When He Was Bad... by Anne Oliver

raucous patrons spilled from the bar and ambled past, their voices raised in some tuneless song. The night breeze, pungent with the sting of exhaust fumes, wrapped around them. In the distance an alarm wailed. He wanted to press his momentary advantage, replace his thumb with his mouth and relive that first kiss.
    He could almost smell the desire on her skin, but he didn’t push it. She stepped back, eyes flicking away, as if giving him eye contact might betray her. She scanned the row of parked cars. ‘Let me guess—yours is the champagne-tinted convertible.’
    â€˜Sorry to disappoint—it’s the little bent and black ninety-six Ford.’ He couldn’t resist adding, ‘My Ferrari’s in Sydney.’
    Her laugh was spontaneous and unexpected and she seemed as surprised as he. ‘I knew it,’ she said with a half-smile. ‘Red?’
    â€˜Is there any other colour?’ With a light hand at her back, he steered her across the road.
    Ellie practically fell onto the seat, willing her pulse to settle down while Matt rounded the car. Good Lord, just that single thumb print on her lower lip had turned her inside out. If he hadn’t stopped—oh, she did not want to think about it. He made her weak. Made her want…what she couldn’t have.
    By the time he’d climbed into his seat she’d managed to halfway calm herself. She directed him to a street about a kilometre away. She spent a moment studying the car’s interior rather than the width of Matt’s more than capable hands on the steering wheel, focusing on the engine’s rough-throated purr rather than the scent of clean masculine skin.
    But as they neared her apartment her breathing changed for very different reasons. And with every passing moment the band beneath her breastbone tightened.
    She’d always sensed Heath’s low opinion of her previous apartment even though he’d never voiced it. As if her living conditions reflected her worth as a human being. She might have been in love with him but her self-confidence and sense of self-worth had taken a battering and never fully recovered. Compared to this dump it had been a palace.
    Would Matt the squillionaire businessman judge her the same way? And why did it suddenly seem to matter if he did? ‘You can drop me off here,’ she said, ready to jump out and flee the moment they stopped.
    The building she lived in was crammed between the abandoned car park of a graffiti-covered warehouse and a row of currently untenanted shops.
    Matt slowed to a stop. ‘This your place?’
    His tone didn’t change but her stomach clenched tighter. ‘Yes.’ She knew what he was thinking. She just knew it. She would not let it bring her down.
    She reached for the doorhandle. Before she could thank him and escape, he was out of the car and rounding the bonnet.
    â€˜No need to see me inside—I live upstairs,’ she said, climbing out. Somewhere nearby a cat yowled and the din of metal rolling down the street broke the night’s stillness.
    â€˜How long have you lived here?’
    â€˜A couple of months.’ She remembered him quipping about his Ferrari. ‘Would it help if I said I used to live in Toorak?’she said, forcing humour into her voice as she mentioned one of Melbourne’s most affluent suburbs.
    He didn’t return her smile. ‘Only if it helps you .’
    It didn’t and her smile faded. Those days were gone. Once upon a time, before the people she loved had been erased from her life for ever, her world had been very different.
    But his voice helped. Smooth and steady and even, like a still lake, soothing the rough edges around her heart. Until she looked up into his eyes and saw the storm, all dark and brooding and beautiful. Reminding her that she didn’t want to get involved. With anyone, ever again.
    â€˜Thanks for the lift.’ She paused before adding, ‘And thanks