He gripped her hand, hauling her towards the bike as she picked her way across the rocky ground in the heels.
The lights of the bridge blurred in the drizzle of autumn rain as the powerful machine lurched down the hill in the darkness. Eva’s pulse lurched right along with it, the thunder of her heartbeat drowning out the engine’s roar as she clung to her fantasy man and refused to contemplate the notion that she’d just made the most catastrophic mistake of her adult life.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE trip back sped past, despite the stop to pay a toll on the bridge, the bike travelling through a tunnel before emerging into parkland. The spitting rain hit Eva’s cheeks, soaking her clothes as she huddled behind Nick’s back and tried not to envision herself hurtling full pelt towards disaster.
It had taken her all her adult life to come into contact with someone as potent as Nick Delisantro. What if she had to wait another lifetime to meet someone this attractive again? This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, which she refused to regret. At least until tomorrow.
Edging the park, they entered a neighbourhood decorated with psychedelic murals and scribbled graffiti. People in colourful slickers stood outside bars, defiantly smoking in the rain, while down-and-outs huddled in doorways and under awnings. Eva knew from her research that Nick lived in an area called Haight Ash-bury, a place that had become famous during the Flower Power days of the late sixties. As they drifted past a cornucopia of hippie chic—from smoothie bars, to vegan cafés and a New Age market with a marijuana leaf logo and enough neon-coloured tie-dye clothing in the window to make your eyes bleed—Eva figured the Haight hadn’t quite left the Summer of Love behind.
Turning off the main street, the bike rumbled to a stop on a wide tree-lined avenue in front of a five-storey Victorian terrace. Pale blue wooden siding, giant bay windows, elaborately carved trim and a stunning pergola at the top gave it a kitsch antique grandeur that wouldn’t have looked out of place on Disneyland’s Main Street.
Shifting round, Nick shouted, ‘There’s a gizmo in the jacket pocket. Give it a buzz.’
Finding the smooth plastic device, Eva pressed the button and a large door beneath the front steps lifted with an electric whine. Harsh neon lights flickered on as Nick drove the bike into a musty cellar garage. Shelves crowded with boxes lined one wall while a washing machine and drier stood in the opposite corner.
Eva clambered off the bike as the door whirred closed, but not before every one of the doubts that she’d been busy trying to pretend didn’t exist sneaked in with her. She levered off the helmet. Her hair plopped onto her shoulders, the artfully arranged chignon now a mass of wet tangles. The velvet of Tess’s beautiful dress clung to her thighs in sodden patches.
Inadequacy assailed her as she watched Nick dismount and shove the bike onto its stand. His tall physique only looked more spectacular in the soaking jeans and jumper. Spotlighte
d by the brittle white light, the denim moulded to long, lean thighs while damp cashmere clung to the sleek musculature of his chest and shoulders.
Maybe this hadn’t been such an excellent idea after all. She looked about as sexy as a drowned collie while he looked like Adonis. Her stomach squeezed. Maybe she simply wasn’t capable of being a bad girl, even for one night.
He disengaged the bike key and shoved it in his back pocket, then swiped his hair off his forehead. Drops of water dampened the concrete as she debated how best to decline his offer without seeming rude.
But then he whisked his wet jumper over his head—and she forgot to breathe, let alone look for an escape route.
‘It’s always freezing down here,’ he said, crossing towards her. ‘Even in the summer.’
She stared, her gaze riveted to his naked chest. Not just giddy any more but light-headed.
Goodness.
She’d never seen anything so beautiful. Bronzed, olive skin defined the bunch of muscle that looked so much leaner and tougher than the steroidal excess of the romance cover models she’d once fantasised about. She certainly wouldn’t be fantasising about them any more.
A faded tattoo of a coiled snake writhed on his left bicep as he rubbed the garment over his hair, making it stick up in rough spikes. Her gaze locked on the springy curls of hair under his arms, which also grew much more sparsely around flat brown nipples. The dusting of hair angled down into a thin line that bisected the ridges of his six pack before disappearing beneath the low waistband of his jeans. Her heartbeat bumped against her neck as she noticed the thin white scar that stood out against the bronzed skin of his abdomen, slashing across his ribs to follow the line of his hipbone. She struggled to breathe, horrified and yet entranced by the other smaller scars she spotted marring smooth skin. She’d known he was dangerous, but she hadn’t realised quite how dangerous.
Her eyes jerked to his face as he lobbed the wet sweater into a wicker laundry basket beside the washing machine. Stepping closer, he lifted the helmet out of her hands, a confident smile edging his lips. She could have sworn she could feel the heat of his skin. Or maybe that was just her body temperature going haywire, because she was about to pass out?
She drew in a lungful of air. And tasted the clean spicy scent of him.
‘You cold?’ he asked, dumping the helmet on a shelf. She shook her head, knowing speech was probably a bad idea.
‘Come on, the apartment’s a lot warmer.’
‘Okay,’ she mumbled, as if she needed any more heat.
Having retrieved her bag from the bike box, he hooked it over her shoulder, then guided her towards a wooden staircase that led out of the back of the garage into the rain. ‘You’ll need to lose the ankle-breakers,’ he said, the weight of his palm on her back causing the now familiar sizzles of electricity. ‘The stairs get slippery in the rain.’
She nodded, still mute, and slipped off the slingback shoes. Before she could bend to pick them up, he scooped them off the floor.
He clasped her hand and they dashed through the rain together, drops splashing on the wooden decks as they climbed to the top landing. Her breath sawed out as he led her through terrace doors into a long, narrow room with high ceilings and a marble fireplace thrown into shadow by the twilight. The starkly modern leather sofa and chairs and huge flat-screen TV contrasted with the old-world charm of the cornices on the ceiling. A light clicked on illuminating a spotlessly clean, granite and glass kitchen at the far end of the room.
‘I’ll get some towels,’ he said, disappearing down a corridor to the right of the kitchen.
She shivered violently. The room was warm, cosy even, with the sound of the sleeting rain lashing the terrace doors, but the sight of his naked back retreating from view did nothing to stop the shaking.