‘Wow! Okay! Uh . . .’ He ran both hands through his hair now, and I tried not to stare at the way his forearm muscles rippled. God, he had the best forearms in the world. Veins running the length of them, just the right amount of hair to make him extra manly. ‘Is this some kind of joke?’
‘Nope, not a joke.’
‘You’re saying that you’re here in my room, at twenty past two in the morning, to tell me that I deserved to win today?’
‘Yup,’ I managed through a very tightly clenched jaw.
‘You’re serious?’
‘As a heart attack,’ I said, because I’d suddenly become very, very conscious of my heart and how fast it was beating and whether I might actually be having some type of cardiac event. I stuck my handout suddenly, offering it up for him to shake, and the double-take of before progressed to something borderline triple-take-ish.
He looked down at my hand and narrowed his eyes. We’d spent years with our bodies pressed into each other’s, not to mention the fact that he’d offered me his hand many times before. This was not new. But this time, the second his hand slipped into mine, it felt completely different. The way our palms met, the way our fingers instinctively curled around each other’s. It felt . . .
Intimate.
‘Really? Is that why you’rereallyhere?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Then why don’t I believe you? In the last two years you’ve never said anything nice to me.’
‘I could say the same for you,’ I said, standing a little straighter, alert as he increased the pressure on my hand. I looked down at it, ready and waiting for something to happen.What was going to happen?
‘You know what I think?’ he said, squeezing my hand even harder and then tilting it slightly as if he was about to put me into a wrist lock. I spread my legs, bracing myself, ready to defend or attack.
‘What?’
‘I think you’re here to exact revenge on me.’
He stepped closer, and instinctively I reached down and grabbed his forearm. He looked down at my hand and smiled, his expression a mixture of amusement and . . . was thatchallenge?
‘Just what I thought,’ he said, and then he twisted my arm.
I reacted instantly, shifting my weight to break his hold. When we’d first started wrestling, they’d tried to make me sit it out. As the only woman in the year, I was told to wait until one of the women from the year above could spar with me. But I’d refused. I’d been studying ju-jitsu for years, and as a result, I knew that fighting wasn’t just about brute strength. It was about technique, timing and balance. A woman could just as easily make a man tap out if she exploited his weaknesses correctly. Besides, I probably weighed as much as him anyway, and was almost as muscular.
The pressure of our holds intensified. Neither of us was going to give an inch. We moved closer, until we were standing only centimetres apart.
‘I think you came here to whip my ass for beating you today, that’s what I think, Lizzy.’
A feeling started building inside me. Anger, irritation, rage . . .lust.That deadly combination that made itself known every single time I was near Cam. A feeling that over the years had been getting stronger and stronger and so damn hard to resist.
‘So what are you waiting for?’ His voice taunted me and his eyes challenged me, sweeping my face in a way they’d never done before.
He’d never looked at me like this. Not ever.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
Something inside me started to unravel, like a ball of wool dropped from the top of a staircase,falling, falling, falling. He leaned in, closing the gap until a sheet of paper wouldn’t fit between us. A deep chuckle slipped from his mouth, and the warmth of his breath swept across my face. And then, the lightest, faintest brush of his lips along my cheek. My eyes fluttered shut as his mouth moved up to my ear, trailing against my skin. An involuntary moan escaped me, and I mentally cursed myself for it. I didn’t want him to know what kind of effect he was having on me, that made me weak, but I was struggling to contain it.
‘I’ll ask you again, what are you waiting for, Lizzy?’ My head seemed to fall back, totally without my brain’s permission, and I relished the physical pleasure of those words. They were a warm hum against my now pebbling skin, making me feel like I might dissolve into a puddle on the floor.Wait, what had I come here to do?Everything felt like it was suddenly getting muddled, confused; I felt off-kilter. I didn’t like that feeling, and I definitely didn’t want him to know that.
‘Come on, I know you want to,’ he said. God, something about thatwant, not to mention thatknow, knocked me from off-kilter to downright dismantled. My body took over now, and I tilted my headeven more, giving him full access to my neck. I wanted to feel his mouth on the sensitive skin there, I wanted to feel his mouth everywhere, but then . . .
‘I can’t believe you fell for that!’ He wrapped his arm around my neck and twisted me round, slamming my back into his chest and locking me into a rear choke. ‘What the hell are youreallydoing here? Was it your plan to distract me, looking all hot and sexy like that?’
Hot . . . sexy.He’d never said anything like that to me before. He’d never acknowledged the way I looked. This was the first time, and hearing those words from his lips almost made me not want to—
‘Ow! Fuck!’ He let go of me and stumbled backwards, clutching his shin. Maybe high heels were good for something after all. I followed him into the room. So much for coming here to be nice.
