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“Titus,” she scolds. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
Her gaze falls to my mouth. “Like you’re picturing what I look like naked.” She lifts her gaze to mine again. She looks amused and turned on at the same time.
Without meaning to, I lower my head, and now our mouths are only an inch apart. I stop, alarm bells ringing in my head. I can’t kiss her. But I want to. Fuck. She doesn’t move, and just moistens her lips with the tip of her tongue, so I know she’s hoping I will.
We stand there like that for about twenty seconds while I fight with myself. I can smell her perfume. Her lips look so soft. Ahhh… it’s so unfair…
Eventually, my brain beats my heart—or, more correctly, the organ located further down my body—and I lift my head.
“Dammit,” she says. “You and your fucking principles.”
I laugh. “Come on, I spotted an ice cream shop, in lieu of a cold shower.”
She giggles, and we walk across the lawn to treat ourselves to a 99—whipped ice cream in a cone with a chocolate Flake.
“I wonder why it’s called a 99,” I say as we wander out.
“Apparently it was named for the Boys of 99,” she says. “They were honored Italian heroes of the First World War, who’d been born in 1899. The shape of the Flake reminded Italian ice cream sellers in Britain of the feather the Boys of 99 wore in their caps.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I’m full of useless information like that.”
I watch her lick her ice cream and have to look away. This girl… It must be the warm weather that’s doing it. I haven’t wanted a woman like this in years. Maybe ever.
God, this is so incredibly hard. How on earth am I going to make it through the weekend without touching her?
*
Heidi
When we finish our ice creams, we head back home so we can have a few hours’ rest before we go out for the evening.
Titus declares he’s going to do a bit of work and sets up his laptop, so I leave him to it, go outside, and spend a while gardening. I water the begonias in the hanging baskets, clip the hedge at the bottom, and weed the borders between the hydrangeas, roses, dahlias, and peonies.
When I’m done, I check my watch and discover it’s nearly five p.m. I wash my hands, then go into the living room to find his laptop tucked next to the chair and the room empty. He must be in the bedroom. I run up the stairs, intending to go into the bathroom to freshen up, then stop short. The door’s open, and he’s in there, stripped to the waist, standing in front of the mirror, shaving.
“Shit,” I say as he turns around, “sorry.”
I was wearing a bikini top underneath my T-shirt today. I took the tee off while I was gardening, and I haven’t put it back on, and he does a double take before lifting his gaze to mine.
“I’m only shaving,” he says, amused, as I continue to stare at him. He looks back at his reflection, carefully drawing the razor up his throat. “What time do you want to leave?”
“I… um…” It’s no good. My ability to form words has vanished. Wow, this guy has an amazing body. He’s all tanned and muscular, and oh my God, I thought he only had tattoos on his arms, but he also has an amazing one across his back of a raven with its wings spread. I’ve never had a thing about guys with tattoos before, but there’s something incredibly sexy about a guy who normally wears a suit having tattoos underneath. He looks like a Viking warrior, and he steals my breath away.
He looks back at me as he rinses his razor in the water, and stops as he sees the look on my face. “What?”
I just shake my head, unable to speak.
He meets my eyes for a long moment, then looks back at his reflection. He gives a couple of final strokes of the razor before bending to rinse the last of the foam from his face. I watch his muscles move across his shoulders and ribs, before finally he picks up the towel and mops up the drips.
I still can’t speak. He rinses the sink, hangs the towel over the rack, and then unscrews the top of a bottle of aftershave. He tips a little onto his hands, rubs them together, and touches them to his face, wincing as it obviously stings. I feel entranced, as if he’s put me under a spell, and I can’t look away.
He picks up his tee, walks toward me, and turns to the side to squeeze past me in the doorway. Oh Jesus, he smells amazing. When our bodies are flush, he stops, the bare skin of his chest just brushing my nipples in the bikini top. The heat from his skin sizzles on my belly. He looks down at me the same way he did in the church, his green eyes hot, the pupils dilated. Oh… I want him to kiss me so badly. My pulse is racing so fast I’m sure he can hear it.
He takes a deep breath, then exhales in a huff. “You’re like the fucking Temptation of St Anthony,” he says, somewhat sulkily. He continues to move past me, goes into his room, and shuts the door with a little more force than is necessary.
