LITMIR.BIZ

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almost choked on his tongue, which developed into a coughing fit. He leapt to his feet. ‘Not funny, Victoria,’ he rasped when he’d regained his breath.

      Vic laughed. She supposed not. Although the idea was seriously tempting here in the half-light after two glasses of wine. What would happen if she took her crush one step further?

      ‘You are my partner,’ Lawson continued. ‘I have known your father for twenty years. I have a child. You are leaving in ninety days.’

      Vic laughed. ‘Yeah, yeah. Relax, Lawson, I’m only joking.’

      Lawson rolled his eyes as his heart rate settled. ‘Bloody hell,’ he muttered, heading for his bedroom. ‘Take my bed. I’ll have the couch.’

      ‘Oh, no, no, no,’ she protested, following him. ‘It’s okay. I’m smaller. I always sleep on the couch. The couch is fine.’

      Lawson stopped just inside his door and turned, not expecting her to be so close. He took a step back, narrowly avoiding a collision. ‘My room has black-out blinds. I have a feeling you may need them in the morning. Plus Tilly will be up at the crack of dawn and I doubt that’s something you want to experience with a thumping head.’

      Vic couldn’t fault his thinking. ‘Okay then. You’ve sold me.’

      They stood for a moment looking at each other. ‘Well,’ Lawson said, stepping to the left. Victoria moved at the same time in the same direction. She gave a half-laugh and stepped to the right as Lawson also dodged right. He laughed this time and grabbed her by the shoulders, holding her in place as he stepped around her.

      ‘Goodnight,’ he said on his way out of the door.

      Vic turned. ‘Lawson?’

      He swung around. ‘Yes?’

      ‘I don’t suppose you have something I can take to cut the headache off at the pass?’

      Lawson chuckled. ‘Sure. I’ll get it.’

      Vic watched him leave, slipped out of her jeans and then lifted her top over her head. She pulled his bed covers back and gratefully crawled beneath. Lawson’s bed felt like a feather duvet floating on a cloud. But then anything that allowed her to recline would have felt as soft—even a bed of nails. The alcohol and a mere four hours’ sleep enveloped her and she shut her eyes surrendering to the bliss of being horizontal.

      Not even her weird-o-meter, which was blaring loudly, was enough to rouse her. The vague feeling that being in Lawson’s bed was blurring their professional and friendship boundaries nagged at the peripheries of her rapidly dwindling consciousness, just out of her grasp. Hell, she’d never even been in his bedroom before. It was…intimate. Not something friends, colleagues, did. Certainly not something they did.

      Lawson entered the darkened room a few minutes later with a glass of water and two headache pills. Some ambient light from the street outside filtered through his curtains and he looked down at her, the covers pulled up to her chin, her hair loose on his pillows.

      ‘Victoria?’

      She stirred as his voice floated towards her. ‘Mmm?’

      He sat on the side of the bed. ‘Here.’

      Vic prised open an eye and saw the white tablets on the palm of his hand. Sleep clawed at her bones, making them heavy and resistant, but she pushed through it, sitting up. She drew her knees to her chest and downed the pills gratefully along with the entire glass of water.

      ‘Thanks, Lawson.’ She handed him back the glass. ‘For everything. For coming to my rescue with Ryan. And the company tonight. And the bed. And the tablets.’

      Lawson watched as the sheet slipped a little to reveal a red bra strap before she hiked it back up again. He looked away quickly. ‘What are partners for?’

      Vic smiled and stroked her cheek against the sheet covering her knees. ‘I like the smell of your sheets,’ she murmured.

      He grimaced. ‘Sorry, I should change them.’

      ‘No, they’re fine,’ she dismissed. The bed was all she needed—sheets were a luxury. ‘They smell like you.’

      Lawson’s breath caught in his chest. ‘Oh? And how do I smell?’

      Vic sighed, closing her eyes, inhaling his essence again. ‘Like Matilda’s strawberry-shortcake soap I buy her every Christmas and that great aftershave you wear.’

      Lawson’s belly clenched. She noticed his aftershave ?

      ‘And freshly cut grass.’

      Lawson laughed as the tension inside him uncoiled a little. ‘Grass?’

      ‘Yeah, you know. Earthy. Male.’

      ‘Well, thank you. I think.’ And he laughed again.

      Vic lifted her head off her knees. She liked hearing him laugh. He didn’t do it often enough. The light coming in through the window illuminated his face, emphasising his masculinity and highlighting his scar. Curiosity and no doubt the effects of alcohol had her crossing a line she’d never crossed before.

      She lifted a hand and touched her finger to it, tracing it from just under his nose across his lips and down his chin. Lawson stopped laughing and pulled away from her as if she’d trekked a burning match across his face.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured, dropping her hand. ‘I was just curious. You never talk about it and Dad’s warned me it’s a touchy subject but…I don’t know…blame the Shiraz…’

      Lawson made a conscious effort to relax his jaw. ‘No. It’s okay. It happened a long time ago when I was in a different place in my life that I don’t like to dwell on.’

      Vic nodded. ‘Of course.’ But she was curiously hurt by his reluctance to share it with her. They were partners and yet sometimes she felt as if she didn’t know him at all. God knew, he knew everything there was to know about her.

      Lawson felt a spike of guilt lance him at her downcast face. ‘I was in an accident. When I was sixteen. My home life was…unhappy. We moved around a lot and my father liked to drink. One night some mates were going on a late-night high-speed joyride with some older guy they knew who had this souped-up car and I thought, Why not? The car crashed. The driver died. Everyone was seriously injured. I had facial and chest injuries and had to be cut out of the vehicle. I spent nearly three months in hospital.’

      Vic gasped. ‘I’m so sorry.’

      Lawson shrugged. ‘I was trapped for two hours. This paramedic stayed with me the entire time. I’ve never forgotten it.’

      ‘Is that why you became one?’

      Lawson nodded. ‘If it hadn’t been for that crash, I don’t know where I would have ended up.’ He’d certainly been heading for a dead-end job and a chip on his shoulder.

      Vic felt a rush of incredible tenderness for the man and heartache for the teenager he’d been. She’d always known her partner was a complex human being with a rough childhood, but this put him in a whole new light. She couldn’t bear that he’d been through so much pain.

      She touched his scar again and this time, though he flinched, he allowed it. Then, she wasn’t sure why, maybe it was the alcohol, maybe it was the whole emotional upheaval of the day, she leaned forward and pressed her mouth to it, the desire to kiss it better too powerful to resist. ‘Poor Lawson,’ she whispered.

      Lawson sat very still, her lips at his chin. He shut his eyes as the fleeting press of her lips stirred desires he’d long ago forgotten existed. She was so close. Her warm breath wrapped his gut in seductive tendrils.

      He only had to shift slightly and he could claim her mouth. He didn’t move as the battle raged within him. He wanted to kiss her so badly he was salivating. Like a starving man being led into a bakery. But she’d been drinking. And she was his partner. His much younger partner whom

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