hair off her neck with her hand as she pursed her lips and evinced a show of reluctance before admitting, ‘You might have been right. I do need feeding.’
For a split second she thought he was going to push, then to her relief Emilio grinned. His smugness, she decided, struggling to drag her stare from the curve of his sensually full lower lip, was infinitely preferable to him guessing the lustful direction of her thoughts.
‘I am always right, and I do possess the sort of home you speak of,’ he admitted, stepping through the door into the white apartment.
MEGAN moved to follow Emilio and hesitated, unable to shake the irrational conviction that by stepping over the threshold she would be committing herself to more than breakfast, which she wasn’t, but what if he thought …?
What if he had more planned than breakfast? She had no doubt that he took sex as casually as he did kisses.
How was he to know she didn’t?
She knew she was here for breakfast, but who was to say he did? He might assume that she knew breakfast was some sort of code for sex.
‘We could do the restaurant option if you prefer. You did say you looked too much of a mess to be seen anywhere … posh,’ Emilio reminded her. ‘I thought you would appreciate the lack of strangers being traumatised by your appearance.’ Strangers did not fit in with his plans for the rest of the day, as he pictured her tangled skein of glossy hair spread out on a pillow.
‘Traumatised …’ she choked. Her flashing golden eyes narrowed in his face. Indignation had carried Megan across the threshold without realising it until the door did the spooky swishy thing behind her, making her jump, and she momentarily transferred her anger to the inanimate object.
‘You afraid that being seen in public with a female who hasn’t got her surgically enhanced boobs on show will be bad for your reputation?’ she charged scornfully as she glanced downwards, adding, ‘What’s wrong with the way I look?’
It was a question that Megan almost immediately bitterly regretted issuing.
As his gaze drifted downwards Emilio reined in his lust with difficulty.
She stood there rigidly, her heart pounding against her ribcage, her stomach churning as his dark eyes made a slow, insolent journey from the top of her head to her toes, then at an equally leisurely pace made the return trip.
Emilio swallowed, his head jerking backwards fractionally as he snapped himself clear of the sensual fog.
‘You were the one who was unhappy with the way you look.’ At his sides he forcibly unclenched his long fingers.
Time, it seemed, had not lessened the strength of the primal emotions that she had shaken loose in him two years ago. He had wanted her then and he still did.
‘You didn’t have to agree.’
He frowned. ‘Don’t put words into my mouth,’ he said, staring at her lips still swollen from his kiss.
The husky caution brought Megan’s gaze helplessly zeroing in on the area under discussion. She felt her anger slip away as a silent sigh lifted her chest as she shook with the memory of his kiss.
The texture of his warm lips as they moved over her mouth, the lust, slammed through her body making her literally rock back on her heels.
She blinked hard to banish the memory, her control worn paper-thin as she nibbled nervously at her full lower lip, unwittingly riveting his attention to the lush curve.
‘You want me to tell you you’re beautiful?’
Megan flushed. ‘Of course not.’
‘I would hardly be the first man to tell you this.’
Emilio had never considered himself a possessive man. He had never been guilty of double standards when it came to the subject of any healthy young woman exploring their sexuality.
It turned out that this enlightened attitude only worked when the woman in question was not Megan.
‘Sure, I stop traffic on a regular basis. So, why are you living here if you have a palace or something, or is this where you bring your …?’ She stopped, the hot colour rushing to her cheeks.
He arched a brow. ‘My …?’
‘Nothing.’
Her mortified mumble drew a grin that lightened some of the tension in his lean face. ‘Relax, this is not a love nest. I am temporarily homeless, while the experts sort out a bad case of dry rot. A man needs somewhere to lay his head and this location is not inconvenient,’ he explained, watching her expression as she completed a slow three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turn.
‘I see, you’re slumming it.’ Some slum! The place was a bachelor’s paradise, loft-style living with modern art on white walls, acres of gleaming chrome, leather and high ceilings.
It said nothing to her about the man who lived there.
‘You like it?’
‘I’m sure it’s every boy’s dream to live somewhere like this.’ If this place did not boast every techno gadget on the market she would eat her designer handbag—actually, her very good rip-off handbag.
Emilio responded to the smiling put-down with a lazy grin. The place was no fulfilment of a dream, it was a convenience and nothing more.
‘I have not been called a boy for some time.’
Megan’s superior smile wilted as their glances locked; the breath snagged in her throat.
She was not surprised. There was nothing even vaguely boyish about the man standing there. He radiated male arrogance like a force field. He was all man, all hard sinew and muscle. He couldn’t have been harder if he’d been hewn out of granite, but he wasn’t stone, he was flesh. Warm flesh.
The tight knot of desire low in her belly tightened so viciously that she gasped, looking away to hide the desire she felt must be written all over her face.
Emilio was a walking advertisement for masculinity and raw sex. Why was she thinking about sex, raw or otherwise?
Panic suddenly gripped her. ‘I don’t know what I’m doing here.’ Her head came up in response to the hand on her shoulder.
‘Yes, you do, Megan.’
Trapped by his dark compelling stare, she swallowed, her cheeks hot as she said in a small voice, ‘You offered me breakfast.’ The pause that followed her statement stretched her nerves to the breaking point.
‘So I did.’
Relieved that he hadn’t suggested her reasons for being here were far less clear-cut or innocent, she tried to resist the pressure of the hand on her shoulder that urged her down into one of the leather upholstered chairs.
‘Relax.’
He
