forced a breath into her oxygen-deprived lungs and shuddered with the effort.
‘Are you all right?’
The mocking light had faded from Emilio’s eyes as, concern etched in the furrows on his broad brow, he took a step towards her. Her skin was as pale as paper, the only trace of colour remaining in her face the rich tawny gold of her wide-spaced eyes.
Megan shadowed the action, her own hasty step backwards bringing her shoulder blades up against the wall of the elevator.
Her reaction sent Emilio’s dark brows in the direction of his ebony hairline as he raised both hands to his chest, palm flat out to her. ‘Relax. What on earth did you think I was going to do?’ he asked, his lean face taut with impatience.
Relax—wasn’t bad advice to take if she didn’t want to give the impression she was a raving lunatic.
Embarrassed, she peeled herself away from the wall. ‘You startled me,’ she retorted, a defensive note of complaint in her voice.
‘Clearly. I have seen rabbits less jumpy than you.’ His eyes narrowed to speculative slits as he slowly scanned her face. ‘Anyone would think you are scared of me.’
The velvety rasp in his deep voice had a tactile quality like raw silk. She had no control over the shudder that slid the length of her spine like the stroke of a finger. In her mind the phantom finger was long and tanned and— Stop it, Megan!
Ashamed and exasperated by her escalating physical reaction to every aspect of him, Megan studiously avoided making eye contact as she gritted her teeth.
‘Scared?’ She lifted her chin and laughed at the suggestion. ‘I’m sure you make grown men cry, but not me,’ she conceded. ‘But—’ She stopped. He had made her cry, but only the once.
Refusing to allow her thoughts to slip back to an occasion that rated pretty high in her ‘the worst moment in my life’ league, she sketched a tight smile and added, ‘Not today anyway.’
And never again. She would never again allow him to make her feel sordid and grubby.
Emilio looked at her mouth and felt the desire in his veins burn hotter as he thought to himself today would not be soon enough for him.
He had always prided himself on his ability to keep his libido on a leash. There had only ever been one woman who had breached his defences and she was standing here now, standing here wanting him as much as he did her, so he was damned if he was going to deprive himself of the unspoken invitation that glowed in her incredible golden eyes when she looked at him.
A nerve clenched in his cheek as his mask of composure threatened to slip. The scorching sexual tension between them was stronger than anything Emilio had ever experienced in his life—she had to be feeling it!
Or was he projecting his fantasies onto her?
The question surfaced and was immediately quashed. He exhaled. He knew when a woman wanted him; she was feeling it.
Megan wanted him.
The question he ought to be asking, he told himself, was why, given the overwhelming, almost primal attraction between them, was she putting on this ludicrous act?
Did she think she could pretend that it wasn’t happening and it would go away? Why would she want it to?
He dug his fingers into his close-cropped hair and tried to think past the sexual frustration pounding in his skull and other parts of his anatomy.
The Megan he knew had an engaging candour and here she was acting like some shy virgin, which he knew she wasn’t.
A girl who looked like Megan did not go through college without drawing a lot of male attention. In retrospect he could see that it should not have been a surprise to him when her flat door was opened by a half-naked man with a quiz-show-host smile—he turned out to be a doctor—and eyes that were too close together.
And yet it had been a surprise. It had been a total bombshell! Emilio had felt as though someone had just gut-punched him, but of course someone hadn’t, the humiliation had been totally self-inflicted.
A child could have predicted this, but he hadn’t. He had spent a year anticipating this moment, covering, or so he’d thought, every angle, but not once during that time had he thought she would be with someone else.
The guy, clearly very much at home, had invited him in, explaining Megan was in the shower.
Emilio had declined the offer.
Could this be simply out-of-control hormones? Megan lifted a hand to her buzzing head. Maybe he was right—maybe her sugar levels were low. It was better than the alternative—better than admitting that she had zero defences against the sizzling sexual charge he exuded.
‘It … it h-hasn’t opened,’ she stuttered, staring at the closed door.
She heard him curse, the low savage imprecation loud in the confined space as he banged the heel of his hand on the control panel. ‘Why on earth didn’t you say that you suffer from claustrophobia?’ he demanded, scanning her pale classic profile.
‘I don’t,’ she protested, too slow-witted to accept this perfect excuse to explain her odd behaviour.
‘So what’s wrong with you?’ he asked, scepticism mingled with irritation.
Again Megan’s tongue bypassed her brain. ‘You—’ She stopped, then was inspired. ‘I was just surprised you live somewhere like this. I always pictured you living in some sort of ancient mausoleum filled with antiques, a town version of your little place in the country.’
He tipped his dark head in a concessionary nod to the suggestion, and straightened up to his full impressive height as the glass doors of the private elevator silently opened into a very white space. Not that she was actually noticing; she was too busy asking herself why she was here.
Like you don’t know?
Ignoring the sarcastic contribution of the snide voice in her head and the hard knot of illicit excitement low in her belly, Megan fought her way through the mind-fogging confusion in her head.
Sexual attraction, Megan told herself, was a kind of insanity, and should be treated as such. Knowing her weakness, she reasoned, gave her a degree of control.
Her tawny eyes were drawn in the direction of the tall, silent figure watching her. The silence stretched.
The invitation had been for breakfast, she reminded herself, and that was why she was here. She wouldn’t let anything happen again; she would eat and leave. Sure, he had kissed her in the airport and had appeared not to want to stop, but that had been an act. For Emilio kissing her had not been a big deal.
Only it was to her. It was a very big deal to be kissed by Emilio Rios, but she would have died before she’d confess as much to him.
‘You did not look surprised, you looked …’ He paused, considering the question and, much to her dismay, her mouth.
Unhappy, not just about the way he was staring, but also the idea of him relentlessly pursuing the question to its conclusion,
