This was such a classic piece of Clara honesty and so similar to what he was feeling that laughter swelled. ‘Same.’ What else could he do? Say it was a mistake?
Mistakes, no matter how fleeting, did not taste that good.
‘Really?’ A wide smile lit her face. Resting her head back against the door, she said, ‘I’m glad it’s not just me. I mean, I knew I found you attractive but any woman with eyes would find you attractive so I didn’t think that was strange in itself, even though you’re the only man I’ve ever found attractive, but now I have all these feelings running through me and...’ She rubbed her arms. ‘I don’t know what to do. I mean, I’ve never kissed a man before.’
Something warm and thick that had nothing to do with desire filled his chest. ‘Why not?’
‘I’ve never wanted to. I’ve never been interested in men or sex. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t dislike men as a species or anything. It’s just that I’m happy in my own company with my dogs and, to be honest, I’ve always found the thought of sex itself rather boring—I fast-forward sex scenes on TV.’ Her teeth sank again into her bottom lip and her voice dropped. ‘But now I think I must have changed in some way because there is something about you my body reacts to, and it keeps getting stronger. It’s scary but...exciting, I think. So what about you? How do you feel? Because I’m not imagining that my feelings aren’t one-sided, am I?’
There was such vulnerability in the way she posed this final question that he could only answer with the truth. ‘No, bella, you’re not imagining it.’
There came a point when a man had to admit defeat.
He must have been mad to think he could keep Clara at arm’s length when in the space of a week she’d infected every waking moment. Even his nights weren’t safe from her. She’d slipped into his dreams as if she’d always been there, and now that he’d experienced the thrill of her soft, sexy curves pressed against him and felt the tremble of her desire, his personal Rubicon had been crossed.
There was no going back. Not for him.
His hunger for Clara was too great to be contained any longer.
He wanted her. Every inch of her. In his arms and in his bed.
She blew out a puff of air and laughed tremulously. ‘Oh, good. It’d be really embarrassing if you found me as attractive as a warthog after I’ve just unloaded all that on you.’ She swallowed but didn’t drop her stare. ‘So what do we do about it?’
His every sinew tightened.
How easy it would be to close the space between them and show her what they should do about it, but instinct told him that would be a huge mistake.
There was a reason she was still standing across the room from him.
Clearing his throat, he said, ‘That’s up to you.’
Those mesmerising eyes stayed fixed on him for the longest time before her face broke out in another wide smile. ‘In that case, I’m going to take a shower before the beauty team arrives.’
It took a beat for him to remember that they had their first official joint royal engagement that evening.
This was what Clara did to him. Made him forget himself.
‘That will give me the time I need to think about whether we should take this any further.’ She shook her head and stepped away from the door, rolling her eyes self-deprecatingly. ‘Sorry, I know I do want to take it further. I just need to figure out if it’s something we should do. And you should think about it too.’
And with that, she left the living room leaving Marcelo to his wild, tortured thoughts of the perilous turn his life could be about to take.