“Is that a dig? Because I’m almost twenty-two. A fully-fledged adult.” Even to herself she sounded like a petulant child and, really, reminding him it was nearly her birthday was the last thing she ought to do.
“All grown up,” he said, with an ironic twist to the corner of his mouth. Renewed tension seemed to gather in his expression as he smoothed a bandage against her wrist.
“Yes,” she claimed pertly. Her pulse involuntarily tripped under his dispassionate caress, making her subtly catch a breath.
His gaze came up sharply, the blue like the center of a flame.
She was transported back to the feel of his arms as they’d stood wet and trembling on the beach, his arousal hardening against her. Heat flooded into her, chasing away the last of her chill, cooking her alive. She should have felt appalled and disgusted, but to her eternal shame she was energized by the crackle of sexual awareness in the air.
“All grown up,” he repeated, with flint in his tone, and lifted her hand to press his lips against the bandage, a cruelly mocking glint in his eye.
She flinched and pulled her hand away, even though she’d barely felt the pressure of his mouth. That so hadn’t been kiss-and-make-it-better!
Derisive amusement darkened his eyes. “No? That’s not like you, Ro.”
Her heart took a long plunge of disgrace. At the same time she felt herself begin to glow with heated longing and other weakening sensations, even as uncertainty and intrigue muddled her mind. Desperately she reminded herself of how unaffected and ruthless he could be.
“What are you doing, Nic?” she asked, trying unsuccessfully to clear the huskiness from her throat. “Offering a clumsy seduction in hopes of getting what you want out of me?”
“Oh, I’m far from clumsy. I know exactly what I’m doing when it comes to seduction.” The hard tone was coupled with a look that might as well have swept the towel from her body and left her as nude as she’d been in the shower.
Had she really wished over the years for him to notice her? Really notice her? This was a horribly defenseless feeling! Every single occasion of testing a flirty glance or enticing him with a smile came back to her as mortifyingly obvious behavior that was now giving him the chance to get the better of her.
“You’re having a go at me,” she accused, as much to remind herself as to let him know she saw through him. “I’m sure other women wither at your feet when you bring your best game, but I’m not one of them. Act solicitous all you want, but I know you don’t care. You don’t want me. You don’t even like me.”
He took a moment to smooth a plaster over her second palm, finally asking with detached interest, “Do all of those things have to be in place at once?” He met her gaze with a look of cool consideration.
She pressed her lips into a tight line, stung by the implied agreement that he didn’t like her. Yet still wanted her. That shouldn’t excite her, but her blood seemed to slow and thicken in her arteries, making her feel hot and full of power.
“Since when did you even think about me before you decided I was in the way of something you wanted?” she managed, trying to ignore the internal signals bouncing with anticipation inside her.
His shoulders went back and his jaw hardened. “One has nothing to do with the other. I may want you to sign some papers, but that has nothing to do with physical chemistry.”
“Chemistry that cropped up today of all days?” she scoffed, flushing with anger because her reaction to him had been torturing her forever. “It certainly wasn’t there two years ago, was it?” she prodded, thinking, Shut up, Rowan.
“You want to go back to that?” With a flash of the tested anger he’d shown her then, he reached forward to cup the back of her wet head and pulled her forward to meet the crush of his mouth over hers.
“N-n-n …!” She almost got the word out, but it turned into a whimper of surprise, then disintegrated under the assertive rake of his very knowledgeable mouth.
No champagne or the romance of a windswept beach this time. This was raw, unapologetic and incredibly beguiling. He kissed with the same command and purpose that emanated from the rest of his being. He was in control. He would take what he wanted. Their last kiss and the biting lecture that had followed had been a warning she should have heeded. Nic was a powerful, dangerous man.
Who knew how to level a woman with a kiss.
She brought her hands to his wrist and shoulder, overwhelmed yet helpless to the enthralling press of his lips over hers. There was no fighting him as he took her mouth—not because he was stronger, but because he made it so good. She could practically taste his contempt, his selfish demand that she give up everything to him, but there was skill here, too. A wicked appeal to the primitive in her. He drew her into the kiss even when she knew she shouldn’t let herself be drawn.