“Will you tell me the reason?”

“No.”

I looked up when he went silent. He was looking at me like I was a code he was trying to crack. Oh, baby, crack away.

“Come sit down next to me,” he then told me, motioning to the seat beside him.

Holy hell. This was my house and he was trying to make me feel comfortable! I was reluctant to at first, finding comfort in standing a safe distance away from him. But my body obeyed him before my mind could come to grips with his words. I sat down, grateful that the good side of my face was in his direct line of view. I pulled my dress down and brought my legs together, feeling very conscious of the way I looked.

“So what now?” I found myself asking, staring into my lap.

“Now you can look at me,” he replied.

I turned my head slightly in his direction and my eyes jumped to his.

“Why did you decide now to reach out?” I wondered aloud.

“Several reasons,” he answered. He leaned forward, until my body was acutely aware of his, and his fingers touched my hair. I stifled a shiver as he pulled back my hair and tucked it behind my ear. Christ, it was almost intimate.

This was very odd.

“What are they?” I let out.

He broke into a lopsided smile. “First tell me why you kissed me.”

“Maybe you were just so irresistible.”

He chuckled. “You’re not a very good liar.”

“I know,” I admitted with a sheepish smile. “That’s landed me in hot waters too many times to count.”

“Lying?”

“Yeah.”

He nodded heartily. “I believe that. You made a series of lies when we met. Dropping those skittles into my lap intentionally –”

“M&Ms.”

“Then you told me you were a tourist.”

I smiled. “Clearly giving you my wallet told you I wasn’t.”

“It had nothing to do with your wallet. It was what you were wearing.”

My eyes widened. “How did that give it away?”

“You looked nothing like a tourist would, in your fancy clothes and done up hair. Nothing like the backpackers strolling the city streets.”

“Why would you think I would have been a backpacker if I really was a tourist?”

“You’re young, and you were riding public transport. You had a brand name bag, no camera. You were relaxed with your good Australian friend, like you’d done the trek a million times before. You were certainly not a tourist. Tourists your age riding public transport have a look, one that you certainly didn’t possess.”

When I didn’t respond right away, he added, “And you knew what ‘Pommie’ meant. Not many people on the other side of the world do.”

My goodness, this guy. “You sound like you really know what you’re talking about.”

“I do. I’m very well-travelled. It’s a reason why I couldn’t reach out, actually. I’ve been away for months.”

I tilted my head to the side, intrigued already by this. “You told me you live here.”

“I told you that among other places I live here.”

Had he said that? I thought back at our conversation on the train. It was such a small detail, I must not have paid any attention to it. “Where have you been?”

“Everywhere,” he said, looking thoughtful now. “A good while in Tangier, though.”

“Tangier, Morocco?”

“You’ve been?”

I nearly laughed. “Oh, my God, no! I haven’t travelled at all except when I came here. Why were you in Morocco?”

“Business,” he simply said.

My eyes narrowed. “What sort of business?”

A thought crossed his mind before he answered, “I own a furniture business in Malaga. I get my stock imported from parts of Asia, but I’ve been exploring other places, checking to see if there’s any competition.”

“Sounds tiring.”

“It is. In the long term, I might move on to something else.”

“Long term?” I eyed him inquisitively now, uncaring that my face was in full view of him. “How old are you?”

“Thirty.”

I paused. Nine years older than me. Well, shit, that was a pretty big age difference.

“What is it?” he asked, amused once again. “Am I too old to be around you? Not hip enough or something?”

“No, I just guess I would have thought at thirty you’d be in something you wanted to make a career out of.”

Something dark flashed in his eyes. With some unease, he looked away from me and rested his arm on the armrest. “Sometimes who you are is nothing like the person you want to be. And that’s something I realized a short while ago. I may be now in my thirties, but I’m probably just as clueless as you.”

Wryly, I raised a brow. “Who says I’m clueless?”

“You’re not? What are you doing with your life?”

Feeling a lot more relaxed by our conversation and its normalcy (sort of), I rested my back against the cushion and got comfortable. “I’m studying.”

“To become what?”

“A teacher.”

“Is that something you’re passionate about?”

I thought about it, and then I shrugged. “I don’t know. It seemed like an easy decision at the time I began studying. Felt right I guess.” And at the time I chose, I wasn’t scarred. Now the idea of being a teacher in front of a classroom with all that attention on me was unnerving.

With a wicked gleam in his eye, he cheekily said, “I can see you being a teacher. You’d carry yourself well. Of course you might distract the boys, but I’m sure they’d rather you than some hairy old woman with taco breath.”

My face reddened as I laughed at that, and he smiled widely, chuffed with himself as his eyes roamed my face. His gaze deepened when he remarked softly, “You’re incredibly beautiful.”

A swarm of tingles settled into the bottom of my belly. I looked away from him and back into my lap. God, you can’t handle a compliment now?

“That was one of the things I said to you on that train,” he continued. “But your beauty then was filled with arrogance.”

“And now it’s not?”

“No, not at all.”

And anybody could guess why.

“You’re not too bad yourself,” I muttered.

“Oh? You like what you see?”

My heart pumped harder as I willed myself to look at him again. His piercing gaze left my body feeling like it was being squeezed tight by an invisible force, knocking me breathless. I was on fire, and I was sure my face gave away what he was doing to me.

“No response?” he whispered.

I felt his body draw nearer to me.

“Of course I do,” I replied shakily.

His fingers suddenly trailed my arm, igniting a trial of goose bumps. The skin he touched blazed for him. The silence between us was thick with hot tension. I could feel the very pit of my belly stir with desire. He was turning me on just by his bloody fingers and I was immediately aware of what was going on here. The only question I was asking myself was, “Should I go through with it?”

I did. I wanted to. Hell, I imagined myself being taken right then and there on that couch. But…

Abruptly, I stood up, breaking the contact of his touch. Shit, what the hell was I doing?

“Did you want me to get you anything?” I asked him, not meeting his eye. “Something to drink and eat or…?”

From the corner of my eye, I saw him run a hand through his hair. “Uh, sure. Whatever you have will do.”

I nodded and took off to the kitchen. I’m a chicken shit. I felt scattered, opening cupboards and peering in. My mind was distracted by him sitting half a room away. I ended up stopping to watch him. His back was to me and he was leaning over now, leafing through a magazine on the coffee table.

Why did I freak out so much?

Returning to the task at hand, I pulled out a box of crackers. Was I seriously going to make him a platter of crackers and cheese? What the hell was wrong with me? My hands were trembling, and I had to pause and breathe slowly through my mouth. I was trying to play hostess to a questionable man I hardly knew in my house at quarter to midnight. To top it all off, I couldn’t stop repeating his words in my head.

You’re incredibly beautiful. Was he blind? Or was he just a liar?

He’s blind, I decided. Had to be.

“Is everything alright?”

My body went rigid. He sounded close. Very close.

I turned my head to him. He was standing at the entrance of the kitchen, looking at me concernedly. Was he pitying me? Is that what this was about?

I threw the box of crackers down on the counter and faced him. “What do you want from me?” I asked out of frustration with my arms slightly raised. “I don’t get it. Why are you really here?”

He went still. Even his breathing slowed as he watched me with lips parted. I waited for a response, feeling like I was going mad. The man was gorgeous. He could be anywhere right now. Yet he abruptly re-entered my life and it made absolutely no sense to me!

“Do you want me gone?” he asked cautiously.

No! No! No!

“I just want to know what you want,” I replied.

I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but he stole my breath away with the look he was giving me. That same heat from before crackled between us; it was a connection that flowed like the particles of an electric current, the kind of charge you felt deep in your bones. Never before had I wanted someone as badly as I wanted him. Nine months of pining for a stranger I never thought I’d see again, and I was ravenous for his company. And the best part of all was I knew he felt it too.

His tongue lightly lapped his bottom lip as he stared down at my mouth, and I had a distinct idea what he was about to do.

I was right.

He took two steps forward and crashed his mouth to mine.

Chapter Six

Look at me

I stood still as Ben’s hands rested on each side of my face. He kissed me without restraint, moving his soft lips harshly against my own as though he never would have the chance to again. I shut my eyes and kissed him back with equal fervour.

My mind was mute, and my body was all feeling. My hands gripped his shirt as I angled my head up for a deeper kiss. The second I felt his tongue seeking a way in, I opened my mouth and accepted it. My body shook at the taste of him and his breathing picked up as his body pressed against mine. My back hit the kitchen counter, and his hand drifted down my neck and along the front of my body. He gripped my hip and squeezed it gently. I felt the press of his bulge against my stomach and lightly moaned into his mouth.

“I want you,” he panted against my opened mouth. “That’s why I’m here. It’s the only reason I’m here, beauty.”

I wrapped an arm around the back of his neck and kissed him deeply. I felt an ache already. The need to be touched. To be close.

His hand on my hip moved lower. His fingers trailed the hem of my dress before dipping beneath the fabric. Withdrawing from my mouth, he gave me light kisses along my jaw line and stroked the back of my thighs. I tilted my head up higher so he had access to my neck. I felt his heated kisses move lower as he lightly caressed my skin with his tongue.

“Do you like this?” he asked me.

I nodded.

“Do you want me to stop?”

I shook my head.

“What do you want?”

“You,” I puffed out, “and this.” So much more of this.

He picked me up and settled me on the kitchen counter. My legs spread apart and he stepped between them. My other hand drifted down his back and pulled him closer to me. I inched closer to the edge of the counter, seeking the friction between my legs to quench the pulsing ache that was growing there.

He rested each hand over the top of my bare thigh and kissed me, deeply and thoroughly, until I was groaning for more. My hand slowly drifted down his torso, feeling the hard muscle beneath the fabric of his shirt. It settled on the bulge in his pants. One rub and he pulled back instantly.

Panting hard, he said, “I don’t… I’m not here for that.”

I stared at him for a moment and nodded. I tried to rationalize his words and tell myself he was right. That… this was stupid. It was wrong, and we could wait –

I gripped his shirt and pulled him back to me. Fuck all that rubbish. I wanted him. So damn much, I was shaking.

Breathing hard against his mouth, I said, “My bedroom is upstairs. First door.”

He tensed and went still for a second, not even kissing back as he thought about my words. And then all at once his hands gripped the back of each thigh again. He picked me back up, and I immediately wrapped my legs around his waist. He kissed my mouth lightly on his way out of the kitchen. His chest was moving rapidly against my own as he took me up the stairs and to the first bedroom. He opened it and stepped inside.

His eyes stayed on mine as he rested my feet back on the floor. He took a step back and said, “Take your dress off. Now.”

I quickly did as he said, unzipping it from the side and letting it fall to the floor. All the while he was languidly unbuttoning his dress shirt and watching me with hooded eyes. He threw his shirt off before undoing his belt.

“Everything,” he then demanded in a hard tone, nodding his head to my bra. “Take it all off.”

I shakily unclasped my bra and slid my panties down. I’d done this song and dance many times before with guys I’d spoken less words to, but we were usually not sober.

I kept my arms to my side as I stood before him completely naked. It helped the room was dark, but the butterflies in my stomach reminded me of how long it’d been since I was with a guy. And this guy was something else. He was over six feet of sexy male goodness.