She flushed but fought on anyway. ‘Actually, not all women need a man.’ She wanted to cut him down.
‘No? You’ve got Ben Wa balls in and having orgasms every other second?’
Her mouth dropped. She snapped it shut again as his eyes sparked—daring her. His boys had gone and he was back to being as unsubtle as she’d been when they first met. The images flooding her head, the feelings flooding her body, were so not helping with getting her frost back.
‘You don’t need them,’ he teased, not dropping the seductive assault. ‘You know I do a better job.’
‘You—’ She gulped.
‘Your eyes give it all away,’ he taunted gently. ‘You haven’t been able to take them off me.’
‘I’m amazed you could notice anything past all that cleavage,’ she said cattily. Too inflamed to care about what she was revealing in the process.
‘You’re jealous as hell and you can’t hide it.’
‘You can sleep with who you like, it’s none of my business. I really don’t care.’ She glared at the grass, pointedly not looking at him.
‘Protesting too much.’ He shook his head. ‘And those poor young dancers. They’re not the kind to take a guy home and do him over within ten minutes of talking to him.’
Her head whipped as she scowled at him, her frost snapping back. ‘What do you mean, not the kind? As in some easy tart?’
He laughed—but his blue eyes intensified. ‘We both know you’re anything but easy.’
‘That’s right.’ She batted out her words, all bravado. ‘I’m way too difficult for you.’
‘I actually think you might be right on that.’ He grinned. ‘You stand up to me.’ He broke every social rule—moving too close, too quick, until he stood a mere millimetre away from her. ‘I really like it how you don’t back away.’
Well, that was only because she’d locked her knees tight to stop the jelly feeling in her thighs, so as a result she couldn’t take a single step. ‘You don’t think it’s rude to invade my personal space?’
‘If you were uncomfortable with it you’d move.’
‘Over the railing in these shoes?’ she asked sarcastically.
The Cheshire cat’s grin just went wider. Okay, so the railing was a good metre away and she could get around him if she wanted.
He bent and breathed in her ear. ‘Fact is you like me this close.’
She did. She also liked the way his shorts wrapped close around his thighs. She wanted to wrap him like that. Good grief, she was jealous of cotton. She was a fool. All he had to do was look at her like that and her stupid legs ached to slip apart. Even more stupidly she was glad he hadn’t given up on her. That it was her he was chasing, not all the bendable ballerinas currently rocking out on the grass. Yeah, there was her weakness—she wanted to be the one in front. She moved, quickly, taking a seat rather than leaning into him.
‘We’re not doing this.’ She forced herself to say it. Tried to believe it. Glared harder at the dancers rehearsing their high kicks and tricks.
He took the seat next to her and put an arm around her shoulder. His fingers stroked down her bare skin with the casual ease of an intimate lover. She fought the urge to lean into the inviting breadth of his chest.
‘Maybe if we got to know each other a little better, we’d discover all these things we didn’t like about each other and our lust would die a quick death,’ he drawled.
‘You’ve told me all your angst already,’ she answered, keeping her attention firmly on the girls on the grass. And it hadn’t worked. The likelihood of her lust for him dying was as remote as the Silver Knights coming bottom of the table this season. For him, however, it was totally probable. Men didn’t like home-wreckers, not even men who liked women fast and loose. And in truth men only wanted the fast women for a few quick thrills. She frowned. What they needed to do was steer the conversation away from the personal. She had to talk to him as politely as she did all the other guys. There didn’t need to be an undercurrent of tension, of suggestion, in every word they swapped. She could normalise their interaction and thus neutralise the pull between them. Right?
‘You don’t like them, do you? The dancers.’ He smashed through her thoughts, the teasing note gone from his voice. ‘Why? You don’t like other women stealing your limelight? You want to be the only babe on the block?’
Any idea of going polite on him fled at that. He was so wrong.
‘Isn’t that why you like working here?’ He pressed her more. ‘Why you don’t have any girlfriend flatmates?’
‘Maybe it’s that they don’t like me.’ She turned her head, trying to hide the hit of his words.
His grin sharpened. ‘Why wouldn’t they like you? Are you too much of a man’s woman?’
She shook her head but knew some thought it was true. In her home town her female friends had turned their backs and since she’d moved she hadn’t actively sought to make new ones. All her effort had gone into her job. It was only recently she’d thought she needed to get out more. Ironically it was the dancers she’d been thinking of hanging out with.
‘But you like being near those boys.’ He scrutinised her. ‘Being around successful people. Achievers. A girl who gravitates towards success.’
‘To score myself a wealthy man?’ Bitterness brewed and she scoffed. ‘You couldn’t be more wrong.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes.’ She turned, riled enough to put him right on a few things. ‘I’ve been surrounded by success my whole life, Seth. Hugely successful people. Way more successful than some ball player. You’ve got no idea. I was born after my super-intelligent sister and before my super-intelligent brother. There I am, Ms Totally Average, in the middle of two academic and sporting geniuses. So the last thing I want is to be overshadowed and overlooked even more.’ She twisted. ‘Do you know the only thing I’ve done that impressed my parents was meeting Cliff Richard? Seriously. Nothing I’ve actually achieved myself. My brother and sister are amazing—she’s an academic, he’s doing his PhD in engineering two years ahead of time while still playing semi-pro basketball. They were born that way—talking in complicated sentences in no time, winning every prize on offer since. I’ve never won a prize, Seth, not even for participation. And I’ve only got attention from my folks because of who I’ve met here. Not for anything I’ve actually done.’
Even the mess she’d made of her life
all those months ago hadn’t been enough to gain their undivided attention. At least, not initially. The full weight of disapproval and disappointment hadn’t been expressed until their concern for the public perception of the family had been aired first. How it would impact on them. No wonder she’d been searching for the one thing they’d never given her—the feeling of being valued, special, wanted, supported—and finding it in the most wrong of places. But she refused to use her freakish family as her excuse; she was responsible for her own mistakes and she’d learned from them.
‘They must be impressed with what you do here,’ he said thoughtfully, his focus fully on her. ‘It’s a great job and you do it brilliantly.’
She really wanted to believe that they’d think that one day. There was still that part of her that wanted her parents’ approval. She didn’t know if that made her a fool or not. ‘All I do is support other people. People far more successful than me.’ The story of her life. ‘I’ve been on the sidelines so long it’s what I’ve become best at.’
‘But you enjoy it.’
She paused, had to give him that. ‘Yes, I do. As a job it’s fantastic. But it shouldn’t be all I am for my family, as well.’
‘Lots of people couldn’t do what you do,’ he said. ‘They couldn’t handle all these egos and insecurities anywhere near as well. They couldn’t handle working in the background.’
‘If it’s a talent, it’s hardly a glam one.’ Thoroughly under-appreciated.
‘Don’t underestimate it. It’s hard to achieve big things alone,’ he pointed out. ‘Most people need a support crew.’
That made her pause. ‘Did you have one?’ Because he’d achieved far more than most people ever did. Then she remembered. ‘Oh, no, your girl dumped you.’
He confirmed it with a small grin.
‘What about your mum?’
His grin went rueful. ‘No matter how many millions I make, I don’t think she’ll ever fully forgive me for quitting med school.’
‘What about your dad?’
‘He didn’t give a damn.’ His grin disappeared altogether. ‘Maybe it would have been nice to have the kind of support you give those players.’