His hand slid among the strands of her hair. ‘You said that about what happened in the library.’
‘I know.’ She bit her lip. ‘We can’t—’
‘You don’t want to?’
She stared at him mutely. It was a rhetorical question—they both knew that.
‘We didn’t plan it. It just happened. It had to happen. I don’t know why.’
She knew he was right. It had felt like a compulsion—a desperate need that had overridden all rational thought. Only however frantic it had been, it had still been opportunistic. Like finding fallen apples in an orchard. But this—this would be like picking them off the tree.
She met his gaze, felt panic mingling with desire, and something in his eyes steadied her.
‘It’s not wrong, Nia, to want what we had.’ Lowering his face, he let his lips graze hers. ‘To want to make it right for just a few hours.’
They couldn’t change the past. They couldn’t go back to being those two young lovers. But would it be so very wrong to steal back a few hours of that time?
‘One night…’ She breathed it out against his mouth, and then, wrapping her arms around his neck, she shifted against him, slotting herself over the hard ridge of his erection.
‘Yes, one night.’ His voice was hoarse. ‘If that’s what you want, Nia?’
‘Yes…’ she whispered and, clasping his face in her hands, she kissed him.
CHAPTER SIX
SHE MADE A little sound as her lips touched his, her stomach swooping upwards like a fish on a hook. There was no need for caution. No need to balance her desire with quantifiable reality.
This wasn’t about the past or the future.
There would be no tomorrow.
But she wanted this. She wanted him. And that was enough.
‘Let’s just have one last night, Farlan. Just you and me. And in the morning it’ll be like a dream.’ Leaning forward, she brushed her lips against his again, breathing in his scent. ‘A beautiful dream.’
He closed his eyes, and she felt a chaos of hope and hunger beneath her skin, and then he kissed her again, and the flowering intensity of his desire made her whole body tremble.
‘Wait—’ With a groan, he broke the kiss and, scooping her into his arms, carried her to the sofa. ‘You’re probably already black and blue from earlier. This time we’re going to take it slow.’
She stared up at him, her blood turning to air. And then he lowered his mouth to hers.
He tasted warm and smoky from the whisky, and she felt a fluttering heat rise up inside her as he parted her lips, kissing her fiercely, opening his mouth to her, deepening the kiss.
Only she wanted more.
‘Take it off,’ she whispered against his mouth. And, grabbing the hem of his sweater, he tugged it up and over his head.
Heart thudding, Nia did the same.
His eyes narrowed, and with deliberate slowness she reached behind her back and unhooked her bra, peeling the delicate straps away from her shoulders and breasts.
The air between them crackled like the wood in the fire.
Glancing up at his bare chest, she felt her breath catch.
It was the first time she had seen him naked, or nearly naked, i
n seven years, and her beautiful boy had filled out. To be so close, to have the freedom to touch him, stripped away all and any inhibition she might have felt.