She had never been ‘known’ so thoroughly.
And she knew his special places, too. She knew that if she stroked the sensitive flesh where his hip bone sloped down into his abdomen he would tense and if she licked his collarbone he would break out in goose-bumps, and if she bit his neck he would groan out loud.
She sipped at the coffee, relishing the wave of lust that undulated through her body. If she kept thinking like this she was going to have to go back in and wake him, whether she wanted to or not. Her pelvic-floor muscles rippled in anticipation and she sighed deeply.
She let her thoughts drift to other things and invariably they went to Trent Smith. She thought of Jenny out there somewhere, probably lying awake in the dark, worrying or crying herself to sleep. The fragility and uncertainty of life seemed magnified tenfold by the Smith family’s tragedy.
It just didn’t seem fair that a little boy, innocent and carefree, was looking down the barrel of a potential death sentence. Yes, these days there was over a seventy per cent five-year survival rate for childhood leukaemia, but you could never be sure who was going to be in the seventy and who was going to be in the thirty.
She realised that you never knew what was around the corner. Trent Smith had been a happy little boy a week ago, a little pale and a picky eater, but essentially normal. And now he was in hospital about to start chemotherapy. If it could happen to him, it could happen to any of them.
It had happened to her parents. And Abby.
Happy and alive and in love one day and then three days later on her couch, minutes away from dying. Life was short and unpredictable. She knew that from Abby and now from Trent and she certainly knew it from her line of work.
She thought about how Marcus’s heart had melted today when he’d discovered that Trent’s father wasn’t around. She knew him well enough to know that it had really affected him. He had a big squishy soft spot inside for kids just like Trent. Kids like Connor. Like the kid he’d once been. She had seen how great he was with his nephew and knew that Trent facing leukaemia without a dad was like pushing a big old bruise inside him that had never quite healed.
She loved him for that.
And there it was. She loved him. She hadn’t meant it to be. She hadn’t planned it. Hell, she hadn’t even realised it until this very moment. But the truth was inescapable. She was in love with him. He had warned her not to, he had been very clear that it was just sex, but it had happened anyway.
Quite what the hell she was going to do with her revelation she didn’t have a clue. Neither of them had talked about their future. They’d both just been living in the moment.
Maybe after all this time his feelings had changed, too?
But if they hadn’t?
What would she do if she told him and he walked? Could she handle it if he did? And was tonight really the best night to spring it on him?
Was there ever going to be a good time? When would have been the right time to tell Jenny Smith about her son?
What the hell were her and Marcus doing? Having nights of endless sex and spending every spare moment together was all well and good. But what if she was diagnosed with cancer tomorrow? What if he was hit by a car, riding that ridiculous skateboard? Would she regret not having told him? Did Jenny regret not having told Trent she loved him one more time each day for the last six years?
The mere thought made her sit up straighter and she felt a pain in her heart just thinking about it. She loved Marcus. And she wanted to tell him because her heart was so full of emotion at the moment she wanted to share the magic with him.
But she wasn’t brave enough to lose him over it either.
She may not have ever intended to fall in love with him but now she was here, she needed to be careful of her heart. He had an ex-wife who had left him with baggage — permanent commitment scared the hell out of him. She needed to tread gently.
Tonight might not be the night for declarations of undying love but she needed something to cling to. Maybe she just needed to start talking about the future a little more? Her feelings a little more. Maybe she could get an acknowledgement that they were more than rebound sex, that they’d moved on from there.
That they were in some kind of relationship.
She heard Marcus rustling around in the kitchen a few minutes later and her heart pick up its tempo.
Strike while the iron was hot?
Marcus stepped on to the deck. ‘Here you are,’ he murmured, leaning over and kissing her on the head.
He could see straight down her top from his vantage point behind her and Marcus liked what he saw - very much. He put his coffee on the table and nibbled down her neck, his hands sliding from her shoulders down under the collar of her shirt, until he was cupping her naked breasts. He rubbed his thumbs over her nipples and felt himself twitch.
Madeline shut her eyes and gave herself up to the erotic rub of his fingers. Her internal muscles tightened and she wanted to stretch and purr like a contented cat.
After a few more strokes, he growled into her neck then slowly unhanded her. Straightening, he collected his coffee and sat in
