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My breath caught, the heat he radiated making something in me spark like dry tinder.
He strode towards me, and before I could move he’d grabbed my upper arms in his long, blunt fingers, his grip just on the right side of painful.
‘Never lock a door to me again!’His eyes blazed.
He was so tall, so powerful. He’d just kicked in the door and now he had me in his grip. He could crush me as easily as he’d crush a butterfly.
But I wasn’t afraid of him. I’dneverbeen afraid of him. His presence had been a cool balm to my own raw emotions, his study a place of peace. He’d never turned me away, never told me to be quiet. He’d never judged me or upbraided me for not being pretty enough, or intelligent enough, or good enough. He was a rock, a safe haven, a shelter.
He would never, ever hurt me.
And I loved this raw display of emotion. Because he never let himself go, not like this. Never, ever. The only time I’d seen him lose control had been that night in the garden. The night all the ice had melted, allowing the man he was beneath it to be set free.
A man who wasn’t frozen all the way through, but who burned like the sun.
You did this to him. This was all you.
My heart was bursting with a complicated kind of excitement and a fear that he might do something I’d like, something that would make all the vows I’d made to myself about not falling into his arms go up in flames.
Yet as I looked up into his burning eyes I realised I wasn’t the only one who was afraid. Underneath all that anger, he was afraid too.
Ignoring his grip, and the fury in his expression, I reached up and touched one of those perfect cheekbones, brushing it gently. ‘Something’s wrong,’ I murmured. ‘What is it?’
The look in his eyes flared, as if my reaction wasn’t what he’d expected. Then his grip on me tightened, and before I could say anything else he bent his head and his mouth came down on mine.
I couldn’t say that I hadn’t anticipated it. And I couldn’t say I hadn’t longed for it with every cell of my being.
The kisses he’d given me that night I’d never forgotten, even if afterwards there had been nothing for me but humiliation. They’d been my first, hot and rough and intense. Feverish. As if all the heat inside him had been channelled into those kisses.
It was the same now.
He kissed me hard and with total ownership, his tongue pushing into my mouth, exploring me with a desperate intensity I couldn’t fight. I shuddered, trembling as he let go of my upper arms and plunged his fingers into my hair, tugging my head back.
He tasted dark and hot, like strong coffee, and he ravaged my mouth like a pirate.
I shouldn’t want this. I knew that deep in my heart. And allowing him to kiss me like this was a recipe for disaster. I should push him away, tell him no, say that he couldn’t get around me that way.
But...he’d looked afraid. And the desperation I could taste in his kiss told me that something was wrong. He was hurting in some way and I wanted to soothe him the way I always had, ease his pain.
I didn’t know what to do to help. All I could do was put my hands on his broad chest and lean into him, press myself against him. Let him know I was there and that he could take anything he wanted from me, anything at all.
For a moment that hot, dark, blinding kiss consumed my world. Then abruptly he tore himself away and turned, striding to the door and going out without a single word.
Leaving me standing in the middle of the room, trembling all over.
Instinct told me that going after him would be a mistake, that I needed to give him space to calm down, so I waited for my heartbeat to slow and the trembles to stop. My lips burned. I could still feel the pressure of his beautiful mouth on mine, still taste his heat. The imprint of his fingers on my upper arms lingered and I found myself rubbing where he’d gripped me, even though he hadn’t caused me pain.
I had no idea what had happened. He’d been angry at my refusing his proposal, but something about me locking the door had set him off. And then, when I’d touched his face, I’d seen something else blaze. Then he’d kissed me hard and deep and desperate. Only to pull away the next second and leave the room without a word.
It didn’t make any sense. Why had he kissed me? He’d told me that night, after he’d pulled away, leaving me lying on the warm grass, that it would never happen again. That it had been a mistake, an aberration.
But if it had, why had he kissed me again? There had been raw heat in that kiss and, yes, desperation. But was it for me? Or...had it been about something else?
Something else, it had to be. After all, he’d said that the marriage he wanted would be a platonic one. Not that I’d be marrying him anyway.
I swallowed and rubbed my arms again, ignoring how sensitive my mouth was, shoving the taste of him and the feel of his hot, hard body against mine from my head.
It was true. He could give me financial security, and stability too. A home that I wouldn’t have to leave because Mum had been dumped by her latest man and we had to find a cheaper flat. And I wouldn’t have to sleep with a chair wedged under the doorhandle, because her latest boyfriend was creepy and I didn’t trust him.
