Harlequin KISS August 2014 Bundle (15 page)

SIXTEEN

The telephone
jangled right near her ear the next morning dragging Claudia out of the deepest depth of slumber with all the finesse of a jackhammer. She reached for it automatically.

‘Hello?’ she mumbled, her heart racing.

‘Claude?’

Avery?
‘Yes.’

‘What are you doing in Luke’s room at six in the morning?’

Claudia’s heart raced a little more as her
surroundings filtered in. Same-looking hotel room as hers but this one had the addition of a large naked man spooned around her, his hand low down on her belly, his mouth pressed to her shoulder blade.

Last night. Luke’s apology. A bottle of wine.

The Love Boat.

The love
making.

Crap.

‘Oh...er...we were just...having another...planning meeting...’ Claudia winced at the
obvious lie.

‘You sound like I’ve just woken you up,’ Avery said, her voice laced with scepticism.

‘No, just tired,’ Claudia assured and faked a yawn. ‘Didn’t really sleep much last night.’

And that
was
the truth. They’d been awake long enough to use the third condom before falling into an exhausted heap together.

‘Well, you’re supposed to be down here with us having breakfast,
remember? We have to leave at seven-thirty.’

Claudia stifled a groan. She remembered. She’d only agreed to come away if they got back as early as possible on Sunday morning so they could have everything shipshape for the reopening of their doors on Monday.

But that was before her and Luke’s wild, three-condom sexual spree. ‘Sorry. Give us ten minutes. We’ll be straight down.’

Claudia
hung up. ‘Let me guess,’ Luke said in his deep voice, all sexy and rumbly from sleep. ‘Avery.’

‘Yes.’ His hand moved from her belly to her breast, his lips buzzed her neck and Claudia shut her eyes briefly as her body flowered beneath his touch. His thumb grazed a nipple and it felt so damn good.

But they didn’t have time for this.

‘No, stop,’ Claudia said, scrambling out of bed,
far away from his magical mouth and his sinful hands. ‘We have ten minutes to get down to the dining room,’ she said, hunting around for her clothes.

Luke watched the view as she bent over to pluck her discarded clothes off the floor. Predictably, his body stirred.

‘Don’t just lie there,’ she said as she threw her dress over her head, not bothering with her underwear, and his stirrings
turned to a full-blown erection at the thought of her being completely commando. ‘We have eight minutes to get to the dining room and I need to go and get changed.’

‘Can’t,’ he said. ‘Not yet. I have this swelling problem.’ He peeled back the sheet to show her.

Claudia swallowed as her gaze zeroed in on him.
Dear God.
He was magnificent. Thick and large. His erection dominated the flatness
of his belly with its potency.

Luke hardened further at her frank appreciation. ‘Maybe you could help me with it?’

Claudia almost groaned out loud. If only she hadn’t been so bloody gung-ho about getting back to Crescent Cove, Avery wouldn’t have rung trying to find her and she could have all that magnificent male hardness inside her right now.

Claudia shut her eyes to block out
both the mental and
actual
picture. ‘I doubt it’s terminal,’ she said as she turned her back on him, stuffing her feet into her shoes. ‘Seven minutes.’ She grabbed her key off the nearby bench. ‘See you down there.’

And she didn’t look back no matter how tempted she was. And she was very, very tempted.

* * *

How she got through the remainder of the day, Claudia didn’t know. She
felt as if she had a huge, flashing, neon sign above her head saying ‘look at me, look at me, I had hot dirty sex last night with someone I shouldn’t have’. So she was brighter, chirpier, she worked harder, she walked faster, she knocked herself out playing the best, brightest version of herself she could muster after a night of head-banging sex and only two hours’ sleep.

In fact she might
have overdone it slightly if people’s concerned faces were anything to go by. ‘Are you okay?’ Avery had finally asked her around mid-afternoon. ‘You seem kind of...wired.’

Claudia had nodded vigorously. ‘Fine and dandy,’ she’d chirped, ‘Just excited about tomorrow,’ and she had buzzed off to attend to something else.

But by the time night rocked around again and she finally retired to
her room about nine o’clock she was utterly exhausted and ready to drop. She collapsed back on her bed and lay there for a few moments like a starfish.

But then that got her thinking about Luke. About lying passively, while he turned her into a drooling mess, bringing her to orgasm with his hand and his mouth. A familiar tingle started up again and she rolled on her side, stuffing a fist
between her legs to ease the ache.

Maybe her body knew somehow, could sense that he was just in the next room, or maybe it was the delicious waft of Luke, of their sex, washing over her. With no time to shower this morning she’d been smelling Luke on her all day—earthy and male and very hard to ignore.

She’d been semi turned on all day.

Of course she could have had a shower when
she’d ducked up to her room to change into her uniform when they’d first arrived back but, perversely, she hadn’t wanted to wash him away.

She’d wanted to savour it, savour him, for a bit longer.

The way she’d savoured the smiles he gave her whenever she caught him looking at her. Those dirty smiles. The kind of smile that said, I know what you look like naked and screaming my name.

She wanted to savour every moment because if getting the Tropicana opening-ready today while he spent half the day talking into his Bluetooth had taught her anything, it was that she belonged here and his life was on the other side of the world.

Whatever had happened between them she couldn’t forget that.

So, she loved him. That was both a revelation and not. She’d always loved him.
It was just the first time she’d admitted it to herself. But it didn’t change things. She wasn’t going to go halfway around the world for a guy who didn’t love her back. A workaholic divorcee whose career was his number one priority. A guy who was determined to never be so
foolish
again.

And if he loved her back, if he asked her to go with him...?

Best not to build those kinds of castles
in the sky. They hadn’t yet talked about what had happened or said anything, for that matter, of a personal nature to each other all day. It would have to come, she knew, but for now she was just going to savour the memory.

The knock on the interconnecting door a minute later surprised the hell out of her and she sprang off the mattress, her heart racing. The last thing she needed was to
be horizontal around Luke again.

‘Come in,’ she called as she stood awkwardly at the foot of the bed, self-consciously checking her hair was still up in its ponytail.

The door opened and she smiled at Luke, who entered very hesitantly. ‘Hi,’ he said.

‘Hey.’

They both smiled as they remembered the last time they’d done this routine—naked and plastered together in a Cairns hotel
room. Then, as if they’d both realised it wasn’t an appropriate thought to have, their smiles faded simultaneously.

‘I thought we should probably talk,’ Luke said.

Claudia nodded. ‘Yes...I guess.’

‘You don’t sound too sure.’

She shrugged. ‘At the moment denial is looking pretty good.’

Luke chuckled. ‘That’s an option.’

Claudia laughed too, grateful for the easing
of tension. ‘You want a beer?’ she asked.

‘Sure,’ Luke said. ‘Thanks.’

Claudia was grateful for something to do with her hands other than option A, which was to put them all over him. He was wearing boardies and a T-shirt again and Claudia couldn’t help but be aware of what easy access that was. She reached into the mini-bar and pulled out a frosty bottle and handed it to him, then poured
herself a glass of wine from the half-empty bottle sitting in the door of the fridge.

One of the advantages to being the boss—free mini-bar.

Normally she’d have clinked her glass to his bottle but keeping a distance between them seemed wise. Taking a sip, she leaned back against the bench, the fridge door cool on her calves.

‘So where
do
we go from here?’ she asked.

Luke shrugged.
‘A part of me wants to suggest that we accept it happened and move on. Never mention it again. Never...go there again.’

Claudia swallowed as his words cut her to the quick. His eagerness to move on hurt. Despite telling herself not to she
had
been spinning castles in the air. Fantasising about him saying, ‘I’m giving up London for you.’ But she knew it was the only thing that made sense for
two people with very different life goals.

‘That’s probably the wisest thing,’ she said.

Luke nodded. ‘Wise, yes.’

But Claudia didn’t think his heart sounded in it and a tiny spark of hope flared to life. ‘What about the other part of you?’ she asked.

Luke took a swig of his beer. She so
did not
want to know about
that
part of him. ‘I tend not to listen to that side,’ he dismissed.

Which was a lie of course. That was his maverick side, his throw-caution-to-the-wind side. The creative part, the part that made him a gifted advertising executive, that formed new and innovative ideas that clients went nuts over.

He indulged that side all the time. Just
not
this time.

Claudia scrunched her nose. She wasn’t a fan of the first option so she was willing to take anything
on board. ‘I still think it should get a vote.’

‘Oh, no.’ Luke shook his head. ‘It definitely should not get a vote.’

‘Oh, really? Why not?’

‘Because that part wants to rip that awful uniform off you and spend all night making you come.’

Claudia stilled. How could a statement so blatantly dirty sound so posh? ‘Oh.’

Luke took another swig of his beer. ‘Yes. Oh.’

Claudia’s
hand trembled a little as her insides tied themselves into a massive knot. She placed her glass on the bench beside her, not trusting herself to keep hold of it as she slowly lost her grip on the real world.

‘I could be...’ she cleared her throat ‘...amenable...to that.’

Luke did not need another invitation. On a muffled expletive he closed the distance between them, sliding his beer
onto the bench beside her wine before grabbing her around the waist, yanking her in close to him and slamming his mouth down onto hers.

And it didn’t disappoint. ‘God,’ he groaned as his mouth lifted to kiss her cheek, her eye, her ear. ‘I’ve been fantasising about this all day.’

Claudia went up on her tippy toes, clutching him around the shoulders, hanging on as his lips ravaged her
neck, bending her back for better access as he swirled his tongue down into her cleavage. ‘Luke,’ she gasped as his hand yanked her blouse out of her skirt then glided up underneath, up, up, up to claim a breast, squeezing and kneading, rubbing across the aching tip with devastating effect.

‘We could keep doing this,’ Claudia said as Luke’s mouth trailed a wet trail along a collarbone.

‘Right,’ Luke panted as his mouth trekked back down her chest. He yanked her bra cup aside and her long low moan was like music to his ears. ‘We’re mature adults—we can handle a temporary...thing.’

Claudia nodded then gasped as Luke’s mouth found her nipple. ‘Oh, God.’

‘I don’t want to stop this,’ he murmured in between wet swirls around her nipples. ‘Do you want me to?’

Claudia
shook her head. ‘No,’ she said, her denial husky but no less forceful. She really didn’t. Even if it was going to leave her crushed into the ground at the end, she’d take whatever he could give her here and now, because if she couldn’t have all of him then she’d have this time and tuck it inside her for ever knowing at least she had loved once upon a time.

Luke smiled and swirled his way
back up to her neck, her mouth. ‘Good.’ He grinned, cupping her cheeks, his mouth on hers. ‘So good.’

And then he kissed her again, long and slow, savouring every delicious second, revelling in the knowledge that her kisses were going to be part of his life for the foreseeable future. Before coming back to Cairns the thought of giving one woman such power again would have scared the bejesus
out of him but Claudia was right—all women weren’t the same and she was no Philippa.

He pulled back slightly, breathing hard. ‘Why aren’t we horizontal?’ he murmured.

She grinned. ‘I have no idea. We should do something about that.’ And she kissed him again, clinging to his neck as he slowly walked them backwards towards the bed.

But they hadn’t gone very far when Claudia’s room
door opened and Gloria and Lena walked in. Claudia and Luke sprang apart as if they’d been hit by a taser. Gloria and Lena’s conversation stopped abruptly as they stared open-mouthed at their respective children.

‘Oh, Lena,’ Gloria gasped, turning to Claudia’s mother. ‘It’s finally happened.’

Lena grabbed Gloria’s hand. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Finally.’

Gloria moved into the room,
making a beeline for her son. ‘We’d always hoped, didn’t we, Lena?’ she said. Lena nodded. ‘But you went off to London and then you got married and you didn’t want to manage the resort with Claude and we thought...well, it looked like it was never going to happen and now...’

Luke watched, horrified, as the two women approached with huge beaming smiles. He glanced at Claudia, who was thankfully
covered and looking just as stunned by the events of the last minute.
What a freaking disaster
. Why the hell was her door open? If their mothers had been a minute later God only knew what kind of a state he and Claudia would have been in.

It certainly wouldn’t have been vertical.

He cringed thinking about it. It was bad enough standing here at thirty-two, caught with his hands all over
Claudia and a raging hard-on in front of his glowing mother; he didn’t need to think about how much worse it could have been.