Chapter 14
He’d heard her wrong. There was no other explanation.
But his animal brain had heard what it heard and he clenched a fist to stop from reaching up to her face and giving her a reply in actions rather than words.
Instead, he shook himself. ‘What did you say?’
The smile faded, the bright spots in her eyes along with it. ‘Forget it. Shit, I don’t know why I even—’
‘No,’ he stopped her with a hand on her arm and she froze, staring at his fingers on her skin. How many times had he touched her now? Too many and nowhere near enough.
‘What do you mean, “no”?’
‘I mean, I thought I’d misheard. I wasn’t—’
She licked her lips. ‘You said you’re always honest and I was thinking about kissing you, so…’
He needed her to stop talking before the prickles over his skin grew unbearable. ‘Is this about the moustache? I was just joking.’
‘Not… exactly. It would just be trying it out. Probably, it’ll be awkward and terrible and then we can move forward being friends – without this wondering.’
Words refused to form in his brain. Only a spluttered protest tried to emerge from his mouth. He was enjoying the wondering.
‘I mean, we’ve just been talking about how hard it is to date people, even though you don’t have the practical challenges I have on top of the… psychological ones.’ The glance that flickered over him made him want to laugh. ‘We’re well and truly adults.’
He didn’t feel much like an adult when his gaze was drawn down her throat, taking in the sprinkle of freckles on her skin – more like an eager teenager.
‘What do you mean?’ he managed to ask.
‘We don’t have to bat our eyelashes shyly and drop hints. We could just try it out.’
‘Try it out,’ he repeated, dragging his sluggish mind into gear. ‘I think it would be nice if you made sweet eyes at me first.’
She gave him a bump with her elbow, which only reminded him of how closely they were sitting, both of them facing out to the golden sea.
‘If your ego needs sweet eyes, you’re going to have to do it yourself.
But I don’t want to make you try… kissing me if you don’t want to. Urgh, that sounds pathetic.’
She rubbed a hand over her face and flinched when she found a patch of luminous sunburn. He should take her home and put something on it – and then maybe kiss her to prove it wouldn’t be awkward or terrible and could severely complicate the ‘just friends’ situation.
‘It’s not pathetic,’ he said gently. ‘You’re absolutely right. We should talk about these things. I’ve just never… talked this much about kissing without actually doing it.’
‘We’re both a bit beyond the butterflies of infatuation.’ She said the words with amused disdain, but her voice lilted as she said it. So much grace – and strength. And pain. The three combined together in her, a beautiful, tightly tied knot.
As though unconsciously approving of his unspoken metaphor, she clutched her arms around herself defensively.
‘Did they kiss you, any of those dates you didn’t really want?’
‘I even slept with two of them.’ She appeared to choke on her admission, as though reconsidering how much she’d given away.
‘But it was awkward and terrible?’ he prompted gently.
‘The kisses? Or the sex?’ The breathy quality in her voice as she stared at the sky caught him in the chest.
‘Either.’
She flashed him a wry glance. ‘Both.’ Biting her lip, she smothered a smile.
‘When we get home, I’ll kiss you,’ he said carefully – a promise, one that sent anticipation down his spine.
‘Really, you don’t have—’
‘I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t want to. I’m… concerned your experiment will fail, that’s all.’
‘Fail how? You’ll catch my nose instead of my mouth?’
He couldn’t miss her mouth. Even when she was windsurfing today, her smile had carried to him from several metres away.
‘What if it’s a good kiss? What then?’ he challenged.
‘You think you’re a great kisser? I should tell you I’ve had some amazing kisses in my life.’
Toni had loved someone, only to have them wrenched away. It wasn’t fair. That lucky man should have lived to see the woman she was today.
When she stared out to sea, at the rocky headlands protecting the sandy bay, he knew exactly who she was thinking about and it stole his breath for a moment. ‘What was the best? Your wedding day? The first?’
Her expression dimmed and grew distant.
‘I’m sorry. You don’t have to answer—’
‘It’s okay,’ she said in a tone that suggested she meant it. ‘People usually ask about the end, rather than the start.’
‘I can’t imagine,’ he mumbled, knowing it was a platitude but hoping it was the right one.
‘Our first kiss wasn’t the best one,’ she answered with a chuckle. ‘I was nineteen and we were drunk. He was my ski instructor – and a little bit more by the time I left Austria.’ She glanced at him.
She didn’t say anything further and he was tempted to ask more questions, but he couldn’t be sure she wanted to talk. ‘Perhaps I’d be able to match that one – in technical skills and sobriety, if not the emotional… impact.’
She laughed and he’d rarely been so relieved to hear it. ‘Shall we go home, Don Juan?’
‘You’re so keen for a kiss?’
The way she rolled her eyes, her shoulders loose, gave him that thrill of satisfaction again. ‘Kiss or not, your bed is calling.’ She stood with a wink.
He didn’t want to analyse what this was – friendship, certainly. An intense, glowing sort of friendship. He wanted to look after her, understand what was behind every nuance of her expressions.
Thank God she was only here for a week.
He didn’t want to kiss her. Toni was fairly certain of it. He’d papered over her embarrassment with some teasing banter that had restored more than her pride, because Gabriele Orzati was kind.
She could almost hear him denying it, as though she’d spoken her thoughts out loud. He was too kind.
He dawdled up the steps behind her, his hands in his pockets. It was still light, the sky an ombré from the palest yellow in the west to powder blue, all the way to metallic cobalt in the east.
It was the same sky that existed in Weymouth; she needed to take more note of it. But the view when her gaze travelled back to earth was quite different. Gabri, his forehead creased to a concertina, his shirt unbuttoned and flapping in the refreshing breeze.
Damn, she still wanted to kiss him.
She turned the handle of the wooden door – unlocked, as always – but he pointedly cleared his throat.
‘I thought we were going to kiss.’
As romance went, it was underwhelming, but those words shot to her toes in an instant. Romance was not for her anyway, but kissing… His resting expression was a little pout that tempted her to smile and brush her thumb over the lower lip.
‘I thought you didn’t want to,’ she replied evenly.
‘That’s not what I said, was it? It’s certainly not what I meant.’
Miro had been gangly, tall even compared to Toni, but Gabri was compact, the same height as her, or maybe an inch taller – nothing more – and broader than Miro had been.
Her well-meaning friends and family had always assumed she’d want a tall man like Miro, but the contrast was comforting in this moment, when she was studying his face framed by the setting sun.
He took a step closer, his expression grave, and lifted a hand, the fingers slipping into her hair, thumb on her cheek. ‘Keep talking to me,’ he urged her softly as he came close enough that she could feel his breath on her skin.
‘That might be difficult while we’re kissing,’ she quipped. Why was it suddenly so hard to breathe? Breathing was the one thing that hadn’t stopped when she’d lost Miro. Why would she struggle now?
A quirk of a smile on his lips, his gaze lifted to her eyes as his other hand joined the first. It was a wonderful touch, just firm enough to know he meant it, but restrained, gentle. It didn’t mean the kiss would be anything more than proving a point, clearing the tension.
There was no reason for everything to feel tight in her throat.
‘Are you sure you want to do this?’
Her answer was a frustrated, ‘Yes! I thought that was clear.’ But a skitter of doubt crept up her spine at his tone. What if it’s a good kiss?
His chest rose fitfully and she wondered if perhaps it was a problem with the air, since he appeared to be experiencing breathing problems too. ‘I’m not sure this will go how you think it will,’ he said. ‘I wondered if you’d change your mind now, this close.’ His voice was scratchy.
He was close. Despite the day in the sea, that herbal scent lingered on his skin, rising to her nose on the warmth from his body.
‘It’s just a kiss. No big deal.’ One kiss to sort out the mess in her head and prove the holiday and this beautiful place had scrambled her thoughts – nothing more.
‘An experiment, I know.’ His sigh whispered over her cheek as one hand tightened in her hair. ‘All right. Will you kiss me or do you want me to kiss you?’
‘How about we just… kiss each other?’
He was trying not to smile as he came so close, his nose brushed hers. ‘On three?’
‘Oh, shut up.’
Her uncertainty laid bare as the moment stretched to endless, she clutched a hand in his shirt. Her eyes slammed shut. His breath was loud in her ear – almost as loud as her own wild heartbeat.
With a slow, jerky approach and a false start or two, finally, her mouth found his.