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He had halted at the edge of the surf and moved in front of her. Putting his hands on her arms, he held her where he could look into her eyes. ‘I expect you to come to me of your own accord.’ Emma snatched a breath as he added, ‘Don’t fight me, Emma. Don’t fight this...’
Her hands flew up to press flat against his chest. Brushing them away, he dipped his head and lightly kissed her.
‘Stop it,’ she warned.
‘You’d rather go back to my sister?’
‘I’d rather kiss you.’ Her eyes widened as if the words her left her lips without making contact with her brain. ‘I should go back,’ she said quickly. ‘Karina will be missing me.’
He smiled faintly. ‘Karina will have forgotten both of us by now.’
Emma’s stare flashed to the marquee where they could both see Karina surrounded by a circle of friends.
Emma turned back to look at him. ‘Perhaps you’re right.’
‘I know I’m right.’
He led her away into the shadows. He knew this beach like the back of his hand. He’d come here as a boy and had explored every inch of it. He knew where to stop, to sit, to lie, and even where to make love. He’d lost his virginity here to an older woman, back in the days when he had still believed that love was real. The relentless thrust and pound of the waves on the shoreline was the soundtrack to his life.
‘I won’t break my own rules,’ Emma told him, hanging back.
‘What rules are we talking about?’ Dipping down, he rolled his jeans up to his knees so he could thrash his way through the surf.
‘My rules,’ she yelled back at him above the crash of the surf. ‘No parties. No Luc. No sex.’
‘Rules are made to be broken.’ Emma had kicked off her sandals, and was bundling her dress up so she could do the same, he noticed as he laughed.
‘Not mine,’ she said, swishing through the shallows until she arrived at his side. ‘And why should I break them?’ Her eyes turned serious as she looked at him. ‘You never make yourself vulnerable or talk about your past. You keep the real Luc hidden away. You never show anything of yourself—what you’re feeling, your thoughts about the future, or the past. Or if you do, you don’t share those thoughts with me. So tell me, why should I break my rule, Lucas?’
‘Because you can?’
She laughed and shook her head as she stared out to sea. ‘No means no.’
Turning to do the same, he inhaled deeply. The refreshing scent of ozone mingling with the aroma of a woman he was beginning to find irreplaceable was a heady combination. He enjoyed it for quite a while before turning to her. ‘No dancing?’
‘No dancing wildly,’ she said, reminding them both of London, when dancing with abandon had attracted the attention of her boss and had led to places neither of them had expected.
‘A sedate waltz should be safe,’ he suggested.
‘In Brazil?’ She flashed him a look that was pure wild Emma.
It hit his senses like a wrecking ball. What chance did he have when the music gliding towards them from the marquee was so sexy and sinuous? ‘A rumba,’ he murmured: sex in dance form. The rumba was the dance of love, the dance of seduction. It was a dance that gave him the perfect excuse to draw Emma close. In the first light-hearted moment they had ever shared they danced barefoot in the sand.
One dance couldn’t hurt, Emma told herself as she closed her eyes and melted into Luc’s arms. She didn’t want anyone to see them, especially not Karina, before she had told Luc’s sister about the baby. She wanted everything above board with Karina. She’d grown fond of Luc’s sister and wanted to break the news to her gently. She hated the deception that fate seemed be to thrusting on her time after time.
And she was deceiving herself now if she thought this dance could end in a gentle stroll back to the marquee, but she couldn’t snap herself out of the trance that dancing with Luc had brought on. They moved together so easily and he was so achingly familiar...
And dangerously unknown.
Emma frowned. What did she know about Lucas Marcelos? Barely anything. What did anyone know? The public only knew what Luc allowed them to know. He edited every bit of information about himself stringently. Which suggested to her that there was a lot he kept hidden.
She shivered involuntarily with pleasure as he feathered touches down her arm. It was so easy for Luc to make her forget everything...everything except him and the moment.
Winding a lock of her hair around his hand, he drew her head back and kissed her neck. It was such an intimate thing to do. It was a reminder of all the intimacy they had shared. Resting her hands on Luc’s shoulders, she stared into his eyes. The one thing they hadn’t shared before was peace like this. They had only known fire and passion, chaos and noise, surprises and shock, but this sinuous dance was a time for just feeling close. Drawing closer was as inevitable as the sea breeze caressing her overheated skin. It tempted her to believe that Luc had learned to feel, and she wondered if the baby had brought that change about.
