“Thank you.”
“It is the truth.” He drew the curl to its full length; let it wind itself back around his finger. “What happens now? Will it be difficult to find another job?”
“Oh, no, not at all,” Emily said airily. How could she ruin her rescuer’s view of her as a tigress by admitting the truth? “I have a wonderful agent. He won’t have any difficulty getting me something even better.”
“Good. Because if you were to have a problem, I would be happy to help.” He smiled. “I’m afraid I could not offer you employment playing the piano but I have contacts…”
“Thanks, but I’m fine.”
His smile tilted. “Yes,” he said. “You most certainly are.”
Suddenly, the air seemed thick. Words had more than one meaning. Emily could hear her pulse beating in her ears as Marco slid his hands to her shoulders.
Then he let go of her and she took a step back.
“Well,” she said, “good night.”
“Good night.”
“Thank you again. For everything.”
“It was my pleasure.”
“But I spoiled your evening.”
“On the contrary. You were a charming note in an otherwise very long and dull night.”
“Yes, but your friend—Miss Simmons…”
He shrugged.
“It’s unfortunate you were subjected to that. What you saw…” Another lift of those wide shoulders. “Our—situation had run its natural course. Such things always come to an end.”
He said it almost casually. Emily wasn’t surprised. Her brothers were all happily married now but she remembered their bachelor days. She and her sisters used to joke that you needed a calculator to keep track of the women who floated in and out of their lives, and she certainly felt no sympathy for Jessalyn Simmons. Still, his easy dismissal of the relationship was somehow troubling.
“I only wish I had not frightened you.”
“You didn’t. I mean, not deliberately. Stopping for me, giving me your jacket… oh, your jacket! I almost forgot—”
She began to take it off. He reached for it, grasped the lapels and brought them together.
“Keep it.”
“No. I couldn’t. Really, I—”
“Keep it,” he said his voice suddenly low and rough.
She looked up, met his gaze. The world seemed to drop away.
“Keep the jacket,” he said, and he bent his head and kissed her.
It was the softest of kisses. Just the gentle brush of his lips over hers. For an endless moment, Emily did nothing. Then she sighed and her lips softened and parted under the delicious feel of his.
He felt his body take fire.
In a heartbeat, she was in his arms, rising on her toes as she strained toward him. He groaned, took the kiss deeper, heard her moan as her hands rose, clutched his arms, his shoulders.
Now, he thought, with a ferocity that drove out everything else. All he had to do was whisper to her, follow her inside the dark apartment. She would lose herself in his kisses, in his caresses. He would undress her, see that lovely body the rain had so temptingly hinted at...