Carol Marinelli - One Summer Night

His for a while, Zander thought, because that was all it ever was.

The menu had delicious offerings and, grateful for reprieve from his gaze, Charlotte pored over it. It was a mixture of traditional Greek with a contemporary twist.

‘I’d like the dips.’

‘We are in Xanos,’ Zander said. ‘Why not try the crab ravioli? There is none finer.’

‘I’d like the dips,’ Charlotte said, but she chose fish for her main and winced just a little as he ordered herbed milk-fed lamb. ‘Are you looking forward to tomorrow?’

‘I’m not thinking about tomorrow.’ Zander replied. ‘Instead, I am enjoying tonight.’

‘But …’ She tried to quash her frustration. Almost every conversation was off limits till he met with her boss, yet there was so much she wanted to know about him, so much she wanted to share with him.

‘I’d far rather hear about you,’ Zander said.

Except that was off limits too. She didn’t want the fantasy to end with the drudgery of her real life served up at this sumptuous dinner table, didn’t want to watch his black eyes glaze as she droned on about her problems.

‘It’s a beautiful hotel …’ she said.

‘You’d have seen a few in your travels,’ Zander commented. ‘But, yes, it is.’ He looked over at her. ‘Have you tried the spa?’

‘I’m here to work,’ Charlotte said, for she was conscientious, and though she had had more than a peek at the luxurious spa menu, she would never expect Nico to foot such a bill.

‘I am very proud of it,’ Zander said. ‘With all my hotels, I try for something different yet somehow the same.’

Their starters were delivered. She took one look at his ravioli and, though the dips were the best she’d tasted, she couldn’t help but wish she’d taken his advice.

‘Here.’ He cut off a large piece and she thought he would place it on her plate but it was Zander, so of course the fork, his fork, went straight towards her mouth. She opened a jaw that felt rigid, tried to tell herself to relax, to take the offering, but with him it was so loaded. She tasted the butter on her tongue and tried to remember to swallow, tried not to ponder how with Zander everything tasted of sex.

‘Tastes good, yes?’

She nodded. It was all she could manage. She licked a trickle of butter that was on her lip and as she did so the smile he gave her told her their minds were thinking along the same lines. He watched her toying with her food and, rather than summon the waiter, he moved forward a little to pour her more wine, which gave him the excuse to press his knee in. To his satisfaction she leaped as if branded, and then put a hand over her glass too late, for the champagne met slender fingers and bubbled and fizzed.

He took her hand and wanted to suck each finger dry. Perhaps, from the tremble that shot through her body, he could have got away with it, but she thought him a gentleman, and for now he obliged, took a thick white napkin and wrapped it around her hand.

And not a drop more passed her lips, and though somehow she made it through the main course, the conversation was awkward. He knew she was on guard, knew she was wrestling, could feel her nerves as the dessert menu was presented, as the evening neared a close.

‘I’m not sure if I’m hungry.’ She wasn’t hungry, but surely it was better to be here in the restaurant than saying goodnight, trying to resist his kiss. If he did kiss her again, which he would, she knew exactly where it might lead, so she stared at the dessert menu till it blurred out of focus.

‘If you’re having trouble choosing, we can get a couple,’ Zander offered. ‘We can share .’

‘It’s terribly warm,’ Charlotte said. She was babbling a little, Zander realised. ‘I won’t be a moment.’

He did not want to be here, fed by his brother. He wanted Charlotte for himself, on his terms.

He walked and found her easily, tucked away on the balcony, staring out to the Mediterranean, the wind blowing her curls around her face, and he could see from her profile she was troubled.

She knew he was approaching and was scared to turn around in case she fell against him.

So hard she wrestled with her conscience as she stood there.

She did not fall into bed with men. There had been a couple of relationships—one that had ended almost as soon as it had begun when she had told him about her mother’s illness and one that had meant a lot but had faded and died as her mother’s illness had become more and more consuming, but it was Zander consuming her now.

Zander was the first man in ages she had responded to, the first man she had ever reacted to with such force, and tonight, in this hotel, with this beautiful, beautiful man, it was not the champagne that reduced her inhibitions but the vibe of him, the presence that seeped into her pores, into her brain, and made her giddy with lust and with promise. It made twenty-four hours seem an impossible delay.

She had left for some privacy, to gather her thoughts, to convince herself she could hold out till tomorrow, but there was almost relief when she heard the door and his footsteps coming up behind her.

She felt the lips on the back of her neck and it felt like salvation, and she closed her eyes because all she wanted was to feel the tease of his mouth. He kissed her very slowly, and she felt the scratch of his unshaven jaw as lips slid across her flesh. She could stop him at any moment, his kiss so slow, so light, she could brush him off and turn around and pretend perhaps that it had never happened, except she gripped harder to the balcony wall and did not turn around, for she did not want it to end.

He kissed her harder, as if to warn her perhaps, as if to tell her she could end it here, but she wanted him more than she wanted a neat conclusion.

She wanted the hands that snaked around and slid to her stomach, she wanted the bruise she was sure he was leaving because he kissed low on her neck, so deep she felt like crying, felt like turning her head right round to suck on his mouth, but still she stood there. She wanted, how she wanted, the slight pressure on his fingers, the push back into him that gave her a daring feel of what was waiting, his solid length pressing into her bottom.

‘We could take dessert upstairs,’ Zander said, for he wanted her in his room. He wanted every morsel now that went into her mouth, every sip, to come only from him, everything to be untainted by his brother.

‘I shouldn’t.’ Still she could not face him, still she dared not open her eyes, because if she did, she must make decisions, and she struggled so hard to remember. ‘I’m working.’

‘Not now,’ Zander said. ‘You just clocked off.’

‘Your brother—’

‘Forget about him,’ Zander said, for he must be dismissed from this moment. Zander must not for a second reveal the bitterness that was there or she would run.

‘I don’t want to regret this in the morning.’ It was a plea almost, because around him she could not think.

‘Why would you regret something so nice?’

‘Because …’ she attempted, except his fingers were at the back of her bra and nimbly, easily, through her dress he unhooked her, and she was dressed except she felt naked, exposed. Shamelessly it exhilarated her. What did this man do? He turned her round and he gave her his mouth. He wrapped her in the heat of his arms and cooled her with his tongue. He kissed her, but Charlotte could never, she realised, recall it afterwards as just a kiss, for it stroked and it soothed and it beat in her mouth and dragged at her skin and it was faint-making and delicious and did things to her body that no mere kiss ever could. Even wearing her high heels he was the taller, and their bodies meshed. He pulled her right in, he leant on the balcony so his body was a curve for hers to melt into—and readily she did.