Had he found kissing her distasteful? Unexciting? Not quite up to standard? A host of insecurities flooded through her, leaving a storm of hot colour pooling in her cheeks.
She hadn’t kissed anyone but Mark. He had been her first and her last. Their kisses had been nice. Clumsy at first, but then nice. The sex...well, it had seemed to be okay for Mark, but she had found it hard to get her needs met. They’d both been each other’s first lover so his inexperience and her shyness hadn’t exactly helped.
Then the chemotherapy had made things especially awkward. She hadn’t always cared for the smell of Mark’s breath or the fact that he was ill most of the time. It had made her feel guilty, being so missish. After Mark’s diagnosis she had shied away from sharing her body with him because in her youthful ignorance she had thought she might catch cancer. She had compensated in other ways, pleasuring him manually when he felt up to it. Her guilt over feeling like that had compounded—solidified—her decision to remain loyal to him.
But such inexperience left her stranded when it came to dealing with a man as experienced as Leandro. He was used to women who played the game. Used to hooking up for the sake of convenience before moving on. He wouldn’t want the complication of tangling with a technical virgin. Had he sensed her inexperience? Had she somehow communicated it with her response to his kiss?
Leandro let out a long, slow breath as if recalibrating himself. ‘That was probably not such a great idea on my part.’
Miranda pulled at her lip with her teeth. ‘Was I that bad?’
His brows drew closer together. ‘No, of course not. How could you think that?’
She gave a one-shoulder shrug. ‘I’ve only kissed one person before. I’m out of practice.’
He studied her for a long moment. ‘Do you miss it?’
‘Miss what?’
‘Kissing, touching, sex—being with someone.’
Miranda resumed walking and he fell into step beside her at a polite arm’s length distance. ‘I don’t think about it. I made a promise and as far as I’m concerned that’s the end of it.’
* * *
It wasn’t the end of it, Miranda thought as she got into bed half an hour later with her body still madly craving the touch and heat of his. She put her fingers to her mouth, touching where his warm lips had moved so expertly against hers. Her mouth felt different somehow. Softer, fuller, awakened to needs she had ignored for so long.
Needs she would continue to ignore even if it took every ounce of will power she possessed.
CHAPTER FIVE
LEANDRO SPENT AN hour or two over some accounts and files he’d brought with him but he couldn’t concentrate. He closed the laptop and got to his feet. Miranda had gone to bed hours ago and everything that was male in him had wanted to join her. He shouldn’t have kissed her. He still didn’t know why he had. He had been so determined to keep his distance and then it had just...happened. He had been the one to make the first move. He hadn’t been able to stop himself from leaning down to the lure of her beautiful, soft, inviting mouth. The taste of her, so sweet, warm and giving, had shaken him. Rocked him. Unsettled him.
Miranda had seemed upset at his on-off relationship with Nicole. But that didn’t mean he had the right to kiss her. She was just being protective in a sisterly sort of way.
Sisterly? There was nothing sisterly about the way Miranda had kissed him back. He had felt every tremble in her body as she’d leaned into him. Her gorgeous mouth had given back as good as he had served. The tangled heat of their tongues had made his body respond like a hormone-driven teenager. Since when did he lose control like that? What was he doing even thinking about doing more than kissing her?
Leandro stood at the window of the study and looked out at the neglected garden. The moon illuminated the overgrown shapes of the hedges, giving them a grotesque appearance. He couldn’t see Rosie’s statue from here but knowing it was there made the weight of his grief feel like an anchor hanging off his heart.
Would it never ease? This awful sense of guilt that plagued him day and night?
Would packing up Rosie’s room bring closure or would it make things even worse? Handling the toys she had played with, touching the clothes she had worn, packing them off to where? Charity? For some stranger to use or to throw out when they were finished with them?
Leandro couldn’t keep her things. Why would he? He would have no use for them and he didn’t want to turn into another version of his father, making a shrine that in no way would help to heal the past.
It was time to move on.
He opened the door to Rosie’s room and stood there for a moment. For the two years after Rosie’s disappearance he had come to her room during the night. Every night. He had stood in exactly this spot in the doorway, hoping, praying, he would find her neat little shape in the princess bed. That he would see one of her starfish hands resting on the pillow near her little angel face with its halo of dark hair. That he would hear the soft snuffle of her breathing and see the rise and fall of her chest.