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“You are what is wonderful, cara.”
“But I—I shouldn’t have—” She paused. “I promised myself that I wouldn’t—”
“That you would not what?”
“Do… this.”
“And what is ‘this?’” he said softly.
“Marco. Don’t tease me.”
“You promised yourself we would not make love.”
Ridiculous that his words should make her blush.
“Emily.” He put his hand under her chin, tilted it up until her eyes were level with his. “Such a wonderful thing to tell me, sweetheart.”
“That I didn’t intend this to happen?”
“That you knew that it would happen. No, don’t look away from me. You knew. So did I. This was inevitable.”
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“We’re—we’re strangers. We’ve only known each other for three days.”
“Four,” he said solemnly. “It’s past midnight.”
He’d wanted to make her laugh. At least he’d succeeded in making her smile.
It made his heart turn over.
Her hair was a tangle of silk. He’d kissed off her lipstick; her mouth was the palest pink and slightly swollen from the demand of his.
He could feel his body hardening again.
She had the look of a woman fresh from her lover’s bed and that was where he wanted her.
In his bed.
In his arms.
“You’re right, cara. We only just met.” His mouth brushed hers; she sighed in a way that made him lose his train of thought. “But does that matter? I knew what I felt for you the minute I saw you standing on a rain-soaked street corner. ‘Look at that,’ I thought. ‘Such a beautiful woman and she is waiting just for me.’”
She smiled again. It made his heart flutter with pleasure.
“What you thought,” she said, “was that someone had to rescue me. You were my knight. You took pity on me.”
“What?” he said in mock horror. “Pity? For a Botticelli Venus, rising from the sea?”
“Some Venus,” she said, and when her lips curved in another smile, he used it as an excuse to gather her closer.
“I understand, Emilia mia. You are not a woman who makes love with a man she hardly knows.”
“Don’t,” she said again and he thought that if she said this was not making love, it was sex, he would—he would have to repeat what they had just done because she was wrong.
“You make me sound like a—a model of virtue!”
“You are a bright, beautiful small-town girl, making her way in a world that is new to her without succumbing to its temptations.”
