Luca's Bad Girl - By Amy Andrews Page 0,56

tripping over a discarded shoe on the way.

Why on earth was he pounding her door down? Her heart rat-a-tat-tatted in time to the knocks as it romanticised his presence. But she doubted he was knocking like a madman to tell her he loved her. More likely the building was on fire.

Which made her unaccountably grouchy.

She reached the door and snatched it open. Her breath caught in her throat. He stood before her in track pants and a hoodie, his feet stuffed into thongs, his hair rumpled, that stubble still peppering his jaw, a blanket mark reddening one cheekbone.

The man had never looked sexier.

‘Where’s the fire?’ she snapped, because it was that or do something really silly like invite him into her bed.

She’d meant it when she’d told him they couldn’t keep sleeping with each other. She couldn’t love him and only have some of him. Know that he was waiting for the whole thing to go toxic.

Luca took in her tousled blonde hair and the outline of her breasts beneath her gown and smiled. ‘You look good,’ he murmured appreciatively.

Mia gripped the door at the lust she saw glittering in the deep brown depths of his eyes. ‘I sure hope you didn’t wake me for that.’

Luca smiled. ‘Can I come in?’

‘Luca,’ she sighed. She was not going to be sucked in by that sexy smile.

‘Please.’ He spread his hands. ‘Just for a moment.’

Mia almost shut the door on him. She was tired and at a really low ebb. Didn’t he know she wanted nothing more than to curl up in bed with him and sleep for a hundred years?

Why didn’t he just leave her alone?

Hoping she wouldn’t regret it, she stood back and inhaled as he passed. She hadn’t meant to but he smelled so good she let his aroma wrap around her like a warm cloak. She stood by the closed door, arms folded, as he strolled to the centre of her lounge room.

Luca turned to face her. She seemed remote. Both physically and emotionally.

That didn’t bode well.

He took a step towards her. ‘I figured out why I told you all that stuff last night.’

Mia regarded him warily. She hoped he hadn’t figured out why she’d told him her stuff. The only way she could keep her dignity here was to hide her feelings. ‘Really?’

He took another step. ‘I’ve known somewhere deep inside for a while that you understood me, truly understood me, and I thought that it was just our family issues, our unhappy pasts uniting us in a way that few people could relate to.’

Mia nodded. She’d recognised him as a kindred spirit almost from the beginning.

‘But it’s more than that, Mia. You got under my skin, sneaked up on me when I wasn’t looking. I was fooling myself that we were just keeping it casual but I was wrong.’ He raked a hand through his already rumpled hair. ‘I’ve been walking blindly down this track towards you all along and it’s only now that I see what’s really happening.’

Mia’s heart started to thump erratically in her chest. What was he saying? That his toxicity sensors were twitching madly? That he was getting too close and it was time to get as far away as possible? ‘Oh? And what’s that?’

‘I’m in love with you.’

Mia didn’t say anything for a moment. She didn’t move. She didn’t breathe. In fact, she was pretty certain her heart even stopped for a few beats.

‘Mia?’

‘What about Marissa?’ she blurted out, because that was way simpler than the crash of other thoughts and emotions that were churning inside her.

‘Marissa?’

‘You said she was the only woman you ever loved.’

Luca frowned. ‘I was sixteen. And infatuated. That wasn’t love. I knew that the moment I saw her in the church in Palermo last week. I was a boy with a crush. What I feel for you … in here …’ Luca patted his chest. ‘It’s a thousand times deeper, wider, stronger. You’re the one I want to talk to, make love to, wake up to.’

Luca watched her face as she grappled with the news. She looked like she was fighting it. Trying to come up with ways to block it out. Block him out. He covered the distance between them until he was standing within touching distance.

‘I know that you think you can’t do this—have a relationship with someone. That it’s not you. That you’re not the sleeping-over type …’

‘Me?’ Mia scoffed, arms still firmly crossed. ‘What about you? Aren’t you afraid this will go