her system bit by bit. With every smile, every touch.
And he didn’t love her. Looking at him now, the light in his eyes, that wasn’t anything deeper than lust. But if that was all she could have, she would take that. Right now, she would take it, and she wouldn’t think about the wisdom of it, or the consequences.
Because she was staring hard into a Zack-free future, and she would rather have all of him tonight, and carry the memory with her, than be nothing more than his trusty sidekick forever, standing by watching while he married another woman. Watching him make a life with someone else, someone he didn’t even love, while her heart splintered into tiny pieces with every beat.
“One night,” she repeated. “Here. Away from reality. Away from work and home. Because. We can’t keep going on like this. It can’t be healthy.”
The people around them started cheering and she looked around them, saw the paper lanterns start to rise up above them, filling the air with thousands of floating, ethereal lights.
“Just one night,” he said, his voice rough. “One night to explore this.” He touched her cheek. “To satisfy us both. Is that really what you want?”
“I want you. So much.”
He kissed her without preliminaries this time, her body pressed against hers, his erection thick and hard against her stomach as his mouth teased and tormented her in the most delicious way. She wrapped her arms around his neck and gave herself up to the heat coursing between them. When they parted she felt like she was floating up with the lanterns.
One night. The proposition made her heart ache, and pound faster. It excited her and terrified her. She didn’t know what she was thinking. But one thing she did know: he wanted her. He wasn’t faking the physical reaction she’d felt pressed against her.
The very thought of Zack, perfect, sexy Zack wanting her, was intoxicating. Empowering. She wanted to revel in the feeling. One night. To find out if her fantasies were all she’d built them up to be. One night to have the man of her dreams.
One night to make a memory that she would carry with her for the rest of her life.
BACK at the villa, Clara started to question some of the bravado she’d felt down in the city. It was one thing to know, for a moment, in public, fully dressed, that Zack was attracted to her. It was another to suddenly forget a lifetime’s insecurity. To wonder if it would be Hannah on his mind.
They were in the bedroom. And her eyes were fixed on the bed, that invitation to decadence, to passion unlike anything she’d ever known. With the man she loved.
She sucked in a breath. She wasn’t going to worry about how attracted he was to her, where she ranked with his other lovers. This night was for her. It was the culmination of every fantasy, every longing she’d had since Zack had walked into the bakery she worked at seven years ago and offered her a job.
He pulled her to him and kissed her. Hungry. Wild. She felt it, too, an uncontrollable, uncivilized need that had no place anywhere else in her life. No one had ever made her feel like this. No one had ever made her want to forget every convention, every rule, and just follow her body’s most untamed needs.
But Zack did.
“I want you,” she said, her voice breaking as they parted. She had to say it. Because it had been building in her for so long and now she felt like she was going to burst with it.
“I want you, too. I’ve thought of this before,” Zack said, unbuttoning his shirt as he spoke, revealing that gorgeous, toned chest. “Of what it might be like to see you.”
“To … to see me?”
“Naked,” he said.
“You have?” she asked, her voice trembling now, because she’d hoped, maybe naively, that he would want the lights off. She didn’t want him to see her. Touch, yes. Taste, sure. But see?
“Of course I have. I’ve tried not to think about it too hard. Because you work for me. Because you’re my friend. And it’s not good to picture friends or employees naked. In my life, everything has a place, and yours was never supposed to be in my bed. And I was never supposed to imagine you naked. But I have anyway sometimes.”
“I have a hard time believing that.”
“Why?” He shrugged his shirt off and let it fall to the floor, then his hands went to his belt and her breath stuck in her throat.
“Because I’m … average.”
He chuckled, his hands freezing on the belt buckle. “Damn your mother for making you believe that garbage.” He took a step toward her and put his hand on her cheek, his thumb sliding gently across her face. “You are exquisite. You have such perfect skin. Smooth. Soft. And your body.” He put his other hand on her waist. “I thought of you last night. Of this. Of how beautiful you would look.”
Reflexively she pulled back slightly.
“What?” he asked.
“I’m not … What was Hannah? A size two? I’m … I’m not a size two.”
“Beauty isn’t a size. I don’t care what the number on the tag of your dresses says. I don’t care what your sister looked like, or what your mother thought you should look like. I know what I see. You have the kind of curves other women envy.” He reached around and caught the tab on her summer dress with his thumb and forefinger and tugged it down partway.
Her hands shook, her body trembling inside and out. She felt like she was back beneath the spotlight again. Just waiting to have all of her flaws put out there for everyone to ridicule.
“Wait,” she said.
His hands stilled. “I don’t know if I can.”
“Please. Can were turn the lights off?”
There was only one lamp on. It wasn’t terribly bright in the room, but she still felt exposed already, with the zipper barely open across the top part of her back. She felt awkward. Unexceptional. Especially faced with all of Zack’s perfection. He didn’t have an ounce of spare flesh, every muscle perfectly defined as though he were carved from granite.
He put his hands on her hips and pulled her to him. She could feel his erection again, hard and hot against her. “You are perfect.” He moved his hands around to her back, to her bottom, cupping her. She gasped. She’d never been this intimate with a man. She wondered if she should be more or less nervous that it was Zack she was finally taking the step with.
No one had seen her naked, not since she was in diapers. She didn’t even change in public locker rooms. She would hide in bathroom stalls, needing the coverage of four walls and a door. And Zack wanted.
“Please.”
“Let me see you first.” Her eyes met his and she drew in an unsteady breath. “It’s me, Clara.”
“I know,” she said.
“When
