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“No.”
She threw her hands up but kept following him. Then he wheeled around, stopping so abruptly, she nearly ran into him.
“What’s wrong is you continuously turning this desire we have between us into some sort of weapon,” he said. “Trying to twist it to your advantage.”
“What? No! I didn’t mean—”
“Didn’t you? Every time we’ve let this…this…attraction we apparently feel for each other get the better of us, you immediately bring up signing the papers.”
“Well, yes, but not because… I mean, I do want you to sign them, but I’m not trying to trick you or…or…”
“Seduce me into doing something I have repeatedly said I do not want to do?”
“I’m not trying to seduce you into anything.” She stopped. Wasn’t she, though? She’d abandoned her ill-thought-out plan from the bathhouse the moment she’d fled his presence, so perhaps she wasn’t doing it consciously. But she could see why it might look that way. And…she had, even if briefly, thought of doing exactly what he accused her of. Still…
“If that is how it has seemed to you, then I apologize,” she said, though her tone was anything but conciliatory. “But did it ever occur to you that maybe I just want our marriage to be legal before I give up…before I let…before we…”
“If you can’t say it, you certainly aren’t ready to do it,” he said. “And no, that didn’t occur to me, because you have been going around town for over a week now, insisting that we are already married.” He moved closer, backing her up and wagging his finger at her. If he put it in her face, she was going to break it off. “And if that’s the case, then anything further happening between us is just the normal course of action between a husband and wife. A husband, by the way, who you also keep insisting you do not want. So you’ll have to pardon me if I’m a bit confused by the muddled messages coming from you.”
“The muddled messages coming fromme? You’re one to talk!” She moved even closer, until they were almost nose to nose. “You keep insisting that you don’t want to be married at all. You keep insisting that we aren’t married, legally or otherwise. So what does it say about you that you are willing to seduce me—”
“I’m not—”
“You seduce, I seduce, what difference does it make?” she said, spinning them around so that now she was the one backing him up. “Either way, seduction is happening, and if you have no intention of ever marrying me and have no belief that we are already married, but you are still trying to get me into your bed, then—”
“In my defense, I’m just trying to get intoanybed that doesn’t involve chickens!”
She stared at him for a second and then burst out laughing. She slapped a hand over her mouth but couldn’t keep it contained. When she accidentally snorted, his lips started twitching.
He turned, keeping his gaze locked on hers, and took another step forward. When she backed up, she bumped against the wall. She hadn’t noticed it was so close. Sneaky little bastard.
Adam didn’t say anything for a moment, just stared down at her before finally sighing and resting his forehead against hers. “One of these days, it would be nice to have a conversation with you that didn’t end in us shouting at each other. Or running away from each other.”
She shrugged. “Where’s the fun in that?”
He smiled at the echo of one of his favorite phrases. “I’m not trying to seduce you into something you don’t want to do.”
“Neither am I.”
“Then what are we doing?”
She sucked in a deep breath through her nose and let it out slowly. “I don’t know.”
“You’re an infuriating woman,” he said, though there was no heat behind the words.
She smiled. “And you are a stubborn, aggravating man.”
He cupped her face, his gaze fixed on her lips. “I want to kiss you,” he said, rubbing the tip of his nose against hers.
Her heart stuttered, and it suddenly felt like she was both breathing too much and not enough at the same time. “Don’t you always do what you want?” She slid her hands up his chest, bunching the material in her fists.
“Almost never.” He said the words against her mouth, his lips brushing against hers as he spoke.
“Maybe you should work on that.”
“Maybe I should.”
His lips crushed against hers, moving hungrily, demanding. His hand gripped her chin, keeping her captive, tilting her face so he could more easily plunder her mouth. And she opened beneath his onslaught willingly. Desperately. This was no soft kiss. No tentative caress. This was pent-up passion, aggression, frustration, feelings that neither of them had the willpower or desire to stem finally finding an outlet.
