Читать книгу The Mistresses Collection - Оливия Гейтс - Страница 46
ОглавлениеLeaning against the wall, Caitlin took the plate James offered with a cautious smile. He looked uncomfortably intense. He didn’t resume eating his own meal, leaving his plate to the side of the small camp cooker—next to his iPad. But he didn’t look at that either. He only looked at her.
‘Tell me,’ he said.
She paused, her fork partway lifted, her mind still on the electronic gadget. Had he been searching? ‘Tell you what?’
‘Everything. Why are you here? What is it you’ve run from? Why did my brother say you could stay here? How do you even know him?’
She lowered her fork. ‘Why do you want to know?’
‘Why do you think?’
She rolled her eyes. Didn’t he get that she refused to dance that dance? If he wanted to know, he could explain why or find out for himself. ‘Look it up on the Internet.’ She pointedly looked back at the iPad.
‘I’d rather hear it from you,’ he countered.
Had he really not looked already? Or was this some kind of test?
She forked some egg into her mouth and took her time chewing. The guy could cook, she’d say that for him. She had another mouthful because it was so damn good. He stepped alongside her, leaning a shoulder against the wall so he was at right angles to her. Surveying her with that teasing smile on his lips. Clearly waiting.
He’d be waiting a while.
But her taste buds suddenly went on strike, her appetite kicking the bucket too. She struggled to swallow her latest mouthful. What was it he wanted to hear? Would he actually listen or would he leap to conclusions? And if she did tell him the truth, would he believe her? People tended not to. People tended to think the worst.
Maybe telling him would clear the sultriness of the air between them. He’d end this flirtation. He certainly wouldn’t want to kiss her again. Wouldn’t that make her life easier? Wouldn’t that stop her stupid yearnings?
‘Okay.’ She put her plate down on the floor and reached out for the iPad.
He grabbed her arm to stop her.
‘Tell me.’ He frowned.
‘Think school,’ she said crisply. ‘Show and tell.’
He released her and she took the device, switching it on and plugging in a search. In a second she’d pulled an old promo pic for her show. She turned the iPad so he could see the screen.
He took a second to find her in the centre of the group of youths and read the advertisement. His jaw fell open. ‘You were a teen soap star?’
‘Never a star,’ she corrected with a wry smile. ‘More notorious.’
‘You told me you don’t want to act.’
‘I don’t. I’m hopeless at it.’
‘But you were—’
‘In a British school drama for a couple of seasons, yes. Before then I’d mainly done ads, modelling work and stuff.’
‘As a child?’
She nodded.
‘Why?’ He looked as if he couldn’t think of anything worse. He wasn’t far wrong.
‘My dad was an actor. At holiday parks, cruise ships, panto, a few walk-ons in the West End. You name it, he did it. Then he got a few bit parts on TV shows. One episode appearances in “character” things. He wanted us to do the same.’
‘Your mother?’
‘Died when I was seven,’ she said. ‘We needed money and there was good money in TV. I did some child modelling, had that cute factor. Did a lot of clothing catalogues. Then I did some stage stuff and eventually I landed the part on the show.’
‘But you said your sister is famous.’
‘She is.’ Caitlin braced herself. ‘My sister is Hannah Moore.’
His brows lifted. ‘The movie actress?’
Caitlin nodded, waited for it.
He frowned. ‘She doesn’t look anything like you.’
Bingo.
Hannah was brunette to Caitlin’s blonde. Was taller, coltish, had darker eyes, bigger lips. Caitlin had been the stereotypically ‘pretty’ one with the blue eyes and the blonde hair. Hannah was more ‘different’ looking. Now she’d gone raven she was even more striking.
‘So how come you’re afraid of being recognised?’ His eyes narrowed. ‘What happened?’
‘What happened?’ She stared down at the pretty young blonde smiling out from the centre of the posed photo. ‘I was young and stupid and spoiled.’
Silently he waited.
With an impatient growl she confessed. ‘I come from this “luvvie” family. We grew up backstage. The modelling work paid bills but it was assumed we’d act eventually. I had basic technique but no real talent. But I got on the show and it turned to custard.’ She frowned. ‘I’d always worked, right from when I can remember. And yeah, I might have been spoiled but I’d worked hard. But I knew it wasn’t my strength. I didn’t really want to do it but I couldn’t say that. So I acted out. And I was stupid. So stupid. I partied, I talked back...’
‘You were the wild child.’
‘And my off-screen dramas elevated our name.’ She winced. ‘I couldn’t live up to it. The expectation, the pressure was huge. And there was no getting away from it. But my mistakes were my own. There’s no one to blame but me. I earned myself this diva-bitch label and it got fixed with perma-glue. And like all good stories mine were embroidered—some elements magnified. Some just plain made up. I wasn’t as bad as it began to appear.’
‘So what happened?’
‘I got fired, of course. I think, all along, that’s what I’d wanted. I haven’t been on stage or on a TV show since. Six years. That’s for ever in telly time.’ She’d escaped and gone to study. It was only recently that she’d been dragged back under. She wrinkled her nose. ‘Except for repeats. They like to repeat some episodes.’ She grimaced.
‘Where was your father?’
Right in the centre. ‘He was my manager.’ Her father had let her down. He’d never stepped in to stop her. Never defended her. ‘That’s how it all started. With me. Hannah had always wanted to act—was dying to. But she’d not got any jobs. Instead I got them. It was the cute little blonde girl thing,’ she said cynically. ‘Eventually Hannah did a piece in an indie film. Wasn’t even paid for it. But she got spotted. They finally realised her talent. And she flew from there.’
‘And what did you do?’
‘Stuck on the show for another season. Hated it and got worse in terms of behaviour.’
‘Why didn’t you just quit?’
‘I couldn’t. We needed the money. Hannah hadn’t quite hit the jackpot then, she was a slow build before becoming an overnight sensation—that’s the way these things really work. I brought in regular money that we needed. So you can imagine how mad Dad was when they finally called time on me.’
She’d lost all worth. All her value. He’d turned to Hannah. Helped Hannah. She supposed he’d had to.
‘But by then Hannah was hitting her stride?’
Caitlin nodded. ‘She has that quirkiness that the camera loves. There’s no mistaking her for anyone else. She’s passionate about acting. It’s absolutely her thing and she is incredibly good at it. She disappears for weeks when she’s right into a part.’
‘You’re close?’
Caitlin hesitated. ‘She’s very busy and I’m working on a new phase in my life.’ She read the disapproval in his eyes. ‘We really didn’t spend that much time together as kids. But she’s a darling,’ she rushed to add. ‘She deserves all her success. And she doesn’t need to be dragged down by me. It was because Hannah knows George that I got the loan of this place. She is supportive of me. But I think it’s better to keep some kind of distance.’
‘You’ve shut her out?’
‘No,’ she said defensively. ‘I just don’t think she needs to have my affairs thrust in her face. She doesn’t need to have her publicist deflecting questions about me. She needs to concentrate on her career and not have me as the sideshow.’
‘But that leaves you alone.’ He looked at her. ‘Because I’m guessing you and your dad aren’t close.’
‘He’s very busy too. He’s still Hannah’s manager,’ Caitlin said softly. ‘She has a whole team these days, but he’s still very involved. And that’s fine. I’m a big girl. I don’t need a manager. I’m loving being in New York and being anonymous.’ She glared at him, hating how exposed she felt right this instant in the face of his inscrutability. She didn’t want to go any further—not into the nightmare of the last few months and the real reason she’d had to run. ‘Anyway, you can’t talk. You’ve shut out your family.’
‘I haven’t shut them out.’ His smile went fixed.
‘Really? When you won’t even go and see them in the few days you have back in the country?’
‘You think they’d want to see me when I’m tired and grumpy?’ The smile disappeared altogether.
‘Would it be so bad if they saw you tired and grumpy? Or is your image too important to maintain?’
‘I don’t care about my image.’
‘No? So you have no problem with having that picture of you being sent around the world?’
‘Okay,’ he conceded with a sigh. ‘I hate that picture.’
‘Why?’ Didn’t he feel some kind of pride that he’d been able to help that girl?
He shook his head. ‘I work as part of a team. No one person is a hero. We need each other. We’re there to do a job but we have each other’s backs. There’s no room for egos. We all do what we have to do. It’s never down to one person.’
Sometimes it was. He was the one who’d found that girl and pulled her free. Sure, maybe others in his team had found others as well, but for that one little girl James Wolfe was her lone hero.
‘Are your colleagues bothered by the attention you receive?’ Was that where his ‘reluctant hero’ mode sprang from?
He stepped back, his bottomless eyes fixed on her. ‘There was some ribbing. But no, I know they’d rather it were me than them. In many ways it was great—it raised the profile of the organisation and that helps with fundraising and stuff.’ He shrugged.
It was clearly a line from the publicists that he’d repeated a hundred or more times. ‘And it’s only having your picture taken. It’s not that awful.’
Sure, against the backdrop of things he must have seen, it wasn’t, but he couldn’t deny the impact on him personally. She wanted him to acknowledge it. ‘But it changes your life.’
‘Again,’ he noted, ‘it’s nothing compared to what some people go through.’
‘You’re being heroic again.’ She chuckled. ‘But you don’t like it.’
‘No.’
‘It’s so awful to be admired? To be adored?’ She’d far rather that than be thought of as the wicked witch.
‘People see what they want to see. But it’s not real. They don’t see through that image.’
His words pierced her defence. They were words she’d say and mean. But she couldn’t believe he really meant then. That he could possibly understand. So she teased. ‘Maybe you don’t let them.’
He chuckled. ‘Do you try to let them see through your image? Do you try to change what they think?’
She waved a hand as if brushing off the idea. ‘People have this thing about leopards and spots.’
‘So once bad, always bad?’ He leaned forward, coming too close again.
‘Angels can fall from grace, though, so you better be careful,’ she whispered.
He didn’t laugh, didn’t pull away as she expected him to. As she was warning him to.
‘I’m not afraid of what people think about me,’ he said.
‘Really?’ She turned, tapped the iPad back to life and entered his name in the search box.
‘You’re Googling me? Right now?’ he asked, sounding somewhat stunned.
‘Why not? I get the feeling there’s something you’re not telling me. What else is it you’re hiding from?’
Something flickered in his eyes before he looked down so she couldn’t see into them.
‘Search away.’
His careless drawl spurred her. To find something wicked about the so-perfect one? She wished.
In a second she had a spate of webpages listed. A number of links to one article in particular. The one that had come first in the search rankings.
She clicked on it.
Dated a few months ago, the article was illustrated with that iconic image from the flood-ravaged South American village. There was another, smaller picture of him walking along the pavement outside his local coffee shop. In the grey tee, of course, but with jeans this time.
There was a fact box about his family—the wealth, the travel bug they all had—briefly profiling his two brothers as well, labelling the three ‘the Wolves of Manhattan’. Then the main thrust of the article caught her attention. A tabloid piece from a gossip site, the main ‘source’ was a woman who couldn’t contain her enthusiasm for James.
My Night With The Scarred Hero.
...He’s as generous in bed as he is in his rescue missions. A strong, loving partner who gives a woman his all... He’s so fit I could hardly keep up. He had me seven times in the one night, I’ve never known a man to have such stamina. He didn’t seem to want to sleep at all...
Oh my. Caitlin looked up to gauge his reaction.
‘It’s embarrassing,’ he muttered. ‘Fiction.’
Determined to stifle her smile, she tapped her fingers on the edge of the iPad and surveyed him. ‘So she’s making up how great you are in bed?’
‘Well...’ He laughed uneasily. ‘It’s just not something you want to see in print, you know.’
‘Some guys would love that.’ Most guys she could think of, in fact.
‘I’m not some guy.’ He frowned and then sighed. ‘I was already...popular, if you like. I come from a wealthy family. I’ve got all my limbs...’
And he was so hot it was unreal. Plus he was clever, and a good conversationalist. He knew how to look at a woman. Then there was that edge. She’d seen it that first night, caught glimpses of it since. The dangerous glint, the possibility of strength, determination—he was capable of taking charge. Control.
Heat washed over her. Inappropriate, devastating heat.
‘Then with that picture. The rescue work...’ He tailed off.
‘You became a hero,’ she finished, licking her lips to ease their dryness. ‘Even more wanted.’
He nodded reluctantly, slowly. ‘And then that woman—’
‘Sold her story and the hot lover legend was born.’
He put his head in his hands and groaned.
Hard as she tried Caitlin couldn’t quite feel sorry for him. Hard as she tried she couldn’t stop her own arousal either. Seven times?
‘Are you afraid you can’t live up to it?’ she provoked, forcing herself to laugh and keep it light. ‘Don’t worry, everyone knows all the stuff in the papers is made up. We all know the “seven times in one night” was a massive exaggeration.’
He glanced up, his expression smouldering. ‘I just don’t want any more stories in the papers.’
‘So you don’t trust anyone.’ She got it now.
‘Not one-night stands.’
‘And you’re not in town long enough to start a relationship.’ She tried to slow her zinging pulse. He must be lonely. Must be hungry for it. ‘Isn’t there anyone in your team?’ she asked. ‘In the paramedic, disaster community?’
‘No.’ He shook his head, the heat in his eyes igniting. ‘I really don’t need you to be match-maker for me.’
‘I’m not. I’m just analysing.’ She flicked her tongue over her desert dry lips again. ‘No wonder you couldn’t resist kissing me. How long has it been?’ She glanced at the date of the article again. ‘Ten months?’
For a vital, virile man like him that must feel like for ever.
He stepped nearer as his voice came softer. ‘That wasn’t why I kissed you.’
‘No?’ She couldn’t move. ‘Why did you?’
‘I wanted to. I want you.’
Heat burst in a fireball in her belly. ‘You stopped,’ she accused.
‘Because it was the right thing to do at the time.’
‘And you always do the right thing.’ She remembered from earlier. ‘Or you try to. Why do you try so hard?’
He didn’t answer. Instead, with his gaze firmly locked on hers, he tugged the iPad from her fingers. ‘What’s good for the gander...’ He trailed off.
‘Don’t,’ she whispered. All sensual heat evaporated, leaving her cold, empty. Afraid.
‘You might have gone off the rails when you were a teen soap star, but that was years ago,’ he pointed out bluntly. ‘That’s not why you’re here now. There’s something else, right? Something more.’
She always wants Moore.
‘Please don’t,’ she asked again.
‘It’s that bad?’
‘Worse.’
‘Like I can’t look now,’ he said wryly, tapping her name into the search engine.
Caitlin closed her eyes and silence commanded the room.
James looked at the massive number of hits. Most of them were UK based websites. There was a heap of images from years ago. And then some more recent. Much more recent. An online version of a UK tabloid had a number of recent articles. None of the headlines were good—Could she be any Moore crazy? ; She always wants Moore ; Stop stalking me, I can’t take any Moore!
He clicked on the last. Skimmed the article then scrolled down to the comments. Unadulterated vitriol. And there’d be far worse on those unmoderated sites.
‘They always like to find the ugliest pictures they can.’ She spoke in a very small voice.
True. The accompanying picture didn’t do her justice. How the hell they’d snapped her like that he didn’t know. She was beautiful in real life. Elfin, ethereal—seemingly incapable of looking or acting the outright bitch this article claimed she was.
She’d gotten involved with an actor. Dominic. They’d dated for the best part of a year—she’d been studying. He’d been growing in popularity. Publicity.
He’d ended it. She’d taken it badly. Turned stalker—especially when Dominic began a new relationship right away with another woman. An actress.
According to this, Caitlin had told him she was pregnant. Tried to emotionally blackmail him back to her. Then, when things didn’t go the way she wanted, when he didn’t return to her, she’d aborted the baby. And in the court of public opinion, she’d been crucified.
James looked at her, needing to read her expression. To ask for her truth. What he saw pulled his chest tight.
She’d had a shiny inner glow when she’d first woken this morning, a teasing light and a definite bite. Now she’d paled. The spark in her eyes, her speech, her spirit—snuffed. He wanted it back. It was what he liked most about her.
‘I hadn’t been in the papers for years,’ she said. ‘And now it’s not just the newspapers, is it? It’s the Internet and Twitter and all those blogs with anonymous people who love to spout hate. They pulled up everything from the past. It’s so much worse than it ever was. I thought I could handle it. I could back then. But now I can’t. Now I...’ Her voice trailed off.
‘Is it true?’ he asked quietly.
‘Is what true?’ she answered, some spirit returning. ‘All of it? Part of it?’ She lifted her shoulders. ‘What does it matter what I answer?’ She shook her head. ‘Will you be able to believe me? Really believe me?’
‘I have no reason not to.’
She tensed. ‘Yet the first night we met you were thinking all kinds of charming things about me.’
‘I was tired and...really tired. I wasn’t in the best headspace. It wasn’t you making me think that way, it was me.’
‘People naturally think the worst. People naturally doubt.’
He shook his head. ‘In my job I have to trust people instantly. I have to rely on strangers in the craziest of circumstances. And most of the time, they pull through for me. Actions. It’s always in their actions.’
‘So what do you think my actions say about me?’
He gazed at her, at the guarded look in her eyes, and the hope she couldn’t quite hide. ‘Your actions tell me that you’ve been really hurt. You’ve run away—come to hide and recover in private. But you’re also yearning to start again—so you have determination. You have pride in your work. You want to do well. You’re willing to put up with a difficult situation in order to be here—so you were very desperate to escape. Perhaps you’re also desperate to succeed.’
She blinked suddenly. Her gaze dropping from his as her lashes fluttered a few times.
‘Whether every word in this article is true?’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t think it would be.’
She looked at him again, her pale blue eyes shining, beseeching. He suddenly felt how strongly she wanted to be believed. Yet she was filled with fear. And sadness. A fiery basic instinct roared within him—he wanted to protect, defend. Reassure.
‘I’ve never been pregnant,’ she whispered. ‘Ever.’
His chest constricted. Ached. So did his throat. He nodded. ‘Then why have they run with this? How did this even get printed?’
‘Publicity, I guess. It made for a good storm. He came out as the poor, wronged guy.’ She shook her head, casting away the wretched expression, her defensive quip returning. ‘The crowd loves a villain. Everybody loves to have somebody to hate.’
James stared hard at her, trying to see the true source of her very real distress. ‘Did he break your heart?’
‘Only by not speaking out to say this wasn’t true. He knows it’s not true. He betrayed me by staying silent.’
No one had stood up for her. Not her sister. Not her father. She’d not even stood up for herself. She’d run away. Could he really blame her for that?
He glanced back down at the iPad and flicked back to the search results. He clicked on a couple more. One catalogued her previous ‘crimes’.
‘Are they all untrue?’ He read some of the accusations. ‘Did you get so drunk at your sixteenth birthday party you vomited on the production assistant? Did you insist on having first pick of all the outfits you and your castmates were offered? Did you have an affair with the man who played your teacher in the show...?’
‘Actually,’ she interrupted with a guilty whisper, ‘they’re all true.’
He laughed a little. ‘Oh, Caitlin.’
‘Well, in fairness, the outfits thing was only because I was really getting into the costumes. I wanted to put the look together. But I didn’t go about it the right way. I was young. Stupid. I admit to the mistakes I made. But you’ll note it was me, the sixteen-year-old who seduced the older guy—according to those stories. Thank heavens he wasn’t married. I’d have been slaughtered.’
‘In reality he seduced you?’
‘Honestly?’ She thought about it. ‘I think I was easy pickings. I think he knew which buttons to push.’ She looked him in the eyes. ‘The emotional ones, I mean.’
‘Where was your father?’
A flash of sheer surprise flitted across her face. And then she laughed. ‘Exactly.’ She shrugged. ‘Enter father figure, stage left.’ She sobered, the sad expression returning. ‘The worst thing was the writers caught a whiff of the rumours and then put it in the show. I was the schoolgirl with the crush on the teacher.’
Yeah, it really wasn’t funny. ‘Your father didn’t refuse that storyline?’
Her mouth clamped for a moment. ‘My father thinks there’s no such thing as bad publicity. He was always more manager than parent. I don’t need a manager any more.’
So that left her without a parent? He didn’t know what he could say to make it any better for her. ‘That sucks.’
She inclined her head and looked him straight in the eyes. ‘You really believe me?’
Carefully he watched her expression—reading all that doubt there. ‘Why wouldn’t I?’
‘Reputation is a dangerous thing.’ She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. ‘Mud sticks and all that.’
‘No,’ he murmured. ‘Why really? Didn’t you ever challenge them? Didn’t you deny this crap this Dominic-guy spread?’
‘There was no point. People will always think smoke means fire.’
‘No,’ he challenged her. ‘Sometimes it’s just smoke. Sometimes it’s just there for someone to hide in. Like a stage set.’
She shook her head and the haunted look returned. She glanced down, running over the long list of offences detailed on the Internet. ‘The underage clubbing thing is true, as is the underage drinking. But I never did drugs. Nor have I ever self-harmed.’
She hit the back arrow on the navigation bar, and scrolled back a few pages until that mortifying article about him featured.
‘Look at it, the grand total of two stories on you are fabulous,’ she said drily. ‘While the thousands on me are awful. Being labelled a sex stud isn’t anywhere near as bad as being labelled a narcissistic, deranged stalker.’
She paused as the picture of him carrying the child out from the landslide popped up. She was right, but he still hated that image—what it had brought for him. A moniker he didn’t deserve. A supposedly ‘heroic’ status. Because in reality he couldn’t be less of a hero. He’d destroyed a family, not saved one. Yeah, the real story of his life, the most relevant thing about him, had never been reported in any newspaper.
Caitlin looked at the way James was sullenly glaring at himself in that picture. He was cradling that poor kid so carefully, yet he’d had the look of a fighter on his face—sheer determination as he ran. His T-shirt had been spattered with his own blood, pouring from the nasty-looking gash on the side of his head.
‘Did it hurt?’ Ugh. She clapped a hand over her mouth. ‘I’m sorry. You must get asked that all the time.’
‘It looked worse than it was.’ He looked up at her, his moody reverie broken, amusement stealing back into his eyes. ‘Some women are fascinated with the scar,’ he said softly. ‘They always want to kiss it. Like they could make it better with their life-giving lips or something.’
‘And do those kisses make it better?’
He chuckled and shook his head. ‘Truth? I lost most of the nerve endings around the wound. I can’t even feel it if someone kisses it. It’s sure as hell not sexy.’
‘Roger that,’ she said crisply. ‘No scar kissing, then.’
Their eyes met. For a moment there was thick, expectant silence.
He lifted his finger and ran it down his scar. ‘Women think this symbolises something that isn’t real. I’m no hero.’
‘You are,’ she muttered. ‘You’re good.’
‘Why do you think that?’ That bleak, almost angry look returned. ‘From what you’ve read?’
‘From your actions,’ she corrected. ‘You’re the guy who pulled back from having anything you’d like from me this morning.’ She glared at him. ‘Is it so bad to want me?’
He flinched. ‘I was trying to do the right thing by you.’
‘Who’s to say I wanted the “right” thing?’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t you get it? I’m the bad girl who always wants to do the wrong thing.’
He hesitated. ‘I wouldn’t have said it was wrong. But it seemed to me you’re a bit bruised and I didn’t want to make things more difficult for you. Now I know for certain you are.’
‘You cooled off to protect me?’ she flashed. ‘I can look after myself.’
‘I’m sure you can,’ he said peaceably.
That didn’t soothe her irritation. ‘And isn’t the fact I’ve had a tough time all the more reason to do something decadent?’
His eyes sparked. ‘Decadent?’
It would be so decadent. The guy was like that luscious, rich chocolate he’d fed her. The finest of ingredients, the smoothest texture, divine taste. Fit, strong...seven times?
He laughed softly as he looked at her. ‘What are you thinking?’
‘Very bad thoughts.’
‘Tell me some.’
‘You wouldn’t understand.’ She lifted her chin provocatively. ‘You can’t really be bad. It’s not in you.’
‘And you think you’re the expert?’
‘Rumour has it.’
‘We both know you can’t believe everything you read.’ He pulled her towards him, his voice dropping. ‘Tell me what you’re thinking.’
Only a breath away from him, she couldn’t resist. ‘I’m thinking, everyone thinks I’m bad. Why not be bad?’ She was tired of fighting it. Tired of trying to hold her head up in public. She wanted something for herself. Something fun. Something that felt good. And James Wolfe felt good. No one would ever know. He’d be as adamant on that as she. And she could live with that.
His hand slid across her shoulder, the tips of his fingers seeking her collarbone. They were gentle, but firm. Hot. She tensed, trying to stop herself flaring out of control.
‘Maybe it’s not so bad if the world thinks I’m bad,’ she added. ‘Then I can get away with anything because people are already going to think the worst.’
‘What’s the “anything” you want to get away with?’ His fingers moved south, tracing the neckline of her dress. Down towards the curves of her breasts.
She breathed quicker. Her lashes lifted. ‘Corrupting. Claiming innocence. Taking someone over to the dark side.’
His eyes widened, then a small laugh escaped him. He shook his head slightly. ‘You really think I’m good?’
‘You better be.’
‘Truth is, I can be very, very bad.’ His fingers slipped beneath the fabric, delving towards her cleavage.
‘So we should be bad together,’ she whispered, placing her hand over his, pressing him closer. She ached to feel more of his skin. Less tease, more touch.
‘Or good.’ His finger traced the lace edge of her bra.
‘In this instance?’ she muttered. ‘Same thing.’
He bent forward and nipped her lower lip. ‘Let’s both be very, very good at being very, very bad.’
