A/N: I've never read Caribbean Kisses or Doctors Delight, so you guys will just have to indulge me with these made-up to purple-roses-words-and-love for being my beta.
Shelagh had never considered herself as the type of person to read romance novels. She'd assumed them rather lurid affairs, not fit for a woman of her own high moral standards.
That was before she'd read Caribbean Kisses.
It had all started innocently enough. After all, Shelagh was responsible for the literature in the maternity home, and needed to be sure that nothing inappropriate was read there. Her patients were all married women, and would be familiar with the acts referred to in romance novels (they wouldn't be her patients if they weren't), but that was no reason to allow them to read just anything. So, when Sister Monica Joan had offered her a copy of Caribbean Kisses, she'd decided to take it upon herself to peruse it thoroughly.
The cover of the well-thumbed paperback had promised a pretty heroine and a dashing hero, racing pulses and galloping hearts and more of that silliness. She'd gone into it with sceptically raised brows and the promise of a biscuit if she managed to finish the thing.
She'd finished it somewhat out of breath and feeling slightly squirmy.
She hadn't been hungry for a biscuit anymore, either.
She'd gone to the library and borrowed Doctor's Delight after that, smuggling it into her own home in her handbag, safely tucked between a copy of A Wrinkle in Time for Angela and a book on Freudian psychology for Timothy.
At night, when the children were asleep, she'd read a couple of pages as she waited for Patrick to come home.
It is silly, she told herself, flipping over another page in the slim volume. This book isn't even medically accurate. As if any doctor would prescribe morphine for a woman to ease the pain of childbirth. This isn't the nineteenth century anymore.
But there were other descriptions that did ring true. The doctor's hands, for example, were characterised by their strength, yet their touch was soft. Shelagh was intimately acquainted with the truth of that statement. So, when the doctor touched the heroine to feel her pulse stutter through her wrist, when he tilted her head to allow her to breathe more easily, Shelagh's heartbeat accelerated along with that of the main character. Her breath, too, came quicker.
The book reminded her of when she was still a nun, and as unfamiliar with a man's caresses as the woman in the story. She'd imagined what it must feel like to stand in Patrick's embrace, his strong arms around her, his big hands knotted and resting on her back. She'd wondered at the heat of him, how his breath would ghost over her face.
She'd never allowed herself to think much beyond that.
Shelagh was startled out of her reverie by the soft snick of a closing front door. Teddy stirred, then slept on untroubled.
Patrick, Shelagh thought. She slipped the library book in one of the drawers of her nightstand. She felt warm.
Don't be silly, she admonished herself, and cleaned her glasses with a hanky to still the now familiar throb in her belly.
The fire in my loins, she thought, and snickered, placing her glasses on top of her nightstand, next to the cup half-filled with water.
And yet there was a thrill of anticipation inside her, a giddy excitement that made her comb a hand through her hair so it would look mussed (delightfully so, as Patrick liked to say).
His feet were on the stairs. He always removed his shoes – darling man-, but one of the steps creaked a little, always waking her.
She left the light burning and draped herself on the bed, feeling bold and naughty and strangely empowered by the paperback snugly secluded in her nightstand, never mind that Doctor's Delight couldn't get the names of medication straight.
The faucet ran in the bathroom. That would be Patrick washing his hands and forearms, liberally soaping his skin as he waited for the water to become tepid rather than freezing. His fingers would be slightly damp as he traced the outlines of her body, but they would be clean and warm and gentle.
She rubbed her legs together in anticipation.
The water stopped running.
He's towelling his hands dry, but he's always a bit too hasty and never dries them thoroughly, Shelagh thought. She'd once licked his finger after he washed it, and had been rewarded by the lingering taste of soap blooming on her tongue. It was not an experience she cared to repeat.
And then the door to their bedroom opened softly, and he stepped inside, his shoes in one hand.
"Shelagh," he said, eyebrows raised. He blinked. "Did I wake you?"
"Hello, Doctor. I've been waiting for you," she practically purred. She couldn't help it; he looked too darn attractive with his rolled-up sleeves, exposing his forearms dusted with dark hair. It didn't hurt that his suspenders dangled past his hips, either.
"Hello, nurse. You're looking flushed," Patrick whispered. He padded past Teddy's cot and sat down next to her, the mattress dipping under his weight. He placed a hand against her forehead. "But no fever," he said, and grinned.
"I don't know if I'm entirely myself though, Doctor. I think I might need a more… thorough examination," Shelagh said. She blushed. Who was this bold woman, purring these cheesy sentences? She sounded like the heroine in Doctor's Delight.
"Do you?" Patrick asked.
"Oh, yes, Doctor. My breathing is so very shallow," she said, placing his hand on her chest. "And my heartbeat is awfully fast. Can you feel it?"
His fingertips traced the swell of her breast before hooking under the strap of her nightdress. "I think we must get you out of your… uniform, Nurse Turner," Patrick decided, a devilish glint in his eye.
"You must assist me, doctor."
"I'm sure this doctor would be delighted."
"Doctor's delight, hm?" Shelagh asked, and giggled.
Maybe romance novels were somewhat lurid affairs.
But they were so much more, too.