AUBREY’S PHONE RANG. Video call from Jessica.
She nibbled on her bottom lip, cocked an ear, heard the shower still running.
She wrapped herself in a sheet, rolled onto her tummy, set up her phone on the pillow and answered. Waited for Jessica’s sweet face to centre on the screen. The sound of laughter and music blurred in the background.
“Hey!” said Aubrey. “What time is it there?”
“I’m not sure. Midnight perhaps? I’m at a party in Manhattan.”
“Wow, you animal.”
“Hardly. Jamie had a table at an industry book awards charity thing earlier tonight.”
Daisy joined the conversation, pushing Jess into a smaller space on the screen. She rubbed her eyes. “Jeez, girl, it’s ridiculous o’clock.”
“Sorry but this is important. It’s about Vivian.”
Daisy went from half asleep to focussed in half a second flat. “Our Viv? Is she okay?”
“Yes. I think so. It’s just…” Jessica leaned so close to the screen she was a nostril and half an eyeball. “There have been rumours. She signed up to write a book for Jamie’s company. An autobiography of sorts. Single woman runs the world type thing. But news just came through that she pulled out, citing ill health.”
“Oh, no!”
“Right? Except I’m not sure I believe that’s the entire story,” said Jessica. “She sent me a strange message earlier tonight.”
“Give me a sec.” Aubrey minimised their conversation. Checked her phone. There it was. A private message from Viv asking for updates. Saying how much she was enjoying Aubrey’s photographs. That it was bringing back memories of a special time she’d spent in Florence when near the same age. How lucky she was to have all three of them fall into her life.
“She doesn’t sound unwell. But she does sound…”
“Odd,” said Jessica.
At the same time Daisy said, “Like she’s been on the herbs.”
“I’ll call her later,” said Aubrey. “I’ve been in contact with her quite a bit once we figured out she was the one who’d given us our crazy gifts.”
“Super,” said Jessica. “Let us know what you find out.”
All too late Aubrey realised the shower had stopped. The door to the bathroom opened, and in came Sean, a towel draped around his waist.
He gave Aubrey a slow smile, his gaze travelling down her back. After the night spent together, she’d yet to find her shorts.
It registered somewhere far back in her brain that she was in the middle of something, but the rest was completely taken up with ogling the miles of sculpted chest and broad brown shoulders and the smattering of dark hair leading down towards his—
He crawled up onto the bed. His gaze determined. The man’s focus was unparalleled. She knew. He leaned down to press a kiss to her mouth, stopping mere millimetres from touchdown.
“Ah, hello,” said Sean, his breath sending trails of warmth over her cheek.
“Hi,” Jessica’s voice whispered from the phone.
Aubrey’s face spun to her phone to find Jessica waving, and Daisy with her mouth hanging open.
“I’m Sean,” said Sean.
“Jessica.”
“Daisy.”
Sean clicked his fingers, his face breaking into a rare smile. “Holy hell, that’s Daisy Mulligan!”
Daisy looked over her shoulder.
Sean laughed. His face creasing into a smile. An honest to goodness grin. The shape of which made Aubrey’s heart stop. Not literally of course. Been there for real. Knew the difference. More like from one beat to the next her heart was no longer quite the same as it had been before.
“Well, what do you know?” he said. “I’ve leave you to it, shall I?”
“Don’t leave on our account,” Daisy said, while Sean shot Aubrey a look, making sure she knew there would be hell to pay once she got off the phone.
She watched him walk away, his towel slipping a smidge so she could just see the rise of his glorious butt cheeks over the top.
“Who on earth was that?” Daisy asked, twisting her face as if trying to see around the edge of the phone.
“Him? Just some guy I picked up in a museum.”
As she said the words she regretted them. Jokes aside, it just felt…wrong. He wasn’t some guy. He was Sean. Malone. A man she’d wanted to hold, and kiss, and unravel more than she’d wanted to do those things with another living person in the history of her life.
“No, he’s not,” said sweet Jess, looking highly affronted. “He’s the wood guy. The one you looked up online!”
“Oh,” said Aubrey. “The wood guy. I thought he looked familiar.”
Daisy snorted. “Well, he looks fine in a towel, which isn’t to be sneezed at.”
“To think,” said Jess, “when I travel I lose my luggage and get my phone stolen.”
While Daisy said, “Look at you.”
“Who, me?” Aubrey queried.
“You’re all flushed and floopy and…dare I say smitten?”
Aubrey frowned. “Pfft. Not smitten. Just appreciative. Of the man’s…bits. And ways. And talents. And all that stuff.”
“Well, you look happy, which is lovely. It’s all either of us want for you. Just…” Jess leaned into the phone to whisper. “I hope you are being…safe.”
Aubrey got the implication, but she hid it well. Holding her chin, looking confused as she said, “Safe? Whatever do you mean?”
“I mean I hope you were…protected.”
“Protected from…”
“Pregnancy! STDs! Did you use condoms?” Jess stated, then sat back and glared at the phone. “There. I said it. Happy now?”
“God, Mum,” Aubrey moaned, “you can be so embarrassing sometimes.”
Daisy laughed so hard she fell out of the screen.
Aubrey hoped her grin held up. The moment Jessica had yelled pregnancy her insides had twisted in a way they hadn’t for days. Not that she could explain it to them. She’d yet to fill them in on the news from her doctor, feeling that once her girls knew it would make it really real.
“On that note, gotta go,” said Daisy. “Get back to the party, Jess. See what you can find out about Viv, Aubrey.”
“Will do.”
Aubrey blew them both kisses then hung up. Laid back. Shook off the malaise the word “pregnancy” might well always and for evermore cause to descend over her, and stretched her beautifully achy body from head to toe.
This was lovely. This was good. This was something she could still take into her new normal. For while it had been some time since she’d salsa’d—horizontal or otherwise—the man’s athleticism knew no bounds.
But they had been safe. The first time. And the second. Though it was a bit of a blur as it had morphed, blissfully, wildly, and more than a little naughtily into the third. But yep, yep, yep—safety first.
She was naturally small, with frenetic levels of energy, her periods had always been irregular, and the meds she’d been on kept her weight right down, which had made her cycle near non-existent. Add all the other drugs that had been pumped into her, the coma, the damage—her system was in recovery, and might be for a long time.
She’d taken it all as best a person could. Stubbornly refusing to let it break her.
Hearing, from her beloved psychologist, that despite her recovery, she was to prepare herself for a life in which motherhood, conception, and carrying a child were not on the cards had been brutal. That had broken her. Snapped her in two. She’d researched. Tried negotiating with her doctors. Sought second opinions. And sobbed. For weeks.
Then one day she’d woken up and made plans. To be in love with her life. Every minute of it.
She ran a finger over the ridges of the tattoo, one that Sean knew about, then lifted her fingers to trace the tattoo he did not. Both inked in the sweet spot of time between removal of her pacemaker and just before starting her “vitamins”, the blood-thinning meds she was still on today.
Aubrey glanced up to make sure Sean was still out of the room, then she leaned over the edge of the bed, grabbed her backpack, riffling through one of the many pockets till she found her angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors.
Her doc had said she could stop before she left. But then he’d wanted her to wait around to see how she went. They’d compromised, her dose as low as it could be. A weaning of sorts, from old life, to fully new.
Yep, she was being super-safe.
* * *
By the time they roused themselves to actually leave the house, the team had already arrived. Sean whistled and Elwood uncurled himself from his bed in the cool corner of the kitchen and followed him down to the workshop.
Hans quickly turned the music down and four pairs of eyes landed on Sean. Edgy. Hopeful. Trying to decipher if he was the old Sean, or the one who’d shown up the day before. Without Aubrey there to facilitate, Sean didn’t have the language to answer.
“Can you guys watch Elwood today? I’m heading into the showroom. Not sure when I’ll be back.”
Flora nodded and answered for the group. “Of course, boss.”
Sean turned to leave, only for his feet to screech to a halt as Angelina called out, in Italian, “Tell Aubrey the gelateria near the Ponte alla Carraia is the best. A bit of a walk but worth it.”
He glanced over his shoulder to see Flora glaring at her sister, who shrugged back.
“She’s still here, right?” Angelina stage-whispered, as ingenuous as Flora was calculating. “We all saw her earlier.”
Old Sean would have frowned and walked away. Not played into the drama. Instead, he gave Angelina a smile and said, “Ponte alla Carraia?”
“Sì.”
“I’ll let her know. Grazie.”
And as soon as he left the room, all four of his crew burst into laughter, the music turned up nice and loud and they got to work.
Once back upstairs he found Aubrey tying up a sandal, her foot on a chair. An early model he’d made in the first year he’d lived in the city. Delicate, diagonal arm rests. Not good enough to sell, but beautiful enough to lead him to the next design that did. In the thousands.
Her hair was tied back in a short ponytail with a big scarf. She’d changed into clothes she must have had in her backpack. Dark denim shorts that showed off every inch of leg. A white T-shirt with I’m With the Band scrawled across the front, tied in a knot at her waist. Sandals that twisted up her calf like a Roman soldier’s.
Her skin—lightly gilded by the Florentine sun—was shiny with sunscreen. Such an Australian thing to see.
She grinned at him before biting down on a peach she’d nabbed from the bowl on the bench.
“God, you’re cute,” she said, giving him a lazy once-over.
Sean looked down at his loafers, knee-length khaki shorts, and linen button-down rolled up to the elbows. “Okay.”
She sauntered away from the chair, snuck up onto her tiptoes, and grabbed him by the chin, bringing him down for a kiss.
She tasted of toothpaste and peaches and sunshine and sex.
And Sean’s mind spun from it.
“You promised me primo tourist stuff. So let’s go, boyo.” She slung her backpack over her shoulder, the lip closed tightly, for now, and made her way down the stairs towards the informal entrance.
Sean blinked, once again wondering how on earth he’d ended up there. With an impudent, effervescent woman with the most voluptuous ability to seek out joy. She knew Daisy Mulligan, for Pete’s sake! Daisy Mulligan, who’d met him while he was wearing nothing but a towel.
Carly would have loved that. He pictured her eyes growing comically wide, as if he’d just told her of his meeting with an actual rock star. If she’d only stuck around long enough to hear it.
“Time waits for no man!” Aubrey called, her voice wafting up from below.
Sean ran a hand over his face, collected himself, called, “Jeez, woman! Give me a minute.”
A beat went by before her head popped around the corner of the landing. “You might think I would be offended by that tone, but you should know it actually has me considering forgoing the Uffizi right now, just so I can drag you back to bed.” A moment, then, “You are taking me to the Uffizi, are you not?”
“Of course I’m taking you to the Uffizi.”
She punched the air, then jogged back down the stairs, her voice carrying behind her. “If you don’t hurry I might start doodling pictures on your car!”
He laughed, and ran a hand over the back of his neck.
It would behove him to keep the words he’d heard her say to her friend on the phone—just some guy I picked up in a museum—on a loop in his head.
He knew she’d been joking. But there was a truth to it all the same. A truth to hold onto.
* * *
“Shall we get a table?”
“It’s cheaper if you drink your coffee at the counter,” said Sean, nodding at the barista as he got his change for their espressos.
“Seriously? Ha. That’s awesome.”
Aubrey glanced at the barista, who shot her a flirtatious smile and said, “Sì. Sei Australiano?”
“Sì,” she said, in affected Italian, smiling back.
While the barista set to making their coffees, Sean fought the urge to drag her out of the café and find coffee elsewhere.
Just some guy I picked up in a museum, he reminded himself.
She was here in Florence on borrowed time. A world trip lay ahead of her. Late the night before she’d told him her plans to ride a camel in Egypt, walk the Great Wall of China, visit Jim Morrison’s grave. About how she’d met Vivian Ascot and the unexpected gift that had led her there.
She would meet people along the way. Many, many people. Collecting them like ticket stubs.
The barista said, “Signorina?”
She turned to grab their coffees, curtsied her thanks, leaving Sean to muse that Carly would have been smitten by her.
Dammit. He hadn’t thought about his sister this much since when it all first happened.
When Aubrey passed him his drink he downed it in one, the fresh brew scorching the back of his throat enough that he coughed.
“Are you okay?” she asked, patting him on the back.
“I thought we didn’t ask that.”
Aubrey blinked. “You don’t. I can ask whatever I want.”
He shot her a look, to find her face was sincere. Sincerely adorable. From her upturned lips to her wide whisky eyes, it was a face he enjoyed looking at very much. A face he’d miss when it was gone.
That face broke into a smile, as if she knew exactly what he was thinking.
“Drink up,” he growled. “I’m taking you to the Ponte Vecchio.”
“Yes! Quick, quick, quick.” She sipped and sipped until she’d downed the coffee, then thanked the barista, who gave her another smouldering look.
“Sorry,” she said, pointing at Sean with her thumb. “I’m with him.”
Then shooting Sean a wink, she led him out of the café.
* * *
Two carabinieri—Italian police—lounged against the railing at the entrance to what had to be one of the most famous bridges in the world, chatting to tourists.
“Are they for real?” Aubrey said, gaping.
“What?” Sean asked.
“The knee-high black boots, fitted black pants, the hats sitting jauntily on the backs of their heads; they look like Italian Chippendale dancers. I have to get a picture.”
She ran up to the pair, waited till they’d finished giving instructions to the tourists before her, and then motioned the international signal for selfie.
Grinning, they held out their arms and welcomed her. She snuggled in between them, imagining how Daisy and Jessica and Viv would love the picture.
“Here,” said Sean sidling up to them. “Let me.”
Handing over her phone, she splayed her now spare hands at her sides, imagining it looked as if she were gripping the young police officers’ thighs. By the twitch in Sean’s cheek as he took the photo she figured she was right.
“Grazie,” she said, when they were done.
Both men doffed their caps and said, “Prego.”
She ambled over to Sean, who was holding out her phone. “What?”
He herded her onto the bridge proper. “I didn’t say a thing.”
“And yet I can feel it. The waves of jealousy pouring off your skin. You have nothing to worry about. I am all yours. Here.” She reached out and wrapped her hand around his.
He looked down at it, as if it was something entirely foreign.
And she felt a sudden wash of vulnerability. Heat flashing along her cheeks at the very real fear he give her a look that said, Honey, that’s not what we are.
Instead he shifted his grip so that he held her more fully, then looked ahead, along the bridge, and began to walk.
Relief flooded through her, brisk and cool. And disturbing. So they’d slept together. In between splendiferous bouts of not sleeping together. But nothing had changed. Not really. They were still ships passing in the night.
“See those tunnels above?” Sean said.
Aubrey pretended she’d been listening, not having a quiet panic. “Mm hmm.”
“That’s called the Vasari Corridor. Built by the Medici family, so that they could cross the river on horseback high above the rest of the riff-raff. The bridge itself used to be the place to find a good butcher, but the Medicis didn’t like the smell, so they moved in jewellers instead, and that’s how it remains today.”
“Did you know all that, Malone? Or did you do some research some time over the past twelve hours, knowing you were bringing me here?”
Sean’s pause told her all she needed to know.
She took her hand and slid it into his elbow, snuggling herself tighter. And he let her. She felt a little bittersweet as they ambled along the bridge, pausing to window-shop. And to talk to anyone who caught Aubrey’s eye. She loved finding out where people were from, why they’d chosen Florence of all the places in the world to visit, and what one thing she had to see before she left.
In one jewellery shop a single chair sat in one corner, with what looked like a real fur pelt draped dashingly over the corner. Aubrey ducked inside, went straight up to the chair and checked the back to find the mark she was looking for.
“I knew it! It’s a Malone! Did you know this was a Malone chair?” she asked the young woman behind the counter, who gave her a surprised smile.
“Mi scusi?”
Sean moved in, his hands going to Aubrey’s shoulders as he attempted to herd her away. “It’s a reproduction. A wholesale piece. Likely picked up from a furniture store in town.”
“Well, it’s still lovely.”
“Thank you. I try.”
“He’s Malone,” said Aubrey. “He designed that chair.”
The young woman’s gaze moved to Sean and stopped. “Sei Malone?”
Sean answered in fast, furious, dashing Italian while the more he said, the more the sales assistant swept her hair behind her ear and nibbled her lip and generally gave every indication she might be about to melt into a puddle of lust on the floor.
Huh. If Sean was trying to get her back for the barista, and the carabinieri, then he succeeded. An achy discomfort had swept over her. Which was nonsensical. This was a holiday thing. Which would cease any moment. In fact, she might choose to move on to Rome the very next day, meaning, in all likelihood, she’d never see him again.
Rather than that make her feel better, the achy discomfort only heightened.
“I think it’s a sign,” Aubrey interjected, “that I need to buy something from this shop. A souvenir to remind me of my days here. So I don’t ever forget the time I went to Florence.”
Sean laughed. A soft sound of complete understanding. His stunning, darkly handsome face shifting into something infinitely lovely as he indulged her utter lie. She’d never forget. This place or him. And he was self-aware enough to know it.
“She likes you,” Aubrey said. “You can get her number if you’d like, for when I’m gone.”
The smile disappeared. His eyes hardened. “Thanks, but I’m fine.”
Aubrey held up her hands in submission, before pretending to check out the wares. Her mind was buzzing. Her skin felt too tight. And it wasn’t the heat. Or her heart. At least not the ball of gristly muscle keeping her alive.
She quickly found something—a small gold ring in the shape of a flower—and paid the sales assistant—a delightful girl named Sasha, who was an only child from a tiny little town in northern Chianti, who worked in the shop while studying commerce at university—before finding Sean outside the shop, hands loose in the pockets of his shorts, leaning against a lamp post, watching the world go by. Nose tipped to the sky, he was soaking up the sunshine on his face as if it had been a long time since he’d noticed there was a sun at all.
He turned, his face relaxed, content. “You good?”
And the superficial ache that had come over her earlier shifted and settled, deep inside. Was she good? Not so much. In fact she believed she might be in quite a bit of trouble.
But she nodded. No need to worry the man.
He held out his elbow. She slid her hand back into the crook.
Things remained quiet as they continued along the bridge. Till another carabiniere strolled past. Aubrey might have sighed.
And Sean chuckled. “Wait till you get to Vatican City. Their uniforms were designed by Michelangelo himself.”
Vatican City. Could you imagine? Only she’d have to leave this place to get there. Which was what she wanted. Most of all. To see everything. To open herself up to new experiences so that she might be able to put her old dream behind her and create a new one.
“Now you’re just trying to make me self-combust with lust,” she joked.
“You do know that’s my new mission in life,” he said, his voice a low rumble.
She tripped over nothing. Pretended there was a loose paver on the roadway.
Sean’s laughter was real. Deep. All hers. And she knew she wasn’t going anywhere. Not yet. The Vatican could wait.
Their night together didn’t have to be a one-off. Or a three-off, to be fair. She could handle a little more of this, of him, before heading off into the sunset, alone. Couldn’t she?
“You can stop the foreplay you know,” she said, removing her hand and moving to walk backwards in front of him. Flirtatious. Fun. Keeping things light.
“Is that what this is?” he asked.
And shivers skittered down her neck and into the backs of her knees. “Just take me to the big show, Malone. I need the Uffizi, now, please.”
“Done.”
“Woohoo!” And as they headed towards the famous museum, Aubrey kept her little shopping bag in the hand nearest him. Figuring it best to keep her hands to herself. For now.
* * *
Aubrey was like a cat on a hot tin roof on the walk to the Uffizi Gallery, chatting ten to the dozen and keeping just out of reach.
When all Sean wanted to do was touch her. Fix her scarf before it fell out of her hair. Hold her backpack. Duck into any one of the dark alcoves they passed and kiss her till her hands gripped his shirt in order to stay upright.
“I have to find The Birth of Venus. It was commissioned by one of the Medici family for their cousin, did you know? Mine’s lucky to get a text on his birthday. And Caravaggio’s Medusa. My first ever commission was painting my version of the Medusa on the bonnet of my boyfriend’s beat-up Corolla.”
“You’ve done your research too, it seems.”
“I had a bit of spare time up my sleeve of late. Reading about all the places I could visit kept me sane.”
“Then why did you let me go on and on about the bridge?”
“I like your face when you talk about this city. You’re so serious most of the time, but when you forget to brood, when you actually start to enjoy yourself, you become quite animated.”
“I do not.”
“Okay.” A few beats slunk by. Then, hovering closer, she murmured, “You’re like a little kid, pointing out all the things he wants for his birthday.”
With a growl Sean took his chance, finding her hand and twirling Aubrey back into his arms. She laughed as she grabbed onto him. Such easy release. And now he had her, her hand slid over his shoulder and into the back of his hair, the other curled around a button on his shirt.
He wondered if she even knew how she curled into him. Locking herself into place. As if once she had him she didn’t want to let go.
“One of these days,” said Sean, his voice a low growl, filled with heat and want and all the possessive feelings she brought out in him, “you will mock me one time too many, then look out.”
Something flickered behind her eyes. Something wrong. Sean moved to assure her he was kidding, that he’d never hurt her, when he realised that wasn’t her concern.
One of these days, he’d said. As if she were sticking around. When she’d been at great pains to make it very clear she had miles to go before she slept.
Which was the only reason he’d let her in. Let her deep. So fast.
Because when she left it would not be a shock. It was a given. Built in.
He reached up and ran a thumb over the creases above her nose. “You can relax, Trusedale. I am well aware that one day I will wake up and you’ll be gone. And that my life will have to go on as it did before, only with a you-sized hole in it.”
Blink. Blink-blink.
She took longer than usual to compose herself, but her chin did finally lift. “Good. Because that’s exactly how it’s going to happen. Though I’ll probably get my foot caught in a sheet, and make a right ruckus when I hit the floor, busting my knee. So you’ll have to pretend you’re asleep, okay? So as to allow me to limp out the door with a modicum of grace.”
“I can do that.”
“Wait, I’m not done.”
Of course not.
“You must then fall into a deep depression, for a week, maybe two, when you realise how much you do in fact miss me. But you’ll come out the other end a new man. Forged in the fires of my condescension. You name a chair after me. Perhaps a whole collection. Then—”
Sean kissed her to stop her talking.
It was the only way.
His hands to her cheeks, holding her close. He kissed her and she kissed him back. The sun warmed the back of his neck. The sounds of the crowd milling past them—all wolf whistles, and laughter—was a hazy soundtrack to the feel of the woman in his arms.
He pulled back to find her eyes fluttering open. Oaken eyes. So full of truth and heat and questions. Always with the questions.
Dangerous questions. Questions that he could not… Would not answer.
How could he whisper in her ear that she made him feel both light and full, human again, that he felt something akin to happy for the first time in years, without her misunderstanding? He didn’t have the capacity to keep this level of contentment going.
Her eyes flickered between his, searching, before she slowly let him go and took a step away. Her face unreadable, for once. Her eyes distant.
“Oh, look,” she said, breaking away.
In the nearest nook was a short tunnel, the ceiling trailing in ivy, and at the end a gate. She gave it a shake.
“Aubrey,” Sean warned, “you can’t go in there. It’s private.”
Aubrey gave the lock another jiggle and it sprung open. Her eyes, when they met his, were daring, and a little sharp, as she said, “Live a little, Malone.”
Live a little. When he’d been doing his very best to live as little as humanly possible. Stopped by how freaking unfair it was his sister no longer got the chance to live at all.
She stepped through the gate.
And it was his turn to follow her.
Into a tiny courtyard surrounded on three sides by the backs of stone buildings, typical of the area. Tins of paint were stacked under a small awning of one building. Washing hung over the railing on one. Not much in the way of beauty, pure utilitarian.
And yet Aubrey moved to a small stone wall and grabbed her sketchbook out of her backpack. Then, crouched like that, she set to copying some intricate designs etched into the stones.
“You do realise The Birth of Venus is three minutes from here,” Sean said.
“I know. But how is this not as valid? Just because some old white guy didn’t commission another white guy to carve it, what makes that picture of—?” She leaned closer, her hair falling half over her face as she got a better look.
When she sat up, her lips were caught between her teeth.
“You were saying?”
“Fine. Yes. In amongst the curlicues is the carving of a penis. But it’s still art. There’s another one. They’re everywhere.” She looked around at the buildings, the light in her eyes dancing. “Oh, my gosh, how brilliant. Do you think the people who live here know? Do you think they’ve ever noticed?”
Sean ran a hand over his face. Then coughed out a husky laugh. “You are a true original, Aubrey Trusedale.”
“I try,” she said, before going back to sketching her own version of the “art”. Focussed on that the joy of it.
And Sean figured focussing on joy just a little more, for another day or two, surely couldn’t hurt.
* * *
In bed that night Aubrey drew circles on Sean’s chest, her gaze following the glint of the delicate ring she’d bought on the Ponte Vecchio. Loving it when the ring caught on a hair and Sean flinched.
Proving he wasn’t completely unreal.
She was becoming unduly fascinated by him. There were the oodles of lust to contend with, yes. But it was his layers, his edges, his choices that really had her caught. That was what kept her spinning about his axis. Locked in his orbit.
The wondering.
One of those wonderings was how hard it might be to spin away. When the time came.
The thing she was realising was, with the luxury of time and money, there really was no rush. She hadn’t made further bookings, or set plans. Viv owned the hotel she was staying in, and when Aubrey had messaged to let her know she might stay longer than originally intended, Viv had insisted she stay as long as her heart desired.
She was travelling to follow her curiosity. To forge a new life path for herself. And right now she was curious about Sean Malone. And all the ways he could make her sigh. All the ways he made her feel so very alive.
Her senses were open as they’d never been opened before. She could see colours, pick out aromas, feel textures, enjoy sitting and breathing in a way she’d never been able to do. First because she’d been in an all fire rush to grow up, always looking forward, and then because she’d been spending every spare second trying not to die.
Or maybe it was all Sean Malone.
For all the amazing things she’d see and do on this trip, she knew she’d never forget the sound of his voice. The deep, rough burr; never raised, but often exasperated. Calling her name from another room. Murmuring on the phone. Making grand promises in her ear and then, oh, the follow through.
She might have tugged a little hard, for Sean’s body jolted beneath her touch.
Oh. She’d put him to sleep. That wasn’t going to do her any good.
Another tug and he woke with a snuffle, his head tipping to face her, brow furrowed. The moonlight pouring through his huge windows creating slashes of shadow and light across his beautiful face.
“Did you just pinch me?”
Aubrey nodded. Slowly. Then leaned over him to kiss the spot.
“You’re gonna wear me out, Aubrey Trusedale.”
“Maybe,” she said, rolling onto her back as he slowly moved over her, “but it’ll be totally worth it.”