Page 44 of An Italian Wedding Adventure

Sophie had shed those foolish fangirl tendencies. It was reassuring to see him as he was, instead of with stars in her eyes. She could walk away again. It wasn’t first love. It wassex– great sex, if the kiss was any indication.

Andreas could still stir up her desire with the simplest things: a smile; his gnarled, capable hands; the efficient way he moved. And boy, the man could kiss. She hadn’t remembered kissing specifically as something they’d indulged in often. He’d kissed her in congratulations on summits, they’d definitely kissed in the bedroom – all over each other. But making out the way they had at the bottom of the via ferrata today?

The feeling of being pressed into the limestone, his hands near her head, was something she’d store away for future lonely moments.I’ve been thinking about kissing you all day.Now he seemed to want to kiss her all night and she grabbed his shirt at the waist with both hands, demanding he come closer.

His response was to hoist her onto the side table by the door, his hands slipping down her back and beneath her waistband. She had blocked this out somehow, the way he made her feel as though no one had ever existed for him before. Perhaps the focus was part of what made his personality magnetic. Perhaps she should have been a little worried about losing her head.

But she didn’t want to be sensible right now. She wanted to run her palms all over him, tighten her legs around him and soak up the deep kisses that grew clumsy as he seemed to want to touch her everywhere at once.

‘Shower?’ he asked between kisses and a fresh surge of memories made her skin hot. Showering together when they got home had featured in many of their adventures. She’d been so young, experienced so many firsts with him as the water poured over them both.

A bedroom door flew open. Sophie froze, her eyes widening, as the figure of a young woman emerged, looked up – and also froze, her mouth agape.

‘Andreas?’

He jerked away from Sophie so quickly, the side table rattled. ‘Caro?’ he said with a grimace, his voice high. He said something else in German, but all Sophie caught was the word ‘Mama’. As she shuffled to the edge of the side table, her feet feeling for the floor, the other bedroom door opened and a lively older woman appeared – a woman with the same green-gold eyes as Andreas. Sophie was close enough to hear the groan that rumbled deep in his throat.

‘Hoi, Mama,’ he ground out, rubbing fingers over his brow.

Curiosity warred with mortification and maybe also a touch of schadenfreude when she noticed Andreas swallowing heavily. Her own cheeks were hot and her knees were still wobbly from the thorough – and unfinished – make-out session.

Both women began speaking at once, crossing the kitchen towards them. Sophie finally made it off the table, which made an embarrassing creak. Andreas rushed to head them off, speaking in rapid German. When she smoothed down her shirt and shorts and stepped up to his side, all three of them fell silent.

‘Hello, I’m sorry for the… mix-up.’ She winced at her inadequate word choice, but ‘mix-up’ was better than ‘eyeful of your son with his hand on my boob’.

‘It’s not your fault!’ Andreas snapped.

‘We thought you were in England for work,’ the younger woman said. ‘So I was very confused when I found the bed unmade and your stinky socks in the washing.’

‘We’reherefor work,’ Sophie said before she’d thought that through and her throat closed.

His mother’s eyes were dancing. ‘Are you one of the British guides at Willard’s company?’

‘Itoldyou – both,’ Andreas said eyeing them. ‘Sophie is a wedding planner. We’re planning an outdoor wedding.’

His tone was grumpy and dismissive. Sophie expected a comment about how unsuited he was to planning a wedding, how he was allergic to commitment, but his mother and the other woman – presumably his sister – gasped.

His mother stepped nearer, her expression strangely luminous. ‘Sophie?’

Andreas stared at the ceiling and sighed. Sophie looked warily between them. ‘Yes, I’m Sophie, Sophie-Leigh Kirke.’ She extended her hand but snatched it back again when his mother didn’t seem to notice.

She looked to Andreas, prompting him with a lift of her brow that reminded Sophie of him.

‘Yes,’ he grumbled an answer to her unasked question. ‘This is the same Sophie.’

Sophie’s hair stood on end as Andreas’s mother studied her. With two more halting steps, the older woman was in front of her, a smile on her lips. She grasped Sophie’s forearms briefly, then let go.

‘It’s lovely to… finally meet you,’ she said, her voice not quite steady, although English didn’t seem to be a challenge for her. ‘I’m Petra, his mother.’

‘I’m so sorry?—’

The younger woman laughed. ‘Don’t worry because of us. We should thank you for giving us this insight into his private life.’

Sophie could almost see steam coming out of his ears.

‘I’m Caro – Carolin – his sister, much younger of course. Let me guess, you didn’t even know he had a sister?’

‘Maybe he—’ She cut herself off. ‘You know Andreas,’ she mumbled instead.

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