was a mocking whisper, a malicious gleam lighting in his eyes.
‘I think he’s not coming. In fact, I have this suspicion that you’re telling me lies—that this lover of yours just doesn’t exist.’
‘Oh, but he does.’
Skye jumped like a startled cat as the words came from behind her. The deep, gorgeously accented, sexy male voice was the last thing she had ever anticipated. It was the fantasy she might have wished for—the dream lover turning up to rescue her from the awkward, uncomfortable situation in which she found herself.
But this was no fantasy. The startled gaze of her tormentors had gone from her face to somewhere behind the back of her head, shock and consternation showing in their eyes. The controlling grip on her wrist had loosened, letting her pull free.
‘Oh!’
The soft cry of shock was pushed from her as a pair of tightly muscled arms slid round her waist from behind. A hard, powerful frame was pressed up against her back, its heat and strength reaching right through the material of her jacket, to her skin, her bones—seeming to scorch her soul.
She felt safe, protected, surrounded by this unknown man. His warmth and strength enclosed her, the sound of his breathing tantalised her ears, and the scent of his skin filled her nostrils.
‘Sorry I’m late, darling,’ the husky voice murmured against her neck. ‘You know how these meetings drag on. But I’m here now.’
‘Mmm.’
It was all she could manage and she didn’t care if it sounded more like a sigh of sensual response than any coherent answer.
Her body was tingling all over, burning in instant response to just this unknown man’s touch. She couldn’t see his face—the only parts of his body that were visible to her were the hands that were clasped around her waist.
And they were intensely masculine hands. Big and square and capable-looking. They dwarfed her own smaller, slimmer fingers as they closed warmly over them. No rings. The only adornment was a sleek platinum watch on one wrist, just above an immaculate white shirt cuff, the steelgrey of an elegant and expensive jacket.
‘Forgive me?’
‘Oh, yes!’
How could she say anything else? She would have agreed to anything, accepted anything from him. It was impossible to think straight, and what tiny fragments of thoughts still lingered inside her head were totally shattered, blasted into oblivion by what he did next.
She sensed movement behind her, just out of sight. Felt the brush of silky hair against her cheek, then suddenly there was the press of warm lips against the back of her neck. Her breath caught in her throat; her heart thudded hard against her ribcage, and her head went back against a strong, supportive shoulder, her eyes half closing in sensual response.
‘Hey!’
The stranger’s voice was soft, faintly reproving, edged with a disturbing laughter.
‘Not here, darling,’ he went on wickedly. ‘Better wait until we get home!’
Home! She wasn’t going home with this man…
That brought her back to the present in the blink of an eyelid, her head coming up again sharply, her mouth opening on a gasp of protest. But the protest never had a chance to form because the man behind her spoke again before she had a chance to say a word.
‘Time to go, sweetheart. Say goodbye to your friends.’
It was the way he said friends that alerted her. She had been in danger of giving away their pretence. If she had voiced her protest, she would have made it clear to the men at the table that her rescuer was not the lover she had claimed him as.
‘Goodbye, guys! Th-thanks for keeping me company.’
Just who was this man who had come to her rescue so unexpectedly? The question raged in her mind as she made herself turn, ready to walk off with him, struggling to look as if this were something she did every day.
He slid his hand into hers, lacing his strong fingers with hers, holding her in a way that felt light and gentle, but which she was sure would be even harder to break away from than the dark-haired man’s hold had been.
‘Come on, let’s get out of here.’
He was tall, and strongly built, that much she could tell from the swift, sidelong glances she slanted in his direction, not daring to actually turn and stare. In the shadowy light of the bar, his face was turned from her, eyes fixed on the doorway towards which his determined strides were taking them. She could only let herself be pulled along in his wake, wanting to be well away from her earlier tormentors before she did what she knew she was going to have to do and put the brakes on sharply, saying, ‘This far and no further.’
‘Hang on a minute…’ she tried, but he either didn’t hear or pretended not to. His ruthless path through the bar didn’t falter, and where she had struggled through the crowds on her way in, now they just seemed to part smoothly to let him through.
The next moment they were at the door and moving down the steps into the street.
‘Now hang on!’
She dug her heels in as she spoke, mentally slamming on the brakes and praying that his strength and power wouldn’t just drag her over, tumbling ignominiously down the stone stairs after him.
‘That’s far enough!’
This time her voice reached him. Either that, or the pull on his hand was enough to drag him to a halt. He stopped abruptly, then whirled round, coming to face her, and she saw his features for the first time in the full glow of the light of the street lamps.
She’d seen them before. Seen that strong-boned, forcefully arrogant face. The jet-black, deep-set eyes above slashing cheekbones, the long, straight sweep of a nose, and the fall of rich, thick hair, darker than the night’s shadows around him.
‘You!’
The word escaped on a cry of shock as she recognised the man she had seen at the other side of the bar. The only other person who had been on his own in the busy, noisy room.
The man she had not dared to risk approaching because some intuitive sense of fear had held her back. Her instincts had sprung straight to red alert, flashing warning signs before her eyes and shrieking, ’Danger—keep away! Don’t touch!’ even before she had had a chance to think why. She just knew that something deep and primitive inside her had made her feel that he was someone to be treated with the intense caution with which she might approach a prowling jungle cat if she came face to face with it out hunting.
And seen up close he looked even more so. More dangerous; more devastating. More blatantly masculine. More shockingly attractive—and yet even his undeniable sexual appeal had a worrying core of threat at the bottom of it.
This wasn’t the sort of man she usually encountered. He was nothing like the men she had known at home and in the office, the few, friendly dates she had ever been out on. He was beyond her experience, beyond her knowledge—and very definitely beyond her control.
Those
