when the woman of his dreams sashayed in and the world changed for ever.
One moment. That was all it took. Nothing could have warned him what was about to happen or have prevented him, after one shell-shocked moment, standing up. Not all the disasters in the universe mattered as he walked towards the vision little Maeve had become.
A siren. Calling him without the need for actual words. Her hair loose, thick black waves dancing on her shoulders, and she wore some floating, shimmering, soft shift of apricot that allowed a tantalising glimpse of amazing porcelain cleavage—and no bra, he was pretty sure. A flash of delicious thigh, and then covered again in deceptive modesty. He could feel his heart pound in his throat. Tried to bring it all back to normality but he couldn’t. Poleaxed by not-so-little Maeve.
Maeve paused before entering the room. Drew a breath. She’d spent the day getting ready for this moment. Hair. Nails. Last-minute beauty appointments that had filled the day nicely. When Simon had told her yesterday that Rayne was coming she’d felt her spirits lift miraculously. Gone was the lethargy of self-recriminations from the last month. She really needed to get over that ridiculous inferiority complex she couldn’t seem to shake as the youngest of four high achieving girls.
Here was one man who had never disappointed her. Even though she’d been embarrassingly eager to pester him as a gawky teenager, he’d always made her feel like a princess, and she wanted to look her best. Feel good about herself. Get on with her life after the last fiasco and drop all those stupid regrets that were doing her head in.
She hoped he hadn’t changed. She’d hero-worshiped the guy since the day he’d picked up the lunch box she’d dropped the first time she’d seen him. Her parents’ reservations about Rayne’s background and bad-boy status had only made him more irresistible. At fifteen, twenty had been way out of her reach in age.
Well, things should be different this time and she was going to make sure they were at least on an even footing!
Maybe that’s where the trill of excitement was coming from and she could feel the smile on her face from anticipation as she stepped into view.
That was the last sane thought. A glance across a room, a searing moment of connection that had her pinned in the doorway so that she stopped and leant against the architrave, suddenly in need of support—a premonition that maybe she’d be biting off more than she could chew even flirting with Rayne. This black-shirted, open-collared hunk was no pretty boy she could order around. And yet it was still Rayne.
He rose and stepped towards her, a head taller than her, shoulders like a front-row forward, and those eyes. Black pools of definite appreciation as he crossed the room in that distinctive prowl of a walk he’d always had until he stood beside her.
A long slow smile. ‘Are you here to ruin my life even more?’
God. That voice. Her skin prickled. Could feel her eyebrows lift. Taking in the glory of him. ‘Maybe. Maybe I’m the kind of ruin you’ve been searching for?’
Goodness knew where those words had come from but they slid from her mouth the way her lunch box had dropped from her fingers around ten years ago. The guy was jaw-droppingly gorgeous. And sexy as all get-out!
‘My, my. Look at little Maeve.’
And look at big Rayne. Her girl parts quivered.
‘Wow!’ His voice was low, amused and definitely admiring—and who didn’t like someone admiring?—and the pleasure in the word tickled her skin like he’d brushed her all over. Felt impending kismet again. Felt his eyes glide, not missing a thing.
She looked up. Mesmerised. Skidded away from the eyes—too amazing, instead appreciated the black-as-night hair, that strong nose and determined jaw, and those shoulders that blocked her vision of the world. A shiver ran through her. She was like a lamb beckoning to the wolf.
Another long slow smile that could have melted her bra straps if she’d had one on, then he grew sexy-serious. ‘Haven’t you grown into a beautiful woman? I think we should meet all over again.’ A tilt of those sculpted lips and he held out his hand. ‘I’m Rayne. And you are?’
Moistened her lips. ‘Maeve.’ Pretended her throat wasn’t as dry as a desert. Held out her own hand and he took her fingers and kissed above her knuckles smoothly so that she sucked her breath in.
Then he allowed her hand to fall. ‘Maeve.’ The way he said it raised the hair on her arms again. Like ballet dancers en pointe. ‘Did you know your name means she who intoxicates? I read that somewhere, but not until this moment did I believe it.’
She should have laughed and told him he was corny but she was still shaking like a starstruck mute. Finally she retaliated. ‘Rain. As in wet?’
He laughed. ‘Rayne as in R.A.Y.N.E. My mother hated me.’
‘How is your mother?’
His eyes flickered. ‘Fine.’ Then he seemed to shake off whatever had distracted him and his smile was slow and lethal. ‘Would you like to have a drink with me?’
And of course she said, ‘Yes!’
She watched him cross the room to Simon’s bar and that made her think, only for a millisecond, about her brother. ‘Where’s Simon?’ Thank goodness her brother hadn’t seen that explosion of instant lust between them or he’d be playing bomb demolition expert as soon as he cottoned on.
‘His breech lady has gone into labour and he’s meeting her at the hospital.’
Maeve ticked that obstacle out of the way. A good hour at least but most probably four. She was still languid with residual oxytocin from the Rayne storm as she sank onto the lounge. Then realised she probably should have sat in Simon’s favourite chair, opposite, because if Rayne sat next to her here she doubted she’d be able to keep her hands off him.
He sat down next to her and the force field between them glowed like the lights on the runway across the bay. He handed her a quarter-glass of whisky and toasted her with his own. Their fingers touched and sizzled and their eyes clashed as they sipped.
‘Curiouser and curiouser,’ he drawled, and smiled full into her face.
OMG. She licked her lips again and he leaned and took her glass from her hand again and put it down on the coffee table. ‘You really shouldn’t do that.’ Then lifted his finger and gently brushed her bottom lip with aching slowness as he murmured, ‘I’ve been remiss.’
He was coming closer. ‘In what way?’ Who owned that breathy whisper?
‘I didn’t kiss my old friend hello.’ And his face filled her vision and she didn’t make any protest before his lips touched, returned and then scorched hers.
In those first few seconds of connection she could feel a leashed desperation about him that she didn’t understand, because they had plenty of time, an hour at least, but then all thoughts fled as sensation swamped her.
Rayne’s mouth was like no other mouth she’d ever known. Hadn’t even dreamt about. Like velvet steel, smoothly tempered with a suede finish, and the crescendo was deceptively gradual as it steered them both in a sensual duel of lips and tongue and inhalation of whisky breath into a world that beckoned like a light at the end of the tunnel. She hadn’t even known there was a tunnel!
Everything she’d imagined could be out there beckoned and promised so much more. She wanted more, desperately needed more, and lifted her hands to clasp the back of his head, revel in his thick wavy hair sliding through her fingers as she pulled him even closer.
His hands slid down her ribs, across her belly and up under and then circling her breasts through the thin fabric of her silk overshirt. His fingers tightened in deliciously powerful appreciation then he pulled away reluctantly.
‘Silk? I’d hate to spoil this so I’d better stop.’
‘I’ll buy another one,’ she murmured against his lips.
Rayne