choked at the thought of everything she’d thrown away, she’d simply nodded, unable to find her voice. But instead of the final goodbye she’d been anticipating, she’d found herself wrapped in a strong pair of arms and given a second chance. The deal sealed with a kiss.
And what a kiss. Potent, ardent, yet tempered with such heart-rending tenderness that even the memory had Annabel’s lips tingling.
She entered the sitting room and returned the frame to its usual place on her bookshelf before switching on a lamp and the television. Settling on the sofa, she draped the throw over herself and snuggled down to try to get comfortable.
Almost immediately, the lack of give in the cushions reminded her that, however bad her nights might currently seem, it was nothing compared to what was in store for her once the small, style-over-substance piece of furniture became her bed again when her mother was finally released from hospital. For six weeks Ellen had been in traction for the fractured neck she’d sustained during Tony Maplin’s attack. Although it had never been mentioned, Annabel couldn’t help but wonder if her mother’s sleep was as terrorised by nightmare replays of that day as her own.
Feeling the heavy pull of exhaustion, she used the television remote to channel-hop, searching for some late-night show mindless enough to send her back into a doze before she had to get up for a busy day at Cluny’s. But, unsurprisingly, neither the shopping channel nor sitcom reruns were up to the task of distracting her from the force that was Aidan Flynn. Or the velvet-wrapped promises of a future together he’d made to her mere hours before.
Despite his unwavering positivity, she was doubtful that they’d be able to merge their individual paths to make any long term commitment between them work. How could it, when she’d discovered that ultimately his intention was to move back to Ireland, while she had her own career path mapped out in England?
It was a sign of just how far he’d snuck through her defences when, seated beside him on this very sofa, she’d chosen to risk having him short-term rather than not at all. ‘Let’s try it and see.’
‘Oh, we’ll try, Annabel. Don’t you worry about that.’ He’d flashed his wicked, slightly crooked trademark smile at her – the one that never failed to make her belly somersault. ‘We’ll try anything and everything to make this work.’ Then he’d kissed her until she’d been left breathless, dizzy, so electrified by the prospect of what ‘everything’ might include that she’d been left stammering. ‘L-like what?’
‘All sorts,’ he’d promised. ‘To start with, we’ll date.’
That had thrown her. ‘Date?’ She’d never really been a dater … and surely they’d moved a bit beyond that stage already?
Her confusion must have been stamped on her features because he’d laughed and smoothed a thumb between her brows as though to rub away a frown. ‘Yes, you know – dinner, dancing, shows.’
‘Oh, but –’
‘Starting tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow?’ she’d parroted, still not really getting it. ‘I’m working.’
‘Tomorrow,’ he’d insisted, the light of laughter in his eyes sharpened to a determined glint. ‘I’ll pick you up from Cluny’s. Just for a quick nightcap.’
And then, apparently still being able to read the invisible undercurrents running through her as easily as he’d been able to do from the very start, he’d cupped her face, his expression softening again. ‘I know this is all going to be a first for you, and I want to do it right. We’ll feel our way through it together,’ he’d vowed, and lowered his head to brush his lips against hers again, that time a bare whisper of a touch, gone almost before it had begun, a warm, soft tease that had left her instinctively leaning in for more as he’d pulled back to add, ‘We’ll take it slow.’
Eyes still closed, she’d nodded, even as her body had screamed at her to jump him for the instant earth-shattering satisfaction it craved, remembering all too well the torture of Aidan Flynn’s idea of slow. But slow also meant she could keep control of the crazy emotions bubbling up from deeply hidden places inside her – the ones already threatening to drown her common sense. So when she’d finally opened her eyes and looked into his, it had been to agree.
‘Slow is good.’
‘Hurry!’ Annabel gasped.
The only response Aidan was capable of giving was an urgent, animalistic growl of frustration deep in his throat as he buried his face in the crook of her neck. The smell, the feel, the taste of her had his blood fired and his senses reeling. If only she’d keep still, he could do as she asked. Hurry, as he so badly wanted to do.
But it appeared she was as far gone as he, caught in the grip of a frantic physical need that had them groping at each other like horny teenagers. Bodies rubbing and hands everywhere – sliding over smooth planes, moulding curves, fumbling in their haste to get past the barriers of clothing and revisit the pleasures of naked flesh their separation had denied them.
So much for taking things slow, Flynn. Despite wanting to do the noble thing, his good intentions were no match for the force of the attraction he felt for Annabel Frost. One second they’d been offering each other a tentative goodnight as she’d stepped over the threshold of her flat. The next he’d been inside too, his hands grasping the sides of her head as he’d pinned her tight between his body and the entrance-hall wall, lips fused, tongues sparring. All before her door had even had the chance to swing shut.
But it still wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. Anticipation had been building all through their nightcap as he’d expected it would. How could it not, when coffee had been their drink of choice and they’d found themselves in Chinos, the café where she’d first touched him, albeit by accident, all those months ago? During the six long weeks he’d had without her, that encounter, and every increasingly intimate one after, had replayed in his mind over and over and over, filling him with the constant dull ache of need and longing. And as if that hadn’t been temptation aplenty, Annabel had ordered a slice of chocolate cake, reminding him of how much of a sweet tooth she had; every pleasure-driven flicker of her eyelids, every lick of her red lips and the icing-smeared spoon had shot straight to his groin.
‘Hurry!’ she urged again, the word a breathy spur right into his ear, robbing him of any last hope of reining things in. Raising his head, he smashed his lips over hers, plunging his tongue into her mouth to taste that chocolate sweetness as he wrestled with the buttons of her coat.
If he’d wanted to keep things slow, he shouldn’t have let himself come to the door. With the sexual tension that had been thrumming through him since their reunion yesterday, he should have stuck to his original plan of staying in the taxi out in the street while she let herself through the security doors of the modern, multi-storey residential block, before continuing the journey across town to his own place.
But after they’d shared a semi-chaste kiss on the back seat his honourable resolve had been overridden by an altogether more primal surge of protectiveness. Watching her walk away brought flashbacks of the last time he’d dropped her off – high and happy from the weekend they’d spent in Vienna – when she’d refused to let him see her to her door. The price she’d nearly paid for that … He’d never forget the moment he’d caught a glimpse of Tony Maplin’s face at her window as
