Happy Mother's Day! - By Sharon Kendrick Page 0,170

It’s my last night here and I really ought to spend some time with Rick’s family. Especially since I don’t know when I’ll be back again. If I do take the Rome gig it might be a while. A really long while.’

Not in the least put off by her assertion, a flicker of warmth lit his eyes and then he reached out and tucked a stray curl behind her ear. Siena could not stop the ragged sigh from escaping her lips.

‘So why not stay?’ he repeated, his deep voice gentle and personal and completely distracting. And this time Siena was in no doubt there would be no qualifier to his statement.

He was suggesting she stay, stay. In Cairns. For him.

Siena felt breathless and full of oxygen all at once. But, before she had the chance to frame a thought, much less a response, James leaned across and kissed her.

In the split second before their lips met, Siena half-expected James’s kiss to be timid and wary. Sheepish, even. So far as she knew, she was the first woman he had kissed since meeting his wife several years before.

But when their lips at long last touched, his were warm, determined and sure. He knew exactly what he was doing. And Siena ended up the one who felt nothing but shaky.

Her body wilted against the hot car.

Her eyes drifted closed.

Pretty soon she felt more than just shaky. Pretty soon, as his kiss deepened, as she realised that there was nothing in the least bit carefree and unprompted about it, she felt tender, fluttery, adored and cherished and as though a fire had been lit beneath her toes.

She felt more alive and more scared than ever before. She felt as if she had stepped into a lift shaft to find the lift was in fact not there. She was in free fall, but she knew that James would be there to catch her in the end with his strong, creative hands.

Though neither of them moved from their position side by side, their arms crossed, a foot between her warm melting body and his, Siena had never felt more intimate with a man.

James was communicating so much tenderness and hope and effortless sensuality to her that every last concern she had about him, about home, about family, about love, melted away. She wished with all her might that those creative hands were on her. Touching her. Teaching her. Holding her.

Nothing mattered in that moment but James. James’s lips. James’s warmth. James’s strength compared with her own mounting weakness. James’s desire for her to stay—despite her inexperienced heart and despite what she had thought had been an all-consuming love for his son.

As though he had heard the thought echoing in her cotton wool filled mind, James pulled away.

Siena leant towards him, continuing the kiss as long as possible.

She sighed in disappointment as his lips finally left hers. Her unusually heavy eyes flickered open, expecting to see some semblance of guilt or surprise in James’s eyes.

But he was simply smiling. Really smiling. His grey-blue eyes were jewel-bright. His mouth kicked open to show a set of neat white teeth which would do just fine in any toothpaste commercial. And the crease in his right cheek that had threatened to show itself again and again now came out in full force. It was as though he finally had something private and wonderful in his life worth smiling about.

Siena could do nothing but stare. This was one beautiful man. A man with a heartbreakingly handsome face, with bottomless soulful eyes, with a huge capacity to give, who filled out a pair of old jeans just right, who liked her. There was absolutely no doubting it now. He really, really liked her.

And silly, selfish her; she had gone and done exactly the opposite of what she had promised herself. When all the while she had been thinking of him, and while she hadn’t been paying attention to her own feelings, she had gone and fallen slap bang in love with the guy.

The thought landed with a thud at the base of her skull, and where before she had felt on top of the world, she suddenly felt numb from head to toe.

‘Dare I ask what is going on behind those stormy eyes of yours?’ he asked, his gorgeous smile still so devastatingly in place.

He uncrossed his arms to reach out and run his knuckles along her cheek. Her skin heated under his touch, leaving a trail of fire across her