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Her lips were moist where she had touched them with her tongue…swollen with desire. He recognised all the signs, and, though he planned it to be this way, the sight was nearly too much for him. Dragging her close, he held her so their lips were almost touching, raising the danger level for them both.
She responded, and white-hot passion flared between them, but at the very point when he intended to pull back and teach her a lesson she stiffened and made an angry sound low in her throat. She strained against him
—not with passion now, but with absolute determination to break free. He released her at once.
‘Get out.’ Her voice was barely above a whisper, but it contained more venom than he had ever heard. She didn’t look at him. She remained frozen in place, with the back of her hand covering her mouth as if she wanted to hide it from him, wanted to hide the signs of her arousal from him. And she had been aroused, but then so had he.
‘Get out,’ she repeated, snapping the words at him.
In place of his surprise, Tino felt his anger beginning to rise. ‘Why?’ he said. ‘Because I almost kissed you before you could kiss me?’
‘Is that what you think?’ She looked at him incredulously.
His pride was all over the place. He had never misjudged a situation so badly. ‘Don’t tell me you didn’t want that?’
She rallied then, straightening up to confront him, her face drained of colour. ‘You’ll be telling me I deserved it next.’
‘What? You think passion between a man and a woman is some form of punishment?’ He grasped the back of his neck with his hand, and the look on his face told Lisa she was wrong about him—horribly wrong.
Straightening up, he stared at her coldly. ‘I don’t need these mind games, Lisa.’
‘Then get out!’ She made an angry gesture. ‘What are you waiting for?’
‘When are you going to learn that not everyone wants to dance to your tune?’
‘Or yours?’ Her eyes were blazing. She thought she heard him murmur something more. ‘What did you say?’
‘I said, you’re nothing but a control freak, Lisa.’ He stared straight at her so there could be no mistake.
Lisa didn’t show by even a flicker that he had come closer than any man alive to proving that a lie. ‘I think you’d better leave now.’
‘That’s the first thing you’ve said this evening that makes any sense.’
‘What do you mean, she didn’t make the meeting?’
Shifting the satellite phone to his other shoulder, Tino stared out at the clouds above Stellamaris, his private island, barely seeing the beloved contours of lush greenery, sugar sand and rock as he listened to what his right hand man was trying to tell him.
‘They said she was sick—’
‘Sick?’
‘I don’t know, Tino. I couldn’t find out any more. I don’t think it’s serious, headache perhaps, women’s problems—who the hell knows?’
‘Find out for me, will you? And get back to me right away.’
‘I’ll do the best I can.’
Tino’s voice hardened. ‘That’s not good enough, Andreas.’
‘OK, leave it with me.’
‘And, Andreas…’
‘Yes?’
‘Start making overtures to Clifton Steel, will you?’
‘Clifton? But I thought you wanted Bond—’
