Clare Connelly - Cross My Hart

‘Better than you?’ His eyes scan my face in that intensely watchful way of his.

‘Oh, definitely,’ I agree. ‘I was looking to go home with the bartender.’ It’s a joke, a sarcastic rejoinder, and he smiles but says nothing, and the silence stretches between us so, after a moment, I say, ‘I’ve never been here before—to this hotel. It’s...nice.’

He laughs. ‘It’s three-star at best, but my secretary booked it last minute.’ He shrugs. ‘And there’s a bed, a bathroom, a good gym. What more do you need?’

‘What more, indeed?’ I lift my hand to his chest, running my fingers over his ridged muscles. ‘And you work out a lot, I’m guessing?’

His breath speeds up a little as my hands go lower. ‘I like to get my heart rate up.’

I arch a brow. ‘I can tell.’

‘I run ten miles, most mornings.’

‘I can’t even imagine running three miles,’ I say with a shake of my head, pulling away from him and moving to my beer. I sip it, then look around for my clothes. He’s picked them up and placed them neatly on the chair. It’s such a small gesture but it does something strange inside of me. I move to them but he forestalls me, handing me a white fluffy robe instead.

‘Don’t bother getting dressed,’ he says simply, but with a deep, husky promise in the words that makes my pulse quiver.

Shit.

I bite down on my lip and his eyes drop to my mouth, and desire is sparking around the room once more.

‘Running is a habit, and one that gets easier the more you practice it,’ he says, the words incongruous in the heat of our lust.

I swallow, trying to tamp down on my sexual heat, to keep my feelings at bay for a moment. ‘I don’t know,’ I say, shaking my head. ‘It’s not my thing.’

‘What is your “thing”?’ he asks seriously.

My eyes skim his face, noting now that he has a slight bump in the middle of his nose, suggesting it has been broken at some point. ‘For exercise?’

‘Yeah. Or letting your hair down. Blowing off steam. You know, that kind of thing.’

I hesitate for only a moment and then speak with confidence and defiance. ‘Pole dancing.’ That defiance is hard fought for. My parents, my then boyfriend, everyone was askance when Penny and I took up the disreputable hobby. It’s amazing for your fitness , Penny cooed and, as always, she was right.

He regards me cynically, as though I might be lying.

‘Really?’

‘Yep.’

I can feel his curiosity and turned-on-ness pulsing towards me. He moves to the narrow wooden desk and props his hips against it. ‘Care to give me a demonstration?’

I eye the room and shake my head. ‘I don’t think anything in here would be strong enough.’

His disappointment is palpable. ‘You can’t pretend?’

I laugh. ‘Not easily.’ The robe is soft around me. I cinch the belt at the waist and move to sit on the edge of the bed, watching him.

‘How’d you get into it?’

‘The same way I get into most unorthodox parts of my life.’

‘Penny?’ he prompts, smiling.

I nod. ‘Oh, yeah, you betcha. I suggested we join a ballroom dancing club—I wanted a hobby, and to move my body, to feel limber and flexible.’ I smile distractedly. ‘I work really long hours and even though I get to be out and about a lot of the time, I still feel more...sedentary...than I’d like. So dancing felt like a health kick, or a kick-start to a health kick...’

‘Naturally.’ He nods, his eyes skating over my body, which must look like a fluffy duck in this robe.

‘She picked me up on the allotted night and we talked the whole way there. It was only when she pulled into some dodgy car park out in the western suburbs that I realised we weren’t at Miss Clarence’s Ballroom Blitz.’ I smile at the memory. ‘Penny said she presumed that because ballroom dancing was for senior citizens, I must have meant pole dancing and just got mixed up.’

He arches a brow. ‘You weren’t keen?’

‘I wasn’t not keen; it just hadn’t occurred to me before. But that’s me—and that’s so very Penny.’ I shake my head. ‘If I hadn’t met her, I suspect I’d be running my life on a very narrow, very straight line.’

He nods thoughtfully, and his silence encourages me to continue.

‘I guess I’m born with more than my fair share of the conservative in my blood.’ His expression flickers with something I recognise: curiosity.

‘Is that a bad thing?’

I’m confused for a moment—the curiosity or the conservative tendencies?

‘Being conservative,’ he prompts, as though he’s read my mind.

I shake my head, compressing my lips. ‘It’s almost a prerequisite in my family,’ I say simply. ‘Mum and Dad have had the same jobs all their lives—good, reliable government jobs. Civil servant salaries and pensions, guaranteed security. My brother and sister followed suit.’

‘It wasn’t for you?’

I shake my head. ‘Nope.’ I look towards the window, my eyes sweeping over the high-rises beyond the small window of his hotel room. ‘I always wanted to come down here. Growing up in a small town is—I guess I see it differently now, but, as a kid and a teenager, I hated it. I just wanted to travel and see the world, and not to have everyone I bump into know everything about me.’ I pull a face of distaste. ‘Sydney seemed like some shimmering oasis on my horizon. I couldn’t believe it when I got accepted to uni here.’

‘So you’re conservative in a different way,’ he hedges, and again I feel like he’s weighing me up, analysing me cell by cell.

‘Yes and no. My ex and I started our business from scratch. We were broke as a joke for the first six months, and my parents thought I’d lost the plot. There’s no job security when you’re running the show.’ I shrug. ‘ But the rewards are also potentially so much greater.’

‘You went into business with your ex?’

‘He wasn’t my ex at the time,’ I say with a droll shake of my head. ‘My crystal ball wasn’t working the day we signed the papers.’

He opens his mouth to say something, but I shake my head, my eyes sparking when they meet his. ‘I don’t really want to think about him right now,’ I say honestly. ‘Tomorrow will be for that, him, the real world out there. Tonight’s just this...’

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