He obviously sensed there had been more to it than a simple identification. ‘She said that you had a bad reputation with women and I should avoid you like the plague.’
‘And yet…here you are,’ he said in a neutral tone that was at odds with his smouldering eyes. ‘Should I have asked someone about you?’
A rueful smile revealed Nora’s disproportionately wide mouth and splendid teeth. ‘It wouldn’t have done you much good. I hardly know anyone in this crowd. I only got invited because I used to flat with the sister of the girl who’s turning twenty-one.’ Her eyes were almost on a level with his and it gave her a powerful kick to look directly into the windows of his deep, dark soul. ‘I’m Nora.’
His impressive eyebrows lifted. ‘Just Nora?’
‘Eleanor, actually, but no one calls me that,’ she breezed. No one except Ryan when he was impatient with her—grinding up the syllables in his gritted teeth!
Blake was silent, and she realised that he wasn’t going to let her get away with the evasion. So much for hoping that she could cloak herself in alluring mystery for the evening.
‘Lang. Nora Lang,’ she said, adopting a flippant Bondian drawl. ‘Does that make you any the wiser?’
He dipped his head, acknowledging the introduction. ‘Not wiser, but certainly better informed. I always try to make informed decisions.’
‘How boring,’ she teased. ‘Don’t you like surprises?’
‘It depends on the nature of the surprise,’ he said, deliberately running his eyes over her captive body.
She felt her skin tighten in every pore. ‘Are you always so cautious?’
‘It depends on the nature of the threat.’
The verbal fencing was having a heady effect on Nora’s battered self-confidence. ‘Do I threaten you, Mr MacLeod?’ she asked with a sweet smile.
‘The idea seems to excite you.’
She felt a sluggish warmth move through her veins. ‘I’ll admit it has a certain raw appeal…’
‘It’s an interesting proposition, Nora, but I’m afraid I’m not into S&M.’
She blushed, not pink, but a vivid rose-red. ‘I wasn’t—I didn’t mean that!’
‘No? Sorry, I must have misunderstood,’ he said with such patent insincerity that they both knew he was lying, and mightily enjoying her confusion.
‘I’m not into anything weird!’ she said firmly.
‘How about mildly kinky?’
She thought of Ryan and Kelly in the bathroom. In the bath of all places, in the middle of the afternoon. Nora’s bath! Boring, undemanding, unadventurous Nora who obviously didn’t know what she was missing…
‘Define kinky.’
He laughed, a deep masculine rumble of appreciation. ‘Now who’s being cautious?’
‘A woman alone has to take care not to raise expectations she’s not prepared to fulfil,’ she said primly.
‘You’re here alone?’ In spite of the upward inflexion it was more of a statement than a question, and he didn’t wait for an answer. ‘I watched you as you came in,’ he admitted unexpectedly.
‘Did you?’ Her smile widened for an instant before she remembered her ignominious entrance. ‘Oh. And I suppose now you think I ricochet about the place like some sort of unguided missile,’ she said with a sigh.
His fingers briefly contracted on her ribcage. ‘Or perhaps a cleverly guided one.’
‘Are you accusing me of dropping my bag at your feet on purpose, in order to meet you?’ she demanded, clenching her fists against his chest.
‘Did you?’
She tipped her chin and looked down her nose at him. ‘That is so arrogant! Do you consider yourself so irresistibly attractive that you automatically assume that every woman is grovelling to attract your attention?’
His mouth ticked up at her haughty response. ‘Well, not every woman. Did you?’
‘No, of course I didn’t!’
Then she recalled her chaotic thoughts in the moments before she had turned coward. ‘Well…’ She caught her lower lip between her teeth as she struggled with her over-scrupulous conscience. ‘Maybe I might have been thinking of a way to introduce myself, but…no, I wouldn’t have—certainly not consciously, anyway…’
His eyes were on that tell-tale worrying of her lip. ‘You mean it was in the nature of a Freudian drop?’ he said, with such suspicious blandness that her fists relaxed against his chest.
‘Is that any different from a Freudian slip?’ she asked, discreetly smoothing out a small crease she had made in his yellow silk tie.
‘It’s generally more revealing,’ he told her, and paused before adding, ‘Rather like that dress.’
She followed his gaze and uttered a stifled sound of annoyance when she saw that the embroidered edge of her black bra was still visible above the top of her dress. He beat her to the rescue, the backs of his fingers branding her with their searing warmth as they dipped beneath the fabric at the side of her breasts to gently hitch up her top by several freckles.
‘Thank you,’ she muttered, her hands automatically replacing his as he stepped back, leaving her bereft of his disturbing touch. She wriggled even more securely into the dress while he turned to pick up his neglected drink. ‘I wish I’d never worn the wretched thing,’ she grumbled. ‘I knew it wasn’t right for me.’
Unfortunately she’d had no choice since it was what she had been wearing when she had fled the flat. She had been trying on her dress and accessories when she had heard odd noises from the bathroom. Believing Kelly was out on a modelling job, she had snatched up a heavy lamp with which to clock the intruder if he turned nasty. In hindsight, she wished she had used it!
To Nora’s chagrin Blake didn’t disagree. He tucked her bag in the crook of her elbow and placed her wineglass in her hand. ‘So why wear it?’
He had manoeuvred her to one side of a support pillar, his back to the room, discouraging anyone else from joining the conversation.
‘It was a gift from a friend. He advised me that something black and strapless would make even me look elegant.’
‘Some friend.’ His sardonic drawl made Nora’s eyes light up with militant agreement.
‘Former friend,’ she corrected him with savage relish.
‘Personally, I think the shoes were the better buy,’ he said.
‘The dress was terribly pricy,’ she murmured, with a twinge of guilt.
He
