right through her as his mouth brushed her neck, his breath warm on her skin.
‘I’m falling in love with you, India.’
Her heart almost stopped dead as he spoke words she’d never thought for one minute she’d ever hear from him. Not from Dominic MacDonald, a man whom she knew had boasted he’d never been in love, a man who’d said he never really wanted to feel like that because it would tie him down, get in the way, cloud things – and wasn’t that the truth? Which was why she’d gravitated towards him in the first place, because love was the last thing she needed right now. She had enough complications going on without falling in love with a man she hardly knew. She’d fallen foul of that all too often and look at the crap it had caused.
She kept her eyes closed, reaching up behind her to touch his face, burying her fingers in his hair as he continued to kiss her neck, moving the shirt she was wearing down off her shoulder, letting his fingers stroke it as his other hand gently ran over the curve of her waist.
But she couldn’t say anything back to him. She couldn’t tell him she loved him too, because she didn’t. Or she couldn’t, she didn’t know. She couldn’t work out what was going on anymore.
‘India…’
She turned round and kissed him slowly, catching him slightly unawares, but it took just seconds for him to respond, his open mouth moving against hers, warm and soft, making her feel things she didn’t want to feel, making her weaker than she wanted to be.
‘I’ve been here before, Dominic.’ She gently stroked his rough chin, running her fingers over his lips. ‘With JJ…’
‘Baby, I’m not JJ…’
She put a finger to his lips, shaking her head. ‘Sssh… I know that, okay? But… I can’t rush into anything; I don’t want to do that. For both our sakes, Dominic. It’s just… it’s just too early to be throwing words like love around.’
‘Especially when it’s coming from someone like me, huh?’
She couldn’t help smiling. ‘Hey, come on. That’s not what I meant. I just… I just can’t tell you something so… Look; it’s hard for me, okay? Hard for me to get so involved again, because every time I do something goes wrong. And I’m just not ready to feel that way again.’
‘I won’t hurt you, India.’
She stroked his cheek, staring into those piercing blue eyes, wanting to believe him. She really wanted to believe him. But it wasn’t just that, was it? ‘But I might hurt you, Dominic. And I don’t want that to happen.’
‘I’ll take my chances, India. I’m a big boy now.’
She smiled again, playing with the hair at the back of his neck. ‘Oh, I know that, mister.’ She kissed him slowly, closing her eyes as his mouth moved against hers, her stomach flipping over and over. ‘Let’s just see how things go. Okay?’
She was right. It was probably best not to push too hard right now. It would happen. He had no doubt about that. She’d fall for him just as hard as he’d fallen for her, he was sure of that. He was just going to have to be patient and let her get there at her own pace. ‘Yeah. Okay.’
He flashed her that movie star smile and she wanted so much to just stay here with him, to lie in his arms and forget everything else around them. But they had a party to get back to. They had to show their faces, they had to keep up that front, that image, even at her own birthday party. And if they stayed missing for too long all they were going to achieve was the creation of yet more rumours. ‘Come on, handsome. Let’s get back down there.’
‘Do we have to?’ he groaned, pulling her back against him, sliding his hands underneath her shirt to touch her naked breasts, coaxing a tiny gasp out of her.
‘Yes, we do.’ She removed his hands and stepped away from him, going over to retrieve her clothes that were lying in a pile next to his on the floor where they’d thrown them off at a ridiculous speed the second they’d set foot inside the apartment.
‘It’ll happen, India. You know that, don’t you?’
She looked up at him as she slipped back into her skinny jeans. ‘What will?’
‘Me and you. It’ll happen.’
‘I thought it already had,’ she smiled, pulling her top down over her head and running her