Up All Night (4 page)

Now he did move in. He took her
hands in his, linking their fingers. “Okay. We’ve established that sex is off
the table, at least for tonight.” Pointedly, he sucked in a breath and closed
his eyes. When he opened them the twinkle was still there. “Sorry. Needed a
minute to let that devastating fact sink in.”

She gave him a wry smile. “Maybe you
need to take another minute, just to make certain it has.”

“Nope.” He released her hand
momentarily to tap his temple. “It’s there. But just so I’m clear, what’s the
magic hour on this policy of yours?”

She screwed up her forehead. “What
policy?”

“You said no sex in the first six
hours. When does the time restriction end?”

She wanted to scream that it had
already ended, damn it. But she’d fallen off the sex-for-pure-pleasure horse so
long ago, she wasn’t entirely sure she’d ever get back on. “I find a few months
usually works.”

She laughed as his mouth dropped
open. There was something about him that coaxed her to cast aside her doubts,
her fears, her memories and indulge herself in a one night stand with a man who
set her hormones racing. She’d always erred on the side of caution before, and
where had it gotten her? But sanity dictated that she would be best to slow
this down so she could control what happened between them.

She disentangled his fingers from
hers. “Seeing as it’s heading toward ten and the nearest bar will be calling
last orders by the time we get there, how about I see what I can rustle up by
way of a drink?”

“Works for me.”

He followed her toward her miniscule
kitchen, stopping at the doorway to lean a shoulder on the frame.

She’d always loved her kitchen, the coziness
of it, but right now he seemed to suck up all the available air, and she felt
her breath hitch as he watched her. “I’ve got the remains of a bottle of white,”
she called, aware he was likely gazing at her ass as she peered into the
refrigerator. “Or I can find you some brandy.”

“Got anything soft?” He shrugged as
she glanced over her shoulder at him. “Driving.”

“Oh, yes. Sorry. Forgot. Well,
there’s lemonade or orange juice.”

“I’ll take the juice.”

Thoughtful, understanding, and now
responsible. Qualities not to be sniffed at in a man, but then she’d thought
James had all those qualities and look how that ended.

Marco continued to watch as she
poured his drink and the same for herself. He didn’t move from the doorway as
she handed him his glass and tried to move past him back into the sitting room.
Her breasts brushed his chest, the contact flooding her whole body with
delicious heat so that her nipples stood proud again. He glanced down, raised
his eyebrows, and then shook his head. “Can’t blame a man for his thoughts.”

“As long as they stay thoughts, and
you don’t plan to act on them.” Beth squeezed past and went to the easy chair,
pointedly leaving the sofa for him. He smiled as he sat, taking the inference
and no doubt making sure she knew that he had.

He glanced at the photo of Beth and
her sister again. “What happened? With your sister?”

Beth swallowed over the lump in her
throat that was never far away when she thought of what her sister had done.
Even though more than a year and a half had passed, it was still too soon to be
able to talk about it to anyone. “Stupid sibling rivalry. How’s your drink?”

Marco raised his glass, signalling
it was fine, but he considered her through narrowed eyes. He looked back at the
photograph then pointedly down to Beth’s left hand. “You don’t wear it
anymore.”

Beth glanced to where he looked at
the bare third finger and the feint indentation of the ring that she imagined only
she could still see. She sighed, chastising herself for keeping the photograph
on display. She’d had colleagues from the Center in her cottage for drinks or
supper, but nobody before had ever spotted the ring around her finger in the
photo. She could add observant to Marco’s list of positive attributes, or maybe
she should add it to the negative.

The lump in her throat intensified.
“I’m divorced.”

After an interminably long silence,
Marco sat back on the sofa. “What happened?”

Beth shrugged and pulled her legs up
under her on the easy chair. “Irreconcilable differences.” She sipped her
drink, stealing a glance at him over the rim of her glass. She didn’t for a
moment think he’d let it go at that and she wasn’t proved wrong.

“People usually say that when they
want the person asking the question to shut the hell up.”

She took another sip of her drink to
help her painfully dry throat. Why was it so hard to talk about after all this
time? Probably, she thought, because she’d never really talked about it to anyone,
but had stuffed it all down deep inside her. “Only because it’s hard to explain
the whys of it, it just happened.”

“How long were you married?”

“Two years. I was barely twenty-two
and he was ten years older. Maybe that was part of the problem.” Maybe. But it
wasn’t anywhere near the whole. Damn and blast it to hell, not even close.

“Are you still in touch?”

“God, no. I hope I never set eyes on
the bastard again.” Since with that remark she’d basically opened the
floodgates, Beth knew she had to justify what she’d said. “Let’s just say he
didn’t think a band around his finger meant he had to keep his trousers
zipped.”

Marco nodded. “Yeah. That would
definitely make your differences irreconcilable.”

Add honourable to the pro list
, Beth thought. “What about you?” She had to
get the subject matter away from her own woes. She still didn’t feel
comfortable talking about that time. “Married? Divorced? Steady girlfriend?”

“None of the above. Closest I’ve
come to anyone special in a long time was already spoken for, and in a few
weeks’ time she’ll be marrying my best friend.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

He gave her a long, steady look,
then smiled. “They’re made for each other. Ethan walks around with this stupid
grin on his face all the time. Can’t believe his luck. It was Amber who
suggested paintball to start off the activities I’ve got lined up for Ethan’s
stag month.”

“Month? Aren’t stag parties usually
just one night?”

“Well, any excuse. Besides, can’t
let my man get ball and chained without a decent send off.”

“Amber must be special if she’s
willing to go along with a month’s worth of partying.”

“Yeah, she’s special. Next to Ethan,
Amber’s my best friend.”

Beth glimpsed something in Marco’s
eyes and hated that her chest flared in response. “Do you still have a thing for
her?”

Again, that steady considering look.
“No.”

She watched him as she sipped her
drink. Did she believe him? Or did this Amber still have his heart? Her
instinct was to accept his answer, but those instincts hadn’t done her much
good before. “You haven’t told me what you do,” she said, wanting to change to
more innocuous subject matter. “Where do you work?”

“I run a bar down on the coast. My
uncle died and bequeathed it to me. Papa Niko’s. You know it?”

Since she couldn’t remember ever
having spent an evening in
Brighton
since
she’d arrived to take up her job at the Center a year ago, Beth shook her head.
“What sort of bar?”

“Pretty solid crowd, mostly
regulars. Couple of nights we specialize in cocktail evenings which brings in a
different type of punter. Few stag parties, girls’ night out stints.”

It sounded like her idea of hell.

They talked more about their jobs
and about local stuff until eleven thirty when Marco checked his watch. “I need
to get back to secure the bar for the night.” At the door he turned as she
walked him out. “When do you get a night free?”

Rarely. She didn’t need one. Until
now. “What did you have in mind?”

He slipped his hands around her
waist and pulled her in for a hot kiss. When he released her mouth, they were
both breathing heavily. “That’s what I have in mind, but we can start with
dinner.”

She didn’t resist when he kissed her
again. “Thursday?”

He kept his arms locked tight, but
pulled back so he could look at her. “You’re making me wait two whole days? Is
that something to do with the hours policy?”

“Something.” She smiled as she ran
her fingers up and down his biceps. “But by Thursday we’re way over the limit.”

He grinned, slow and sexy. “In that
case…”

He gave her another kiss that nearly
blew her head off. His hands slipped down to her backside, fingers massaging
her flesh and drawing her up close and personal to his erection. She moved her
hips, loving the way his breath hitched as she gyrated against him. He felt
hard and manly and every female urge she’d suppressed sprang to vibrant life.
Before she could think, Beth stretched her arms around his neck and let her
fingers spread through the dark hair that touched his collar.

Their mouths melded, tongues
clashed. Marco’s hand found her breast again and this time Beth didn’t draw
back. She wanted to feel his touch, wanted to be drawn against his heat. She
wanted so very much, and wondered, no knew, that he was the one to give it to
her.

Marco’s thumb brushed across her
nipple and Beth cursed the blouse and bra that provided the barrier that kept
her from feeling flesh against flesh.

“Shit. Can’t seem to keep my hands
off you.”

Beth moaned into his mouth. “You
know me well enough now to know that if I didn’t like it I’d stop you.”

He feathered kisses along her jaw,
her throat. “Thursday seems a damn long way off.”

She laughed as he assaulted her neck
with his wicked tongue. “Everything comes to he who waits.”

“Speaking of which, we keep doing
this and I’ll embarrass myself. My cock’s so damn ready for you.”

His words thrilled her. James had
never used crude words, had never spoken much at all during sex come to think
of it, but Marco’s words made her pulse quicken and her pussy vibrate. She was
already damp and it would be the easiest thing in the world to ask him to stay.

But a few minutes later she watched
him from her sitting room window as his long legs ate up the lane and he headed
back to the Center where he’d left his car.

It would be hard to imagine a better
choice of a man to help her kick start her sex life. Up until he’d sprayed her
with paint in the woods that morning, Beth had considered that all she needed
was Mr. Sparkly to satisfy any sexual stirrings. But being with Marco had shown
her the folly of her thinking and that her pink vibrator came nowhere near the
pleasure of having a man’s hands on her. Feeling the pressure of a masculine
body, the deep sound of his voice, the heady touch of his mouth.

Okay Marco was a player. She had no
doubt of that. Probably had so many women that he viewed her as merely another
addition to his no doubt filled to the gunnels cell phone contact list of
female sex partners. But if she knew that going in, knew that there was no real
future in it, that for a man like Marco playing the field was in his DNA, well,
she wouldn’t have any expectations of her own, would she? She could enjoy
however long they lasted for what it was. It would be a temporary and, if she
was lucky, sex-filled fiesta that would remind her she was a woman with needs
that deserved to be fulfilled.

Maybe she’d let this whole thing
with James take her over for long enough and Marco would be the kind of man to
help her bury the memory of what had happened once and for all. Maybe it was
time to get back on that proverbial horse.

 
Mind made up, she went upstairs, undressed,
and slipped into bed. Feeling edgy, she slid open the drawer to the bedside
table and pulled out her vibrator. She closed her eyes, opened her legs, and
thought of Marco as she began to pleasure herself.
 

She imagined how it would feel if it
were Marco’s fingers working her clit. If it was his long hard length pushing
into her. Pumping her.
 
Driving her
insane.

She came hard and fast.

Oh yes, she thought as she slumped
back against the pillow. She was most definitely back in the saddle.

Chapter Three

Strange how in a short time the
staff at Papa Niko’s had gone from thinking of Marco as one of them to treating
him like the boss. But then that’s what he was now. As he surveyed the
Wednesday night crowd packing out the bar, he thought of his uncle, who was
also his godfather, and the enormous gift he’d given Marco when he’d died a
couple months ago. Marco had reasoned that his bachelor uncle’s bar should pass
to all the nephews and nieces in equal shares, but the will was specific.
Despite his fight to get things changed, Marco’s siblings had overruled him and
stressed that he was the rightful heir seeing as he had worked for his Uncle
since leaving college. His older brother had joked that the monetary
compensation Uncle Niccolo had bequeathed to the rest of them might have driven
their view, but still it didn’t sit too well with Marco and only now was he
coming to terms with how things were.