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He gave a funny smile. ‘You were talking to Charlie. And after that, I never saw that same excitement again. You reined it in.’
‘Charlie didn’t get too excited about satellites. Except the sort that gave him the sports channel.’
‘He molded you into a different person and you were so anxious to keep the relationship going, you went along with it.’
Ashamed though I was to admit it, it was all true. I suppose I’d needed to know I could hold on to a man if I’d wanted to. Turned out I couldn’t.
Little by little, I’d subdued my real self. I’d stopped talking about my work when we went out and smiled when Charlie had talked about his. It had happened a bit at a time, so I barely noticed I was doing it. I was like the Arctic fox who changed his coat from brown to white in the winter to blend into his surroundings. On the inside I was the same, but on the outside I blended with the crowd. I’d never been in a relationship that worked on any other level. Never been with anyone, apart from my sister, who only ever expected me to be me.
But I had no idea how Nico knew that.
‘I thought you disapproved of me being with him.’
He lowered his head and leaned his forehead against mine. ‘I did. It was like giving a Ferrari to someone who only ever drives to the supermarket. A tragic waste.’
‘No man has ever compared me to a Ferrari before.’ To me, it was a compliment. And so was the way he was looking at me, as if I was the best Christmas present any guy could be given.
‘He was wrong for you in every way.
I wasn’t going to argue with that. Especially not right now when Nico was moments away from kissing me. I wished I had a tenth of his control. Given that I’d been waiting all day for this moment I thought I was showing great restraint. I discovered I actually quite liked the slow, desperate build of anticipation and maybe he did, too, because instead of bringing his mouth down on mine, he gave a half smile and slid his fingers through my hair. It didn’t matter what he did with his fingers, which part of me he was stroking—it always had the same effect on me. I’d thought about nothing but being kissed by him for the past four days and the wait was killing me. It didn’t help that we’d driven each other mad all day.
I broke first.
One moment I had my hand locked in the front of his shirt. The next I was undoing buttons. Finally. The big reveal. ‘You saw me naked from the waist up. You owe me.’
His mouth hovered close to mine, but still he didn’t kiss me. He was either a skilled torturer or he knew everything there was to know about delayed gratification. ‘I always pay my debts.’ His eyes were half shut and the way he was looking at me made my stomach flip.
I had his shirt undone to the waist and my fingers went all fumbly, mostly because I saw sex in his eyes. I lost patience and yanked the shirt. Buttons skittered and bounced over the pale wooden floor, but I was too busy looking at the smooth, powerful contours of his chest through the shadowing of dark hair.
Oh, Santa, Santa, what have you brought me this year….
His eyes darkened. ‘You just ripped my shirt.’
‘Sorry.’ Never in the history of apologies had an apology sounded less sincere. I wasn’t sorry at all, and just to prove it I slid my hands slowly up his chest. I felt hard muscle and the steady beat of his heart. ‘You saw me in a ripped dress, so now we’re even.’
‘You seem to have a thing about ripping clothes.’ The gleam in his eyes made it hard to breathe.
‘It’s Christmas. You’re allowed to rip open your Chri
stmas presents. And anyway, I figured if you can afford to live here, you can afford another shirt.’ I pushed the shirt off those muscular shoulders and sucked in a breath because there, curling over the top of his biceps, was a symbol inked into his flesh.
I think my heart might have stopped. It definitely did something strange in my chest.
‘OK, well, that’s—’ I breathed and stared at it for a moment. Then I lifted my hand and traced it with the tips of my fingers. ‘Surprising.’ Not in a million years would I have expected this man to have a tattoo. ‘I thought you were this ruthlessly controlled, conservative, Eton-then-straight-to-Oxford type.’
‘Did you?’ His husky question slid against my knees and weakened them.
I thought about the wedding, when I’d spent a good ten minutes staring at him acknowledging the raw, elemental quality that lurked beneath the beautifully cut suit. About that car journey, when the tension had almost fried both of us. I’d always known what lay beneath the surface.
‘I guess I made assumptions.’
‘People do that. They look and they think they know. And sometimes they don’t look because they don’t want to know.’
‘Charlie—’
‘I don’t want to talk about Charlie any more.’
Neither did I.
