Elodie’s eyes flared wide but she didn’t brush it off, nor did she jerk her leg away. She couldn’t. She was powerless to do anything, because of how damned much shelikedthe way it felt to have him touch her. The shivers weren’t just rioting along her spine now, but rather through her entire body, so she felt trembly, hot and cold, all at once.
“I’m going to cut to the chase,” he said, voice low and raspy, so it made her nerve endings feel as though they’d been electrified. “I want you to come home with me.”
Her jaw dropped. She knew she hadn’t been imagining the chemistry between them, but she hadn’t expected him to be so overt. She hadn’t been with anyone other than Aaron, and just the thought of doing what this stranger—no, not a stranger, for she knew his name at least—had suggested, made her body explode with a thousand and one feelings. Contradictory feelings, like doubt, amusement, need, and rebellion. But she’d be sleeping with him for all the wrong reasons. To prove a point to herself, to prove a point to everyone. That wasn’t fair, was it?
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“So?”
She laughed at that. It was a fair question. Why did everything need to be a good idea? She’d thought the wedding was a great idea, had thought it was sensible and ‘right’. What needed to happen. And it had been a huge mistake.
“Let me be clear,cara.I am suggesting we spend one night together.” He leaned closer then, so his words were a whisper against her earlobe. “One very, very pleasurable night.”
CHAPTER 2
HE KNEW SHE WAS going to come with him when he felt her sharp intake of breath, followed by a little tremble in her leg. Not only was she beautiful, there was something so sensual about the woman—he’d been watching her from the moment he walked in, the way her body moved, supple and lithe, athletic yet graceful. She was naturally slim with honey brown hair that was pulled back in a ponytail—he was itching to loosen the elastic band and run his fingers through it.
He didn’t have a ‘type’. Since the end of his marriage, he’d been with all sorts of women—there was no one beauty ideal for Raf. For him, it came down to two things: availability and appeal. Appeal could be anything from confidence, to grace, to an easy smile. He knew what his brothers and cousins would say: he’d fuck anything that gave him a chance. And maybe that was true, too. Since Marcia, he’d turned into something he’d always sworn he’d avoid: his father.
She pulled just far enough away from him to be able to see his face, her large, blue eyes latched to his, swirling with the same desire that was firing in his veins. “I think it would be a mistake,”she surprised him by saying. He was rarely wrong about his chances with women. Availability was his main criteria.
He moved his hand a little lower, towards her knee. Her eyes fluttered closed and her throat shifted visibly as she swallowed against her physical response to him.
“To be clear, is that a no?”
Her lips parted, eyes almost pleading with him. She wanted to go home with him; she was at war with herself.
“I—shouldn’t.”
“Are you trying to convince yourself, or me?”
She sucked in a sharp breath. “Both.” Honesty was another trait he valued, though it barely mattered when he was only interested in hooking up with a woman. But after Marcia, he loathed duplicity. She’d lied to him almost their entire relationship. How had he been so stupid? He tightened his grip on the glass, careful not to give any hint of the dark nature of his swirling thoughts.
“Is it working?”
She closed her eyes then, her full lips parted in a way that made him ache to lean forward and kiss her.
“We just met.”
“That’s a statement of fact, not an argument.”
Her lips twisted. “To me, it’s both,” she said slowly, the words laced with clear regret. Then, she surprised him for the second time in as many minutes by standing up, dislodging his hand. But because of the way his body was arranged, she only came closer to him, his legs forming a perfect frame on either side.
“I have no doubt I’m going to regret this tomorrow,” she muttered. “But I suspect I’m nothing like the kind of woman you usually hit on. You’d be bound to be disappointed anyway.”
She reached backwards then, moving her stool so she could sidestep him, skirting around behind the bar. “My shift is done,”she said, when in the safety of her workspace once more. “Nice meeting you, Raf.”
She’d been right.The next morning, she’d been kicking herself for turning him down. Particularly when she’d seen the text message from Aaron.
So, you didn’t call and I kind of need an answer ASAP. I’ve got an audition in London next week for this great part, but it’s over three days. Any chance I can stay with you? I can’t really stretch to the expense of accom right now…
She read the message with a sense of abject disbelief and fury, almost tempted to take it out on her phone by hurtling it across the room and into the wall. That was just so like Aaron. Take, take, take. Want, want, want. How dare he think he had any right to ask her for a damned thing, after all he’d put her through?
She supposed it was the perfect storm, then. Her disappointment at the night she could have had with some hot Italian guy, her anger at Aaron, and then, twelve hours later, right at the end of her shift, when that same scorching hot man walked into the bar, eyes latched directly to hers with a silent invitation swirling in their depths.
Uncertainty had her pulse racing, her mind firing, her insides twisting. She’dneverdone anything like this before, but what did that matter? All her life she’d put one foot after the other, doing the ‘right’ thing. Being the good girl her parents expected her to be, the perfect girlfriend, the dutiful employee. And what had it gotten her? Nothing. She was twenty-six years old with no clue where she was going in life, living in her cousin’s apartment because she didn’t have enough money for a bond deposit on her own. Everything was already a big fat mess, what was one more mistake, anyway?
“I’m just finishing my shift,” she murmured, when he approached, anticipation and desire making her voice raspy. “Did you want a drink?”
