I didn’t get to decide. The wave crashed into me, knocking me off my feet and hurtling me into the sea. No lifeboat or safety jacket to keep me afloat. Only James, his hand outstretched as it had been the day we met, reaching out across a sea of difference. His eyes caught and held mine, a forest of dark green lit with fires of gold.#p#分页标题#e#
<<Mine.>>
No confusion and no denial.
The air between us charged and thickened. It shimmered over my skin like a whisper. A benediction, a sparkling current of desire that flowed to every angle and curve in my body.
Oh no, this was bad, bad, bad.
The warning bells, they were a-ringing, but so was my body and its chimes were much louder. I was wired, still reeling from the party and our shouting match, and now he’d turned me upside down with his passionate, unexpected declaration.
Maybe I was confused by his wonky temperature gauge. I’d had no other inkling he cared about me, wanted me or—
Liar! my mind shrieked. You knew he wanted you. You’ve always known he wants you even without being able to read him. And you suspected he’d started caring for you more deeply but you preferred to play stupid. You didn’t want to see it because then you’d feel worse about lying to him. You’re a fucking coward who refuses to tell him the truth about his own son!
My eyes widened in panic. James was coming closer and I didn’t know what to do or how to respond. I had to rewind, go back to somewhere and something I could handle.
Like sex in a dark room? That’s more your comfort zone, isn’t it? my mind sneered.
Oh crap!
I edged backward and James followed, tracking my every step until my back reached the wall. I held my hands up in surrender. “Okay counsellor, you win the heated outburst competition,” I said, desperate for him to forget his reluctant attraction.
He flattened his hands against the wall on either side of my body. “Neither forgettable nor reluctant,” he said, reading my thoughts.
Overpowered and drenched in James’s potent masculinity I needed to say something, anything to push him away. “I ruined your wedding, remember? Had sex with you in Caroline’s bed and—” Oh crap, bad move. James lowered his head to mine.
“I remember,” he said thickly. “Every night.”
Oh, God. “You’re overbearing, arrogant and—” I dropped my eyes to his mouth, “—you don’t like me.”
His sexy smile hiked my internal mercury up a few more notches. “I like you, Paisley, very much.”
“But I ruined your life and I’m in your face all the time, a walking, talking reminder of the past. I’m impulsive and impatient and—”
“And you’re smart and funny and frank,” he said. “And for the record, you didn’t ruin my life. You made me a father, gave me the person I love most in the world and enhanced my life in a way I’d never imagined possible.”
By lying to him! my mind shouted.
James’s deep voice sent its low vibration across my trembling body. “I like the way you blush,” he said, low in his throat.
Not a single centimetre of our skin was touching and yet I was so turned on I could barely think straight, unlike James. His brain sprinted down a linear path that ended with naked and bed and sex.
“You don’t know what you’re saying.” I tried to ignore the animal heat from his body, the smell of testosterone and musk that enveloped me like a mantle. “You’re tired from driving and you’re confused...or just plain horny.”
“I’m not confused but I’m definitely horny.”
Two hot hands rested on my hips, keeping them in place. Oh yes, I recognised this James, seductive and determined. For a second I thought he was going to kiss me and I tensed, inhaling sharply when his lips brushed the soft spot behind my ear. Then he was telling me exactly how horny he was and what he wanted to do about it and my head was arching back to accept the heated kiss on my throbbing pulse.#p#分页标题#e#
Tiny tremors of arousal made my skin tingle and my nipples ache for his mouth. Weakly, I pushed at his hard, muscular chest—a mistake in the “ignore virile man bent on sex” plan, let me tell you, because the next thing I knew his firm, confident lips were on mine.
Pleasure spread through me like acid bliss, erasing everything except the feel of James’s lips and his arms around my body. He tasted of heat and longing, a powerful elixir shooting straight into my veins, overcoming my efforts to resist. I sank into him, my hands threading through thick, silky hair to pull him closer.
How many lonely nights had I dreamed of the time we’d spent together, thinking it would never happen again? But this was no dream; this was James showing me he wanted me, crushing my soft curves against his hard ridges until I was dizzy, drunk on his taste and high on his touch. I had no right to his passion but I craved it all the same. This was the one addiction I didn’t want to deny myself tonight.