only said maybe,’ Hannah reminded him. ‘But yes, that has something to do with it.’ She thought of Jamie’s father and felt a lump form in her throat. She’d moved on from her grief years ago, but opening those old wounds still hurt, still made her wonder and regret. If she’d done something differently...if she’d handled their last argument better... ‘When you lose someone,’ she said, ‘you don’t feel like taking the chance again.’
‘But he was your father, not a boyfriend or husband.’
‘I lost one of those too,’ Hannah admitted. ‘A boyfriend, not a husband.’ They’d never got that far. They’d never had the chance. And she had to believe that they would have, if Ben hadn’t died. That he would have changed his mind, she would have had a second chance.
‘When?’
‘Almost six years ago.’
Luca turned to her, the moonlight washing half his face in lambent silver. ‘You bear your sorrows so well. You don’t look like someone haunted by grief.’
‘I’m not,’ Hannah answered staunchly. ‘I choose not to be.’ Even if it was hard, a choice she had to make every day not to wallow in grief and regret.
‘That’s a strong choice to make.’
‘It hasn’t always been easy,’ Hannah allowed. ‘And I can’t say I haven’t had my moments of self-pity or evenings alone with a tub of mint-chocolate-chip ice cream,’ she added. ‘But I try not to wallow.’
His mouth twisted wryly. ‘Is that what you think I’m doing? Wallowing?’
Horrified, Hannah clapped a hand to her mouth. ‘Luca, no—’
‘No, it is.’ He cut her off. ‘And I despise myself for it. I thought I could come here and stare Andrew Tyson in the face. I thought I could smile and shake the man’s hand and feel nothing, because I’d schooled myself to feel nothing for so long. But I can’t. I can’t.’ His voice broke on a ragged gasp and he dropped his head in his hands. ‘I don’t want to feel this,’ he muttered. ‘I don’t want to be enslaved by something that happened so long ago. I wanted this to be a clean slate, a second chance—’ He drew in a ragged breath, his head in his hands, and Hannah did the only thing she could, the only thing she felt she could do in that moment. She hugged him.
She wrapped her arms around him, pressing her cheek into his back, trying to imbue him with her comfort. ‘Oh, Luca,’ she whispered. ‘Luca.’
He went rigid underneath her touch but she hung on anyway. Luca could be as strong and stoic as he liked, but he still needed comfort, and in that moment she was determined to give it to him.
He reached up to grip her wrists that were locked across his chest as if he’d force her away from him, but he didn’t.
‘Why are you so kind?’ he demanded in a raw mutter.
‘Why are you so afraid of kindness?’ Hannah returned softly.
He turned, his hands still on her wrists, and for a second she thought he would reject her offer of comfort and push her away, but then his features twisted and with a muttered curse he reached for her instead.
Their mouths met and clashed and the fierce desire to comfort him turned into something far more primal and urgent. His hands were everywhere, clenching in her hair, stroking her back, cupping her breasts, and all the while his mouth didn’t leave hers.
They fell back on the sand in a tangle of limbs, and when Luca’s thumb brushed over the taut peak of her nipple Hannah arched into his hand, craving an even deeper caress.
She tore at his shirt, studs popping, desperate to feel his bare, glorious skin. She let out a gasp of pleasure and satisfaction when she finally parted the shirt and ran her palms along his hair-roughened chest, revelling in the feel of sculpted muscle and hot skin.
Luca’s breath came out in a hiss and then he was pulling at her dress, the gauzy folds tearing under his urgent touch, and Hannah didn’t even care.
‘Luca,’ she gasped, and it was both a demand and a plea. She needed to feel his hands on her body. She felt as if she’d explode if she didn’t. He pulled the tattered dress down to her waist, leaving her completely bare on top as she hadn’t worn a bra with the halter-style dress.
Then he bent his head to her breasts, his tongue now touching where his hands had been, and Hannah clutched his head to her, nearly sobbing in pleasure at the feel of him tasting her.
But even that wasn’t enough. She needed more from him, of him, and when his hand slipped under her bunched dress, his fingers deftly finding and stroking her centre, she thought she almost had it. The pleasure was so acute it was akin to pain, a sharp ache that left her gasping. She skimmed the length of his erection, sucking her breath in at the way his body throbbed in insistent response to her touch. She pulled at his trousers, fumbling with the ties of his cummerbund, and with a muttered oath Luca ripped it away from him and tossed it on the sand. Hannah let out a gurgle of laughter that he swallowed with his mouth as he kissed her again and she gave herself to him, offering everything as her hands clutched at his shoulders and her hips rocked against his.
‘Hannah,’ Luca muttered against her mouth. ‘Hannah, I need...’
‘Yes,’ she answered almost frantically. ‘Yes, please, Luca, now.’
She parted her legs as he fumbled with the zip on his trousers. She didn’t have a second to consider if this was a good idea, if she’d regret this afterwards. She couldn’t think past the haze of overwhelming need that consumed her.
Then Luca was inside her, an invasion so sudden, so sweet, so much, that Hannah felt tears sting her eyes. It had been so long since she’d given her body to a man. So long since she’d felt completed, conquered. She wrapped her legs around him, enfolding herself around him as she accepted him into her body.
He stilled inside her as they both adjusted to the intense sensation. Luca’s eyes were closed, his arms braced by her shoulders. Then Hannah flexed around him and with a groan of surrender he started to move.
It had been a while, and it took her a few exquisite thrusts before she managed to find the rhythm and match it, and then with each thrust she felt her body respond, opening up like a flower, everything in her spiralling upward, straining towards that glittering summit that was just out of her reach—
Until she found it, her body convulsing around Luca’s as she cried out his name and the climax rushed over them both, their bodies shuddering in tandem, tears slipping down her face as she gave herself to the tidal wave of pleasure.
In the aftermath Hannah lay there, Luca’s body on top of hers, the thud of his heart matching her own. She felt dazed and dizzy and yet utterly sated. She couldn’t regret what had happened, not even for a second.
Then Luca rolled off her with a curse, lying on the sand on his back, one arm thrown over his eyes. Okay, maybe she could.
Hannah felt a whole bunch of things at once: the cold sand underneath her, the stickiness on her thighs, the grit in her hair, the torn dress about her waist. The pleasure that had overwhelmed her only moments before now felt like mere vapour, a ghost of a memory.
She pulled her torn dress down over herself, wincing at the shredded
