His breath came in heaves and he swallowed several times before finally making words. ‘I have no dignity with you.’
A place deep inside her chest squeezed as hard as the muscles between her legs just had.
...with you.
But she’d been protecting herself for too long to indulge the pleasure for more than a moment before she bundled the thought down where all the others milled, unvoiced, and focused instead on the decadent honey slugging through her veins and the punishing tenderness of flesh she’d finally used as nature intended.
‘My God.’
Such simple words but there was something in them, something super powerful in the fact that she almost never invoked the ‘g’ word. But it belonged here with them today. Because what had just happened between them was as reverential as anything she could imagine.
She twisted sideways and squeezed down next to Oliver as he shuffled over in the big chair, both of them taking a moment to right themselves and their underwear.
Undignified
, he had said and he wasn’t wrong, but, strangely, dignity had no place here tonight. Neither of them required it and neither of them mourned its absence. Audrey curled into his still heaving body.
‘Thank you,’ she breathed and felt more than saw the questioning tilt of his head. ‘You’re very good at this.’
Tension drummed its fingers everywhere their bodies met. Odd, considering she’d given him a compliment.
‘We’re good
together
,’ he clarified.
Her own throaty chuckle was positively indecent. ‘I could learn so much from you.’
It was hard to know whether his resulting silence was discomfort at the suggestion of a future between them or something else. But his tone, when he eventually spoke, wasn’t harsh.
‘I’m like a theme-park ride to you, aren’t I?’
‘Best ever.’
Fastest, highest, most thrilling. And most unforgettable.
His smile was immediate, but there was an indefinably sad quality to the sigh just before he spoke. ‘Come on. Let’s move back to the lounge. Will your legs work?’
The idea of stretching out with Oliver as they had earlier, of falling asleep in his arms, was too tempting. She practically rolled off the chair. ‘If they won’t, I’ll crawl.’
Nope. Not one shred of dignity. But when they had so little time together, and when she might well not see him again for twelve months—or at all—really what did it matter?
It was his pedestal, not hers.
She might as well throw herself off it before she tumbled off.
ELEVEN
Salted caramel chocolate ice cream topped with gold leaf
‘Audrey Devaney, you
are such a paradox,’ Oliver murmured from his position sitting knees up on the floor beside the sofa a deeply unconscious woman was presently stretched out on. He stroked a strand of dark hair away from her sleep-relaxed mouth.
That mouth.
The one he wanted to go on kissing forever. The one he’d pretty much given up hope of ever getting closer than a civil, social air-kiss to.
The one he’d bruised with his epic hours of worship.
She was like a wild creature released from captivity. Joyous and curious and adventurous yet heartbreakingly cautious. Running wild, tonight, in her attempt to experience everything she’d missed in life.
She was gorging on new experience. They both were.
But just for different reasons.
For Audrey...? She
was
on a theme park ride. The sort of thing you only did once a year but you had a blast while you were doing it. Whatever she lacked in experience, she made up double in raw enthusiasm and natural aptitude.
And for him...?
He knew that the moment she walked out of that door, this amazing woman would be lost to him. Away from the hypnotic chemistry that pulsed between them, her clever mind would start rationalising their night together, her doubts would skitter back to the fore, her busy life and her old-school common sense would have her filing their hours together away as some kind of treasure to be brought out and remembered fondly. Hotly, if he was any judge.
But very definitely in the past.
He traced the fine line of her cool arm with a fingertip.
And that was probably all for the better given he had no kind of future to offer her and she was absolutely not the booty-call type. If he were another kind of man he would happily spend eternity sharing her interests, respecting and trusting her. All the things she valued in a relationship.
If he were that man.
But he wasn’t. He’d proposed to Tiffany because he was tired and she was there, and because she was the kind of woman who would have cheated on him long before he could ever cheat on her.
When, not if.
Because genes would out. His inability to find a woman he could stick to was proof positive.
That
was the kind of man he was.
He sure as hell wasn’t the kind who could be trusted with what he’d seen in Audrey’s eyes back on that chair. The look she was too overwhelmed to disguise. Or deny. The unveiled look just before she shattered into a hundred pieces in his lap. That was not the look of a woman for whom this wasn’t a big deal. It was not the look that belonged with the words she was saying.
It was a glimpse of the real Audrey.
And of what he really wanted. What he never knew, until tonight,
that
he wanted.
And what he damn well knew he couldn’t have.
Tonight, he got a glimpse of something deeper than just sexy or smart or unattainable. Something much more fundamental.
Audrey’s soul communicating directly with his.
That moment when it crashed headlong into his and its eyes flared with surprise and it whispered, incredulously,
Oh, that’s right. There you are.
He wasn’t prepared to even put a name to the sensation. Not when a candle could burn longer than the time they had left together. Walking away tomorrow—today, really—was going to hurt her. But short-term pain had to be better than a lifetime of it, right?
But he was weak enough and selfish enough that he wanted to be the man against whom
she
measured all others. He wanted a place in her heart that nothing and no one could touch. Not some future man, not some future experience. A place she would smile and ache when she accessed it, the way he did with his memories of her. The smiles and the aches that sustained him through the year between her visits.
The bittersweet memories that would sustain him through his whole damn life.
And so, as ridiculous and pointless as it probably was, he wasn’t letting her out of his sight until the law said he had to. He was going to keep her with him until morning, he was going to drive her back to her hotel and then deliver her to the airport and even the flight gate, personally. He was going to pour everything he wanted to say to her but couldn’t into their last hours together and he was going to show her the kind of night a woman would find impossible to forget.
Because if he wasn’t going to have her in his life he would damn well make sure he endured in her memory. Haunted it like some sad, desperate spectre. Made an impression on her heart.
A dent.
Hell, he’d take a scratch. She’d spent so long protecting it he wouldn’t be surprised to find her heart was plated in three-inch steel. That was what would get her through the disappointment of them parting in seven hours.
Audrey murmured and resettled in her sleep, her fingers coming up to brush her lips as if feeling the memory of his kiss. A tiny frown marred her perfect skin.
But he was no masochist. He would take these last hours before Audrey climbed on her plane in the knowledge that, quite possibly, it was all she was ever going to give him. And he’d keep her close and make it special and live off the memories of it forever.
Too many parts of him needed this night too badly not to.
* * *
‘Wakey-wakey, beautiful.’
Audrey’s lashes fluttered open and it took a moment for her to orient herself against the odd sight that filled her field of vision. It looked like a giant tongue, curled back onto itself and with an ornate, gold insect perched on the top.
‘Did a dragonfly escape?’ Actually, there were two of them. The first one’s twin sat on a matching dish across the table. Really, really spectacular escapees.
‘Final course,’ Oliver murmured from somewhere behind her.
She lifted her head and the world righted. She was stretched out on the sofa where they’d moved, exhausted, with Oliver’s coat draped modestly over her bare legs.
She struggled into a sitting position, wriggling her skirt back down. ‘I thought everyone had gone?’ She hoped to heaven that was true and no one was in the kitchen while they got all Kama Sutra on the armchair.
‘Looks like they didn’t want us to miss out on the pièce de résistance. I found it in the kitchen cold room with a note on it saying “eat me”.’
Well, that was about perfect for this whole Alice in Wonderland evening. If she grew until she banged her head on Qīngtíng’s ornate ceiling she couldn’t have felt more transformed than she did by the night’s events.
Emotionally, spiritually.
She was leaving Hong Kong a changed woman.
She swung her legs off the sofa and blinked a few times to regain full consciousness. ‘What time is it?’
‘Half past five.’
A.M.?
They’d lost precious hours to sleeping. She twisted to look behind her. Oliver knelt behind the sofa, his chin resting on the beautifully embroidered back. He looked as if he’d been there a while. He also looked extremely content.
And extremely gorgeous.
The cold, hard light of morning sat awkwardly on her, though. Flashes of how she’d behaved over by the window. The Audrey she’d never suspected was in there. The Audrey only Oliver could have freed.
‘What have you been doing?’
‘Just watching you sleep.’
She frowned and scrubbed at gritty eyes before remembering the face full of make-up she was probably no longer wearing. Her fists dropped. ‘Stalker.’
His soft laugh caressed her in places she’d never felt a laugh before. ‘I didn’t do it the whole time. I’ve made a few calls, cleaned the kitchen up a bit—’
Presumably how he’d found the ice cream...
‘—and sorted us for breakfast.’
He’d made calls? Done business while she was in a sex-induced coma?
Way to strip the special from something there, Oliver.
‘Do you not need sleep?’
‘I have the rest of the year to sleep.’
Elation tangled in her chest with disappointment. On one hand, that was tantamount to saying he also didn’t want to miss a moment of their day. On the other hand, it said she was definitely getting on that flight at ten this morning.
Had she imagined last night would change anything? He’d made her no promises. If anything he’d forced her to verbalise what they both knew. That this was a time-limited, once-in-a-lifetime offer. No coupon required. She’d gone out of her way not to look too closely at
why
it was happening. She’d just thrilled at the fact it was happening and let the fantasy get away with her. Let herself be whoever she wanted to be.
And last night she’d wanted to be
that
woman. The one who could keep up with a man like Oliver and walk away, head high in the morning.
Regardless of how she felt inside.
And if nothing else Audrey Devaney was a woman who always—always—made the beds she’d lain in. And so she did what always worked for her in moments of crisis— especially at five-thirty a.m.
She ignored it.
She picked up one of the plated dark tongues instead. ‘What is this?’
‘Chocolate caramel ice cream.’
An understatement if the rest of the evening’s astonishments were anything to go by. This was bound to be so much more than just ice cream. ‘Why is there a dragonfly on it?’
‘It’s gold leaf. Qīngtíng’s signature dish.’
She peered at the extraordinary craftsmanship. An intricate and beautiful dragonfly perfectly rendered in real gold leaf. No wonder the chef hadn’t wanted them to miss it.
‘I don’t know whether to eat it or frame it,’ she breathed, after a long study.
‘Eat it. I suspect it’s too fine to last long.’
Eating gold. That was going to take a little getting used to. Just like the sudden intimacy in Oliver’s gravelly voice. He moved across from her, sat on
her
sofa, and watched her as she sliced her splade down across the back of the decorative insect and took a chunk out of the perfect curl of ice cream.
Salty, caramely, chocolaty goodness teased her senses into full consciousness.
‘This is sublime.’ Then something occurred to her. ‘Is this breakfast?’
Why the heck not when the rest of the past twenty-four hours was Lewis Carroll kind of surreal? Ice cream and gold for breakfast fitted right in.
‘This is the end of dinner. Breakfast will be in about ninety minutes.’
Breakfast meant sunrise. And sunrise meant it was time to go back to the real world. Audrey was suddenly suffused with a chill that had nothing to do with the delicious creamy dessert. She laid the splade across her barely touched dish.
‘How long before dawn?’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Sun-up is at six fifty-eight a.m.’
‘That’s very precise.’
‘It’s the winter solstice. A big deal in China.’
Right. Not like he’d been counting the minutes. ‘What will we do until then?’
‘Why, what happens at daybreak? You planning on doing a Cinderella on me?’
Did he know how close he was to the truth?
‘As it happens you won’t be able to,’ he went on. ‘We’re going to be somewhere special at sunrise. Somewhere you’d struggle to run away from.’
The most special place she could imagine being as the sun crept over Hong Kong’s mountains was back upstairs in that big, comfortable bed wrapped in Oliver’s arms and both of them sleeping right through breakfast in satiated slumber.
A girl could dream.
‘Sounds intriguing,’ she said past the ache in her heart.
‘I hope so. I had to pull a few strings to make it happen.’
Was he throwing a bunch of people out of another restaurant? ‘You’re not going to tell me?’
‘No. I’d like it to be a surprise. Though I should ask...Can you swim?’
* * *
It was a necessary question.
Forty minutes later, Audrey stood on the pier at Tsim Sha Tsui staring at a gracious, fully restored Chinese junk.
‘I’ve seen this at night going up and down the harbour,’ she breathed, walking the boat’s moored length, running her hand along the one-hundred-and-fifty-year-old dark hull timbers. Its bright-red sails were usually illuminated by uplights and seemed to those on shore to glow red fire as it drifted silently across the water. This morning, though, no glowing sails, just a network of pretty oriental lanterns throwing a gentle light across the deck cluttered with boating business but devoid of any people.
‘That’s our sunrise ride.’
She was glad she was still in her silk dress for this, but she was also glad for the drape of Oliver’s coat around her shoulders. As soon as she’d stepped out of the car he’d arranged for the slow drive to the Kowloon pier, the cool bite of morning had made itself known. But she tried to keep her appreciation purely functional and not fixate on the smell and warmth of gorgeous man as it soaked into her skin.
On board, they passed the first quarter-hour exploring the rigging and construction of the small junk and appreciating the three-hundred-and-sixty-degree views and the sounds of the waking harbour. But as the sky lightened and the vessel swung in a big arc to drift back up the waterfront again Oliver moved them to the upper deck, really the old roof of the covered lower deck, and propped them up against the mast of the fully unfurled centre sail.
A basket appeared courtesy of a fleet-footed, bowing crewman, filled to overflowing with fresh fruits and gorgeous pastries with a thermos of fragrant coffee. Oliver pressed his back to the mast, then pulled Audrey into the V of his legs and, between them, they picked the delicious contents of the basket clean as the sun rose over the mountainous islands of Hong Kong. The fiery orb first turned the harbour and everything around it a shimmering silver and then a rich gold before finally settling on a soft-focus blue.
The sounds of traditional oriental music drifted across the harbour as they passed a group of workers doing dawn t’ai chi by the water.
‘What do you think?’ he murmured.
The canvas above them issued an almost inaudible hum as it vibrated under the strain of the morning breeze. The same breeze that gave them motion. ‘I think it’s spectacular. I’ve always wanted to sail on this boat.’ She twisted more towards him. ‘Thank you.’