Sydney Harbour Hospital: Luca's Bad Girl. Amy Andrews

let anyone down.

      He loved women—bronzed, natural, fun-loving Australian women in particular—and they loved him. And he was a healthy adult male.

      Still, Mia intrigued him. Her resistance even more so. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t want her.

      He twisted the knob and opened the door. She wasn’t around and the light had been turned out. Sleeping room one had its door shut and he padded over to it, knocking lightly when he reached his destination.

      No reply was forthcoming. He hesitated again before gently twisting the knob and opening the door a crack—checking on her was the right thing to do.

      The sight stopped him in his tracks.

      She had fallen asleep in a semi-upright foetal position on the triple-seater couch. Her head was snuggled against the fat cushions of the sofa, her spine propped up against the squishy arm, her legs, tucked in close to her bottom, had fallen sideways to rest against the back of the couch.

      She’d taken her hair out of its clasp and it fanned around her shoulders and the couch cushions. Her feet were bare. A medical journal lay open on her chest.

      The lamp on the table beside the couch illuminated her relaxed profile in a warm yellow glow. His gaze tracked the outline of her nose, the slope of one cheekbone, the plump fullness of her mouth.

      He was satisfied to see the journal on her chest rise and fell in a regular rhythm. His eyes dropped to the white dressing covering her upper arm and he absently noted there was no fresh ooze.

      She was obviously fine.

      As he watched, a little frown wrinkled her forehead and a soft mew escaped her mouth. He wondered what she was dreaming about. Her near-death experience? The flash of a blade? The bawling of a baby?

      His question—are you sure?—from earlier?

      She mewed again and he realised he was staring at a sleeping woman who would most definitely not appreciate the attention. He left the door ajar and turned away.

      Mia was trapped in a dream she didn’t seem able to fight her way out of. It was one she hadn’t had since she’d been a little girl but it was disjointed, jumping back and forth between now and then. Between Stan and her father. Each slash of the knife through the air shunting the dream to the other person, to another time.

      Her mother was there too somewhere, holding a wrapped bundle that Mia knew was her stillborn sister. Her mother was sobbing those deep, gut-wrenching sobs that had been indelibly woven through the fabric of Mia’s life.

      She was holding her father’s hand, her little ten-year-old fingers tugging at his long ones, asking him not to go. And then Stan would yell to get back, get back as the knifepoint came ever closer.

       Daddy, don’t go. Don’t go.

       Slash. Back, get back. Slash.

       Please, Daddy, don’t go.

       Slash. Slash. Back! Get back!

       Daddy!

      ‘Daddy, come back!’

      Luca was almost at the door when he heard her cry out. Without thinking, he hurried back to her, pushed open the door and strode over to the couch as Mia cried out again, flinging her head from side to side. The journal had already fallen to the floor.

      Luca took her by the shoulders and gave her a gentle shake, mindful of her injury. ‘Mia! Mia.’

      Mia heard a voice. A different voice. And the urge to run towards it, to run away from the feelings of hopelessness, was overwhelming.

       Luca? Luca?

      ‘Mia.’ He shook her again. ‘It’s Luca. Wake up. Wake up.’

      Mia’s eyes flew open. Luca? Luca was here?

      The mellow lamplight bathed his strong masculine features, softening them—his jaw, his cheeks, his mouth—and he finally looked like that angel. She blinked away the crazy thought as tendrils of dread clung to every heartbeat.

      Mia tried to sit up but her limbs wouldn’t co-operate and her arm throbbed. ‘Luca?’

      ‘Shh,’ he murmured, the pads of his thumbs absently stroking her shoulders. Her large blue eyes reflected her confusion. ‘It’s okay, you were having a bad dream.’

      Mia nodded. ‘It was … there was …’

      ‘Your father?’

      Mia blinked up at him. He pronounced the th softly, giving the word a gentleness it hadn’t had in the dream. Her head was crowded with memories. One after the other, battering her brains and beating against the locked door to her heart.

      Old and long forgotten. Supposedly.

       She had to make them stop.

      ‘Are you okay?’ Luca asked.

      She looked at him, into eyes so deep and brown it was like falling into a well.

       He could make them stop.

      ‘Mia?’

      She shook her head. ‘Not yet.’ But she would be.

      Then she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his.

      Luca stilled at the tentative touch. He pulled back and searched her eyes. ‘Mia?’

      She shook her head and, supporting herself on her good arm, leant in close, locking her gaze with his. ‘Kiss me,’ she murmured, her mouth a whisper from his.

      In fact, she was close enough that Luca could almost feel those two little words branding his lips from the sudden heat rising between their bodies. He dropped his gaze to her mouth—so near, so luscious—and he was instantly hard.

      ‘What happened to not wanting to be a notch on my bedpost?’

      ‘Stan,’ she muttered.

      After that Luca wasn’t sure who closed the hair’s-breadth between them. But he did seize control.

      His mouth opened over hers and demanded she follow suit. And follow him she did, opening to him eagerly. He thrust his tongue into her mouth and the little whimper at the back of her throat implored him to keep going.

      He tunnelled his hands into her hair, angling her head back to accommodate more, and the kiss escalated. Got deeper, wetter, hotter. His body moved over hers, forcing her knees down, crowding her back against the cushions, imprisoning her against the couch, her head falling back over the arm.

      His hand brushed the side of her breast and she moaned deep and low. He drew it lower, to her waist, her hip as his mouth broke from hers to ravage her neck, stretched out before him, the pulse at the base beating as madly as his own.

      Mia felt the memories disappear into the ether as a veritable storm of sensations swept through her body.

       Yes, yes, yes.

      ‘Yes,’ she cried out as Luca licked along her collar bone. ‘Yes,’ as he nipped at the base of her neck. ‘Yes,’ as his hand squeezed the exact spot where, beneath her jeans, butt met thigh.

      One-handed, she pulled his polo shirt out of his jeans and ruched it up his back, his skin hot and vibrant beneath her palm. She kept pulling till it was past his shoulders and gave a triumphant cry when Luca ducked his head through the opening and she pulled it off him entirely.

      His smooth chest was totally bare to her touch and she pressed a kiss to a flat brown pec, then his collarbone, then the hollow at the base of his neck.

      She breathed him in, his scent intoxicating. Potent. Virile. Male. It filled up her senses. Like a drug.

      And left her wanting more.

      He claimed her mouth