Dio, this man was beautiful! She didn’t like him, would never like him, but you didn’t have to like a man to admit he was, in a word, spectacular.
Such broad shoulders. Such well-defined muscles. His shirt was wet, stuck to his skin, delineating cut abs and a flat belly that led to narrow hips and long, muscular legs. And his face. The face of an angel. Or a devil. Strong. Masculine. A hard mouth that could take hers with dark passion or soft tenderness…
“…just you and me. Together.”
Alessia blinked. He was watching her, eyes narrowed to obsidian slits under thick, sooty lashes. She felt her face heat.
“Just you and me, what?”
Those dark eyebrows rose again.
“Run, of course. What else could I have possibly meant?”
“No. I don’t think so. I mean—I mean…” Dammit, what did she mean? She swung away from him, placed her empty water bottle on the countertop beside the sink. “We’d better get started,” she said briskly. “We meet with my father’s people in an hour.”
She s
wept past him, head high, spine straight, every inch the princess though he knew damned well that she’d been something else for a little while. He’d had women look at him that way before; he knew what it meant.
What he’d never before experienced was such a swift, gut-churning reaction.
That was the reason he’d deliberately lightened the atmosphere with a pathetic quip. If he hadn’t—hell, if he hadn’t, he’d have done what he wanted, what he damned well knew they both wanted, right here.
Grab her wrist. Swing her toward him. Capture her in his arms, cover her mouth with his. Breathe in the sweaty, earthy, real-woman scent that rose from her skin. Lift her onto the countertop, put his mouth to her throat, her nipples, suck them deep into his mouth right through her wet shirt while he put his hand between her thighs, slipped his fingers under the edge of her shorts, felt her heat, her wetness because she would be hot and wet and eager, eager for his possession…
Nick shuddered.
He watched Alessia walk down the hall, watched her until she vanished from sight. Then he drank the last of the water in one long swallow, went back to his rooms and took the longest, coldest shower of his life.
It didn’t help.
Ten minutes later, getting out of the shower, he was still thinking about her and what had happened—what had not happened—in the kitchen.
Thinking that way was, to put it bluntly, ridiculous.
So, okay. He wouldn’t think about her. Not anymore.
He toweled off, dressed in what he thought of as his investment banker uniform. Custom-made white broadcloth shirt. Deep red Hermès tie. Gold cuff links. Black wing tips. Dark gray Armani suit. Hey, one Armani deserved another, and she would surely wear her best today.
Well, so would he. The reflection that looked back at him from the mirrored dressing room wall was businesslike. Professional. The Ice Princess would still see him as a grownup punk, but—
But, he was back to square one, wasting time thinking about her.
Thinking about the effect she had on him.
Even if he could get past the I-Am-To-The-Manor-Born and You-Are-A-Peasant crap, the lady wasn’t his type. Attractive? Sure. But he couldn’t imagine her trying to please a man, ever. Not just him but any man. And yes, he liked an accommodating woman, and if it was sexist, who cared?
Nick frowned, stared in the mirror, shot his cuffs, smoothed down his tie.
The only way to explain his attraction to her, if you could call it that, would be if he were horny. He wasn’t. He had a healthy appetite for sex but he’d just been with a woman, what, the day before yesterday? And even if he hadn’t, he’d never been the kind of man who’d jump the bones of any female just because she was there.
Besides, Alessia wasn’t there, not in the real sense of the word. She’d made it clear he wasn’t her type any more than she was his.
His frown became a scowl.
Then, how come she’d responded when he’d kissed her? And, yes, she had responded. A woman didn’t moan into a man’s mouth, didn’t wind her arms around his neck, didn’t press her body against his unless she was feeling something.
Hell.