Luca's Bad Girl - By Amy Andrews Page 0,36

his.

She leaned her torso into him, her breasts squashed against his back. Her hands found his arms, her palms running up and down the warm solid weight of his biceps.

‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured, her cheek resting against his shoulder blade. ‘Were you close?’

Luca nodded. Regret, never far away, twisted the ever-present knife deep into his heart. He had been the apple of his nonna’s eye. Even after that horrible day that had changed his family life for ever.

She’d been the only one who’d believed there was more to Luca than the irresponsible teenager who had let everyone down.

Turning his back on her had been a particular wrench.

‘We spoke once a week.’ It was how he knew his family still hadn’t forgiven him.

Mia absently brushed her mouth against Luca’s back once, twice, three times. His muscles seemed to be quivering beneath her lips and she knew she couldn’t leave him like this.

‘It’s okay, Luca,’ she murmured. ‘C’mon, lie down for a while.’

She scooted back, until she was sitting propped up a little against the bedhead, and placed a hand on his shoulder. For a moment she thought he was going to resist but then he let her pull him down so the back of his head was cradled against her shoulder, her arm braced across his chest.

Luca lay still as Mia settled the sheet in around them. He turned his face and nuzzled her arm, inhaling her fragrance, letting the beat of her heart close to his ear soothe the ache in his chest.

‘Do you want to talk about her?’ she asked, trailing the fingers of her free hand up and down his arm.

Luca shook his head. He didn’t want to talk, he didn’t want to think. He just wanted to lie here next to her and forget the world.

‘Okay. We’ll just lie here for a bit, then.’

So they did.

She had absolutely no intention of staying. Absolutely no intention of falling asleep. No intention whatsoever other than to offer a little bit of comfort and companionship in Luca’s time of need.

She really, really didn’t mean to fall asleep.

Or stay the night …

Mia woke to the most delicious feeling of warmth. Of being wrapped in a cocoon of contentment. She stretched languorously against all that solid heat behind her then snuggled back into it again. A heaviness at her hip spanned her waist and curled around her breast. A delicious sensation buzzed her neck. A hardness nudged at the cleft of her bottom.

Hmm. Luca.

She sighed as sleep wrapped her in a sticky embrace. For five seconds.

Then panic set in.

Luca!

Damn! What time was it?

She cracked open one eye, then the other, squinting at the digital clock on the bedside table. Eight-fifteen.

In the morning.

Damn, damn, triple damn!

She lay very still for a long moment, listening to him breathe, not daring to do so herself. It was deep and even. Was he asleep? His lips had brushed her neck only seconds ago but had that been involuntary?

His hand at her breast, tantalising and erotic, seemed lax. Not that her nipple seemed to know the difference as it scrunched and scraped erotically against the flat of his palm.

Neither, for that matter, did his erection. She could feel it nestled against her, big and heavy.

Ready for action.

How the hell could he sleep with that thing? Surely his brain was being deprived of oxygen?

Mia waited a bit longer for signs of life. Other than his erection.

No. He was definitely asleep.

She took that as her cue to get the hell out. What had she been thinking? She didn’t do this. She didn’t stay the night. She didn’t … spoon.

Hell, she didn’t even cuddle.

And he knew that!

Okay, no one she’d ever been to bed with had received a phone call that their grandmother had died either—but that was beside the point. She was supposed to have left hours ago. She couldn’t let one man’s personal life alter years of self-discipline.

She’d very nearly failed medical school, thrown away her future, by letting men and booze rule her life for those couple of crazy years after she’d found out about her father, about her mother’s deception. She’d made a promise to herself back then that it would never happen again.

And Luca was no exception.

Yes, he’d transcended her staunch one-night-stand policy. But he was still just a convenient body—hot, sexy, best she’d-ever-known body—and that was all.

Dead grandmother or not.

Her decision from last night—before she’d totally messed up and stayed—to end things with Luca suddenly just got a whole lot more urgent.

Mia didn’t breathe