LITMIR.BIZ

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OPENED the sliding glass door and she went ahead to stand out on his terrace. A soft sea breeze ruffled her hair and he smoothed it with his hand.

      The last few hours had tilted his axis. Twirled his thoughts like the rides had twirled their bodies, shifted his plans from conquest to surrender, made him see that taking this woman to bed when they had no future could harm her, and he didn’t want to do that.

      Soon he would move on to the next city. Needed to. Was unable to form a trusting relationship because so much trust had been broken in the past and the scars were deep. Had crippled him for the emotional agility a relationship needed.

      But he wanted her badly.

      She leaned back into his body, her slender neck enticing his mouth, and he dropped a kiss under her ear. She tasted so good, felt like silk, and her body pressed back into him so that they both felt his hardness rise.

      She wriggled some more and he bit back a groan as he strove to speak normally. ‘Perhaps we should go in. Would you like coffee?’

      ‘It’s not coffee I was thinking about.’

      ‘Really?’ His mind was lost to conversation. Was fixated on the woman in his arms. The need to create distance fading as the heat built between them.

      He spoke into her hair. Desperate for one of them to be sensible. ‘I leave in a few weeks. I may not return.’

      She spun in his arms and looked up at him. Unflinching. So courageous. Her head up. Green eyes burning like the starboard lights of ships in the night and he’d never wanted another woman more than at this moment when she offered herself to him.

      Then unexpectedly she said, ‘I’m a little rusty so you’d better be good.’

      And his heart cracked open just a little more. He couldn’t help the smile that pulled his cheeks and made him shake his head in wonder. Feel the pound of his heart and the jump in his groin.

      ‘I am good.’ Marco closed his arms around her and Emily’s silver shoes left the ground.

      Suddenly she was trembling with her own audacity but it felt so good. So different from going home alone tonight and regret and an empty bed.

      He spun her like she’d been spun so many times in the last two hours and the lights of the harbour blurred as he swept through the doors with her hard against his chest, carried like a child, placed her like a princess in the middle of a gorgeously pillowed bed.

      She watched him and he watched her. Pulled off his shoes and socks, unbuttoned his shirt, never taking his eyes from her face, until the shirt fell open to reveal the breadth of his chest, undid his trousers so that they flapped open to reveal the curling hairs that snaked down, slid them off to reveal his black briefs. Then he stopped.

      She moistened her lips. Oh, my goodness. He was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen. In black shorts, just like she’d imagined. Her throat closed and she swallowed to moisten her dry mouth. ‘I had hoped you might wear those black trunk things.’

      ‘So you wondered.’ He smiled at her and never had he looked more like the gypsy king as he did then with his dark chocolate eyes burning down at her. Just one word as he held out his hand.

      ‘Come.’

      And suddenly it was easy. To reach and take his hand. To stand in front of him as he undid the covered buttons on her blouse until it too hung open. Allow his big hands to slowly slide over her hips until she stood before him in her underwear. The only indulgence she allowed herself.

      The tip of one long finger slid slowly from her throat, between her lace-covered breasts, to the top of her ribboned bikini. ‘What is this delight?’

      She blushed. Her secret was out but she doubted he’d be telling anybody. He’d better not.

      ‘Such beautiful underclothes.’ He brushed her face with his lips and bent to breathe his way down between her breasts. Tasting and murmuring. ‘Such a beautiful body.’ He looked up at her. ‘You are exquisite.’

      She should be doing something. Touching him, but she didn’t know where to start. Shouldn’t be just having all the fun. Tried not to look at the bulge in the dark briefs in front of her. She hadn’t thought this far. To her inexperience. Her shortcomings as a lover. She could feel the beginnings of shame, left over from her rigid upbringing, left over from the horror of coldness and disgust from her parents the last time she’d lived with them.

      She turned her head. She didn’t want to think of that. Especially now.

      Marco felt the change come over her. Looked swiftly at her face, straightened and drew her against him.

      ‘What is it, innamorata? Sweetheart?’

      ‘Nothing. Kiss me.’

      It was not nothing. But he would kiss her. Hold her and show her how much he wanted her. And that was all for the moment. It would be no good for him if she was not also transported.

      Emily sat in the pre-dawn light on the ferry huddled into her thin wrap, lost and confused, unable to believe she’d slept with him. While her daughter lay in hospital.

      She’d woken at five, spooned by a strong man’s body, the curve of her hips tucked into his heat, her lower body pleasantly aware of a new set of muscles she hadn’t used in a while and her face had flamed as erotic snapshots of their night had blown on the embers low in her belly and urged her to arch back into him.

      His arm had lain heavy across her shoulders as the panic had flared. Somewhere behind the panic a little voice had whispered that no wonder this golden man was sleeping like the dead. He was right. He was good.

      She’d fought to keep her movements smooth as she’d eased out from under his hand and away from his body.

      He’d murmured something in his sleep and she’d pushed a pillow into his seeking hand and he’d drifted off again.

      Scooped her bra from the floor and clipped it, she remembered that spot, had picked up her panties from the chair and pulled them on, and then her skirt and blouse. She’d glanced away from the chair, remembered Marco pulling her down onto his lap, and hurriedly scooped her shoes from under the bed—she certainly remembered the bed—and then she was dressed and couldn’t think past the concept that she’d been the easiest conquest in the world.

      So she’d let herself out, putting her silver shoes on in the hallway, and had tapped the lift button impatiently in case he opened the door.

      Now here she was. Alone, shivering, pulling into her wharf in the early morning for the first time in her life that wasn’t because of work.

      An awful thought jolted as the ferry bumped the wharf and she checked her phone. No missed calls from Annie or the hospital. She sighed and thought self-mockingly, How lucky, because she suspected there had been some moments there when the whole apartment block could have come down around their ears and neither would have noticed. Would have thought it just part of the impact of making love together. Oh, my goodness, she wasn’t sure how she could regret that!

      Marco woke to an empty bed. Like he did every morning, because he never asked a woman to stay. Today he had expected it to be different.

      He’d heard the door shut and he opened his eyes as he sighed, slapped his forehead, and groaned. What had he done? What had she done to him? His hand slid across the remaining warmth where her head had lain and he wanted to run. He just wasn’t sure if it was as far as he could get from Sydney or after Emily.

      He did neither. He sat on his terrace and nursed his espresso as he looked over the waking harbour. Imagined her hunched in the ferry on her way home, but by the time he realised she would be cold in her thin wrap it was too late to do anything but abuse his own stupidity.

      Obviously she didn’t want to face him this morning, which was a damn shame because already he missed her. Missed her in more ways than he should. Regretted, of course, they had not made love one more time—because he was afraid he hadn’t quite got her out of his system.

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