LITMIR.BIZ

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moan dampened her skin where the curve of her neck met jaw. Damn, I’m thirty-four, too old for this, too old to be worrying about Maria knowing I want her. The hell with it! His palms shivered over the silky fabric and curved round her slender shape, drawing her tight against his aching need just as the music stopped.

      The song finished, ending the dance, ending the closeness. Maria didn’t move, couldn’t move. A fire blazed inside her, leaping the barrier of clothing to meld her to him. Could he feel her shake? If he moved would she fall? She hid behind closed eyes. It didn’t mask the sound of people wishing each other Happy Christmas or good-night. Franc’s lips skimmed her forehead as his hands loosened their grip, leaving her bereft.

      “Merry Christmas, Maria,” he whispered.

      It was over. Time to go home.

      The gruff timbre of his voice echoed in her tremors. Tilting her chin with one large hand, he sought an answer in her eyes. The pad of his thumb stroked her bottom lip and released a sigh. In that instant she changed her mind about the color of his eyes. Not bitter chocolate, bittersweet. Like the moment binding them. She wanted to remember this. She would remember this. Always.

      The last time she expected she would see him. Tears blurred her vision. His face floated above hers like a mirage, until his mouth slanted and he took hers, blinding her with his nearness, his kiss, until only touch and sensation remained.

      God! She tasted sweet; Franc had known she would. Her lips parted on a sigh and his tongue swept past them for a taste of the honey he knew lay within. Almost tentatively her tongue touched his and he felt her hands tremble and flutter like butterflies across his chest. It was more erotic than if she’d answered his passion with one of equal demand.

      “Stay with me tonight. My apartment’s just next door.” The words grated from his throat as emotion took over. For one second he wished he hadn’t said them. But only one.

      As the lights came on she pulled away, her eyes huge, more violet than brown. They flicked from side to side, grounding her in the present. The party was over.

      “No!”

      Franc hesitated in mid-farewell-wave to a departing group. What did she mean, no? She couldn’t mean it. Did she think he didn’t know she wanted him as much as he wanted her?

      “We shouldn’t have done that,” she said quietly.

      Maria backed away, breaking the contact, taking her heat. Franc shivered. “Why?”

      “We’ve had this evening. Why spoil it?”

      “We could have tonight and no one would be spoiled but you. Let me spoil you.”

      His breath stirred long tendrils of her hair against her cheeks. She pushed them behind her ear, remembering how they’d gotten that way. Franc’s fingers forking through her hair as he held her head still. “I need to call a cab.”

      She needed to get out of here before she did something stupid.

      “I don’t mind driving you home.”

      “No. I insist. It’s better this way. Let me take a cab.”

      “All right. Tell me where you want to go and I’ll call one.”

      Maria turned in her seat and watched out the back window of the cab, and without resorting to her glasses, she saw his tall figure soon blend into the shadows.

      Franc Jellic was almost irresistible. And that six-letter word, almost, was her saving grace. She’d never met a man like him. Never been tempted until now, though she had been curious about her sexuality.

      For a moment the answer to the puzzle had been within her grasp, until she banged into a wall of reality and the image of what might have been shattered as she hit. To bare her body, her scars would mean explanations. Explanations she couldn’t give him. Explanations that wouldn’t help her find the way out of the maze left by her abduction.

      A sigh racked her body. She hugged herself to stop the tremors and tried to look on the bright side.

      One thing for sure, she’d learned a lesson tonight. Learned how easily one could become trapped, brought to one’s knees by a glance, both tender and wild at once. A glance that promised to teach all she wanted to know as it sent her body into meltdown and her heart into overdrive.

      Yes, curiosity was all it would take. His kiss…how would it feel in the secret places where her body had throbbed as they danced? Would it ease the ache or sharpen the pain?

      Christmas Eve had arrived with a bang. Heat sizzled in puddles of tar on the road and sunburned leaf tips spangled trees meant for the northern hemisphere with bronze. The only cloud in the sky was the leaden one hovering over Maria’s head advertising her failure.

      She mulled over her problems as she stood at the top of the driveway, waving to Tess and Linda, who she shared the villa with. “Bye, have a happy Christmas and a lovely holiday,” she called, her thoughts nothing to do with the joys of the season. Soon she, too, would be hitting the road back to the bosom of her family.

      Bosom being the appropriate word. There would be hugs all round. Papa and Mamma squeezed so tight, sometimes she could hardly breathe. It was their way of showing they loved her.

      The word suffocating reared its head. Flushing, she pushed the thoughts away. Of course they were protective of her. They still tended to see her as the teenager who’d been abducted.

      It was a weird situation. She couldn’t remember anything. Yet it was impossible to forget the incident. Her family’s concern kept it in the forefront of her mind.

      Yes, incident was a better word.

      It was real, yet unreal. A story told from someone else’s point of view. Lately, she’d begun to waken in the dead of night in a panic from nightmares. It dated from the moment she realized someone was shadowing her footsteps.

      A faint ping sounded at the back of her mind like the first warning note of an alarm. The impression sent her spinning round to scan the front garden and faded just as quickly when she saw the old man next door raking the pebbles on his driveway. Being unable to carry through last night’s plans had left her jumpy, knowing Randy Searle was still on the loose, didn’t realize she was on to him or that she knew his name.

      Alone in the house, she cleared the festive lunch table where they’d exchanged gifts. The other girls had protested, but saw her logic, conceding her journey home was less lengthy than the ones facing them.

      She pushed her glasses up on her nose, her spare pair. On her way home this afternoon she’d stop by the restaurant to see if her others had been found where she’d placed them on the table. But before she left, since she had plenty of time, she’d walk around to the shop next to Northcote Point cinema and buy her mother a box of the handmade chocolates she loved.

      As she washed up, flashes of memory from the night before filled her thoughts. Could any woman ever forget her first real taste of romance?

      The trick would be to make sure no memories of Randy Searle were allowed to taint it. Thank heavens she’d made time to write it all down in her journal before sleep overtook her.

      Franc wrote his signature on the check with a flourish. Stanhope’s annual Christmas party didn’t come cheaply, but it was worth it for the goodwill and camaraderie it engendered in the staff. He passed the check over the tall, narrow desk to the manager. “How much of this covers breakages?”

      Paul Start, the manager of The Point restaurant, grinned. “You got off lightly, no more than two or three glasses.” Always one for an eye to business, Paul winked. “Come back next year. You’re the kind of customer we like.”

      Just as astute, Franc took his receipt, glanced at the figures again and said, “Next time, I’ll ask for a discount.”

      Paul’s eyes narrowed, calculated. “Do that. Next time, you might get one. But for now, how about having lunch? On the house.”

      “Thanks,

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