Learning to Trust Read Online Free Page A

shoulders. “So what did you say after that? When you—pressed your body against mine?”
    Lina fought her urge to purr like a cat at the feel of his hands on her body. “You don’t want to know. Really you don’t.” Embarrassed when she recalled what exactly she’d said, she felt the hot blood rush to her cheeks. To her shock, he bent and pressed his lips to one side of her face.
    “You should keep that. You look so much better with a little color.”
    “Not what an emo girl wants to hear.” She paused. “Just as well I never joined that group. Too young for me.”
    The elevator doors opened. Jonathan slid one hand down to hers and clasped it warmly in his own. “Just as well I didn’t unpack. I only arrived this morning and I just dumped my stuff and came to see you.”
    “To see me?”
    “I can’t explain now.” He tugged her into the room and glared at her. “Stay here.”
    There wouldn’t be much point in her running away now. He knew where to find her. But at least she’d had a bit of her own back. Getting him thrown out of his hotel room was a kind of triumph. He’d find somewhere else easily enough.
    She grinned and glanced in the mirror. She didn’t look too tarty. Just that her skirt had shrunk in the wash, and her T-shirt had faded. She’d bought it secondhand and had laundered it ferociously ever since. That smear of sauce she’d picked up when she’d dropped the tray didn’t do her any favors, though.
    She didn’t wear makeup these days, so she didn’t have the caked mascara and painted face of the prostitutes who haunted the back streets of Naples. Her hair, too, was a mousy dark blond, not the bright platinum she used to have. A bit straggly, perhaps, but she hadn’t had it cut for a while. Having lost her scrunchie somewhere, it poured down past her shoulders in a cascade of untidy waves and curls, natural ringlets jumbled with plain tangles. Maybe she looked like a harbor whore, then, although these days most of the bay was devoted to the great god Tourism. Still, tourists needed whores, or at least some of them did.
     
    Jonathan came out of the bathroom bearing a small toilet bag, which he pitched into a sports bag lying on the floor. That and a suit carrier was all he’d brought. “Here.” The suit carrier had little wheels at the bottom. “I’ll even give you a good tip if you behave.” He wanted to make her smile. She looked so forlorn, so lost standing there.
    “Aren’t you still mad?”
    He shrugged. “What’s the point? I didn’t like this place much anyway. Do you know anywhere else I can stay?” But he lied, because the manager had roused him to fury. How dare he assume that Lina was anything but a friend? He’d never been treated that way before and he wouldn’t allow her to be treated like that, either.
    She bit her lip. He’d rather be biting it for her. “There’s the Romeo. That’s supposed to be really good. Five-star.”
    “Sounds good.” But as he gazed at her, an idea came to him. He knew she intended to run away, perhaps as soon as she returned to her lodgings. He could read it in her, see it. He’d noticed it before, when she left New York and then, to his cost, he’d ignored it. He wouldn’t ignore it this time.
    They exited the soulless room without a backward glance. The elevator was fuller this time, and they traveled down in silence. He glanced at her once and they shared a smile. Her little trick in the lobby would backfire on her; he’d see to that.
    When the elevator doors opened, he grabbed her hand and tugged her out of the space, right in front of the manager. He glanced at the man, then led her to the center of the floor. Before she had time to complete her “What the f—” he’d hauled her into his arms and brought his mouth down on hers.
    His arms clamped her close and he forgot where he was, what he planned. Nothing mattered except this woman and the welcome he found in her arms. Tingles spread through him, a