by Amy Andrews
He stepped back and Mia strode into the room. The heat enveloped her and she turned to find Luca watching her from the shut door. She untied the coat and shrugged out of it. It fell to the floor and she was standing before him in nothing but a pair of heels.
‘Will this do?’ she asked.
Luca’s brain temporarily powered down as his hungry gaze ate up her body. Her long legs, the jut of her breasts, the flare of her hips, the shadow of her sex.
Mia’s nipples hardened at the intensity of his scrutiny. It felt more intimate than if he’d touched her and she suddenly felt like he could see right inside her. She fought the urge to cover herself.
Luca swallowed. ‘Spin around.’
His husky command spread tentacles of heat through her belly and she performed a slow teasing rotation, looking over her shoulder at him as she circled her hips like she’d seen once in a documentary on pole dancing.
Luca’s belly clenched tight. He pushed away from the door and was in front of her, reaching for her in seconds, his hands sliding around her waist, his mouth descending.
And then he was kissing her and she was kissing him back. Long, deep, wet kisses that had her gasping and sighing and begging for more as she pulled at his clothes, desperate for some skin on skin.
Her nipples rubbed against his naked chest and Luca groaned deep in his throat. Then he swept her up into his arms and strode through the apartment, their mouths locked, their hearts beating to a rhythm that pulsed like a rock concert through the air around them.
Luca reached his bed and threw her on it. Mia was startled as she free-fell, landing softly but breathing hard. Somewhere along the way she’d lost her heels so she was one hundred per cent naked now.
She looked up at a half-undressed Luca. His lips were moist from their kissing, his shirt was half off, his zipper undone.
‘You look good,’ she murmured.
Luca grinned. ‘You look better.’
Then he was stripping off his clothes, reaching for a condom, sheathing himself, then joining her, tangling his limbs with hers, kissing her mouth and her neck and her breasts, ignoring her entreaties to finish it as he licked lower. And lower.
It wasn’t until she lay spent beneath him that he succumbed to his own body’s dictates, entering her slowly, revelling in her exultant cry, rocking and pulsing, building her again until he was pounding and pounding, pushing them both to impossible heights and then pushing them both over into oblivion.
It was several minutes before either of them was physically able to speak. Luca, who was now lying on his back, recovered first.
‘Do you realise this is the first time we’ve actually done it in a bed?’
Mia, her brain cells still reorganising themselves after a mass meltdown, just nodded. It took her another couple of minutes to process and for a spike of worry to register.
Somehow landing in Luca’s bed made this whole thing seem more intimate. The other places had personified their relationship—the on-call room, the shower, the kitchen bench. Quick and impersonal.
Places to get off then move on.
They had spelled temporary, fleeting, momentary.
But to be in his bed, in his bedroom? What the hell did that spell?
Mia didn’t think it was prudent to stick around and find out. Just as soon as she could move without her legs collapsing, she was out of here. The perfect opportunity arose when Luca went to the bathroom to relieve himself of the condom but her legs refused to co-operate so she was still lying stark naked on his bed when he returned.
‘You look good there,’ Luca murmured as he approached the bed.
Mia watched him draw nearer, unashamedly naked, his beautiful smooth face and body a sight to behold. Desire stirred in her belly.
Right, that was it! Get up now, McKenzie!
Except the phone beside Luca’s bed chose that moment to ring, scaring the living daylights out of her. She glanced at the clock. ‘Who on earth is ringing at this ungodly hour?’
Luca felt his heart rate accelerate. People who lived in places where it wasn’t an ungodly hour.
He reached the phone in three purposeful strides and snatched it up. ‘Ciao.’
Mia saw another chance to escape but Luca talking in his native tongue was such a treat, even if she didn’t understand a word, she just lay and listened to him. He sat on the side of the bed his back to her, and she resisted the urge to run her palm up and down the broad expanse of his ribs. To contrast the white of her skin with the tantalising copper of his.
The first sign that the phone call wasn’t social was Luca raising his voice. He raked his hand through his hair and seemed to be demanding something of the caller. She heard the word ‘nonna’ a lot. Wasn’t that Italian for grandmother? Had something happened to his grandmother?
There was some more rapid-fire conversation before Luca hung up, tossing the hands-free receiver onto the bedside table with a clatter.
Mia pushed herself up on to her elbows, staring at the solid wall of his back. ‘Is everything okay?’ she asked tentatively.
Luca dragged himself back from the brink of the abyss the phone call had taken him to. For a moment he’d forgotten Mia was even there. He was inordinately pleased she was.
Which didn’t sit well at all.
He rubbed the back of his neck. ‘No. That was a cousin of mine. My grandmother is dead.’
Mia heard the husky rawness behind the blunt delivery and in that instant she forgot that she was naked, forgot that she was supposed to have already gone, forgot that she didn’t get involved. The driving need to offer him comfort, as she would do anyone—a friend, a patient a colleague—overrode everything.
She sat and scooted over to him shunting in behind him, spreading her legs to accommodate him, his bottom fitting snugly into the cradle of her pelvis, her thighs bracketing his.
She leaned her torso into him, her breasts squashed against his back. Her hands found his arms, her palms running up and down the warm solid weight of his biceps.
‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured, her cheek resting against his shoulder blade. ‘Were you close?’
Luca nodded. Regret, never far away, twisted the ever-present knife deep into his heart. He had been the apple of his nonna’s eye. Even after that horrible day that had changed his family life for ever.
She’d been the only one who’d believed there was more to Luca than the irresponsible teenager who had let everyone down.
Turning his back on her had been a particular wrench.
‘We spoke once a week.’ It was how he knew his family still hadn’t forgiven him.
Mia absently brushed her mouth against Luca’s back once, twice, three times. His muscles seemed to be quivering beneath her lips and she knew she couldn’t leave him like this.
‘It’s okay, Luca,’ she murmured. ‘C’mon, lie down for a while.’
She scooted back, until she was sitting propped up a little against the bedhead, and placed a hand on his shoulder. For a moment she thought he was going to resist but then he let her pull him down so the back of his head was cradled against her shoulder, her arm braced across his chest.
Luca lay still as Mia settled the sheet in around them. He turned his face and nuzzled her arm, inhaling her fragrance, letting the beat of her heart close to his ear soothe the ache in his chest.
‘Do you want to talk about her?’ she asked, trailing the fingers of her free hand up and down his arm.
Luca shook his head. He didn’t want to talk, he didn’t want to think. He just wanted to lie here next to her and forget the world.
‘Okay. We’ll just lie here for a bit, then.’
So they did.
She had absolutely no intention of staying. Absolutely no intention of falling asleep. No intention whatsoever other than to offer a little bit of comfort and companionship in Luca’s time of need.
She really, really didn’t mean to fall asleep.
Or stay the night …
Mia woke to t
he most delicious feeling of warmth. Of being wrapped in a cocoon of contentment. She stretched languorously against all that solid heat behind her then snuggled back into it again. A heaviness at her hip spanned her waist and curled around her breast. A delicious sensation buzzed her neck. A hardness nudged at the cleft of her bottom.
Hmm. Luca.
She sighed as sleep wrapped her in a sticky embrace. For five seconds.
Then panic set in.
Luca!
Damn! What time was it?
She cracked open one eye, then the other, squinting at the digital clock on the bedside table. Eight-fifteen.
In the morning.
Damn, damn, triple damn!
She lay very still for a long moment, listening to him breathe, not daring to do so herself. It was deep and even. Was he asleep? His lips had brushed her neck only seconds ago but had that been involuntary?
His hand at her breast, tantalising and erotic, seemed lax. Not that her nipple seemed to know the difference as it scrunched and scraped erotically against the flat of his palm.
Neither, for that matter, did his erection. She could feel it nestled against her, big and heavy.
Ready for action.
How the hell could he sleep with that thing? Surely his brain was being deprived of oxygen?
Mia waited a bit longer for signs of life. Other than his erection.
No. He was definitely asleep.
She took that as her cue to get the hell out. What had she been thinking? She didn’t do this. She didn’t stay the night. She didn’t … spoon.
Hell, she didn’t even cuddle.
And he knew that!
Okay, no one she’d ever been to bed with had received a phone call that their grandmother had died either—but that was beside the point. She was supposed to have left hours ago. She couldn’t let one man’s personal life alter years of self-discipline.
She’d very nearly failed medical school, thrown away her future, by letting men and booze rule her life for those couple of crazy years after she’d found out about her father, about her mother’s deception. She’d made a promise to herself back then that it would never happen again.
And Luca was no exception.
Yes, he’d transcended her staunch one-night-stand policy. But he was still just a convenient body—hot, sexy, best she’d-ever-known body—and that was all.
Dead grandmother or not.
Her decision from last night—before she’d totally messed up and stayed—to end things with Luca suddenly just got a whole lot more urgent.
Mia didn’t breathe again until she’d slunk very carefully out of his bed and tiptoed out of his room. Thankfully the central heating was still on because it looked like a frosty old day through those big bay windows as a stiff breeze blew across the harbour, rippling the surface like goose-bumps on flesh.
She strode to the centre of the room and scooped up her jacket, shrugging into it, again ignoring the buttons as she tied it at the waist.
Now, where the hell were her shoes?
She quickly scanned the shoeless route from the lounge to Luca’s bedroom. Her gaze stopped at his doorway.
Please, don’t make me go back there.
She didn’t need the temptation of a sleeping Luca. She hadn’t looked back as she’d fled the room and she didn’t want to know now either. She needed to get out.
She’d leave her bloody shoes if she had to. Even if her feet would be half-frozen by the time she reached her apartment.
Yes, she needed to tell him this wouldn’t be happening again. Especially now. Especially after last night.
But she could leave that for tomorrow. For now she needed to get out. And quickly.
Her panicked gaze backtracked, sweeping a broader area than before. It snagged on a partially obscured heel somehow under the bar stools that lined the central kitchen bench.
Wow. She must have kicked them off wildly—or had Luca pulled them off then tossed them across the room?
Her mind had been mush at the time.
Mia quickly retrieved it, trying not to think about just what she and Luca had done on that kitchen bench. How he’d swept aside the dirty dishes and taken her right there on the cold granite bench top.
Stop it! Don’t go there!
Mia shook herself. One shoe down, one to go. She refined her search—if one had ended up near the kitchen, the other one could be anywhere. She dropped to her knees in front of the lounge suite and looked under the chairs.
Bingo!
She reached under for it but the lounge didn’t have a lot of clearance and she had to get down lower to even get her fingers to it. She extended her arm further and finally dragged it out, giving a triumphant murmur as she sat back on her haunches.
‘What are you doing?’
Mia lurched abruptly to her feet. Luca was leaning against the doorframe, in nothing but underpants, his arms crossed, a small frown making a harsh line out of his beautiful mouth. There was a shadow in his eyes that was a perfect foil for the one darkening his jaw and seemed to match his serious countenance.
‘Luca.’ Mia, excruciatingly aware of her nakedness beneath the coat, absently kicked first one foot up behind her and then the other as she slid the shoes in place, ‘Sorry … couldn’t find my shoes.’
Luca watched as she shimmied into her stilettos. Usually he liked the way women did that. It was sexy. But this morning the death of his grandmother and the burden of guilt he felt over his absence in her life weighed heavily.
As did Mia being witness to it all.
This morning he was immune to sexy.
When he’d woken alone he’d been relieved. His vulnerability last night had shaken him. He wasn’t used to being that emotionally exposed to anyone, least of all a woman. Marissa had burned him for life in that regard and he had no desire to repeat the experience.
The last thing he needed this morning was to see pity in Mia’s eyes.
He needed to be alone.
‘I need coffee,’ he said abruptly, pushing away from the doorframe.
Mia watched him stride to the kitchen, a very different man from the post-coital Luca she’d come to know. No sexy smile, no lazy laugh, no knowing gaze. And certainly very different from the man she’d held last night, who’d fallen asleep in her arms.
He seemed to have erected a wall and was putting her firmly on the outside.
Which was great. Exactly what she wanted. Exactly what she’d been hoping for. No need for the big talk after all. Just slip out of his apartment and consider it over.
Perfect.
If only her body wasn’t rebelling. The site of his strong, naked back, the way the muscles played beneath the fine moulding of copper flesh, the sexy indentation of the small of his back was causing a riot amongst her hormones. She ground her feet into the carpet to stop herself taking a step towards him.
When had her body started to crave his like this? It was so … base.
‘I’m going to go,’ she announced to his back. ‘Check that Evie hasn’t slipped into an alcoholic coma. And you have a lot to organise today.’
Luca frowned as he filled the percolator with water. ‘Organise?’
‘Flights, time off work, packing.’
‘Flights?’
It was Mia’s turn to frown. ‘For the funeral? I’m sorry, I assumed your grandmother lived in Italy? Is she here in Sydney?’
He hadn’t told her that. But, then, why would he? They didn’t … chat. They’d had sex a few times. That’s what they did. That’s all they did.
Until last night.
And it was why they were over now. Now that their relationship had evolved to a level of emotional intimacy neither of them wanted.
Luca flipped the switch on the coffee machine and turned to face her, his hands gripping the bench behind him, his knuckles white. ‘I’m not going to the funeral.’
Mia blinked. ‘What?’
‘I’m not going,’ he repeated.
‘But …
I thought you said you were close to your grandmother?’
Her yearning for a grandmother of her own, someone who could have softened the harsh realities of her childhood, been a buffer even, returned as Mia struggled to understand what Luca was saying.
Luca nodded. ‘I am.’ He raked a hand through his hair as he realised what he’d said. ‘I was … I haven’t been back to Italy since the day I left and, trust me, no one in my family wants me to return.’
The edge of bitterness in his voice surprised Mia and instead of turning and walking to the door, which would have been the wisest course of action, she wandered closer to the kitchen.
‘No one?’
He nodded grimly. ‘Sicilians have long memories.’
Mia slid onto one of the stools, the urge to comfort him as strong as it had been last night despite his keep-out expression. ‘Look, I don’t know what happened with you and your family—’
She held up a hand as he opened his mouth to interrupt. He looked like he was going to tell her to mind her own damn business, which was fine by her. Apart from knowing he’d left Marsala at the age of sixteen, he hadn’t told her about his past or the fact that he’d never been back.
And she didn’t want to know. That wasn’t what they were about—it was nothing to do with her.
Except she understood. She understood how things could be so bad that you’d never go back. How many times had she visited her mother in the last five years? Half a dozen? And how long ago had she given up on trying to keep in contact with a father who had moved on to a new family after the woman he’d loved had totally destroyed his old one?
‘I don’t want to know, Luca, but it was a long time ago, yeah? Maybe things are better now?’
Out of habit or manners, Luca poured two coffees and pushed one towards her. Even though he didn’t want her to stay. He could see empathy in her gaze and wanted no part of it. They were just about sex—nothing else. Sex was all he did. He’d lost his head for a little while, but not any more.
‘They’re not.’
Mia stared down into the thick dark coffee—the colour of Luca’s eyes. ‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured.
He shrugged. ‘It’s the way it is.’
Mia looked up sharply. She could see regret in his espresso gaze and hear a slight rawness to his accent. And suddenly she was mad. Damn it! Why was it that way? Why was he still being made to suffer twenty odd years later—this was his family. What had he done that had been so bad? Why did she feel guilty about not keeping her family together, about not keeping in contact when neither of her parents bothered? Why should she give a damn when they didn’t?