Keeping Her Up All Night. Anna Cleary

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      The guy moved slightly. Enough for Amber’s critical eye to catch a glimpse of the indoor garden Jean kept in her foyer. Shocked by what she saw, she couldn’t restrain herself. ‘Just look at those anthuriums. Jean would be furious if she knew you were letting her precious plants die. Surely she explained her watering system to you?’

      He gave a careless shrug. ‘She may have said something.’

      ‘And what about her fish?’

      ‘Fish?’

      ‘Don’t tell me you haven’t been feeding them? That aquarium is Jean’s pride and joy.’ She glared at him—at the grey eyes alight in his dark unshaven face, his black eyebrows tilted in quizzical amusement. She’d never in all of her twenty-six years wanted so much to do violence to someone.

      ‘I’m not sure how the fish are doing,’ he said smoothly. ‘Why don’t you come inside and check them out? You can take inventory while you’re here, in case I’ve damaged something.’

      She caught the sarcasm but didn’t allow it to deter her. She pushed past him into Jean’s beautiful, immaculate flat and halted in the middle of the sitting room.

      Twilight had invaded. Only one lamp was lit, casting a soft apricot glow, but with the skylight in the foyer and the glow from the aquarium it was enough for her to see the damage. Newspapers were thrown carelessly on the coffee table beside a functioning laptop, more scattered on the rug. A sheet of Jean’s expensive piano music had been tossed on the floor as well, near to where a couple of her Swedish crystal wine glasses rested against the rumpled sofa.

      ‘Better, don’t you think?’ The guy’s smug, complacent gaze shifted from the disaster scene to connect with hers. ‘Some rooms are like some people. Just cry out for a little messing up.’

      Words failed Amber. Too late to try resolving this conflict without the use of aggression. This man deserved aggression—he begged for it—and she was in too deep now to pull out.

      She snatched up Jean’s precious sonata from the floor, then marched over to the aquarium. It was almost annoying to see the tank as tranquil as ever. No bloated bodies floated on its placid surface.

      She glanced back and saw him watching her with his thumbs hooked into his belt, a quirk to his mouth. ‘You have been feeding them, haven’t you?’ In her aggravation she rolled Jean’s sonata—rolled it and rolled it into a tighter and tighter cylinder. ‘This was just a ploy to get me in here, wasn’t it?’

      He spread his hands. ‘Aha. You’ve guessed my master plan.’

      She made a sharp, repudiating gesture with the sonata. ‘Don’t you mock me. I have every right to complain about your noise.’

      ‘Sure you do.’

      He moved a couple of steps, so his big, lean body was close. Close enough for her to feel the heat of him. She couldn’t step backwards without crashing into the fish tank, so she stood her ground, her heart rate escalating.

      His growly voice was deep and smooth as butter. ‘All right, I’m sorry to have stirred you up, Amber. I can see you’re a woman of strong passions. I think maybe you are a bit tired. People get overwrought.’ He drew his brows together and looked narrowly at her. ‘Amber? Are you sure that’s your name?’

       ‘What?’

      ‘I think it should be Indigo. Or Lavender. Your oldies must have been drunk.’ Missing her unamused glare, he shrugged. ‘Never mind. I accept your apology. How about a drink?’

      ‘I’m not apologising.’ Her voice trembled as she lost the final vestiges of control and reasonable behaviour. ‘And I don’t want a drink. Just look what you’ve done to Jean’s lovely home. You have no right to touch her precious piano. You’re a—a vandal. I don’t want to know you, or see you, or hear any more of your awful, awful noise.’

      He studied her with a solemn, meditative gaze. But she knew, damn him, it was an act. Underneath he was dying to laugh. At her.

      ‘You’re a bit wired up.’

      He advanced further, so that his chest was a mere five centimetres from her breasts. She inhaled the clean, male scent of him and sensed something else in him besides laughter. A high-voltage buzz of electricity that charged her own nerves with adrenaline.

      ‘You should calm down.’

      His sensual gaze touched her everywhere, caressed her hair, her throat, lingered on her mouth.

      ‘I think I know a way I can help you to relax.’

      ‘Oh.’ Fury must have overheated her brain, because she lifted Jean’s sonata and whacked him across the face with it.

      Danger flashed in his eyes like a lightning strike. She watched, aghast, as a thin red line appeared where the rolled up edge of the paper had struck his cheekbone.

       How could she have?

      The universe shuddered to a stop. There was a moment when they both stood paralysed. Then in a quick, shocking movement he caught hold of her arms.

      ‘You need to learn some control,’ he said softly, steel in his voice, his eyes.

      Her heart took a violent plunge as his hands burned her upper arms. The breath constricted in her throat.

      ‘Let go of me,’ she said, trying to sound calm while her thunderous heartbeat slammed into her ribs. She blustered the first thing that came into her head. ‘Don’t … don’t you even think of trying to kiss me.’

      His brows swept up in surprise, then his rainwater eyes sparkled like diamonds. As if she’d said something funny.

      His lashes flickered half the way down. ‘Are you sure you really mean that, Amber?’

      Knowing her Freudian slip was flashing a bright neon, while her traitorous lips still tingled with … Well, for goodness’ sake his lips were the most ravishing pair she’d encountered at close range for months. Her chaste, unkissed mouth was making a purely kneejerk and understandable chemical response.

      Then, in an avalanche of bodily betrayal, her nipples joined in. She could feel a definite weakening arousal in them of a warming kind and wouldn’t you know it? More arousal, all the way south.

      At the exact instant those sensations registered with her a high-voltage, purely sexual flare lit Guy Wilder’s eyes.

      ‘Take your hands off me.’ His grip slackened at once and she twisted away. ‘Thank you.’ Rubbing an arm, she hissed, ‘There may be women who buckle at the knees when they meet you, Guy Wilder, but I can assure you I’m not one of them.’

      The heat intensified in his gleaming gaze. He gave a knowing, sexy laugh. ‘If you say so.’ He crossed to the foyer in a couple of long strides and held the door wide. ‘You’d better run home, little girl, and cool down. The wicked, wicked man might tempt you into doing something you enjoy.’

      She СКАЧАТЬ