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‘Nah. I don’t have the self-control.’
He kissed her. He’d lied. The waiting wasn’t the best bit at all.
* * *
She was soft, and warm and yielding. The yielding bit she did the best of all. Just when she’d let him in, her eyes soft and promising more than he had a right to expect, she pushed back. A delicious last stand that made him fight for her and sent the blood rushing to his head.
It was like nothing he’d ever done before. Every nerve aware of her every movement. The way her hands slid down his back, coming to rest on the leather belt at his hips. The way her thumbs hooked into the belt loops, gaining traction to pull him closer, although in truth he was already about as close as he could get without throwing off his clothes and making love to her.
Was that what he was about to do? For a moment, lost in the taste of her lips, the smell of her hair, it seemed inevitable. Every move he made seemed to please her, and left him wanting only to please her more.
Not tonight. She was too vulnerable. Not ever. If he let her down, it would crush him.
Tenderly, slowly, he ended the kiss, his heart pounding with longing and grief for what wasn’t going to be. He held her close, stroking her hair, wondering whether the internal battle between what he wanted to do and what he knew he should do was going to subside any time soon.
‘I think—’
He finished the sentence for her. ‘That it’s time to go back now. It’s beginning to get chilly.’
Relief showed in her eyes. ‘Yes. I’m sorry, Euan, but this is a lot to process all at once.’
‘I know. I shouldn’t have...’
She gave him a wicked smile and longing flared in him, kicking in hard and strong. ‘Did I slap you?’
‘No.’ Right now she could do anything she damn well pleased with him.
‘Then I guess it’s okay.’
‘In that case...’ Relief seemed to quell his more visceral urges and Euan found himself able to think rationally once more. ‘Would you do me a favour?’
‘Depends...’ That smile again. Euan drew back a little before it got the better of him.
‘Would you leave the work alone? Just for tonight?’
She thought for a moment. ‘I’m not really tired... And there’s nothing much else to do.’
That was the problem. Take her work away and she was lost, drifting aimlessly with the rejection and grief that she struggled so hard to forget. Euan had likened her to a Russian doll, and this last, beautifully detailed version of Sam explained all the rest. This was the one he was in imminent danger of falling in love with.
‘Okay. If I find you something else to do...?’
The look on her face told him that she thought she was on sure ground here. ‘All right, then. It’s a deal
.’
He held her hand as they walked, guiding her through the still-busy streets to a little shop that he knew. The souvenir shop was open late in the summer and he wound his way past the tea-towels and little glass domes full of coloured sand to the back, where there was a large stack of second-hand books and DVDs.
‘Choose something.’ She couldn’t fail to find something she liked in this lot.
She nodded, running her finger along the backs of the DVDs. ‘I can play these on my laptop.’
Maybe not such a good idea. Euan reached for a book, pulling it out of the pile. ‘What about this?’
‘Oh, Jane Austen...’ She opened the front cover and her eyes began to jump back and forth as the page reached out and drew her in. ‘You know they say that this is one of the best opening lines in the whole of English literature...’
‘I guess it’ll do, then.’ He took the book from her, grinning, and before she could protest he was at the cash desk.
They strolled back to the office together, stopping on the doorstep as if by mutual consent. ‘Thanks for the book. I promise I’ll read it.’ She turned her face up towards his, and all Euan wanted to do was to kiss her again. Not just her lips this time.
