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‘I’ll see you home,’ he said quietly.
The car moved off and he found himself looking at her, at her pale, haunting beauty which moved him so. Her eyes stayed closed, her face averted, her taut expression not easing.
His thoughts were troubled. In his head he heard again her voice at the restaurant.
‘I don’t date,’ she’d said. ‘I don’t date and I don’t have relationships. Or romances. Or affairs. Or anything—whatever you want to call them. I just...don’t.’
The bald, blunt words echoed in his mind. Setting his thoughts running.
Had what had so nearly happened to the teenage model tonight happened to Celeste? Was that the explanation for the sad, bleak announcement she’d made? Had she been so badly scared—scarred?—that she’d played safe since then?
Does she see herself in that young, vulnerable girl? Was she once such a girl and there was no one to rescue her in time?
If that were so, no wonder she was now so wary of men!
But resolution seared through him. Well, I must change that! I must show her that desire can be very, very different from lust! I must show her how desire should be between a man and a woman!
His eyes rested on her where she sat, so close to him and yet locked in her lonely world, so apart, so separate. He felt emotion coursing through him. Desire—sweet and strong, yet tender, too. He felt his hand lift and almost grazed her silken hair, almost cupped the sculpted turn of her cheek, brushed the tip of his thumb across the alabaster satin of her eyelids...
With an effort he drew back, waited until the car had completed its journey back to Notting Hill and drawn up outside her flat. She opened her eyes as the engine was cut, automatically turning her head towards the kerbside.
Her gaze collided with Rafael’s. For a moment her unguarded gaze poured into his. He felt his breath catch. Then, before he could stop himself, he was doing what he’d had to hold himself back from. His hand moved towards her, slid around the nape of her neck. His fingers shaped her jaw, lifting her face to his as he lowered his mouth.
As his lips grazed hers he felt her give a little gasp, almost a tremor. But it was too late. He could not stop himself. He could only give himself to the overriding impulse surging within him to move his mouth to enclose hers, to feel the silken brush of her lips against his, feel her hesitation, her uncertainty.
He wanted to sweep them away! To melt them away until she was soft and molten in his embrace! Willing and ardent!
And just for a moment he felt that melting that he sought from her! Felt her soften, yield, felt her tremulous lips start to part so that he could do what every fibre of his being was urging him to do—taste the sweetness of her honeyed mouth.
Triumph swept through him. Not the triumph of conquest but the triumph of trust bestowed, that she had chosen—chosen!—to let him kiss her.
And then she was withdrawing.
Instinctively he wanted to catch her to him again, to coax and persuade her silken lips to open to him again. But with a higher knowledge he knew he must not. He must relinquish her. For if he did not she would be scared away again, and what he had achieved would be lost already.
Yet even as she drew away from him his hand lingered at her cheek and the tips of his fingers threaded into her hair. His eyes poured into hers, lambent in the dim light of the interior of the car. Absently he was glad of the smoked glass between them and the driver, but even so he could not care. The whole world could have witnessed this moment! With his blessing!
For she was holding his ardent gaze, open and transparent, and he was seeing into her eyes, into the depths of her, with nothing between them.
‘Celeste...’ Her name was on his lips, husky and low, and his fingers stroked at the delicate bones of her cheek.
