CAROL MARINELLI - The Scandalous Kolovskys - Knight on the Children's Ward

‘Go back to sleep.’

‘You are cruel.’

‘Very.’ He smiled again, and then he left her, a twitching mass of desire, but relaxed too. She had never slept more, never felt more cherished or looked after. The horrors were receding with every hour she spent in his presence.

She slept till seven, and then showered and pulled on her uniform. She made his bed before heading downstairs. He offered her some dinner but she wasn’t hungry.

‘I need to go home and get my agency uniform, and perhaps …’ she blushed a little at her own presumption ‘… perhaps I should pack a change of clothes for tomorrow.’

‘Here.’ He handed her a key. ‘I lie in on Sunday. Let yourself in.’ And he handed her something else—a brown paper bag. ‘For your break.’

He had made her lunch—well, a lunch that would be eaten at one a.m., after she had helped to get twenty-eight residents into bed and answered numerous call bells.

She deliberately didn’t look inside until then. She sat down in the staffroom and took the bag out of the fridge and opened it as excited as a kid on Christmas morning.

He had made her lunch!

A bottle of grapefruit juice, a chicken, cheese and salad sandwich on sourdough bread, a small bar of chocolate and, best of all, a note.

Hope you are having a good shift.

R x

PS I am no doubt thinking about you. R xx

He was thinking of her.

Even though she had slept for most of the day, it had been nice knowing Annika was there, and without her now the house seemed empty and quiet.

He had never felt like this about anyone, of that he was sure.

Gypsy blood did flow in his veins, and it wasn’t just his looks that carried the gene. There was a restlessness to him that so many had tried and failed to channel into conventional behaviour.

He didn’t feel like that with Annika.

Yet.

Her vulnerability unnerved him, his own actions sideswiped him—it had taken Imelda months to get a key; he had handed it to Annika without thought.

He was going away in little more than a week, digging deep into his past, thinking of throwing in his job … He could really hurt her, and that was the last thing he wanted to do.

Ross headed upstairs and stepped into his room. He smiled at the bed she had made. The tangled sheets were tucked into hospital corners, his pillows neatly arranged. If it been Imelda it would have incensed him, but it was Annika, and it warmed him instead.

And that worried him rather a lot.

SHE flew through the rest of her shift.

There would be no words of wisdom from Elsie, though.

As Annika flooded the room with light at six the following morning, Elsie stared fixedly ahead, lost in her own little world. And though, as Elsie had revealed, she enjoyed being there, this morning Annika missed her. She would have loved some wise words from her favourite resident.

Instead she propped Elsie up in bed and chatted away to her as she sorted out clothes from Elsie’s wardrobe, her stockings, slippers, soap and teeth. Then Annika frowned.

‘Drink your tea, Elsie.’

No matter Elsie’s mood, no matter how lucid she was, every morning that Annika had worked there the old lady had gulped at her milky tea as Annika prepared her for her shower.

‘Do you want me to help you?’

She held the cup to her lips, but Elsie didn’t drink. The tea was running down her chin.

‘Come on, Elsie.’

Worried, Annika went and found Dianne, the Registered Nurse.

‘Perhaps just leave her shower this morning,’ Dianne said when she came at Annika’s request and had a look at Elsie. Instead they changed her bed, combed her hair, and Annika chatted about Bertie and all the things that made Elsie smile—only they didn’t this morning.

Annika checked her observations, which were okay. The routine here was different from a hospital: there was no doctor on hand. There was nothing to report, no emergency as such.

Elsie just didn’t want her cup of tea.

It was such a small thing, but Annika knew that it was vital.

It felt strange, driving home to someone.

Strange, but nice.

Since her mother had refused to talk to her about her work since she had supposedly turned her back on her family to pursue a ‘senseless’ career, Annika had felt like a ball-bearing, rattling around with no resting place, careering off corners and edges with no one to guide her, no one to ask where she was.

It felt different, driving to someone who knew where you had been.

Different letting herself in and knowing that, though he was asleep, if the key didn’t go in the lock she would be missed.

She felt responsible, almost, but in the nicest way.

She dropped the bag she had packed on the bathroom floor, and then slipped out of her uniform and showered, using her own shampoo that she had brought from home. It felt nice to see it standing by his shampoo, to wrap herself in his towel and brush her hair and teeth, then put her toothbrush beside his.

The house was still and silent, and she had never felt peace like it.

Nothing like it.

She had never felt so sure that the choice she made now would be right, no matter what it was. The decision was hers.

She could step out of the bathroom and turn right for the spare room and that would be okay.

She could go downstairs and make breakfast and that would be fine too.

Or she could slip into bed beside him and ask for nothing more than his warmth, and that would be the right choice too.

It was her choice, and she was so grateful he was letting her make it.

His door was always open, and she stepped inside and stood a moment.

He needed to shave—his jaw was black and he looked like a bandit. His eyes were two slits and she knew he was deeply asleep. He was beautiful, dark and, no doubt—according to her mother—completely forbidden, but he was hers for the taking—and she wanted to take.

Annika slipped in bed beside him, her body cool and damp from the shower, and he stirred for a moment and pulled her in, spooned in beside her, awoke just enough to ask how her shift had been.

‘Good.’

And then she felt him fall back to sleep.

His body was warm and relaxed, and hers was cold, tired and weary, drawing warmth from him. She felt him unfurl, felt him harden against her, and then he turned onto his back. She lay there for a moment, till his breathing evened out again, and then she rested her wet hair on his chest and wrapped her cold foot between his warm calves. She slid her hand down to his hardening place, heard his breath held beneath her ear, and turned her head and kissed his flat nipple. Her hand stroked him boldly—because this was no sleepy mistake.

‘Annika …’

‘I know.’ She did—she knew they were supposed to be taking it slow, knew he was going away, knew it was absolutely bad timing—but … ‘I want it to be you.’

‘What if …?’

‘Then I still want it to be you.’

Her virginity, in that moment, was more important to Ross than it was to her. To him it denoted a commitment that he thought he wasn’t capable of making, yet he had never felt more sure in his life.

She traced his lovely length to the moist tip, and then he lifted her head, gently pulled at her hair so that he could kiss her. His hand was on her breast, warming it, holding its weight. Then he was stroking her inside, her warm centre was moist, and she was glad his mouth had left hers because she wanted to bite on her lip.

He kissed her low in the neck, a deep, slow kiss, and he was restraining himself in case he bruised her, but she wanted his bruise, so she pushed at his head, rocking a little against him as his lips softly branded her.