His sharp intake of breath lifted her gaze to his, and for a moment a cold finger traced up her spine. She’d said the wrong thing. Oh god, she’d said the wrong—
Angus captured her lips with his. A gentle, but hungry kiss she responded to immediately.
She threaded her fingers into his hair and curled them into a soft fist, a low chuckling groan vibrating through her as he did the same.
He laughed into her mouth, and pulled away again. This time however, his hands stayed buried in her hair as he pressed his forehead to hers. “Have I mention how much I like you?”
She smiled. “Good thing we’re engaged then, isn’t it?”
He laughed again. Kissed her again. This time, he feathered his hand down the side of her face, along her jaw, the side of her throat… Her breasts grew heavy. Her nipples beaded. She wanted him to touch them, to drag his thumb over their harden points.
Show him.
She curled her fingers around one of his wrists and began to move his hand.
The boat juddered to a stop, the constant thrum of the motor replaced by the water taxi’s skipper loudly saying, “Here we go.”
Elisa jerked away from Angus. Just as Angus jerked away from her.
“Oh boy,” he muttered, clawing a hand—the one she’d been about to put on her breast—through his hair.
“Dio,” she whispered, staring at him.
She’d just been about to… In public…
Oh wow. Whowasshe and what had she done with Elisa?
Her heart pounded in her ears. A tight, hungry pulse throbbed in her very core.
No, thiswasher. She was still Elisa. It wasn’t anewher, it was a different her. This was the ‘her’ she always wanted to be. Confident, brave. Honest. The Elisa she was, deep down where her anxiety couldn’t reach.
She bit her lip. What happened now?
His eyes found hers. “If I asked if you’d like to take a raincheck on the zoo and come back to my place would—”
“Yes.” The word fell from her in a gush.
He sucked in a quick breath. “You sure?”
Every fiber in her body thrummed with an urgency, a need she’d never experienced before. “Yes. Very much yes.”
The edges of his eyes crinkled as a smile stretched his lips. “I am so glad you’re my fiancée.”
She laughed. Her insides did a little melted-puddle-of-desire quiver.
He jolted to his feet, steadying himself with a hand on the boat’s canopy, and cleared his throat. “Umm…”
The water taxi’s skipper paused in the act of setting out the dock lines and shot him a look over his shoulder. “Yeah?”
Angus gave him a sheepish smile. “Change of plans. We need to go back to the Quay. Sorry.”
Elisa chewed her lip. Her stomach knotted. Would the guy get angry?
“All good.” The skipper retracted the bow line. “Not my dollar.”
Two minutes later, the boat was zipping back over the harbor toward Angus’s restaurant.
A surreal sensation bubbled in the pit of Elisa’s stomach, a nervous eagerness. Was she about to have a one-night stand? A one-day stand? Or was this the beginning of something…more? The butterflies in her stomach fluttered in a frenzied dance at the thought.