in his touch.
Uh-uh, this time his fingers splayed and pulled her towards him while his skilled mouth coaxed hers into opening.
As his tongue touched hers starbursts exploded in her head as she belatedly wondered if she had sustained a concussion.
Surely that could be the only explanation for this dazed, stunned confusion clouding her usually immaculate rationale and making her want to kiss a guy she barely knew for ever.
Yeah, he was that good and when the pressure of his lips eased she wanted to scream ‘no-o-o!’
For this was when her reliable logic would kick in, the logic that had helped her breeze through tense seating arrangements at foreign embassies, the logic that had prompted her to give up her writing dream and undertake a sensible economics degree, the logic that had insisted marrying a family friend would be a solid basis for a sound marriage.
Screw logic.
‘Can I blame that on concussion?’
The lips she’d just ravaged kicked up at the corners. ‘That depends.’
‘On?’
‘How bad it is.’
With a fake wince, she pointed to her head and pretended to swoon. ‘It’s beyond bad.’
‘In that case, I insist I walk you to your room.’
His gaze dropped to her mouth for a moment. ‘Just in case you impulsively kiss every stranger you come into contact with.’
Just like that, her bubble of illusion popped. For that was what she’d done. Kissed a stranger, some random guy, she’d met in a hotel.
Sheesh. What had she been thinking? It was one thing to abandon boring logic, another to lose sight of the facts completely.
‘Hey, I was kidding.’
He touched her arm and a spark of something zapped her, reminding her of the reason she’d ignored logic in the first place.
‘Though introducing ourselves should take care of the stranger problem?’
He smiled and her chest constricted. Smooth, sweet-talking charmers shouldn’t have a lethal smile too.
‘Roman. Extreme sports fanatic.’
He held out his hand. ‘And part-time poolside paramedic.’
She laughed, the carefree cadence foreign to her ears. When was the last time she’d laughed, really laughed, just for the heck of it?
Not while living in Canberra under Daddy’s watchful eye while he’d stood at Australia’s helm, not during her sedate two-year marriage and certainly not during her divorce last month, a divorce that had been publicly scrutinised while her name had been dragged through the mud for no other reason than she was Ava Beckett, reported society royalty, who’d supposedly got what was coming to her.
It felt good, great in fact, and by those attractive crinkles at the corners of his eyes Roman had spent a hell of a lot more time than she had laughing.
She placed her hand in his. ‘Ava. Recent quitter of boring financier job. Clumsy oaf and danger to others poolside.’
His fingers closed over hers, his grip firm and solid, and another little shiver of awareness slithered through her.
‘Well, then, with your clumsiness and my paramedic skills, we’re a match made in heaven.’
He squeezed her hand and released it when she grimaced.
‘Tell me those lines don’t usually work for you.’
He leaned closer and she bit her lip at the sudden onslaught of masculinity temptingly within reach. ‘You tell me?’
Sotto voce, combined with a wink, had her laughing again.
‘So when you’re not rescuing clumsy damsels in distress and jumping off bridges with an elastic rope tied to your ankles, where do you live?’
For the first time since she’d met him a shadow shifted in the rich depths of his eyes before he blinked and the resident twinkle was back.
‘I’m based in London at the moment.’
She caught a hint of hesitancy, a slight stiffening in his shoulders before his smile caught her off guard again, dazzling in its sexiness.
‘Boring financier job, huh? Lucky you quit.’
‘Yeah, real lucky.’
She wanted to act blasé, as if she could walk out on a solid job and live a carefree life traipsing around the planet. Instead, she did what had been ingrained from a young age: told the truth.
‘Actually, I have no idea what I’m going to do next.’
‘Easy. What’s your dream job?’
His eyes crinkled in amusement, making her want to smile along with him. Nothing fazed him. Then again, the guy jumped off tall buildings for a living—losing a job would be small fry.
‘Dream job?’
She’d given up on dreams a long time ago, around the time her life fell under the control of others.
‘Yeah, what are you passionate about? Number crunching in another capacity?’
‘Hell no!’
He laughed at her vehemence. ‘If not numbers, maybe words? What about using your numbers experience and using words to get your expertise across, maybe something like statistics lecturer or maths teacher?’
‘Couldn’t think of anything worse.’
Standing up in a room full of strangers watching her every move? No way. Too reminiscent of her past.
He tapped his bottom lip, thinking, while she focused on that lip. ‘Words … hey, what about writing?’
Her heart skipped a beat at his suggestion. Writing had once been a dream, a dream ripped asunder by the practicalities and expectations of being the prime minister’s daughter. She hadn’t written a word since Year Twelve English Lit, had turned her back on scrawling in her daily journals around the same time.
Ironically, when she’d been the brunt of the media’s smear campaign recently she’d wish she could report the facts and not the drivel printed. It had sparked a vague idea about writing again, perhaps using her experience to freelance, to be an interviewer famed for her integrity rather than headline grabbing.
Maybe it’d be fun to try again, but could she make a living from it? And who would hire her, an ex-financier who’d been publicly flayed for no other crime than bearing the Beckett name?
‘Take here, for instance, you’d have loads to write about.’
He snapped his fingers. ‘Let’s see. Melbourne’s newest
