Carol Marinelli - One Summer Night

He gave all to that kiss and Zander had kissed many, many women. Had kissed through his youth to assure a bed that night, had kissed just to get dinner when his stomach had been hollow with hunger, had kissed just to survive, but never, not once, had a kiss tasted so good.

Her lipstick was gone, her inhibitions fading, her breasts pressed against him, he caressed her. His mouth adored her in a way that made her feel both reckless and safe.

He took her away with his kiss and then he brought her back with its absence. He handed her her bag, which told her he had come out to fetch her; he draped her in her wrap and covered the swell of nipples beneath her dress, looked into her blue eyes and told her, looked right into them and told her, ‘You’ll never regret this.’

And he lied.

WHY she trusted him she did not know.

Why she so willingly let him lead her to his room was not something she could readily explain.

In the bathroom of his luxury suite, she attempted to scold herself—to tell herself she knew nothing about this man, that he was a client of her boss, that she had known him for just a couple of days.

Not a single lecture worked.

He was the brother of Nico, whom she trusted, but it came down to something rather more basic than that, for there was no man on earth who made her feel the way Zander had in the time they had spent together.

She had not laughed so freely in years, had not talked so readily to another soul—and as for his kiss …

As she rinsed her mouth and looked up into her glittering eyes in the mirror, lifted the hair and saw the bruise he had left, she was also deeply honest with herself—in their few hours of contact he had offered escape. Tonight she was the dress and the shoes and the woman who looked back in the mirror, a woman who could handle things, she told herself as she removed her unhooked bra through the arms of her dress.

It was not love she sought as she walked from the bathroom to the lounge of his suite, it was escape and Zander offered it in spades.

Dessert had been delivered as loosely promised.

Shot glasses filled with mousses and brûlées, tiny pastries and potent custards, and not for a second was she tempted, at least not by the table, for she walked to him and was pulled down to his lap, to a kiss that did not need now to be tamed.

It was not the real Charlotte that kissed him back, it was the Charlotte she wanted to be, perhaps the Charlotte he thought he had met on the beach, a woman who could handle such things, could take the roaming of his hands on her body, could give her all and remember not to love him tomorrow.

For Zander, unusually, there was much at stake.

Wrongly, he assumed she had been his brother’s lover and it was imperative he win before they met.

How delicious the moan in her throat as she sat on his knee and kissed him.

Did he do this? he wanted to ask as he tore down her dress to the breasts he had undressed and suckled at her nipples.

Or this? he begged in his head and stood with her in his lap and pushed her to the bed with his mouth.

Or this? As he slid down her panties.

There was a rough edge to his kisses, an urgency to him that hadn’t been there before, an anger almost, and she pulled back on the bed, confused at the change in him.

‘Zander?’

And he looked up to blue eye that held his, and saw her eyes were darker when troubled. He wanted them pale, wanted her soothed, wanted their night, not the conquest.

Wanted her.

‘I’ve been thinking of you for so long,’ he offered by way of explanation for his urgency. ‘For weeks. Forgive me if I got carried away.’ And he watched as she blinked, still wary. ‘When we spoke, when you were in London and I was in Australia, when you were in bed …’ And she blinked again, for she had thought of him too. Unable to picture him then, still her mind had wandered, so much so that she could now understand his haste. ‘We’ll take things slowly.’ He smiled his lethal smile, except this time he meant it—thought not of his brother or hate, only of her. ‘We’ll go back to the beginning. How did you lie?’

She did not understand his question.

‘How did you lie in your bed when you spoke with me?’ And she could not help but smile at the memory of a dream that had come true, and could now forgive his roughness.

‘On my side.’

‘Show me.’ He rose from the bed and she watched the suited man slowly undress as she rolled to her side and pulled up the covers around her shoulders.

‘You?’ Charlotte asked, as he climbed back into bed.

‘On my back,’ Zander said, and something deep in her stomach tightened. ‘So tell me.’

‘What?’

‘How is the weather?’

And she lay on her side and closed her eyes and imagined the rain on her window and the grey of her life and his voice in her ear, only this time it was better, for it was cool but not cold in Xanos, and this time he was beside her.

‘What did you do today?’ This time, as she spoke of her day, she didn’t have to pretend, didn’t have to make anything up, for it was all real.

‘I went walking in the hills.’

‘Alone?’ Zander asked.

‘No, not alone.’

‘And did you enjoy it?’ This time, when she retold her day, there was his hand on her waist, this time and for evermore she would lie in her bed in her room and remember the feel of him, gentler hands now exploring her body, the nuzzle of his mouth on her arms along her shoulders, a tender exploration of her breast. ‘Did you enjoy being with him in the hills?’

‘Very much.’

‘What did the two of you do?’

‘We just kissed,’ Charlotte said, as he rolled her onto her back.

‘Just?’ Zander asked, his mouth moving down to her stomach.

‘Better than just.’

‘Better than this?’ he asked, and his head moved lower.

Though determined as his quest was to rise above Nico, as he tasted her with his mouth, he forgot to hate. Charlotte lay there, eyes open to the ceiling, to what should feel strange and wrong and unfamiliar, except as his tongue explored and his lips teased, he knew what she wanted as only a lover could; he knew more than her as he pushed down hips that were resisting and demanded she come to his mouth. He kissed her till she bore no more reluctance, till she gave to his mouth a part of her that had once been subdued.

And then, when her body was quiet, he rose over her and kissed her again, kissed her slowly till she was waking, till she was again alive with greedy want, could attune to different sensations. She wanted to feel him, to hold him, to sheath him, for his fingers were now within her and she wanted the rest.

Her fingers were all thumbs at the feel of him, the hard strength that would soon be within her, but his fingers were far more skilled than hers.

He felt the restraint of the latex, felt her clumsy roll down and wanted, for the first time, to tell her not to bother, wanted to really feel the intimate skin that wet his fingers now. Wanted more for himself than was usual as for Zander touching was merely a means to an end, the part where he said and did the right things, worked a while for a brief reward. Yet here and now this did not feel like work.

He forgot to hate for the first time, for it had no place in this room.

He forgot he was here to prove something, to claim something, as his body pressed towards her. He forgot too that he was performing, because that was all sex ever was, and he meant what he said as his fingers moved from inside her, as his erection moved to that place. What he said he would not recall, what she heard was in Greek and not fully understood, but it was an intimate declaration that did not require translation.