Page 52 of Second Time Around
“I definitely feel melted,” she said, her insides still thrumming with satisfaction. She stretched luxuriously, relishing the silky feel of the fine cotton sheets and the brush of Will’s skin against hers.
“God, you’re beautiful.” His voice was rough with desire still.
But she wasn’t. He was besotted with her ... for the moment. She was a novelty, a memory from a different time of his life. She shouldn’t fool herself into believing it was anything more than that.
“It’s the afterglow,” she said. She turned her head to look at him, causing one of the hairpins in her updo to jab her. “Ow!” She started to pull at the already loosened strands.
“Let me,” Will said, rolling onto his side and burying his fingers in the coils of hair in search of pins. “I’ve been wanting to set it loose the whole evening.” He grinned. “But I got sidetracked.”
His touch was gentle as he carefully pulled out pin after pin, spreading the freed locks over her shoulders and the sheets. The slight shift and pull made delicious tingles dance over her scalp and down her neck. She sighed. “Would you do this every night?”
“Gladly,” he said, running his palm over the spread tresses. “As long as you’re naked.”
She chuckled. “Deal.”
He propped himself up on his elbow and continued to play with her hair, using one curl to feather over her breasts so that the tingles spread across the skin there, too.
His gaze was on her chest, so she was free to drink in the clean, masculine lines and angles of his face. She wanted to file it away for a lonely night when she needed a good memory. As she traced the half smile that curved his lips, her heart twisted and she knew she had to end this soon. Or she would become the one waiting for him to end it ... and it would hurt like hell.
And she knew just how to do it. “I know it’s bad form to bring up an ex-fiancée at a moment like this but I want to be honest about something.”
His lips lost their relaxed curve, compressing to a tight, hard line. “Then why would you?”
“Because I wanted to hate her and I couldn’t.”
He dropped her hair and looked away. “She can be quite charming when the occasion calls for it.”
Kyra felt a guilty satisfaction in Will’s lackluster comment about Petra. “She’s still in love with you. I could see it in the way she watched you.”
He sat up, his arms resting on his drawn-up knees. “She’s in love with her idea of me.”
She wanted to run her hand over the gorgeous muscles of his back, but that would be counterproductive. “What’s the difference between her idea and you?”
“She wants a husband who goes to work twelve hours a day at an impressive job before donning a tuxedo to escort her to her latest charity affair. And occasionally brings her home an expensive gift that she can show off to her friends.”
“She’s working for a good cause.”
He lifted a shoulder in denial. “She has the designer-decorated condo in Manhattan. She has the high-visibility position at a sympathetic but glamorous charity. Now she just needs a husband and two perfect children to complete the picture. I was the husband component.”
“But you asked her to marry you. You must have felt something for her because I know you wouldn’t have proposed unless you did.”
“Thank you.” His tone was sardonic. “She was very persistent in her attentions, and she’s very beautiful. And different from other women in my parents’ social circle, or so I thought.” He shrugged again. “I’m as susceptible to flattery as the next man. We had a whirlwind relationship, mostly conducted at events requiring a tuxedo. Which should have been my first clue that this wasn’t a match made in heaven.”
“I’ll bet you look dashing in a tux.” His blond hair and jade eyes against the stark black and white would be striking.
He ignored her. “And, of course, my mother engineered every opportunity she could for us to be together. That should have been my second clue.”
“Why does your mother like her so much?”
“Because Petra would bring me back into the fold of proper society.” His tone could have cut stone.
“How did you discover that Petra wasn’t who you thought she was?”
“I took her to Italy, rented a villa in the countryside built in the thirteenth century—modern by Roman standards—near one of my favorite ancient ruins.” His shoulders lifted and fell. “I had a sense that she didn’t really know who I was. This trip was meant to remedy that.”
“It sounds unbelievably romantic.” Kyra would sell her soul to go on a trip like that with Will.
“Petra was bored after the first twenty-four hours.”
