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‘And I’m not looking for love—a man to complete me.’ She stuck out her chin, ignoring the sinking feeling in her stomach. ‘I’m pretty complete.’

He took in the anger, the fierce pride in her face and though he didn’t want to see it, the sadness too.

The look that said she was taking one for the team—she was taking him.

His jaw clenched. Was it masculine pride that fuelled his reaction? His outrage at what was basically a business arrangement—and emotions did not belong in a business arrangement—made his indignation all the more irrational. He’d be in more trouble if she imagined herself in love with him. He should be grateful that she wasn’t.

‘You’re…’

Being studied as though she were an interesting bug on a microscope slide was almost as annoying as her overwhelming awareness of stupid details like the musky warm scent of his skin.

The seconds ticked and he didn’t say anything. ‘Lucky then I don’t give a flying f…!’ she sealed her lips over the insults fighting to escape and her chest heaved, struggling to decompress her internal rage ‘…what you think of me,’ she finished, enunciating each word coldly.

‘I think—’ He gave a slow smile and moved in closer.

Too close.

Alarm bells were going off in her head as she felt the heat coming off his body. She opened her mouth and the yell inside got swallowed up in a swell of something she had no name for. Her heart thudded with a mix of excitement and fear as his fingers curved around her jaw.

If something as innocuous as the casual touch of his thumb could make her insides dissolve this way, what would something more intimate do to her?

She could—no, would—be finding out, that was the deal she was entering into, so why, for someone who prided herself on facing the difficult questions, and they really didn’t get much bigger than this one, was she putting so much effort into avoiding it?

The anger that simmered within her was not aimed at Leandro but at herself because, it hit her, she wasn’t avoiding thinking about sex with Leandro because she wasn’t dreading it.

‘How did that happen?’ he asked, stroking the tiny scar beside her mouth.

‘Some kids were hurting a puppy.’

‘And you saved him.’ It was easy to see Elsie throwing herself into battle regardless of the consequences. ‘My little warrior queen.’

‘I am not little.’ Her protest sounded weak as the desire to brush his hand away became less urgent and the featherlight friction sent shivers of sensation along her nerve-endings.

‘I am genuinely sorry I left you unprepared for my mother and I don’t want you to act anything—just be yourself and not painfully royal.’

‘I am royal,’ she protested huskily.

‘Not that sort of royal and, before you hit me, that was meant as a compliment.’

Elsie could hear the smile in his voice but his features were a blur viewed through the veil of her lashes. She tried to lift her half-closed lids but they were too heavy.

‘Am I forgiven?’

‘M…maybe?’ Her eyes flickered wide as the pressure increased, his long fingers sliding down her jaw before falling away. But he didn’t move back; he leaned in closer, one hand on the wall, level with her face.

Bombarded by his sheer magic physicality, which this close effectively made her brain shut down, made her feel breathless and uncomfortably aware of the things going on in her body.

Things over which she had no control.

‘Will you just—?’

Her feeble protest was lost inside his mouth.

For a moment she froze with shock as his warm firm lips moved sensuously over hers. The heat that exploded between them was instantaneous.

Elsie’s senses were in overload, filled with the unique musky scent of him, the heat and hardness. Her hands twisted in the pristine fabric of his shirt as his mouth moved with slow sensual expertise across hers before his tongue slipped between her parted lips.

Her initial frozen shock had morphed into desperate hunger as she leaned into him and kissed him back, her tongue twining with his as her lips parted willingly under the pressure.