Page 12 of Bedding his Innocent Mistress

He reached across the bed and grabbed his iPhone, loaded up an app then handed it to her.

An array of restaurants was featured. She scanned them. “What do you feel like?”

“Whatever,” he said with a shrug, his skin so tanned that she could almost feel sunshine when she touched him. “You choose dinner; I’ll choose breakfast.”

Her heart ratcheted up a notch. Breakfast? She wouldn’t be here for breakfast. That’s not how this worked; nor what it was.

She hid her doubts behind a smile. “Can it be called dinner at this hour?”

“Supper?” He shrugged. “Sustenance?”

“Refuelling?” She agreed.

“Definitely.” And he kissed her, hard, passionately, and in a way that lit new fires in her body; fires that would demand his attention. Possibly before food arrived.

“I don’t care what we eat,” she moaned into his mouth.

He pushed her back to the pillows, his kiss a challenge she was ready to meet. “Nor do I.” He took the phone and broke their kiss for a second, pressing buttons before tossing it on the bed and bringing himself over her. The weight of his body was its own aphrodisiac.

It was a kiss.

A long, sensual kiss that filled her up with strange new feelings.

Just a kiss. His hands on her hair, his body on top of hers, and his mouth teasing and tormenting her to the brink of insanity.

When he flipped onto his back, she was out of breath with stars in her eyes and a heart that was racing harder than ever before. For a one-night stand, this was an awakening she suspected she’d never forget.

*

Ivy Hennessey looked as though she’d been thoroughly and repeatedly ravaged. She stared at herself in the mirror, hardly recognising the woman she’d become. Swollen lips, smudged eye make-up, tousled hair that only a leave-in conditioner would be able to tame, shadows under her eyes that spoke of a sleepless night. The kind of sleepless night she’d never had before.

A good one.

A sexy one.

She tilted her head so she could look into the master bedroom at the still-sleeping body of Rafe Santoro and something like pain rolled through her.

She had to leave.

Before he woke up.

Wasn’t that the point of nights like this? None of the messy emotional stuff in the morning? No awkward waiting for her to leave so he could get on with his day?

Ivy had no real point of reference, but it felt like what she should do, even when it was the exact opposite of what she wanted to do.

She lathered her hands with soap and splashed water over her face until her make up was all washed off. It was a man’s bathroom. There were no other cosmetics or products that she could rub into her face to improve her appearance, but it wasn’t yet six o’clock, and her plan was to get straight into a cab.

Her dress was crumpled in the mid-section, and she thought about borrowing a business shirt of his to knot over the front, but knowing Rafe Santoro as she somehow felt she did, his shirts would probably have cost a week’s salary and she didn’t really want to take something she was obliged to return.

She tiptoed out of the bathroom, allowing herself one moment of weakness to stare at his beautiful sleeping body, exposed from the waist up where the sheet was draped carelessly across his mid-section.

In repose he was stunning; strong and relaxed. A sleeping giant.

She resisted the urge to kiss him, even as it overwhelmed every fibre of her being.

It was what it was. A single night. An adventure. An exorcism.

And now it was over.

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