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‘No, I don’t!’ But to her dismay her body seemed to agree with him. There was something irresistible about that ruthlessly sexual evaluation and her thoughts began to react to the hunger in his eyes. She tried to push them away, but the images which were being created in her mind were making her head pound and her pulses rocket.
And worse. Her breasts had begun to prickle and swell so that the acutely sensitive tips stung uncomfortably against the crisp lace of her bra. She shifted her weight, hoping that he hadn’t noticed.
‘No?’ He raised his eyebrows and the knowing glint in his eyes told her that he had noticed. ‘Oh, come, come, Shelley—let’s not play the hypocritical little prude! This is me you’re talking to, remember? I’m the guy who watched you making out in a total stranger’s car. Remember that?’ He shook his head from side to side. ‘If only I’d known you were that desperate to have sex, kitten—then I would have happily obliged myself.’
She flinched. ‘How many times do I have to tell you that I wasn’t “making out”? You know I wasn’t!’
‘Not technically, perhaps,’ he told her coldly. ‘If you mean that penetration hadn’t actually taken place at that point—’
‘Stop it!’ she howled, clapping her hands over her ears. ‘And please don’t be so coarse! I don’t have to stand here and listen to—’
‘The truth?’ he interrupted stonily. ‘That’s what incenses you so much, Shelley—because it is the truth, isn’t it?’
‘The truth is far more complex than you make out, Drew Glover! As for your offer of a bed—well, if you think I’m spending the night anywhere near you, then you’re highly mistaken!’
‘I don’t remember offering to spend the night anywhere near you. All I asked was whether you’d booked yourself a room.’
‘No, I haven’t booked,’ she said shortly. ‘Like I said, I left in a hurry.’
‘It’s the end of the season,’ he reminded her. ‘And the only place you stand a chance of getting a room now is at the Westward. But you’ll be lucky if you do.’
‘The Westward?’ Shelley thought of the faded grandeur of the Westward. It cost an arm and a leg and a little more besides to stay there. And whilst she had saved most of her salary during her time in Italy she hadn’t planned to register at luxurious hotels which would greedily eat into her capital.
‘I expect you’d love to go back there, wouldn’t you?’ he taunted softly. ‘It’ll bring all kinds of happy memories flooding back! After all, isn’t that where you had your date with the Italian?’ He clapped the palm of his hand against his forehead in mock-chastisement. ‘Oh, no—I forgot! It was just the one drink, wasn’t it? Such a cheap date, aren’t you, Shelley?’
It was the last straw. ‘I’ve had about as much as I can take from you, Drew Glover!’ She lifted her hand and aimed it at his cheek, but he actually had time to shake his head, before instinctively ducking to avoid it.
‘Temper, temper!’ he reprimanded softly. ‘Though I do like a woman who plays rough! Not a side of our relationship which we ever explored properly, is it, Shelley? More’s the pity.’
‘Oh!’ She unballed her fist to produce pink-painted talons as she scrabbled her fingers blindly and frantically towards him, but he was ready for her again.
‘Oh, no, pussy-cat!’ he murmured, and caught her hand easily, resting her palm against the rough rub of his cheek, so that the drawn fingers softened automatically, like a kitten unsheathing its claws. The pulse in her wrist began to rocket frantically against the curve of his jaw, and he must have felt it too—for he smiled a predatory kind of smile she had never seen before.
She felt a shiver tingling its way up her spine.
‘Still excited?’ he mocked.
‘Disappointed!’ she parried. ‘I’d like to hit you!’
But he shook his head. ‘No. I don’t think you would. I think you’d like to be doing something else with me instead. Something which can be equally physical, and just as violent as lashing out at me. Every pore of your body is screaming out for it, but it wouldn’t exactly be appropriate, now would it, Shelley? So you’ve sublimated your desire by attempting to hit me instead.’ His voice deepened. ‘But what the hell, baby? Why not give in to it? What say we go inside and get down on the floor and just do it?’
Perhaps the most terrible thing of all was that his words—instead of horrifying and shocking her—were filling her with the most powerful sense of desire she had ever experienced. Desire so intense that it incapacitated her, making her honey-moist and aching, gazing at him open-mouthed with surrender. ‘Stop it!’ she croaked.
