His home was like none she had ever been in.
His presence was like no other.
She washed out her panties and bra, but stressed for a moment about hanging them over the taps to dry. They were divine: Kolovsky silk in stunning turquoise. In fact all her underwear was divine—it was one of the genuine perks of being a Kolovsky. It was seductive, suggestive, and, Annika realised, she could not leave it in the bathroom!
So she hung it on the door handle in her bedroom and then headed downstairs, where he sat, boots on the table, strumming at a guitar, a dog looking up at him. She thought about using her fingers as castanets and dancing her way right over to his lap, but they’d both promised to be good.
‘Why would you do this for me?’ She stood at the living room door, wrapped in his sister’s dressing gown, and wondered why she wasn’t nervous.
‘Because my life’s not quite complicated enough,’ Ross said, with more than a dash of sarcasm. ‘Just relax, Annika, I’m not going to pounce.’
So she did—or she tried to.
They watched a movie, but she was so acutely aware of the man on the sofa beside her that frankly her mother would have been more relaxing company. When she gave in at eleven and went to bed, it was almost frustrating when he turned and gave her a very lovely kiss, full on the lips, that was way more than friendly but absolutely going nowhere. It was, Annika realised as she climbed the steps, a kiss goodnight.
She could taste him on her lips.
So much so that she didn’t want to remove the toothbrush from its wrapper. But she did, and she brushed her teeth, and then when she heard him coming up the stairs she raced to her bedroom. She slipped off her dressing gown and slid naked into bed, then cursed that she hadn’t been to the loo.
He was filling the bath.
She could hear it, so she decided to make a quick dash for it, but she came out to find him walking down the landing wearing only a black towel round his loins. His body was delicious, way better than her many imaginings, and his hair looked long, and his early-morning shadow was a late-night one now. She just gave a nod.
‘Feel free …’ He grinned at her awkwardness.
‘Sorry?’
‘To wash your hands …’
‘Oh.’
So she had to go into the bathroom, where his bath was running, as he politely waited outside. She washed her hands and tried not to look at the water and imagine him naked in it.
‘Night, Annika.’
‘Night.’
How was she to sleep? He was in the bath for ever, and then she heard the pull of the plug and the lights ping off. She lay in the dark silence and knew he was just metres away. And then, just as she thought she might win, as a glimpse of sleep beckoned, she heard music.
There was no question of sleeping here in a strange house, with Ross so close. She couldn’t sleep, so instead she did a stupid thing—she checked her phone.
Even as she turned it on it rang, and foolishly she answered. She listened as her mother demanded that she end this stupidity and come home immediately—not to the flat, but home, where she belonged. She was wreaking shame on her family, and her father would be turning in his grave. Annika clicked off the phone, her heart pounding in her chest, and headed out for a glass of water.
The low throb of music from his room somehow beckoned, and his door was, as promised, open. She glanced inside as she walked past.
‘Sorry.’
‘For what?’
‘I’m just restless.’
‘Get a drink if you want …’ He was lying in the bed reading, hardly even looking up.
‘I’ll just go back to bed.’
‘Night, then.’
She just stood there.
And Ross concentrated on his book.
His air ticket was his bookmark. He’d done that very deliberately—ten days and he was out of here; ten days and he would be in Spain. And then, when he returned—well, then maybe things could be different.
‘Night, Annika.’
She ignored him and came and sat on the bed. They kept talking. And it was hard to talk at two a.m. without lying down, so she did, and even with her dressing gown on it was cold. So she went under the covers, and they talked till her eyes were really heavy and she was almost asleep, and then he turned out the light.
‘The music …’
‘It will turn itself off soon.’
She turned away from him; there were no curtains on the window, just the moon drifting past, and he spooned right into her. She could feel his stomach in her back, and the wrap of his arms, and it was sublime—so much so that she bit on her lip. Then he kissed the back of her head, pulled her in a little bit more, and she could feel every breath he took. She could feel the lovely tumid length of him, and just as she braced herself for delicious attack, just as she wondered how long it would be polite to resist, she felt him relax, his breathing even, as she struggled to inhale.
‘Ross, how can you just lie there …?’ He wasn’t even pretending; he really was going to sleep!
‘Relax,’ he said to her shoulder. ‘I told you, nothing’s going to happen—I had a very long bath.’
And she laughed, on a day she had never thought she would, on a day she had done so many different things. She lay in bed and counted her firsts: she had been cuddled, and she had hung up the phone on her mum.
The most amazing part of it all, though, was that for the first time in ages she slept properly.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
IT WAS midday when she woke up.
Annika never overslept, and midday was unthinkable, but his bed was so comfortable, and it held the male scent of him even though he had long since gone. Instead of jumping guiltily out of bed she lay there, half dozing, a touch too warm in her dressing gown, smiling at the thought that there was really no point getting up as she had nothing to wear—and there was no way she was getting on a horse today!
She hurt in a place she surely shouldn’t!
‘Afternoon!’ He pushed the bedroom door open, and the door to her heart opened a little wider too. He hadn’t shaved, and looked more gypsy-like, dark and forbidden, than she had ever seen him, but he was holding a tray and wearing a smile that she was becoming sure was reserved solely for her. She smiled back at him.
‘What did I do to deserve breakfast in bed?’
‘You didn’t snore, which is very encouraging,’ he said, waiting till she sat up before placing a tray on her lap, ‘and it’s actually lunch in bed.’
It was the nicest lunch in the world: omelette made from eggs he had collected that morning, with wild mushrooms and cheese. The coffee was so strong and sweet that if she had given orders to the chef at her mother’s home he could not have come up with better.
‘You’re yesterday’s news, by the way,’ Ross said. ‘In case you were wondering.’
She had been.
‘Lucky for you some bank overseas has gone into liquidation and the papers have devoted four pages to it—you don’t even get a mention.’
‘Thank you.’
She had finished her lunch, and he took the tray from her, but instead of heading off he put it on the floor and lay on top of the bed beside her.
‘I