Hot Summer Flings: A Spanish Awakening / The Italian Next Door... / Interview with the Daredevil. Nicola Marsh

was no fulfilment of a dream, it was a convenience and nothing more.

      ‘I have not been called a boy for some time.’

      Megan’s superior smile wilted as their glances locked; the breath snagged in her throat.

      She was not surprised. There was nothing even vaguely boyish about the man standing there. He radiated male arrogance like a force field. He was all man, all hard sinew and muscle. He couldn’t have been harder if he’d been hewn out of granite, but he wasn’t stone, he was flesh. Warm flesh.

      The tight knot of desire low in her belly tightened so viciously that she gasped, looking away to hide the desire she felt must be written all over her face.

      Emilio was a walking advertisement for masculinity and raw sex. Why was she thinking about sex, raw or otherwise?

      Panic suddenly gripped her. ‘I don’t know what I’m doing here.’ Her head came up in response to the hand on her shoulder.

      ‘Yes, you do, Megan.’

      Trapped by his dark compelling stare, she swallowed, her cheeks hot as she said in a small voice, ‘You offered me breakfast.’ The pause that followed her statement stretched her nerves to the breaking point.

      ‘So I did.’

      Relieved that he hadn’t suggested her reasons for being here were far less clear-cut or innocent, she tried to resist the pressure of the hand on her shoulder that urged her down into one of the leather upholstered chairs.

      ‘Relax.’

      He needed to stop telling her that—how on earth could she relax?

      He loosened his silk tie and slid off his jacket, flexing his shoulders as if to alleviate some unseen tension in the muscles of his neck as he flung it on a sofa. Megan watched through the inadequate protective screen of her lashes as the action strained the seams of the white shirt he wore.

      Her stomach muscles flipped and tightened another disturbing notch in response to the suggestion of restrained power and the faint shadow of body hair visible through the thin fabric.

      Was his skin that same deep burnished gold all over?

      An image flashed into her head of her fingers moving across the surface. The illusion was strong, so tactile that she had to remind herself it wasn’t real, but the tingle in her fingertips and the surge of liquid heat between her thighs were.

      Megan, appalled and ashamed by her sexual awareness of him, sucked in a deep breath as she tried to focus on what he was saying.

      ‘So what’s the verdict?’

      Flustered and embarrassed that he had caught her mentally undressing him and worse, Megan shook her head and echoed warily, ‘Verdict?’

      ‘On the apartment.’

      Megan, barely able to conceal her relief, embraced the far safer subject of the interior design with enthusiasm. ‘Oh! Very tasteful,’ she said, turning her head and seeing, not the room, but the image in her head of Emilio minus his shirt. ‘But I’m not really into the minimalist look,’ she admitted. ‘Or technology.’

      ‘What are you impressed by?’ He arched a brow. ‘A man who can cook?’

      ‘You can cook?’

      The shock in her voice drew a laugh from Emilio. ‘I will let you be the judge of that,’ he said, rolling up his sleeves to reveal hair-roughened sinewy forearms.

      It was clear that Emilio knew his way around a kitchen. As she watched him Megan found herself wondering how well he knew his way around other places. Was he equally skilful in the bedroom? she wondered, watching as he whipped the eggs he had cracked into a bowl.

      Shocked and ashamed at the direction of her thoughts, she lowered her gaze and wondered what was happening to her.

      ‘You don’t have to do this, you know. A coffee and a pastry or something would be fine.’

      ‘I know I don’t have to do this. I want to do this, and coffee and a pastry?’ He snorted scornfully. ‘I hope that is not your idea of a meal.’

      ‘I don’t have a lot of time for food.’

      ‘You should make time for the important things in life.’

      ‘I used to eat out quite a lot at a little place near where I live, but not so much since Josh—’ She gave a sigh. Life was a lot duller and quieter since her flatmate and best friend had decided to do a stint with an aid agency.

      Her expression softened as she recalled his embarrassed response when she had said how much she admired his decision to quit his job to work in a Third World country.

      Paying his debt to society and easing his conscience, he’d said, before he sat back and drew his fat consultant’s pay cheque.

      She jumped, startled by the loud clatter that came from the kitchen area.

      ‘Sorry, I dropped it,’ Emilio said, putting the stainless-steel implement he had just picked up off the floor into the dishwasher.

      A hard light of steely determination shone in his eyes as he began to whip the egg whites. It was his intention that, not only would Megan not smile dreamily when she thought about her ex, she would forget he ever existed!

      Megan watched as he beat the hell out of the eggs. The annoyance on his face seemed pretty out of proportion with the incident to Megan, but then who knew? Maybe he was a bit of a diva in the kitchen.

      It was half an hour later when Megan sat back in her seat and gave a sigh as she licked the butter from her fingertips. ‘You can cook. That was delicious.’

      ‘It was only eggs.’ He dismissed the feather-light creation with a self-deprecating shrug and filled her coffee cup. ‘Wait until you try my pasta al fungi porcini, and my clams have received rave reviews.’

      The smile faded from Megan’s face. ‘I’m sure they have.’

      His comment was a timely wake-up call.

      She’d been in danger of feeling special, but she was sure he made all women feel special. Maybe cooking was a tried and tested part of his seduction technique? Not that Emilio needed to feed a woman to get her into bed, she admitted bleakly.

      Emilio studied her expression with a frown. ‘What’s wrong?’

      She shook her head and avoided his eyes. ‘Nothing.’

      ‘Do not lie to me, Megan, or yourself.’

      ‘What do you mean by that?’ she flared. ‘I’m not lying,’ she contended stubbornly. ‘Thank you for the breakfast, Emilio, but I—’

      A whistled sound of irritation escaped his clenched teeth. ‘From where I’m sitting you have a problem. I think you’re in danger of developing a seriously bad relationship with food. Are you feeling guilty because you have eaten?’

      She looked at him and thought, I’m feeling guilty because I can’t look at you without thinking of you naked.

      ‘Of course not. I promise you I do not have an eating disorder.’

      ‘Not now maybe,’ he conceded. ‘But these things can be insidious.’

      ‘Food is just not that important to me.’

      ‘Food is not important to all people,’ he conceded, leaning forward as he planted his forearms on the table. ‘But you are not one of them. Eating is a sensual pleasure. You take pleasure in food because you are a sensual person. Why deprive yourself of this pleasure to fit some stereotypical image? Why fight nature?

      ‘When it comes to food, the question,’ he contended, ‘is not what time is it, it is are you hungry?’

      Megan glared at him in total exasperation. ‘Of course I’m hungry. I’m always hungry!’ she yelled.

      Didn’t