Three weeks.
She had only three weeks to convince him to leave. She told herself she didn’t care where he went so long as he left the hospital. He must have guessed her intentions when that spark passed between them earlier.
If kissing him convinced him to listen to her, she’d kiss him all day long. She would kiss him into reading more law books, kiss him into asking an attorney for an apprenticeship, kiss him into packing his bags and leaving here. As long as they weren’t caught.
Judging by the steady pressure of his hand at her elbow and the nearness of him as he led them both outside, the convincing started now.
The chill of the night air gently stung her skin after the heat of the ballroom. She was going to regret her lack of a shawl on the walk back. He led them around the corner of the building, into the deeper cold of the night, well out of sight of anyone coming to and from the dance.
Mr. Obregon swung her around to face him and all thoughts of the cold left her. There was no space for it in the heat of the gaze he trained on her. Then his mouth was on hers as he pulled her up to him, bending her like a bow. Hot lust rose within her, as if he would enflame her and leave only the ash behind.
She let him bend her, allowed him the entirety of her mouth, content to simply feel, to let him lead where he would. There was no one to catch them here. His lips trailed along her jaw, sneaking a taste of her neck every few kisses before arriving at her ear. His breath fanned across it, igniting sensations within her she’d thought only his lips could call forth. Lord, if he could make her feel this with only his breath, she was in trouble.
“Take it off.” His voice was low and silken, as caressing as his breath had been.
She blinked, trying to decipher those suddenly foreign words. “Pardon?”
He pushed her slightly away, flicking a hand at her bodice. “Take. It. Off.” He smiled as sweetly as schoolboy.
She studied his face in the light of the painted lanterns that had been hung outside to delight the guests. Part of her wanted to do as he wished, to know the freedom of giving all the control, all the decisions, to him. But her better sense counseled caution. She’d seen what happened to women who submitted again and again to their loutish husbands, and it was never anything good.
But Mr. Obregon wasn’t a lout. Oh, he was arrogant—and yet hesitant at the same time. No doubt he’d pulled her out here to hide the fact he was kissing a lowly nurse.
But he liked her ambition. And he liked kissing her.
“I’ll remove it,” she said, “but you must grant me a boon.”
Now it was his turn to consider her. “What boon?”
“A lady removing her bodice for a gentleman is a fairly significant event.” She paused and he nodded. “It requires a fairly significant boon. Not marriage,” she said quickly, holding up a finger to prevent what was likely to be his next protest, “but certainly something… large.”
His lips twitched. “And what is this large boon which is not marriage that you desire?”
Dare she ask for it? She lifted her chin. “I want you to write to an attorney and inquire about serving an apprenticeship.”
The notion had seized her on their first day back at the sanatorium and would not release her thoughts. But while she might have simply blurted such thing on their camping trip, within the walls of the sanatorium, she must be more discreet.
But they weren’t in the sanatorium now.
His gaze chilled the space between them. “I see.” Unyielding, those two small words.
Oh dear. Perhaps this had been a bad idea, bartering her favors to prod him out of his complacency. After all, she wasn’t anything special. Certainly she wasn’t comely enough to truly tempt a man who looked as he did.
This was a mistake. She began to pull free of his arms, to run back to the dance—
“Very well.”
The words were bitten off through a tight jaw—but he had agreed.
“I said yes,” he said a bit tetchily when she’d not begun to unbutton herself, “now you have to fulfill your end.”
“I’ll need to see the letter,” she said hastily. “No squirrelly tricks.”
“On my honor.” He waved at her bodice again, this time with more force.
He’d agreed. And now she must honor her part. Even if she felt as unsteady as a patient coming out of anesthesia.
She locked her gaze to his and brought her fingers to the first button at her neck. She eased it free entirely by touch, that hard bit of roundness slipping easily through the stitched hole. The next one came free just as smoothly, and the one after, and the one after that, until her bodice was opened to her waist.
His eyes flicked down to what she’d laid bare, his hand following right after to pull the fabric even farther apart. She nearly chuckled at the disappointment twisting his mouth. What had he expected, that she’d be nude under her shirtwaist? No matter the details of her upbringing, she was respectable now, and she would never be without her chemise and all-in-one. And when a girl didn’t have a closet full of corsets, but rather just the one, she made certain to protect it with a corset cover. Really, she ought to feel pity for the man—she was making him write a letter to change his entire future, and he only got to see the bit of skin between her neck and the top of her chemise.
But then he trailed his fingertips across the skin there, as delicately as a man handling something fine, something precious, and all thought left her. He traced patterns with his fingers for a few moments, then lowered his head to repeat the shapes with his lips. A languid warmth began to steal through her, and she let her head loll back, allowing herself to savor his lips on her skin, the shivers he left in his wake, and the heat building in her core.
Right now, with his dark head at her bosom, his lips adoring her skin, she felt for once not too short, not too sturdy, not unrefined, but rather… perfect.
His arms gathered her close until only her toes were connected to the ground. His kisses went deeper, his tongue darting out to taste her skin. If he kept this up much longer, she might actually begin to regret he could only reach that little patch of her. Leaving one arm anchored around her waist, he sent his hand sliding up her torso, then over her generous breasts, bound as they were by the corset. That hand of his dipped under the frontier of her chemise and past the boundary of her corset to cup one breast and pull it free.
She gasped, partly at his audacity but mostly at the sensation of her nipple being dragged across the fabric. His mouth moved south to do wicked things to her breast. He kissed and tasted and tormented, all the while holding her flesh as if it were the first fruit of spring, to be savored slowly after a winter of deprivation.
Dimly, in some small corner of her mind that lust had not taken possession of, she thought to herself that she should be asking for another boon, but then his mouth captured her nipple.
Her breast went heavy and tight as pleasure spiraled from that point. Then the rest of her followed suit as he tugged with tongue and teeth. The core of her turned to heated stone, weighty and warm and aching. Finally, when she was about to embarrass herself by squirming, or clutching at him, or even—heaven forbid—begging, he lifted his head.
She thought she might see triumph in his face or a pleased kind of wickedness that she’d allowed him such freedom with her person.
But there wasn’t any kind of triumph nor wickedness. Rather, his expression was dazed, almost soft, as if he might be experiencing the same sensations she was. He reached up his hand—the same one that had held her breast—and brushed the back of it against her cheek, his smile so gentle, so wondrous, that her heart squeezed tightly enough to ache. She felt precious in that moment. Cherished. Desired. Loved.
Tears clogged her throat. Love had no part in this. Yet, even as she told herself that, her heart continued its aching, its yearning toward the man stroking her cheek so gently, so reverently.
His hand fell from her cheek and went to her undone buttons. He fastened one, then brushed a kiss across her lips. Another button, another kiss, until her bodice was completely done up and she was completely undone by his gentleness.
Thank God she was leaving in three weeks or else she might find herself falling in love with this man.
Joaquin held in a secret smile the entire journey back to the sanatorium.
After their little interlude, she took his proffered arm without hesitation, following as he led them home with a gratifying lack of questions or resistance. Seduction certainly made her pliant. Twining. The opposite of the stiff, efficient nurse. He only wished he could have unbuttoned that uniform of hers, seen her change from Nurse McCallahan to Mae under his eyes.
And his hands and lips.
She was nestled against him, eyes on the road and a subtly dreamy smile on her lips, tucked against his right side as he leaned against the walking stick on his left. She moved as if she were dancing, silently humming along to the music she was imagining. Something stirred within him at the sight, something warm and deeply rooted, something he’d never felt when gazing on Isabel’s face. It was that same something that had awoken when Mae first kissed him—had announced itself as still existing, as still breathing.
He’d been unsettled after Isabel had left. As if by coming to a new understanding with her, he was leaving something behind. Something base and foul, something he’d wanted to rid himself of.
When Isabel had shut the door of his room behind her, leaving him to rejoin her new life in the wide world, the walls surrounding him had never been so encroaching. He’d wanted only to be free of that room.
That, and he’d wanted to find Mae. To talk to Mae. Which should have been odd. She was most certainly part of that sanatorium, as woven into the routine of it as anything. But if he were entirely truthful, she’d pulled herself out of the pattern of the sanatorium when they’d kissed on their disastrous trip. The Nurse McCallahan of before would never have done such a thing. She’d certainly never have bargained with him over apprenticing with an attorney.
But in three weeks, she’d be gone.
He looked down at her where she swayed along with him as they walked back. Perhaps he shouldn’t have chased her here, shouldn’t have done what he did outside the ballroom.
But if she hadn’t wanted him to, she would have said no. She’d proven that once she was free of the confines of the sanatorium, she had no trouble speaking her mind.
He found that when he was free of the confines of the sanatorium, he liked hearing her speak her mind.
He liked her very much in fact, but it could go no further than liking and kisses.
He gently traced the line of her knuckles, tucked as they were between his body and his arm. He was enjoying this, having her next to him as they walked along in the moonlight.
He’d think tomorrow on that letter he had to write, on the unease her demand stirred in him. It was only a letter; he’d no intention of actually leaving. He wasn’t ready yet. But it would be good practice for when he was ready to leave.
And perhaps he could steal another kiss once he’d shown it to her.
He looked down at her, nuzzled against him, and leaned in for another quick brush of his lips against hers. His scar pulled uncomfortably as he did. Lord, but they were one mismatched pair heightwise.
“We can’t do this again,” she said softly.
Oh, he certainly did intend to do this again. In dark corners, away from prying eyes.
“Of course not,” he said.
He only had three weeks left with her.
Three weeks to do what?
A wicked thought came to him.
To convince her to stay.
Oh, he didn’t really think he could. But the both of them might pretend at convincing the other during the time she had left. Her tugging at him to go. Him tugging at her to stay.
“No,” she said, “it could only ever be the once.” The regret in her voice was thick enough to slice through.
She’d admitted she found his face quite fine. And she certainly enjoyed his kisses. The regret in her voice said clearly she’d like to do it again.
“Too bad for us,” he said.
Caution would have to be their watchword. He didn’t want to cost her the position in Los Angeles even if he did mean to try to persuade her to stay.
He didn’t think on what would happen if he did succeed, because of course he wouldn’t. She might like his kisses, but she certainly didn’t like him. Her ambition would take her far from here.
And he would stay, at least for the time being.
“It’s a shame,” she said, resting her head against his side. “Such a shame.”
Melancholy trickled through him, his hand tightening on the handle of the walking stick. He shoved away the idea of her leaving, concentrating only on the feel of her against him, the stars winking overhead, the chilled kisses the night air was setting against his skin.
This would be a memory to take out and look at again and again, when they had both gone their separate ways, on some lonely evening when he wanted to remember his little nurse.