dream to the other person, to another time.
Her mother was there too somewhere, holding a wrapped bundle that Mia knew was her stillborn sister. Her mother was sobbing those deep, gut-wrenching sobs that had been indelibly woven through the fabric of Mia’s life.
She was holding her father’s hand, her little ten-year-old fingers tugging at his long ones, asking him not to go. And then Stan would yell to get back, get back as the knifepoint came ever closer.
Daddy, don’t go. Don’t go.
Slash. Back, get back. Slash.
Please, Daddy, don’t go.
Slash. Slash. Back! Get back!
Daddy!
‘Daddy, come back!’
Luca was almost at the door when he heard her cry out. Without thinking, he hurried back to her, pushed open the door and strode over to the couch as Mia cried out again, flinging her head from side to side. The journal had already fallen to the floor.
Luca took her by the shoulders and gave her a gentle shake, mindful of her injury. ‘Mia! Mia.’
Mia heard a voice. A different voice. And the urge to run towards it, to run away from the feelings of hopelessness, was overwhelming.
Luca? Luca?
‘Mia.’ He shook her again. ‘It’s Luca. Wake up. Wake up.’
Mia’s eyes flew open. Luca? Luca was here?
The mellow lamplight bathed his strong masculine features, softening them—his jaw, his cheeks, his mouth—and he finally looked like that angel. She blinked away the crazy thought as tendrils of dread clung to every heartbeat.
Mia tried to sit up but her limbs wouldn’t co-operate and her arm throbbed. ‘Luca?’
‘Shh,’ he murmured, the pads of his thumbs absently stroking her shoulders. Her large blue eyes reflected her confusion. ‘It’s okay, you were having a bad dream.’
Mia nodded. ‘It was … there was …’
‘Your father?’
Mia blinked up at him. He pronounced the th softly, giving the word a gentleness it hadn’t had in the dream. Her head was crowded with memories. One after the other, battering her brains and beating against the locked door to her heart.
Old and long forgotten. Supposedly.
She had to make them stop.
‘Are you okay?’ Luca asked.
She looked at him, into eyes so deep and brown it was like falling into a well.
He could make them stop.
‘Mia?’
She shook her head. ‘Not yet.’ But she would be.
Then she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his.
Luca stilled at the tentative touch. He pulled back and searched her eyes. ‘Mia?’
She shook her head and, supporting herself on her good arm, leant in close, locking her gaze with his. ‘Kiss me,’ she murmured, her mouth a whisper from his.
In fact, she was close enough that Luca could almost feel those two little words branding his lips from the sudden heat rising between their bodies. He dropped his gaze to her mouth—so near, so luscious—and he was instantly hard.
‘What happened to not wanting to be a notch on my bedpost?’
‘Stan,’ she muttered.
After that Luca wasn’t sure who closed the hair’s-breadth between them. But he did seize control.
His mouth opened over hers and demanded she follow suit. And follow him she did, opening to him eagerly. He thrust his tongue into her mouth and the little whimper at the back of her throat implored him to keep going.
He tunnelled his hands into her hair, angling her head back to accommodate more, and the kiss escalated. Got deeper, wetter, hotter. His body moved over hers, forcing her knees down, crowding her back against the cushions, imprisoning her against the couch, her head falling back over the arm.
His hand brushed the side of her breast and she moaned deep and low. He drew it lower, to her waist, her hip as his mouth broke from hers to ravage her neck, stretched out before him, the pulse at the base beating as madly as his own.
Mia felt the memories disappear into the ether as a veritable storm of sensations swept through her body.
Yes, yes, yes.
‘Yes,’ she cried out as Luca licked along her collar bone. ‘Yes,’ as he nipped at the base of her neck. ‘Yes,’ as his hand squeezed the exact spot where, beneath her jeans, butt met thigh.
One-handed, she pulled his polo shirt out of his jeans and ruched it up his back, his skin hot and vibrant beneath her palm. She kept pulling till it was past his shoulders and gave a triumphant cry when Luca ducked his head through the opening and she pulled it off him entirely.
His smooth chest was totally bare to her touch and she pressed a kiss to a flat brown pec, then his collarbone, then the hollow at the base of his neck.
She breathed him in, his scent intoxicating. Potent. Virile. Male. It filled up her senses. Like a drug.
And left her wanting more.
He claimed her mouth again, pressing her deep into the cushions, and she revelled in his weight, in the tangle of his legs, in the oh-so-right angle of his pelvis.
Luca felt the agitated circling of her hips and ground himself against her. He swallowed her gasp, making her moan more deeply as his hand travelled back up her body, pushing beneath her top. He needed to touch her breasts. To see them. Taste them. To feel them rubbing against his chest.
He pushed the fabric up, his hand filling with soft, delectable female. Satin, lace and heaven all in one sweet handful. He rubbed the hard point with his thumb and she gasped.
Luca broke away from her mouth, his lips instinctively following the dictates of his body as his tongue stroked down her neck, over her collarbone, the slope of her breast then finally her nipple. The lace was rough against his tongue as he sucked the tip right through the material of the bra.
Mia’s breath hissed out as her back arched involuntarily. It jarred painfully through her sore arm and she cried out in pain this time, her eyes squeezing shut.
‘Mia?’ Luca broke away. ‘Oh, sorry, did I hurt your arm?’
Mia shook her head, her eyes still shut. ‘It’s okay, it’s settling.’
Luca groaned, dropping his forehead onto her chest. Her heart beat frantically there as her ribcage heaved
