He plucked it from her fingers. ‘I’ll do it.’
She snatched it away again. ‘I don’t need your help. I don’t need anything from you.’
‘I know. You made that perfectly clear seven years ago when you chose this house over me.’
The memory of it echoed inside him like a bomb blast.
She took a step closer, close enough that he could almost see her heart beating beneath the fabric of her top.
‘That’s not how it was,’ she said.
‘That’s exactly how it was.’
Bitterness was rolling through him like a juggernaut. She had never needed him. Wanted him, yes, but not for ever—not like she’d promised.
‘I was there, remember? We were both there. Only at some point you started reading from a different script.’
The script her parents had written.
She blinked. ‘We weren’t in a movie, Farlan. You can’t just write the ending you want.’
‘You did.’
There was a beat of silence and then she shook her head slowly. ‘No. I didn’t. I did what I thought was right for both of us. But it wasn’t what I wanted.’
‘What did you want?’ He’d meant to sound scornful, but instead his voice was shaky, urgent.
Her eyes found his. ‘I wanted you. I’ve only ever wanted you.’
He stood, frozen. For a few seconds they just stared at one another, and then she took a step closer, and his heart jerked as she brushed her lips against his.
It was a light, tentative, tantalising not-quite kiss. She had kissed him like that once before, that very first time. Before all of this had happened, when there had been nothing but hope and hunger and heat between them.
Heat was filling his lungs. He had come back to Lamington to put the past behind him. Only not this piece of the past.
Pulse stuttering, his hands moved automatically to her waist and he kissed her back.
He heard the book fall to the floor, and then her fingers began moving down his body, roaming clumsily over his shoulders and chest, pushing up his sweater, pulling his T-shirt aside.
He breathed in sharply as her hands slid over his bare skin, feeling his body harden. Pressing her closer, he tugged at the buttons on her cardigan until she was open to him. His fingers splayed over her stomach…his heartbeat melted into her skin.
She moaned softly as he cupped her breasts and then, lowering his face, he sucked a swollen nipple into his mouth. His blood pumped faster as she arched against him, and then his hand was pushing under the hem of her skirt, finding more warm, irresistible skin and the tops of her stockings.
Breathing raggedly, he found her mouth again and, walking her backwards, slid his hand through her hair, cradling her head so that he could deepen the kiss.
There was a muffled thump as they collided with the shelves, and then more thumps as books began falling to the floor, but he didn’t care. All he cared about was the fierce, hot pressure in his groin.
‘Farlan—’
His eyes fluttered open. She was staring at him, her hair mussed, her lips swollen. From somewhere inside the house he heard Tom’s booming laugh.
What the hell were they doing? What the hell was he doing?
Drawing back, he watched her grab the front of her cardigan. Clearly Nia was thinking the same thing.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said shakily.
Her eyes dropped to the books on the floor and, crouching down, she started to pick them up.