‘Fine. Been busy working.’
‘Same old.’
He gave a rueful smile. ‘Same old.’
‘When are you coming over?’ she said. ‘Have you got any plans to visit?’
‘Not right now.’
There was a short silence.
‘Are you dating someone?’ Miranda asked.
Julius tossed the question back even though he already knew the answer. ‘Are you?’
‘I know you think I’m wasting my life but I loved Mark,’ Miranda said in her stock-standard defensive tone she used whenever the topic of her moving on with her life was brought up.
‘I know you did, sweetheart,’ Julius said gently. ‘And he loved you. But if things were the other way around I reckon he would’ve moved on by now.’
‘You obviously haven’t been in love,’ Miranda said. ‘You don’t know what it’s like to lose the only person in the world you want to be with.’
Julius felt that sudden pang beneath his ribs again. He was going to lose Holly. In a matter of days, she would be gone. He would never see her again.
Which was how it should be, as she had a right to move on with her new life without him interfering.
Julius put his phone down after he’d finished listening to his little sister tell him a thousand reasons why she would never date another man. He let out a long sigh. There were times when he wondered if love was worth all the heartache. So far he had avoided it.
So far...
CHAPTER ELEVEN
A COUPLE OF days later Julius finished a tele-conference that had taken longer than he’d expected and went in search of Holly. She was out by the pool scooping out leaves with the net. ‘One of the groundsmen can do that,’ he said.
She turned around and smiled one of her cheeky smiles. ‘Have you got something you’d rather me do indoors?’
He put his arms around her, bringing her bikini-clad body against his fully clothed one. ‘Why are you always wandering around the place half-dressed?’ he growled at her playfully.
‘All the better to tempt you, my dear,’ she said.
Julius brought his mouth down to hers. The heat of their mouths meeting always surprised him. Delighted him. She didn’t kiss in half-measures. She kissed with her whole body. He drew her closer, his body responding to the slim, sun-kissed contours of hers. He kept on kissing her as he unhooked her bikini top so he could access her breasts. Her hands went to the buttons of his shirt, undoing each one with spine-tingling purpose.
He put his mouth to her breast, sucking, licking and teasing the engorged flesh until she was making breathless little sounds of need. He untied the strings of her bikini bottoms and cupped the pert curves of her bottom in his hands.
She tilted her head back to look at him. ‘This is a little unfair. I’m completely naked and you’re fully dressed.’
Julius swept his tongue over her pouting bottom lip. ‘Let’s take this indoors.’
She rubbed against him sensuously. ‘Why not have a swim with me first?’
He couldn’t resist her in this mood. She was so damn sexy he could barely hold himself in check. Within seconds he, too, had stripped off—apart from a quickly sheathed condom—and was in the pool with her, holding her against his aroused body as she smiled up at him with those dancing, caramel-brown eyes. He lowered his mouth to hers, his senses reeling as her tongue came into play with his. Her hands were around his waist, then caressing his chest, then going even lower to hold him until he was ready to explode. The water only heightened the sensations. The silky cool of it against their heated bodies made him all the more frantic for release.
He walked her backwards until she was up against the edge of the pool but, rather than have her back marked by the pool’s edge, he turned her so her back was against the front of his body. He kissed his way from her earlobe to her neck and back again, trailing his tongue over her scented flesh, wondering how he was going to stop himself coming ahead of schedule with her bottom pressed up against his erection. She made a sound of encouragement, part whimper, part gasp, as he moved between legs.
He entered her deeply, barely able to control himself as her hot, wet body gripped him like a clamp. He kept thrusting, building a pace that had her hands gripping the edge of the pool for balance. He felt every delicious ripple of her inner flesh, the contraction of her around him as she came, triggering his own mind-blowing release.