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Authors: Victoria Purman

Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Contemporary

Our Kind of Love

BOOK: Our Kind of Love
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Our Kind of Love

Victoria Purman

www.harlequinbooks.com.au

ALSO BY VICTORIA PURMAN

The
Boys of Summer
novels:

Nobody But Him

Someone Like You

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

When Victoria Purman woke up one day and realised she’d spent most of her working life writing for other people, she decided it was finally time to tell stories of her own. She’s now thrilled to spend her days creating dialogue and happy-ever-afters for her imaginary characters. Her
Boys of Summer
trilogy is set on the south coast of her home state of South Australia, somewhere she feels compelled to do a lot of research. When she’s not writing, Victoria spends time with her husband, three sons, a disobedient dog, her loving, extended family and dear friends.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For E
.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Reader:

Welcome back to Middle Point!

I’m so excited to be introducing
Our Kind of Love
. This book is the story of Anna and Joe, the dedicated GP and the cynical journalist we met in
Someone Like You
. They’re two people nursing broken hearts who absolutely, positively aren’t looking for love. I, of course, had other plans for these two!

All the characters from the first two books in the
Boys of Summer
trilogy are back, and I hope you enjoy finding out what their futures hold.

I wouldn’t be able to do what I do without the support of all my lovely readers. Your messages and comments mean more to me than you can ever know.

Thank you so much for falling in love with Middle Point and my characters and putting aside some precious time in your lives to read.

I love to hear from readers so please find me at
www.victoriapurman.com
,
on Facebook at
Victoria Purman Author
or
on Twitter @VictoriaPurman

Happy reading!

CONTENTS

Also by Victoria Purman

About the Author

Acknowledgements

CHAPTER
1

Anna Morelli plundered the deepest recesses of her brain for every Italian swear word she knew and let them rip in a furious, unadulterated tirade.

All in her head, of course.

The handsome-as-all-get-out charmer who was looming over her in the early morning light – tall, tanned and naked as the day he was born – had a big hand pressed firmly over her mouth. She got the clear warning in his wide-eyed stare and clenched lips. His lips.
Diavolo
.

‘What was that?’ She forced the words out in a whisper against his palm.

He held a finger from his other hand to his own lips and raised an eyebrow. The flare of awareness in his denim-blue eyes almost sparked between them and set Anna on fire.

They both stilled as they heard them again. Plodding footsteps on the other side of the bedroom door. Someone else was in the house.

‘Don’t. Say. A. Word,’ he murmured.

Anna gripped the cool cotton sheets with shaking fingers, pulling them up to cover her breasts. She was well and truly stuck. Not between a rock and a hard place but between someone else’s sheets and utter humiliation.

She was about to be discovered naked in bed with an almost total stranger. Joe. Joe something.
Merda
. She didn’t even know his last name.

He slowly lifted his hand from her mouth and then moved over her, planting his arms on the bed, one on either side of her bare shoulders until he hovered over her. The morning light from the window shadowed across his face and he looked like a Hollywood actor in an ad for men’s cologne. The growth on his tanned jaw, his wide shoulders, his hard chest, his flat stomach.

Anna licked her lips, which suddenly felt as though they’d been scorched by a scalding north wind. Joe watched her wet tongue slide over the plump fullness of her mouth and he seemed to see it as some kind of invitation, lowering himself until all that was between them was the sheet. Anna realised that if he stayed there much longer it would be burnt to a crisp.

She gulped, tried to think. Which was near on impossible given the combination of chilled champagne, hot sex and naked handsome guy that had addled her brain.

Here were the facts as she knew them.

The night before she’d attended a wedding in the sleepy but kind of charming beachside town of Middle Point on South Australia’s Fleurieu Peninsula.

Somewhere between sunset and sunrise she’d cried in the ladies’ loo, danced to too many ABBA songs (including
Dancing Queen
, twice), eaten handfuls of wedding cake with her fingers, been led astray and had survived the best, knock-your-socks-off rebound sex ever in recorded history. All with only the slightest hangover thudding behind her eyes.

But now she had no clue where she was and, judging by the way a certain insistent part of the naked handsome guy’s anatomy was pressing against her, he wanted to repeat the many and varied events of the night before.

Anna squeezed her eyes shut, hoping not only to block out the temptation, but also to give herself time to find her good sense.

Unfortunately it was eight hours too late.

‘Get off me,’ Anna said through gritted teeth. She planted her hands on his hard muscled shoulders and shoved. She had to get him out of her line of sight and figure out a way to get him to stop looking at her like he was all the cat got the cream.

With a raised eyebrow and a stifled laugh, Joe did as she asked, slinking backwards off the bed like a retreating tiger. He got to his feet and gripped the door handle to make sure it remained closed.

Standing there, looking like a tanned Statue of David in every feature but one extremely important one, the man had the nerve to laugh. He scraped a hand through his hair and grinned. That made one person in the room who found some humour in the situation. In direct and shameful contrast, Anna felt humiliation and regret coagulate in the pit of her stomach.

‘What’s so funny?’ she mouthed in a furious whisper. Any other time, in another circumstance, a grin like that and those adorable crinkle lines around a man’s eyes would have been infectious.

‘I think my sister’s home.’

‘Your sister?’ Anna felt every hair on her body prickle.

‘And you’re in her bed,’ Joe informed her calmly.

Che cazzo
.

‘Are you telling me you live with your sister?’
What kind of loser was this guy?
And exactly how drunk had she been the night before?

‘It’s a long story. But calm down, Anna. Lizzie won’t care.’

Anna’s blood pressure spiked and pounded behind her eyes. She sat bolt upright and the crisp sheet slipped down into her lap. She tugged it back up with a jerk. The move seemed to have some mysterious effect on Joe. He let go of the door and took a step back to the bed, his hands on his hips.

Vafunculo
. Anna began miming furiously and if Joe had any clue about what she was indicating, he would’ve been protecting his manhood at that very moment, instead of letting it proudly dangle free right in front of her eyes.

Anna dropped back onto the pillow and pulled the sheet way over her head.

Joe was Lizzie’s brother?

Lizzie. The kind woman who’d found her crying in the ladies’ loo the night before.

Joe was Lizzie’s brother? This circle of humiliation just got smaller and smaller. Anna’s heart raced even faster. Given the fact that they clearly weren’t alone, she couldn’t leap out of bed and demand an answer from the beautiful man who’d shagged her senseless just hours before. She couldn’t scream and shout, Italian-style, wave her hands in the air and curse him.

Okay, so that was all a cliché. But clichés exist for a reason and she so needed to go wild and crazy Italian-style on the charming bastard who’d put her in this position. Let’s face it – many positions.

‘Stay there,’ Joe said, and held out a hand to emphasise his point. Damn him, he was trying not to smile. ‘I’ll go distract her.’

‘Okay. But, for God’s sake,’ Anna whispered with new urgency. ‘Put on some pants first.’

He obeyed her with a smug smile, bending over to retrieve the trousers of his suit. He half-heartedly pulled them on but didn’t bother to do up the top button, which meant they slipped and hung low on his hips. Not that Anna noticed exactly how low they were but for a moment she was worried he might get something important caught in the zip and might therefore need her medical expertise.

With a smile at the knowledge that she was checking him out all over again, he stepped into the hallway and closed the door behind him.

Anna sank back into the pillows. How had she got here? And where exactly was here? In the daylight it was totally obvious. A quick inspection revealed it was a woman’s room. Shabby beachside chic. A well-thumbed novel on the bedside table. A pair of pink thongs neatly arranged on the rug, a white chest of drawers with framed photos on top. She’d been oblivious to all this detail when they’d stumbled back the night before, crashed onto the bed and into each other lips and hips.

It had been dark when they’d got home from the wedding, which was a university reunion of sorts as well as a party at the Middle Point pub. She’d known the groom, Ry Blackburn, and the best man, Dan McSwaine, when they’d been university students. Dan had been her first boyfriend, although they’d been friends way longer than they’d been lovers. Julia Jones had been a gorgeous bride and Lizzie – the sister – was both bridesmaid and Dan’s new girlfriend. Lizzie had been her rescuer; when Anna had told her the reason for the tears, Lizzie had said all the things a jilted woman needed to hear.

When Anna had finally emerged from the loo, her mascara restored if not her dignity, a guy with a smile that could melt ice offered her a glass of champagne and then asked her to dance.

Somehow dancing had ended up as something else entirely. Had ended up as this. She yanked the sheet over her head.

‘Oh. My. God. What have I done? And why did it have to be with him?’

Joe’s sexy eyes and tall, well-built body had been irresistible in the dark. Now, in the harsh Sunday morning light, they were simply ripped reminders of her shame and disgrace.

The cold, hard truth of what she’d done was like a slap in the face.

She’d had a one-night stand with a guy she’d picked up at a wedding.

And she was married.

Well … legally still married

And now utterly humiliated.

She reached for the St Christopher medal hanging around her neck, twisted it between her fingers for luck. For help. For advice.

How was she going to get out of this?

And more importantly, how would she hide it from her mother?

CHAPTER
2

Joe closed the bedroom door behind him and leaned against it, his arms crossed over his chest. Damn. He’d hoped Anna might have acted out one of his fantasies and would be lying on the white sheets wearing nothing but a smile. But no. To his huge disappointment she was fully dressed. She’d pulled on last night’s party dress and he studied once again how it hugged her body. He openly admired the curves he’d navigated and conquered the night before. As his gaze travelled down the tight red fabric to those unbelievably sexy leopard-skin stilettos, he let out a low whistle.

Those shoes. Hot damn. They were follow-me-home-and-fuck-me shoes.

And they’d worked.

When Anna tapped one toe impatiently on the wooden floor, he remembered that
stiletto
was Italian for ‘dagger’. And judging by the look on her face it felt like she might be about to aim one right at him.

BOOK: Our Kind of Love
13.03Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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