She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. She was moving restlessly again, clearly jumpy, and he knew in that moment that she was remembering how incredible it had been between them—because he was remembering it, too.
It hummed and whispered through the air around them. The way her body had fitted to his as if she’d been crafted just for him. The way she’d responded to his touch. The way he’d burned with a fire which had never seemed to die down.
‘You’re mad if you think that’s going to happen again...’ The words finally tumbled out, sharp and jerky, as if even she didn’t quite believe what she was saying.
‘You protest too much, Saskia. Especially when your body betrays you. Or did you think I hadn’t noticed the way it reacts to me? Still.’
He relished the expression which poured out of those rich nut-brown eyes, that tongue flicking over her lips, reminding him of the way it had slid over almost every inch of him a few months ago.
Even the memory made him tighten as surely as if she’d been raking his body with her fingers, and he grabbed hold of it. Because if he held on to their physical attraction, their undeniable chemistry, then he wouldn’t have to consider that there might be more to the way he felt about her than merely the superficial.
He was so caught up in his thoughts that it took a moment for him to realise she was still addressing him.
‘I won’t sleep with you again, Malachi.’ She punched her chin out for emphasis. ‘You can’t make me just because you’re insisting we marry as though we’re back in the fifties.’
‘I have no intention of making you do anything,’ he commented dryly. ‘You will want to, Saskia. More than that, you will beg me to take you.’
‘Because you know my body better than I do, I suppose?’ She lifted one nonchalant shoulder and shook her hair out.
He felt it like a caress against the hardest part of himself.
‘I think we both know that your body longs right now,’ he growled. ‘Why you should go on denying it is a mystery.’
‘Because you’re such a prize, of course,’ Saskia bit back, a little of her former feistiness returning.
His grin widened that little bit more, and she shivered as though she could actually feel those bared teeth against her skin. He found he rather liked the notion.
‘So I’ve been told.’
‘I imagine there are several million things informing that opinion,’ she managed pointedly.
‘No doubt,’ he agreed readily enough. ‘It’s the way of the world, is it not? Although I think we both know that it isn’t simply my multimillion-pound fortune alone which attracts women. It wasn’t what attracted you, after all. So, what did attract you, Saskia?’
She shivered—a deep ripple of anticipation which he could read like other people could read a book. Despite her attempts to remain at arm’s length, she couldn’t deny their mutual attraction any more than he could.
‘You were just my rebound,’ she managed weakly. ‘I told you that the first night and you agreed.’
‘Indeed.’ He dipped his head. ‘Except now you’re carrying my baby, and I don’t intend to be kept out of its life.’
Her gaze simmered. And yet somehow he knew that he was sliding under Saskia’s skin all the deeper, and that she was tempted. Just as he was. He felt her everywhere, and it didn’t help that he could see she was teetering over the precipice of agreeing.
‘So you’ve said. But...’
‘But...?’ he encouraged, when she didn’t continue.
‘But that doesn’t mean marriage is the solution. As though I’m just a problem for you to solve like one of your business deals. And marriage certainly shouldn’t be a business deal with benefits, as you’re suggesting.’
‘All right—so what, in your opinion, should marriage be, zvyozdochka?’
‘Forget it.’ She shook her head.
‘I don’t think I will,’ he told her lazily. ‘I find I’m almost on tenterhooks to hear your answer.’
‘You’re impossible.’
‘Quite probably. So, tell me what marriage should be.’
It was insane. No one else could spar with him the way she could. Or, more to the point, no one else made him feel the way she did when she sparred with him, even when she wasn’t even trying. She made him feel almost...predatory.