One Night With Morelli (12 page)

‘I don’t regret anything!’

She’d yelled at him in a way he did not tolerate from anyone else; she’d flung accusations, called him a bastard to his face and created the sort of emotional scene he hated and yet he found he could reply with perfect honesty.

‘Neither do I. Feel free to join me,’ Draco murmured as he heard her heels clacking behind him on the marble floor.

Eve was panting with the exertion of chasing after him, but only a second behind as she followed him through the door of his bedroom suite. It wasn’t until the door swung shut with a click that sounded awfully final behind her that she questioned the wisdom of her actions. A second later she was definitely panicking.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ A shrill note crept into her voice as she watched him peel the vest over his head. His back was to her and as he stretched his arms her eyes were riveted to the play of muscle under his olive-toned skin; each ripple and contraction made her stomach flip and quiver. He was perfect anatomically and aesthetically.

He turned to her with an expression of innocent surprise on his too handsome face and as his hands dropped to his sides, his feet slightly apart, his attitude was one of blatantly sexual arrogant challenge and there was nothing contrived about it—this was him.

Her breath snagged in her throat as, still holding her eyes, he dropped the vest he had peeled off onto a chair. ‘I told you, I’m taking a shower.’ His eyes glittered with sardonic humour but he managed to sound mildly surprised by the question.

‘I want to talk to you.’ She struggled to maintain an air of subtle disdain while under the cold surface her hormones had gone into dramatic free fall. Whatever else he was, Draco was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen with more raw sex appeal in his little finger than most men had in their entire bodies.

‘Nothing stopping you,
cara
.’ He bent to unlace his trainers, even this casual action made riveting by the casual animal grace that characterised all his actions. He kicked off one shoe and then the other.

Watching him through the utterly inadequate shield of her lashes, Eve felt as though she were going to explode. What, she speculated, lifting a hand to her head, would the autopsy report as the cause of death…fury or lust?

Both would be accurate as this man somehow managed to tap directly into her most primal urges. He was the incarnation of everything that she had sworn to herself she would reject.

‘So if you change your mind about joining me…the offer’s still open.’ Holding her eyes, he smiled and reached for the cord tie on his sweat pants.

Her eyes dropped and she felt the blush begin. Turning on her heel and presenting her rigid back to him, she missed his smile of satisfaction.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

‘A
TEMPTING
OFFER
,
but I’ll pass.’

Unwilling to admit even to herself,
especially
to herself, how true this was, how much she was tempted to join him in the shower, Eve picked up a cushion from the pile thrown artistically on a chaise longue set against the far wall and began banging it. When it was battered out of shape she moved on to another, plumping it so enthusiastically that his response was barely audible above the thwacking.

‘Suit yourself.’

She waited a few moments then risked looking over her shoulder. The discarded pants lay in a crumpled heap on the floor and with a deep sigh she let herself fall back on the cushions. She concentrated on steady breathing in and out, but the tension that tied her muscles in knots stubbornly persisted.

This was not going as she had anticipated.

Midway through telling herself she’d have to up her game, she heard the shower start up in the adjoining bathroom. A glazed expression slid into her eyes before she let them close, but that made it worse. Images crowded into her head of a steam-filled room, water sliding off slick brown skin, droplets gleaming on the sprinkling of chest hair that became a thin directional arrow down his flat belly.

The memory of the open invitation he had issued echoed in her head, feeding the ache of need that throbbed through her. She lifted a despairing hand to her head where increasingly vivid carnal images were playing on a loop and wondered how it was possible to be so furious with someone, know perfectly well they were using you, and yet still want them so badly… Her eyes opened and her hand fell limply away.

Was she finally becoming the person she had never forgiven her mother for being? The thought worked better than a cold shower and coincided with a sudden silence as the water in the bathroom went off and a switch in her head went back on.

She went pale at the thought of how close she’d come to running towards temptation and opening that door. Where Draco was concerned she appeared to have no shame or self-respect. Genes will out, she warned herself, and, shaking her head, she surged to her feet. Recognising a weakness in yourself meant you could do something about it—there was always a choice.

Her mother had had a choice and she’d made the wrong one—twice. Eve had no intention of repeating Sarah’s mistakes.

She weighed her options, and it didn’t take long to make her decision. She’d pass on the satisfaction of having the last word and put a safe distance between herself and Draco.

Run away. She released a slow measured breath. It was a plan—definitely a plan.

But before Eve could put this plan into action or even place one foot in front of the other Draco, whistling softly under his breath, strolled into the room barefoot and her urgent need to escape immediately became less urgent—a lot less urgent.

His dark hair had been slicked back messily with his hands and was still dripping water, leaving dark patches on the white shirt he wore.

Emotions raw and her senses heightened to a painful degree, Eve knew with total certainty that that image, this vignette, had imprinted itself indelibly in her memory. For as long as she lived she would remember the way he looked and the way she felt.

‘Did you miss me?’ he asked, tucking the dangling tails of his shirt into the waist of dark trousers as he watched the expressions flicker across her face. When her mask was down she had the most expressive features he had ever encountered.

She tipped her chin. Sometimes the truth, however unpalatable, was the best defence. ‘With every fibre of my being.’

The sexy husk in her voice sent a visceral shudder through his body, and his nerve endings tingled the way they had when her hair had brushed his bare skin.

‘Right, now I’m all yours.’ His grin flashed as he held his arms wide in invitation and drawled, ‘Double entendre totally intended, in case you were wondering.’

‘I wasn’t.’ Suddenly Eve was fed up with the games and the smart talk. She was glad now she hadn’t made good her getaway; she would have always regretted not telling him what she thought of him.

Holding his eyes, she planted her hands on her hips, unwittingly drawing his attention to the gentle curves, and looked him up and down. See how you like it, she thought.

Problem was, he did seem to like it! There was a glimmer of admiration in his slow appreciative smile as he purred, ‘Like what you’re seeing,
cara
?’

She flushed and thought, Who wouldn’t? Draco was the epitome of virile alpha-male perfection.

‘You used me.’ She swallowed, recognising that it was irrational that the knowledge hurt. After all, there was no trust between them, no bond that had been betrayed—just her own stupidity.

The quiet accusation caused his smile to fade. Jaw clenched, his dark brows drawn into a heavy line above his eyes, he sketched a frown that deepened as, unable to resist the compulsion, he let his glance drift over her body, seeing the smooth sleek lines and soft curves beneath the clothes, remembering the silky softness of her delicious skin that made his core temperature climb.

The powerful kick of his libido scored the angles of his carved cheeks with dark colour. The cold shower he had just endured had provided a temporary relief from the insatiable hunger, but now it was back and he could barely think past the desire to sink into her, feel her close tight as a silken glove around him.

‘I think there was some mutual using,’ he husked. ‘And the way I recall it you had no complaints.’

She narrowed her eyes, folded her arms across her chest in an unconsciously self-protective gesture and angled a look of simmering contempt up at his lean, handsome face.

‘You know exactly what I’m talking about!’ she charged furiously.

Know?

He almost laughed. He knew nothing except that this had never happened to him before. It wasn’t just his body; this woman had taken up residence in his head. He shrugged, refusing to acknowledge the surge of panic that slid through him. This thing between them would run its course, burn bright, and then become a delicious memory.

‘How about you spell it out just to be on the safe side?’ he suggested.

‘Spell…let me see.’ Finger on her chin, she pretended to think about it. ‘B A S T A R D, exclamation mark. You are afraid of losing custody of Josie so I’m a token girlfriend…a female influence, a—’ she sketched quotation marks in the air and drawled with disgust ‘—“stable relationship” to waft under the nose of your ex… No wonder you wanted me out of there before I could tell them the truth.’

‘And what truth is that?’

‘I’m just another of your one-night stands.’

‘Bitterness…yet I seem to recall you wouldn’t have it any other way,
cara
. Or are you moving the goalposts now?’

‘I’m not bitter, I’m mad!’

‘If you say so…and to be accurate it was not just at night—we already did night and day.’

Feeling an errant nerve jump in her soft jaw, Eve looked away.

‘And you look about as stable as a diva having a meltdown,’ he teased.

But, hell, it suited her! Eve had been repressing her passionate nature so long she probably believed that she was the tight-lipped, buttoned-up robot she liked people to think she was—it was a role she preferred to hide behind. To know that he was the only man who had seen behind the façade made him feel… He frowned, struggling to condense and compress all the emotions this woman shook loose in him into just one word…one sentence…one book!

‘If I’d known you wanted to make friends with my mother and ex-wife I’d have taken Josie to school myself, though for future reference, just in case your paths cross again, I feel you should know that intelligence agencies all over the world have adopted my mother’s interrogation techniques. And how was I meant to introduce you, by the way? This is Eve—we’re just having sex?’

‘So you were being kind.’

‘There was a certain amount of self-interest involved,’ he admitted.

‘You used me,’ she insisted, clinging tightly to her righteous indignation even though what had seemed like a legitimate accusation on the taxi drive back now sounded a little bit hysterical. ‘You set it all up, got me here knowing that your ex would—’

‘Would what exactly? You seriously believe I arranged to have my ex-wife, my mother and my teenage daughter walk in on me naked with a woman in the middle of the afternoon?’

She had, but when he put it like that… The sliver of doubt in Eve’s head widened as, unable to admit she was totally in the wrong, she conceded, ‘I don’t suppose you expected your mother to be there too.’

‘Thank you for that.’

His sarcasm made her teeth ache.

‘For the record, I never expect my mother. She believes strongly in the advantage of surprise. Since my father died she is bored and I have become her project. Or, more correctly, getting me married to someone suitable has become her project.’

‘So you admit it. You let her think that we are…are…are… Will you stop looking at me as though I’m a bug under a microscope or something?’

‘In a relationship?’ he finished her earlier sentence.

‘We’re not in a relationship, we’re having sex!’ she bellowed before adding through gritted teeth. ‘
Were
having sex.’

Eve would have preferred her over-the-top reaction to make him angry, not curious, as she struggled to retain her defiance in the face of his searching scrutiny.

‘Why is the distinction so important to you?’

Wanting to aggravate him, she deliberately misunderstood. ‘I like good grammar.’

‘Not that distinction, the one between having sex and being in a relationship. Is this to do with your mother and Latimer…?’ he pressed shrewdly.

Feeling the pressure of his stare and reacting defensively, she stuck out her chin. ‘This isn’t about me, it’s about you; and anyway, I don’t think you’re anyone to lecture me about relationships. According to your daughter you change women the way most men change their socks.’

Draco recognised classic deflection when he heard it; he used it himself on occasion. But unlike Eve he did so consciously. He might not be guilty of contriving the situation earlier as she’d accused, but he had felt no compunction about taking advantage of it. For the first time in months, his mother had left without dropping heavy hints about moving in to take care of Josie.

‘You didn’t have to pump my daughter for information, Eve. You could have just asked me if you’d wanted to know anything about me.’

Eve rolled her eyes in response, while Draco made a discovery that utterly shocked him. He had meant what he’d said.

He had become adept at recognising the warning signs when a woman wanted more than he was prepared to give, and even the suggestion that they were looking for weaknesses in his emotional barriers was usually a signal to walk away—but now he was inviting Eve in to walk around his head!

‘I didn’t pump!’ she exploded, her eyes flashing green fire at the charge. ‘You’re Josie’s favourite subject.’

He arched an ebony brow. ‘Not yours?’

‘Oh, I find you fascinating,’ she trilled, taking pleasure from the flicker of something that might have been unease she saw move at the backs of his eyes.

‘So you have been discussing me with my daughter.’

‘You know how it is when girls are together…’

He responded to this with a veiled look that made it impossible for her to read his reaction—was he worried…? She hoped so!

‘Don’t play games with me, Eve.’ For the first time his low voice held a thread of anger as he took a step towards her.

‘Am I meant to be scared?’ The adrenaline rush that sharpened all her senses to a painful degree made her respond in an uncharacteristically reckless fashion—though compared with the reckless steps she’d taken recently this one was fairly innocuous.

He reached out and took her chin in his fingers, tilting her face up to him. ‘Some people are.’ Power, which for Draco was a by-product of his financial success, not an aim in itself, meant he was used to seeing the fear and envy that was often behind people’s smiles. They saw the public image and not the man and he had no problem with that; he had no wish to be understood or universally loved. ‘Not you,’ he said positively.

There was no escape from his searching stare—the truth was Draco himself didn’t frighten her. It was the way he made her feel that was beginning to scare Eve witless…

Still resisting the possibility she had more in common with her mother than she was prepared to or could admit, Eve shook her head and countered, ‘Should I be?’

His hand fell from her face to her shoulder, where his thumb moved restlessly back and forth over her collarbone as he stared down into her face feeling a sudden surge of protectiveness.

‘Probably. I don’t want to hurt you.’ But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t be collateral damage in what passed for his love life. He felt a sudden knife thrust of anger at himself. She was not meant to be so vulnerable but she was—and he’d seen it right from the beginning.

She watched him warily. His honesty had finally drained all the anger from her; maybe he deserved some in return.

‘I thought you had planned it all,’ she admitted in a small voice.

Even though his hand fell away he remained so close that she imagined she could feel the warmth of his body.

‘After Josie told me about the custody battle and that your ex is using the emotional vacuum of what passes for your love life as leverage…’ Her eyes lifted. ‘No insult intended.’

The tension in his jaw relaxed as he read the sincerity in her face.

‘I decided that when you came to my office this morning you knew exactly what was going to happen…I mean…’

‘That we’d end up having wild sex in my study and my family would walk in on us.’

On the receiving end of his dark intense stare, she felt her temperature shoot up several degrees. ‘I’m trying to apologise.’

His eyebrows rose incredulously.

‘I can now see that it was—’

‘Spontaneous?’

She frowned fiercely at the interruption. ‘A series of coincidences.’ He saw a flicker of guilt move like a shadow across her face. A soft heart could be a major disadvantage in the business world, and it made him wonder how she had got so far.