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He straightened from the table. ‘You assured me you could handle it. Are you getting cold feet already, Helena?’
She almost laughed at his choice of expression. Cold? Oh, no. No part of her felt cold right now. Not even close. Not when the prospect of their playing lovers for an entire week had her blood racing so hot and crazy she feared her veins might explode.
He stepped towards her. ‘There is one way to ensure we’re convincing.’
‘Oh?’ She tamped down the urge to scurry to the other side of the room. ‘How?’
‘Drop the pretence.’
Her brain took several seconds to register his meaning. She blinked, a bubble
of incredulous laughter climbing her throat. ‘You’re kidding, right?’
‘You find the prospect of sex with me abhorrent?’
The question—so explicit and yet so casually delivered—triggered a fresh wave of heat that burned from her hairline all the way down to the valley between her breasts. Abhorrent? No. Dangerous? Yes. Terrifying? Utterly. Though not for any reason she was fool enough to admit.
Her brain scrambled for a foothold. ‘I don’t understand.’ That sounded lame. ‘You said you didn’t—that you weren’t—that you no longer...’ Wanted me. Were those the words he’d used? She squeezed her eyes shut. No. His exact words had been, I’m not interested in anything you could offer.
A shard of pain in the vicinity of her heart made her wince.
‘What is there to understand?’
She opened her eyes to find him standing in front of her. Startled, she stepped back, the windowsill’s sharp edge biting into her thighs.
‘We know we’re compatible in bed,’ he said, his voice so calm, so matter-of-fact she wanted to scream. ‘Why not make the most of our arrangement—throw some pleasure into the mix?’
Lightheaded suddenly, she gripped the ledge behind her, its hard metal surface cool and reassuringly solid beneath her palms. She breathed in. Out again. Summoned calm. He was toying with her...having fun at her expense. Needling for a reaction he wasn’t going to get.
She tightened her fingers on the sill. ‘I still don’t believe you’re serious.’
‘And you still haven’t answered my question.’
‘What question?’
‘Do you find the prospect of sleeping with me abhorrent?’
She looked him in the eye. She wouldn’t lie.
‘Of course not.’
But neither would she pander to his ego.
‘But that doesn’t mean I have any great desire to jump into your bed.’
He shifted closer and she shrank back—away from the wall of masculine heat threatening to envelop her. A telltale pulse galloped at the base of her throat and she cursed her body’s irrepressible responses. Why, oh, why could she not control her reactions to him?
‘Is that so?’ He lifted a finger and traced a fiery line from her jaw down to that delicate pulse-point in her neck. ‘Then why do I make you nervous? Or is there another reason your heart is beating so wildly right now?’
She smacked his hand away and tried to straighten, barely daring to breathe. If she swayed the tiniest fraction their bodies would connect. Just the thought made her nipples peak hard and sensitive under the cotton layers of her bra and blouse.
‘Don’t flatter yourself,’ she snapped, but his gaze was already dipping, taking in the evidence of her body’s swift, mortifying arousal.
When his eyes reclaimed hers, the naked hunger in those inky depths nearly took her knees from under her.
‘Your body betrays you, Helena.’
Before she could utter a denial his hands spanned her waist, his palms searing like hot iron through thin cotton as they slid upwards, coming to rest beneath the swell of her breasts. He dragged his thumbs up and outward, gliding them over taut, sensitive peaks. Her breath locked in her throat, a combination of panic and unbidden craving making her blood pulse at a dizzying speed.
