The Venetian One-Night Baby. Melanie Milburne

swung her slim legs over the edge of the bed. She padded over to the bar fridge and opened it, the light spilling from inside a golden shaft against her long shapely legs.

      ‘Hair of the dog?’ Max injected a cautionary note in his tone.

      She closed the fridge and held up a chocolate bar. ‘Nope. Chocolate is the best hangover cure.’

      He shrugged and turned back to his laptop. ‘Whatever works, I guess.’

      The sound of her unwrapping the chocolate bar was loud in the silence. Then he heard her approaching from behind, the soft pfft, pfft, pfft of her footsteps on the carpet reminding him of a stealthy cat. He smelt the fragrance of her perfume dance around his nostrils, the sweet peas and lilacs with an understory of honeysuckle—or was it jasmine?

      ‘Is that one of your designs?’ She was standing so close behind him every hair on the back of his neck lifted. Tensed. Tickled. Tightened.

      ‘Yeah.’

      She leaned over his shoulder, some of her hair brushing his face, and he had to call on every bit of self-control he possessed not to touch her. Her breath smelt of chocolate and temptation. In the soft light her skin had a luminous glow, the creamy perfection of her skin making him ache to run his finger down the slope of her cheek. He let out the breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding and clicked the computer mouse. ‘Here. I’ll give you a virtual tour.’ He showed her the presentation he’d been working on for a client, trying to ignore the closeness of her body.

      ‘Wow...’ She smiled and glanced at him, her head still bent close to his. ‘It’s amazing.’

      Max couldn’t tear his eyes away from the curve of her mouth. Its plump ripeness, the top lip just as full as the lower one and the neat definition of the philtrum ridge below her nose. He met her gaze and something in the atmosphere changed. The silence so intense he was sure he could hear his blood pounding. He could certainly feel it—it was swelling his groin to a painful tightness. He put his hand down on hers where it was resting on the desk, holding it beneath the gentle but firm pressure of his. He felt her flinch as if his touch electrified her and her eyes widened into shimmering pools of cornflower blue.

      The tip of her tongue swept over her lips, her breath coming out in a jagged stream. ‘Max...’ Her voice was whisper soft, tentative and uncertain.

      He lifted her hand from the desk and toyed with her fingers, watching every micro-expression on her face. Her skin was velvet soft and he was getting off thinking about her hands stroking his body. Stroking him. Was she thinking about it? About the heat they generated? About the lust that swirled and simmered and sizzled between them? She kept glancing at his mouth, her throat rising and falling over a series of delicate swallows. Her breathing was uneven. He was still seated and she was standing, but because of the height ratio, he was just about at eye level with her breasts.

       But the less he thought about her breasts the better.

      Max released her hand and rose from the desk chair in an abrupt movement. ‘Go back to bed, Sabrina.’ He knew he sounded as stern as a schoolmaster but he had to get the damn genie back in the lamp. The genie of lust. The wicked genie that had been torturing him since he’d foolishly kissed Sabrina three weeks ago.

      ‘I was sound asleep in bed before you started tapping away at your computer.’ Sabrina’s tone was tinged with resentment.

      Max let out a long slow breath. ‘I don’t want to argue with you. Now go to—’

      ‘Why don’t you want to argue with me?’ Her eyes flashed blue sparks. ‘Because you might be tempted to kiss me again?’

      He kept his expression under lockdown. ‘We’re not doing this, Sabrina.’

      ‘Not doing what?’ Her mouth was curved in a mocking manner. ‘You were going to kiss me again, weren’t you? Go on. Admit it.’

      Max gave his own version of a smile and shook his head as if he was dealing with a misguided child. ‘No. I was not going to kiss you.’

      She straightened her shoulders and folded her arms. ‘Liar.’

      Max held her gaze, his body throbbing with need. No one could get him as worked up as her. No one. Their verbal banter was a type of foreplay. When had it started to become like that? For years, their arguments had just been arguments—the clash of two strong-willed personalities. But over the last few months something had changed. Was that why he’d gone to the dinner party of a mutual friend because he’d known she’d be there? Was that why he’d offered to drive her home because her car was being serviced? There had been other people at the dinner who could have taken her but, no, he’d insisted.

      He couldn’t even recall what they’d been arguing about on the way home or who had started it. But he remembered all too well how it had ended and he had to do everything in his power to make sure it never happened again. ‘Why would I kiss you again? You don’t want another dose of stubble rash, do you?’

      Her combative expression floundered for a moment and her teeth snagged her lower lip. ‘Okay...so I might have been lying about that...’

      Max kept his gaze trained on hers. ‘You’re not asking me to kiss you, are you?’

      The sparkling light of defiance was back in her eyes. ‘Of course not.’ She gave a spluttering laugh as if the idea was ludicrous. ‘I would rather kiss a cane toad.’

      ‘Good.’ He slammed his lips shut on the word. ‘Better keep it that way.’

       CHAPTER THREE

      SABRINA STALKED BACK to her bed, climbed in and pulled the covers up to her chin. Of course she’d wanted Max to kiss her. And she was positive he’d wanted to kiss her too. It secretly thrilled her that he found her so attractive. Why wouldn’t it thrill her? She had all the usual female needs and she hadn’t made love with a man since she was eighteen.

      Not that what had happened back then could be called, by any stretch of the imagination, making love. It had been selfish one-sided sex. She had been little more than a vessel for her boyfriend to use to satisfy his base needs. She’d naively thought their relationship had been more than that. Much more. She had thought herself in love. She hadn’t wanted her first time to be with someone who didn’t care about her. She had been so sure Brad loved her. He’d even told her he loved her. But as soon as the deed was done he was gone. He’d dumped her and called her horrible names to his friends that still made her cringe and curl up in shame.

      Sabrina heard Max preparing for bed. He went into the bathroom and brushed his teeth, coming out a few minutes later dressed in one of the hotel bathrobes. Was he naked under that robe? Her mind raced with images of his tanned and toned flesh, her body tingling at the thought of lying pinned beneath him in the throes of sizzling hot sex.

      She couldn’t imagine Max ever leaving a lover unsatisfied. He only had to look at her and she was halfway to an orgasm. It was embarrassing how much she wanted him. It was like lust had hijacked her body, turning her into a wanton woman who could think of nothing but earthly pleasures. Even now her body felt restless, every nerve taut with the need for touch. His touch. Was it possible to hate someone and want them at the same time? Or was there something wrong with her? Why was she so fiercely attracted to someone she could barely conduct a civil conversation with without it turning into a blistering argument?

      But why did they always argue?

      And why did she find it so...so stimulating?

      It was a little lowering to realise how much she enjoyed their verbal spats. She looked forward to them. She got secretly excited when she knew he was going to be at a function she would be attending, even though she pretended otherwise to her family. No wonder she found joint family functions deadly boring if he didn’t show up. Did she have some sort of disorder? Did she crave negative interaction with