CAROL MARINELLI - Contracted - A Wife For The Bedroom

She was actually smiling now, terribly reluctantly but she was definitely smiling, and in that unguarded second he pounced, well, not pounced, but for the first time he touched her, his fingers picking up a strand of damp blonde hair and tucking it behind her ear. Even though she stood stock still his touch felt like a dam was bursting somewhere inside, rivers of awareness, arousal coursing through her as his free hand took the glass she was clutching and placed it carefully on the hall table.

‘Tonight’s been…’ He paused while he chose his words. ‘Unexpectedly pleasant.’

‘I’m glad I didn’t bore you.’

‘Far from it.’ He frowned quizzically at her. ‘Can I ask you something?’

‘Why bother checking?’ Lily gave a rueful smile, but it covered a nervous swallow. She somehow sensed what was coming next, almost knew what he was going to ask her. ‘Why would a pretty little thing like you give up on the pot of gold?’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Oh, but I think you do!’ He was pinning her with his eyes as he voiced a question most would never have dared. ‘How did someone as young and as beautiful as you get so cynical?’

‘Cynical.’ Lily smiled and frowned at the same time—cynical was the last word that she’d use to describe herself. She adored her life, her family, her friends, was happy, motivated and truly believed that the world and the opportunities it offered were there for the taking.

‘Yep, cynical,’ Hunter insisted. ‘All this talk about not believing in love—maybe you shouldn’t knock it till you try it.’

‘I tried it once and didn’t like it.’ She threw his own words back at him but despite her best attempts Lily’s dismissive voice couldn’t disguise the pain that was there.

‘What happened?’

‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘For someone who makes a living getting people to open up, you’re incredibly reluctant to share.’

‘There’s not much to tell.’

‘Try me.’

Her eyes jerked to his, saw the challenge that was there and met it head on. ‘OK, then. I was engaged for two years—we were actually going to bring forward the wedding in the hope my father would be able to come.’

‘But?’ Hunter asked because clearly there was one.

‘My father took a sudden turn for the worse—and two days before he died I found Mark, my wonderful fiancé, in bed with my supposed best friend. There—is that enough information for you?’

He didn’t respond to her sarcasm and again he offered no sympathy, didn’t even acknowledge her pain, just fired another direct question. ‘So you ended it?’

‘No.’ She watched his eyes narrow at her response. ‘I was too busy dealing with my mother, the hospital. There was just so much going on…’ Her voice wobbled a touch and Hunter jumped in.

‘You didn’t even confront him?’

‘Nope…’ Her eyes glittered with unshed tears. ‘I just put it in the too-hard basket. The last thing Mum needed was more upset—she was really close to Mark, and for all the world Mark was the perfect fiancé when my father died. You should have seen him take over, calling relatives, arranging the funeral, even holding my hand through the service. I can still hear everyone telling me how lucky I was to have him—in fact, if I hadn’t seen it with my own two eyes, I’d never have believed he could be unfaithful. I’d probably be married to him now if I hadn’t found out—still be living in a fool’s paradise.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘With Janey—my one-time best friend. Apparently, as Mark likes to tell it, I was a bit depressed after my father died and froze him out—they still insist that nothing happened for months after we broke up.’

‘You’re better off without them.’ Hunter shrugged, not remotely moved by her story. ‘But one swallow doesn’t make a summer.’

‘Sorry?’

‘So, your ex was a bastard—hardly enough to judge an entire species by.’

‘It was enough at the time,’ Lily countered, but two spots of colour were burning on her cheeks, his scrutiny unnerving as he refused to accept her sorry tale.

‘Come on, Lily, you’re a sensible girl—relationships end for far less—you probably were a right old misery to be with at the time. Now, I’m not saying he was right to do what he did, but I’m sure you can see where the relationship started to go wrong.’

‘Are you always this sensitive?’

‘Not always.’ Hunter responded to her sarcasm with a brand of his own. ‘But given we’ve only just met, I didn’t want to be too harsh.’ He stopped teasing then, his eyes assessing her for the longest moment, his voice serious when finally it came. ‘What else happened to you, Lily?’

‘Nothing!’ She answered him too quickly, her voice a touch too shrill, and if she’d been strapped to a lie detector it would have blown a fuse at her pathetic attempt at denial. ‘Isn’t that enough to be going on with?’

He stared at her through narrowed eyes and Lily dragged hers away, his scrutiny unnerving, as if somehow he could see deep inside her. But just when she thought he’d push harder, just when she was on the verge of maybe even telling, thankfully, regretfully even, he pulled away. ‘For now,’ Hunter said, pulling his car keys out of his pocket, and turned to go. ‘Thanks again for the coffee.’ He smothered a yawn as he walked out of the door and no doubt out of her life. Lily was gripped with something akin to sadness, biting down on her lip she fought the impulse to call him back, not realising that Hunter was battling with demons of his own.

He didn’t want to go home.

Didn’t want to ring Emma and tell her about his evening—didn’t want a night rattling around his apartment on his own. But more than that, he didn’t actually want to leave Lily.

And it wasn’t just because she was gorgeous—beautiful women were ten a penny in his word. If it was just sex or company he wanted, he had plenty of willing participants—it was this gorgeous woman that enthralled him.

Drenched, miserable and exhausted, she’d still given him her time—and unlike so many others she expected nothing from him.

Nothing!

Jangling his key on his index finger, heading for his car and a music-fuelled ride home, something stilled him.

Something he couldn’t define made him pause and turn around.

‘I really am fine to drive…’ Very slowly, very deliberately he turned to face her. ‘I’d just rather not.’

Her eyes jerked to his and the lust blazing in them was so blatant there was no question of mixed messages, his meaning utterly, utterly clear. As Lily stared back, transfixed, she begged for reason to descend, for her usually ordered mind to focus, to give an appropriate response to his terribly inappropriate proposal.

She wanted to say yes!

One hand was leaning on the wall behind her as his other smoothed another imaginary lock from her forehead, tracing again the path he had blazed so easily before, infinitely kissable lips literally a breath away, the taste of him an imagined delicacy on her tongue, and lust battled with reason. Surely she’d regret this. To contemplate sleeping with this man was something every woman in his path surely did, but to actually fathom it, to know that for tonight at least all this could be hers, was a conundrum Lily had never in her life envisaged. He was as out of place in her bedroom as he had been at the community centre, a divine prototype that didn’t belong in the parameters of her existence. Yet here he was, adoring her with his eyes, lifting the silver lid and tempting her with laden, flambéd plates of passion—the ultimate, most elicit dessert menu thrust in front of her to break her diet. She toyed mentally with the delicacies on offer, knew that a flavor of nectar would surely sour her tastebuds for ever, that to taste him now could only render any future offerings lacking.