Captivated by Her Innocence

She took a step towards the door. ‘I’ll leave you in peace.’

Peace!

Cesare wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and felt the moisture along his upper lip. Another couple of seconds and he would have convinced himself that a taste of her lips would be enough; the next step would have been deciding that he could handle sex with her. He was not sure why he wanted her so much beyond the obvious, but he was sure that he would not have any peace until he had ejected this woman from his home, his life and his head.

It would have been easier if Jas hadn’t so obviously taken to her, but like her impulsive mother the little girl had taken one look at Anna Henderson and decided she was a kindred spirit.

Unable to fight the impulse, he lowered his gaze to her lips. Again in his head he could see them swollen from his kisses. Contemptuous of his own lack of control, he pushed the image away. It wasn’t her occupation of his head he had to worry about. His head had very little to do with what was happening. Something about her bypassed his intellect—his reaction to her was all about blind instinct and simple lust.

‘Where is my niece?’

Framed in the doorway, Anna turned back to face the accusation, the action causing her hair to whip around her face. ‘She’s playing with a friend.’ She brushed back the fiery strands from her cheek, hating the defensive note she could hear in her voice.

‘So the first chance you get you offload your responsibilities to someone else?’

On the scale of the unfairness he had displayed so far this accusation rated fairly low, but it was just one hit too many. Something inside her snapped. She gritted her teeth and glared at him in utter frustration. She didn’t expect life to be fair but this was ridiculous.

‘Jas is playing with a friend. I haven’t locked her in her bedroom and gone out shopping or worse.’ She shook her head and threw up her hands in a gesture of angry frustration, then, about to turn away, changed her mind and took two angry steps in his direction.

Her chest lifting in tune with her angry agitated breathing, she stood, hands on her hips, her chin thrust out, and she glared up at him while covering her upper lip with her plump lower one to huff stray wisps of hair from her face. ‘Why are you here today anyway?’ She wiped a persistent strand of hair that was tickling her nose, ‘Could it be you wanted to be around so you could stalk me again?’

He sucked in an outraged breath and dragged his eyes off her mouth. ‘Stalk?’

There was danger in his echo that sent a shiver down Anna’s spine. Problem was the shiver was not trepidation, it was anticipation. She needed to end the conversation and get out of here very quickly.

You should always finish something you started.

There was only one place this was going to finish. The electricity in the air was humming, the sexual tension off the scale.

‘I don’t stalk women.’

She struggled to escape his smoky stare. ‘You know what I mean.’

‘Though a few have been known to stalk me.’

She wrinkled her nose in distaste; she’d just bet they had.

‘I’m happy for you,’ she lied. ‘You’ve already made sure I didn’t get the job. Isn’t that enough for you? Or do you have to continue this...this p-persecution?’

‘I told you how it would be, so don’t turn on the injured act.’ Did she know how sexy that damned stutter was?

Of course she did.

Anna responded to his cold delivery with an extra spurt of temper. ‘I remember! Your house, your rules. I get it, I really do, and I know you’re waiting for me to mess up, but what I don’t get is what do you think I’m going to do? Invite all the married men from a ten-mile radius to an orgy on the lawn with Jasmine watching?’

He ground out a word in Italian that stopped her mid-flow. She went still, her eyes widening as she bit down hard on her full lower lip. She could have kicked herself for rising to the bait.

His eyes, as he stared down at her, reminded Anna of smoked glass. She couldn’t even see herself, let alone what he was thinking, but lines of tension that radiated from the corners of his mouth and the audible sound of the deep breaths he was taking suggested that under the mask he was as mad as hell.

‘It’s not very pleasant feeling as if I’m on trial, being watched,’ she muttered, looking up at him through her lashes, not backing down but stopping short of a head-on collision.

His response was immediate, his solution simple. ‘If you don’t like it, then there’s a solution—pack your bags and leave.’