Something to Live for (Moonlight Dating Series) Read Free Page B

the end of the night?
    He’d be
utterly lost.
    Chapter Two
    The
contact of his lips with hers prompted an instinctual groan. Melita realized, however, that the groan didn’t only come
from her. His mouth felt warm and coaxing as he parted hers for a penetrating
kiss.
    The
instant she saw him attraction arrowed through her. Illogical,
irrational, undeniably real.
    She
grabbed on to the hem of his blue t-shirt sleeves and hung on for dear life,
while the play of his tongue against hers provoked a concerted sexual response
that took over all of her body. Her wrists and forearms pressed against the
powerful, taut muscles of his arm, and she wantonly leaned into his chest.
    She had
never felt so good about kissing a stranger. Come to think of it, she’d never
kissed a stranger. His mouth tasted of savoury olive and he smelled of fresh
air and man, a combination that made her head reel and her insides flutter in
some strange places. She was aware of the sensual, forbidden parts of herself
like she’d never been before, like she’d never been awake before.
    She
couldn’t help but protest when he abruptly broke contact and pulled back. His
breaths came short and rugged as he spoke in a sheepish voice.
    “I just
realized… I didn’t even ask your name. Sorry. I didn’t mean—”
    “ It’s fine,” she cut in, with a bit of a wonky smile, while
she struggled to find purchase around a haze of desire. “You don’t have to
apologize. I’m Melita . Melita Saari -Quinn.”
    “Alex Moncado ,” he introduced himself with an answering grin.
Then, “You have an interesting name.”
    Large
hands swept up and down her arms, wrenched goose pimples at his tender touch.
    “Product of a Finnish and Irish-Maltese marriage. My mother gave birth in England,
and missed Malta terribly at the time, so she decided to use the Latin word for
the island as my name,” she laughed. “Luckily, her wish to raise me in Malta
came true and they settled back here when I was five. What about you?”
    He picked
a bite-sized piece of melon wrapped in Parma ham and fed it to her. The
cooling, sweet juice exploded in her mouth and mingled tantalizingly with the
saltiness of the meat.
    “I’ve
lived here all my life, and pretty much do what was expected of me – I run a
business that’s been in my family for about fifty years. We have a few stores
around the island.”
    “Oh,” she
answered, after she’d chewed the last of the morsel. She was dying to ask him
which stores but didn’t want to sound pushy. “ Moncado is not a very common surname here,” she remarked, opting for a more indirect
route.
    “My
ancestors are Sicilian. They had come to Malta and left a while later, but a
couple of them stayed on. They must have loved the beaches,” he replied with a
glint in his eyes that even she, with her impaired vision, could discern.
      His answer wasn’t quite what she hoped for –
he didn’t volunteer information about his work or state what business he was in
– but she wouldn’t pressure him to tell more than he wanted. If she dug around
or even flipped through the phone book, he probably wouldn’t be too hard to
find on an island as small as this. Still, that wasn’t the point.
    From the
way he just kissed her, he liked the way things were turning out, and that’s
all that mattered.   
    “Kiss me
again,” she softly demanded, feeling uncharacteristically bold and feminine.
    The
blazing fire that licked at her with his appraising look was all the
encouragement she needed to slide her arms around his neck and throw herself , body and soul, into another kiss. She teetered on
the edge of the stool but somehow didn’t care if she toppled them both off. His
arms snaked around her and held her tight, one hand splayed across her back,
the other buried under her hair to hold her head prisoner.
    She also
slid her hand up his nape and into his hair. Sexy,
close-cropped dark hair.
    “Perhaps
we need to go somewhere more comfortable,”