The knob turned and the door opened.
And there, dead ahead, on a matching king-sized bed, lay Claudia, all curled up and very definitely bawling her eyes out. She was crying so hard and so loud, he didn’t think she’d even heard the door swing open.
Hell, it sounded as if she were crying for Australia and going for gold.
Another spike of guilt drove a stake right between his eyes. Crap. He hesitated before he crossed the threshold into her room but what the hell? He’d come this far.
The curtains that matched the bedspread were pulled back and the balcony doors were thrown wide, admitting the magnificent tropical view. A cool ocean breeze tickled at the open neck of his shirt as he tentatively edged inside, and felt heavenly against his sweaty skin.
‘Claude?’
Claudia almost leapt out of her skin as Luke’s deep, rich voice reached straight into the middle of her misery and yanked her out by the roots of her hair. She sat abruptly, her tears temporarily forgotten.
‘Jeez,’ she said, her hand clutched to her rocketing heart, ‘are you trying to scare me half to death?’
Luke stalled where he was, holding up his hands at the frightening sight of a puffy-eyed, wild-looking Claudia. Her hair was half in, half out of her ponytail, the loose bits clumped together into some kind of bird-nest-like creation, her nose and cheeks were red and she was surrounded by piles of well-used tissues.
‘Sorry...I didn’t mean to startle you.’
‘Who gave you a damn key?’ Claudia demanded, ignoring his apology. ‘No, don’t worry, it was Jonah, wasn’t it? Bloody traitor.’
Luke took a tentative step closer. ‘I just wanted to see if you were okay,’ he said, avoiding selling out Jonah.
‘Do I look okay?’ she snapped.
Luke shook his head. She looked as if she’d been dragged through a hedge backwards. She looked angry and sad and tired.
She looked defeated.
And that probably kicked him the hardest. Claudia was a glass-half-full kind of girl.
‘Oh, just go away,’ Claudia groaned as the fright wore off and the surge of adrenaline mixed with her already precarious emotional state to make her feel even more edgy and vulnerable. Emotion clogged her throat and the hot scald of tears pricked at her eyes again.
She fell back against the mattress, resuming her former foetal-ball position. ‘Just let me cry in peace,’ she said, dragging another tissue out of the box.
Luke was torn between leaving and not having to listen to her cry and staying put, being some kind of emotional support for Claudia. Or trying at least.
Neither prospect thrilled him.
But the part of him that had run barefoot through the resort with her and swum with her in the ocean just across the pathway and played hide-and-seek with her amidst the resort gardens won out.
He shut his eyes, sending up a brief plea to the universe that she wouldn’t jab him in the ribs or knee him somewhere a little lower as he moved around the other side of the enormous bed and climbed on.
Claudia frowned as she felt the bed give behind her. She looked over her shoulder as Luke approached on his hands and knees. ‘What are you doing?’ she demanded.
‘I’m doing what I should, according to Avery, have done down on the beach. I’m going to hug you.’
Claudia blinked and swallowed against another threatening tide of tears. She gave an inelegant sniffle. ‘If you hug me I’m just going to cry harder.’
Luke chuckled at her husky threat as he settled in behind her, slipping his arm around her waist. ‘I guess that’s probably kind of the point.’
Claudia’s breath caught at the light tease in his voice and she looked away from him, turned to face the doorway over the other side of the room. Her back was all smooshed against his front—his big, broad, hard front—his breath was a warm caress at her neck, the slight scrape of stubble skating delicious shivers to dangerous places.
She shut her eyes, her heart racing now for an entirely different reason. How many hot, fevered dreams had she had as a teenager about exactly this? Lying with him like this?
Minus their clothes, and her inhibitions?
Luke shut his eyes as his exhausted body revelled in being horizontal. Claudia felt stiff as a board but it was bliss to lie down and he could already feel the tug of sleep pulling at the hazy hold he had on consciousness.
How many times had they lain in her parents’ bed as kids, watching reruns of Claudia’s favourite television show, The Love Boat, while their parents finished up for the night? She’d always offered to let him watch something he wanted to but he hadn’t minded—as long as whatever they were watching had ads, he was happy.
How many times had Tony, the head chef, who had been at the Tropicana for all its forty years, personally brought them up his speciality Hawaiian pizza? And how many times had he woken to his dad picking him up and carrying him to his bed next door?
But so much had happened in the intervening years to put distance between them. He’d gone away—far away. He’d rarely been back as he’d fought to establish himself in a dog-eat-dog industry. He’d got married. And divorced. He’d refused to come back and play when the resort was handed to him. He’d disagreed with her vision.
In short, he’d changed.
But Claudia? Claudia was still the same girl she’d always been. He’d thought less of her for that this last decade but, lying here with her now, he was immensely pleased that she was still the same old Claude.
Except she was so quiet and rigid. Taut as a bow. He wished he knew the right words to comfort her. The time when they’d been close and their conversations had been easy seemed a million years ago now.
He’d spent a decade in the cut-throat advertising game where men and women alike fought tooth and nail for an account. There wasn’t a lot of softness, of emotion, in the advertising business. Nobody comforted you when you lost an account—if anything there was a certain degree of triumph at someone else’s misfortune, the scent of an opportunity in the offing.
God knew he’d witnessed the pointy end of it three years ago after being the golden-haired boy for so long.
None of that helped him with right here, right now. None of that equipped him to deal with a grieving Claudia.
‘Was it awful?’ he whispered.
Claudia tensed as the whisper seemed to punctuate the silence like a blaring trumpet. She’d been trying not to think about that night. Trying to keep busy and organise. Trying to look ahead, not back. Not think about the howling wind and the sounds of destruction that not even a large underground cellar had insulated them from.
Her face scrunched up in a most unpleasant fashion as the fear rolled over her again and she was pleased he was behind her. A tear rolled down her cheek as she relaxed back into him.
‘I was so scared,’ she said, choking on a lump high and hard in her throat, trying to hold it all back but failing because Luke was here. ‘I knew we were all safe down in the cellar but...it was so loud. And it destroyed everything.’
Claudia paused as the next thought formed. It was too awful to speak aloud. ‘What if I can’t do it?’ she whispered. ‘What if I fail? What if I let everybody down?’
She started to cry again and Luke finally understood the true root of her anxiety. Claudia had spent her whole life keeping everyone happy—their parents, the locals who relied on the resorts for their economy, the tourist industry. She’d spent her entire adult working life at the resort juggling all these responsibilities.
And, if she wasn’t careful, she was going to crack up under the pressure.
‘Shh,’ Luke said, his arm tightening around her waist as he absently kissed her neck. ‘Shh.’
Claudia cried harder then. It felt so good to have him here. To lean against him for a while. To feel his lips brushing
against her neck as he assured her over and over he was here. Right here. She felt as if she’d been juggling so many things alone for so long, trying to make the place a viable concern. Trying to be true to their parents’ vision and prove to him it could be done.
And it was nice that he didn’t say anything else, didn’t try and fix things so she’d stop crying. Throw out some trite words about her being strong and how she could do it. Because deep down she knew she was strong; she knew she could do it. She was just having an extraordinarily weak moment, and his being here, putting his arms around her and letting her cry was exactly what she needed.
So she cried. She cried until there were no more tears left and she drifted off to sleep.
THREE
Luke slept too. Unfortunately not the deep, dreamless sleep of the severely jet-lagged. The sleep his body was craving. Whether that was the total chaos his diurnal rhythms had been thrown into or the fact that he was draped around warm, soft woman he wasn’t sure. But his sleep was disturbed with fevered images cavorting through his head.
Difficult to understand, impossible to hold onto.
They slipped elusively through his fingers like strands of the silky blonde hair fluttering in and out of his reach.
There was a woman in a long, sheer gown. He was chasing her but she was always too far away to catch, to really see her. She was laughing, the tinkly sound echoing through his dream in time with his heartbeat. Every time he got close to her she’d disappear like mist only to reappear again in the distance.
She was naked under the gown, glimpses of her buttocks, the bare arch of her back and the side swell of her breasts taunting him. He was conscious of his arousal as he gave chase, as his legs pumped towards her, the desire to hold her, to kiss her, drumming through his veins.
His body ached with anticipation, his head spun with desire, his breath rasped and not just from the demands of the chase. She laughed again and he ran faster.
* * *
Claudia woke to a whirl of sensation spiralling deep and low inside her and sinking lower still, tingling between her legs and dragging heavy fingers down the backs of her thighs. Her eyelids fluttered open and she blinked, trying to orientate herself through eyes that were gritty, the skin around them simultaneously tight and puffy.
Something weighed heavy across her hip and thighs. And her breast. She was aware of heat at her back and hardness nestled between the cheeks of her bottom as she looked down at the hand no longer at her waist but cupping her breast instead. She froze.
Luke.
His hand moved in a circular motion then, gentle and firm all at once, and her nipple responded with blatant enthusiasm, scrunching tight.
Luke groping her.
Claudia’s heart thundered behind her ribcage and echoed like gunshots through her ears. She was surprised he couldn’t feel it considering how closely acquainted he was becoming with that area of her body.
How long had it been there?
Long enough to have her belly twisted into knots!
She raised her head and looked over her shoulder. He was sound asleep, his leg thrown carelessly over her hip, his thigh trapping hers, weighing her down. His mouth was still at her neck where she remembered it, his hips well and truly aligned with hers and about as close as was humanly possible with clothes on.
She watched as a frown flitted across his forehead, then stared at the stubble covering his jaw, a little darker now. It was surprisingly sexy and Claudia took a slow steady breath to expel any thoughts of sexy from her brain.
She was worried if she moved a hair, a single muscle, if she breathed too deep she would wake him and he’d find himself in this compromising position and then where would that leave them? Their relationship had become fraught enough this past year.
But she needn’t have worried. He didn’t budge, his body remaining heavy against hers in slumber, effectively trapping her slighter frame.
He wasn’t waking and she wasn’t going anywhere.
She turned away from him then, slowly placing her head back on her pillow and shutting her eyes. Willing herself not to think about the press of him along the length of her. About the wild tango her hormones were performing. About the persistent tug down low morphing into something else. Something more.
She just revelled for a moment. This was how it would feel to be with Luke. To be cherished by him. Comforted. Protected.
Loved.
This was what she’d fantasised about during all her teen years. Hoping he’d see her as more than the little sister he never had. Hoping he’d kiss her, look at her as if she was a woman rather than a child, take her to his bed.
Hoping he’d stay.
He shifted against her slightly and Claudia held her breath. She expelled it on a quiet whimper as the delicious friction between their bodies ramped up another notch. The roughness of his barely there stubble scraped at the sensitive patch of skin where shoulder met nape and sensation prickled from the point of contact right down to her nipples, tightening them.
His hand squeezed in some kind of subconscious response because he was definitely still heavily asleep. Claudia’s eyes practically rolled back in her head as her nipple blazed with hot, fiery need. She pushed back slightly, trying to ease the ache between her legs.
Oh, God. She swallowed. She should move—now! She should get the hell away. She should not be using his unsuspecting body as some kind of scratching pole!
Her resort had been declared a disaster zone and Luke was only here for a week.
But neither of those things seemed to matter right now.
She just wanted to push back a little more. Maybe rub herself against him a little. Arch her back, slide her arm up around his neck, pull his mouth down on hers.
Or maybe she could just roll over and press her mouth to his. Beg him for just one time in his arms.
Once was all she needed.
And then her mobile rang.
* * *
Luke could hear the chiming of a bell and the woman from his dream faded from sight altogether as his subconscious pulled him back through the layers of sleep.
He came out slowly, groggily, completely disorientated, his brain cells still heavily mired in fatigue. The sunny room wasn’t remotely familiar, the ocean sounds weren’t familiar, the smell of salt and apple blossom weren’t familiar.
He shifted slightly, struggling out from the steely tendrils of his dream. Where were the heavy blackout curtains, the traffic noise, the smell of percolating coffee?
None of it was familiar.
The weight of something warm and distinctly female filled his hand and he squeezed tentatively.
The breast was definitely not familiar. The last time he’d woken to a woman in his bed it had been his wife and she washed her hair with expensive shampoo that smelled like designer perfume, not sweet and fresh like apples.
He pulled away, his hand releasing the breast, his leg sliding off the woman’s thighs as it all came rushing back.
‘Claude?’
Claudia lay frozen for a few seconds; her phone blaring out ‘Summer Nights’ from Grease alerted her to the fact it was Avery calling. Her friend was probably wondering where the hell she’d got to.
Just lying on my bed letting Luke grope me in his sleep.
Sheesh!
Claudia didn’t answer him or even look back as she snatched up the phone and scrambled off the bed, keeping her back firmly turned on Luke.
‘Hi, Avery,’ she said chirpily as she picked up the call.
Luke half sat in the bed, his eyes on her back as the memory of Claudia’s—Claude’s!—breast, her very erect nipple, burnt a hole in his palm. He might have been only semi-awake but he’d been fully aware of its arousal, and that was going to be impossible to forget. Especially with his hard
-on pressing insistently against the zipper of his trousers. He wanted desperately to adjust it but there was no way he was touching himself with her right there—back turned or not.
He slid off the bed on the opposite side, not really paying any attention to what Avery and Claude were talking about. He needed some space. Some distance.
For adjusting.
For thinking.
For mental flagellation.
Luke stalked to the open balcony door and stepped gratefully through the curtains and out into the sunshine, easing things inside his underwear as best he could. The harsh sunlight blinded him a little and he squinted against it, raising his arm to block it out.
The ocean was still flat and listless, swishing quietly against the sand, and he took several deep breaths of salty air, filling his lungs with sand and ocean, cleansing it of London smog, wishing it were as easy to cleanse his brain. Erase the memory of Claudia all warm and soft, her nipple stiff and ready.
He turned his back to the vista, the brightness too much for his tired eyes. He shut them but then the edges of his dream fluttered seductively in the periphery of his mind and his eyes snapped open as his erection surged again.
Crap.
What had he done?
He shook his head. No. He’d been having a normal male physiological response to an erotic dream and Claudia just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Nothing more, nothing less.
For God’s sake, they’d grown up practically siblings.
She was like the kid sister he’d never had. Following him around. Getting into all kinds of mischief and strife with him. Sometimes bratty, always devoted. There’d never been anything between them.
He’d never felt anything other than brotherly towards her.
Except the heat in his palm didn’t feel very brotherly. The memory of her softness, of her hardness, felt pretty damn carnal.
Which begged the question—why hadn’t they ever got together? Never had a fling? Never even shared a quick teenage pash? It made sense with their proximity. Of course, she’d been sixteen and he’d been twenty-one when he’d left over eleven years ago but there’d been plenty of times since.
Harlequin KISS August 2014 Bundle Page 3