inching her feet back against the wall of the narrow hallway to give him more room. ‘Would you like to come in for a bit? I’m not quite ready.’ A hundred years wasn’t enough time to get ready.
He stepped through the door without touching her but Emily felt as if he had. Her body tingled when he moved past her in the doorway, as if he had sent out a radar signal to every cell of her flesh. His tall frame shrank her hallway, the carriage-light fitting only just clearing the top of his head. The citrus notes of his aftershave swirled around her nostrils, the clean, sharp scent taking her back to that night in his arms. She had smelt him on her skin for hours afterwards. Felt his hard, male presence in her tender muscles for days. Every time she moved her body it reminded her of the glide and thrust of his body within hers.
The intimacy they’d shared that night was like a presence hovering. The air was charged with it. Electrified by it. Humming with it.
His bottomless brown gaze moved over her body like a caress. ‘You look beautiful.’
Emily wished she didn’t have such a propensity to blush. She could feel it crawling over her cheeks like a spill of red wine on a cream carpet. She tucked a strand of hair back behind her ear. Shifted her feet. Smoothed her hands down the front of her dress. ‘Would you like a drink or...?’
He stepped closer, placing his hands on her waist and bringing his mouth down to within a breath of hers. ‘Let’s get this out of the way first.’
With a willpower Emily hadn’t even known she possessed, she placed her hands against his chest and took a faltering step backwards. ‘Can we have dinner first? It’s just, it’s been a month, and I feel a little...’
He gave one of his rare smiles. It was little more than an upward movement of his lips but it made something quiver on the floor of her belly like autumn leaves rustling in a playful breeze. ‘You don’t need to be nervous.’
Yes, I flipping well do.
Emily couldn’t quite meet his gaze and focussed on the knot of his tie instead. ‘Would you like to sit down? I just have to get my...my bag.’
And my courage, which seems to have left the building. Possibly the country.
‘Take your time. The booking isn’t till eight.’
‘Right, well, then, I’ll just be a moment.’ She backed away but bumped into the lamp on the table behind her. ‘Oops. Sorry. Won’t be a tick.’
Emily dashed back to the bathroom and gripped the edge of the basin.
You can do this. You can do this. You can do this.
She glanced at her reflection and stifled a groan. Was it her imagination or did she look a-vampire-just-left-me-for-dead pale? Maybe a bit more make-up would help. A bit of bronzer or something. She reached for her bronzer pad and brush but her hand knocked her bottle of perfume to the tiled floor with a glass-shattering crash. She looked at the shards of glass for a split second before she bent down to scoop them up, slicing one of her fingers in the process. Blood oozed down over her hand and wrist as if she was on the set of a horror movie. Footsteps sounded outside the bathroom, each one of them stepping on her flailing heart.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
‘Are you okay in there?’ Loukas asked, opening the door.
Emily grabbed the nearest hand towel and wrapped her hand in it. The smell of honeysuckle and vanilla was so strong and cloying it was nauseating. His nostrils quivered as if he thought so too. ‘I—I broke my perfume bottle.’
He stepped closer and gently took her hand. ‘Let me have a look. You might need stitches.’
She watched with one eye squinted while he carefully unpeeled her makeshift bandage. He held her hand to the light, his eyes narrowed in focus, his strong eyebrows drawn together in concentration. ‘No stitches needed, but I think there’s a sliver of glass in there. Do you have some tweezers?’
What a question to ask a girl with eyebrows that grew faster than weeds. ‘In the cupboard above the basin.’
He opened the cupboard and took the tweezers from the bottom shelf next to her jumbo pack of tampons.
Won’t need those for a while.
He rinsed the tweezers under the hot tap and then ran some antiseptic he’d found on the middle shelf over them.
Emily braced herself for the sting but his touch was so gentle she barely noticed anything except the way he was standing close enough for her to feel his body warmth. Close enough to smell the sharp notes of citrus in his aftershave, redolent of sun-warmed lemons and limes. Close enough to see the pinpricks of dark stubble peppered over his lean jaw, hinting at the potent male hormones surging in his blood.
Stop thinking about his surging blood.
I can’t help it!
He glanced at her. ‘I’m not hurting you too much?’
‘No...’ Emily looked at his mouth, the way it curved around his words, the way the stubble surrounded it, making her fingers ache to reach up and trace it.
He went back to work on her finger, gently removing the shard of glass and cleansing the wound with another wash of antiseptic. He reached back to the cupboard for a plaster and a small crepe bandage, which he placed on her finger. ‘There you go,’ he said with another heart-stopping, upward movement of his lips. ‘Good as new.’
Emily was so dazed by his almost-smile and his closeness she didn’t register what he was doing for a moment. It was only when he stepped past her to place the plaster and bandage wrappings in the metal pedal bin next to her that her heart came to a screeching standstill. She quickly blocked him from accessing the bin, as if she were guarding the Hope Diamond. ‘D-don’t put it in there.’ She held out her good hand, not one bit surprised it was shaking. ‘I’ll take it and put it in the bin in the kitchen.’
One of his eyebrows rose like a question mark. ‘Why not this bin?’
She forced herself to hold his gaze, her heart beating so hard it was as if there were panicked pigeons and a handful of hummingbirds trapped in her chest. ‘This one’s...erm...full.’
His eyes moved back and forth between each of hers. ‘What’s wrong? You seem a little jumpy.’
‘I’m not jumpy.’
Probably shouldn’t have answered so quickly.
He reached out his hand and trailed the backs of his bent knuckles down the slope of her cheek, making every nerve fizz and whizz. His eyes went to her mouth, lingering there as if he was reliving every time he had kissed her that night a month ago. ‘Why do I make you so nervous?’
Emily swallowed loud enough to hear it. ‘I’m n-not nervous...’
Loukas inched up her chin, the pad of his thumb moving in slow mesmerising circles, his eyes holding hers. ‘I couldn’t stop thinking about that night. How good it was between us.’
She sent her tongue out to moisten her lips that were as dry as the crepe bandage on her finger. ‘Isn’t it always good between you and your lovers?’
He
