One Night with Morelli(62)

                She flushed and thought, Who wouldn’t? Draco was the epitome of virile alpha-male perfection.

                ‘You used me.’ She swallowed, recognising that it was irrational that the knowledge hurt. After all, there was no trust between them, no bond that had been betrayed—just her own stupidity.

                The quiet accusation caused his smile to fade. Jaw clenched, his dark brows drawn into a heavy line above his eyes, he sketched a frown that deepened as, unable to resist the compulsion, he let his glance drift over her body, seeing the smooth sleek lines and soft curves beneath the clothes, remembering the silky softness of her delicious skin that made his core temperature climb.

                The powerful kick of his libido scored the angles of his carved cheeks with dark colour. The cold shower he had just endured had provided a temporary relief from the insatiable hunger, but now it was back and he could barely think past the desire to sink into her, feel her close tight as a silken glove around him.

                ‘I think there was some mutual using,’ he husked. ‘And the way I recall it you had no complaints.’

                She narrowed her eyes, folded her arms across her chest in an unconsciously self-protective gesture and angled a look of simmering contempt up at his lean, handsome face.

                ‘You know exactly what I’m talking about!’ she charged furiously.

                Know?

                He almost laughed. He knew nothing except that this had never happened to him before. It wasn’t just his body; this woman had taken up residence in his head. He shrugged, refusing to acknowledge the surge of panic that slid through him. This thing between them would run its course, burn bright, and then become a delicious memory.

                ‘How about you spell it out just to be on the safe side?’ he suggested.

                ‘Spell…let me see.’ Finger on her chin, she pretended to think about it. ‘B A S T A R D, exclamation mark. You are afraid of losing custody of Josie so I’m a token girlfriend…a female influence, a—’ she sketched quotation marks in the air and drawled with disgust ‘—“stable relationship” to waft under the nose of your ex… No wonder you wanted me out of there before I could tell them the truth.’

                ‘And what truth is that?’

                ‘I’m just another of your one-night stands.’

                ‘Bitterness…yet I seem to recall you wouldn’t have it any other way, cara. Or are you moving the goalposts now?’

                ‘I’m not bitter, I’m mad!’

                ‘If you say so…and to be accurate it was not just at night—we already did night and day.’

                Feeling an errant nerve jump in her soft jaw, Eve looked away.

                ‘And you look about as stable as a diva having a meltdown,’ he teased.

                But, hell, it suited her! Eve had been repressing her passionate nature so long she probably believed that she was the tight-lipped, buttoned-up robot she liked people to think she was—it was a role she preferred to hide behind. To know that he was the only man who had seen behind the façade made him feel… He frowned, struggling to condense and compress all the emotions this woman shook loose in him into just one word…one sentence…one book!

                ‘If I’d known you wanted to make friends with my mother and ex-wife I’d have taken Josie to school myself, though for future reference, just in case your paths cross again, I feel you should know that intelligence agencies all over the world have adopted my mother’s interrogation techniques. And how was I meant to introduce you, by the way? This is Eve—we’re just having sex?’