A Ring To Claim His Legacy. Rachael Thomas
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had ever said she was beautiful before. At school taunts about her weight had followed her through each year, and as she’d turned into a teenager her mother had referred to it as puppy fat, meaning well but destroying any shred of confidence she’d had. Whatever the reason for her being plump and curvy, she’d never been able to look like her skinny cousins. Fed up with feeling sorry for herself, she’d decided to embrace what she had and, with a renewed confidence in herself, her lifelong friendship with Gavin had blossomed into romance. He was her first boyfriend and had become everything to her as she’d fallen in love. Yet even though they had been a couple for two years and had become engaged, he’d never once told her she was beautiful. As hard as she’d tried not to allow that to knock her confidence, it had, especially once their engagement had ended.
‘To the romance of the moment,’ she added to their toast, watching with a smile as his brows rose. Then without breaking eye contact he sipped his champagne. She could almost feel his body telling her he wanted her, could almost hear the words whispered on the warm evening breeze.
From the bar soft, seductive music drifted over to them, as if enticing them to make more of their moment. It was the perfect music for a slow dance with someone special. She listened and smiled sadly. She hadn’t danced with a man for so long. Gavin had stopped taking her anywhere they would have to dance, barely taking her out on proper dates in the last year of their relationship. It should have been all the warning she needed to realise that he was just going along with their families’ expectations, that he didn’t really care for her, let alone love her. But she’d been blinded by her dreams of a happy-ever-after. She would never allow herself to be that foolish again.
‘Would you care to dance?’ Marco stood up and put out his hand to her. She looked up at him, his face partially in shadow because of their secluded location.
‘But...’ She stammered for words as all sorts of thoughts rushed through her mind. What would it feel like to take his hand, to be held by him, to press herself against him? Heat surged through her, a warning if nothing else that she was far from indifferent to this man.
‘Shall we make the most of this romantic moment, this escape from reality?’ He spoke as he took her hand in his, pulling her gently to her feet, then waiting for her to come towards him.
‘How can I refuse?’
She moved in his direction and he stepped back away from their table and then turned to her, pulling her close to him. His eyes were heavy with desire and a spark of hot need that she’d never known before ignited within her.
‘So,’ he said softly as he looked down at her. ‘Are you here to escape, Imogen?’
‘Aren’t you?’
‘In truth, yes, I am.’ He held her even closer, his arms around her waist and his palms on her lower back, scorching through the elegant dress.
‘Then we should escape together.’ The words slipped far too easily from her lips and it had very little to do with the champagne. It had everything to do with the man she was moving slowly in time with to the distant music. Each move she made heightened her awareness of his strong, muscular physique beneath the stylish tuxedo. This moment wasn’t romance. This moment was pure fiction. A dream she didn’t want to wake from.
‘My sentiments exactly.’
She stopped dancing and looked up at him. She’d never felt so dainty and fragile in her life. He was well over six feet tall, but it wasn’t his height—it was the way he held her. The way he looked at her. He made her feel alive, sexy and desired. He made her feel beautiful.
* * *
Marco wasn’t at first aware they had stopped dancing. He was so consumed by Imogen he could barely think straight. Holding her in his arms felt right. In some bizarre way she fitted like no other woman had ever done. Inwardly he swore. Playing along with this damn romance stuff was getting to him. He should just kiss her and take her to bed. Get her out of his system.
But he had all week. Time to savour this blonde beauty, time to be the kind of man he might have wanted to be if his mother hadn’t kept from him one very important fact about his father. He pushed that aside. This was his time to escape and he intended to do exactly that. He would follow Imogen’s example. One week out of his life, one week to be just Marco.
Imogen looked up at him with big blue eyes, so wide and innocent. Each deep breath she took made her breasts rise and fall, begging to be touched. If he held her really close she’d be in no doubt how much he desired her right now, but something was holding him back. He had no idea why, but, despite the heated lust he’d first felt as he’d seen her in the bar, he didn’t want to kiss her—not yet anyway.
As thoughts of restraint rushed through the desire-clouded fog of his mind, Imogen moved in his arms, bringing her so close that she must know the effect she was having on him. A deep, throaty growl escaped him as she lowered her head, averting her face from him. He wanted nothing more than to lift her chin, make her look into his eyes and then cover her full lips with his. She looked up at him, as if knowing what he wanted, what he needed. The fight for restraint raged and by some miracle he only allowed himself to brush his lips lightly over hers.
It was enough. The touch tape of passion had been lit. Now it was only a question of how long the fuse would be before the inevitable explosion. Usually he craved instant gratification when he kissed a woman, not wanting to get caught up in the emotional warfare of anything remotely like courtship, but Imogen was different. This place was different. In a bid to escape his family, his reality, he was different.
If he was his usual self, he knew that once he kissed a woman passionately she would be in his bed that night. But not this time. For the first time he wanted to savour the moment, enjoy the mounting anticipation of kissing her properly, of caressing her sexy body, of finally making love to her.
He had one week here on the island, just as she did. What would it be like to make the moment last that long? What would it be like to romance her, court her—before the inevitable conclusion? Damn it. Imogen’s talk of romance must have got to him.
‘Are you busy tomorrow?’ His voice cracked into a hoarse whisper as he moved back from her, away from the temptation to plunder her mouth. Right now she looked so kissable, so very sexy, it was almost more than he could bear. He had no idea where his restraint was coming from or what was driving it, but right now it was just what he needed.
‘No.’ Her whisper was husky and told him so much, told him she wanted him as much as he wanted her, that she too was fighting the tug of war between passion and restraint.
He smiled and brushed his lips lingeringly over hers. As desire erupted inside him like the roar of a lion he whispered against her lips, ‘I’d like our moment of escape to go on for a little longer than just tonight.’
‘I’d like that too.’ He knew she was smiling. Her eyes sparkled as she looked into his and just when he thought he couldn’t take it any more her eyes fluttered closed and her lips pressed against his. Soft and yielding, they tempted him, but he forced himself to return the light kiss, held on to his restraint as if his life depended on it as he avoided the kiss becoming demanding and hard. He wanted her in his bed, crying out as passion consumed them—but not tonight.
This moment out of time, this dalliance with the kind of romantic ideas he’d always locked out of his life, had come at the perfect time. Everything else in his life was falling apart, threatening who he really was, and Imogen, a beautiful blonde, had slipped into his life. What better distraction than the woman who seemed as intent on escape as he was?
‘I will bid you goodnight.’ He pulled away from her, his body aching with unquenched desire. If he wanted this moment to last all week he had to walk away now. If he didn’t let her go he wouldn’t be truly escaping from everything he now knew he was.
IMOGEN HAD BEEN shocked by the way Marco had made her