‘So you haven’t slept with any of the hundreds of women you’ve been linked with over the years?’
‘I didn’t say that either.’ His teeth almost gleamed and Archie shivered as she felt their sharp edges as surely as if he had them against her skin.
Grazing her. Nipping her. An intimacy she’d read in books or experienced in her fantasies. Never in real life. Certainly not with Joe. She held his gaze, steady and sure, until eventually—incredibly—he broke his gaze.
Archie wasn’t sure who was more surprised, her or Kaspar himself.
‘I confess that I’m always impressed how I have the time to date quite so many women. Although I won’t deny that when I get chance I do enjoy the company of the fairer sex.’
Something kicked hard, low in her stomach.
‘Of course you do.’
‘I am, after all, a man.’ He took a step closer to her and she found herself backing up to the pillar, her entire body fizzing with anticipation. ‘Or are you going to pretend that you haven’t noticed?’
‘And if I said I hadn’t?’
‘I’d say that, public perceptions and exaggerations aside, I know women well enough to read that such an assertion would be a lie.’
‘Is that so?’ She barely recognised the husky voice coming out of her mouth. And Kaspar only cranked that sinful smile up all the higher.
‘That’s so. You noticed me. What’s more, you want me. Almost as much as I want you.’
‘There’s that hubris again.’
‘Perhaps it is hubris.’ He took another step closer, not looking remotely remorseful. ‘But it doesn’t make it any less true. Shall we put it to the test?’
Suddenly, she was caged. The pillar at her back and Kaspar on the other three sides. Huge, and powerful, and heady. He wasn’t actually touching her, and yet she felt the weight of him pressing in on her. Holding her immobile.
Not that she felt remotely like trying to escape.
‘You really are altogether too sure of yourself.’ She had no idea how she managed to sound so breezy.
Especially considering the frenzy into which her body currently seemed hell-bent on working itself. Lust and longing stabbed through her.
‘Imagine how disappointing it would be if you fell short.’
He actually looked affronted just for a split second, before his eyes crinkled and a warm laugh escaped his lips. It was as though all the air in the room—in the world—went into that laugh. As though she didn’t need it to breathe and could exist on that laugh alone. As though there was nothing else but Kaspar.
‘I can assure you, Archie, I do not...fall short. In any respect.’
Her name on his lips again. If only she had the guts to reach up and kiss him, to discover whether his mouth tasted just as good as she imagined. She tried to but her body wouldn’t move, probably due to this overriding need for him to recognise her properly. So in the end she simply stared back into eyes, which were all too familiar. In colour if not in expression.
‘Well, of course, you would think that.’
‘It isn’t a matter of what I think.’ His dark, indolent tone spiralled through her. Every inch of her body felt it wrapping around her. Pulling tighter. Drawing her closer. ‘It’s a matter of what I know.’
It was all she could do to offer a nonchalant eye-roll.
‘Let me guess. A hundred women hailing you as a deity in the throes of passion?’
She didn’t want to think of those stories the papers loved to run with. The fact that his sexual prowess was lauded quite as much by quite so many. Although, now he’d mentioned it, it didn’t add up that he should be quite such a driven, dedicated surgeon and yet have so much time for personal indulgences.
‘Bit of an exaggeration. Although, frankly, I wasn’t thinking of a single other woman. I was only interested in one. And she’s standing right in front of me.’
‘Oh, you are good,’ she conceded, hoping against hope she didn’t look half as flushed as she felt.
Hoping he couldn’t hear the drumming of her heart or the roaring of blood in her ears. Hoping he couldn’t read the lust pouring through her and making her nipples ache they were so tight. Hoping he couldn’t feel the heavy heat pooling at the apex of her legs the way no man had ever made her feel before. At least not quite so wantonly.