Summer of Love Marie Ferrarella (easy books to read in english TXT) 📖

left the kitchen and headed upstairs to his room. Switching on the bedside lamp, he sank down on the bed, wishing with all his heart that he could have done things differently five years ago. Letting Emma go had been the hardest thing he had ever done yet he was more convinced than ever that it had been the right thing to do. Maybe they would have had a few years of happiness together, but eventually she would have regretted giving up her dreams to be with him.

He took a deep breath. No matter how hard it had been, it would have been so much worse if Emma had ended up hating him.

Emma spent a couple of hours watching television after Daniel retired to his room. The plans she’d made to go to the cinema had been put on hold because she couldn’t be bothered getting ready to go out. However, by the time the old grandfather clock in the hall struck nine, she was bored stiff. She switched off the set and made her way upstairs. She reached the landing and paused to listen but there was no sound coming from Daniel’s side of the house. Obviously, he was fast asleep, worn out after his exertions that day.

Emma went to her room and collected her toilet bag then made her way to the bathroom. She felt too restless to sleep and was hoping that a long, hot soak in the bath would help her relax. Turning on the taps, she added a generous dollop of bubble bath to the water then stripped off her clothes. Water had been in short supply where she had been working recently and it was a luxury to be able to fill the bath almost to the brim.

She slid into the scented bubbles with an appreciative groan and closed her eyes. Whether it was the warmth of the water or the silence, she soon drifted off to sleep only to awake with a start when the bathroom door suddenly opened. Emma’s eyes shot open as she stared at Daniel in dismay.

‘What are you doing? Get out!’

‘I’m sorry. I had no idea you were in here. The door wasn’t locked,’ he began, then stopped.

Emma saw him swallow and looked down, feeling her heart leap when she realised that all the bubbles had melted away while she’d slept. Without them to conceal her, her body was naked to his gaze and she could tell that the sight was having an effect. Water sloshed over the side of the bath as she scrambled to her feet and reached for a towel off the rail, but Daniel was ahead of her.

‘Here.’ He passed her a towel then turned away while she wrapped it around herself.

Emma stepped out of the bath, shaking her wet hair out of her eyes. She felt both cold and shivery, and it owed little to the fact that she’d been lying in the cooling water for too long. Daniel wanted her: she had seen it in his eyes, seen the desire that had filled them just now. The thought should have repulsed her but it didn’t—just the opposite, in fact. Heat suddenly scorched along her veins when she realised with a jolt of shock that she wanted him too… .

Afterwards, she was never sure what happened next, whether she made some sort of small betraying sound or it was sheer coincidence that he turned at that moment. There was a second when their eyes locked and held before he slowly reached out and touched her cheek.

‘Emma.’

Her name sounded so different when he said it that way, his deep voice throbbing with hunger and need. Emma wasn’t aware of moving yet all of a sudden she was standing in front of him, so close that she could feel the tremor that passed through his body. When his hand lifted to her face again, she didn’t move, just stood there while his fingers grazed along her jaw, gliding so lightly over her skin that it was hard to know for sure if he was actually touching her.

‘Your skin’s so soft,’ he whispered as his fingers came to rest a millimetre away from her mouth.

Emma knew that if she dipped her head the barest fraction she would feel them on her lips and the thought was the sweetest kind of torment. She wanted him to touch her mouth but she wasn’t sure where it would lead if he did. Could she allow Daniel to touch her, caress her, make love to her, and not feel anything except desire? Maybe it was what she needed to finally get him out of her system. Although she had been out with other men since they had split up, she had never wanted to sleep with any of them. In the beginning she had been too wary of getting hurt to risk getting involved and, more recently, she had been so busy in work that she’d had no time for a private life—or so she had told herself. Now Emma found herself wondering if the truth was far more complicated: she had never really drawn a line under her affair with Daniel so that she could move on.

This could be the perfect opportunity to do so, but still she hesitated. Her feelings for Daniel were so muddled up. Although sleeping with him might give her the closure she needed, it might achieve just the opposite result. What if she found that the old feelings she’d had for him, the ones she had thought were dead and buried a long time ago, were still very much alive?

It was the uncertainty that scared her, the thought that she might regret whichever decision she made for the rest of her life.

CHAPTER NINE

DANIEL could feel his heart racing. It wasn’t just this desire he felt to take Emma in his arms and make love to her that was causing it to happen but fear as well. For the past five years he had