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‘You said you wanted to have sex with me to prove that I was lying when I said I didn’t want sex without emotion or commitment,’ he reminded her.
‘Yes,’ Star agreed doggedly.
‘Well, perhaps I have a little theory testing of my own I want to put into practice.’
“Theory-testing? What kind of theory-testing?’ Star asked suspiciously.
‘Well, now...’ he drawled. ‘I kinda think that that’s for me to know and for you to think about, don’t you?’
For once Star was bereft of any suitable reply; her mouth opened and then closed again, her temper reaching boiling point and running over it as she realised that somehow or other he had wrestled control of the situation from her and that there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it.
‘I’m not going to let you get away with this,’ she warned him darkly when she had finally got her voice back. ‘Whatever it is...’
To her chagrin, she saw that Kyle was actually daring to laugh at her.
‘You know what you need, don’t you?’ he advised her solemnly. ‘A cool shower, a hot drink and a good night’s sleep.’
He was treating her like an overwrought child, Star recognised as she contrasted his cheerful good temper with her own impotent fury.
‘What I want,’ she told him through gritted teeth, ‘is to remove you from my life...permanently and preferably immediately...’
‘Ah, but, you see, you were the one who invited me into it,’ Kyle reminded her.
‘I invited you into my bed...not my life,’ Star corrected him, determined to have the last word.
‘Mmm... Well, now it’s my turn to invite you into mine... What’s wrong?’ he asked when he saw the look that she was giving him. ‘I promise you, you have nothing to fear. Your virtue is completely safe with me.’
Star glared at him. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she told him witheringly. ‘And, for your information, I have never been afraid of a man making unwanted sexual advances to me.’
She had intended her statement to be a contemptuous put-down but somehow or other she must have missed her mark, she decided as Kyle responded gently, ‘No, I don’t suppose you have.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
IRRITATINGLY, Kyle had insisted that there was no way she could go to bed until she had had something to eat, and, ignominiously, Star had been so hungry that she had practically fallen on the simple meal of scrambled eggs and toast that he had made for her.
He was like a mother hen the way he fussed, Star decided waspishly now as he handed her a milky bedtime drink which she grimaced over before drinking. Not like a real man at all. Surprisingly the drink tasted delicious; she sniffed it suspiciously and accused him, ‘You’ve put something in this, haven’t you? Brandy...’
‘The classic seducer’s trick,’ Kyle agreed solemnly, and then added, ‘I’m surprised you never tried that one on me...’
‘I was not trying to seduce you,’ she reminded him. ‘I simply wanted to prove...’
‘Go on,’ Kyle encouraged her. ‘You wanted to prove...?’
‘I’ve had enough of this,’ Star told him, finishing her drink. ‘I’m going to bed.’
She was undressed and in the shower before she remembered that she had nothing to sleep in—not that that would normally have bothered her; it was just that on this occasion... The thought of having to sleep in her bulky top was totally unappealing and as for her briefs... Well, she had already rinsed them out so that they would be fresh for the morning.
Wrapping a towel around her body, she went in search of Kyle. He was in the kitchen, predictably tidying up. What a man... Just as well they hadn’t had sex; it would have been bound to be a disaster...
‘I need something to wear,’ she told him aggressively.
His eyebrows rose.
‘Such as...?’
‘Something,’ she insisted. ‘Anything... You must have a pair of pyjamas somewhere.’
‘Nope,’ Kyle denied.
‘But you must have... What if you had to go into hospital?’
‘What an optimist,’ Kyle laughed. ‘The best I can do is a T-shirt.’
‘I suppose it will have to do,’ Star told him ungraciously, following as he went into the bedroom and pulled open a cupboard door.
The T-shirt he handed her was soft and white and extremely large. She frowned slightly, remembering how snugly she had seen a similar T-shirt fitting him. She wasn’t exactly minute and yet to judge from the width of the fabric she was holding...
She saw the way Kyle was watching her and stated crossly, ‘I can’t put it on until you’ve gone.’
Infuriatingly he started to laugh.
‘Now I’ve heard everything,’ he told her. ‘You’re quite happy to have sex with me—an act for which, presumably, you initially remove your clothes—and yet the mere thought that I might actually see your naked body throws you into a girlish display of maidenly modesty that wouldn’t disgrace a virginal sixteen-year-old. Amazing...’
‘No, it isn’t; it’s a perfectly normal female reaction,’ Star corrected him, throwing him a look of vitriolic hatred.
How dared he laugh at her? How dared he... How dared he...how dared he exist? she fumed a few minutes later when he had gone, leaving her free to drop her damp towel and pull on his T-shirt. It was enormous on her. It was probably one he deliberately kept to impress women, she decided balefully. It was probably enormous on him too.
She yawned sleepily and burrowed deeper into her pillow. How much brandy had he actually put in that drink? she wondered. She yawned again, her body starting to relax. He had been right about one thing: this bed...his bed...was blissfully comfortable.
Well, she looked as though she was asleep, Kyle decided fifteen minutes later, cautiously opening the bedroom door. She ought to be; he had given her enough brandy to knock out a horse—an invidious tactic, but it was either that or risk spending the whole night with her arguing with him. What a woman.
He padded silently to the bathroom and stripped off his clothes before turning on the shower.
He wondered how long it would be before she guessed what he was up to. There was no need to question what her reaction would be when she did. He was playing a mite unfairly, he had to admit that, but then desperate needs called for desperate measures and he was certainly desperate. Any man would have to be to get involved in what he was getting himself involved in, but he was determined to show her that her antagonism towards his sex sprang not from the conviction she clung so determinedly and defensively to—that none of his sex could be trusted—but rather from her fear of the pain she had experienced when her father had left.
Once he could show her that with him she had nothing to fear... That his feelings...his love... That he would always... Hang on there, he warned himself. There was still a hell of a lot of ground to cover before she was ready to listen to that kind of talk from him—one hell of a long way to go.
He looked down into her sleeping face and somehow managed to resist the temptation to kiss the tip of her nose before throwing back the covers and quietly sliding into bed beside her—alongside her. Alongside, when what he would have preferred to do...where he would have preferred to be... Determinedly, he closed his eyes.
Star smiled happily in her sleep and snuggled closer to the male body lying alongside her own. Mmm...it felt so delicious... all that warm, soft, furry male body hair against her skin, and that lovely, tantalisingly erotic man smell—so totally unfamiliar...and yet somehow, deep down inside herself, she instinctively and immediately recognised a sense of being safe and warm and wanted, had an awareness of the rightness of being where she was and with whom she was.
She made a soft sound of pleasure and burrowed even closer to the source of all those wonderful feel-good sensations and emotions whilst Kyle held his breath.
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He had woken up fifteen minutes ago, alerted to Star’s unconscious “sleepwalk” across the gap that he had left between them by the unmistakable physical response of his own body to her proximity. For once, he was able to acquit her of any attempt to manipulate or manoeuvre him—she was quite definitely deeply asleep—and if he hadn’t been finding it so damned hard to hold onto his self-control, or if he’d been a different type of man, he could have been giving himself a little bit of congratulation at the way Star’s sleeping expression and her small sounds of pleasure betrayed how much she was enjoying her unwitting physical contact with his body.
His body or just any male body? Kyle frowned. Despite everything he had heard about her and everything she had told him about herself, Kyle had guessed that emotionally, where it really counted, Star was completely untried and untouched—virginal in that in her previous relationships she had always withheld her real, deep, inner self. And, as he had already told her, that kind of shallow pseudo-intimacy could never be enough for him. He held his breath as she burrowed even closer against him.
If this carried on much longer...! It had been difficult enough for him to resist her when she’d been deliberately and cold bloodedly trying to arouse him, but what she was doing now, with that sweetly sensual look of desire on her sleeping face... If she moved against him like that just one more time...
Kyle knew that he was audibly grinding his teeth as she still tried to get closer, pushing his arm out of the way, a small pout puckering her mouth as she tugged on his hand. Obediently he raised it and then dropped it again as he realised what he was doing, but somehow or other his hand had already found the smooth curve of her hip, and once there it was impossible for him to resist the temptation to stroke her skin, so soft and warm and alive, so womanly and desirable...so...so Star.
Outside the birds had started to sing. Star’s pout dissolved into a dazzling smile as she rubbed her face against his chest, appreciatively breathing in his scent, nuzzling him and making soft, murmuring, cooing sounds of pleasure.
