“In less than a week I’ll never see you again.” He locked his hands together behind his back. Tremors began in his arm muscles.
“I know.” She switched her attention to his mouth. Her long, red lashes cast delicate shadows on her cheeks.
Heat surged into his face. Hell, heat filled every nook and cranny of his body. Especially where her heart-shaped rear end rested. How could she help but notice his aroused state?
“We’d only be prolonging the inevitable,” he reminded her, unsure why he was holding out when he wanted so badly to agree to her mad scheme.
“I need this. I need you.” She stroked her thumb against his lower lip. “An hour. A day. A week. I’ll take whatever I can get.”
Nic counted his heartbeats to avoid focusing on the emotions raging through him. The need to crush her in his arms would overwhelm him any second. Denying himself her compassion and understanding in the days following the accident hadn’t been easy, but at the time he’d known that he had to return to Sherdana. Just because Brooke now knew what was going on didn’t give him permission to stop acting honorably.
He wasn’t prepared for the air she blew in his ear. His body jerked in surprise, and he sucked in a sharp breath. “Stop that.”
“You didn’t like it?” Laughter gave her voice a husky quality.
“You know perfectly well I did,” he murmured hoarsely. “Our food is going to be here any second. Perhaps you should return to your own seat.”
“I’m here for a kiss and a kiss is what I’m going to get.” She was enjoying this far too much. And, damn it, so was he.
With a fatalistic sigh, Nic accepted that he’d let himself be drawn too far into her game to turn back. As much as he wanted to savor the expressions flitting across her face, he stared at the fishing boats bobbing near the cement seawall. Alert to her slightest movement, he felt the tingle on his cheek an instant before her lips grazed his skin.
“Let’s stop all the foreplay, shall we,” he finally said.
“Oh, all right. Spoilsport. I was enjoying having you at my mercy. But if you insist.”
Lightning danced in her eyes. She secured his face between her hands and grazed her lips across his.
“Again.” His voice was half demand, half plea. He hardened his will and inserted steel into his tone. “And this time put a little effort into it.”
“Whatever you say.”
He let his lashes drop as her mouth drifted over his again. This time she applied more pressure, a little more technique. As kisses went, it was pretty chaste, but her little hum of pleasure tipped his world on its axis. And when she nibbled on his lip, murmuring in Italian, desire incinerated his resistance.
“Benedette le voci tante ch’io chiamando il nome de mia donna ò sparte, e i sospiri, et le lagrime, e ’l desio.”
How was he supposed to resist a woman with a PhD in Italian literature? Although he knew what she’d said, he wanted to hear her speak the words again.
“Translation?”
“And blessed be all of the poetry I scattered, calling out my lady’s name, and all the sighs, and tears, and the passion.”
“Italian love poetry?” he groused, amused in spite of the lust raking him with claws dipped in the sweetest aphrodisiac.
“It seemed appropriate.” Her fingers splaying over his rapidly beating heart, she swooped in for one last kiss before getting to her feet. “I think I made my point.” With a satisfied smirk, she returned to her chair.
“What point?”
“That we both could use closure.”
Over the course of the kiss he’d grasped what she wanted to do, but he’d worked diligently over the past month to come to grips with living without her and couldn’t imagine reopening himself to the loss all over again. And she’d just demonstrated he’d never survive a few days let alone a week in her company. He’d be lucky if he made it past the next hours. No. She had to go. And go soon. Because if she didn’t, he’d give in and make love to her. And that would be disastrous.
“I got my closure a month ago when I broke things off,” he lied. “But I understand that I’ve sprung a lot of information on you today that you’ll want to assimilate. Stay for a couple days.”
“As friends?” She sounded defeated.
“It’s for the best.”
Four