Читать книгу Passionate Playboys: The Demetrios Bridal Bargain / The Magnate's Indecent Proposal / Hot Nights with a Playboy - Элли Блейк, Ким Лоренс - Страница 7

FINALLY on solid land, Rose simply lay there for several moments, too euphoric at being safe to even register the cold that every flutter of wind was driving deeper into her bones. Then, pulling her shaking knees up to her chest, she heaved herself into a sitting position, hugging her arms around her body.

The dark stranger was beside her. He had hunkered down to her level and was casually balancing on his heels with the inbred grace of a natural athlete.

‘Thank you so much; you saved my life.’

She found it slightly off-putting that there was not a flicker of expression in the spooky silver-grey eyes trained on her face.

‘I’m Rose, by the way, Mr …?’

Mathieu looked into the incredible amber eyes brimming with gratitude and innocent as a kitten, which could not be more different from the reckless, sexual challenge he recalled last seeing in those same eyes. If she intended to pretend they did not know one another it was nothing to him. He supposed it was just possible that she didn’t—his upper lip curled in fastidious contempt—she had been very drunk that night.

The win had clinched him the champion’s medal for the fourth year running. So for that reason alone the evening of the gala reception at the embassy would have lingered on in his memory, even if he hadn’t returned to his hotel room later that night to find a naked woman in his bed.

A woman who had smooth skin like cream, long hair the colour of pale caramel and golden eyes.

The golden eyes that were looking at him now.

‘Can you walk?’

She blinked at the abruptness of his question and the smile faded from her face. She was philosophical about the hostility in his manner. His life had just been put at risk because of her. He was bound not to look too kindly on the person responsible for his close encounter, although the level of cold disdain in his body language did seem excessive. He was looking at her as though she were something offensive on his shoe!

She attempted to struggle clumsily to her feet. ‘Of course.’

Mathieu, who had realised the moment he had formed the question that she could probably barely feel her limbs, never mind walk, ignored her optimistic assertion and bent to scoop her up. As he gathered her to him he was aware first of softness, then, before he had time to wonder at the heat that exploded inside him—cold, icy cold.

A glance revealed her skin had an unhealthy bluish tinge, which was hardly surprising considering what she had been through. He was well aware of the danger of hypothermia. It was imperative that she warmed up quickly.

‘I … what are you doing?’ Rose stuttered as she found herself slung unceremoniously over his shoulder.

‘Preventing you getting hypothermia. The Land Rover’s parked just up on the track,’ he explained, mentally assessing the time it would take him to reach it.

He didn’t say anything. Not another word until they reached the vehicle, which did not surprise her. What man could speak with an overweight—and that was dry—blonde over his shoulder? What did surprise her was that he could keep up a brisk running pace the entire way and still not be breathing very hard.

Pulling open the door, Mathieu dumped his shaking burden in the back seat before going around to the driver’s side and switching on the engine, sliding the thermostat on the heater to full.

‘Get the wet things off.’ He barely glanced in her direction before leaving the front of the Land Rover.

He returned a moment later carrying a metallic survival blanket and a heavy cable-knitted sweater, which he flung in the seat beside her. His dark brows drew into a straight line as he assessed her progress.

‘Did you not hear me? I said take those things off,’ he said, sliding into the driver’s seat and turning around.

Heater on full, the cab was hot, but Rose was still shaking. She actually couldn’t imagine ever stopping, ever being warm again. ‘Sorry. My fingers,’ she said, holding out the slim, pale tapering items under discussion apologetically; like the rest of her they were shaking. ‘I can’t f-feel them.’

His dark eyes slid from her face to her fingers. There was a tiny pause before he heaved a sigh that suggested exasperation. ‘Then I suppose I’ll have to do it for you.’

‘Do what?’ The dumb routine was a self-defence mechanism, because she knew if she let herself consider in any serious way what having this man remove her clothes, even in a totally clinical, I’m-saving-your-life sort of way, might feel like, she might do or say something terminally embarrassing.

There was a blast of cold air in response to her question, then another as the passenger door opened and he slid in beside her so close that their thighs touched and slammed the door shut.

The thigh beside her own had all the give of a steel bar. He was an extremely tall, athletically built man and pretty much all of him looked equally hard. He was the sort of man who could make an auditorium seem small!

This was not an auditorium, it was a hot, steamy tin box on wheels, and it wasn’t just his physical presence that made it uncomfortable to share the enclosed space with him, it was the raw sensual energy that cloaked him like a second skin. Though she couldn’t help noticing that his first skin was pretty special.

Embarrassed by the direction of her thoughts, she flicked a sideways glance at his classical profile, her nostrils quivering as she tried not to inhale the subtle male scent of his body. His presence made it impossible to concentrate on anything else but … well, anything but him!

He was totally overpowering and not at all, she reflected, trying to co-ordinate her actions, a comfortable man to be around. When their glances connected, his slightly impatient, she looked away biting her lip because she knew she was acting like some gauche schoolgirl.

For God’s sake, Rose, anyone would think from the way you’re acting that the man is trying to seduce you.

She swallowed and lifted her head determined to match his pragmatic manner as he shifted in his seat so that they were facing one another.

She suddenly laughed.

One dark brow lifted. ‘What is so funny?’

She shook her head. ‘Nothing.’ It was hardly the right moment to inform him that she’d just realised this was the first time she’d been in the back seat of a car with a man.

Rebecca would say her education had been sadly neglected. Rebecca would probably have a point. Some people were simply not born with the reckless, exciting gene and she was one of them. Neither was she particularly highly sexed.

This man probably knew his way around the back seat of a car, she mused, studying his lean, autocratic face through the shield of her lashes, though he had probably moved on from the nursery slopes of fumbling long ago. Nowadays she doubted her imagination stretched to cover the things he could find his way around.

It was some comfort that he definitely didn’t seem as if he wanted to do any of those things with her. She stared at his sinfully sexy mouth. Of course, she didn’t want him to leap on her or anything, but she wouldn’t mind knowing just once what it would feel like to be the sort of woman who made a man’s mind turn to such things.

She could always ask Rebecca, who was such a woman, or maybe lose half a stone.? His terse voice broke into her rambling thoughts.

‘Lift up your arms.’

Rose would have broken contact with those disturbing eyes if she could have but they exerted a strange, almost hypnotic hold.

‘Look, this really won’t be necessary.’ She was dismayed to hear her voice emerge as a breathy whisper without a trace of the amused competence she had intended to inject into it. ‘I’ll change when I get home.’

To her consternation, instead of taking the opportunity to rid himself of her, his body language having made perfectly clear that was what he wanted, he sketched a cynical smile that lifted the corners of his wide mobile mouth.

‘Don’t worry, yineka mou, I’m quite willing to take it as read that you’re incredibly modest.’

Rose was bewildered both by the smile and the distinct undercurrent of scorn in his voice. But the drawled endearment explained the fascinating but faint foreign inflection in his voice she would have puzzled over later when reliving the encounter.

He was Greek, and rude.

Her smile was warmer than it might have been because the latter observation made her feel pretty much an ungrateful wretch—if it hadn’t been for this rude Greek she would most likely now be in a watery grave.

The acknowledgement sent a shiver, stronger than the others that intermittently overcame her, down the length of her spine. She looked at his mouth—it was frankly hard not to—and smiled without as much conviction this time because somehow she found his mouth deeply disturbing, and said, ‘You’re Greek?’

‘Half Greek, half French … did you not read my bio?’

‘Your bio …?’ she parroted, no longer even trying to follow him.

She closed her eyes and leaned back with a weary sigh. Even though she was no longer looking at him she was still very aware of his presence. Considering she had only studied his features briefly, she appeared to have memorised every detail of his extraordinary face. Even with her eyes closed every strong angle and plane was etched into her brain.

‘Most do,’ he observed drily.

And having read all the stuff on the websites, and the reams of nonsense that were printed about him, these women thought they knew him.

He had never fathomed why these women were so drawn to celebrity; something, he reasoned, had to be missing in their own lives that they spent so much of their time fantasising about a total stranger.

‘Sorry, I don’t read as much as I’d like to. If you could just drop me off …’ Her voice trailed off.

Curses sounded like curses in any language and presumably the ones that fell fluently from his lips would have made a less unrestrained Greek blush.

He dragged a hand through his dark hair and regarded her closed eyes with exasperation tinged by concern. ‘You cannot fall asleep!’

‘Sorry … no, of course.’ Her blue-veined eyelids lifted as she gave her head a little shake. ‘I’m really grateful, you know,’ she told him as she tucked her hands under her legs. The circulation was returning to her fingers, and they were throbbing painfully.

‘I think you saved my life,’ she said, rocking forward as the throbbing intensified.

‘What you did was criminally stupid.’

Rose bit her lip, but she supposed that under the circumstances he had earned the right to speak to her as though she were some not too bright child.

‘I’d ask what you were thinking of, but clearly you weren’t thinking.’

‘There was a fox …’ She could only assume that when the ice had cracked it had escaped, or maybe it had never even been stuck …?

‘I saw no fox.’ He dismissed the animal in question with a regal wave of his hand. Clearly he hadn’t seen it, so it couldn’t have been there—not a man who spent a lot of time agonising over self-doubt.

‘Which doesn’t mean it wasn’t there,’ she pointed out.

‘I saw no animal.’ Just a woman determined, it seemed, to end her life. Mathieu relived the moment he had seen her vanish beneath the icy water and his simmering anger surged. ‘What sort of person would walk out onto paper-thin ice to rescue a fox?’

The sort of person who had to switch channels when there was a wildlife programme where the makers did not intervene—and they could have—even though the weak, injured or just unlucky animal was about to meet a slow, lingering or occasionally violent and savage end.

She could have explained this, but she doubted he would be interested. Clearly what he wanted, and given the circumstances deserved, was a grovelling apology along the lines of, ‘I’m insane and you’re incredible.’ Which he was if your taste ran to macho alpha males.

‘If this was some sort of stunt to get my attention again …? It worked.’

‘Stunt?’ she echoed, blinking up at him. ‘Again?’ she added, her voice lifted in confused enquiry.

‘I’m assuming this act is because I hurt your pride?’

‘Pride …?’ She was too confused to do anything more than echo what he said as she met his laserlike stare warily. The man really did have eyes that looked as though they could see into your skull and read your thoughts, which was disturbing because some of the thoughts that popped into her head when she looked at him were not ones she would have felt comfortable sharing.

Least of all with the person they concerned.

Did he inspire lust in all women he met or was she particularly susceptible? Maybe a person could only suppress their libido for so long before it rebelled?

‘When I threw you out,’ he prompted. It was a pity she had not displayed a little of this pride when she had offered herself to him.

Her eyes widened. ‘Threw me out …?’

‘Of my hotel room, my bed …’

Her jaw hit her chest and for a moment she forgot about her throbbing fingers. ‘Why would I be in your room or …’ she swallowed and gulped ‘… bed? I don’t even know you.’

‘Look, I’m willing to humour you and pretend if that is what you wish—we’ve never met before, OK.’ The scornful smile that twisted his lips vanished as he added, ‘But I’m not willing to let you die of hypothermia, not after all the effort to get you out of the loch.’

Rose swallowed. He really did have the hardest eyes she had ever seen. ‘I think you must have mistaken me for someone else.’ She struggled not to show her concern.

Had she just got into a car with a dangerous lunatic? It was starting to seem like a strong possibility.

A hissing sound of exasperation escaped his white, clenched teeth. ‘Look, if you want to pretend you did not bribe your way into my hotel room, that is fine by me, and I’m not suggesting for a moment that you don’t do this gushing, sweet, innocent act very well,’ he conceded nastily. ‘But it might be more productive if you save it for a man who hasn’t seen you naked.’

‘What? Naked?’ Her hands came up in a protective gesture across her breasts. It would take a woman who was either very brave, or very beautiful, to parade naked in front of a man as physically perfect as this man.

And she was not that woman.

‘You have never seen me naked.’ It didn’t matter how many near-death experiences she had, that was something she would not have forgotten.

‘Well, if you’re going to be pedantic I wasn’t counting the stockings and stilettos.’

The visual image in her head that accompanied his husky concession sent the mortified blood rushing to her cold cheeks. ‘Look at me.’ Her shrill invitation was unnecessary because he already was and not in a way she liked. ‘I’ve never worn stockings in my life, not even hold-ups …’ He’s accusing you of being a predatory tart and you take the time to tackle the stockings issue—sure, that makes perfect sense, Rose.

‘I do not forget a face or a body,’ he added, his eyes dropping to the upper slopes of her full creamy breasts. ‘Your body has … ripened,’ he admitted. ‘And the blush is a new addition to your repertoire … it’s good.’

‘I do not have a repertoire.’ The smouldering sexual insolence in his bold stare started a chain reaction that began low in her belly. In a matter of seconds her entire body was involved. If she hadn’t been sitting down her legs would have folded under her. She couldn’t believe that she had reacted this way to a casually lecherous stare.

‘The weight suits you.’ The woman in his bed at the hotel had possessed the lean, angular, borderline androgynous build that models aspired to. It had crossed his mind at the time that she would have undoubtedly looked more attractive with her clothes on.

The same could not be said now.

‘Look, you’ve had your joke, but enough is enough,’ she said, even though one look at his expression made it clear he hadn’t. It seemed probable, going on what she had seen of him so far, that he wouldn’t know a joke if he fell over it.

‘We’ve never met, I promise you.’

‘I’ve encountered a lot of groupies but you stood out.’

‘Groupie …’ Best to treat this all as a joke. Co-operate, keep him happy and the quicker she’d be back at Dornie House, and after that she’d never have to see this man again.

She wasn’t getting very far with denial so she tried a different tack. ‘Sure, I eat men like you before breakfast.’ Her mocking grin slipped as an erotic image flashed into her head.

A man, his face hidden by the curtain of hair of the woman who sat astride him, lying naked on the tumbled silken bedclothes of a vast bed. His fingers were wound into the bars of a metal headboard and entwined with those of the woman. Deep fractured moans were issuing from his throat as the bed creaked under their combined weight. The woman’s hair fell back and.

Rose sucked in a sharp breath. Oxygen starvation, that was the only explanation she could think of for the lurid erotic fantasy that had crawled out of her subconscious.

‘But you’ll be pleased to hear that drowning has had a dampening effect on my libido.’

Mathieu, dragging his eyes from the heaving outline of her breasts, swallowed. It was a pity he could not say the same for his own libido. He could only assume it was the adrenaline that was still circulating in his blood now the danger was past … though adrenaline caused a flight-or-fight reaction and he felt no compelling urge to do either.

‘It’s put me right off my daily diet of reluctant men. So you’re quite safe.’

He gave a triumphant smile. ‘So you admit that you are that woman.’

She clamped her lips together. ‘No, I damned well don’t.’

‘There’s no need to yell. Your secret is safe with me. Relax.’

Was he mad? ‘Would you relax if someone suggested you were their rejected one-night stand?’

‘What do you object to—the one-night-stand tag or the rejection? And for the record I do not do one-night stands.’

She saw the spark of anger in his eyes and thought, Great, it’s all right for him to take offence. ‘That’s what I’m saying, neither do I. I don’t …’ She stopped, remaining immobile as he bent forward and unzipped her jacket.

He lifted his head and their eyes connected. Without a word he slid it off her shoulders.

‘Lift up your arms.’

Without thinking Rose obeyed his command this time and her sodden sweater was peeled away. Brushing a heavy hank of water-darkened caramel-blonde hair from her eyes, she looked at the sweater as it fell onto the floor of the Land Rover. The tee shirt she had worn underneath had come away with it.

She was sitting there stripped to the waist in nothing but what felt like acres of bare goose-pimpled flesh and her pink lace bra that had definitely seen better days. She saw his eyes drop and like a tide the hot, mortified colour washed over her skin.

Mathieu’s gaze slid upwards over her body. By the time he reached her heavy breasts encased in a light lacy bra through which the dark circles of her nipples were clearly visible the dull throb of blood in his temples had become a pounding roar.

Every instinct Rose possessed made her want to cover herself but that would be as good as saying she was not comfortable with her own body, that she had something to be ashamed of, whereas it was him, the sleaze, she thought wrathfully, who should feel guilty for ogling.

‘I thought you’d seen it all before,’ she snapped when the moment of paralysing embarrassment had passed.

His head came up with a jerk. Rose registered the dark colour scoring the crests of his sculpted cheekbones and then their eyes connected.

His smoky stare sent a fresh quiver of sexual awareness through her body. This had to be about the near-death experience; she didn’t react like this to men … not even Steven. And they had worked in close proximity most days.

Very close sometimes, which was part of the reason she had left. But a small part, because she had never feared not being able to control herself. The real reason was she felt guilty, ashamed because she had feelings for a married man.

If she had to work with this man on a daily basis, have his hand brush hers, feel his breath on her neck as he bent over her desk to read a report as Steven had done many times …? Rose shuddered. The horrifying imaginary scenario made her want to crawl out of her skin.

‘Don’t be embarrassed. The extra padding has gone to all the right places.’

Padding! Rose gritted her teeth. She was comfortable with her weight. She knew she was never going to be a size eight, basically because she would never starve herself and become a gym junkie like Rebecca to achieve it, but there was a line. And he had just crossed it.

She embraced the anger, gritting her teeth, and gave him a steady look. ‘You’re too kind.’

‘No, I’m not. I’m not kind at all.’

Looking into his spooky pale eyes, Rose believed him. She shivered and lowered her gaze.