‘Is it?’ he prompted.
‘Is…what?’ she mumbled, distanced from all rational thought by the power of sensation.
Disappointingly, he laid her hand back down, but he retained a grip on it, a surprisingly fierce grip. ‘What is the last thing you remember?’
With immense effort, she relocated her thinking processes and was rewarded. Remembering the answer to that question was as reassuringly easy as falling off the proverbial log. ‘You had the flu,’ she announced with satisfaction.
‘The flu.’ Black brows drew together in a frown and then magically cleared again. ‘Si, the flu. That was nineteen eighty—’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘I do know what year it is, Luc.’
‘Senz’altro. Of course you do. The year improves like a good vintage.’ As she looked up at him uncomprehendingly, he bent over her with a faint smile and smoothed a stray strand of wavy hair from her creased forehead.
‘It seems so long ago, and, when I think about it, it seems sort of hazy,’ she complained.
‘Don’t think about it,’ Luc advised.
‘Is it late?’ she whispered.
‘Almost midnight.’
‘You should go back to the hotel…are we in a hotel?’ she pressed, anxious again.
‘Stop worrying. It’ll all come back,’ Luc forecast softly. ‘Sooner or later. And then we will laugh about this, I promise you.’
His thumb was absently stroking her wrist. She raised her free hand, powered by an extraordinarily strong need just to touch him, and traced the stubborn angle of his hard jawline. His dark skin was blue-shadowed, interestingly rough in texture. He had mesmeric eyes, she reflected dizzily, dark in shadow or dissatisfaction, golden in sunlight or passion. Vaguely she wondered why he wasn’t kissing her.
In that department, Luc never required either encouragement or prompting. When he came back from a business trip, he swept through the door, snatched her into his arms and infrequently controlled his desire long enough to reach the bedroom. And when he was with her it sometimes seemed that she couldn’t cook or clean or do anything without being intercepted.
It made her feel safe. It made her feel that where there was that much passion, surely there was hope. Only of late she had listened less willingly to another little voice. It was more pessimistic. It told her that expecting even the tiniest commitment from Luc where the future was concerned was comparable with believing in the tooth-fairy.
‘I’ve only forgotten a few weeks, haven’t I?’ she checked, hastily pushing away those uneasy thoughts which made her so desperately insecure.
‘You have forgotten nothing of import.’ Brilliant eyes shimmered over her upturned face, meeting hers with the zap of a force-field, and yet still, inconceivably to her, he kept his distance.
‘Luc—’ she hesitated ‘—what’s wrong?’
‘I’m getting very aroused. Dio, how can you do this to me just by looking at me?’ he breathed with sudden ferocity. ‘You’re supposed to be sick.’
She didn’t know which of them moved first but suddenly he was as close as she wanted him to be and her fingers slid ecstatically into the springy depths of his hair. But, instead of the forceful assault his mood had somehow led her to anticipate, he outlined her parted lips with his tongue and then delved between, tasting her with a sweet, lancing sensuality again and again until her head was spinning and her bones were melting and a hunger more intense than she had ever known leapt and stormed through her veins.
With an earthy groan of satisfaction, Luc dragged her up into his arms and, although the movement jarred her painfully, she was more than willing to oblige him. Thrusting the bedding impatiently away from her, he lifted her and brought her down on his hard thighs without once removing his urgent mouth from hers.
Excitement spiralled as suddenly as summer lightning between them. Wild, hot and primeval. His hand yanked at the high neck of the white hospital gown, loosening it, drawing it away from her upper body. Cooler air washed her exposed skin as he held her back from him, lean hands in a powerful grip on her slender arms. A dark flush over his hard cheekbones, he ran raking golden eyes over the fullness of her pale breasts, the betraying tautness of the pink nipples that adorned them.
Reddening beneath that unashamed, heated appraisal, she muttered feverishly, ‘Take me back to the hotel.’
Luc shook her by saying something unrepeatable and closing his eyes. A second later, he wrenched the gown back up over her again, stood up and lowered her into the bed. Tucking the light covers circumspectly round her again, he breathed, ‘Chiedo scusa. I’m sorry. You’re not well.’
‘I’m fine,’ she protested. ‘I don’t want to stay here.’
‘You’re staying.’ He undid the catch on the window and hauled it up roughly, letting a cold breeze filter into the room. ‘You’re safer here.’
‘Safer?’
?
?Do you believe in fate, cara?’