light he could see spilling out into the hallways ahead.
The compulsion that drove him was stronger than logic. His brother’s child, his nephew, was inside that room, the only part of Bruno that remained.
When he reached it, the door was ajar. On well-oiled hinges it swung silently inwards when he touched it. The room it revealed was small, painted a bright in-your-face yellow. The heat blasting out from the heaters that were positioned either end of it made the mobiles hanging from the ceiling spin, bringing the clowns and seals and cats to life. The effect when you added the stars and moons the night light projected on the ceiling was all a little surreal.
Ivo barely noticed.
His attention was completely focused on the spot where Flora Henderson was standing, her back turned to him, for the moment oblivious of his presence. She was holding the child, who seemed to be sleeping now; all he could see was the dark curly top of his head and his legs encased in blue, hanging limp.
He watched as she walked barefoot across the room to where the cot was situated under a curtained window. She was wearing a thin blue cotton nightdress that ended just below her knees and was held up by thin straps that revealed the curve of her delicate shoulder blades. The fabric billowed a little as she walked, allowing him to see the narrowness of her waist and the firm curves of her bottom through it.
Later, when he examined the moment he viewed it in the light of a long, very bad, incredibly frustrating day, but at that moment he could not apply logic to the scalding heat of the hormone rush that blanked his mind totally. Just wiped it clean of everything but the sense-destroying lust that for a few moments utterly consumed him.
He had begun to claw his way back to a semblance of control when she lifted her head, the upper half of her body half turning towards him, allowing him a view, through the gaping neck of her nightdress, of the smooth slopes of her breasts and the darker shadow of her nipples through the fabric. Their glances connected, blue on black, and he felt the control he had fought for slipping through his fingers like a wet rope burning flesh as he clung on.
Then he saw the wetness on her face, absorbed the evidence of tears that she didn’t seem conscious of and the gleam of intent in his eyes faded. He swallowed.
‘Let me help.’ Ivo had no idea where the words came from; he was immune to female tears.
So why was he reacting to them now?
The answer threw up a lot more difficult questions.
He’d first set eyes on the woman a couple of hours ago so how could he be so sure, so absolutely bet-your-life-on-it positive, that the tears were not there to gain sympathy? Why did he know she’d crawl before she’d ask for help?
Flora’s chin went up in response. She opened her mouth, the huffy rejection ready to deliver with the right degree of ‘I can take care of myself’ ice, when on her shoulder the baby shifted and gave a sleepy sigh.
She reacted automatically, shifting his weight so that he lay against her chest in the crook of her right arm. She flexed the fingers of her left hand, still numb and tingling from the time she had taken his weight there.
Oh, God, what was she doing, and what place did pride have in the situation? She needed a helping hand even if that hand, with the long tapering brown fingers, did seem to exert a weird and worrying fascination. Help, even if it came from a totally unexpected and frankly disturbing quarter, was still help.
And on the plus side, accepting his offer would mean hopefully he’d vanish a lot quicker.
And Flora needed him to vanish. He was too big and too...everything for the room. His presence seemed to alter the constituents of the air she was breathing, making it heavy, making breathing require a conscious effort.
‘I have kind of lost the feeling in my left arm. If you could just pull the cot sheet back?’ Her chin resting on Jamie’s dark curls, she stretched out, letting out a tiny but revealing gasp as her hand felt the brush of his long brown fingers.
The electrical surge that made her eyes widen left her knees feeling weak and reawakened the shivery sensation that had originally alerted her to his presence a few heavy heartbeats before she actually saw him standing there, carrying off the tumbled-out-of-bed look like only your average sex god could.
She supposed that she should be grateful that he didn’t sleep naked, though the boxer shorts he wore were not substantial enough to help her!
‘Thank you.’
She had no defence mechanism to deal with the compulsion to stare at his long, lean, golden, totally magnificent body. There was not an ounce of surplus flesh to hide the perfect definition of his toned body. Her eyelids fluttered and her throat grew dry as her glance slid again over the broadness of his muscled shoulders and chest to the slabbed muscles of his belly. His legs were long, the muscular thighs slightly dusted with dark hair. The same dark hair that formed a directional arrow that vanished beneath the waistband of his boxer shorts.
Pulling in a sharp, tense breath, Flora lifted her gaze and found it connecting with his, dark shadowed and deeply disturbing. His olive skin looked warm, his carved mouth looked... She blinked hard and took a step back like someone who had just discovered they were standing on the edge of a precipice, which explained the dizziness.
He watched her lift a fluttering hand to her face, looking bemused as it came away wet. She frowned at her fingers, not seeming to make the connection between the salty moisture and her own tears.
He didn’t know if the tiny negative shake of her head was aimed at herself or him, and a moment later her expression was hidden from view, the silky curtain of her flame-red hair falling in an abundant cloud as she bent forward to lay the sleeping baby into the cot, fumbling with the crumpled sheet as she tried to pull it back.
‘Let me.’
Without waiting for a response, he pulled back the tangled sheet she had been struggling with, smoothing it back so that she could lay the baby down on his back.
As the baby lay there clenching and unclenching this pudgy fists, Ivo had his first proper look at his nephew, hungry to see a resemblance to his brother in the unformed features. He felt a strange tightness in his chest as he took in the details: dark hair, a snub nose and pale pink skin, eyes tightly closed, untouched by life yet and totally perfect.
So vulnerable.
Your father would have died for you, he thought.
Better Bruno had lived.
‘I...thank you.’ The light brush of his fingers lasted longer than it should this time. As for the stomach-clenching shudder that felt as though it would never go away even after his hand had moved and he had straightened up...
She took longer than she needed to smooth the sheet over the baby, giving herself some time to recover from the primal reaction that had convulsed her body when she’d seen him standing there, a confusing combination of heart-thudding excitement and fear blurred into one.
‘You must be cold,’ she blurted stupidly.
His mobile lips twitched into a wicked smile that made her stomach lurch.
The man looked like a fallen angel on steroids!
The impression intensified
