The Venetian One-Night Baby. Melanie Milburne

a man who was holding a camera in his lap. As if she sensed his presence, Sabrina turned her glossy honey-brown head and saw him looking at her. She raised her hand and gave him a surreptitious fingertip wave and the woman with her glanced to see to whom she was waving. The woman leaned forward to say something to Sabrina, and even from this distance Max could see the rush of a blush flooding Sabrina’s creamy cheeks.

      He figured the less people who saw him with Sabrina the better, but somehow he found himself walking towards her before he could stop himself. What had the other woman said to make Sabrina colour up like that?

      Sabrina’s eyes widened when he approached their little party and she reached for her glass of champagne and promptly knocked it over. ‘Oops. Sorry. I—’

      ‘You’re Max Firbank, the award-winning architect,’ the young woman said, rising to offer her hand. ‘I’ve seen an article about your work in one of the magazines I worked for a couple of years ago. When Sabrina said she was sharing a room with a friend, I didn’t realise she was referring to you.’ Her eyebrows suggestively rose over the word friend.

      Sabrina had stopped trying to mop up her drink with a paper napkin and stood, clutching the wet and screwed-up napkin in her hand. ‘Oh, he’s not that sort of friend,’ she said with a choked little laugh. ‘I had a problem with my booking and Max offered me his bed, I mean a bed. He has two. Two big ones—they look bigger than king-sized, you could fit a dozen people in each. It’s a huge room, so much space we hardly know the other is there, isn’t that right, Max?’ She turned her head to look at him and he almost had to call for a fire extinguisher because her cheeks were so fiery red.

      Max wasn’t sure why he slipped his arm around her slim waist and drew her to his body. Maybe it was because she was kind of cute when she got flustered and he liked being able to get under her skin for a change, the way she got under his. Besides, he didn’t know any other woman he could make blush more than her. And, yes, he got a kick out of touching her, especially after That Kiss, which she enjoyed as much as he had, even though she was intent on denying it. ‘You don’t have to be shy about our relationship, baby.’ He flashed one of his rare smiles. ‘We’re both consenting adults.’

      ‘Aw, don’t you make a gorgeous couple?’ the woman said. ‘Tim, get a photo of them,’ she said to the man holding the camera. ‘I’ll include it in the article about Sabrina’s designs. That is, if you don’t have any objection?’

      Hell, yeah. He had one big objection. He didn’t mind teasing a blush or two out of Sabrina but if his family got a whiff of him sharing a room with her in Venice they would be measuring him for a morning suit and booking the church. Max held up his hand like a stop sign. ‘Sorry. I don’t make a habit of broadcasting my private life in the press.’

      The woman sighed and handed him a business card. ‘Here are my details if you change your mind.’

      ‘I won’t.’ He gave both the journalist and the photographer a polite nod and added, ‘It was nice meeting you. If you’ll excuse us? It’s been a big day for Sabrina. She needs her beauty sleep.’

      * * *

      Sabrina followed Max to the lift but there were other people waiting to use it as well so she wasn’t able to vent her spleen. What was he thinking? She’d been trying to play down her relationship with Max to the journalist, but he’d given Naomi Nettleton the impression they were an item. She stood beside him in the lift as it stopped and started as it delivered guests to their floors.

      Max stood calmly beside her with his expression in its customary inscrutable lines, although she sensed there was a mocking smile lurking behind the screen of his gaze. She moved closer to him to allow another guest into the lift on level ten and placed her high heel on Max’s foot and pressed down with all her weight. He made a grunting sound that sounded far sexier than she’d expected and he placed the iron band of his arm around her middle and drew her back against him so her back was flush against his pelvis.

      Her mind swam with images of them locked together in a tangle of sweaty limbs, his body driving into hers. Even now she could feel the swell of his body, the rush of blood that told her he was as aroused as she was. Her breathing quickened, her legs weakened, her heart rate rocketed. The steely strength of his arm lying across her stomach was burning a brand into her flesh. Her inner core tensed, the electric heat of awakened desire coursing through her in pulses and flickers.

      The mirrors surrounding them reflected their intimate clinch from a thousand angles but Sabrina wasn’t prepared to make a scene in front of the other guests, one of whom she had seen at the cocktail party. After all, she had a professional image to uphold and slapping Max’s face—if indeed she was the sort of person to inflict violence on another person—was not the best way to maintain it.

      But, oh, how she longed to slap both his cheeks until they were as red as hers. Then she would elbow him in the ribs and stomp on his toes. Then she would rip the clothes from his body, score her fingernails down his chest and down his back until he begged for mercy. But wait...why was she thinking of ripping his clothes off his body? No. No. No. She must not think about Max without clothes. She must not think about him naked.

      She. Must. Not.

      Max unlocked the door and she brushed past him and almost before he had time to close it she let fly. ‘What the hell were you playing at down there? You gave the impression we were sleeping together. What’s wrong with you? You know how much I hate you. Why did you—?’

      ‘You don’t hate me.’ His voice was so calm it made hers sound all the more irrational and childish.

      ‘If I didn’t before, I do now.’ Sabrina poked him in the chest. ‘What was all that about in the lift?’

      He captured her by the waist and brought her closer, hip to hip, his eyes more blue than grey and glinting with something that made her belly turn over. ‘You know exactly what it was about. And just like that kiss, you enjoyed every second of it. Deny it if you dare.’

      Sabrina intended to push away from him but somehow her hands grabbed the front of his jacket instead. He smelt like sun-warmed lemons and her senses were as intoxicated as if she had breathed in a potent aroma. An aroma that made her forget how much she hated him and instead made her want him with every throbbing traitorous cell of her body. Or maybe she was tipsy from all the champagne she’d had downstairs at the party and in the bar. It was making her drop her inhibitions. Sabotaging her already flagging self-control. Her head was spinning a little but didn’t it always when he looked at her like that?

      His mouth was tilted in a cynical slant, the dark stubble around his nose and mouth more obvious now than earlier that evening. It gave him a rakish air that was strangely attractive. Dangerously, deliciously attractive. She was acutely aware of every point of contact with his body: her hips, her breasts and her belly where his belt buckle was pressing.

      And not just his belt buckle, but the proud surge of his male flesh—a heady reminder of the lust that simmered and boiled and blistered between them.

      The floor began to shift beneath her feet and Sabrina’s hands tightened on his jacket. The room was moving, pitching like a boat tossed about on a turbulent ocean. Her head felt woolly, her thoughts trying to push through the fog like a hand fumbling for a light switch in the dark. But then a sudden wave of nausea assailed her and she swayed and would have toppled backwards if Max hadn’t countered it with a firm hand at her back.

      ‘Are you okay?’ His voice had a note of concern but it came from a long way off as if he was speaking to her through a long vacuum.

      She was vaguely aware of his other hand coming to grasp her by the shoulder to stabilise her, but then her vision blurred and her stomach contents threatened mutiny. She made a choking sound and pushed Max back and stumbled towards the bathroom.

      To her mortifying shame, Max witnessed the whole of the undignified episode. But she was beyond caring. And besides, it had been quite comforting to have her hair held back from her face and to have the soft press of a cool facecloth on the back of her neck.

      Sabrina