Undertaking Love Page 0,47

how she’d sound when he thrust himself inside her. Her heart banged against his. Jesus, if she didn’t stop grinding against him like that he was going to screw her right here against her own front door.

‘Come inside,’ she gasped, and slid one hand down between them towards his crotch as she fumbled behind her with the other to put the key in the latch.

It would have been the easiest thing in the world to just go inside, and it was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do to put the brakes on.

‘Marla, stop. We can’t.’ He pulled his head up and grasped her gently by the shoulders. Her eyes dragged open.

‘You don’t mean that,’ she whispered, even as he reached down and stilled her fingers against the strained buttons of his jeans.

‘Yes, I do. You don’t want this. Not really.’

The desire in her eyes spluttered to a halt and died, replaced by despair and the glitter of unshed tears.

‘God, I’m so sorry, Gabe. What the hell am I doing?’ He hauled her back into his arms as the tears spilled down her cheeks.

‘Shhhhh, shhhh, it’s okay. It’s the shock, Marla. It does strange things.’

He counted to ten, trying to force his mind away from how good she felt as she buried her face in his neck.

‘It’s a natural reaction. Kind of life-affirming, if you like. Sometimes, when we stare death in the eye it can tap into our basic survival instinct and makes us... well, horny. It’s procreation. All that circle of life stuff.’

He knew his words sounded dry and textbook, but that’s exactly what they were. It was part of the funeral directors’ unwritten handbook to be prepared for relatives who could mistake their heightened emotions of grief for sexual attraction, but up until now he’d never actually experienced it firsthand. He wanted Marla to feel those emotions for him more than anything else in the world, but not like this.

‘But you stare death in the eye all the time,’ she mumbled with a shaky laugh, her breath warm against his skin. ‘So what does that make you?’

He laughed softly.

‘Frustrated, in your case. Go inside Marla. You need some sleep.’

Chapter Twenty

A bright shard of dawn sunlight slanted through the blind and half-woke Melanie from her slumber. As she flipped over away from the window in protest she registered the unexpected smoothness of Egyptian cotton against her cheek. Her eyes snapped open as memories of the night before pieced themselves together like a macabre jigsaw in her head.

Oh God, oh God, oh God.

She’d killed Marla’s dog.

She winced in horror at the memory of that sickening thud. It was a miracle she hadn’t been injured herself; the dog had bounced hard enough against the front of the car to send him flying clear over the roof.

She shivered. It had all seemed like such a simple plan. Slip back to work, grab the note from her desk, and then hotfoot it out of there again. Nowhere in the plan had she accounted for the possibility of Gabe being at the funeral parlour, or even worse, of him being outside on his motorbike. He couldn’t see her there, he just couldn’t. She’d panicked and stamped down too hard on the accelerator. In her desperation to get away she hadn’t noticed the huge dog until he’d bolted out into the road right in front of her. He hadn’t stood a chance.

Oh God.

Would they call the police?

Would she lose her job?

It was all way too much to consider at just after five in the morning. Melanie picked up the metaphorical broom in her head and swept all the horrible thoughts into a dark, unvisited corner to revisit later. Or not at all, if she could get away with it. Decision made, she closed her eyes, turned over again, and settled back into the warm crook of Rupert’s naked shoulder.

Marla closed her eyes as her mobile trilled yet again. She’d avoided Rupert’s numerous calls and texts so far, because she couldn’t bear to hash over the events of the previous night or listen to his apologies for Bluey’s escape. It wasn’t that she was mad with him, exactly. She knew in her heart that it had been a horrible accident. Rupert hadn’t meant to be so utterly useless in a crisis, and his badly chosen words hadn’t been malicious or intended to hurt her.

She just felt incredibly let down. He hadn’t been the rock that she’d desperately needed last night. Which led her thoughts