The Wedding Party Collection. Кейт Хьюит

* *

      Trig had set his laptop up at the table by the time Lena emerged from the shower, scrubbed pink and wrapped in a fluffy white towel. She rifled through her suitcase, but couldn’t seem to find whatever she was looking for.

      ‘What was I thinking?’ she grumbled, and disappeared back into the bathroom with a little grey T-shirt and a pair of yellow-and-white-striped boy-leg panties in hand.

      Trig sent up silent thanks for small mercies given that she hadn’t dropped towel in front of him, and went back to surfing the net for local news, more specifically what had been happening in the port city of Bodrum on Turkey’s southwest coast. It killed the time. It could prove useful. And it gave him something to do while Lena prepared for bed.

      Because Lena preparing for bed involved her sitting on the bed and applying scented lotion to every millimetre of visible skin. It involved the brushing of hair—and working gently around the bump on her head and it involved the gentle lift and fall of her breasts and slender arms as she wove her hair into a long loose plait that he immediately wanted to undo, much like the imaginary ribbon nightgown that he also wanted to undo.

      Eventually, Lena slid between the sheets, but she didn’t lie down and the torture continued. She had pillows to divvy out and covers to turn down and Trig had no idea what was in the email he’d just read.

      ‘Will you be much longer?’ she asked, and he looked up to find her looking at him, her glorious grey-blue eyes full of silent entreaty.

      He could be misreading her.

      But he didn’t think so.

      ‘Why?’ he croaked, and cleared his throat and tried again. ‘Is the light bothering you? I still have some work to get through, but I can turn off the room lights, no problem.’ Maybe he wouldn’t covet what he couldn’t see. Worth a try. ‘It’s a backlit screen. I can keep working.’

      ‘I know you said we sometimes sleep in different beds but could you come to this bed tonight when you’re done?’

      ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Sure.’ And vowed to wait until she was asleep before going anywhere near that bed and the temptation within it.

      She lay back against the pillows, with her head to one side, carefully avoiding the bump on the back of her head. She let out a little sigh that did nothing whatsoever for his calm. ‘Good?’ he asked gruffly.

      ‘Heaven.’

      ‘Close your eyes.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘I have it on good authority that you’ll sleep better if you do.’

      ‘How about a trade? I’ll close them if you come and hold me.’

      What was a husband to do?

      So he lay down atop the covers, on his side, and pushed her hair away from her face with fingers too big and clumsy for the job, but she smiled at him, so he stroked the pad of his thumb against her cheek bone, rough against silky soft and smooth, and she made a little hum of pleasure and tilted her face towards his touch.

      ‘Pretty sure I need a good-night kiss,’ she mumbled, her eyes at half-mast already. ‘You should probably get onto that before I fall asleep.’

      She was wounded. He could do this. He pressed an almost-there kiss to the very corner of her mouth. The whole thing took maybe a couple of seconds.

      ‘That’s not a kiss.’

      ‘Yeah, it is.’

      ‘It’s not a honeymoon kiss.’

      ‘The honeymoon’s on hiatus.’

      ‘Seems a shame.’

      ‘You need to get better first. Get your memory back.’ And then, technically, they needed to get married.

      ‘I can’t remember your kisses.’ She reached up and traced the curve of his lips with her fingertips. ‘I want to.’

      He’d never kissed her full on the mouth before. He’d always aimed for brotherly, and nailed it. Cheek kisses were good—they encouraged restraint. He and Lena had never practised anything but restraint when it came to kissing.

      ‘Just one,’ she murmured, her eyes grave on his.

      ‘Lena—’

      ‘It’s not every day a woman gets to repeat her first kiss.’

      ‘You can’t remember any kisses?’

      ‘Nope. First kiss. Going once... Going twice...’

      Oh, hell.

      He didn’t wait to be asked a third time. He did try and do their first kiss justice—starting slow, keeping his hunger in check. No tongue, just the press of his lips against hers and those lips of hers were warmer and more willing than he’d ever imagined, and soft...so soft...

      No tongue whatsoever until she flicked at the seam of his lips and tempted them open, and curled her tongue around his. And then he slanted his lips and deepened the kiss just a little. He tried to quieten her slick, darting tongue with the long slow slide of his as he learned her taste and committed it to memory. He tried to ignore just how well that smart mouth of hers matched his, but it fitted—it fitted so perfect and true that he lost himself for a moment, just surrendered all thought and took what he’d always wanted.

      * * *

      Lena couldn’t believe she’d forgotten this man’s kisses. Because they were everything she’d ever imagined kisses would be, from that first slow sweet slide to the all-consuming hunger that raced through her now. They’d done this before. How else could it be so perfect?

      She’d known he was a big man—her memory might be faulty but there was nothing wrong with her eyes. What she hadn’t understood was how much she gloried in his size and all that ruthlessly controlled strength looming over her. So much of him to explore and she wrenched her lips away from that too knowing mouth and set lips and teeth to his jaw instead.

      A shudder swept through him and he groaned, more responsive than she could have ever dared wish for. She turned her lips to the strong cords of his neck and he cursed, even as he urged her closer.

      ‘Now I remember why I married you,’ she whispered against his skin and he trembled some more.

      ‘Lena—’

      ‘Mmm?’

      ‘Lena, please.’ Anyone would think she was torturing him. ‘You have to stop. I have to stop. Please.’

      Oh, he begged so pretty. A hot lick of power rushed over her, and she wondered what else he might beg for. What she might demand of him if she but had the courage to ask.

      He kissed her again, hard and fast and ruthless, and then he was off the bed with a speed that surprised her, looking everywhere but back at her as he found his phone and slid those giant feet into his shoes. ‘You need to rest and recover,’ he muttered and headed for the door. ‘And I need to make a couple of calls.’

       SIX

      Trig paced the length of the hall as he waited for Damon to pick up. He didn’t want to talk to Damon, he wanted Damon’s wife Ruby on the other end of the line, but there was a protocol involved when ringing up someone else’s wife in the middle of the night and Trig wanted to observe it.

      ‘This better be good,’ said Damon when he finally picked up.

      ‘It is. Put Ruby on. I need her advice.’

      ‘About what?’

      ‘You don’t want to know.’

      ‘I do want to know.’

      ‘Your sister took a fall today and hit her head.’

      ‘I’m