“It would look lovely on you,” a deep voice said from behind her.
Shantra was holding up a yellow suit, and almost jumped out of her skin when she heard Laithir’s deep voice so close to her.
“Goodness!” she gasped, carefully putting the suit back on the hook. She missed several times and finally, it took both of her hands to figure out how to hang the suit back on the rack. “I didn’t know you were in Paris,” she finally said. And she wouldn’t be here herself if she’d known it.
“I have meetings with the French Prime Minister,” he explained. “Let me see you in that suit,” he urged, lifting the suit up and handing it back to her.
Shantra didn’t take it, even stepping back so that she wasn’t touching it. “No. Thank you but it isn’t my color.”
He tilted his head slightly. “I think you look extraordinarily lovely in yellow.”
Shantra looked down and realized that she was wearing a yellow dress, almost the exact same color as the suit. “Oh, well, um…it isn’t really my style,” she lied. Of course it was her style! She’d designed that suit!
He moved closer, taking her hand when she tried to back up again. “Why do I make you so nervous?” he asked gently.
Shantra shook her head, trying to pull her hands away. “I’m not nervous.”
A dark eyebrow shot up with her denial. “Then why are your hands shaking?”
She tried to jerk her hands out of his but he wouldn’t let her. “I need to leave,” she told him, tilting her head way back in order to look into his eyes. She was trying to prove that she wasn’t nervous around him but failed miserably since she could feel his heat, smell the incredible male scent of him.
“You just arrived,” he countered. He tucked her hand onto his arm and led her out of the store. “But since you’re leaving, I’ll treat you to lunch.”
Lunch? Sit across another table from him? Goodness, he was a glutton for punishment! Unfortunately, she’d just read an article about spiders on the flight here. Much less appetizing than butterflies! She shook her head. “No, I don’t…I mean, I’m not…”
“Hungry?” he offered. He shook his head. “Perhaps I should just kiss you to help ease your nervousness.”
She gasped and pulled back as far as his strong arm would allow. “Kiss me? Why in the world would you want to do that?” she demanded, flushed and more than slightly excited by the idea.
No, no! She wasn’t excited! She was offended that he would suggest something like that. They didn’t know each other and both had teams of bodyguards were standing a discrete distance away, looking out at the street, but still…a kiss? Right here? No way!
“I don’t want to be kissed,” she replied firmly. The door to his limousine was open but she stood on the sidewalk, not bending to duck inside the vehicle. “I don’t want to go to lunch with you either.”
He laughed again. “Shantra, we’re going to kiss. And I’m going to make love to you as soon as I can help you feel more relaxed around me. It is just a matter of time.” He leaned in closer as he said, “But I will kiss you right out here in the open if you don’t get into my car so that I can take you to lunch.”
Blackmail! Oh, he was good!
She glanced around, noticed the other pedestrians that were trying to walk down the sidewalk but their bodyguards were in the way, stopping anyone from passing. She needed to leave, to clear out so that…so that he wouldn’t kiss her! “You wouldn’t!” she gasped. Her brothers hated public displays like that, so she was counting on this man being just like her brothers.
She was wrong!
He leaned in, his strong arm wrapping around her waist and pulling her in closer. “Ah, Shantra, I don’t think we know each other very well. That has to change.” A moment later, his head descended and his lips brushed enticingly against her softer lips.
It was just a brief kiss. It might have lasted a fraction of a second, but she was still stunned by the heat, the force that caused her to want to move closer to him, to feel his firm lips against hers once more.
His dark eyebrow went up in a challenge. “Are you going to get into the car?” he asked softly, his head bending once again to taunt her with another light kiss.
Shantra thought about it. She thought long and hard. But she realized two things at that moment. If she got into the vehicle behind her, she’d be lost in this man’s embrace. She wasn’t sure she could handle an unbridled Laithir. And secondly, she genuinely was enjoying the way he kissed her. It made her heart speed up and her body tremble, but she could handle that.