Never Underestimate a Caffarelli

OK, my girl, remember that pair of lungs inside your chest? They’re for breathing.

Lily drew in a breath but it fluttered against her windpipe like the wings of a moth trapped inside a straw. Her heart was doing a crazy little pitter-pat pitter-pat behind her ribcage and the desire she thought had been dead and buried long ago reared its head and screamed, I’m alive!

He was holding on to the side of the pool with his left arm while he kept his other raised just above the water. He moved along the wall until he was in the deeper end so the water could support him, but even so his head and shoulders easily cleared the surface. For the first time Lily got a sense of how tall he was. She wouldn’t come up to his chin in her bare feet.

‘How does it feel?’ she asked.

‘Wet.’

Lily couldn’t read his expression, as he was in the shadow cast by the nearby shrubbery, but she got the sense he was not totally at ease being back in the water. She wondered if it was bringing back horrible memories of his accident. A water-based accident always held the terrifying prospect of drowning. How soon had help come to him? How long had he floundered with his arm broken and his spine damaged?

But a challenge was a challenge and he was clearly taking her up on it.

She moved closer to him, her legs treading water to keep her afloat as she got within touching distance. ‘Do you need a hand?’

‘Right now a pair of legs would be quite handy. The ones I’ve got don’t seem to be working all that well.’

‘Can you move them at all? Sometimes the water helps you become more aware of your body.’

‘I’m aware of it, all right.’

This time Lily could see his expression and her belly gave another little swoop and dive at the glitter of male desire shining there. She was aware of his body, too.

Very aware.

One of her legs brushed against one of his underneath the water. It sent a shockwave of fizzing sensations all the way to her core.

His gaze went to her mouth, lingering there for a heart-stopping moment before ensnaring hers once more. ‘So, you’ve got me outside and now you’ve got me in the water. What’s the next step in your plan?’

She gave him an arch look. ‘I get you to apologise.’

‘For what?’

‘For telling me to get out of your sight.’

His eyes measured hers for a pulsing moment. She could see the battle playing out on his features: the tiny twitch of a muscle near the corner of his mouth; the tensing of his jaw; the set of his lips into a tight line; the fissure of a frown between his black eyebrows.

‘I never wanted you here in the first place.’

‘There are much better ways of telling a person their services are no longer required than dismissing them from the table like a misbehaving child,’ she tossed back.

‘You overstepped the mark.’

‘Because I dared to criticise your personality?’

‘No.’ His eyes were as hard as diamonds. ‘Because you wouldn’t do as I said.’

‘I’m sure you’re used to people bowing and scraping to you because you’ve got truckloads of money, but in my opinion respect has to be earned, not bought. And, just for the record, I don’t take orders and I won’t be bullied into obedience.’

‘We seem to be at somewhat of an impasse, Miss Archer, for I won’t apologise and you won’t take an order.’

Lily didn’t back down even though his look was long and steely and the set to his mouth determined. ‘It won’t matter come tomorrow. I’ll be leaving, as per your instructions. And, let me tell you, I’m very glad to be going. Glad, glad, glad. Ecstatic, actually.’

‘Of course you are.’ His top lip curled in that mocking way he had perfected. ‘You’ve been looking for an escape route from the first moment you arrived. I’m playing right into your hands by telling you to leave.’

Then why did it feel so wrong to be going? ‘You’re not my preferred type of client.’

‘Because I’m male?’

‘Because you’re arrogant and insufferably rude.’

The warm night air sizzled with electricity as his green-and-brown gaze held hers in silent combat. But it seemed much more than a simple battle of wills. Lily was intensely aware that the same water that surrounded and touched her body was surrounding and touching his. It added a level of intimacy that was disturbing and yet exciting at the same time.

‘Why are you wearing a T-shirt?’