One Night Before Marriage. Anne OliverЧитать онлайн книгу.
few business interests.’
She eyed him over her glass. ‘When you’re not being a hero.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Last night. I was outside the Cove, I saw you.’
He took a deep gulp of beer. The shadows were back in his eyes. ‘I’m no hero.’
‘Wrong. I was there. You risked yourself for others, stopped to help an old lady most people would avoid.’
‘No big deal. And it was hardly a risk; the car was gone. Those stupid kids…’ He shook his head. ‘We’ll all end up in the sewer one day.’
‘You’re not an optimist, then. You don’t believe good outweighs bad? That everything happens for a reason?’
He seemed to remember something sad because his mouth thinned even more, and he smiled without humour. ‘I’m more of a realist. Realists are rarely disappointed.’
He had a point there. A realist would have expected Alasdair to walk. Good-looking guys, whatever their gender preference, didn’t hang around for long. ‘What about your family?’ Is there a fiancée waiting to be jilted somewhere?
‘I grew up in Melbourne. Never married, never tempted. Lived in the outback, came to the city a few years ago.’
‘Your parents?’
‘Mum’s in Melbourne. My father’s dead.’
End of story. Chewing her lip, Carissa watched him toss back the contents of his bottle. His father’s death must have hit him hard and he didn’t want to talk about it. ‘Are you staying at the Cove long?’
‘Not sure yet.’
She saw the residual tension in his hand as he set the empty bottle on the table with a clunk. The man had problems. Did she want to get involved? But she remembered last night. He was one of the good guys. Besides, she wasn’t getting involved involved.
‘Come on,’ he said, slowly reverting to the flirtatious man she’d started out with. ‘It’ll be cooler by the water.’
They left the glare of lights and wandered to where the air was shadowed and filled with the scent of sea and summer. Carissa took off her shoes and lifted her face to the faint breeze. ‘I’ve worked at the Cove for two years and never walked here.’
‘A night for firsts.’
She almost smiled. He didn’t know the half of it.
He stopped and looked down at her. ‘Do you know what I was thinking about while I was watching you play?’
‘What?’ The word spilled out on a husky, almost breathless exhalation.
He lowered his mouth till it was a sigh away from hers. ‘This.’ He skimmed her lips with his own, a tantalising hint. ‘Touching you. Tasting you.’
Oh, yes, she thought, her mouth tingling with the promise. Me too.
He tangled calloused fingers with hers, watching her. Still watching her, he deliberately pressed his body against hers. One body part in particular. One very thick, very hard, very insistent body part.
She didn’t step back. He was big, he was male, and, unlike her ex-fiancé, he wanted her. He lowered his lips again, and, dropping her shoes, she leaned into him, her bag skimming her hip as she wound her arms around his neck.
Her mind shut down. Her senses went into overdrive. The flavour of his mouth, beer and something salty, the textures of tongue and teeth as he deepened the kiss, his roughened fingertips skimming her arms.
After the first flutter of nerves she relaxed and acquainted herself with the new and exciting sensation of male arousal against her belly. So far, so good, but how would it feel horizontally? With no clothes on?
She wanted to know how it felt to have a man’s weight on her, to have him pumping all that heat and strength inside her. She wanted to know whether fantasy lived up to reality. And she wanted this man to be the one to show her.
She’d never have to see him again. If she didn’t ask more personal questions, didn’t get to know him, she could walk away, no emotional ties, the way men did. Her birthday present to herself. She hadn’t taken anything for herself in a long time. And Melanie would definitely approve.
He pulled back, hands on her elbows, his eyes dark with lusty impatience. ‘What do you want to do about this?’
A ball of heat lodged in her gut, her knees went weak, her pulse hammered. Keeping her eyes on his, she reached up, trailed unsteady hands down the unfamiliar contours of his neck.
Sex with a stranger. Through his T-shirt she rubbed over his tight little nipples with her thumbs before moving over the plane of chest and stomach to the fabric’s hem. She crept her fingers underneath and found hot, hard flesh. Then she hooked her hands in the waistband of his jeans. And tugged.
His stomach muscles tensed against her knuckles. His breath jerked in. He’d think her easy and experienced. She stifled an almost hysterical laugh.
‘Carissa, I can put you in a cab now, or we can continue this in my room. The decision’s yours.’ Restless hips shifted against her fingers. ‘But make it quick.’
Something hot and dangerous shot through her body like a flame-tipped arrow. She only had to say, and she could be in his room. In his bed.
In the Cove Hotel.
She let out a frustrated breath. ‘Employees aren’t permitted in guests’ rooms.’
‘Is that a “no” or a problem?’
‘A…problem?’ She shrugged. ‘Rules are rules.’
His eyes crinkled at the corners as he watched her. He smiled that crooked smile as he took her hands from his jeans, rubbed a thumb over her knuckles. ‘So we’ll break a few rules.’
CHAPTER TWO
THEY separated before they reached the door and met again at the elevator. Shocked, Carissa watched as Ben keyed his card. ‘The penthouse?’
‘I like space and a room with a view.’
Seconds later the elevator doors whooshed open. She stepped into the room and stared. Low lighting didn’t dim the view of Sydney’s coat-hanger bridge, the Opera House like luminous swans on the harbour. The room was black on white. Silver glinted, marble shone. The whole scene screamed money. ‘Wow.’
He moved to the full-length glass door, slid it open. Sheer curtains billowed in on the sultry breeze. ‘One of the best views in the world,’ he said.
She hadn’t come for the view. She hadn’t even come for romance.
She’d come for sex.
And the man of the moment lounged against the balcony with wind in his hair, an intriguing blend of casual and remote as he stared over the water. Her first lover, a man she didn’t know.
The jolt of realisation must have shown on her face because when he finally looked at her, the expression warmed. ‘Relax and come here.’
She swallowed and stayed where she was. ‘I want you to know, I’m not in the habit—I mean…this isn’t…’ Now she was babbling and way out of her depth.
‘I like you pink and flustered. An interesting contrast to that cool, classical beauty at the piano.’
Shifting into defence mode, she lifted her chin. ‘I am not flustered.’ But she did relax when she saw the glint of humour in his eyes as he came towards her.
‘Okay, then…’ He trailed fingers of fire up the side of her neck and into her hair under her clasp at the back of her head. ‘Sophisticated naïveté.’
A buzzer dinged. Her eyes whipped to the elevator door.
‘Hey.’