LITMIR.BIZ

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down on a stool. Everyone went quiet. Chloe could even imagine the trees in the arboretum leaning just a little bit closer to listen.

      Kat’s first song was one of her early hits. Chloe found herself mouthing the words and swaying slightly, knees bent, feet together, body hugged against her knees. She was completely lost in the moment until she heard a deep, rich voice beside her, humming. She turned to find Daniel singing.

      She leaned closer so he could hear her without her shouting. ‘You know every note.’

      He gave a rueful smile. ‘Kelly mainlined this album for about three months. I could probably recite the lyrics in my sleep, if I really wanted to. It’s not really my kind of stuff, but it grew on me.’

      ‘Let me guess,’ Chloe said. ‘You’re more of a rock guy?’

      He smiled at her in a way that made her insides avalanche. She turned to face the stage again and carried on singing silently, feeling a wee bit oxygen starved.

      The song was a bewitching one of love and passion and regret, and the magic it wove throughout the crowd deepened the spell working on Chloe. The sky grew dark, the rainbow lights in the Temperate House glowed and the champagne danced in her veins. Daniel shuffled in behind her and she sank back into him, while she kept her eyes on the young woman on the stage.

      Every part of her that touched him was fizzing with electricity, and she didn’t want it to stop. And that only meant one thing.

      Dared she really do this? Was she really that brave?

      Daniel moved so he could talk into her ear. ‘Your lips are moving, but you’re not making any sound.’

      She twisted towards him and found his face breathtakingly close. ‘How do you know? I was facing away from you and it’s too loud to hear me even if I was.’

      His arm snaked around her and he flattened his palm against her lower ribs. And then he just looked at her. Looked into her eyes. Looked at her lips. ‘I can’t feel any vibrations in your torso,’ he said quietly.

      He couldn’t? Chloe sure as hell could.

      But he was right—she hadn’t been singing.

      ‘Singing is the one thing I’ve never been any good at, no matter how hard I tried.’ And, boy, had she tried. Two years of private singing lessons hadn’t been able to get a good note out of her.

      Strangely, this made Daniel smile.

      ‘What?’ she said, knowing her cheeks were colouring further.

      ‘It’s nice to know you’ve got a few imperfections like the rest of us.’

      He’d meant it as a compliment, but Chloe couldn’t help the instinctive bristling at his words. A spike of something cold went through her. She was an attractive, confident, sexy woman now. It had been a long time since her parents’ suffocating ambition for her had weighed on her heavily. She knew she didn’t have to be brilliant at everything, but it was hard to let go of the little inner push that told her to try harder, be better. And she was feeling a little of that pressure tonight.

      New Chloe had been her most important self-improvement package to date. What was the point in excelling at Italian cooking or swing dancing or Spanish guitar if you failed at the most important thing—being a woman? Deep down inside, even if she hadn’t admitted it to herself, her decade-long quest had been to turn herself into the kind of woman Daniel Bradford wouldn’t turn down. And tonight, if she was brave enough, she could have her answer. One way or another.

      Oh, the thought scared her so. She went to turn her head away, catch her breath for a moment, but he caught it with his hand, hooking his fingers round the curve of her neck, letting his thumb trail her cheek. ‘Don’t.’

      She held her breath.

      This was it, wasn’t it? She could reach for what she wanted—what she’d always wanted—or she could shrink back like a coward.

      She took in every feature of his face, lingering over the line of his jaw, the not quite straight nose, the tiny scar she’d never noticed before almost completely hidden by his left eyebrow.

      And he held still and let her, meeting her gaze. Not flinching, as she might well have done.

      This wasn’t the same as that awful night in the pub car park ten years ago. How could it be? He’d been giving her the signals for months. He wasn’t going to push her away, this time. He wasn’t going to run.

      She swallowed and dropped her gaze to his lips, knew the exact moment he did the same.

      Stop, a voice inside her head said. You’ve been here before. You remember how it ends. But even this voice sounded half-hearted and unconvincing.

      Keeping her eyes fixed on the firm curve of his lower lip, she leant forward to taste it.

      Daniel stayed completely still at first, letting her discover the hint of strawberries still lingering on his mouth. She took her time, exploring fully—the little dents at the corners of his lips, the fullness of the bottom one, the sculptured curve of the top.

      And then something seemed to snap inside him and he hauled her onto his lap and took over. If Chloe had thought that sweet, slow exploration had been worth a decade of waiting, Daniel’s fully-loaded response was more than she ever could have imagined. It swept conscious thought and common sense completely from her brain.

      * * *

      Daniel’s head was spinning. Kissing Chloe was every bit as good as he remembered. Possibly better. Because this time she wasn’t blindsided, taken by surprise. This time he’d let her come to him, let her take charge.

      Why, for heaven’s sake, had he never used this approach before? He’d still been hunting, but it hadn’t been a crashing-through-the-forest kind of hunting; it had been patient and stealthy, all about the wait rather than the pursuit, and the prolonged anticipation had only made the final moment so much sweeter. Instead of feeling as if he’d worn her down, broken something inside her to let him in, he felt alive because she was blooming right there in his arms.

      When they pulled away from each other, her eyes stayed closed, a delicious little smile on her lips. Daniel was very tempted just to lean in close and taste them again, but he wanted her to open her eyes and look at him.

      She was a contradiction, this Chloe Michaels. He’d expected her to be as slick and expert with her lips as she was in everything else. She was, but not in the way he’d anticipated. There’d been a rawness, a sweetness, an exuberance to her response that had caught him totally by surprise.

      Her lids parted and she held his gaze.

      It was there. What he’d been waiting to see, even though he couldn’t quite put a name to it.

      Once wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. But he had to keep reminding himself he was sitting on a lawn with a couple of thousand other people, and that it might not be the greatest idea to keep going right now. He knew where he wanted to spend the night, and it wasn’t in a police cell.

      As good as the music was, it was torture to wait for Kat to finish her set. He kept in contact with Chloe any way he could. He wrapped himself around her, linking his arms in front, pressing butterfly kisses into her neck and hearing the low noises of appreciation deep in her throat as she closed her eyes and tilted her head to give him better access.

      Eventually, the last chord was played, the applause welled and faded, and the stage lights dimmed. People around them began to move. Daniel reluctantly peeled himself away from Chloe and stood up.

      ‘I’ll be back in a second,’ he told her and disappeared off to a marquee to dispose of the now-empty picnic basket and supplies.

      When he returned, he saw her long before he cleared the rest of the crowd. She was the only thing in focus as he made his way towards her, the soft smile on her lips, the way her eyes took on extra sparkle when she looked at him... It was making his blood simmer.

      He had to kiss her again

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