the best actor she’d ever met, the only conclusion she could draw was that her scars and the limitations of her body simply didn’t matter to him. He wanted her, scars, dodgy hip and all. On top of all his other charms and attractions, it was pretty heady stuff.
She weighed the demands of her still-fragile vanity against her heartfelt desire to avoid a repetition of last night’s debacle. It was a titanic struggle, but after a tense few minutes her pride won out.
Moving quietly, she slid to the edge of the bed. She stood, blinking in the dim light, trying to work out which of the dark shapes on the floor were her clothes. She bent to pick up the first indeterminate shape and quickly worked out that it was her yoga pants. She did a slow circuit of the bed, adding items of clothing to her haul as she identified them. She was on Oliver’s side, bending to pick up her bra when a large, warm hand wrapped around the back of her thigh. She gave a small start and nearly dropped her bundle.
“What are you doing?” Oliver asked, his voice a husky murmur in the dark.
“Getting dressed so I can go home.”
There was a small silence, then he curled his hand more fully around her thigh and tugged her backward.
“Come back to bed.”
She hesitated, and he tugged on her leg again.
“Come back to bed and I’ll give you a foot rub.”
She smiled, even though she was pretty sure he couldn’t see it in the dark. “How do you know I like having my feet rubbed?”
“A good guess.”
She let her clothes fall to the floor and allowed him to pull her onto the mattress, shaping her body to match his as he made room for her on his side of the bed. She tried not to read too much into his actions beyond the fact that he wasn’t ready for her to go home yet.
He smoothed a hand down her back, his fingers stopping here and there to knead the small muscles either side of her spine. “Tell me about Mary De Garis,” he asked idly.
She was so surprised by his request she sat up to stare at him, even though she could only see the outline of his head against the pillow.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I went searching for my De Garis project files this morning. Talking about it with you yesterday gave me an idea for a new take on it. A sort of modern twist to make it more relevant.”
“Ah. That must be why I’m getting such strong Mary De Garis vibrations off you.”
She nudged him with her elbow, amused despite herself. “Do not pretend you’re suddenly psychic.”
“I could be.”
“And I’m Zsa Zsa Gabor.” She settled in again. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you want to know about her?”
He turned his head to look at her. “Because you said she was your passion project.”
He said it as though it should be the most obvious thing in the world that what interested her naturally interested him. But she’d been married to a man who put his own needs and wants first, second and third. It took her a moment to get her head around the idea that Oliver was prepared to invest his time and energy in something simply because she was fascinated by it.
In that second it hit her that she was navigating very shaky, dangerous ground with this man. He was so lovely and sexy and sweet, it would be very, very easy to slip from liking and lusting into some far more life-changing emotion, despite all the little warnings she kept issuing herself along the way.
“I’ll get you started. Mary De Garis was a woman, and she wanted to be a doctor....” he said encouragingly.
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him he didn’t really want to know, that he wasn’t really interested. That was how well her ex-husband had trained her. She caught herself, however, and decided to take Oliver at his word.
“Okay. She was born in 1881 in Charlton, and she was one of the first thirty-five women to graduate from medicine at Melbourne University....”
She sketched Mary’s life for him in broad strokes, answering his questions, filling in details when he wanted more information. When she’d finished he wanted to hear about her new idea, so she told him about that, too, this morning’s excitement bubbling up inside her again.
“How long will it take you to make it?” Oliver asked.
“To do it