‘Quite the knight in shining armour, aren’t you?’ she sniped. ‘Do you rob the rich to pay the poor?’
He smiled. ‘That was Robin Hood—and he wasn’t a knight. I think you’re mixing your metaphors, kitten.’
‘Gosh, you seem to know something about everything, these days, Drew! And all without the benefits of a university education!’
There wasn’t a flicker of response. ‘Do I detect a note of bitterness beneath the sarcasm? Perhaps of regret?’
She hoped he couldn’t read her lying eyes. ‘Regret?’ she said lightly, and even managed a disbelieving laugh as she shook her head. ‘No.’
‘No?’ He had moved away from the piano and was standing just in front of her, and Shelley found herself shying back from him, like a nervous horse. ‘That’s not what your body language is saying to me, Shelley.’
‘I don’t know very much about body language!’
‘Well, I do—’
‘So I hear! Especially female body language!’
He stilled. ‘Don’t talk in code, Shelley,’ he said softly. ‘Say what you really mean.’
It hurt. That was the stupid, crazy, illogical thing about it. It hurt like mad. ‘I gather that women fling themselves at you in locust-like numbers—but that you’re very choosy!’
‘So?’
She realised that she had run herself into a tight corner. She looked at him. ‘I don’t know.’ She shrugged helplessly.
He looked angry then. No, not just angry.
Seething.
The explosion, when it came, was quiet and deadly. ‘Do you really think that you can break off our engagement—’
‘You forced me to break it off!’
‘—to go swanning off to Italy with your rich lover and live with him for three years—so it doesn’t exactly fall in the category of brief fling, does it?—and then come back here and start acting like a betrayed wife—as though you have every right to?’
Some inner need to know and to torture herself made her ask, ‘So have you?’
‘Have I what? Made love to hundreds of women?’ he grated. ‘Do you want names and dates while we’re on the subject?’
She clapped her hands over her ears, completely forgetting that they had been covering her aching breasts for a reason. ‘No!’
‘No, that’s right!’ he agreed roughly, his eyes riveted to the straining swell. ‘There’s only one thing you want right now, isn’t there, Shelley? And you’re just crying out for it.’ He pulled her into his arms, as she had known he would. Prayed he would…
He dipped his head to speak softly into her ear. ‘Like I said, kitten—your body language speaks volumes.’ His mouth moved from ear to neck with painstaking precision. Barely touching her when, quite frankly, if he had thrown her down onto the carpet and then, weighted himself on top of her she would have cried out with pleasure.
He placed his hands loosely at her shoulders—so no one could have said that he was holding her against her will. Because he wasn’t. He wasn’t. Oh, Lord—his mouth was brushing across her cheek now, and she was restlessly turning her face so that he could capture her lips and he was laughing at her, mocking her.
And finally, when their lips fused, the pleasure was so intense that it was like lights going off inside her head, sparks igniting in her veins. Coupled with the honeyed tug of desire, it was the most devastating cocktail imaginable. And he had always been able to do this. Bring her to this earth-shattering brink within minutes.
The hands moved from her shoulders with lazy deliberation towards her breasts. She could have stopped them. Stopped them before they started playing idly with the tips so that she moaned. And then prevented him from cupping them luxuriously, measuring their weight like a connoisseur, even though she hated to think of his expertise in this area. Pain fused with pleasure, making it even more intense.
Feeling the hot, sharp pull of surrender, she pressed her body against his in blatant and unashamed need, when he abruptly pulled away from her, his face full of bitterness as he stared down at his shaking hands.
‘God, it’s so true!’ he said, as if he was talking to himself. ‘It’s so bloody true! The predictability of women in general—and you in particular!’
She stared at him, shook her head in confusion, too baffled for words.
‘Last night you wouldn’t come near me!’ he accused hotly. ‘You looked like I was guilty of a capital crime when I tried to kiss you! Did you still see me as your poor, jobbing carpenter with no ambitions other than to keep a roof over his head?’