She was sublime. So completely and utterly perfect. The tasselled Latin-dance-style dress might have looked good on her, but they hadn’t flattered the sexy, voluptuous curves of her body anywhere near as generously as they should have. They should have worshipped her...the way he ached to do right at this moment.
The pictures were still on the wall, a mere few feet away, but he couldn’t reconcile the kid in those photos with the woman standing in front him. This one was a siren.
From the long line of her neck, down to glorious breasts, which he hungered to cup, caress, kiss, down to the indent of her waist and the belly button around which he could imagine swirling patterns with his tongue. His eyes dropped lower, appreciative and unhurried, to take in the soft swell of her belly and the sensational flare of her hips, and then the incredible V of her legs where the scrap of blue lace, barely concealing her modesty, only seemed all the more titillating.
‘Tell me you don’t want me, Kasper,’ she murmured. The faintest hint of a quiver in her voice, a moment of uncertainty, only making her all the more irresistible.
His entire body pulled taut. Unequivocal male approbation. God, how he wanted to be where that lace was. With his fingers, his mouth, his sex. He couldn’t recall ever having ached to be with a woman before. Not like this.
‘You know I want you,’ he rasped, unable to keep the admission from spilling from his lips.
‘Then claim me,’ she breathed, offering herself to him.
But now it was about more than just sex. Perhaps it always had been. Perhaps a part of him had known he knew her, even if he hadn’t recognised her. It certainly explained the connection he felt.
And that in itself posed the greatest threat. Archie knew him in a way no one else did. Not the press, and not his previous lovers. And that made her dangerous. Hadn’t she already told him that she knew the playboy image wasn’t really him?
She saw too much. She knew him too well. And that enabled her to slip under his skin every time he wasn’t paying full attention. He certainly couldn’t afford to spend the night with her.
He hadn’t turned himself into the press’s idea of the Surgeon Prince of Persia because he’d wanted to be a playboy. He’d turned himself into that two-dimensional version of himself because, ultimately, it was all he deserved. Because his bad-boy image was the only thing that stopped them painting him out as some kind of surgeon hero. And he wasn’t a hero.
Just ask the family of that kid whose life he’d changed that night in the bar. But the press had never run with that story. They, like the judge, had vindicated him, Kaspar, of all blame. No matter that he had been the one able to walk out of the hospital that night while the other kid hadn’t.
It was why he’d deserved his bad-boy reputation all these years. It was why Archie should stay away from him. And it was why he should walk out of her door now.
But, then, who in their right mind could walk away from someone like her?
Not just because she looked quite like...that. But because there was something more than just the physical, more than the undeniable sexual attraction that crackled between them. There was a connection. He’d felt it on the plane, although it had taken him until now to recognise it for what it was.
Archie knew him in a way that no one else did.
Despite the media’s potted history of his less-than-enviable childhood, pushed and pulled between two parents who had seen him more as a pawn in their sick game than as a flesh-and-blood boy who either of them loved or wanted, it had nevertheless always been somewhat sanitised and glamorised. Entertainment channels ran specials on his actress mother and himself but they had never, ever even come close to how miserable it had actually been.
In many ways he was grateful for that. But Archie wouldn’t be fooled by it. Her father had been the one to save him. She had been there through enough of his childhood to know the truth. Not all of it. No one but him knew all of it. But certainly closer to the truth than anyone else ever could. Or would.
And that was the problem.
He allowed people to paint him as the cad, the womaniser, because that ensured that no one really knew him, understood him, could get close to him. And if they couldn’t do that then they couldn’t get under his skin. He couldn’t bear the idea that anyone could break through his mental armour and make him feel...something...anything because then he’d have to feel all those terrible childhood emotions all over again.
It wasn’t just that he was a danger to Archie...she was a danger to him. To his sanity. And yet he still stood motionless. Powerless to resist her.
‘Come and claim me, Kaspar,’ she repeated, her voice cracking through the command.
He was sure it was the sexiest sound he’d ever heard.
Logic and sense flooded from his brain, something far more base and primal flooding the rest of his body.
‘This can’t lead anywhere, Archie. I fly back to the States next week. I don’t know when I’ll be back.’
‘So you’d better make this the best night of your stay, hadn’t you?’
So damn sassy. So damn sexy.
He heard the deep growl that seemed to come from the vicinity of his throat, was barely conscious of kicking the door closed behind him with an accurate jab of his foot, and found himself striding across the room towards her.
Towards Archie.
Some madness had taken hold of him, he was sure of it. And then Kaspar wasn’t thinking of anything any more. He was dragging her into his arms, moulding her mouth-watering, practically naked body to his, and plundering her too temptingly carnal mouth. And his seductive siren wasn’t remotely shy in her sudden state of undress.