Gael’s eyes had grown darker, stoked with a dark fire that made her belly clench tight. Recognising the feeling as her first ever genuine sexual attraction, Goldie gasped. His gaze dropped to her parted mouth. Stayed riveted until the almost visceral stare made her lips twitch with a need that bordered on alien.
Beneath the running tap his hands continued to caress hers. But neither of them moved their gazes except to drift them over each other’s faces, returning over and over again to their mouths.
She wanted to kiss him. Be kissed by him. Now.
Her lips parted.
Gael made a sound beneath his breath. A guttural, primitive sound. And he broke his gaze from hers.
Released from the power of that rabid scrutiny, Goldie gulped greedily on the air flowing back into her lungs. Along with even more alarm at what had just happened. The thoughts she’d entertained, the want coursing through her...
Dear God... What’s wrong with me?
After that sordid, grossly insulting proposition the casting director had flung her way this afternoon, sex should be the last thing on her mind. It should be buried even deeper than normal, beneath the tight, rigid focus of her ambition and her need to make something of herself. Her need not to end up like her mother—a slave to her sexual needs and emotional wellbeing, dependent on others for her happiness.
And yet here she was, letting this man touch her, trail his long fingers over her skin as if he were caressing a lover. And she...she liked it.
She withdrew her hand abruptly, almost knocking it against the side of the sink in her haste to dislodge the electricity his touch created.
‘I... Thanks. Can we get on with it now, please?’ she said, avoiding another look into those burnished gold eyes.
He muttered something beneath his breath in Spanish. But he snagged a hand towel and wrapped it around her hand before he drew her to the vanity unit.
‘Sit down.’
The order was firm enough to put her back up, but she wasn’t in the mood to argue any longer so she sat down where he indicated and held out her now slightly less throbbing hand.
The antiseptic stung, made her wince.
‘Are you okay?’ he enquired, in a deep, low voice.
Goldie wanted to look up, felt almost compelled to look into those eyes again, but she forced her gaze to remain on the clinical movements of his medical attention.
‘Yes, thank you.’
He completed the cleansing, then applied a light bandage over her palm. Her hand felt a million times better by the time he was finished.
‘Now for your head.’
‘What?’
He held up another cotton bud. It was then that Goldie registered the slight throb at her temples. Something like relief poured through her.
Then she silently grimaced at being glad of the minor head injury. The small gash which Gael was now cleaning didn’t really explain her temporary lapse of control or the low hum through her veins. But she clung to it as the cause just the same.
Once he was done he stepped back. His gaze dropped to the hand she still had on the wide tear in her sweater. A hand growing numb from holding the torn garment in place.
‘What are we going to do about this?’ he enquired.
She bit her lip, recognising that she couldn’t very well go out into the party with a rip in her sweater. The ripped tights she could take care of by removing and disposing of them. But the tattered sweater would stand out—and not in a good way.
‘I... I couldn’t impose on you to find me a sewing kit, could I?’ she ventured.
His eyes widened a touch, dark gold lightening to its natural hazel colour as mockery returned. ‘I sincerely doubt Pietro would have something so domestic lying about. But I will do my best.’
He balled the hand towel he’d used and threw it into the laundry bin before he left the bathroom.
His departure infused the room with a lot more oxygen and a lot more clarity.