Page 10 of The Venetian One-Night Baby

He swallowed and slid his hand to the sensitive skin of her nape, his fingers tangling into her hair, sending her scalp into a tingling torrent of pleasure. ‘Because it can’t go anywhere.’

‘Who said I wanted it to go anywhere?’ Sabrina asked. ‘I’m just asking you to kiss me, not marry me. You kiss other women, don’t you?’

His breath came out and sent a tickling waft of air across the surface of her lips. ‘The thing is... I’m not sure I can just kiss you.’

She stared at him in pleasant surprise. So pleasant her ego got out of the foetal position and did a victory dance. ‘What are you saying?’ She couldn’t seem to speak louder than a whispery husk.

His eyes had a dark pulsing intensity that made her inner core contract. ‘I want you. But I—’

‘Can we skip the but?’ Sabrina said. ‘Let’s go back to the I want you bit. Thing is, I want you too. So, what are we going to do about it?’

His gaze drifted to her mouth and then back to her eyes, his eyes hardening as if he had called on some inner strength to keep his self-control in check. ‘We’re going to ignore it, that’s what.’ His tone had the same determined edge as his gaze.

Sabrina moistened her lips, watching as his gaze followed the movement of her tongue. ‘What if I don’t want to ignore it? What if I want you to kiss me? What if I want you to make love to me just this once? No one needs to know about it. It’s just between us. It will get it out of our system once and for all and then we can go back to normal.’

She could hardly believe she had been so upfront. She had never been so brazen, so bold about her needs. But she could no longer ignore the pulsing ache of her body. The need that clawed and clenched. The need that only he triggered. Was that why she hadn’t made love with anyone for all these years? No one made her feel this level of desire. No one even came close to stirring her flesh into a heated rush of longing.

‘Sabrina...please...’ His voice had a scraped-raw quality as if his throat had been scoured with a bristled brush.

‘Please what? Don’t tell it like it is?’ Sabrina placed her hand on his chest where his heart was thud, thud, thudding so similar to her own. ‘You want me. You said so. I felt it when you kissed me three weeks ago. And I know you want me now.’

Max took her by the hands, his fingers almost overlapping around her wrists. At first, she thought he was going to put her from him, but then his fingers tightened and he drew her closer. ‘This is madness...’ His smoky grey-blue gaze became hooded as it focussed on her mouth as if drawn to it by a magnetic force too powerful for his willpower.

‘What is mad about two consenting adults having a one-night stand?’ There she went again—such brazen words spilling out of her mouth, as if she’d swallowed the bad girl’s guide to hook-up sex. Who was this person she had suddenly become since entering his hotel room? It wasn’t anyone Sabrina recognised. But she wasn’t going to stop now. She couldn’t. If she didn’t have sex with Max, someone she knew and trusted to take care of her, who else would she get to do the deed? No one, that’s who.

Ten years had already passed and her confidence around men had gone backwards, not forwards. It was do or die—of sexual frustration. She wanted Max to cure her of her of her hang-ups...not that she was going to tell him about her lack of a love life. No flipping way. He’d get all knight-in-shining-armour about it and refuse to make love to her.

Max brushed the pad of his thumb over her bottom lip, pressing and then releasing until her senses were singing like the Philharmonic choir. ‘A one-night stand? Is that really what you want?’

Sabrina fisted her hands into the thickness of his dark brown hair, the colour so similar to her own. She fixed her gaze on his troubled one. ‘Make love to me, Max. Please?’ Gah. Was she begging now? Was that how desperate she had become?

Yep. That desperate.

Max tipped up her chin, his eyes locking on hers. ‘One night? No repeats? No happy ever after, right?’

Sabrina licked her lips—a mixture of nerves and feverish excitement. ‘I want no one and I mean no one to find out about this. It will be our little secret. Agreed?’

One of his dark brows lifted above his sceptical gaze. But then his gaze flicked back to her mouth and he gave a shuddery sigh, as if the final restraint on his self-control had popped its bolts. ‘Madness,’ he said, so low she almost couldn’t hear it. ‘This is madness.’ And then his mouth came down and set fire to hers.

CHAPTER FOUR

Six weeks later...

‘SO, ARE YOU still keeping mum about what happened between you and Max in Venice?’ Holly asked when she came into Sabrina’s studio for a wedding-dress fitting.

Sabrina made a zipping-the-lips motion. ‘Yep. I promised.’

Holly’s eyes were twinkling so much they rivalled the sparkly bridal tiaras in the display cabinet. ‘You can’t fool me. I know you slept with him. What I don’t understand is why you haven’t continued sleeping with him. Was he that bad a lover?’

Sabrina pressed her lips together to stop herself from spilling all. So many times over the last six weeks she’d longed to tell Holly about that amazing night. About Max’s amazing lovemaking. How he had made her feel. Her body hadn’t felt the same since. She couldn’t even think of him without having a fluttery sensation in her stomach. She had relived every touch of his hands and lips and tongue. She had repeatedly, obsessively dreamed about his possession, the way his body had moved within hers with such intense passion and purpose.

She picked up the bolt of French lace her friend had chosen and unrolled it over the cutting table. ‘I’m not going to kiss and tell. It’s...demeaning.’

‘You kiss and told when he kissed you after he drove you home that night a few weeks back. Why not now?’

‘Because I made a promise.’

‘What?’ Holly’s smiling expression was exchanged for a frown. ‘You don’t trust me to keep it a secret? I’m your best friend. I wouldn’t tell a soul.’

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