Learning to Trust

by Lynne Connolly

  She bit her lip. He’d rather be biting it for her. “There’s the Romeo. That’s supposed to be really good. Five-star.”

  “Sounds good.” But as he gazed at her, an idea came to him. He knew she intended to run away, perhaps as soon as she returned to her lodgings. He could read it in her, see it. He’d noticed it before, when she left New York and then, to his cost, he’d ignored it. He wouldn’t ignore it this time.

  They exited the soulless room without a backward glance. The elevator was fuller this time, and they traveled down in silence. He glanced at her once and they shared a smile. Her little trick in the lobby would backfire on her; he’d see to that.

  When the elevator doors opened, he grabbed her hand and tugged her out of the space, right in front of the manager. He glanced at the man, then led her to the center of the floor. Before she had time to complete her “What the f—” he’d hauled her into his arms and brought his mouth down on hers.

  His arms clamped her close and he forgot where he was, what he planned. Nothing mattered except this woman and the welcome he found in her arms. Tingles spread through him, a hyperawareness he could have done without. His lips pressed against hers, hard and demanding, and he felt her melt. Relief swept through him that she accepted him still, that he could make her do this. He slid his hand up her back, feeling for her bra and heard the suit carrier thump as it hit the marble floor. Bliss.

  She felt like nobody else he’d ever kissed. Danger prickled his nerves. When he turned his body into her he made sure she became aware of his erection, pressing hard against the thin fabric of her skirt. She tasted wonderful, and he wanted to meld their bodies together. It made it difficult to breathe, but hey, who needed air? Not when his tongue touched her mouth with a delicacy the rest of his body denied. She opened her mouth. With a groan, he shifted her weight in his arms and drove his tongue between her lips.

  Their tongues met in a touch of need, then he opened his mouth wide and ate at her. His desperation mirrored the way she met him and asked for more. Nobody and nothing meant anything anymore. He pulled at her mouth, increasing the connection between them, before he released her.

  They separated slowly, reluctantly. She stared up at him and he saw his bewilderment reflected in her eyes.

  Realization entered her gaze and she drew away. And it was then the flash happened. Then another. He didn’t know if there’d been any more. Plenty behind his eyes but he assumed that was part of the deal of kissing Lina.

  He shoved her behind him and growled, like a tiger at bay. Actually growled. She tugged his arm. “Hey. Tourists love a good picture.”

  His media sense more alert than hers, he was worried about paparazzi, but it was unlikely any of them would recognize her, or him for that matter. He wasn’t dressed in an unusual way, and she looked nothing like she used to.

  After a reluctant laugh, he turned around to face her. “I’m an idiot. Paranoid. I’m sorry.”

  “Sooo romantic!” someone crooned.

  It would strengthen his argument.

  “Holiday romance,” he suggested and shot the manager a telling glare. “Nothing else.”

  When he walked, she walked with him, towing the suit carrier. He had the sports bag in his free hand. The tourist who’d taken the photo had actually been taking a picture of his family, posed just behind them. Jon paused. “Did you take a photo of us?” He’d pretend to want to see a copy, and ask for it to be deleted.

  But the guy shook his head. “Would you like me to?”

  Jon smiled and shook his head. “No. My—girlfriend is a little camera shy before she puts her makeup on.”

  The man laughed. “Women.”

  “I thought it was beautiful,” his wife, who’d been watching them, said. “And you don’t need makeup, honey. You’re lovely as you are.”

  Lina smiled. “Thanks.”

  He hoped that made her feel better about that bastard manager’s assumption.

  At the entrance Jon stopped and confronted the manager. “Take my bill from the card I registered at checkin. You may also take fifty euros for yourself.”

  Bellini’s face cleared. “It is in the interest of us both to remain discreet.”

  Jon exited, pushing her through the open door before he followed and then he paused, bringing her to a halt. “That could have been a paparazzi, you know.”

  She grimaced. “I know.”

  “I’m not as high profile as some people, but I could be recognized. And I want to keep this visit discreet. If I stay at a top hotel, where paps hang around, I’m courting disaster.” He took her chin in his free hand. “And I don’t want to risk losing you now I’ve found you. I mean you no harm, Lina, and if you insist, I won’t tell anyone where you are or what you’re doing, but I don’t want you leaving. You’re planning to, aren’t you?”

  She let her lids droop over her eyes. “I need to feel safe.”

  “Then here’s the deal. Let me stay at your place, where nobody will find me, and I’ll promise to keep your secret, if you still want me to. If I go to the Romeo and the paps find me, I swear I’ll take you with me, say I’m here with you. Spill the whole thing.” He hated putting it like that, but he couldn’t take the risk. Addicts were unreliable at the best of times, and even if she was what the experts called a functioning addict, that is, an addict with a job and a way of life, she’d still be unreliable.

  She frowned and her mouth twisted up at one corner as she thought. Eventually she sighed. “Okay. I can see you won’t want anybody to know who you are while you’re doing this.”

  He opened the car door just before she reached it. The beep made her jump, but it didn’t stop her climbing in and shoving the suit carrier in the backseat. He got in quickly, copying her action with the sports bag. After starting the car, he backed out fast and rocketed onto the street before screeching to a halt. Someone clipped him and he swore. She sent him a grin. “You fit right in here.”

  “Thanks but no thanks. So where to? A decent hotel?” He stopped at a traffic light, shocking the man in the car behind him who leaned on his horn with insistent force. Jon prided himself that he was a fast learner. “Every day I send up a prayer that every camera phone in the world will suddenly stop working.” He stuck his head out the window and gave the man behind a New York greeting before reluctantly sending the car into action.

  “I need to be at the café for breakfast tomorrow. After the early shift, I have the rest of the day off. So I can take you around the shelters if you want.”

  His mouth firmed into a grim line. “I guess you know all the places I can find drug dealers and addicts.”

  “I do. But I don’t do that anymore.”

  “Sure you don’t.” He wanted to believe her, really wanted to, but he needed proof. He’d been burned too long, too often by someone he loved to fall into that trap. But if he didn’t believe her, he’d hurt her, perhaps destroy the tenuous trust they’d already set up.

  He’d have to take that risk.

  It still hurt, that he couldn’t take her at her word.

  It was true. She hadn’t touched anything stronger than beer or the occasional glass of wine for two years now. Not because she couldn’t, but from choice. Alcohol wasn’t her problem, had never been.

  He’d be gone soon enough, out of her life, and she could shrink back into comfortable obscurity. Maybe she should move on, anyway. She should be thankful in a way, because he was forcing her to reassess. Just as the sisters had told her. Move on, don’t look back.

  “Take a left.”

  From then on they said nothing until they reached the side street next to the café. She’d let him park in the little garage where Franco kept his battered VW. That way Jonathan’s car might still have wheels in the morning.

  She got out and fumbled for her keys, then unlocked the timbered gate and swung it open. The back part of the gate was haphazardly reinforced with metal bars, so it was heavier than it looked, but she’d done this before and she didn’t fin
d the weight a problem.

  Jonathan drove in and parked. He only just had space to exit, and they had to open the hatchback to get to his bags. She had to admit he was coping with her neighborhood remarkably well for a rich boy born with a silver spoon firmly lodged down his throat. She took care to lock the doors to the garage while he got his luggage out of his car.

  From here they could go straight upstairs. If she went the other way, she’d have to go through the café and she wasn’t up to facing Franco right now. Too shaken by the day, the kiss, her past catching up with her, she began to wonder exactly why she’d offered to put him up on her sofa. And she had a sneaking feeling he wouldn’t be spending the night there, anyway.

  Shit, she’d been celibate too long. Already the tingle of desire invaded her senses. She couldn’t lie to herself—she’d invited him here because she wanted him. Not just because the thought of the paparazzi discovering him, and thus her, terrified her.

  Leading the way up the steep staircase to the hallway increased her tension. That short skirt meant if he looked up, she was hiding very little. She didn’t know if he did, but the thought made heat roll through her in waves.

  As a result she was extra bright covering her doubts with cheery good humor, after she’d unlocked the apartment door. “Apartment” was pushing it a bit, but she’d made it comfortable, with a throw and bright pillows to cover the shabby sofa. Her books rested on the single bookshelf. She read them and passed them on, wishing for an electronic reader so she could save the space. One day, maybe.

  Not for the first time she’d felt frustration when she’d recalled her precipitate flight from New York five years before. By mutual consent, she and Byron had destroyed their checkbooks and credit and debit cards at the airport after maxing the cash they could get out in one go. They should have emptied the accounts first, planned their departure better. But they were in too much of a hurry. And too scared to think straight.

  That was then. She’d done all right since, well, for the past couple of years, anyway. Maybe she could get Jonathan to spring for a few things before he went home. She thought of the things she’d like—the reader, a nice lamp, one of those cool cookpots, and she sighed. A few years ago she could’ve bought them out of chump change. But for all that, she preferred this life, preferred her independence and the privacy she had. She wouldn’t swap it.

  She dumped the suit carrier on the sofa. “Okay?” She turned to him with a bright smile. “It’s a sofa bed, actually, so we—”

  “You want me to sleep on the sofa?” He took a step toward her and she turned suddenly breathless. “Are you sure about that?”

  “You can’t want me.” Feebly, she tried for sanity. One of them had to. “I’m all the things you despise, remember?”

  He caught her shoulders. “I thought that right up to this lunchtime. Now, not so much.”

  With insistent hands, he brought her closer within the shelter of his body and she knew it was too late to protest. Much too late when he pushed a hand under her chin, tilting it up so she couldn’t avoid the descent of his mouth. He kissed her softly at first, coaxing her to open for him. When she didn’t do it fast enough, he tugged her chin. Her temporary paralysis disappeared, melted along with her resolve.

  One taste of him, that spicy coffee flavor, and she was gone. Wanted more. He ravaged her mouth, curved his arm around her waist and dragged her close. Just as in the hotel, she lost all sense of time and place. Only he mattered, and what they were doing.

  Least of all she remembered self-preservation.

  She tore her mouth away from his, panting, and stared up at his face. His eyes had turned a stormy blue. “Are you sure?” he asked. “You want this?”

  “Here and now, yes.” Like nothing else. Wild for him, she knew if she didn’t do this now, she’d regret it for a long time to come. “Do you have protection?” She had a pack of condoms in the bathroom cabinet, but no idea if they’d passed their expiry date. But with him, she’d take the chance. She must be mad. Even knowing that, she couldn’t stop.

  Jesus, he must be mad. He thought she was still an addict. And God knew she’d been lucky when she had been an addict, but he wasn’t to know that. Probably wouldn’t believe her if she told him.

  “In my bag,” he said, and she breathed a sigh of relief. “I know this is wrong. I want to ask you things, talk to you—”

  “Later.” She grabbed his shoulders and dragged him to the bed. His laugh filled the room and sent a wild jolt of happiness through her.

  Her bed stood against the window. She liked to watch the activity outside sometimes, but not tonight. A single bed would have to work for them tonight. She had no doubt that it would. She’d covered it with the same kind of throw she had on her sofa, a throw she ripped off with indecent haste.

  He broke away. “Let me get what we need.” He strode to his bag and unzipped it, found a box of condoms. The thought crossed her mind, would he have taken the chance? Would he have had unprotected sex with her?

  She turned away. Probably not. She doubted she’d have let him, for all her desperation to get him naked.

  He cupped her shoulders. “Hey. Are you having second thoughts?” He moved her hair aside and kissed her neck. “It’s okay. I can use the sofa.”

  Lina faced him. “No. It’s not that.”

  His smile, guileless, pleased, filled her heart. No, not that. Nobody had the right to touch her heart. Sex she could do and enjoy. Nothing more.

  As if he read her mind he shook his head slightly. Then he must have decided to take what she offered and he bent his head again. Their lips clung, molded to each other as if they knew the way. After so few kisses that was quite an achievement, but she couldn’t deny her attraction, that pull she felt every time he came near her. Any more than she could deny him.

  She spread her hands over his chest, feeling the firm wall of muscle. His kisses changed to small, feverish sips at her mouth. She followed him, aching for more, but he opened his eyes and ate her with them instead. When she stepped back, her calves and thighs pressed against the sheets. Crossing her arms in front of her, she peeled off her T-shirt.

  For the past few years she’d either gone braless or worn something plain, a cheap cotton or lace bra bought from a discount store or taken from the Dumpster behind it in more desperate times. Today’s was no different, but he stared at her as if she wore the finest silk.

  She forced a smile, marveling at her attack of shyness. Perhaps because she knew she wouldn’t be the kind of woman he was used to. She’d seen his girlfriends in the past—women immaculately dressed in something extremely expensive, buffed and coiffured and polished to the extreme. Perfect.

  She used to be one of those women, but no more. A working girl now, one with aspirations to do better on her own merit, a girl just getting by. One with a sordid past. But she refused to hide, refused to compare herself with them anymore. She reached around to unclip her bra. Because of her nervousness she fumbled, but managed to loosen the hooks eventually. All the time he stared at her, his gaze boring into her body, two laser beams of desire.

  The bra fell to the floor and Jonathan stepped forward to take possession. “Jesus, you’re beautiful.”

  He swiped his tongue across one nipple. She gasped and felt the tingle as it hardened for him before he sucked it into his mouth, deep. He covered her other breast with his free hand, owned it. She wanted to lie back and just let him do what he wanted, but she also wanted to do things for and to him. At the moment she wanted to feel his lean, hard muscle under her hands, no barriers between them. But because she was a thrifty woman these days, she undid his shirt buttons carefully, remembering the two at his cuffs. He didn’t make it easy, more interested in playing and suckling, driving her wild with sensations she’d thought she’d never experience again. Not this vividly, not this desperately.

  If she didn’t have him soon, she’d die. And she’d lain close to death a couple of times in her life, so she knew exactly what i
t felt like.

  At last she had his shirt open and pushed it off his shoulders, laying claim to what she found beneath. Smooth skin, muscles that flexed and tensed with need as she explored.

  With one last kiss he straightened and stared down at her. “Why do I want you so much?”

  She shook her head. “Beats me.” Her feeble attempt at humor cracked under the strain. “But I want you twice as bad. Jonathan—”

  “Jon.”

  “Jon.” That sounded good, so she said it again. “Jon.” She grinned. “Get ’em off.”

  With a shaky laugh, he obeyed. His hands went to the fly of his jeans while she unzipped her skirt, stripped it off and tossed it across the room to the sofa. Not difficult, since this room wouldn’t have held her bathroom in the old days. Things she hadn’t thought about for years, pushed to the back of her mind returned now, mocked her with what she’d thrown away. She didn’t care; she never had. Except that she could have made herself look better for him.

  And then every thought fled except having that strong, hard cock inside her. It was beautiful, mouthwatering, a drop of moisture pearling at the tip. When she slid off her panties, she felt the evidence of her need for him in the crotch. She should put them in to soak. Years of making do, thinking of the practical mocked her, but she ignored them, ignored it all to concentrate on the best thing that had happened to her in years. She didn’t intend to forget a minute of this, a second. The memory might have to last her a long time.

  With one of his devastating smiles, he swept her up and laid her on the bed. At the last minute she remembered to tug the drapes across the window, hoping no one had seen them. They hadn’t switched on any lights, but she wanted to now, wanted to see him taking her, enjoying her. Wanted to memorize those luscious, tanned curves and planes of flesh.

  She clicked on the bedside light and tilted the shade down so it wouldn’t dazzle either of them, but she could see him. And he could see her. His gaze traveled over her body, enjoying it. He didn’t have to tell her. “So lovely. I always wondered what you looked like naked.”