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She helped him and Jason didn’t even bother to stifle a groan of pure desire as she tackled the button and zip. He caught her hands. ‘If you want this to stop,’ he warned, ‘it had better be now.’

The gaze from those chocolate-brown eyes was perfectly steady. ‘I don’t want it to stop,’ she said softly. ‘Do you?’

‘Hell, no!’ Jason grinned, swept Laura up into his arms and carried her towards his bedroom.

For a moment, as she lay on his bed, Jason experienced a flash of panic. Was he out of his mind? This was Laura – a mate, one of the boys, no less, and a friend he was depending on to help him through a period of crisis in his life. And then Laura smiled and reached out, drawing his head down to hers, and at the touch of her lips Jason knew he’d never been more sane in his life.

The blinding clarity with which he could suddenly see the reason for all his past romantic disasters was a revelation, drawing a sigh of contentment that mingled with Laura’s breath as Jason gave up thinking about the wisdom of what he was doing. Gave up thinking full stop, in fact, and simply allowed himself to experience, body and mind, the most wonderful sex he’d ever had.

The revelation came back later as he lay, curled around Laura’s body, listening to her soft, even breathing as she slept. It was as though he’d been trying to fit the pieces of a puzzle together in the wrong order for all these years. Sex, friendship and then a lasting love. It had never worked and now he knew why.

With the friendship and trust coming first, it added a dimension to the sex that he’d never known could exist. Even with Donna, and the twelve-month relationship; by the time they’d developed any kind of trust and friendship, that initial mind-blowing lust had worn off and the friendship had faded in much the same way.

This thing with Laura was completely different. To be honest, it scared the hell out of him because, this time, he didn’t want anything to fade. The friendship or the lust. If those held together then he knew that would be the kind of love that could last a lifetime.

He’d told Laura a while back about the attributes he looked for in women. They had to be fun to be with. Adventurous. And at least reasonably intelligent. Laura was fun, no doubt about that, and her intelligence was equally unquestionable. Adventurous? How many women would demand to go slithering down a steep bank to explore a wrecked car for potential victims? Or take on the adoption of a fat, smelly dog? Or move into a virtual stranger’s house to help look after a baby, for that matter? What was any of that if it wasn’t adventurous?

This was scary all right. Jason could recognise what he’d found and, for the first time in his life, he had found something he really, really didn’t want to lose. This was it. For all these years he had been skating on the surface of life – all fun and no responsibility. He wouldn’t have taken on his current situation if he’d had any real choice in the matter, and he had to admit he wouldn’t have looked twice at Laura if he’d been on a mission to find female companionship.

Circumstances had pushed his boundaries and had had the side effect of making Jason grow up a little. He considered the sobering realisation of just how meaningless his love life had been until now. A selection of bimbos who had impressed the hell out of his colleagues, but now he could see himself through Laura’s eyes and he almost groaned aloud. No wonder she had told him he was shallow.

He was shallow. Or, at least, he had been until now. The depth to which he wanted involvement with Laura was terrifying. She had the power to hurt him very badly if she didn’t want what he could offer. And why should she – on anything more than a short-term basis? Laura was so far above the kind of women he had always attracted so easily. Maybe she was too good for the likes of him to aspire to.

The fact was that Laura was out of his league in any category that really mattered, and Jason knew it. He’d have to work hard to win her and she wasn’t going to settle for second best. She’d walked out on a guy after living with him for two years because he hadn’t measured up. Jason couldn’t bear the thought of giving all he had and still finding he hadn’t made the grade a couple of years down the track.

How could he convince Laura that he was worth being with… forever?

Darkness hid his smile. He had a bonus that no one else could offer. Something that Laura already loved.

He had Megan.

8

‘What is it, Tim?’ Laura paused in her task of restocking the resuscitation kit. ‘Have I sprouted horns or something?’

‘I’m trying to work out what’s so different about you.’

‘Can’t be my hair. I’ve had it like this for two weeks now.’

Laura pushed her fingers through the soft, loose waves framing her face and then shook them back into place. The pleasure of her new style had increased rather than worn off. ‘We need some more lancets for the blood-glucose kit,’ she told Tim. ‘And a couple of high-concentration masks.’

‘Sure. How’s the entonox cylinder looking, seeing as you’re up that end?’

Laura leaned over the end of the stretcher she was sitting on and then laughed as her shirt came adrift from her trousers.

‘Oops. I wish my new uniform issue would come through.’ She tucked the shirt tail firmly back into place. ‘I’m getting sick of these baggy pants.’

‘You’ve lost weight.’ Tim nodded slowly. ‘Maybe that’s it.’

‘It’s not so much the weight,’ Laura told him. ‘I’ve just changed shape a bit. Toned up. It’s all the exercise I’m getting.’

She leaned more carefully towards the regulator valve of the entonox cylinder, hoping that Tim wouldn’t notice the faint colour she could feel heating her cheeks. Jason had claimed all the credit for keeping her levels of physical activity up enough to burn off a kilogram or two. He’d even looked worried.

‘You’ll turn into a stick insect in six months at this rate. Maybe we should have a night off.’

But they hadn’t because neither of them had wanted to. Laura would be quite happy to keep up her steady weight loss but it really didn’t matter. She was far happier with the thought of still being with Jason in six months’ time.

‘It’s probably walking Oscar every night that’s done the trick.’ Laura tried to sound offhand. ‘Everybody should adopt a very fat dog when they want to get in shape.’