“What?” Dio! He could kill her he was so terrified. Clattering his mobile onto the coffee table he rolled her into the sofa back and used both hands to release the tiny hook-and-eye closures down her back. There were a million of them and his fingers were big and clumsy. “I was trying to call a doctor. Are you in pain?”
“No, I—”
He overrode her with a string of curses as the panels of her dress peeled open to reveal a silken cord tied punishingly across her pale back. As he hurried to release the strings, he exposed a pattern of thin welts criss-crossing her satiny skin. “What in hell! The laces have nearly cut through to your ribs.”
“It’s not that bad, is it? It doesn’t hurt.” She ran light fingers over the indents while her rib cage expanded and her body relaxed into softer lines. “I’m fine,” she dismissed on a long, easy sigh. “It was just a little tight.”#p#????#e#
“A little?” Appalled, he traced each mark, ensuring they were superficial enough to fade.
Her spine made a subtle arch under his touch. Goose bumps rose across her flexing shoulder blades. Her reaction was so immediate and honest it sent a sexual zing through him, enticing him to slow his stroking into a deliberate caress. He recalled that her skin tasted exactly as smooth and creamy as it looked. The desire to bend and press kisses to her neck and shoulder until she moaned with need nearly overtook him.
He forced himself to stand so he couldn’t touch her, mind reeling at how close a call that was. His body was shaking and his blood sizzling. “Why would you wear something so dangerous?” he charged.
“Dangerous?” she repeated with a gurgle of humor. She rolled onto her back, hugging the loose front of the dress to breasts that remained invitingly plump against the amethyst edging. “Since when are gowns deadly?”
Her smile invited him to join her in laughing at absurdity. Part of him wanted to let it happen. When she forgot to be shy, she was quite animated and fun.
And sensual. Her eyes grew languorous as she gazed up at him. Her color was flowing back in a warm glow.
“Shoes are regular serial killers, but dresses are harmless,” she teased.
He couldn’t help the twitch of humor at the corner of his mouth. “I’ve seen dresses short enough to take a man down. Whiplash is a common occurrence.”
Her smile grew. “I nearly died of embarrassment in a bathing suit once. True story.”
“I would say nothing is safe, but that’s probably riskiest of all.”
He’d taken it too far, his voice lowering to an intimate tone as he pictured her naked. The irrepressible attraction between them rose like a ring of spitting fire, urging him to move closer to her. It took everything in him not to lower onto her and do exactly what he’d done the last time he’d been alone with her. They’d been completely naked, nothing between them, nothing.
And it had been so wrong.
He curled his hands into fists, refusing to let himself absorb the implications. “This isn’t funny, Lauren. None of this is the least bit funny.”
Her mouth flinched in startled hurt at his return to recrimination. She threw her arm over her eyes to block him out and started to say, “I know, I’m s—” but flattened her lips to stop herself. “I was nervous, so I didn’t eat. That’s why I fainted.”
“That was stupid!” His alarm for her climbed into the rafters. “I’ll order something. Are you on a special diet?” He was across the room with the hotel phone in his hand before her plea stopped him.
“Paolo, don’t. Not here. Not like this.” She lowered her arm to reveal a disturbingly unguarded expression and nodded at her state of undress. She wasn’t taking this as lightly as she seemed. “Just pour me a glass of soda. Something with sugar, but no caffeine. And maybe a banana or one of those oranges? Then I’ll go back to my room and have a proper meal sent up.”
He fetched what she’d asked for, assembling her micro-meal on the coffee table then standing by as she carefully sat up.
The intensity of his tension struck him. He watched her pour and sip with a silent will for her to consume faster, like this was anti-venom she was taking in and her survival vitally important to him. The reality was, they were acquaintances through her husband. He didn’t know her well at all and couldn’t afford to trust her no matter how attracted to him she acted or how vulnerable she seemed.
From day one she had thrown out those conflicting signals, seeming interested yet always turning to Ryan. She wasn’t the first woman to feed her ego by using one man’s attention to make another jealous, but she was the only one who had managed to both draw Paolo in and incite his green monster. Paolo refused to be treated as a plaything. It made him all the more certain she was setting him up in some way.#p#????#e#