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‘You know it’s funny, everyone says you’re this gentle, sweet-natured, conservative person. They obviously don’t see this other side of you, but I do. Why is that?’
She felt as if she’d been caught with her hand in the proverbial cookie jar. Her heart pounded loudly in her chest and all she could do was be thankful that he couldn’t hear it.
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’ She was impressed at quite how haughty she managed to sound.
Sol, it seemed, was more amused than intimidated.
‘Oh, trust me, I do. I know women well enough. I seem to push all your buttons, Anouk Hart.’
‘You wouldn’t know my buttons if I waved them in your face,’ she retorted, congratulating herself on her quick wit.
It was only when he laughed—a deliciously rude and decidedly dirty sound—that she realised quite wh
at she’d said.
Again.
‘I do admire a good double entendre. First the invitation to get you out of that dress, and now this. I would say that I believe your subconscious is trying to tell you something, Anouk. But I see you’ve cleverly managed to manipulate the subject after all.’
‘There is a silver lining, then,’ she managed, perching on the edge of the desk, her legs stretched in front of her, her arms extended either side of her with her hands resting on the polished wood, too.
It had been a move intended to show she wasn’t as cornered as she felt, but she hadn’t been prepared for Sol’s reaction.
His eyes dropped down her body, as though taking in every new curve she had inadvertently revealed, from the deep plunge of her dress to the way the fabric clung to her thighs. Even the skyscraper heels that she had borrowed from Saskia.
She folded her arms over her chest, realising too late how it made her cleavage appear to swell and threaten to spill over the glorious blue fabric. But then she saw the effect it was having on Sol and her entire body burned.
It was thrilling, the way his eyes raked over her as though he couldn’t tear his gaze from her. As though he ached to do so much more than simply look.
It was empowering, too.
Anouk didn’t think—she couldn’t afford to talk herself out of testing her theory—she just acted. And so what if she didn’t believe it when she told herself that all she was trying to do was prevent him from asking any more questions?
Pushing herself up from the desk, she stood and faced him, and Sol didn’t miss a moment. His eyes turned molten, his body—all six-foot-three of broad-shouldered, sculpted, wholly masculine beauty—looked suddenly taut and the room started practically humming with sexual tension.
The silence in the room was almost deafening.
Had she ever felt so desired? So confident? So reckless?
‘Are you seducing me?’ he demanded, the hoarseness of his tone making her blood actually tingle in her veins. ‘Because if you are, I can tell you that you’re going to need to be a little more persuasive.’
He was lying and they both knew it.
‘That can be arranged,’ she murmured before her brain even seemed to have kicked into gear.
It was as though someone completely separate to her had taken control of her body, a confident, sexually assertive persona that she herself had never felt in her life before.
It was exhilarating.
With exaggerated care, she reached around and unzipped the low back of the dress.
‘What are you doing, Anouk? This isn’t you.’
Another hit of triumph punched through her at the slightly raspy tone to his usually rich timbre.
‘I’m shutting down any more of your conversations about my past, in the only way I know you’ll respond to,’ she replied, shocked at how controlled her voice sounded when inside it felt as if a thousand fizzing fireworks were all going off at once.
‘I thought you told me you were only coming tonight on the premise that it wasn’t a date, and that you wouldn’t be sleeping with me?’ he bit out, but she could see him clenching his fists at his sides.
