‘Who are you supposed to be meeting? Your new boyfriend?’
Something in his tone made her look at him closely and she saw the tightness of his mouth and the deadly gleam of his eyes under the veil of thick, dark lashes. ‘Why does it matter to you?’
‘Because I don’t think you should meet strange men in pubs.’ His tone abrupt and gritty, Daniel lifted his drink and Stella sensed that he knew.
He knew she was seeing someone she’d met on the internet.
Stella wondered why that felt so humiliating. ‘Who told you?’
‘That doesn’t matter.’ He put his drink down on the table with a thump. ‘What matters is that you’ve arranged to meet a guy you don’t know. Have you no sense of self-preservation?’
Startled by the anger in his voice, Stella looked at him. ‘I’m in a crowded pub,’ she said reasonably. ‘What’s going to happen?’
‘He’ll invite you back to his place and—’ Daniel broke off, his eyes on her neckline.
‘What?’
‘You’re wearing your red dress.’
‘What’s wrong with that?’ Exasperated and self-conscious, Stella reached for her coat and pulled it on. ‘I like this red dress. And I’m on a date. Go away and leave me alone, Daniel.’ She’d hoped that the feelings she’d had for him had died, but she was fast discovering that life wasn’t as simple as that.
‘It isn’t the right dress to wear with someone you’ve never met.’
‘I wanted to look nice!’
‘You’re asking for trouble.’
‘Well, it’s hard to get into trouble with someone who hasn’t even turned up.’ Smarting with humiliation and anger, Stella picked up her bag and stood up. ‘Thanks for the feedback, Dan.’ Furiously angry with him, and with herself for caring what he thought, Stella walked quickly out of the pub.
The cold punched her in the face and she told herself that it was the weather that was making her eyes water as she picked her way across the icy car park towards her car. The temperature had dropped and a bitter wind breathed freezing air over her as she snuggled deeper inside her coat. Her windscreen was opaque with ic
e and she pulled a scraper out of her bag and attacked the ice, her fingers numb with cold as it showered over her hands. Scraping methodically, she wondered whether every Christmas was destined to be a romantic disaster for her.
Last Christmas she’d been working and the nearest she’d got to romance had been when a ninety-year-old patient had assured her that if he’d been six decades younger he would have married her. The Christmas before that—well, she wasn’t even going to think about that one but this one didn’t promise to be too much better.
The way the festive season was unfolding it looked as though she was going to need to stock up on comfort food.
As she pulled her car keys from her pocket and turned to unlock the car, her feet slid from under her and she would have fallen if strong hands hadn’t caught her.
‘Careful. It’s icy.’ Daniel’s rough, masculine voice was next to her ear and she wrenched herself away from him.
‘Let me go, Dan.’ Terrified that she wasn’t going to be able to hold it together, Stella shrugged him off with as much dignity as she could and opened her car door. ‘I wish I could say it was nice bumping into you, but it wasn’t.’
With a rough curse he turned her to face him, his hard, powerful body pressing her back against the cold metal of the car. ‘Why are you meeting men on the internet?’
‘Because I don’t meet any decent ones in real life!’ Her eyes clashed with his and then his hands slid into her hair and his mouth came down on hers.
It was so sudden and unexpected that she had no time to react.
The warmth of his mouth was such a contrast to the ice cold wind brushing her cheeks that she moaned in shock. And then she was responding to the seductive pressure of his kiss, her arms winding around his neck, her body trembling against his solid, masculine strength. His fingers tightened on her face, his kiss demanding and erotic as he created fire and flame with his mouth and tongue.
It was an explosion of pure sensuality, a heated, unfaltering, indulgent expression of passion that neither of them was able to halt.
And then the pub door opened behind them and the sound of laughter penetrated their sensual haze. Daniel tore his mouth from hers, swore fluently and stepped away from her. Raising his hands in a gesture of apology, he shook his head in disbelief, regret visible in his eyes. ‘Stella, I didn’t mean to—’
‘Oh, get away from me, Dan,’ she choked, sliding into the car and slamming the door, her body still reeling from that kiss. She didn’t know which was worse—the fact that he’d kissed her or that fact that he hadn’t meant to do it.
Damn, damn, damn. She should have pushed him away and showed him that she wasn’t interested.