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It was the same generic endearment he’d called her two weeks ago. Before he’d kicked her out of his apartment. And she was sure it meant nothing to him. He probably used it with every woman he slept with. But for her it had been special, had made her feel special. And hearing it again now, when all he wanted to do was humiliate her only made her feel more foolish.
‘Why not?’ he said, apparently oblivious to her runaway temper. ‘You are sweet.’
He cruised a finger down the side of her face, and she jerked back, the tiny touch like an electrical zap of energy to every one of her pulse points.
‘Stop it,’ she said, panic making her shout.
He stepped forward, invading her personal space. ‘Stop what?’
‘Stop playing games with me.’ She stood her ground, despite the shock waves of awareness making her whole body tremble and yearn to step towards him—like a vertigo sufferer about to leap off a high ledge. ‘It isn’t fair and you know it.’
‘What games?’
‘This game.’ She spread her hands, took another step back, the force field of raw machismo pumping off him making the heat pound hotter between her thighs.
How did he do that to her? When she didn’t want him to?
‘The flirting and the innuendo and the… The kiss,’ she babbled. ‘The kiss you gave me on the plane. And that look,’ she finished in a rush, knowing she sounded like a nutcase, but desperate now to make him stop his little charade. So her body would come to its senses.
‘What look?’ he asked, but she knew he understood, because he was giving it to her again. Her nipples tightened painfully under the lace of her bra, and throbbed in unison with the tender spot between her thighs.
‘That look.’ She pointed at him. ‘That look right there. That says you want me. When we both know you
don’t.’
The air crackled with tension, and then he had her cheeks in his palms and his mouth on hers.
His lips were firm, warm, seeking and tasted of coffee and need. Without warning, hunger flared, and the craving for him that she’d been pretending didn’t exist charged through her system with turbo-powered intensity. He opened his mouth to take more, and her tongue thrust back, drinking him in like a long cold glass of icy water on a hot summer day.
His fingers thrust into her hair as he angled her head to take the kiss deeper—she placed her palms on his waist, her fingers gripping soft cotton and hard muscle and rose on tiptoe, to let him. Searing heat fired through her body as they devoured each other. She wanted him, wanted this, with a power that overwhelmed her.
He stopped first, the breath expelling from his lungs in a couple of ragged pants. She heard her own staggered breathing. Dazed with the sudden rush of sexual hunger and the realisation that she’d forgotten to breathe.
He reached out, pressed his thumb to her raw, swollen bottom lip.
‘I’m not playing games.’ His thumb trailed down, to where her pulse hammered against her neck, and all she could do was stare blankly back, scared to move in case she swayed towards him like a cat in need of stroking.
His hand dropped away. ‘And from the way you kissed me back, I’d say neither are you.’
‘We can’t do this,’ she said. ‘It’s not appropriate.’ The denial sounding absurd after the kiss they’d just shared. But her mind was engaging again, and the stupidity of what she’d just done was staring her in the face. The wild woman had returned.
‘Who cares if it’s appropriate?’ he demanded, his face fierce, his tone tight with impatience. ‘We both want to. And we’ve got two damn weeks here…’ She saw it then, the flash of something she would never have expected. Something she’d failed to spot before because she’d been too busy trying to control the uncontrollable.
‘Unless I can get His Highness to kick me out sooner.’ He turned away, buried his hands back in the pockets of his jeans. But now that her mind had engaged, it wouldn’t stop engaging.
‘This isn’t about me,’ she murmured, suddenly understanding the game he had been playing all along. This wasn’t a game of humiliation—it was a game of avoidance.
But instead of feeling used, or insulted, all she felt was a choking sense of sympathy. ‘I’m just a convenient distraction.’
He glanced over his shoulder. ‘You’ve lost me?’
‘It was all an act, wasn’t it? That sullen “I don’t care about any of this” act you put on downstairs. You’re not indifferent, or bored. You’re scared.’
Scared? Was she nuts?
Nick pushed a laugh out past the ball of tension that had lodged in his solar plexus. ‘You may be a distraction, but you sure as hell aren’t convenient,’ he said.
And she’d just become even less convenient.
