Realising just how great a sacrifice that was on his part, she almost managed to smile. This must be almost as bad for him as it was for her. ‘You’re not the cause. Go to sleep, Alessio.’
But his strong, warm hand didn’t move from her shoulder. ‘This rug is the only dry thing in the place and I’d like to keep it that way. Stop feeling guilty about your sister.’
‘Why?’ She mumbled the words, wondering why she was discussing it with him. Alessio Capelli wasn’t anyone’s idea of a perfect confidant. ‘It’s all my fault.’
‘It isn’t your fault. I keep telling you, Ruby is responsible for what she does.’
‘I’ve stopped her talking to me.’
‘And what if she had talked to you? You would have been given a running commentary on all her wild behaviour and it would have driven you crazy with stress. You wouldn’t have said anything, but you still would have felt it. You’re much better off not knowing.’ His tone rang with exasperation and she almost laughed.
‘You make it sound so easy.’
‘It is easy. It’s time to toughen up, Lindsay,’ he said gruffly. ‘How have you managed to get through the past two decades when you worry so much about everything?’
‘I don’t really worry—’
‘You’re avoiding life because you’re afraid of it.’
Lindsay stilled. ‘That isn’t true.’
‘You’re worried that your sister will be hurt and maybe she will—’ his voice was low and male in the darkness ‘—but maybe she will have an affair that she will remember for ever. Memories of real passion that will last long after the hurt has faded. What will you have, Lindsay? The memory of dangerously exciting moments that you successfully resisted?’
He was right, she realised painfully. She was afraid. Afraid of falling into the same trap as the couples she counselled, afraid of being drawn into the wrong decision, afraid of being like her mother….
She wiped her tears with the back of her hand. ‘You live dangerously all the time. So how do you manage never to be hurt?’
‘I don’t let people get close.’
‘But what sort of life is that?’
There was a moment of silence and then he gave a hollow laugh. ‘I’m not the one lying on the rug crying, Lindsay.’
‘Caring for people and having people care about you is the only really important thing in life.’ It was just because it was dark, she told herself, that it was easy to talk to him.
‘And is it worth caring even when you get hurt?’
‘Even then. It’s what makes us human.’
‘Ah—but you told me only a few days ago that I’m not human, so that explains why we think differently.’
She could hear the trace of humour in his voice. ‘I thought life was straightforward. But everything suddenly seems so complicated.’
‘Relationships always are. That’s why I avoid them.’
‘But you can’t just go through life avoiding relationships. Relationships—love—well, that’s what makes life bearable, isn’t it?’
‘Relationships—maybe. Love? Definitely not. In fact I’d go as far as to say that love is probably one of the things that often makes life unbearable. Believe me, I see it all the time.’
‘But the people you see aren’t in love anymore. Perhaps they never were.’
‘There are other types of relationships.’
‘I know. And that’s where I’ve let Ruby down,’ Lindsay admitted, relieved that it was dark so that he couldn’t see her face. Somehow the dark made it easier to talk. ‘We’re very different like that. I was always worried that she would confuse chemistry with love and I’ve seen so many relationships fall apart because all the couple shared was chemistry. I’ve never contemplated being in a relationship that was just about sex.’
It was a moment before he answered and when he finally spoke his voice was soft in the darkness.
‘Haven’t you?’
A shiver of awareness ripped through her whole body and she didn’t pretend to misunderstand him.
‘Well—maybe I have. Once.’ Her heart was thumping and bumping against her chest, as if it were trying to escape while there was still a chance.
His fingers tightened on her shoulder. ‘You have willpower that most people would envy.’
‘If you’re talking about us, then we would have been a nightmare together, you know we would.’
He gave a low laugh and rolled her gently onto her back. ‘It would have been explosive, tesoro. And you know it. Which is why you’ve been holding back. What’s wrong with sexual attraction, Lindsay?’
‘Nothing, as long as both parties recognise it for what it is. Ruby doesn’t.’
This was the time that she should push him away. This was the time she should tell him that, although she’d realised she’d handled Ruby all wrong, she didn’t want to change the way she lived herself. She wasn’t about to hurl herself from a place of safety into the dangerous unknown of raw sexual excitement.
She should tell him that. She should tell him that right now.
But she couldn’t manage to form the words. Instead her hand slid over his shoulder, feeling the hard curve of male muscle under her seeking fingers.
This level of chemistry wasn’t something she’d ever experienced before—and probably never would again.
If she let it pass, would she regret it?
Would she look back in her old age and think, If only?
Or would she smile and tell her grandchildren that passion wasn’t always dangerous, as long as you recognised it for what it was?
There would be no ‘happy ever after’ with Alessio Capelli, but she knew that, didn’t she? It wasn’t a mistake. It was a choice.
‘Lindsay—’ The husky, questioning note in his voice made her realise that her hand had curved around his neck.
She sensed that he was holding back—that this was all up to her—but she had no more time to agonise over her decision because her hands were drawing his head towards hers.
Apparently it was all the encouragement he needed because he instantly took control, his hands not quite steady as he rolled her onto her back and covered her body with his.
It seemed that her senses still remembered how he’d kissed her on the beach, and a pool of heat coiled itself in her pelvis and she waited in an agony of anticipation for the slow, skilled assault of his mouth.
Only this time he didn’t give her slow.
This time he brought his mouth down on hers with a driven sense of purpose that propelled her from a state of simmering anticipation to explosive excitement. Hot with longing, she felt him cup her face with lean, strong hands and then part her lips with his tongue. He took her mouth with devastating expertise, his demanding and intimate exploration creating erotic curls of heat low in her pelvis.
It was like being drugged and her last coherent thought was, How did he learn to kiss like this? Before she slid down and down into a sensual world that was beyond her control.
Her