ONE NIGHT ONLY

Chapter 4

Rosa had never been struck by lightning, but she imagined it felt a lot like this: the scorching heat at the point of contact; the reverberations in every far corner of her body; the earth’s dizzy spin beneath her feet. Far beyond her control now, her body began to issue a series of demands. Her mouth wanted to kiss him, her tongue to suck and her teeth to bite. Her fingers clenched with the urge to run through his silky dark curls, and between her thighs honey flowed for him, hot and thick.

Philip. God, Philip.

With a low murmur—she couldn’t quite hear what he said—he shifted until the heavy bulge of his erection just brushed her sex.

That fleeting pleasure nearly knocked her out cold.

Yes.

Her heavy head fell back and her lids began to close, but then Jake’s face flashed through her mind and sanity intruded.

Gasping, she broke away. Tried to think, to regulate her heartbeat.

Long seconds passed and the connection between them remained, unbroken and brighter than ever. She felt branded, marked. Breathless fool that she was, she wanted him to take those amazing hands and mark the rest of her over-sensitized flesh.

Choked with desire, she couldn’t speak.

He wasn’t doing much better. A shudder racked his body as he braced his hands on the rail and waged an obvious struggle with his control.

After a tense moment or two, he looked at her. "Rosa—"

"This isn’t going to happen."

"It’s happening. We both feel it."

Yeah, she felt it, but that didn’t mean she was going to acknowledge it. "I don’t understand you. You can’t be that turned on by a dress."

"I’m that turned on by you."

"Since when?"

He looked away. Opened his mouth and closed it again. Rubbed the back of his head and finally faced her with color rising over his cheeks. "I don’t think you’re ready to hear the whole story just yet."

"You’re right about that." Her fear put her on the offensive. "I don’t believe in casual sex. You know that, right?"

Grim satisfaction bracketed his mouth. "Good. I’m not planning to have casual sex with you. I assume that means you’re not sleeping with the knucklehead who brought you…?"

"Greg." At least she thought that was his name, but it was a little hard to remember at the moment. "Greg.And who I sleep with is none of your business."

Predictably, he ignored the none-of-your-business part. "I’m going to take that as a no—"

She spluttered a protest but he ignored that, too.

"So here’s my next question—when can we go to dinner to talk about this?"

"Let’s talk now. Why wait? Hmm." Cocking her head, she pretended to think. "What do you suppose your dead best friend Jake would say if he could see you hitting on his widow? How about that?"

Philip paused, a look of utmost tenderness softening his eyes. "Jake is dead, sweetheart. We’re alive."

Rosa shook her head. She wanted to cover her ears, to protect her heart.

"I like to think he’d want the two of us to be happy together."

"I’m not in the market to be happy with anyone. I was happy with Jake, but that’s over." She tried to sound forceful, as though she hadn’t just been rethinking her life choices a little while ago. "Now my life is about my son and my career. Not sex."

"Interesting."

She was so mesmerized by the dark depths of his eyes that she didn’t notice his hand at her shoulder until it was too late and paralysis had set in.

She waited…waited to see what he would do.

"This is about more than sex to me, Rosa, but let’s talk about sex for a minute."

He tugged one end of the shawl and the fine cashmere slid across her bare skin with a friction so delicious she almost moaned.

"Are you saying you don’t want to have sex with me?"

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