmly. Her eyelids were at half-mast by the time he picked up the pile of her clothes from the floor.

A glance at the bedside clock told him that she was due for her last painkiller injection, but there was no way he was putting more drugs into her system at this time. He decided that it would be better all round if he just sat up and watched her during the night to make sure she suffered no ill-effects from the toxic mix in her blood. He turned away from the bed, looking towards the chair and sighing at the thought of the uncomfortable night that was ahead of him.

“Give me a kiss,” Allie insisted. Smiling, Callum looked back at her.
”You’ve already had two,” he said. She shook her head.

“I want another one. A good night kiss,” she said, pursing her lips. He bent with the intention of kissing her quickly, but she pressed her mouth to his and tried to keep it there. He grinned as he straightened up.

“You have no idea how much I wish you were sober,” he said. He turned the television off, turned one bedside light on, and made his way over to the chair.

He pulled his own jeans off before settling into the chair, a blanket over him, his long legs stretched out in front of him. Not asleep, he was still startled when Allie sat up in bed almost half an hour later.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Resting,” he replied wearily.
”Why are you resting over there?” she asked.

“Because I want to keep an eye on you,” he replied.

“Come and lie down here,” she said, thumping the bed with her plaster. Callum winced, but it didn’t seem to hurt her.

“No,” he said. “I’ll be fine here. Lie down, Allie.” She didn’t. She looked at him for a full minute, her eyes wide. Then she struggled against the covers until she was standing up. Open-mouthed, Callum watched as she weaved her way across the room towards him, naked.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“You look lonely,” she said. “I’ll come over here.” With that, she sat down on his lap and wrapped one plaster-clad arm around his neck. “There, isn’t that comfortable?”
”Honestly?” he responded. “No, it’s not, Allie.” Comfortable was not the word he would choose at all. He looked into her serious face, down at the lovely, nude body draped over him, and then over at the empty bed.

“All right,” Callum gave up. He stood up, lifting her in his arms as he did, and walked back over to the bed, lying her down and climbing in beside her. He reasoned that he was still almost dressed, even if she wasn’t, and that it was a big bed. He pulled the covers over them both and put as much space between them as possible. Allie was having none of that.

Twice she moved towards him and twice he moved her back.

“Stay,” he heard himself say, as if he was talking to a naughty pet.

“No,” she said. The third time, he didn’t bother coaxing her back, he just put up with having a plaster cast over one of his shoulders, and three-quarters of a naked woman spread over his body. At least this way he could tell if she was still breathing, he told himself. He could feel her breathing against him, feel it in the breasts crushed against his chest, and in the smooth skin of her back, under the hand he couldn’t resist smoothing over it.

Part of him hoped that she wouldn’t remember any of this in the morning. And part of him, the part that had him laughing silently to himself, hoped that she would.

…………………

She remembered it. Even though he wasn’t in the bed when she woke up, and even though there was (miraculously) no headache to remind her, Allie remembered it. She moaned to herself as soon as recollection forced itself uncomfortably into her consciousness. She didn’t need to wriggle to know that she was still naked under the covers, and she didn’t have to think hard at all to know that Callum was going to be merciless about this. Particularly if she admitted to it. She caught herself on that thought.

Ten minutes later, he came into the room, his hair wet from a shower, a plate of toast and a glass of orange juice in his hands.

“Good morning,” he said with a smile. Despite his plans, he’d slept during the night and slept quite well. When he’d woken, she’d still been in his arms, her bare body lying across him. It had been a very pleasant sensation to wake up to, particularly since she’d sleepily protested and tried to nuzzle back when he rolled her off him. Callum was in a good mood and looking forward to delivering some serious teasing.

“Why aren’t I dressed?” Allie went on the offensive. Callum paused, mid-step.

“You don’t remember?” he asked.

“Obviously not,” Allie responded.

“Ohhhh,” he said, putting a wealth of meaning into that. He put the glass and plate down on the bedside table. “Gee, that’s a pity. It was one of the more memorable nights of my life. Just as well I took photos.” Knowing he was lying, Allie narrowed her eyes at him.

“I don’t know what you’re going on about, but I know you’re making that up,” she said. He grinned.

“You’re right,” he conceded. “But it was a fun night. Some people just can’t hold their wine and painkillers.” Allie pasted a look of confusion on her face.

“Did I do something silly?” she asked.

“You really don’t remember?” he asked. “That’s unusual for you.” He held out some toast for her to take a bite. She obliged, chewing at it ravenously while she shook her head.

“You wouldn’t let me put any clothes on you,” Callum said. Allie chewed and swallowed.

“Why did you take them off in the first place?” she demanded.

“Because you were drowsy, so I thought I’d make you comfortable,” he said, holding the orange juice to her lips. “When I pulled your jeans off, your panties came too, and once I’d taken your bra off, that was it. You flatly refused to let me put anything on you. I wrestled with you for ages. My, that was tough. It’s such a trial to have to wrestle with a naked woman.” Even if she hadn’t just been pretending not to remember, Allie would have found that image uncomfortable and embarrassing, particularly since he was grinning broadly.

“I don’t believe you,” she said, turning towards the toast again and taking a big bite out of it.

“And then you wanted to talk about your body,” he said. “Being a gentleman, I did try to change the subject, but you insisted.” In order to stay in role, Allie knew she had to ask, even though she didn’t want to.

“What was I saying?” she asked. Callum took a bite of her toast and chewed it, his eyes dancing.

“I don’t think I should tell you,” he said, dragging it out.

“All right, don’t then,” she said, leaning in to take another bite. Unfortunately, this sent the covers sliding down, displaying a great deal of cleavage. Callum glanced down, then, to his credit, looked back up again.

“Well, perhaps you should know,” he said, not intending to be deprived of his fun. “You said that your boobs are too big and bouncy and that your butt is huge.” Allie’s face was going rosy.
”I assured you that you were wrong on both counts,” he said. “And then you said that you loved it when I undress you and put my hands all over your body.”
”I did not!” she objected. She clearly remembered saying something very embarrassing about liking it when he settled her breasts in her bra, but she’d said nothing about liking it when he undressed her. “I said that I…” Callum laughed and she realised what she’d just admitted.

“So you do remember,” he teased. “I knew you would. No matter how much you’ve had to drink, you always remember the next morning.” Allie, her face now flaming, turned away from him.

“Anything said or done while under the influence is not to be taken seriously,” she managed, making him laugh again. Then he relented.

“Not taken seriously perhaps,” he said. “But never forgotten, Al. Definitely never forgotten.” He grinned again as he took another bite of her toast.

It was just as well that Callum was a nice man, she mused later. He could have taken total advantage of her silliness the night before, and he could have made her even more uncomfortable than he did on the morning after. He did tease her a bit, but he made a point of pulling a t-shirt over her head before drawing the covers back, and he helped her through her morning bathroom requirements without humiliating her. Still, she cringed at the thought about how she’d flaunted her nude body at him the night before. He caught the look on her face as he was sliding her panties up her legs.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. She looked away.

“Nothing,” she said. He settled her underwear, straightened up, and smiled down at her.

“You were drunk,” he reminded her, knowing that she was embarrassed about something from the night before. Which thing he wasn’t sure, given that there was such a lot to choose from.

“I know,” she said, making a sound not unlike a sob. “But it doesn’t make it any easier to remember what I did.” His smile broadened, and he put his hand on the back of her head and pulled it into his shoulder, his other arm cuddling her against him.

“I liked all of it,” he said to the top of her head. “Particularly when you walked across to the chair and sat on my lap.” She moaned. She pulled back and looked up into his blue eyes.
”If I’ve ever said I liked you, I lied,” she said firmly. “I dislike you intensely.” Callum laughed.

When he reached for her t-shirt, intending to take it off her and put a bra on her, she backed up.

“No,” she refused.

“No?” he repeated, surprised. “You’re the one who normally insists on having extraneous underwear on, Ms Halston. What’s the prob….ohhhh.” He grinned, making her want to hit him. “Would you prefer I forgot that you like it when I make you more…what’s the word you used? “Comfy”, that was it.”

“Dislike is too mild a word,” Allie said, glaring at him. “Hate is probably more accurate. No Callum, I mean it. I’ll do without a bra.” He hadn’t taken her seriously, and was still holding on to the t-shirt.

“Don’t be silly,” he said, his eyes still dancing but his grin under control. “You know you prefer to wear one during the day.”
”Not today,” she insisted. He shrugged.

“Suit yourself,” he said, turning away. She just knew he was laughing. He was, but he kept it silent as he put the bra back in the drawer.

“How’s the pain today?” Callum asked, turning back to her.

“Not bad,” she said. “It’s there, but it’s not too bad.” He nodded.

“I didn’t give you your last injection,” he said. “I didn’t think you should have anything else in your system. Do you want it now?” Allie thought about it, then shook her head.

“No,” she said. “I’ll cope. Am I back on the tablets now?”

“You are,” he said. His irrepressible grin shone out again. “Gee, I hope you don’t get that itchy reaction again when you start them. Darn, that would be really bad, wouldn’t it?” He walked away before she could answer. Allie resolved on the spot that if it did happen, she would go insane from the itch before she would ask him for help.

Fortunately, it wasn’t an issue, and they had an uneventful day, enlivened only by occasional teasing from Callum and a short visit out to the living room where Allie sat, enjoying the different scenery, while he worked on his laptop and made several long, and in Allie’s opinion, boring telephone calls to clients. Twice, she caught him looking at the front of her t-shirt, under which her breasts were moving around unfettered. On both occasions, she glared at him and he grinned unapologetically. It was not the most comfortable day Allie had spent with him, and as recollections of what she had said and done the night before kept bobbing into her consciousness, she found herself resenting her own incapacity more and more.

………………………..

“No wine with dinner tonight?” he asked her when he brought her in a strange-looking pasta dish that had been cooked in the microwave. Allie just looked at him.

“I suppose you think you’re being funny,” she commented. He laughed and settled down to feed her. Then he cleaned up the dishes and came back in to clean her.

It was understandable that she was reluctant to have him undress her, but Callum wasn’t prepared to give in to that reluctance completely.

“Bath or sponge bath, your choice,” he said firmly. “But it’s one or the other, kid. You were still running a fever today and you need to keep clean.”

“If those plastic cover things had arrived from your physiotherapist friend, I’d be able to have a shower,” Allie muttered.

“Yes, and I’d still have to undress you and soap you up and dry you off and dress you again,” he pointed out reasonably. “I’ll go get the bath ready. Don’t go anywhere, Al.”

Not prepared to just lie there and wait for him to come back to fetch her, she ignored that order and climbed out of the bed to follow him into the bathroom. Callum raised his eyebrows at her when he straightened up from the bathtub and saw her standing behind him.

“Eager, are we?” he asked, reaching out for her clothes. She backed up a step.

“You don’t need to do that until the bath is full,” she pointed out. One side of his mouth quirked.

“Don’t you dare smile!” she ordered him, unaccountably annoyed. Allie hated the fact that she was so completely in his power, so completely helpless. She couldn’t even put any distance between them after making such a total fool of herself the night before, and it was irking her badly. Yes, he looked after her well, but she was suffering from a total lack of independence, and he was the only one she had to take it out on at the moment.

“What have I done wrong now?” Callum asked reasonably. And that was the problem, of course. He hadn’t done anything wrong. Allie let out a loud, exasperated breath.

“Nothing,” she admitted. “But don’t smile anyway.” He did. He couldn’t help it, but he turned away so she didn’t have to see it.

“You could get in the bath again,” she said quietly. She was thinking that it might take the edge of embarrassment off, even things up a bit. Heaven knows he’d seen enough of her the night before. Perhaps if he was bare too, she wouldn’t keep remembering what she’d done, what she’d said to him. Besides, he was very nice to look at when undressed.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Callum said, turning back to her. “Thanks all the same.” He was somewhere between serious and amused, but she wasn’t sure from his expression which emotion he was closer to.

“Why not?” she asked. He shrugged, intending to dismiss the question, then realised that it could be misinterpreted. He collected his thoughts, framed his words carefully.

“I spent last night with a beautiful, naked woman snuggled up to me,” he said. “And when I woke up this morning, she was still there, my hands on her, my body warm from where hers had been pressed against me. I liked it, Allie. I liked it a lot.” Her dark brown eyes had widened. There wasn’t a trace of a smile on his face. He was serious.

“If I take my clothes off and get into the bathtub with you now, I’m going to want to do a lot more than just wash you, and I’m not sure you’re ready for that.” Callum stopped and looked her straight in the eyes. “Am I right?” She didn’t know where to look. This was Callum. Her friend, Callum. The cute kid accountant from upstairs who was unaccountably looking much older and more mature at the moment. The man she’d made a complete idiot of herself over the night before. Oh god.

“You’re right,” she managed, even more annoyed.

“I thought so,” he said. “Damn it.” But he smiled at her before he bent to turn the taps off. “Bath time, kid.”

It was a very uncomfortable bath for Allie. Her body felt over-sensitised wherever he touched her. Callum, knowing he’d unsettled her, tried to fix it by resorting to what he did best. Teasing. As he washed her breasts, he made a point of weighing them in his hands.

“Not too big,” he said, smiling when she gasped and tried to move back from his grasp. “Full and round and nicely bouncy, but definitely not too big.”

“Callum!” Allie protested. He laughed softly and kept washing her. She knew what was coming next, but still, kneeling up in the bath so he could wash her backside, she growled when he ran his hands over it for an unnecessarily long time.

“Sweet little thing,” he said, with emphasis on the “little”. And then, just to finish her off, he ran his slippery hands up her sides, from her thighs to her armpits and back down, while she squirmed.

“What’s that term they use for a small woman with nice curves?” he asked, looking into her face. “Venus something…pocket venus, that’s it. Or maybe a pocket Venus de Milo. That’s the statue that’s missing its arms, isn’t it?”

“Very funny,” Allie grumbled. “From memory, she at least has a robe wrapped around her lower half.” Callum’s eyes danced as he turned to pick up the bottle of cleanser for her face.

“So we’re improving on the classics,” he said, tipping the green stuff into his palm.

She was still looking a bit too serious for his liking, so he kept the teasing going. When he helped her out of the bath, he dried her off quickly, wrapped the towel around her and picked her up, one arm behind her back, the other under her knees. She objected immediately, as he’d known she would.

“I want to walk!” she said, wriggling.
”And I want to carry you,” he said. “Guess which one of us is going to win?” Since this reinforced her lack of independence, it brought a real flare of irritation into Allie’s brown eyes, and she was fuming by the time he placed her on her bed. He saw, and didn’t have the sense to back off.

“Temper, temper,” he tutted teasingly, unwisely, and then jumped away, just in time to avoid the foot she aimed at his groin.

“Whoa!” he said, surprised, and halfway to annoyed. “Settle down, Al!” Lips tight, her only response was to lash out again, this time at his leg, and she just connected, unfortunately doing more damage to her toes than his thigh.

“Well that’s it,” Callum said, shaking his head. Something hollow and hard punched into Allie’s stomach. That was it? Was he going to leave her now? Or take her back to the hospital? Words were jumbling in her head, trying to find the right order to dive onto her tongue, words of apology…after all, he really had been looking after her so well, even if he was the world’s worst tease, and…

On that thought, she looked up at him and her expression turned instantly wary when she saw the mischief in his eyes. Obviously there was no need for an apology. Callum leaned down and caught the foot that was still dangling off the bed. Allie tried to tug it out of his hand, but it didn’t work.

“Time to find out whether these feet are ticklish, I think,” he said. Allie’s mouth opened, and she mouthed the word “no” several times before it actually came out. No, not when she was already disgruntled and uncomfortable and she had nothing on but a towel.

“No!”

“Oh, I think so,” he said. “Now, where should I start?” He lifted her foot up high, right up, forcing her to press her other leg hard against the one he had trapped in order to prevent him from getting a comprehensive view of her private parts. The towel fell open at the bottom.

“Callum, at least cover me up,” she pleaded. He appeared to be concentrating completely on the sole of her foot. He hadn’t touched it yet, he was just scrutinising it. He spared a glance for the rest of her. Then he grinned.

“No point,” he said heartlessly. “I have a feeling that once we get started here, you’re just going to lose it again anyway.”

“Callum,” she whimpered. He shook his head at her.

“Think of this as a salutary lesson,” he said. “Don’t kick the nurse who’s looking after you in future, kid.” With that, he brought his fingertips to the sole of her foot. Allie jumped and tried again to pull her foot out of his hand, with the same lack of success.

“Nooooooo,” she protested, starting to giggle despite her best attempts to control herself. He knew she was ticklish. Whenever he’d seen her wearing a midriff-baring top in the past, he’d always made a point of running his fingers up her sides to annoy her and damage her dignity. But he’d never done this before. Within seconds, she was tossing around on the bed, heedless of modesty, laughing uncontrollably and kicking out at him with her other foot. The towel was lying completely open and she was displaying a great deal more than her ticklishness.

“Careful,” Callum said, stopping the assault momentarily. “You’re going to hurt your arms if you thrash them about like that. Just put them out to your sides and keep them still.” Allie looked up into his laughing face in utter disbelief.

“I can’t!” she said, gasping. “Let go of my foot, you bastard!”

“Uh uh uh,” he said, shaking his head. “Still not getting the right respect here.” He caught her other ankle as well, and in a truly evil spirit of mischief, held her feet and legs wide apart, exposing the only part of her body he hadn’t already seen in detail.

“Well, would you look at that,” he said, pretending to look down while Allie futilely tried to bring her arms over to cover herself, and tried to gather enough breath to scream at him. Laughing, he let go of the first foot and concentrated on the second, focusing his energies between her toes and under them, driving her mad.

There wasn’t a man alive who wouldn’t have enjoyed watching Allie writhing around naked on the bed, tossing her head from side to side, her free leg kicking up and out, and her breasts heaving. But Callum wasn’t a cruel man, so when he saw the tears in her eyes, even knowing they were from laughter, he relented. He let her foot go, leaned over the bed and moved his hands up the sides of her wriggling body, tickling lightly as he went until he had his hands under her arms. Then, ignoring her protests, he lifted her up and sat down on the bed with her sitting facing him, straddling his legs. He picked up the towel as well and wrapped it round her again, tucking it in loosely at the top. And then he looked into her bright red face.

“Wasn’t that fun?” he said, wrapping his arms around her and holding her against him even as she tightened her muscles and tried to pull away. The laughter in his voice was just as infuriating as the fact that she was trapped.

“No,” Allie said tersely.

“And what did you learn?” he teased.

“That you’re a bully,” she said. “Who takes unfair advantage of defenceless women.”

Callum laughed.

“Honey, if that were true, I wouldn’t have just tickled your feet and your sides,” he pointed out. “And I really would have looked between your legs instead of just pretending to. And if it were true, you would have been in big trouble last night. I could have had you in every way possible and you wouldn’t have even tried to fight me off.” Allie was shocked.

“Callum!” she glared at him, making him laugh again.

“But I didn’t, just in case you’re worried that you DID actually forget some of it,” he pointed out.

“I feel sure I’d have remembered that,” she said.

“I’d hope so,” he countered.

“Although you probably wouldn’t be all that memorable,” she responded, in a return to form that made him grin.

“Good,” he approved. “Now what was making you so grumpy before? It can’t have been that I refused to get into the bath with you, because you were annoyed before that.” Allie wriggled on his lap, not liking the fact that she could feel the denim of his jeans under her bare bottom and between her legs, not liking that she was stretched over his legs, and not liking him much at all, in fact.

“Do keep doing moving around like that, won’t you?” he teased. “It feels sooooo good.” She froze and glared at him. “Why were you annoyed, Al?” he persisted. She made a noise that was somewhere between a sigh and a growl.

“I’m hating the fact that I’ve lost my independence,” she said. “I can’t do anything for myself. I can’t look after myself, I can’t cover myself, I can’t even defend myself.” That last part was accompanied by another glare. Callum grinned.

“You couldn’t defend yourself against me even if you did have the use of your arms,” he pointed out. “You’re such a little thing.”

“I’m NOT little,” she said through clenched teeth. She knew she was, but that wasn’t the point.

“No, you’re right. You’re massive,” he said, tongue in cheek. He moved his knees up and down, bouncing her on his lap like she was a baby. “Well,” he said, when he’d finished that particular form of taunting. “You’ve had no independence since that fool hit you with his car. Why did it suddenly get to you now?” Allie tried to move back a bit, since his face was too close to hers. His hands tightened on her back and held her where she was.

“I don’t know,” she squirmed.

“Yes you do,” he insisted. “Come on, spill it. Or else I’m going to have to tickle you again. And it’s tough work, Al. It really takes it out of a man.” She opened her mouth to tell him just what she thought of that, and of him, then squealed as one long finger dug into her ribs through the towel.

“Stop it!” she jumped. He raised his eyebrows at her.

“Don’t get serious,” he said again. Allie snarled, then jumped as his finger tickled her ribs again. The towel loosened and she forced herself to be still. His blue eyes looked straight into her face, the question still in them. Allie gave in.

“I’m uncomfortable about what happened last night,” she admitted. “And if it weren’t for the situation we’re in, I’d have put more distance between us today, to give me time to get over it.” Callum smiled.

“I can understand that,” he said. “And my teasing you in the bath and picking you up made your lack of independence worse?” She nodded. He leaned in, resting his forehead on hers.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “But I’m not sorry for tickling you. You shouldn’t have tried to kick me in the balls.”

“You deserved it,” she said. Fortunately, Callum just laughed.

“Give me a kiss,” he said, surprising her. His hand hovered at her side, almost touching her ribs.

“You’re a horrible man,” Allie accused, but she kissed him anyway, a soft touch to his smiling lips. His arm tightened around her, pulling her even closer for a quick hug.

“Now let’s get you dressed,” he said, standing up and putting her back down on the bed.

She was never going to forgive him for the tickling, but they had a surprisingly agreeable, companionable night anyway, with both of them getting a sound night’s sleep in their respective beds.

………………………….

She still didn’t let him put a bra on her the following morning, and although he rolled his eyes, Callum didn’t say anything about it. He left her propped up in bed with the television turned on to a show where groups of disgruntled people spent their time yelling and accusing each other of all manner of real and imagined sins while a host threw the conversational equivalent of petrol on the flames of their disputes. Audiences cheered as every sordid, unpleasant little scrap of dirty laundry was aired. Allie found it repulsive and riveting, and when Callum appeared at the door of the bedroom, she hardly spared him a look.

“You have a visitor,” he said, coming in far enough to let another man follow him. Allie looked, then schooled her expression. Glenn Foster. Her main competitor at work, the man who’d started a year before she had and had wasted few opportunities to score points over her. Offhand, she couldn’t think of anyone she would like less to have visiting her. But pride was not going to allow her to show that.

”Hello, Glenn,” she said. “Could you turn this rubbish off, please, Callum?”

“I can do that,” he smiled, nicely not mentioning that she’d been watching it for almost an hour with every sign of enjoyment. The man behind him smiled too.

“Not quite your usual television viewing, I would think?” he said to Allie.

“Not really,” she responded, wishing he would dematerialise. He was possibly her least favourite person in the world. An ex-footballer, he was popular with most of the other men at work and was the source of most of the smutty jokes that did the rounds. He was also the man most likely to be caught leering. There were only two other women at the office apart from Allie, and all three of them had suffered the discomfort of having him look them over with x-ray eyes. He was stocky, good-looking in a polished, expensive sort of way, and, in Allie’s opinion, egotistical, arrogant and repulsive. And that was on a good day.

“Take a seat, Glenn,” Callum said, indicating the chair. He was wondering why Allie wasn’t more effusive in her welcome. He tried to read her expression while he spoke to her. “Allie, I have to make a long phone call to a client, so I’m going to go upstairs and use the land line. I’ll be a while, but when I come back, I’ll make some coffee if you want it. Or maybe Glenn could make some for both of you?”

“We’ll wait,” Glenn said. “I’m not good at making coffee.” He wasn’t good at washing up his coffee mug either, Allie thought to herself. The secretary always had to do it for him at work.

“Fine,” Callum said, still focusing on Allie. If he hadn’t set up this time for a call with an important client, he would have stayed. He hesitated. Allie looked up and gave him a quick smile, and he decided he’d been imagining things.

“So,” Glenn said, standing up from the chair and walking over to the bed as soon as Callum was out of the room. “You’ve made a real mess of yourself haven’t you?” He bent down and kissed her on the cheek. There was no way for her to avoid the kiss without seeming rude. He sat down on the bed, looking smug. He brushed some imaginary fluff from one tailored black sleeve. He filled out a suit jacket well, and he knew it, always preening when he put one on.

“I’ll heal,” Allie responded.

“Of course you will,” he said. “Any idea how long it’ll take before you’re able to get back to work?”

“Not really,” she said. “But not long, if I have any say in it.”
”It will be up to the doctors though, won’t it?” he said. She shrugged, the slight tinge of pain in her arms a small price to pay for the nonchalance she was hoping to convey with that gesture.

“Whatever,” she said. “I’ll pick up where I left off as soon as I’m able to.”

“Ah, but time waits for no man or woman, does it?” Glenn asked. “And neither do our clients. Never mind, though. I’ll look after all of the jobs you started.” So that’s what he’d come for, Allie thought resentfully. To gloat. She should have realised.

“Not all of them,” Allie she said, disliking him more with every passing second. “Mr Carter told me that Henry was looking after the Mollison project and that Barry was following up with Hardcastle.”

“Ah yes, Arnold mentioned he’d been over for a visit,” Glenn said. “That must have been fun. Were you dressed like this then, too?” No-one called Mr Carter “Arnold” to his face except the most senior managers. This was just Glenn being Glenn.

“I was dressed comfortably,” she replied. She was very conscious, painfully conscious that she was wearing a t-shirt and knickers and nothing else. Not even a bra, thanks to her ongoing embarrassment over that issue with Callum.

She glanced down. The covers were tucked under her arms, but they were barely covering her breasts. Glenn saw the glance. He smiled.

“Was the t-shirt you were wearing as old as this one?” he asked, looking at the front of it in a way that made Allie distinctly uncomfortable.

“Yes,” she said. “So how’s work on the Filbertson building going?”
”Fine,” he replied, not looking up. “The material is very thin.”

“Thank you for pointing that out,” she said, cursing him. “Eyes up, Glenn.” He smiled slowly and looked up at her face.

“Do I make you uncomfortable, Allison?” he asked. “Or is it Allie? That’s what your nurse called you.”

“No, Allison is fine,” she replied. “And no, you don’t make me uncomfortable. I’m already uncomfortable, Glenn. I have two broken arms.”
”So you do,” he said. “Must make you feel helpless.”

“I’ve felt better,” she conceded.

“No bra either,” he commented. Allie exhaled loudly.

“Behave yourself, Glenn,” she said tightly. His smile widened, displaying gleaming white teeth that his parents had paid an orthodontist a fortune for. They matched the neat, well-manicured fingernails on the hand that reached out towards her and hooked into the bed covers.

“What are you doing?” Allie demanded, tightening her arms over them. It made no difference. With a smirk on his face, he stood up and pulled the covers down, right down, past the ineffectual vice of her arms, down over her hips and down further, right to the foot of the bed. After a quick attempt to grab at them, Allie forced herself to lie still, fuming.

“There now,” he said, sitting down again.

“That wasn’t necessary,” she said, her lips tight. “Pull them up again, please.”
”I thought you’d be too hot under all of those blankets,” he said sweetly. “It must be nice to get some air on your skin. My, there’s a lot of it on show, isn’t there? You know, I’ve always liked your legs, Allison.” Allison felt her flesh crawl as he looked down at her completely bared legs, all the way from her feet up to her thighs. The man was a complete and utter creep.

“And your tits, too,” he said, looking her right in the eye as his hand closed on the hem of her t-shirt and began inching it up.

“Stop it,” Allie said, wriggling away from him, across the bed. He laughed and leaned across her, putting one hand beside her and holding her there. He wasn’t as strong as he’d been in his football years, having let some of the muscle go to flab, but he was more than a match for her, even when she did have the use of her hands.

“Stop it, Glenn,” she said again, her voice rising as her t-shirt rose up her body. The only place for her to wriggle was down, which would hasten the upward movement of the thin garment. She tried to roll away, pushing at the arm that restrained her. “I mean it!” she tried again.

Ignoring her struggles and protests, he pulled the t-shirt up, exposing her pale blue panties, her belly and her ribs. He met her eyes again as he inched it higher, up over the lower curves of her breasts, and he let it hook on her erect nipples, holding it there for just an instant before tugging it free and pushing it right up to her chin. Then, the smile on his face a mile wide, he sat there and looked his fill. Her blush travelled all the way down to the tips of her breasts, but the blush was as much anger as shame.

“You bastard,” she panted. “I am going to have you charged for this.” He laughed.

“Really?” he asked. “You’re going to charge me for having a look at the body you’ve been teasing everyone with for the last four years?”

“This is assault,” she said through clenched teeth.

“This is payback,” Glenn corrected. “For every time you swung those hips or straightened your shoulders and thrust these tits out at me. No judge would convict me. Not a man, at least.”

Just for an instant, Allie found herself wondering if she had done those things. Had she ever deliberately done any of that? And then she caught herself. No, she hadn’t. And even if she had, it did not excuse what he was doing now.

“Leave me alone and go away,” she said.
”Soon,” he said, looking up into her reddened face again before he looked back down at her breasts. “I’ve come all the way out here to see you, Allison. I don’t want to rush away. That would be rude.” He reached out again. She cringed, but there was nowhere to go, no way to escape from that taunting look in his eyes as they ran over her exposed body, nowhere to move away from his cool, smooth hand.

When it touched her, she thought she was going to be sick; her skin crawled as his fingers slid up the outer curve of her breast, his fingertip circling the nipple.

“I’m going to scream,” she said, still trying to catch her breath through the outrage and panic she was feeling. She regretted the warning as his other hand clamped down over her mouth.

“I don’t think so,” he said smugly. “And if you bite me, Allison, I’ll…” his fingertips closed tight on the nipple he’d been fondling, and she gasped soundlessly under his hand.

“Now, while I’m here,” he said, finger-walking down her body, over her ribs, down her belly and onto the elastic of her panties. “Might as well take a look at the whole picture.” He teasingly lifted the band of her panties up and looked inside as she lay rigid, furious.
”No brazilian wax for you, huh?” he commented. “That’s quite a bush there, Allison. You could trap a…”

”GET YOUR FUCKING HANDS OFF HER!” Callum exploded as he crossed the room in four long strides and vaulted over a corner of the bed. Glenn barely had time to follow the order before Callum was onto him, grabbing his shirt collar and dragging him away from the bed, spinning him round and sending him sprawling backwards, full-length on the floor, with a punch to his chin.

“Get up,” he said, standing over him, fury on his face. “Get up so I can…oh don’t bother.” He bent down, took a hold of the front of Glenn’s shirt and yanked him up again, this time landing a fist right into the architect’s gut. Glenn, who’d been swinging a punch himself, made a noise like the air being expelled from a balloon and landed heavily again.

“Callum,” Allie said. “Don’t hit him any more.”
”Don’t waste your breath, Allie,” he said, his voice tight. “I plan on hitting him a lot more.”
”You’ll hurt your hands,” she pointed out. He didn’t even consider answering that very girly comment. He just watched the man on the floor, waiting for him to recover enough to be hurt again. Glenn rolled over with a thump, his arm across his body. Callum took one step back, which was wise, because the ex-footballer, gone to seed though he may be, had taken enough punches in his time to be able to recover. He launched himself up, his fist coming round in an arc which would have slammed straight into Callum’s face if he hadn’t ducked. This time he held the other man up with one hand on his shoulder while he buried his fist into his solar plexus.

“Enough!” Allie said from the bed, genuinely upset. This was nothing like it looked in the movies. The sound of a fist hitting flesh and bone was horrible, and she was already shaken by what Glenn had done. “Please Callum…enough!” With rage in his eyes, he had to blink to clear his head enough to really see her, to see that she was genuinely upset and wanted him to stop. He didn’t want to. What he wanted to do was leave a Glenn Foster-shaped stain on the carpet. He had never felt as furious as he did at this moment, and it was taking every last scrap of control he could muster to stop himself from acting on that wish. He took a breath and exhaled loudly.

“Consider yourself very lucky,” he said in a low, terse tone, stepping back from the fallen man. Glenn, one hand to his stomach, recovered enough to stand on his own two feet. He put his hand to his jaw and moved it gingerly from side to side as Callum pointedly turned his back on him and covered Allie, first with her t-shirt, then with the covers.
”At least let me throw him outside,” he said to her.

“No need,” Glenn said, sounding surprisingly calm, considering he’d just had the stuffing knocked out of him. “I’m going.”

”You got that right,” Callum said, his blue eyes still burning. “Get the hell out of here.”

”I’m going,” Glenn held his hands up. “You’ve got a hell of a punch for a nurse.”
”He’s an accountant,” Allie said, hating him and wanting him out of her apartment. Glenn managed a laugh. It was an unpleasant, grating sound. His eyes skimmed over her body, making her shudder.

“Even worse,” he said. “No. Don’t hit me again. I’m going.” And he did, with Callum following a few steps behind to make sure he didn’t steal the silver on the way. Allie was not surprised to hear the sound of another blow and a grunt and a thud before the front door closed firmly behind Glenn Foster.

……………

Callum came back into the room and wordlessly walked to her, pulling her up into his arms so he could hold her close, rocking her.

“Allie, I’m sorry I left you alone with him,” he said. “I thought there was something wrong, but you didn’t say anything and I wasn’t sure.”

“It’s not your fault,” she said, her face buried in his shoulder. He felt solid and warm and comforting. “He’s a horrible man.”
”He’s a slimy weasel,” Callum said. “I wish you’d let me beat the shit out of him.”
”He’s an ex-footballer,” she said. He snorted.

“Emphasis on the “ex”,” he said. “My fist sunk up to the elbow in his gut.” Allie laughed wetly against his shoulder, only realising at that point that she’d been crying.

“Oh babe,” he said, rocking her again, even turning to press a kiss into her hair. “I was on the phone upstairs, and I couldn’t get the picture of your face out of my head, the expression that was on your face when that bastard walked into the room. I had to excuse myself and come back down.”
”Will the client be all right about it?” Allie asked. She knew it had been a very big job he was working on.

“He’ll have to be,” Callum said simply. “Some things are more important. Now, I’d better call the police straight away.” Allie stiffened in his arms.

“What?” he asked, loosening his grip on her so he could look into her face.

“No police,” she said, shaking her head to reinforce it.
”What?” he demanded, his tone completely different. “He assaulted you, Allie! God knows what he’d have done if he’d had more time.”
”But he didn’t,” she said. “You came back.”

“But if I hadn’t…” Callum growled. “Allie, you’ve got to report this to the police.” Allie pictured herself telling someone what had happened, how the man had looked at her, pawed her, gloated over her. She shuddered.

“No,” she said. “No real harm was done, Callum. I just don’t like to think about what it’s…”
”No harm was done?” he repeated, incredulous, interrupting her. She started, and he realised he was yelling.

He caught her face between his hands, leaned in and kissed her, his lips soft and firm against hers. It soothed her – much more than words would have.

“Sorry for shouting,” he said, pulling back from her and calming down. He moved his hands away. “What were you saying?”
”I don’t like to think about him going back to work and boasting to all of his buddies there,” she said quietly. She leaned in and put her head on his shoulder again, drying her eyes on his t-shirt. Callum stroked her hair.

“Well, I think we can fix that,” he said. He reached for the phone. “What’s the number for the switch at your work?” And this time, he wouldn’t take no for an answer.

Arnold Carter believed Callum without hesitation, possibly because of the anger still vibrating in the younger man’s voice as he told him over the telephone what had happened, and Allie was gratified that his first response was concern for her wellbeing. Callum hit the loudspeaker button with more violence than was strictly necessary so she could reassure her boss herself.

“I’m all right, Mr Carter,” she said.

“Are you sure?” his worried voice came over the telephone. “What a dreadful thing to happen, Allison. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”
”You didn’t do it, Mr Carter,” she pointed out.

“No, but one of my staff did,” he said. “Are the police on their way?” Allie sighed.

“She won’t let me call the police,” Callum said.

“But you must!” Mr Carter fussed. “That’s assault! He must be charged.”
”Please Mr Carter, I don’t want to,” Allie said wearily. “It was unpleasant enough as it was. I don’t want to have to go through it again and again. And it’s over now anyway.” He was still protesting. She waited for him to draw breath.

“Callum beat him up,” she said. There was a pause at the other end of the phone.

“Good man,” said Mr Carter. “I hope you did a proper job of it.”
”Not as good as I would have liked to,” Callum growled.

“I didn’t want blood on the carpet,” Allie said quickly. “I’m fine, Mr Carter. Callum just thought you should know.”
”I appreciate that,” Mr Carter responded. “And you can rest assured that Foster will be cleaning out his desk within ten minutes of arriving back here.” Allie leaned back on the pillows in relief.
”You’re giving him ten minutes?” Callum asked. “Why not just meet him at the door and throw the bastard onto the street?” There was an appreciative snort from the other end of the telephone.

“Because I want the satisfaction of talking to him first,” Mr Carter responded. “And of making it clear what will happen if he ever goes near Allison again. I may not be up to delivering rough justice with my fists any more, but I will take great pleasure in administering justice of a different kind. And my good friend Commissioner Davis will hear about this, too.”

“Mr Carter, I’m not going to report it,” Allie said again, wearily. The Commissioner of Police? Good grief.

“I’m aware of that, my dear,” Mr Carter said. “But he’s going to receive an official visit anyway. I can almost guarantee it.” There was a hard edge to his voice that Allie hadn’t heard before. Good, she thought.

……………

It took Callum more than an hour to wind down, and he continued to be apologetic for not having taken enough care of her – first in leaving her alone, and second in not fussing over her enough and making sure she was okay after what had happened. Allie found it amusing that she ended up soothing him. By the time he left the room to make lunch, insisting that she stay in bed and rest, he was almost back to normal, even though his hands still clenched into fists in a very un-accountant-like manner whenever he thought about it.

He came back in with sandwiches for both of them piled high on one plate and set about feeding both of them. He broke a piece of bread off in his fingers and held it to her mouth. Allie’s lips closed around it, brushing his fingers, and a strange little shiver passed through her. She looked into his face, into his blue eyes, and found that she had to look away again. Well, that was odd.

“What?” he asked, seeing her expression.

“Nothing,” she said. “More.” He laughed and broke more bread off.

This time, his fingertips touched her face, rested lightly on her jaw as she took the food, and lingered there for an instant as she chewed. His lips were curved in a friendly smile, his hair framing his good-looking face.

“Your hair is messy,” she said to distract herself.

“It’s meant to be,” he said. “Artistically messy. You could pay a fortune for this sort of look.”
”Fiona cut it for you,” she said.

“I said you COULD pay a fortune for it, not that I did,” he pointed out. It suited him, too. The rest of him was groomed, his toned body, his smooth, clean skin. When wearing his work clothes, he looked quite glossy. Only the messy hairstyle cracked the image of the corporate man-about-town. It gave a hint of his personality, made him more look younger and more approachable.

He held up another bite of food, teasingly rubbing it along her lips until she opened them. And there it was again, another little frisson of sensation that went through her. For the first time, Allie was finding that there was something very intimate about eating food from his hands. Perhaps it was something to do with the fact that he’d rescued her, defended her and fought for her, even though she’d hated the sounds and sight of his fists thumping into Foster. Or perhaps it was the fact that the serious painkillers were now out of her system, no longer fogging her senses.

Whatever it was, she was now very able to appreciate the nearness of him, the constant touch of his finger on her lips, of her tongue occasionally flicking against his skin, of his fingertips gently brushing crumbs away from the sides of her mouth. For the first time, she was finding it both uncomfortable and tingly, and when she shivered for the third time, he noticed.

“What?” he asked. “Are you cold?” Since her nipples had hardened and were clearly visible through the t-shirt, Allie agreed immediately, and spent the next half hour unnecessarily bundled up under extra bedcovers.

Callum nurtured her for the rest of the day, taking every opportunity to hold her close, to touch her and reassure her. When a huge bunch of flowers arrived from Arnold Carter, he put them in a vase and even made a pathetic attempt to arrange them, which gave her a great deal of amusement. A second delivery arrived that afternoon, too - the special covers from the physiotherapist, which meant that she was going to be able to graduate from the bath to the shower.

Knowing his own limitations, Callum ordered in pizzas for tea, the first tasty meal Allie had eaten in a long time. She didn’t say that though, but she made no attempt to hide the fact that she enjoyed every single bite, again finding a strange and secret enjoyment in eating from his hands. Afterwards, her face greasy from the pizza, she sat on the side of the bed while he fitted the special covers over the plaster. Then she followed him into the bathroom, where he removed her t-shirt and panties, ran the shower, and stood back to let her get in.

“Enjoy,” he said, smiling as she turned her face up to the spray and sighed in pleasure.

Apart from the uncomfortable experience the night before, Allie had almost grown used to him washing her in the bath. Because of the water and their relative positions, he usually looked her in the eyes while he cleaned her there. In the shower, it was different. Once she was wet all over, including her hair, she stood in front of him while he soaped up his hands and then ran them over her, not lingering, but touching her everywhere, from neck to toes, front and back. Allie found it difficult to catch her breath when his fingers slid over her breasts, and if she’d been able to look at him, she’d have noticed that Callum was having some trouble as well. But they both survived it, along with the ritual face cleansing that he was now a master at.

“Away from the heart in an anti-clockwise motion,” he recited, making her laugh. Then he reached for the shampoo.

The feeling of his fingers massaging her scalp was heavenly, and if she closed her eyes, Allie could almost make herself forget that she was standing naked in front of him. She corrected herself. No, she could make herself forget that she was uncomfortable about it. Then she opened her eyes and found herself looking straight into Callum’s. He smiled.

“You’re a picture, girl,” he said, disconcerting her. “Now dunk your head and wash this stuff out. You can do without conditioner this time.” Not all of the shampoo would be shifted just under the pressure of the water, so Callum had to take his shirt off and lean in to rinse it for her, and when he helped her out and dried her, Allie enjoyed having his bare chest to focus on. He noticed, but didn’t say anything, not then, or later, when he’d dressed her and tucked her into bed.

For some reason, it took Allie some time to get to sleep that night.

……………….

Callum spent most of the following morning working, fixing things with the important client he’d abandoned the previous day. It took several hours and three separate phone calls, but eventually ruffled feathers were settled.

Feeling that he’d neglected her and that he deserved a rest himself, he decided to entertain Allie that afternoon. When he walked into the room, carrying a chess board rather than the sleek black computer, she looked at him, surprised.

“Chess?” she asked. He nodded.

“Do you play?” he asked. She thought about it for an instant. How to respond? Did she tell him that she’d been on her school chess team? That her father had taught her to play when she was four?

“A little,” she admitted.

“Good,” he said, sitting down on the bed, smoothing out the covers and setting the board down. “I’ll make your moves for you, or else you’ll be knocking all of the pieces over with your plaster.” He set the board up quickly and efficiently. He’d obviously played a few times himself.

Allie wriggled up into more of a seated position, leaning forward when he bent towards her and stuffed another pillow behind her. She settled against it, smiling.

“Chess…I don’t believe you play chess,” she said.

“Why?” he asked. “It’s a game of strategy and skill. Why wouldn’t I play it?”

“Oh I don’t know, it’s just a bit…staid,” she suggested.

“I’m an accountant!” he responded, laughing. “What do you expect? Bungee jumping?”

“You’ve been bungee jumping,” she reminded him. “With Fiona.” I took the photos, I was there.
”Don’t remind me,” he said, looking pained. “My ears still hurt from the screams.”

“Well you should have stayed quiet like she did,” Allie teased. “It’s just that you’ve told me so many times over the last few days that accountants aren’t dry and boring. You even implied that some of those seminars get pretty wild. And now you’re playing chess?” She’d looked away as she spoke; looking at the flowers that Mr Carter had sent. She looked back into calculating blue eyes, their edges crinkled in amusement. She had no way of knowing that Callum had just made a decision that was going to have a big impact on her.

“We haven’t agreed on the stakes for this game of chess yet,” he pointed out casually.

“Stakes?” Allie repeated. This was getting good, and the look on his face said that it was about to get better. “On chess?” He nodded.

“Name it, buddy,” she said, sounding tough. He shook his head.

“You first,” he said. She opened her mouth to argue, to point out that it had been his idea, but the look of challenge on his face shut her up.

“Hmmm,” she said. “I need to think about this.” Think outrageous, she was telling herself. Something wild and raunchy that he was definitely not going to like. Callum Webster had been fully in charge of her for most of the last week, and while she was grateful for his care, she wouldn’t be human if she didn’t want to tip the balance just a little in her favour. Outrageous…When she thought of the word, Allie thought immediately of Fiona. What would Fiona do? Apart from making Callum strip, of course. That went without saying. Inspiration struck and Allie smiled broadly.

“Uh oh,” Callum said, grinning. “What?”

“You remember that website Fiona showed us about a month ago? “Bare Naked Hunks” or something like that?” Callum looked immediately wary.

“Yes, unfortunately,” he said. “All those gay guys posing while wearing gallons of oil and nothing else.”
”You don’t know that that they’re gay,” she pointed out. He made a scoffing noise.

“No straight man puts that much effort into looking good,” he said. “As I told Fiona at the time.” Allie smiled.

“Do you still have that fancy digital camera with the tripod?” she asked. Callum narrowed his eyes.

“Yes,” he said.

“And it has a remote control on it? You can set it and take photos of yourself?” Callum didn’t answer straight away this time. He just looked at her.

“Twenty photos,” she said sweetly. “Nude, naturally, taken from every angle. Posed right here in this room, in front of me. Twenty usable photos, which means you’ll have to take lots more, probably. And then, you’ll load them onto the website.”
”No way,” he said, looking stunned. Allie rejoiced inside. She was never going to make him post the photographs, but she was going to enjoy watching him posing naked for his own camera. And she was relishing the fact that she’d shocked him now.

“So…you tell me to name the stakes and then you chicken out?” she teased. He recovered quickly.

“My clients could see the photographs,” he pointed out.

“Your clients visit “Bare Naked Hunks.com” regularly?” Allie asked innocently. He laughed.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Damn it Allie, that’s an awful stake.”
”I think it’s perfect,” she said. Callum shook his head and grinned slowly.

“All right,” he agreed. “I can’t believe I’m agreeing to it, but all right.”

“So – what do you want me to stake?” she asked. “Photos on a website for people who get off on seeing nude women with their arms in plaster?”

“I’m sure there is one,” he said. “But no. The stake I have in mind is a lot more private. Just between us.” The speculative look in his eyes warned her that this was going to be something way out of her comfort zone.
”Spit it out,” she said. His grin changed and became wicked.

“Fifty kisses,” he said. “I get to kiss you fifty times. Anywhere I like.” Allie’s eyes widened at the last part. She looked down at her body without thinking, then back up again, fast, as he laughed.

“Yep, all over there,” he said. “I undress you first, lie you out spreadeagled, and then I kiss you fifty times, nice and slow and thorough. And all you have to do is count the kisses.” Allie was finding it unaccountably difficult to take a deep breath.

“You…you deviant!” she said. Callum burst out laughing.

“Me?” he managed while still laughing. “I’m the deviant? I’m risking having to strip off, take nude photos of myself and post them on a website for perverts like Fiona to pore over and all you’re risking is lying around comfortably while I do all the work, but I’m the deviant?” Allie had recovered her breath. He had a point. And besides, she wasn’t going to lose. He was still laughing.

“Stop rolling around,” she said. “You’re knocking the chess pieces over. All right, you’ve got yourself a deal. I’ll assume that we don’t need to shake hands on it?”

“Your assumption is correct,” Callum said. “But Allie? If I win, I will be cashing in on this stake. Understand?” Looking at the earnest look on his face and the gleam in his eyes, Allie was pleased that she was going to beat him. She nodded.

By four moves in, she was really wishing she hadn’t. Her school chess-playing days definitely hadn’t prepared her for competition at this standard. Most of the time, he didn’t even flatter her by considering his next move. He just moved her pieces as she directed and then moved his straight after.

“Played a bit of chess, have we?” he asked as she directed one move.

“Some,” she agreed. “As have you, by the look of it.”
”Captain of the university team,” he said casually. “We won the national championship three years in a row.”

“You didn’t think to mention this before?” she asked, trying to sound equally casual.
”You didn’t think to ask?” he responded.

The outcome of the game was, unfortunately, never in doubt. Visions of Callum setting up the camera at the foot of the bed and uncomfortably exposing his delicious body to the lens faded in Allie’s mind by the sixth move, and from then on, a vision of herself lying naked on the bed while he kissed her all over took prime position in her mind’s eye. Checkmate came far too soon.

Wordlessly, but with definite mischief in his eyes, Callum cleared the game away. Then he looked at her, and became instantly serious when he saw the trepidation in her expression.

“Allie?” he asked. “Al, it’s okay…oh shit, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t even have suggested that after yesterday. I’ve reminded you of it, haven’t I?” Allie considered clutching at that lifeline. He’d go for it and he wouldn’t push it, she could see that. She could use it and he’d let it slide. And he’d probably never mention it again.

Internally, Allie sighed. There were times when ethics were very uncomfortable things to have. And there was something else there, too. Something else that pointed out that he was handsome, that she was finding that she was more than just a little attracted to him, and that what he was planning to do to her was scary, but not totally unappealing. She bit the bullet.

“No, you haven’t reminded me,” she admitted. “I wasn’t thinking about that at all. This is different. I agreed to it. I was just feeling uncomfortable about paying up.” The concern faded from his face, and a smile tugged at one corner of his mouth.

“Oh, is that all?” he said. “Well, Allison...” He put the board down on the floor and straightened back up to look at her. “You should be uncomfortable.” He walked around the bed and sat down beside her. “Very, very uncomfortable.” By now, if his grin were any wider, it would have split his face.

“I wouldn’t have made you post the photographs,” she said, knowing she sounded pathetic. He laughed.

“So you wouldn’t have held me to the bet?” he asked.

“Not all of it,” she said.

“How nice of you,” he said. “I, on the other hand, am going to hold you to every part of your bet. Every single kiss. Now, let me help you out of those clothes.”

Oddly enough, it brought no memory of what Glenn Foster had done to her. There was no resemblance at all. He had smirked. Callum grinned. Foster had gloated, whereas Callum was teasing.

Which didn’t mean it was easy.

There was no reason why it should have been so embarrassing, given that Callum seen her naked on so many occasions before, but it was. The look in his eyes was different, the quality of the teasing had changed, and the knowledge that he was about to blatantly explore every part of her body with his mouth just made it all worse. The fact that he hummed “The Stripper” while he was sliding her panties down her legs didn’t help, either.

“Oh God,” Allie moaned, moving her plaster-covered arms in a vain attempt to cover herself.

“Uh uh,” Callum laughed softly, guiding her arms back to her sides. “For the next fifty kisses, this is all mine, Allie.” Overacting, he rubbed his hands together in melodramatic glee.

“Now,” he said, his eyes moving as he looked her over. “To begin.”

He climbed up onto the bed, easing her feet apart with his own, and stretched out over her, his clothes touching her bare skin, his weight supported on his arms. Still grinning, he lowered his face to hers.
”Don’t look so worried, Al,” he breathed, his lips an inch from her own. “It’s just a bit of fun.”
”For you, maybe,” she responded, almost but not quite disliking him for his pleasure in her embarrassment. Not quite, because there was a hint of a strange thrill going through her while she lay there naked, defenceless and open under him while he, fully-dressed, plotted out exactly where to begin his attack on her body and her senses.

“Don’t bet what you’re not prepared to lose in future,” Callum advised, his lips just touching hers. “And don’t forget to count.” With that, he kissed her.

Callum had kissed both Allie and Fiona on many occasions, usually on the cheek, once or twice on the mouth at their famous New Years parties, but they had always been little, warm pecks from one friend to another. Even the kiss he’d given her the morning before, the kisses they’d shared on the night she was drunk, bore no resemblance to what he did to her now, his lips pressing hotly against hers, moving on hers, easing her mouth open and then invading it, gently but purposefully. His tongue made a slow, teasing exploration of hers and traced ticklish lines inside her mouth. His body moved closer and, despite her best intentions, Allie’s body moved under his, too. He drew away and looked down into her eyes.

“Count it,” he said.

“Out loud?” she managed to respond. He nodded, his blonde hair moving over her face.

“Out loud,” he repeated. His smile flashed quickly, his lips wet from the kiss. “It’s more embarrassing that way.”

“It couldn’t be more embarrassing,” she said seriously, meaning it.

“Oh really?” he responded, moving down to bury his face in her neck. A kiss was pressed warmly into the sensitive skin below her right ear. Allie gritted her teeth.
”Two,” she said. Without looking up, he shook his head.

“You didn’t say the first one out loud, so it doesn’t count,” he said. “That’s one.” She started to protest, but another kiss just below the previous one shut her up.

“Three,” she said.

“Two,” he corrected. He lifted his head and looked up at her.

“All right, two,” she conceded, sparking another smile. “But hurry up!” He laughed at that, a soft, deep laugh that sent a shiver all through her.

“Not a chance,” he said. “This is going to take forever, Allie. Something this good should never be hurried.”

He was as good as his word, moving snail-slow over her, his clothes tickling at her naked skin as he moved, slowly, across her neck, to her shoulders and down. He was selective with his kisses, pressing his lips to only those places that he judged to be most likely to be sensitive. By the time he reached her cleavage, he was only up to number six.

“And now the fun really begins,” he said, his breath hot on her skin. He’d moved his legs as he progressed down, and was kneeling between her thighs now. Her legs, held apart by his, were clenching, wanting to close. Callum ignored the pressure from them, burying his smiling face in her breasts. When he started kissing her nipple, Allie almost forgot to breathe, let alone count, and he stayed there forever, licking at her with the very tip of his tongue, sucking gently, as he had the night he eased her itches.

“Nine,” she said insistently, willing him to stop it and move on. He shook his head, his mouth still on her, and took his time finishing, ending it with a swirling flick of his tongue.

“Now it’s nine,” he said, looking up at her, his eyes bright with fun.

“That was at least three kisses in one!” she protested. He shook his head again.
”It’s one until I lift my head,” he said. “Do remember that when I start kissing between your legs, won’t you?” Leaving her to think about that, he was off again, moving his attention to the peak of her other breast.

By the time he moved to her stomach, leaving her breasts tingling and hot, Allie was starting to wonder if it was possible to die from a heady mixture of pleasure and embarrassment. He never let the pressure slip on either of those, stopping constantly and looking her over, meeting her eyes to show that he hadn’t missed the rosy blush on her face, the squirming of her body under his. Her ribs, her belly, her navel, her hips…each received a salute from his lips as he moved inexorably down her body.

“Oh god,” Allie said again, pushing her head down into the pillows. “Why are you doing this?” There was another soft laugh from places south. Callum looked up at her, up past her quivering breasts to her face.

“If you have to ask…” he teased. Then he answered anyway. “The stakes were because you implied that chess was staid and boring. And the chess game itself was to divert you. Are you diverted, Allie?”

“I’m diverted half to death,” she breathed, stirring another grin out of him before he returned to the matter at hand.

When he parted her thighs more fully and settled in between them, Allie thought she really would expire of embarrassment. He’d washed her there, touched her there, but to her knowledge, had never had a really good look at her there. And now he was most definitely looking. And commenting – in very favourable, very explicit terms. Allie would never have imagined that Callum would – or could talk like that. She was getting so hot under his continued scrutiny, just listening to what he was saying, that she was willing him to get on with it, to touch her, to kiss her, to…and then he did, and she instantly wished he’d go back to just looking and talking again.

The man had no restraint and no qualms at all, it seemed. He held her legs wide, exposing all of her, and he blazed hot, wet trails on the insides of her thighs with his tongue, correcting her every time she tried to count off a kiss before he was finished. She hated it when he did that, because he always looked up the length of her body and teasingly met her eyes, before turning back to what he was doing. And what he was doing was bordering on criminal, as far as she was concerned. Shuddering and wriggling under the invasive, taunting onslaught of his tongue, his lips and his teeth, she felt moved to object when his fingers began moving over her too.

“No hands,” she breathed.

“I need to use my hands so I can get to the places I want to kiss,” he said reasonably, kissing another one of those places suddenly and making her jump.

“Twenty-one,” she said desperately.

“Good woman,” he approved with a grin. He kept going, unerringly finding every nerve ending, every hyper-sensitive little part of her most hyper-sensitive area, making her hot, wet and fragrant with his never-ending kisses.

“No…Callum, no,” she tried to wriggle away almost immediately. “You don’t need to put your hands there to get to any places.” He moved the finger he’d slid inside her, wiggled itagainst her.

“This hand, you mean?” he asked. She wriggled again, but his finger went with her, searching out and finding a place that made her lift her hips up off the bed in instant response.

“Yesss,” she said, clenching around him.

“Yes I do,” he said. “I can’t get to that place any other way at the moment.” There was no logic to that statement at all, but Allie was finding it difficult to remember which way was up by now, and was in no state to make a sensible argument.

She realised that he fully intended to take her to orgasm and that he was not going to stop until he did. He cheated, too, making each of his so-called “kisses” last for what felt like hours while his tongue danced over her, his lips tugged on her and his teeth scraped lightly against her. If she’d had the energy, she’d have fought against the rising heat for the sake of it, but she didn’t. She blamed the painkillers, the operation, her injury. Anything but that teasing, insistent tongue that gave her no rest, no quarter and no dignity at all. She came, gasping, her hips up off the bed, driving herself into his mouth, shuddering and shaking and trembling for some time afterwards. He gentled her hips with his hands.

“Very nice,” he said softly, his words soft puffs of breath on her heated skin. “Let’s go for two, shall we?”

“No,” she moaned, but he just laughed and started again, with all the patience and time in the world. And more than half of his “kiss quotient” still in hand.

“Callum, no, please,” Allie begged. Something in her tone got through to him, and he stopped, moving up her body so that he was face to face with her. It was hard to meet his eyes, knowing what he’d just done to her, what he’d just made her do. He wasn’t just Callum anymore, not the fun friend from upstairs, or even the teasing, bossy nurse from the last week. Now, he was a man, with the taste of her on his breath and the memory of what she looked like in the throes of passion clearly pictured in his eyes.

“Why no more?” he asked, his golden hair falling about his face. One of his hands was on her hip, his fingers spread out possessively over skin he’d kissed.

“I can’t stand it,” she said honestly. He smiled.

“Yes you can,” he argued. “You don’t have a choice, Allie.” She closed her eyes and whimpered pathetically, making him laugh.

“You can postpone the rest, if you like,” he offered. Her eyes sprang open.

“Yes,” she said decisively, startling another laugh out of him.

“That’s it, take your time, think it through before you answer,” he teased. He pulled back from her, slid his hands behind her, and pulled her up with him, lifting her so she was sitting on his thighs while he sat back on his heels. Surprised, both at the move and at the ease with which he’d executed it, Allie lifted her heavy arms up and draped them over his shoulders, then looked down into his eyes. Her breasts fell against his chest, her nipples still hard and sensitive against the cotton of his t-shirt.

“If we start again some other time, I’m going to have to warm you up all over again,” he said, his hands moving down to cup her bottom. He grinned as she jumped. “Whereas now, you’re already warm,” he pointed out. “Very warm.” One long finger trailed under her bottom and tickled lightly between the long legs that were splayed over his, and she jumped again, making an audible protest this time.

“Stop that!” she insisted, wriggling to get free. “You won kisses, not gropes!”

“That’s right, I did,” Callum said. “Come here.” He leaned up and captured her mouth with his again, the kiss every bit as potent as the first one, the sensation heightened by the tang of her own taste on his tongue. Finally, he drew back, passion in his eyes.

Looking down at him, Allie had to wonder how she’d ever imagined him to be younger than he was. Every minute of sexual experience he’d ever had was floating in those eyes, and she found it scary that she was tempted to dive in.

“Twenty-five,” she said, ending the stalemate. He laughed and eased her back down onto the bed.

”I’ll get a washcloth,” he said. He climbed off her and off the bed, adjusting himself as soon as his back was to her. She wasn’t the only one who’d been turned on by that.

“Callum, I just want my clothes,” Allie said. He stopped and looked back her, a gentle smile in his eyes.

“I know,” he said. “But someone just slobbered all over you, and I know how you like to be clean. It won’t take a minute.” He disappeared into the bathroom, coming back with the washcloth and a bowl of water. With no choice in the matter, Allie lay still while he cleaned all traces of his kisses from every part of her but her memory. Then he dressed her.

“Tired?” he asked her when he’d pulled two of the pillows away and settled her more comfortably. She nodded, not feeling like talking.

“Orgasms do that to you,” was his parting shot. “Sleep well, Allie.” Smiling, he left the room and left her spluttering for a comeback.