was all, having put every ounce of effort into getting the Paris bar up and running. He needed sleep. On his own. ‘Come on, let’s get you to the bedroom.’
‘No! Bathroom first. Teeth. Floss. Wee.’
‘Too much information, lady.’ For some reason his hand seemed to have slipped back round her waist. She wasn’t so drunk that she’d fall over, but he thought it best he should steady her as they walked towards the bathroom. Her head rested against his shoulder and she looked sweet. Smelt great. Felt … sexy as all hell. Was it possible to be jet-lagged from a one-hour flight? Because he couldn’t think of any other reason for this strange disorientation.
He tried to keep his eyes on the bathroom decor and not on Poppy’s backside as she dipped to rinse her toothbrush. She’d done a reasonable job painting the flat in bright, light colours. The bathroom still needed a little TLC as the plumbing was cranky at best but it was clean and tiled in muted stone. A large skylight shed light from above although now all he could see were glimpses of stars in a cloudy night sky.
What gave the room colour were the multi-hued bits of lace drying on the radiator on the far wall. Still unused to sharing a house with so many women, he wondered what the correct response should be to finding flimsy underwear wherever he looked. He doubted it should be the spike of interest, and trying to match the panties to the woman. Now he tried not to imagine Poppy in the red and black number.
Hey, he was a hot-blooded man after all.
After a few moments of brushing her teeth she looked at him through the reflection in the large mirror. ‘You know it’s a medical impossibility to become a virgin again once you’re not. Right?’
‘Uh-huh. You’re the doctor, not me. But I think it’s a given that once the seal is broken it can’t exactly be unbroken. And where are you going with this, Miss Einstein?’ Grabbing the towel, she dried her mouth, then turned to him.
‘I’m a fraud. I advise women every day about their sex lives and I don’t have one. How can I talk to them about sex when I don’t even remember what it’s like? I don’t want to be an almost-virgin when I die, Isaac, but I’m headed that way.’
Like he was the right guy to be having this conversation with. Especially when he was the only person in the universe who knew why she’d given up sex. Anger started to rise from nowhere. She’d run away from any kind of relationship ever since, when she could have been happy. Happier. ‘You really do need to sleep off that wine. There’s plenty of time to get a sex life and plenty of men who, I’m sure, would be willing to help you in your … dilemma.’
‘Would you?’ Those pretty painted toes took a step towards him.
‘Would I what?’
But instead of answering in words, she pressed her mouth against his. Pressed her body against his. Made little mewling sounds that activated every hot-blooded cell in his body. And, hell, he should have pulled away, put her straight to bed and left. But she tasted so damned good …
Someone was playing bongo drums in Poppy’s head. And someone else was stomping in her stomach. Her throat hurt. Her mouth was dry. She felt like hell.
Worse than hell.
After a couple of minutes stabilising herself she twisted in the sheets about to sit up but her foot collided against something warm. Something large. In her bed. Her eyelids shot open and she managed to stifle the scream in her throat, holding her breath as she tried to make sense of it. Her heart thumped in conjunction with the annoying beat in her head as her toes gingerly tested the object.
A leg. Human. Hairy.
What. The. Hell?
She closed her eyes again until her stomach stopped churning. There was a man in her bed.
Isaac?
It took all of her strength to turn over quietly so as not to waken him up. Yes—same hair, same smell. She clamped her eyes closed again.
Isaac.
A bare leg. Two bare legs. She felt down her front … no cosy pink flannelette pyjamas, but a skimpy silk cami top? No PJ bottoms, but matching silk and lace French knickers? Lara’s expensive design—for best times only. What in hell had she done?
Please no.
Surely not?
Surely, surely not? She’d spent the night with a man. With Isaac. First time in eight long years and she couldn’t even remember it?
The vodka and Coke she’d had at the pub before she came home she easily remembered. And … ugh … the red wine gifts from her clients. Bile rose to her throat. She was never ever drinking again. Fuzzy flickering images of Isaac arriving while she was putting up the tree gradually came into focus. But how had they gone from that, to … this?
But oh, oh, God … she suddenly remembered kissing him in the bathroom. Remembered how she’d felt bold and brave and very sexy. And how he’d tasted so nice, his kiss so tender … Even now she could smell his scent, firing flashes of heat through her belly.
‘Sleeping Beauty finally wakes up.’ He turned, naked shoulders peeking out from her sheets, sat up, eyes as bright as the daylight splicing through her curtains. His hair was mussed up and he looked devastatingly hot. ‘Sleep well? Eventually?’
‘Why are you in my bed?’ Bunching the sheet around her throat, she sat up, too. No way was she getting out until he’d gone.
‘You don’t remember, Poppy? What a shame. It was a spectacular night and you don’t remember at all? I’m so disappointed.’
There was that shake of the head she knew so well. Daddy Spencer would be a proud man to see someone perfect that frown, even if it wasn’t his own flesh and blood.
‘I remember … we kissed.’ Oh, God, kill me now. ‘And then …’ She tried to force the cogs in her brain to work harder, faster, but they were stuck in fog. ‘Not a lot else.’
His hands clasped at the back of his neck showing mighty fine pectoral muscles, impressive biceps … Her mouth dried to something beyond the Sahara. Mortified she might have been, but she could still take time out to appreciate a beautiful human specimen when she saw one. She’d touched that? Lain under that? Or had she been on top? Or both? Who knew?
Aargh! Why couldn’t she remember?
He appeared to be struggling to keep a straight face. ‘You surprised even me. And I’m used to pretty much anything. Not exactly a screamer, more a gasper …’
‘A gasper? I didn’t … We didn’t …?’ A flash of him running his hand through her hair emerged through the soup in her brain. No, that had been years ago. But … the image in her head was of her current bathroom. Of safe hands stroking her back. A soft smile as he’d picked her up and carried her across the apartment and into her bedroom.
‘You kissed me.’ No way would she forget that in a London minute.
‘No, Poppy. You kissed me.’
‘You kissed me back.’
Those magnificent shoulders shrugged. ‘Glad to help out a lady in
