foundation, that he could pull away any time.
Sparks. They sizzled along his nerves with the spectacular ferocity of frayed power cables, snapping and crackling through his blood, sending his hormones spearing into the sky like some crazed Eureka Tower.
He felt her instant response—the heave of her breasts as she struggled to drag in air and push him away, then her mouth softening, opening, hands rising to clutch at his shirt. The moan deep in her throat as he changed the angle for better access.
Her taste was a sweet temptation, luring him deeper to sample the dark lusciousness of her tongue, to drink in its hot honey flavour as it writhed with his.
This was no ordinary kiss. This was the force of a wrecking ball at its most dramatic, splintering thought and crumbling to dust barriers he’d thought impenetrable.
Had he thought himself immune to emotion? He tried telling himself this was a severe case of lust but somehow the condition sounded grossly inadequate. Because something else was happening here. Something he didn’t want to think about because if he did he’d know he’d made a bigger mistake than he’d ever dreamed of.
Instead he pulled her closer, shifted nearer, between thighs that seemed to melt apart at his wordless command so he could feel her sultry heat seep through his shirt and into his skin.
Her softness yielded to his burgeoning hardness, hot blood beating through his body as his hands slid from her hips to the curve of her bottom and found the hem of her T-shirt. Fingers barely steady crept beneath to find smooth alabaster skin, the delicate arch of her spine as she leaned into him.
Her grip on his shirt tightened. Jersey-clad legs clamped around his waist, locking their lower bodies in an iron embrace. He rocked against her. Sweat broke out on his brow, his lungs seized. The urge to rip away the thin barrier and drive into her—right here, right now, without thought for the consequences—
He wrenched his mouth away from her satiny warmth. Backed up a step. It was torture to slide his hands beneath her thighs, over firm shapely calves and untangle her legs from around him. Madness to look into her wide silver eyes and see his own ardour reflected back. Had he forgotten so soon? Lust was one thing, this emotional whatever it was … was something else.
He didn’t do emotion. Not since Katrina.
Chewing on passion-plumped lips, she drew in a breath, her breasts rising with the effort, drawing his attention to her nipples outlined clearly against her T-shirt.
‘A-a-ah.’ Her breathy voice drew the sound out like spun toffee.
‘I—’ A stab of pain in his lower leg cut through his senses and he stumbled back a step. ‘What the …?’
Charlie. He glared down at the cat, who’d apparently polished off his silver-service main course and decided trouser-clad legs were a convenient dessert.
‘What?’ Didi still had a death-grip on his shirt and now one of the animal’s damn claws seemed to be lodged tight in the leg of his Armani trousers. He teetered dangerously for a couple of seconds before rocking forward on the balls of his feet only to feel one shoe land on something squishy.
‘Bloody cat.’ He shook his leg free and the animal bounded away with a hiss of annoyance, no doubt in search of its next victim of choice—the French silk drapes, perhaps.
His body still pulsed, his leg throbbed, his pride was dust beneath his feet. There was a rip in the fabric and—he checked—a disgusting disc of squashed fillet steak on the bottom of his shoe.
He looked back at Didi, who’d relinquished her hold on his shirt to cup her hands over her mouth and nose. ‘It’s okay,’ he reassured her. ‘Hardly a scratch.’
Didi stared at Cameron while she tried to regain control of her runaway emotions. Her lips felt as if they’d been buzzed by a supersonic jet; her pulse was galloping for a win in the Melbourne Cup.
Alcohol on an empty stomach had snatched away reason and common sense. Planting her butt on the counter top had been her first mistake.
He looked … worried? No, he looked confused. Blame the champers for the fit of giggles that bubbled up her throat. She must be borderline loony because why would she feel like laughing when she’d just been kissed senseless and he was probably going to kill her cat and fire her and life was never going to be the same again?
She couldn’t help it; the half-laugh, half-cough tumbled out, convulsive and slightly hysterical.
His gaze narrowed slightly, his bemused expression didn’t alter. ‘Are you laughing?’
‘I’m sorry, it’s just …’ She dabbed at her eyes with the corner of her scarf. Her sudden amusement faded as he bent and she saw him twitch at the hem of his trouser leg to inspect the damage to his flesh—twin stripes of red. ‘Are you okay?’
He grabbed a tissue, moistened it under the tap and dabbed at the wound. ‘I’m probably going to die of blood poisoning or tetanus but don’t let that spoil your evening.’
‘Let’s have a look.’ She slid off the bench but he was scraping meat from the bottom of his shoe and she couldn’t see. ‘Where’s your first-aid box?’
‘I don’t need first aid. Or maybe I do, but not for my leg.’ He straightened and met her eyes. ‘What just happened here—’
‘Was a kiss, Cameron.’
At least that was what she’d thought it was. But she’d never thought a simple kiss by the kind of man you’d sworn to avoid could suck the air from your lungs and leave you in need of an oxygen mask. Burn you from the inside out until you were cinders. Send your heart spinning in a thousand different directions until you didn’t know which way was up. The answer: it wasn’t a simple kiss. Which only led to another question: what was it?
But she was hardly going to tell him all that, was she? The best option was to feign nonchalance. As if she exchanged saliva with almost-strangers every day of the week. So she shrugged. ‘It was fun, Cameron.’
‘Fun.’ His tone mocked and his eyes, darkly assessing, pinned her own, holding her immobile, stripping away clothes, flesh and façade until she understood the meaning of naked to the core.
It took all her strength to drag her eyes away. ‘My guess would be you thought so too,’ she managed, whirling away to drag open cupboards. ‘About that first-aid box …’
But she could feel his gaze tracking her movements, like a hot glue gun oozing heat down her spine, her bottom, her legging-clad thighs.
Suddenly he was behind her. She felt his shirt brush her sleeve, his breath against her bare arm as she reached for the next cupboard. Her heart rate, barely back to something approaching normal, picked up pace once more.
Then he leaned closer, the hard planes of his chest abrading her spine, her nape, the back of her head as he reached to the top shelf. She could smell the residue of cologne he’d used this morning, and, beneath that, the scent of soap and man. This man. She’d smell it in her sleep tonight, and a few nights more. Many nights more.
‘Here,’ he snapped. Rather than the super-dooper kit she expected, he pulled out an old ice-cream tub with a loose assortment of Band-Aids, painkillers, tubes and bottles. He stepped back
