by Kim Lawrence
It wouldn’t have mattered what Eve said because that was what mothers did: they stopped their daughters driving even if they were perfectly capable—or she would have done if she’d been there and not off on her honeymoon with her new husband.
Eve gave a self-pitying sniff as she trudged on, finding it easy to lay her present predicament at the door of Charlie Latimer. She decided to give it until that next bend, because how frustrating would it be if she turned back only to later realise that she had actually been within a few hundred yards of the main road and hopefully some help or at least some place with a phone signal?
She was trying her phone again when she heard the car in the distance and felt a stab of relief. But by the time the distant light had become dazzling the relief had morphed into apprehension; if this were a crime drama she’d be the body in the first scene, the one that normally made her want to shout at the screen, How could you be so stupid?
She took a deep breath. This was real life, most people were not homicidal maniacs and she was not about to get into a car with a stranger. She just wanted to ask if they could contact a local garage to come and pick her and her car up…yes, that was definitely the sensible option.
The big low car slowed and, heart beating hard, Eve carried on walking, though more slowly, projecting as much confidence as possible as you should when you were alone in the dark in the middle of nowhere… For goodness’ sake, Eve, Surrey is hardly the last wilderness! she scorned.
‘Are you totally insane?’
It was not the conversational comment that made her spin around directing her wide-eyed stare at the driver of the car, but the deep voice with that tactile ‘once heard never ever forgotten’ quality. Her stomach reacted by going into a deep dive while simultaneously every square inch of her skin prickled with an appalling awareness that was painful in its intensity.
Her head was immediately filled with thoughts of his mouth crashing down on hers, his warm lips teasing, tormenting… With a massive effort she reined in her imagination and her indiscriminate hormones, managing to focus on the here and now.
The painful truth here was that in some ways a homicidal maniac might have been easier to cope with.
The engine was still running as she took a deep breath, lifting a hand to her face against the glare of the headlights as the driver’s door was flung open and the occupant vaulted out.
It was impossible to read his expression, but his body language was less of a struggle. His tall, lean frame was rigid, projecting none of the languid, mocking attitude that got under her skin, but something that approached anger.
She squared her shoulders. Some people might conclude it was a sort of cosmic conspiracy or fate that kept on throwing her into this man’s path. Eve, who believed a person was in charge of their own fate, thought it was more of a bad day getting worse!
A lot worse.
‘What are you doing here?’ Not your loud voice, Eve, warned the critic in her head. As he took a step closer and she fought the urge to mirror his action with several back she got sucked in once again by the entire in-your-face physical thing he had going on. If his voice was hard to forget the rest of him was…she released a tight fractured sigh and thought…stupendous.
‘I was passing…?’
She did not respond to the dry wit but then as a shaft of moonlight fell directly across his face she saw he wasn’t smiling either; each fascinating hollow and carved sybaritic angle of his incredible face was set in a grim line of cold accusation that set her chin up another defensive notch.
‘Are you stalking m-me?’ It was not hard to visualise him as a sleek predator but she, Eve reminded herself, was not anyone’s prey. Despite her intention to cloak her comment with a believable level of amused indifference, she finished on a stutter.
Cut yourself some slack, Eve. There probably wasn’t a woman on the entire planet who could laugh at the idea of being pursued by this man…and they hadn’t been kissed by him—or kissed him back.
She closed the door on that memory, but not before her insides had dissolved and her core temperature had risen several painful degrees.
‘If I was stalking you, you’re making it damned easy.’
‘You’re calling me easy?’ Why not just leave your foot in your mouth, Eve? It will save you time and energy, she thought with an internal groan.
‘Easy?’
The echo carried a note she tried to place as his dark eyes went from her face to the near-empty minor road. She turned her head, wondering if he had seen another car.
Five miles, Draco estimated, if not more since he had seen another vehicle, and that off-roader had turned down a farm track. He wouldn’t be on it himself if he hadn’t been dropping off Josie at her English cousin’s house, and what would Eve have done then…?
Eve tensed as his attention refocused on her face.
‘No, you’re bloody hard work. Just get in the damned car.’
‘That won’t be necessary, thank you. I don’t want to be a nuisance, but if you could inform a garage that I broke down. This is a short cut.’ Hearing the defensiveness in her own voice, Eve frowned. For the past half-hour she had been contemplating turning back as each successive bend in the road did not reveal the main road—but there was no need to tell him that.
His brows lifted as he slid a phone from his pocket, wishing leaving her standing here in the middle of nowhere was an option.
Liar, said the voice in his head. He hadn’t got excited by the idea of making out in a car since his teens, but for some reason this woman, with her prickles and her lush lips and her hungry eyes, had made him ache in a way that made self-delusion useful. After all, what was the point overanalysing something that was as simple as sex? Especially as with her he knew it would be stupendous!
‘Ever heard of mobile phones?’ Ever heard of avoiding someone with emotional high maintenance written all over her face? He detoured around his own internal question and waved his phone at her—trying to ignore the way the softening effect of the dark copper-toned curls that framed her face made her appear younger and more vulnerable.
‘Ever heard of black spots where you get no signal?’ she returned seamlessly. Did the man think she was a total idiot?
No, he just thinks you’re easy, Eve—with good reason! The door opened on the memory still raw, still recent, still mortifying and, yes, still wildly exciting, submerging her in a tidal wave of hot, lustful longing against which her only defence was to shove her trembling hands into her pockets and look away.
She could not remember feeling this out of control for…well, ever. She didn’t like it, and she didn’t like him. No, not liking him was too mild an emotion; she hated him.
Draco’s ebony brows twitched into a line above his masterful nose as he slid the phone back into his pocket without looking at it. He was trying not to see the visible tremors that shook her slender frame under the double-breasted jacket that looked at least two sizes too big for her.
‘Get in!’ he snapped, fighting off an irrational surge of tenderness; combined with the lust that still circulated hotly through his veins, it made for a contradictory and uncomfortable mix. It was a massive mistake to equate small and delicate with vulnerable or in need of protection—she was as tough as nails.
Or she’d like the world to think she was.
Ignoring the mental addition, he added with silky sarcasm, ‘Unless you would prefer to walk? Or possibly wait for a serial killer? They do say that they come along in twos, or is that buses?’
Her scornful glance swept upwards from his polished toes but she only made it as far as his waist and stalled. At some point, like her, Draco had changed. The dark jeans he now wore fitted just as perfectly as the tailored trousers of his morning suit, though the cut of the denim emphasised his lean hips and the muscularity of his thighs.
Swa
llowing past the sudden aching occlusion in her throat, she wrenched her eyes clear, gave a scornful snort and angrily retorted, ‘You’ve never caught a bus in your life!’ She stopped, frowning darkly as her accusation drew a startled laugh from him. ‘And statistically speaking—’
The pistol-shot snap of Draco’s long fingers made Eve jump and indicated his opinion of statistics and his diminishing patience levels. She was glad of the interruption as it was hard to focus on statistics when she was thinking how it felt to be plastered up close against those iron-hard thighs, feeling the shocking imprint of a rock-hard arousal on her belly.
He gave a sigh, intoning wearily, ‘Get in, Eve. I’ve better things to do than stand here arguing the toss.’
Eve, who had been swaying slightly, blinked hard. She knew about red mists but the one that floated in her brain clouding good sense was darker and it had warmth and depth and— No, don’t wrap it up, Eve, she told herself impatiently. It’s just lust; get over yourself. So the man knows how to kiss?
‘Thank you, but I’ve said if you could—’
He raised an ironic brow and she stopped, catching her full upper lip between her white teeth as she gave a sigh and surrendered, if not to the dark mist, then to the practicalities of her situation. So she accepted a lift from him—what was the worst that could happen?
She brushed a strand of curling chestnut hair from her eyes. The only thing she’d achieved when she’d looked in the engine earlier had been a bang on the head, which had shaken half her hair loose. Of course it had gone into frizz mode immediately. Her eyes went to his dark head. After they’d kissed his hair had been sexily ruffled. Now it was smooth and sleek and yet it was still sexy.
‘That’s very kind of you—’ Her eyes connected with his and she stopped speaking, her heart beating hard and fast. There was nothing that could be even loosely termed as kind in his eyes right now; the feral glow made her insides dissolve.
She sounded like a prim schoolmistress and she looked— His eyes slid of their own volition to the full curve of her cushiony lips, and he groaned silently. He recalled how she kissed like a sex-starved angel, and gritted his teeth against the ache in his groin that packed the kick of a mule.
‘I’m not kind.’
Eve gave her head a tiny shake, causing a curling tendril to attach itself to her mouth, and she detached the strands with an impatient frown.
* * *
In his seat before her Draco leant across, pulling away the jacket draped over the back of the passenger seat before she leaned back. His hand touched her shoulder as he slung it into the back, even that light contact sending an electrical surge through her body.
She survived the brush of his eyes, breathing through the moment and even managing to acknowledge his action with a slight nod despite the swirling confusion in her brain.
As he hit the ignition the space was filled with a classic jazz ballad. Eve exhaled, covering her mouth with her hand to disguise her sigh of relief—she wouldn’t have to make conversation.
Then he turned it off.
They had driven a few minutes when he broke the silence.
‘Will you fasten your jacket?’
She didn’t fight the childish urge to challenge everything he said or question it too deeply. ‘Why? I’m warm.’
The comment drew a rumble of laughter from his throat, but, bemused and desperately hiding her reaction to the nerve-shredding effect of being in close physical proximity to him, Eve turned her head and slung him a scowl.
‘I’m missing the irony.’
‘You make your living selling underwear but you don’t wear your own products.’
She was tired and stressed and it took a few moments for his meaning to penetrate. When it did she grabbed the corners of her jacket and pulled them together.
‘You mean I’m not an underwear model. Well, for the record, most women aren’t and I make underwear for normal women.’
‘Make but not wear.’
‘I…I had a very minor surgery and the bra strap chafes.’ The Australian doctor had been reassuring about the mole he’d said looked innocent, but to be safe he’d whipped it off and sent it for analysis.
‘Minor?’
‘A mole removal, but it was nothing sinister.’
His brow smoothed as he slid a sideways look at her face. ‘With your skin you should plaster on factor fifty.’
‘I’m not an idiot.’
‘That’s open to debate.’ What wasn’t was her delicious, soft, smooth pale skin; it would be nothing short of criminal to expose it to the harshening effects of the sun. ‘Statistically speaking, someone with your colouring—’
‘I am not ginger; it’s chestnut.’
Colour aside, it was an essential part of his fantasies.
‘Well, statistically—’
‘Do you know how boring people who quote statistics are?’
He adopted an expression of unconvincing confusion as he consulted the rear-view mirror. ‘I never quote statistics,’ he explained. ‘I make them up—no one ever knows the difference and you sound informed and intelligent.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Totally,’ he confirmed. ‘You should try it. You’d be amazed at how few people question a statistic.’
Eve bit her quivering lip, then, losing her fight, broke into peals of laughter.
She had a great laugh, when she wasn’t feeling bitter and twisted and sexually frustrated. He couldn’t believe now that he had actually almost convinced himself she was a virgin. He realised that Eve Curtis could be fun outside bed, not that his interest in her extended beyond the bedroom, he told himself.
Wiping her eyes, she turned to him. ‘So the next time I find myself losing an argument I should make up a statistic.’
‘You have to keep an element of realism and you have to believe what you say.’
‘You mean,’ she cut back slickly, ‘you have to be a good liar.’
‘That goes without saying…’
‘Like you.’
‘I could say I’m always honest but I might be lying.’ Eve recognised the crossroads they were approaching; it was the one where she always nursed a secret fear of taking the wrong turning and ending up in Wales.
She told him the area she lived in, fully anticipating he would ask for updates, but he didn’t. Draco was obviously one of those people with a built-in sat nav. He was one street away from the building where Eve lived before he asked for further directions.
‘It’s the next turn…you just went past it. Our street lights are part of the council cuts,’ she said by way of apology as he backed up.
She unfastened her seat belt, unable to conceal her palpable relief that her journey was at an end, though now it was she was able to concede she might have been overreacting. Alpha males were really not her thing; their earlier kiss was not her thing; nothing that had happened today was her thing.
Tomorrow happily was another day, a new start, a clean slate. Running out of clichés, she turned to Draco.
‘Well, thank you.’ Just to keep things unambiguous, she added, ‘For the lift.’ The kiss was something she would not forgive, but she had every intention of forgetting it or at least mentally filing it under of no importance.
‘I’ll see you in.’
She struggled to sound amused by the offer and reached for the door handle. ‘That really won’t be necessary. I can look after myself…see, I have my key…’ Her hand came up empty from the pocket in her handbag where she always kept her key ring. ‘It has to be in here somewhere…’
Several minutes later the contents of her bag had been removed twice and replaced and it became clear that her keys might well be somewhere but they were definitely not in her bag.
‘You lost your keys…it happens.’
&nb
sp; His soothing words did not soothe.
‘Not to me! I always… I had them when I was opening the car bonnet…’ She summoned a mental image of the keys on their Tempting Eve logo fob. She covered her face with her hands and groaned. ‘Oh, God, I left them in the ignition!’
‘It’s only keys.’
Her hands fell and she slung him a look. ‘You’re not the one locked out.’
‘You have some spares, a neighbour with a key…?’
‘Yes, but…’ She shook her head. ‘They have a baby and James works nights.’ She shook her head positively. ‘I can’t knock up Sue and the baby at this time of night.’ The last time she had seen her neighbour she had been shocked by her appearance.
Seeing her expression, Sue had grimaced, smoothed her hair self-consciously and said, ‘Sleep deprivation is what they don’t tell you about in antenatal classes.’
Eve couldn’t believe it; she had crammed a lot of low moments into this day and he had been there to witness them all.
‘Do you mind dropping me at a hotel?’ She snapped open the mirror of her compact and closed it again without looking at it before sliding it back into her bag. There were some things it was just better not to know and how she looked at that moment was probably one of them!
Beneath the thin veneer of cheerful bravado she had clearly reached the end of her tether. Draco looked at her in thoughtful silence, tempted to do what she requested, and why not? She wasn’t his responsibility and she had more in common with a feral cat than a needy kitten. Granted she’d had a hell of a day and it showed, but his hadn’t been so great either—with a couple of memorable exceptions!
The internal tug of war was short-lived, and in the end his conscience won out, or was that his libido…?
‘I know I’ve been a nuisance.’
He flashed a sideways glance her way. She looked dead on her feet, and he stifled a trickle of sympathy, killing it dead. ‘Yes.’ Without a word he started the engine.
Eve compressed her lips, feeling considerably less guilty. Charm really was his middle name! After the key debacle she surreptitiously checked her purse to make sure she had her credit cards, and she struggled against the temptation to check again. He already thought she was a total head case, so why confirm it for him?
