He gave a long shuddering sigh that seemed to be wrenched from deep inside him. ‘So beautiful, Lily.’ Her femininity touched him in a deep place. He didn’t think of it as his soul; it would make this something it wasn’t... Sex, this was just sex—great sex, granted. ‘You’re so totally...’ Lost for words, he made his kisses speak for him.
The wild onslaught took her breath away. Limbs locked, mouths sealed, they kissed with a frantic, wild abandon until Ben levered himself off her and reached for the button on his trousers.
Anxious to be rid of the barrier between them, she lifted her hips to slide the dress down over them. Before she had managed to wriggle free there was a sound. She didn’t register it at first...and then as the noise penetrated the layers of sexual thrall that gripped her, she stopped and looked around.
What was she doing?
The journey from hot, passionate arousal to cold, horrified self-disgust took a single heartbeat. She pulled herself onto her knees and sat there, her arms crossed over her bare breasts.
‘What the hell...?’ Breathing hard, the testosterone in his blood still surging painfully through his body, he struggled to make sense of what was happening. She’d been with him every step of the way; he knew she had. So what had changed?
There was another knock on the door. This time he heard it too.
Without looking at him, Lily pulled the bodice of her dress up and tied it. She walked across the room and paused at the door, smoothing her hair before taking a deep breath. She opened it and immediately stepped outside, quickly closing it behind her to hide Ben from the person standing there.
It was the hotel manager. Her smile faded the moment she saw his face illuminated by the overhead light. At her sides her hands clenched.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing to worry about.’
The jovial assurance filled her with instant trepidation.
‘Your mother has been trying to contact you. As you probably know we have had a problem with the Internet connection, so she left a message for you to contact her.’
Alarm bells ringing a deafening peal in her head, Lily resisted the tug of total panic, though her voice sounded unnaturally shrill to her ears as she asked, ‘Now?’
The man looked relieved that she wasn’t panicking. If only he knew!
‘If you’d like to use the landline? My office is at your disposal.’
Lily, her heart thudding sickly, nodded. ‘I’ll just get my jacket.’
The man walked down the steps as she nipped back inside. She closed the door and leaned against it, eyes shut.
‘What’s wrong?’ Bare-chested, Ben walked across the room; the frustration that had gripped him had vanished the moment he saw her.
Lily opened her eyes and looked at him blankly. It seemed to him almost as though she had forgotten he was there.
‘I don’t know,’ she said, peeling her back from the door. ‘But apparently my mother has been trying to contact me. There’s no mobile signal and the Internet has been playing up so I’m going to the hotel to call her back.’
‘Don’t overreact,’ he advised. ‘It might be nothing.’
She rounded on him, eyes blazing. ‘Of course it’s something. Don’t patronise me.’
‘Emily Rose?’
Icily composed now, she nodded. ‘Probably.’ Her daughter needed her, and she’d been... She pressed a hand to her stomach as self-loathing made the muscles tighten and she pushed through a wave of nausea.
Ben reached for his shirt, his eyes on her paper-pale face as he dressed. ‘I’ll come with you.’
Lily’s chin had dropped on her chest but came up sharply now as she blurted forcefully, ‘No!’
The rejection hit him at a level he didn’t analyse, but there was pain involved. ‘You can’t be alone—’
‘I’ve been alone for three years.’
Ben flinched.
‘I need to do this alone.’
There was a pause before he tilted his head in acknowledgement. ‘I’ll be here if you need me.’
‘Thanks, but it’s probably nothing,’ she said, her laugh brittle. ‘Mum’s probably lost her favourite toy and she won’t go to sleep without it.’
‘You’re probably right, but I’ll hang around until you get back, if that’s all right?’
‘There’s really no need.’
‘There’s really no need for you to do this alone,’ he countered.
She lifted her chin. ‘It’s what I do.’