No Longer Forbidden(24)

“The extent of the attraction between us doesn’t seem to be penetrating for you. We’ll never be friends, Ro. People with this much sexual desire between them can’t be.”

The undisguised stare of masculine intent from Nic started a pull in her belly. Rowan resisted it with a clench of her stomach muscles. Through a night of tossing and turning she’d absorbed that Nic didn’t keep his lovers in his life. He was ruthlessly throwing her out of her home. She absolutely shouldn’t have an affair with him. But here she was, unable to resist flirting with him when she could see, at last, that she had an effect on him. Insidious thoughts crept in that she might be able to persuade him against his plans for Rosedale if she got close enough to him.

Being close was heady, but frightening. She’d grasped at the let’s-be-friends routine to slow things down. He wasn’t having it, and the sexual energy between them couldn’t be ignored when they were crammed together in this tiny car, her sunglasses dangling from his fingers behind her head. He was caressing her face with his gaze, taking in the telltale bags under her eyes that she’d tried to cover with makeup. She couldn’t help dropping her gaze to his mouth and recalling the way those lips had hardened against hers, feasting and appreciating.

The lips in question curled into a knowing smile.

“I—” She became aware of a slow burn inside her, like a fuse that had been lit and was taking its time creeping toward the cache of gunpowder.

“I want you, Rowan.” Her sunglasses slid down her shoulder into her lap as his fingers combed her hair over her ear. “I’ve wanted you for a long time. And knowing you want me too means I have no reason to keep my distance any longer. It’s only a matter of time before we satisfy our curiosity.”

“Curiosity?” she repeated, her heart trip-hammering as she processed that he’d wanted her for a long time. “You make it sound so …” Unemotional. Of course it was pure physical desire for him. It still managed to pierce her with a sweet shot of excitement.

Blinking to ease the sting in her eyes, she shrugged, fighting the urge to turn her lips into his wrist, where his warm hand cupped the side of her head. God help her if she revealed she was motivated by something far more tender than basic earthly appetites.

As a bit of self-protection, she murmured, “You make it sound like you just want to get to the bottom of this.”

She waited a beat before she gave him the limpid, ingénue blink that would tell him she knew exactly what a double-entendre she’d just delivered.

It only took a stunned second before he tipped back his head in a hearty laugh—a rare full-bodied sound that melted her heart. Thanks, Mum, she thought with a caustic nod of acknowldgement to the woman who’d taught her the valuable art of flirting. Cassandra had always used it aggressively, to bring a man in line with her wants, whereas Rowan wielded it for defense. But at least it was in her repertoire of skills.

“Well, it would go a long way to easing the tension between us, wouldn’t it?” Nic mused as he released her to gun the engine and pull away.

The wind whipped Rowan’s hair into her eyes. She slouched into the sheepskin collar of her jacket, but it was more like sinking into the miasma of thrilling emotions filling her. Nic wanted her.

It shouldn’t make her tremble like she was six and it was Christmas morning—not when it came with warnings of painful consequences—but all her sexual awareness as a woman was wrapped up in this man. Her adolescent hormones had first been stirred by his solitary masculine figure striding from the surf. As she had matured all her searches for a mate had been a search for Nic’s attributes in another man. Of all the kisses she’d experienced none had been topped by the brief, savage touch of Nic’s lips on the beach that night two years ago.

Until yesterday.

Peeling a tendril of hair from her eyes, she replaced her sunglasses and then found Nic’s in the glove box. He slid them on with the silently efficient way he did everything else. Adeptly. With confidence. With a proprietorial attitude as if he owned the road, knew each curve and how to manipulate it.

Good grief, he didn’t have to seduce her. She was doing it for him!

It must be the pending anniversary, she concluded with pensive insight. She’d always had a crush on Nic, but her emotions were exaggerated right now, making her more sensitive and quick to react to any offer of intimacy. She was moving into a state of closure, one that was going to have many fronts if Nic really did expel her from Rosedale and tear it down. Her entire life was being compressed and squeezed through the eye of a needle. Hardly anything of the old life would come with her. Out of desperation she was reaching for anything and everything to hang on to, including Nic.