Hot Summer Flings: A Spanish Awakening / The Italian Next Door... / Interview with the Daredevil

‘Do not lie to me, Megan, or yourself.’

‘What do you mean by that?’ she flared. ‘I’m not lying,’ she contended stubbornly. ‘Thank you for the breakfast, Emilio, but I—’

A whistled sound of irritation escaped his clenched teeth. ‘From where I’m sitting you have a problem. I think you’re in danger of developing a seriously bad relationship with food. Are you feeling guilty because you have eaten?’

She looked at him and thought, I’m feeling guilty because I can’t look at you without thinking of you naked.

‘Of course not. I promise you I do not have an eating disorder.’

‘Not now maybe,’ he conceded. ‘But these things can be insidious.’

‘Food is just not that important to me.’

‘Food is not important to all people,’ he conceded, leaning forward as he planted his forearms on the table. ‘But you are not one of them. Eating is a sensual pleasure. You take pleasure in food because you are a sensual person. Why deprive yourself of this pleasure to fit some stereotypical image? Why fight nature?

‘When it comes to food, the question,’ he contended, ‘is not what time is it, it is are you hungry?’

Megan glared at him in total exasperation. ‘Of course I’m hungry. I’m always hungry!’ she yelled.

Didn’t the stupid man realise that she was fighting nature that had decided in its infinite wisdom that she should be ten pounds heavier? ‘As for eating, when I’m hungry if I ate what I liked I’d be …’

Emilio, aware that he had hit a raw nerve or possibly several, turned his chair around, dragged it nearer to hers and straddled it. ‘Less cranky?’

‘Very funny,’ she snapped, unappreciative of his smart retort, a comment that could only be made by a person who had never worried about their weight.

Her eyes skimmed scornfully down his body. Either he had iron discipline or an enviably efficient metabolism.

Even fully clothed it was obvious he didn’t carry an ounce of excess flesh on his lean frame. He was all hard muscle and sinew.

The butterfly kicks that fluttered in the pit of her stomach made her hastily avert her gaze.

‘Do you think I’m a size ten by accident?’

‘I wondered if you had been ill,’ he admitted.

Megan’s jaw dropped as her head turned back towards him. Her amber eyes sparkled with incredulous wrath as she got to her feet.

‘I look ill?’ It was always ego-enhancing to be told you looked wrecked by a man who, in her head, had been the standard of physical perfection she measured his entire sex by since she was a teenager.

Emilio grinned. He was not oblivious to the danger in her voice, but he was not a man who thought it a virtue to play it safe.

In his opinion a rush of adrenaline made life more interesting and reminded a man he was alive. His eyes followed the swish of her free hair as it settled in a glossy frame to her heart-shaped face. Actually, now that he thought about it, there had been precious few adrenaline rushes in his life of late.

When was the last time he’d clashed with anyone? When was the last time anyone had openly disagreed with him?

And it wasn’t just professionally. Even the women in his life censored out any of the contents he might not like before they spoke, never even considering that he might appreciate the challenge of an opinion other than his own.

‘You look a little… faded.’ His eyes slid to her pink lips and he swallowed. ‘Like a crushed rose.’

The odd note in his deep voice brought Megan’s frowning regard to his face. ‘Rose?’ she echoed, fighting off the crazy rush of pleasure.

He nodded. ‘One who needed a long cool drink or, in this case, breakfast.’

‘You’re obsessed by food!’ she complained, thinking it was better than what she was obsessed by!

It wasn’t even as if she were not a very sexual person; the contrary was true. It was as if that airport kiss had pressed some off switch to the on position!

‘No, that is you,’ he countered, watching the play of expressions as they moved across her expressive face. It wasn’t just her hair that had slipped, it was her composed mask too.

‘I’m not obsessed with food.’

Just your mouth and, for that matter, the rest of you!

Switching off the inner commentary, but not before the guilty colour had rushed to her cheeks, Megan dropped her gaze to her hands clasped in her lap.

What was going on? She didn’t have thoughts like this.

‘A person,’ he came back confidently, ‘is only obsessed by what they are deprived of.’

Megan’s head came up. ‘What do you mean by that? I’m not deprived of anything!’ she yelled, her defensive voice bouncing off the high ceiling.

He held up his hands in mock surrender, the sardonic gleam in his dark eyes making her shift uncomfortably in her seat. ‘I’m delighted to hear it, though some people might think the lady protests too much? ‘

Lips pursed, Megan shrugged and did not respond to the gentle taunt. ‘I simply show a bit of self-control where food is concerned.’

Self-control. Emilio’s sloe-dark eyes drifted towards her mouth. Her lips were bare; he remembered the hint of strawberry in the gloss that he had kissed away. Without adornment they were naturally rose- tinted, and amazingly lush, their softness so inviting he struggled to think past the loud buzz in his head and the stab of desire that sliced through him like a knife.

He lifted his gaze, meeting her eyes through the mesh of his eyelashes. ‘Self-control has its place.’ Like in an airport.

The ripple of sensation Emilio’s sinfully seductive throaty purr set in motion passed through her entire body from her scalp to her curling toes.

Megan, her eyes melded to his smouldering stare, endured the moment breathing through the nerve-shredding sensation. It passed, but the aching lump lodged like a chunk of broken glass in her throat remained.

‘I …’ Megan was unable to tear her eyes free of his mesmeric stare, and her voice faded. Her lips continued to move, but nothing emerged but a whispery sigh.

When the sexual tension had been in the background she had been able to pretend it wasn’t there. That was no longer possible. In the space of a heartbeat it had become an almost visible presence, humming like a high-voltage charge in the air between them, swallowing up the oxygen so that she struggled to breathe.

‘Though sometimes it is good to let go.’

Megan, hand pressed to her throat, struggled to catch her breath. She compressed her lips, angry with him for playing games and herself for being such a sucker for his not very subtle tactics, and there was no way in the world it was accidental. Was this some sort of game for him?

‘I really wouldn’t know. I don’t …’

‘What? You never let that lovely hair down and throw caution to the wind? Some men could view a statement like that as a challenge.’

‘Certainly I let my hair down, but only with people I trust.’

‘You think I would take advantage?’ Emilio sighed inwardly. She was right.