Lusty Billionaires Bundle(146)

Already hot from standing in front of the stove and having to contend with his presence in the kitchen, virtually right under her feet, Tessa now felt a surge of blazing warmth invade her body in a rush.

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ she snapped, jabbing the vegetables in the frying-pan with overdone savagery.

‘What…not now? Not with me? Or not ever with anyone…?’

‘Shut up!’ She daredn’t lift her eyes to his, even when she was aware of him drawing back. If he even glanced at her flushed face, she knew that he would read every shred of wild confusion inside her, every treacherous tug of excitement filling her veins like poison. ‘Why?’ he asked interestedly. ‘Am I touching on a raw nerve? Don’t tell me that you’ve never danced to a beautiful piece of music in the privacy of your own four walls? With a man?’

Actually, no.

Tessa added some herbs and cream to the mixture and stuck a saucepan of water on to boil for the pasta, hiding behind the pretence of busyness to avoid answering his prying questions.

‘You’re not a man,’ she said, turning around to face him, arms folded protectively across her breasts. It was very important that she get that straight right now, she decided, before her wayward mind started taking too many unwelcome detours. Yes, he was attractive. Well, formidable, really. Yes, she had been aware of his sex appeal before now, but not like this, not in the claustrophobic confines of her own house. She had a deep-rooted fear that if she didn’t lay down her boundaries, something from him, some oozing magnetism, might just seep into the walls around her, into the furniture and lie waiting in ambush for her whenever she returned home.

‘You’re not a man,’ she repeated, ‘You’re my boss. You’re the person I happen to work for, who just happens to have found himself in my house for reasons beyond my control, and it’s no good you giving me a little speech about how you like to know your employees inside out, about how you like them being three-dimensional. I don’t feel any need to be three-dimensional with you. So, no, I won’t dance with you and whether I ever have at home with anyone is none of your business!’

That had wiped the grin off his face, she noticed. In fact, it seemed to have temporarily deprived him of the power of speech, which should have been good, should have been a clear pointer that she had won this particular battle, but for some reason the look on his face now was even more unsettling.

He had gone absolutely still and there was a dangerous quality to his stillness that had every pulse in her body racing.#p#分页标题#e#

‘Wh-which isn’t to say that I resent your probing…’ she stammered, lying through her teeth. ‘I mean, I know that it’s part and parcel of your personality…’

‘Being nosy?’

‘Curious,’ Tessa amended hurriedly. ‘Interested in everyone and everything…which brings me to my cooking…you’ll be interested to know that I’m not awfully good at it…’ She fervently prayed that he would take the bait, accept the olive branch she was holding out, which was by way of apologising for her criticism while sticking to her guns. He did. He gave her one of those heart-stoppingly crooked smiles and suggested wine with the meal, reminding her that none of them had touched what she had brought in earlier, before he had driven Susie home.

Curtis could almost hear her shudder with relief. He was pretty relieved himself. Since he had arrived at the house, he had been too aware of her for his own good. Too aware of her clean smell, the enchanting freshness of her looks, the enticing depths of her personality which fought him off and beckoned him at the same time, and just for a minute there, when she had firmly put him in his place, reminded him that he was nothing more than her boss and a highly inconvenient one at that, he had felt as if someone had punched him in the stomach. Yes, he was her boss. A little technicality he didn’t intend to forget. Despite his predilection for sexy secretaries, he had never been tempted to sleep with any of them. Why he felt compelled to hire them in the first place was something he had never questioned, although he was inclined to agree with his mother that it was all to do with delegation of duties. He could get away with giving them the minimum to do, ensuring that company confidentiality was never threatened. It had always suited him. Tessa was already winning his trust, slowly but surely, when it came to work. Jeopardising that on an insane whim would be madness. Added to which he was not, by nature, attracted to women like her, women of discreet charms, however alluring those charms might seem on the odd occasion. Like right now.