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He took a tentative step towards her, and when she didn’t back away he took another until he could finally see what he was looking for. Gold, green and mahogany clashed in eyes that to describe as simply as hazel would have been an insult. Swept back from her face, long, dark tendrils of hair cascaded down her back but it seemed that she was as incapable of looking away from him as he was from her.
Something strong and utterly unyielding wove between them and all sense of propriety left his mind. He reached for her then, his hand cupping her cheek, as he had wanted to do, the strangeness of unfamiliarity mixed with a rightness that almost made him dizzy.
What on earth was this woman doing to him?
He saw his own confusion mirrored in her gaze, as if she was as utterly confounded by this as he.
What is this?he wanted to ask, but was also half afraid to. In the back of his mind, something wasn’t quite right, but the day, the significance of it, the past few years suddenly pressed so heavily against him that he wanted to throw it all away and lose himself just for one moment.
Evie didn’t know what was happening. Only she did. And shewantedit. A small part of her mind was banging against an invisible door, trying to remind her of exactly who this was, but she couldn’t hear it over the blood rushing in her ears. The scent of his cologne filled her head, a subtle spice and something deeper beneath that, darker and more masculine. Him. She could smellhim.
Her heart fluttered in her chest and she felt an internal tremble whip through her body. Her body felt heavy and thick as if she was moving through honey. She should tell Mateo to stop. He clearly didn’t know who she was or why she was here. But he was looking at her in a way that made her feelalive. As if she were taking the first true breath of her entire life. And before she could say anything, he had closed the distance between them and his mouth was on hers and,oh...
His lips, soft but determined, were already in motion when they pressed against hers, enticing her mouth to open to him. When his tongue pressed against hers, she was flooded with an intoxicating, brain-fuddling need that started at her toes and raced up to cover her entire body. He tasted like honeyed whisky, heat and hunger. It flashed over her like a fire and only then did she heed the alarm sounding in her mind.
Shaking out of her stupor, she yanked herself back away from him. Her chest heaving as she gulped in desperate breaths. Desire and shock thundered across her over-sensitised skin and a heat she misunderstood morphed into outrage.
Yes, darling.
The words he’d uttered into the phone hit her a little too late, and before she could stop herself she delivered a quick, sharp slap against his cheek.
CHAPTER THREE
THESLAPSENTa shock through Mateo that he was, frankly, half thankful for.What was he thinking?Immediately he stepped back and raised his hands, more to show he wasn’t a threat than in surrender.
It had been short and sharp, rather than powerful, and although he felt a gentle burn across his jawline, the woman in front of him appeared to be more surprised by her own actions than he was. Her knee-jerk response seemed shockingly innocent rather than incited by fury.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked, concerned by the wide eyes staring up at him.
‘No, I’m not okay!’ she cried. ‘Why would you do that when you have a girlfriend?’ she demanded, much to his confusion.
‘I don’t have a girlfriend,’ he replied, bemused by the naïve description of his mythical lover. ‘Why would you kiss me if you thought I had a lover?’ he retaliated.
She frowned, presumably both at his question and his choice of words. ‘I didn’t kiss you, you kissed me! Do you always go around kissing women you don’t know?’ she asked as if outraged by the mere thought.
It was on his lips to protest that he didn’t, but he just had. He watched as she raised a hand to her mouth and began to suspect that the surprise he’d seen on her features wasn’t from the fact that she’d slapped him, but because of the kiss. But surely that much innocence was feigned. He ran a hand through his hair, frustrated with himself as much as the situation. ‘Listen, I don’t know what you agreed with Henri—’
‘Who is Henry?’ she asked, nothing but genuine confusion in her gaze.
‘Henri,’Mateo said, stressing the correct pronunciation, even as he quickly realised that no one would ever make the mistake of saying his friend’s name in such a heavy English accent if they had actually ever met the man.
‘You don’t know Henri?’ he asked, his throat thick with deep discomfort. Had he been so utterly mistaken?
She shook her head.
‘I thought you were a gift from my—’
‘You thought awomanwas a gift?’ she asked in outrage, as if the arrogance of it alone was a crime.
‘Birthday,’ he finished lamely, anger at the way she made it sound painted in guilty red slashes on his cheeks. Because hehadthought she was a gift and he could see now how thatwasbordering on criminal.
Would the ground please swallow him up now?
‘What kind of man—?’
‘It was a misunderstanding,’ he said, taking a step back further away from her as if it could somehow make up for things. ‘Please accept my sincere apologies.’ He bowed his head, hoping to convey his sincerity, but when he looked up she was frowning at him as if she thought he was worse than the dirt under those rather spectacular high heels, which he could concede, in that moment, he was.
‘But if you don’t know Henri...’ he said, his mind apparently dulled from the illicit kiss that still had its hooks into his brain and body in a rather alarming way, ‘then who are you and what are you doing in my bedroom?’ he demanded, anger at himself fraying the thin thread of his patience.
