Up All Night

by Faye Avalon

  He followed her toward her miniscule kitchen, stopping at the doorway to lean a shoulder on the frame.

  She’d always loved her kitchen, the coziness of it, but right now he seemed to suck up all the available air, and she felt her breath hitch as he watched her. “I’ve got the remains of a bottle of white,” she called, aware he was likely gazing at her ass as she peered into the refrigerator. “Or I can find you some brandy.”

  “Got anything soft?” He shrugged as she glanced over her shoulder at him. “Driving.”

  “Oh, yes. Sorry. Forgot. Well, there’s lemonade or orange juice.”

  “I’ll take the juice.”

  Thoughtful, understanding, and now responsible. Qualities not to be sniffed at in a man, but then she’d thought James had all those qualities and look how that ended.

  Marco continued to watch as she poured his drink and the same for herself. He didn’t move from the doorway as she handed him his glass and tried to move past him back into the sitting room. Her breasts brushed his chest, the contact flooding her whole body with delicious heat so that her nipples stood proud again. He glanced down, raised his eyebrows, and then shook his head. “Can’t blame a man for his thoughts.”

  “As long as they stay thoughts, and you don’t plan to act on them.” Beth squeezed past and went to the easy chair, pointedly leaving the sofa for him. He smiled as he sat, taking the inference and no doubt making sure she knew that he had.

  He glanced at the photo of Beth and her sister again. “What happened? With your sister?”

  Beth swallowed over the lump in her throat that was never far away when she thought of what her sister had done. Even though more than a year and a half had passed, it was still too soon to be able to talk about it to anyone. “Stupid sibling rivalry. How’s your drink?”

  Marco raised his glass, signalling it was fine, but he considered her through narrowed eyes. He looked back at the photograph then pointedly down to Beth’s left hand. “You don’t wear it anymore.”

  Beth glanced to where he looked at the bare third finger and the feint indentation of the ring that she imagined only she could still see. She sighed, chastising herself for keeping the photograph on display. She’d had colleagues from the Center in her cottage for drinks or supper, but nobody before had ever spotted the ring around her finger in the photo. She could add observant to Marco’s list of positive attributes, or maybe she should add it to the negative.

  The lump in her throat intensified. “I’m divorced.”

  After an interminably long silence, Marco sat back on the sofa. “What happened?”

  Beth shrugged and pulled her legs up under her on the easy chair. “Irreconcilable differences.” She sipped her drink, stealing a glance at him over the rim of her glass. She didn’t for a moment think he’d let it go at that and she wasn’t proved wrong.

  “People usually say that when they want the person asking the question to shut the hell up.”

  She took another sip of her drink to help her painfully dry throat. Why was it so hard to talk about after all this time? Probably, she thought, because she’d never really talked about it to anyone, but had stuffed it all down deep inside her. “Only because it’s hard to explain the whys of it, it just happened.”

  “How long were you married?”

  “Two years. I was barely twenty-two and he was ten years older. Maybe that was part of the problem.” Maybe. But it wasn’t anywhere near the whole. Damn and blast it to hell, not even close.

  “Are you still in touch?”

  “God, no. I hope I never set eyes on the bastard again.” Since with that remark she’d basically opened the floodgates, Beth knew she had to justify what she’d said. “Let’s just say he didn’t think a band around his finger meant he had to keep his trousers zipped.”

  Marco nodded. “Yeah. That would definitely make your differences irreconcilable.”

  Add honourable to the pro list, Beth thought. “What about you?” She had to get the subject matter away from her own woes. She still didn’t feel comfortable talking about that time. “Married? Divorced? Steady girlfriend?”

  “None of the above. Closest I’ve come to anyone special in a long time was already spoken for, and in a few weeks’ time she’ll be marrying my best friend.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  He gave her a long, steady look, then smiled. “They’re made for each other. Ethan walks around with this stupid grin on his face all the time. Can’t believe his luck. It was Amber who suggested paintball to start off the activities I’ve got lined up for Ethan’s stag month.”

  “Month? Aren’t stag parties usually just one night?”

  “Well, any excuse. Besides, can’t let my man get ball and chained without a decent send off.”

  “Amber must be special if she’s willing to go along with a month’s worth of partying.”

  “Yeah, she’s special. Next to Ethan, Amber’s my best friend.”

  Beth glimpsed something in Marco’s eyes and hated that her chest flared in response. “Do you still have a thing for her?”

  Again, that steady considering look. “No.”

  She watched him as she sipped her drink. Did she believe him? Or did this Amber still have his heart? Her instinct was to accept his answer, but those instincts hadn’t done her much good before. “You haven’t told me what you do,” she said, wanting to change to more innocuous subject matter. “Where do you work?”

  “I run a bar down on the coast. My uncle died and bequeathed it to me. Papa Niko’s. You know it?”

  Since she couldn’t remember ever having spent an evening in Brighton since she’d arrived to take up her job at the Center a year ago, Beth shook her head. “What sort of bar?”

  “Pretty solid crowd, mostly regulars. Couple of nights we specialize in cocktail evenings which brings in a different type of punter. Few stag parties, girls’ night out stints.”

  It sounded like her idea of hell.

  They talked more about their jobs and about local stuff until eleven thirty when Marco checked his watch. “I need to get back to secure the bar for the night.” At the door he turned as she walked him out. “When do you get a night free?”

  Rarely. She didn’t need one. Until now. “What did you have in mind?”

  He slipped his hands around her waist and pulled her in for a hot kiss. When he released her mouth, they were both breathing heavily. “That’s what I have in mind, but we can start with dinner.”

  She didn’t resist when he kissed her again. “Thursday?”

  He kept his arms locked tight, but pulled back so he could look at her. “You’re making me wait two whole days? Is that something to do with the hours policy?”

  “Something.” She smiled as she ran her fingers up and down his biceps. “But by Thursday we’re way over the limit.”

  He grinned, slow and sexy. “In that case…”

  He gave her another kiss that nearly blew her head off. His hands slipped down to her backside, fingers massaging her flesh and drawing her up close and personal to his erection. She moved her hips, loving the way his breath hitched as she gyrated against him. He felt hard and manly and every female urge she’d suppressed sprang to vibrant life. Before she could think, Beth stretched her arms around his neck and let her fingers spread through the dark hair that touched his collar.

  Their mouths melded, tongues clashed. Marco’s hand found her breast again and this time Beth didn’t draw back. She wanted to feel his touch, wanted to be drawn against his heat. She wanted so very much, and wondered, no knew, that he was the one to give it to her.

  Marco’s thumb brushed across her nipple and Beth cursed the blouse and bra that provided the barrier that kept her from feeling flesh against flesh.

  “Shit. Can’t seem to keep my hands off you.”

  Beth moaned into his mouth. “You know me well enough now to know that if I didn’t like it I’d stop you.”

  He feathered kisses along her jaw, her throat. “Thur
sday seems a damn long way off.”

  She laughed as he assaulted her neck with his wicked tongue. “Everything comes to he who waits.”

  “Speaking of which, we keep doing this and I’ll embarrass myself. My cock’s so damn ready for you.”

  His words thrilled her. James had never used crude words, had never spoken much at all during sex come to think of it, but Marco’s words made her pulse quicken and her pussy vibrate. She was already damp and it would be the easiest thing in the world to ask him to stay.

  But a few minutes later she watched him from her sitting room window as his long legs ate up the lane and he headed back to the Center where he’d left his car.

  It would be hard to imagine a better choice of a man to help her kick start her sex life. Up until he’d sprayed her with paint in the woods that morning, Beth had considered that all she needed was Mr. Sparkly to satisfy any sexual stirrings. But being with Marco had shown her the folly of her thinking and that her pink vibrator came nowhere near the pleasure of having a man’s hands on her. Feeling the pressure of a masculine body, the deep sound of his voice, the heady touch of his mouth.

  Okay Marco was a player. She had no doubt of that. Probably had so many women that he viewed her as merely another addition to his no doubt filled to the gunnels cell phone contact list of female sex partners. But if she knew that going in, knew that there was no real future in it, that for a man like Marco playing the field was in his DNA, well, she wouldn’t have any expectations of her own, would she? She could enjoy however long they lasted for what it was. It would be a temporary and, if she was lucky, sex-filled fiesta that would remind her she was a woman with needs that deserved to be fulfilled.

  Maybe she’d let this whole thing with James take her over for long enough and Marco would be the kind of man to help her bury the memory of what had happened once and for all. Maybe it was time to get back on that proverbial horse.

  Mind made up, she went upstairs, undressed, and slipped into bed. Feeling edgy, she slid open the drawer to the bedside table and pulled out her vibrator. She closed her eyes, opened her legs, and thought of Marco as she began to pleasure herself.

  She imagined how it would feel if it were Marco’s fingers working her clit. If it was his long hard length pushing into her. Pumping her. Driving her insane.

  She came hard and fast.

  Oh yes, she thought as she slumped back against the pillow. She was most definitely back in the saddle.

  Chapter Three

  Strange how in a short time the staff at Papa Niko’s had gone from thinking of Marco as one of them to treating him like the boss. But then that’s what he was now. As he surveyed the Wednesday night crowd packing out the bar, he thought of his uncle, who was also his godfather, and the enormous gift he’d given Marco when he’d died a couple months ago. Marco had reasoned that his bachelor uncle’s bar should pass to all the nephews and nieces in equal shares, but the will was specific. Despite his fight to get things changed, Marco’s siblings had overruled him and stressed that he was the rightful heir seeing as he had worked for his Uncle since leaving college. His older brother had joked that the monetary compensation Uncle Niccolo had bequeathed to the rest of them might have driven their view, but still it didn’t sit too well with Marco and only now was he coming to terms with how things were.

  He was grateful of course, but each of his siblings had been through a tough time in one way or another and he felt for them all. Both his brothers had gone through a divorce, much to his parents’ angst, and his sister’s marriage was heading that way.

  But they’d won out during his protestations about the bar and now all he could do was accept his good fortune.

  He glanced at his two most popular barmen mixing cocktails, and, satisfied they had it covered, he slipped behind the bar and out through the back to the small lobby. He pushed the door, leaving it open a crack so he could keep an eye on the bar and be ready to lend a hand if things got really busy.

  He pulled his cell from his trouser pocket and pushed the button for the number he’d put on speed dial late last night.

  He started to frown when it rang several times before a sleepy voice answered with a husky, “Hello?” Marco glanced at his watch. Shit. It was after ten. He hadn’t realized. “Did I wake you?”

  There was only a slight hesitation. “Not really. I fell asleep watching some movie on TV.”

  He liked that Beth hadn’t asked who was calling. He liked even more that she didn’t sound pissed or irritated. “Hard day?”

  “A bit.” She sighed heavily. “We had some kittens brought in today. They were in a really bad way. The vet managed to stabilize and save three of them, but we lost the other two.”

  Now he heard sorrow in her voice and beneath it anger. “I’m sorry. Who found them?”

  “A refuse collector. They were in a rubbish bin. Thankfully, he heard one of them mewing.”

  Marco felt the anger rise in his own chest. Okay. He wasn’t the world’s greatest animal lover, but he found it hard to stomach that there were some sick bastards around who seemed to take pleasure in letting defenseless animals suffer. “It’s good that you managed to save three.”

  “That’s what I keep telling myself. Have to think positive, right?”

  “Keep thinking those kitties are destined to have a happy future now, pampered by some adoring owner who feeds them fish, lets them play with balls of wool, and let’s them…well, whatever else cats like to do.”

  She laughed, pleasing him. “What about you? What’s your day been like?”

  “Better than yours by the sound of it. Few staff timetabling issues, order that didn’t turn up.” He wanted to tell her that he’d spent a large portion of the morning trying to book a stripper for Ethan’s main stag night, but decided it was something he didn’t need to confess to a woman he had the hots for.

  “I can hear voices, music. Are you working?”

  “Slipped out for a minute. I wanted to check if we’re still on for tomorrow.”

  There was another slight hesitation, a moment of silence during which his heart stopped.

  When she answered in the affirmative, he let out the breath he hadn’t been aware he’d been holding. “Great.” He leaned against the wall, unwilling to let her go just yet. He liked hearing the sound of her voice and he wanted to make sure some of the sadness had dissipated before they said goodnight. He glanced at the bar through the crack of the door. “What are you doing now?”

  “I told you. Watching some movie on TV.”

  “So bad that it sent you to sleep.”

  She laughed. “That’s true. Perhaps I’ll get ready for bed.”

  He thought about her stripping off her clothes, climbing naked into bed, all that thick chestnut hair spread across her pillow. “What are you wearing?”

  She laughed again, but there was still a melancholy lilt to her tone. “Sweats.”

  “What color?”

  “Gray.”

  “Bet you look hot in those gray sweats.”

  Another laugh, lighter this time. “Hot wouldn’t be the word that springs to mind.”

  He had to close his eyes against the image that filled his head. He envisioned Beth in tight fitting sweats that showcased her soft, firm ass. “Do you have a hands-free phone?”

  “Yes.”

  Good. Now she sounded wary, but a hint of humor edged around her reply.

  “Take it up to your bedroom.”

  She didn’t say anything, but seconds later the background chatter went silent and he realized she’d turned off the TV. There was a light rustling as she walked upstairs.

  “I’m in my bedroom.”

  Hell. He couldn’t believe he was doing this. It wasn’t the first time he’d indulged in phone sex, but that was usually after he’d enjoyed the real thing once or twice with the woman. Yet here he was about to put himself through the misery of being out of touching distance with Beth, while he instructed her to do to herself the very things
he damn well ached to do to her in person.

  “Sit on the bed.”

  Seconds later, “I’m sitting.”

  “Okay.” Shit, he had to take a minute. His pulse had started to race and heat soared through his bloodstream. “Put down the phone and take off your top.”

  Silence. Then, “Done.”

  His cock pushed against the seam of his jeans. “Take off your pants. Slowly.”

  He thought he heard her breath hitch, but it might have been his. As instructed, she took longer this time and he hoped to hell she wasn’t about to back out.

  “They’re off.”

  Blood raced in his veins. “Are you naked?”

  “Not quite. I still have panties on.”

  Fuck. “What colour?”

  “White.”

  He had an image of her. All that milky skin with only white panties covering her mound. “Describe them.”

  She drew in a breath. “They’re plain white, with lace around the edges. High legged and they come to just below my navel.”

  “Put your fingers between your legs.” When she didn’t answer, he prompted, “Beth?”

  “I’m here. And I’ve done as you said.”

  “Are you damp?”

  “Yes.”

  Holy hell. “Lie back on the bed.”

  A rustle, a creak. “I’m lying back.”

  He jolted as he thought someone called his name from the bar, then damn near cried with relief when he realized he’d been mistaken. He had to take a couple of steadying breaths.

  “Marco?”

  “Is your hair down?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Take off your panties.”

  She must have kept the phone to her ear because he heard her jerky breaths as she disposed of the panties, then a sigh as he assumed she lay back against the sheets.

  Marco glanced through the door crack, then pushed the door closed and turned his back to it. If they needed any help in the bar, they could damn well swing for it until he was through with Beth. “Are you naked now?”

  He heard her swallow. “Yes. Completely.”

  “Left or right handed?”

  “Right.”