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Regan watched him go with puzzled eyes, wondering what he was so smug about, what it was he thought he had achieved. She cast a fleeting look at Joshua, not quite meeting his eyes.
‘Well…goodnight.’
She closed the door in his face, but she had only a few seconds to savour her small victory before it flew open again, and Joshua strolled in with an arrogance that immediately made her vibrate with outrage.
‘You could have knocked!’
‘Why? We both know you wouldn’t have opened it.’ He walked around the room, looking at the white flounced cover on the single bed, the half-open wardrobe displaying her small collection of clothes on hangers, the array of toiletries neatly arranged on the mirrored dressing table.
‘Perhaps because I didn’t want to let you in,’ she said with withering sarcasm, watching his profile as he picked up a paperback from beside the bed. ‘Would you mind not handling my things?’
He turned the book over with careful deliberation, stroking his fingers across the covers, touching every inch of the available surface before he just as deliberately set it down, satisfied he had delivered his silent message. He would handle whatever he liked, whenever he liked…
Including her? Regan felt a quiver of guilty excitement.
‘I did warn you not to flirt with Chris. It seems that you chose to deal with the consequences…’
‘You also said he didn’t need encouragement!’ she pointed out tartly. ‘I didn’t invite him up here, you know—he followed me. And in spite of everything Hazel said, I’m virtually a paid employee—I can’t start off my first day by insulting the brother of the groom—’
He spun around on his heel and rapped out, ‘You’re a little ahead of yourself. I’m not actually a bridegroom until my wedding day.’
He was playing with words again. She bravely stood her ground as he invaded her personal space. ‘He was very persistent. I couldn’t get rid of him without being rude. What was I supposed to do?’
‘Be rude…be very, very rude…’ His hand came up to cup the side of her throat, his thumb extending under the point of her chin. ‘I don’t like him touching you. I find I really—don’t like it an extraordinary amount…’
She swallowed, feeling the pressure of the ball of his thumb against her larynx and the heavy throb of blood at her pulse-point. ‘You shouldn’t be here,’ she murmured thickly, her voice vibrating in the cup of his palm. ‘The door is open…anyone could look in.’
‘We’re not doing anything wrong…’
Yet.
The unspoken qualification lingered in the air.
His eyes dropped to her mouth. Her lips parted. His head sank, his breath a hot streak of sensation across her cheek.
‘Say my name…’
‘What?’
He inhaled the scent of her skin. ‘I want to hear you say my name…’
‘Joshua.’ It was a mere sough of wind across her tingling lips.
His head sank further, the pressure on her throat increased and her mouth tilted up like a flower to the brilliant incandescence of the sun, and he groaned.
‘Damn and blast!’ His lips were hard against her forehead for a fleeting instant before his hands were gripping her shoulders, setting her firmly away. ‘No! We’re not going to do this.’ There was a sheen of perspiration on his forehead and upper lip as he stared down into her dazed violet eyes and ground out savagely, ‘You’re a complication I really don’t need right now!’
Stricken, she writhed out of his implacably gentle grip and lifted the shield of her pride. ‘Join the club, buster!’
There was a rustle from the hallway and they looked across just in time to see Carolyn drooping wearily past.
‘Carolyn?’ Joshua was at the door with startling speed.
She halted, her golden eyes curiously blank, not even seeming to register that her fiancé was coming out of another woman’s bedroom. ‘What?’
His voice gentled to a note that caused Regan physical pain. ‘Are you all right?’
‘No, I’m not all right.’ Her pouty mouth turned down sullenly. ‘I’m tired. I’m going to bed.’
