Kelly Hunter - Paradise Nights

Pity. He’d had a fantasy or two about broom cupboards, beautiful women, and the mingling thereof. Guess it’d have to stay a fantasy. ‘These photos had better be good,’ he said with a sigh as he pulled up a chair and settled down beside her to watch her work.

The photos were better than good. They were outstanding. From a wide-angle shot of Mrs Papadopoulos watering the geraniums out the front of her shop to the latest shot of Nico and Sam, they showed the power of the human spirit, with all its strengths and frailties.

‘Forget the words, Serena,’ he told her bluntly. ‘Your pictures don’t need them.’

‘There’s another one you might like to see,’ she said after a moment. ‘It’s not for the postcard series, though.’

‘What’s it for, then?’

‘You.’ She trawled through her files until she found it. Pete sat back in his chair, aiming for distance, and wished to hell she hadn’t. It was one of the photos she’d taken of him when they were up on the plateau. She’d captured his solitude, he thought, trying to be objective. And she’d captured a pain he’d thought he’d buried deep.

‘If I were a curious woman,’ she said with a tiny half-smile, ‘I’d ask you what you were thinking about.’

‘If I were the sharing kind I’d tell you.’ He glanced away; he didn’t want to look at his picture any longer. One day he’d stop running. He’d turn and face his past and all that went with it. Maybe one day he’d even make his peace with it. But not today.

‘No great tragedy?’

‘No,’ he muttered as she stood and pushed the laptop aside before leaning her backside on the table, curling her hands around the edge of the table, and regarding him solemnly. ‘You’re very persistent, aren’t you?’

‘So I’m told.’

Not that it seemed to bother her.

‘Something put that look in your eyes,’ she said at last.

‘Experience.’ He spanned her waist with his hands and slid her towards him in one effortless movement. She was still perched on the edge of the table. He still sat in the chair. Their bodies weren’t quite touching, not yet, but if … when … he pulled her into his lap she’d be straddling him. ‘Nothing more, nothing less.’ His hands were rough, her stomach was silky smooth and just begging to be kissed. He slid her closer and set to tracing lazy circles across her stomach with his fingertips, before leaning back in the chair and glancing up at her face to gauge her reaction.

If the flush of colour riding high on her cheeks and the lip she’d caught between her teeth were any indication, she liked his hands on her just fine. So did he. ‘I went into air-sea rescue battle-trained and ready for anything,’ he said wryly. ‘Or so I thought.’

‘Cocky,’ she murmured as her hands settled on his shoulders. ‘Invincible.’

‘Yeah. And when you save a soul that would have been lost that’s exactly how you feel.’ He didn’t know why he was telling her this. He should stop now, leave it be, but her eyes didn’t judge him and the hands on his shoulders were warm and somehow soothing, and he offered up more. ‘It’s the best feeling in the world. The best job in the world. But when you don’t … ‘He paused and drew in a long breath before continuing. ‘They take a little piece of you with them.’

Somewhere along the way he’d stopped tracing circles on her skin. He started up again, slower this time, lower, until they scraped the waistband of her shorts. ‘Got that way there wasn’t much of me left. Got that way that the person I needed to save most was me. I couldn’t do it any more, Serena. So I left.’ He leaned back in the chair, concentrating on the present, on those little white shorts, and the woman in his arms. Hell of a way to woo her, he thought with a twist of his lips. Hell of a way to make her think well of him.

‘You think you’ve failed them, don’t you? The people who trained you? The people you couldn’t save?’

‘I did fail them.’

‘Don’t be so hard on yourself,’ she said quietly. ‘No one gets to save them all. Not even Superman.’

‘You believe in Superman?’ He tried for a smile and almost managed it. Enough soul-baring. Enough. He couldn’t do this.

‘I believe in you.’

‘Oh, hell, Serena.’ He drew her closer, wrapping his arms around her waist and resting his forehead on her stomach. ‘Don’t.’

‘Too late.’ She wound her hands in his hair and drew his head back before sliding from the table and into his lap as if she belonged there, as if she’d always belonged there. His body responded instantly, even if his brain was still playing catch-up. He felt himself harden beneath her slight weight, inhaled the essence of her and the scent of the sea, and shuddered.

‘You know what you need?’ she said lightly. ‘Right this very moment?’

‘A change of subject,’ he said curtly. No question.

‘Comfort.’ She shifted, and those little white shorts she wore shifted right along with her, all softness and warmth against his growing hardness. ‘Lucky for you I give good comfort.’

But it wasn’t comfort that he wanted from her. ‘What about distraction?’ Because she was way off on the comfort angle. Way off. ‘Do you provide that too?’

‘Mmm hmm.’ She set her lips to his earlobe and her hands slid from his shoulders to his waist and then lower, stopping only to create havoc beneath the hem of his T-shirt. ‘I think you’ll find me an excellent distraction.’

And then her lips were on his, teasing, giving, and the world and his struggle to find a place in it disappeared beneath the weight of his desire for her. His passion built and so did his urge to bury himself deep inside her; to take and take still more, until the only name he remembered was hers.

He tried to damp it down. He called on every last bit of skill he possessed to keep things simple and easy between them, just as she wanted. Just as he’d always been able to do with a woman before. With words and with every drop of control he’d ever been taught, he tried to delay the inevitable. ‘I’m still waiting on that blue dress,’ he told her raggedly as he twined a strand of her hair, that midnight-dark hair, around his finger, around his fist.

‘Maybe if you’d told me you were coming,’ she countered as she slid his T-shirt heavenward.

He helped her take it off, dropping it on the floor beside him before reaching for her again, finding the curve of her throat with his lips as he surged against her, heat to heat, centre to hard, unyielding centre. ‘Trust me, Serena. I guarantee you’ll know when I’m coming.’

He watched her face as he traced a path from the hollow of her throat, down over the curve of her breasts with his fingers, smiling his satisfaction when her eyes grew slumberous and her nipples peaked for him beneath the slippery material of her bikini top. ‘Distract me some more,’ he murmured, leaning back in the chair, still trying for lightness between them, and her smile turned impish.

‘You’re a beautiful man, Pete Bennett,’ she said as she leaned back and lifted her hand to the bikini tie at the back of her neck, sliding it forward so that it lay on the curve of her breast. ‘Sculpted enough to make a woman sigh her gratitude. Hard enough to make her tremble in anticipation.’ She toyed with the end of that string, back and forth, back and forth, until his fingers twined with hers and he took over that particular duty.

He tugged on it gently, not enough to loosen it altogether, not yet, and she shuddered and bit back a whimper, playing the game he’d asked of her, playing it to perfection. He could have tugged that string loose completely and covered the tightly peaked nubs of her nipples with his mouth but he wasn’t quite ready to give up his sanity just yet.