He stepped closer and gently took her hand. ‘Let me have a look. You might need stitches.’
She watched with one eye squinted while he carefully unpeeled her makeshift bandage. He held her hand to the light, his eyes narrowed in focus, his strong eyebrows drawn together in concentration. ‘No stitches needed, but I think there’s a sliver of glass in there. Do you have some tweezers?’
What a question to ask a girl with eyebrows that grew faster than weeds. ‘In the cupboard above the basin.’
He opened the cupboard and took the tweezers from the bottom shelf next to her jumbo pack of tampons.
Won’t need those for a while.
He rinsed the tweezers under the hot tap and then ran some antiseptic he’d found on the middle shelf over them.
Emily braced herself for the sting but his touch was so gentle she barely noticed anything except the way he was standing close enough for her to feel his body warmth. Close enough to smell the sharp notes of citrus in his aftershave, redolent of sun-warmed lemons and limes. Close enough to see the pinpricks of dark stubble peppered over his lean jaw, hinting at the potent male hormones surging in his blood.
Stop thinking about his surging blood.
I can’t help it!
He glanced at her. ‘I’m not hurting you too much?’
‘No...’ Emily looked at his mouth, the way it curved around his words, the way the stubble surrounded it, making her fingers ache to reach up and trace it.
He went back to work on her finger, gently removing the shard of glass and cleansing the wound with another wash of antiseptic. He reached back to the cupboard for a plaster and a small crepe bandage, which he placed on her finger. ‘There you go,’ he said with another heart-stopping, upward movement of his lips. ‘Good as new.’
Emily was so dazed by his almost-smile and his closeness she didn’t register what he was doing for a moment. It was only when he stepped past her to place the plaster and bandage wrappings in the metal pedal bin next to her that her heart came to a screeching standstill. She quickly blocked him from accessing the bin, as if she were guarding the Hope Diamond. ‘D-don’t put it in there.’ She held out her good hand, not one bit surprised it was shaking. ‘I’ll take it and put it in the bin in the kitchen.’
One of his eyebrows rose like a question mark. ‘Why not this bin?’
She forced herself to hold his gaze, her heart beating so hard it was as if there were panicked pigeons and a handful of hummingbirds trapped in her chest. ‘This one’s...erm...full.’
His eyes moved back and forth between each of hers. ‘What’s wrong? You seem a little jumpy.’
‘I’m not jumpy.’
Probably shouldn’t have answered so quickly.
He reached out his hand and trailed the backs of his bent knuckles down the slope of her cheek, making every nerve fizz and whizz. His eyes went to her mouth, lingering there as if he was reliving every time he had kissed her that night a month ago. ‘Why do I make you so nervous?’
Emily swallowed loud enough to hear it. ‘I’m n-not nervous...’
Loukas inched up her chin, the pad of his thumb moving in slow mesmerising circles, his eyes holding hers. ‘I couldn’t stop thinking about that night. How good it was between us.’
She sent her tongue out to moisten her lips that were as dry as the crepe bandage on her finger. ‘Isn’t it always good between you and your lovers?’
He gave a shrug but there was no hint of arrogance about it. ‘Mostly. What about you?’
Emily tried but failed to suppress a snort. ‘I can count my previous lovers on half a hand. My mother’s had more sex than me. She’s still having more than me.’
He continued to look at her without speaking, his eyes holding hers as if he found her fascinating. But then, maybe a twenty-nine-year-old almost-virgin was something of an enigma to him.
‘She’s a relationships therapist,’ Emily said into the silence. ‘She teaches people how to have better relationships by working on their sex lives. Ironic that her daughter’s sex life is practically non-existent.’
Here you go again. Telling him all your stuff.
So? I need to break the ice a bit. I can’t just tell him he’s going to be a dad without a bit of a lead up.
You are so unsophisticated!
His hands came to settle on her waist, his eyes sexily hooded. ‘Maybe I can help you with that.’
The warmth of his hands seemed to be travelling right through her clothes, through every layer of her skin, sending electric pulses down her nerves until they were twitching in excitement. Her inner core registered his proximity like a scanner recognises a code. It was as though she were micro-chipped for him and him alone. Her intimate muscles were clenching, contracting, wanting.
‘I haven’t had a lot of luck with men,’ Emily said. ‘I had one lover before my ex, but it hardly counts, as it was over before I blinked. I was with Daniel seven years so it’s left me a little out of the game, so to speak.’
Argh! What are you doing? You’re making yourself sound like some sort of relationship tragic.
But I don’t want him to think I’ve been jumping every man I meet.
His hands went from her waist to skim up her arms and rest on her shoulders. His eyes had a lustrous depth to them that reminded her of a bottomless lake. ‘You haven’t had a lover since Daniel? Apart from me, I mean?’
‘No. I dated a few times but it never came to anything. I suspect that was why I was so...so enthusiastic when you kissed me outside my room,’ Emily said. ‘I hope I didn’t shock you.’
Loukas brushed his thumb over her lower lip. ‘You delighted and surprised me.’
That’s me. Full of delightful surprises.
She stretched her lips into a rictus smile. ‘Erm...there’s something we need to discuss...’
‘I’m not in this for the long haul, Emily.’ His mouth had an intractable set to it. ‘I want you to be clear on that right from the outset. I’m only here in London this week, so if we have a fling that’s all it will be. A fling. Nothing else.’
‘I understand that. It’s just there’s some—’
‘I want you.’ His voice hummed in her core as deep as a bass chord.
Emily placed her hands flat against his chest, her hips bumping into his, sending a shockwave of tingly awareness through her body. She couldn’t think when he was this close. Her body went on autopilot. Wanting. Craving. Hungering. Her breasts tingled with the memory of his touch, the heat and fire of his lips and tongue and the sexy scrape of his teeth. He was so magnetic. So irresistible. So tempting her inner core was contracting with little pulses of lust, as if recalling the sexy thrust of his body within hers.
How could she possibly be thinking about sex at a time like this? But it seemed her body could only think about sex when Loukas was within touching distance. His chest was hard and warm under her hands, the clean, laundered scent of his shirt filling her nostrils. The length and strength of his thighs so close to her own reminded her of how those muscle-packed legs had entrapped hers in a tangle of sheets, taking her to a sensual heaven she hadn’t known existed. Her body remembered everything about that encounter. Remembered and begged for it to be repeated. The drumming of her pulse echoed in her core, making her aware of every inch of her body where it was in contact with his, as though all the nerves on those spots had been supercharged.
His mouth came down to hover above hers, his