This was familiar territory.
‘I’m standing on a balcony looking over the Mediterranean Sea.’
‘Is it raining?’
‘There isn’t a cloud in the sky. How’s Finn?’
‘Watching television. He’s only asked about you twice since he got up. Have you spoken to Dante yet about his party?’
There was such hope in her sister’s voice that Aislin’s heart twisted. Poor Orla, let down by so many people: their mother, Orla’s father, Finn’s father, whom Aislin believed must have let her down in some way for her to have kept the pregnancy from him... All this heartache and still Orla longed for a relationship with the brother she’d never met.
Aislin would do anything to protect her sister and Finn and it was with a sizeable lump in her throat that she confirmed Dante was hoping to make the party.
She had to trust him on this...
It came to her that she did trust him on this. She trusted him enough to let him into her sister’s and nephew’s lives. Trusted that he wouldn’t let them down and hurt them like everyone else had.
It wasn’t just the intimacy Aislin had shared with him, or their moonlit talk where they had opened up properly, but a combination of it all.
Orla’s happiness at this was infectious, lightening Aislin’s mood right until, a few minutes later, she asked, ‘Are you still coming home Monday?’
Aislin’s heart made a sudden wrench.
‘If I can get a flight.’ She hadn’t even looked at the flight schedule.
Whatever flight she got back, she still only had one night left with Dante.
How quickly things turned on their head.
The slide of the patio door made Aislin turn her head.
While Orla started to go into detail about the wheelchair-friendly car she was thinking of buying, Dante, who’d thrown a pair of shorts on, came to stand behind her. He wrapped his muscular arms around her waist and placed a kiss on the top of her head.
Her wrenching heart broke off into a thundering run.
‘What colour are you thinking of?’ she asked inanely, then missed the answer because Dante had pressed his groin into the small of her back.
He was already fully aroused.
Aislin strove to keep a grip on the conversation but it was a losing battle. Dante slid a hand up her—his—shirt. A large hand found her breasts and squeezed, the other tugged at her hair to tilt her head back, exposing her neck for him to raze his tongue over.
The heat he ignited was instantaneous.
And then he spread his hand down her belly to her bare pubis.
She already knew she was ready for him.
When he slid a finger inside her, he knew it too, and gave a muffled groan into her hair.
‘What was that?’ Orla asked.
‘Room service,’ she lied, straining to keep her voice even, but too aware that Dante was tugging his shorts down.
He rested his length between her buttocks and ground into her.
Her entire abdomen melted into lava.
Then came the sound of teeth ripping foil.