One Night Before Marriage. Anne Oliver

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      She hadn’t meant to fall asleep. That was her first coherent thought when she woke to the unfamiliar weight of a hand on her abdomen. As she surfaced the night flooded back in a tide of exquisite sensations and images. For a fuzzy moment she drifted with them, aware of a vague tenderness in her lower body and a sense of togetherness she’d never experienced.

      Then she blinked as her brain caught up. A grey-pearl sky heralded approaching dawn. A jolt of panic swept through her. Her reputation and job were at stake here. She fought the impulse to leap off the bed. Slow was the wisest course; the last thing she wanted to do was wake him.

      She couldn’t resist a last look. She’d never seen a naked man for real. Her moist, tender flesh throbbed at the sight of the thick jut of his sex, which seemed to augment as she watched. Her gaze shot to his face, but he was relaxed, long lashes resting on his cheeks.

      Heart racing, she turned away. Get out while you still can. Easing her body out from under his arm was no mean feat, but he was dead to the world, his breathing calm and even.

      Her stockings lay at the foot of the bed. She grabbed her bra and dress from the floor, hesitated before stuffing bra and stockings in her bag. She wriggled into the dress, jerked the zip up, then twisted her hair into its clasp while she searched for shoes.

      Her panties were nowhere in sight, buried somewhere among the rumpled sheets or under that heavy, slumbering body. She had no intention of risking him waking, and counted the loss of a pair of knickers a minor one under the circumstances.

      Then she noticed his wallet on the night stand. Money. Thank you, God. She hunted up pen and paper in her bag, wrote an IOU, promising him she’d reimburse him at the desk tomorrow, then slipped a bill into her purse. Couldn’t be helped—he’d offered, and she absolutely, positively couldn’t catch a train wearing nothing but an evening dress at six o’clock in the morning.

      She looked longingly at the roses, but she couldn’t take them. Goodbye, Ben Jamieson. She refused to look at him again as she stole from his room and out of his life.

      Through barely raised eyelashes Ben watched her stumble quietly around his room. He’d lain awake the whole night afraid he’d succumb to his usual nightmare and scare her. And embarrass himself.

      There was enough light to showcase the slender curves, the glint of gold at her ears and her shadowed secret places as she bent to find her clothes. She straightened, hesitated, giving him a close-up of those tempting globes of flesh with their dark puckered nipples.

      Then she turned her back to him and slithered naked into her long blue tube, an innocent striptease in rewind. His blood heated, his already hardened sex turned painful and he had an irresistible urge to lay his lips on that moon-pale patch of skin above the swell of her bottom. Then she yanked the zip up and the moment was lost. Probably just as well.

      He wondered if she intended catching her train at this hour, in that state of dress, and what he was going to do about it. He was relieved when he saw her write something on a scrap of paper, then slide a single furtive bill from his wallet. She could have robbed him blind. The fact that she didn’t only confirmed what he already knew. Carissa was an honest if naïve young woman.

      Her movements ruffled the air so that her scent wafted to his nose. Not an expensive perfume, but a scent that made him think of a spring morning—cool, fresh, unspoiled. Maybe she was too embarrassed to face him—she’d obviously never done the morning-after routine. It beat the hell out of him why a woman would opt for a stranger for her first sexual experience.

      He watched her leave his room and head for the elevator, then stretched, punched up the pillow and shoved his hands behind his head. The trouble with virgins—one intimate encounter and they started looking at engagement rings. Carissa was different.

      He heard the elevator doors open, close, and felt more alone than he’d felt before he’d met her. As if she’d taken part of him. Which was plain stupid. No woman took anything from Ben Jamieson.

      Throwing off the sheet, he padded to the window to catch a glimpse of her. There. He watched her hail a cab, climb in and drive away. His fists clenched on the window ledge. Damn her for making him feel…needy. He didn’t want to get involved. Not with her, not with anyone. And not now, when his life was going down the toilet.

      Moving to his bed, he reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out the slender gold chain he’d slipped off her wrist. Antique, by the looks. Insurance, he told himself, pocketing it once more. He could see her again if he wanted, if he chose to. He knew where she was on a Friday and Saturday night. Simple.

      Or he could keep it even simpler. Just Carissa, an intimate stranger who’d shared his bed for a night. Some soft curves in the bumpy road that was his life right now.

      She didn’t know he had her bracelet. And her panties, he noted, spotting the scrap of blue silk on the bed amongst the tumbled sheets. Ah well, he’d have them gift wrapped and handed in to her at the front desk. But he’d see she got the bracelet back personally.

      A girl with her classical background wouldn’t know anything about a band like XLRock, he decided, hunting up a room-service menu. Rave’s band had needed financial backing to get started and Ben had been happy to put down the money.

      Fourteen years ago in a tiny pub on the edge of the Nullabor Plain, Ben had taken the fifteen-year-old runaway pickpocket under his wing and taught him to play guitar. The kid had become a runaway star.

      Ben stared sightlessly at the ceiling. All he saw was Rave. A couple of weeks ago he’d stepped in with his own guitar to help out when one of the band members had quit on the eve of the open-air concert, Desert Rock. But Ben hadn’t been able to resist the lure of Broken Hill’s Musicians’ Club on the way home.

      The memory taunted him. His stomach tied itself into those familiar knots and he decided he wasn’t hungry after all. Grimly he grabbed his jeans from the floor where he’d shucked them last night and headed for the shower.

      Adjusting the temperature to just above cold, he let the water pelt him and shivered as he soaped up. He could still see the frustration in Rave’s eyes. But he’d grown accustomed to the tantrums. ‘Jess won’t mind one extra night, Rave. Phone her and blame me. Here, take the Porsche for a spin.’ He’d handed him the car keys himself.

      It was the last time he’d seen him.

      Ben wrenched off the taps, pressed his fingers to his eyelids. He hadn’t expected Rave to be irresponsible enough to get plastered before he got behind the wheel. He should have seen it. He’d tried to escape the visions that plagued him—waking, sleeping—but the guilt stuck like barbed wire.

      And the nightmares kept coming.

      For one brief evening, Carissa had made him forget.

      When he re-entered the main room, the Sydney Morning Herald had been slipped beneath the door by some faceless night porter. Without glancing at the headlines he tossed it into the bin. He was so tired of the smell of impersonal hotel rooms. Sick of the sight of staff with their plastic smiles, the clatter of service trolleys.

      He turned to the spectacular view of high-rises against a gold sky. Just once he wanted to look out a window and see an untidy cottage garden or a stand of stringy eucalypts, a wooden letter-box with the paint peeling off. How many years had it been since he’d slept in a house? A home? Too damn many.

      He needed a place where no one who knew СКАЧАТЬ