She had a terrible fear that perhaps no other man would make her feel that ever again.
‘Care to confirm that conclusion?’ he murmured, his voice pouring over her just the way she would imagine warm, melted chocolate would do.
If she’d ever been that sexually adventurous, of course. Which she never had been. She imagined this version of Kaspar was, though, and the thought made her pulse leap in her wrists, at her throat.
What was the matter with her?
Kaspar didn’t miss a thing. His eyes dropped to watch the accelerated beat, his face so close she could almost draw her breath as he exhaled his. His eyes never left hers, their intentions unmistakeable.
What wouldn’t she have given for Kaspar to look at her like this when they’d been kids and she’d been besotted with him? And now he was.
Before she could stop herself, she reached out to trace the scar Katie had mentioned earlier.
‘Is this really the result of some drunken bar brawl?’
‘What else could it be?’ His voice rasped over her as though his very fingers were inching down her spine. It was all she could do not to give in to a delicious shiver.
‘I don’t know, something more banal.’ Archie had no idea how she managed to execute such an atypically graceful and nonchalant shrug. ‘Like a childhood accident. Falling off a bike? Charging into a table? Tumbling from a tree?’
His eyes sharpened for a moment.
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Something hanging there. Teetering between them.
‘You have brothers?’
Her breath caught in her chest. A tight ball of air. Was Kaspar finally remembering?
A slew of emotions rushed her. Feelings she’d thought long since dead and buried. Idealistic, romantic, intense fantasies she’d cherished as an adolescent fancying herself in love with the oblivious Kaspar.
He’d ruined her, without ever touching her. Archie was sure of it. His mother had hauled him back to America right at the peak of her crush on him. If that hadn’t happened, no doubt the infatuation would have run its course, as it did with most young girls. Instead, for years, she’d imagined she and Kaspar to be some kind of modern-day star-crossed Romeo and Juliet, torn away from each other before Kaspar had even had a chance to open his eyes and see what had been in front of him all along. She’d carried the ridiculous dream with her long after she should have let it die.
It was the reason she’d never had a serious boyfriend, always holding a part of herself back in her relationships. Until Joe, of course. But that had been tainted with other issues.
Now, suddenly, she had the chance to be with Kaspar. Only for one night, perhaps, but why not? They were both adults. She might never have imagined herself having a one-night stand before—she probably wouldn’t with anyone else in the world—but Kaspar wasn’t just anybody. Forget the wicked playboy everyone else knew. She wanted one night with the first and only boy she’d ever had a crush on. It might not be who Kaspar was any more, but at least it would help her to finally let go of her unrealistic, romantic, adolescent ideals.
Too late, she realised that his last words hadn’t been a question as he’d pieced together who she was but more about explaining her accuracy away as if she was any girl with a brother.
‘Nice guess. Most boys have fallen out of tree at one time or another,’ he muttered. ‘Still, it’s refreshing to meet someone who would prefer to see the good in someone rather than simply believe all the media scandal.’
‘No one can be quite as two-dimensional as the press seem to like to paint your Surgeon Prince alter-ego,’ she breathed, willing the shutters to stop rolling down over his eyes.
‘You’d think,’ he offered flatly. ‘But they’re right about me. The bar brawl, the women, the flashy lifestyle. All things a girl like you would be best staying away from.’
It was impossible not to bristle, even as her entire body lamented the way he was pulling back from her.
‘I’m twenty-eight, hardly a mere girl.’
‘But too nice to get chewed up and spat out by the press, which, I can assure you, would happen if I kissed you the way I want to.’
It purred through her, starting at her toes and gaining speed and strength, until by the time it reached her head the roar was so loud in her ears that Archie was almost shocked the entire party couldn’t hear it.
He wanted to kiss her. Kaspar wanted her.
‘Let me get this straight.’ She had no idea how her vocal cords even remembered how to speak. ‘On one hand the infamous playboy Kaspar Athari is telling me that he lives up to his depraved reputation and on the other he’s trying to protect mine by not sleeping with me?’
‘Call it a Christmas miracle.’