Melting Ms Frost (6 page)

‘There now, be very careful with that,’ he advised, tapping a light fingertip on top of one of the bottles. ‘This Louis XIII cognac alone is worth about £1,300. Add the rest and we’re looking at in excess of three grands’ worth of the boss’ rare booze. Have you done as I asked?’

It took her a moment to realise he’d fired a question at her.

‘What?’ She frowned up at him before noticing that silvery gaze locked on her, bright and sharp as a predator’s, and every bit as merciless. Her scalp tightened as she suddenly became hyper-aware of the situation she’d let herself blunder into: alone with a man she knew was nothing but trouble.

‘Don’t play with me, Annabel.’ The voice he used did nothing to reassure her. The soft edges of his accent were gone, leaving his words clipped. His tone was the same deep one that had made the bottom fall out of her stomach last night – stern, unyielding, commanding. ‘Are you wearing nothing under that skirt, like I asked?’

The bottles on the tray tinkled as she gasped with a mix of alarm and outrage. ‘Of course I’m not!’

‘Of course you’re not,’ he confirmed with a particular relish that set off warning bells in her head. ‘First you refuse to wear your hair down and now this.’ He slipped a hand into his hip pocket and drew out a black-handled waiter’s friend. ‘You might like to take the opportunity to note that defiance only increases my determination.’

Seeing him flip out the serrated foil cutter from its slot at one end of the multi-function bottle opener made Annabel’s pulse trip. ‘Wha-what do you think you’re doing?’ She stumbled back half a step on unsteady heels, freezing on the spot as the bottles rattled and threatened to topple over.

‘What would you like me to do?’ Aidan Flynn asked, the little blade and those pale eyes glinting under the harsh overhead light as he began strolling in an arc around her. ‘Would you like me to cut through the chains of respectability that are holding you back? Free your wild side?’

Annabel’s heart leapt into her throat. She tried to keep an eye on him at the same time as keeping the tray steady.

‘This is outrageous. You can’t treat me this way. I’m your manager, not some sex toy for you to play your sleazy games with.’

The shivers running over her skin had little to do with the subterranean chill. The air itself down in the cellar seemed to be getting thinner, making it difficult for her to draw a decent breath. When her adversary stepped out of sight behind her, alarm turned to panic, causing the bottles to clink and clank. ‘If you dare touch me I’ll scream!’ she threatened in a rush.

‘I agree,’ his voice sounded softly over her shoulder, so close it made her jump and fight to rebalance the tray. ‘When I do get around to touching you, you will scream. Loudly and repeatedly with pleasure. I’ll make it my mission not to let you stop until you’re hoarse.’ The warmth of his presence started to seep through the fine wool of her fitted jacket, blanketing her spine just like it had when he’d used his big body to corner her behind the bar the other night. She’d never known anyone to give off such heat – it chased away the chills yet doubled her shivers as he continued to murmur in her ear. ‘But I promise you that won’t be tonight. It won’t be tomorrow either, maybe not even next week. No matter how much you end up begging for it, Annabel, I won’t touch you until you’re properly ready for me.’

Even though she had no reason to believe him, the rush of relief that his words brought left her shaky. Of course he wasn’t going to do anything to her. Not even someone as unscrupulous as Aidan Flynn would go that far in a business premises full of people.

‘Lucky me then,’ she managed to push out in a voice that sounded far steadier than she felt. ‘Because that will be the far side of never.’

He chuckled, the warm rush of his breath brushing against her neck, the caress making her skin tingle and grow warm. Why did her traitorous body react to him that way when her mind had the good sense not to?

On the move again, Aidan Flynn appeared from behind her other shoulder and completed his full circle appraisal with a few deliberate steps. Coming to a halt in front of her, he tilted his head down and smiled right into her eyes. ‘And lucky for me I’m a patient man. It’ll be worth the wait.’

Annabel stared, unable to look away from that Machiavellian smile which triggered another bout of physical treachery – this time a chain reaction of flutterings that ran right down to her core. Even when he was acting the prize arsehole in a dirty, dank cellar there was no denying the potent attractiveness of the man. Not that that was any reason to let him get away with such behaviour. Unlike her mother, Annabel didn’t believe that good looks were ever an excuse for bad manners. She couldn’t wait to see how quickly she could wipe that smug expression off his handsome face. ‘Will it be worth losing your job over? Because you can consider this your second verbal warning.’

‘Noted,’ he said without a moment’s hesitation. ‘And yes, you’re worth that and more, Annabel.’

She blinked as she felt her confidence deflate. If he was bluffing, he was damned good – she couldn’t detect anything but absolute certainty in his tone or expression. She realised she’d have to pull out the big guns if she stood a hope of winning this particular round. ‘A charge of sexual harassment?’

His expression didn’t change. Not by so much as a nervous twitch of an eyelid.

‘Now here’s where we have a difference of opinion,’ he said, resuming his slow paced circling. ‘What you’re calling harassment, I simply consider a statement of intent.’ He disappeared from sight again. ‘I want you, Annabel,’ he breathed. ‘And from the way I read your reactions to me, I know you want me too.’

‘You don’t know the first thing about me,’ she told him, fighting the tremors that skated across her spine as she sensed him moving behind her.

‘Oh, I know enough. I know that rude words whispered in your ear make you catch your breath,’ he murmured over her shoulder, making her nearly prove him right, if only she’d had any breath to catch. ‘I know that dirty talk about the things I’m going to do to you makes your skin flush with heat.’ He paused and brought his head down closer to her neck, taking an audible draw of air as he breathed in her scent. When he spoke again, his words came slower, his voice a low, throaty scrape over her nerves. ‘I know that a stern tone, softly delivered, makes your pupils dilate and your pulse flutter.’ God help her if she couldn’t feel that flutter now. ‘And I know that all those reactions mean you like what you hear, Annabel.’

‘I do not,’ she insisted, senses reeling as body and mind pulled in different directions. She yelped as she felt a tug on the hem of her skirt. ‘What the hell are you doing? You said you wouldn’t touch me.’

‘I’m not touching you,’ he simply said. ‘I’m touching your clothes.’

‘Well stop it!’ she squealed, the thin veneer of her composure cracking as she felt the hem line rise up her thighs. ‘You’re wrong. I don’t want this.’

And just like that the pull on the fabric was gone. The warmth radiating against her spine withdrew, leaving her back suddenly cold.

‘Don’t you?’ His ever-calm voice sounded from a step or two behind her. ‘Then why are you still standing there?’

The question clanged like a bell, the shock of the words reverberating around the quiet cellar. ‘No one’s keeping you here against your will. You’re free to go any time you want.’

The moment he’d said it, she knew he was right. Why was she standing there taking this like she didn’t have a choice? Mind spinning with confusion, pulse pounding in her ears, breath sawing in and out, she couldn’t begin to fathom the reason. Or perhaps was too frightened to.

The bottles set up an almost constant chiming and her arms trembled with the effort of holding the tray aloft. After a moment she heard the soft crunch of a footstep behind her and realised she still hadn’t moved – couldn’t seem to make herself move.

She felt her tormentor step up close again, registered the rich male scent of him that chased away the dank smell of cellar.

‘I mean it,’ he said into her ear, his soft Irish lilt barely audible over the rush of her blood that was increasing to a roar. ‘All you have to do is take the tray and walk up those stairs now and you’ll be rid of me.’

Yes. Of course that’s what she must do.

Take the tray.

Walk away.

Before her brain could connect the messages to her feet, Aidan Flynn returned to stand in front of her and Annabel made the mistake of letting her gaze meet his. Once caught, there seemed to be no resisting the magnetic pull of those extraordinary eyes, no way of stopping the flow as they somehow drained the will to look away right out of her.

Was this how a rabbit felt, trapped in the headlights – breathlessly aware of the imminent danger yet rendered powerless to act against it?

‘Go, and I swear I’ll never bother you this way again.’ The hurtling vehicle of her destruction came a step nearer, came as close as the tray between them would allow. ‘But is that what you really want? I understand why you’re fighting me, because that’s your default setting – to fight when you sense something threatening your tightly controlled world,’ he said in a deceptively quiet, compelling voice while those liquid mercury depths held her enthralled. ‘But despite your denials there’s no getting away from the fact that at least a part of you likes the idea of staying, of surrendering to the temptation to just let go for a change. A part that yearns to hand over the control and simply enjoy the pleasure I want to give you.’

Annabel felt her stomach bottom out. She’d known desire before. She’d been in the clutches of excitement and the grip of fear as well, but never anything like this. Never this paralysing collision of all three. As soon as Aidan Flynn broke that hypnotic eye contact to begin prowling around her again, she gave her head a little shake in the hope of clearing it.

Then the words, ‘And I do want to give you pleasure, Annabel – so much pleasure,’ were whispered into her ear on a hot breath that seeped down through every atom of her being like a drug. No one had ever said such a thing to her in such a way, never made such a promise with such longing. She knew that even if she somehow managed to get her feet to move, her knees wouldn’t have the strength left to carry her up the stairs. She closed her eyes as a hopeless little sob of defeat bubbled up in her throat.

She expected him to gloat over the sound – hoped he would, so the tone of his self-satisfied triumph would ignite her anger and burn away this strange stupor. But instead, all she heard was a deep exhalation, as though Aidan Flynn had been holding his breath for a very long time.

‘Trusting is the hardest part.’ His voice, though still soft in her ear, had acquired a rasp that scoured over her skin. ‘But it’s also the best. I won’t do anything to betray it. Just let go and give all the control over to me.’

As she felt the pull on her skirt resume, Annabel doubted she had the ability to do anything but. She stood there, half thrilled, half appalled, and fully dazed by the fact she actually appeared to be submitting to a virtual stranger’s whim. It had to be a dream, she decided, letting the darkness behind her eyelids convince her that was the case. This would never happen in real life.

True to his earlier word, Aidan Flynn didn’t let his fingers so much as brush her skin as he raised the figure-hugging fabric up over her hips. Perversely Annabel found a shameless part of her willing him to touch her now that he’d said he wouldn’t – perhaps because it had been so long since any man had? Imagining the feel of his hands on her flesh – wondering whether that first contact would be gentle or rough, his fingers smooth or callused – had a warm sensation blossoming between her trembling thighs as she felt him slide the skirt up around her waist.

Then she heard his footsteps circle back around in front of her. ‘Open your eyes for me,
a mhuirnín
,’ his voice instructed after a moment.

It was too much. She’d rather die of her shame than have to see it reflected back at her from those deep silver pools. She gave a sharp shake of her head.

‘Open your eyes, Annabel,’ he repeated, his voice dropped into that low tone that suggested she disobey at her peril. ‘Now.’

When she forced her eyelids apart, she saw him standing a little way back, arms crossed over his chest and head tilted at a slight angle. He made sure she was looking at him before he dropped his gaze to run it down over her from head to foot. Then he took his time raking it back up over every inch.

He re-met her eyes with a slight shake of his own head and a look that gave her the impression she’d be sorry. ‘Tights, Ms Frost?’ One dark eyebrow raised. ‘Really?’

With that, he unfolded his arms and moved towards her, dropping smoothly to crouch at her feet. Instinctively, she shifted the tray to keep an eye on what he was doing, but froze when the movement set some of the bottles into a precarious wobble.

‘Careful now, you need to keep nice and still,’ he warned as, out of sight, she felt her tights being stretched away from her skin.

Annabel gasped in disbelief.
Was she really letting this happen?
Her blood rushed so fast she felt faint.
She couldn’t … He wouldn’t …

He did.

With a tugging shred and tear, he took to the gusset with the blade of the foil cutter, exposing her thighs to the chill air. ‘Oh, Annabel. So pretty. That underwear is way too lovely for me to destroy.’

And instead of reacting like any sane person and getting out of there or telling him were to go, she seemed preoccupied with trying to remember which set she was wearing.

The silence stretched, so heavy she could almost feel the weight of the tension closing in on her. When Aidan spoke at last, his voice was roughened to the point of gruffness. ‘Christ, you’re beautiful. I can just see the colour of your curls through the lace. A natural redhead, I knew it.’ He pushed back to his feet and her belly clenched when his gaze pinned her again, the clear silver clouded to a darker shade of grey. ‘I look forward to seeing more of you.’

Annabel watched dumbly as he reached out to level the drooping front edge of the tray with a finger, stopping the suddenly forgotten bottles from sliding to the floor.