Passionate Playboys: The Demetrios Bridal Bargain / The Magnate's Indecent Proposal / Hot Nights with a Playboy

‘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.

CHAPTER FOUR

IGNORING him as best she could, Rose pulled the heavy dry sweater over her head. It reached her knees and acted as a screen as, still shaking feverishly, she peeled away her jeans.

Before she had managed to wriggle them down to her ankles he had opened the door and returned to the front seat without a word. He started the engine with a curt instruction for her to belt up.

Belt up … he probably, she decided, meant it in both senses of the word, which was no problem for her. The last thing she felt like was making conversation. They’d been driving for a couple of minutes before she realised he couldn’t know where she lived.

‘I’m staying at Dornie House, that’s the last turning after—’

His impatient voice cut across her. ‘I’m not taking you there.’ His eyes met hers in the rear-view mirror. ‘You need to get checked over; there’s a cottage hospital in Muir.’

‘I don’t need to see a doctor.’

‘Need or not, you’re going to,’ came the autocratic retort.

Short of jumping out a moving vehicle, she didn’t have much choice but to go along with his plan. The man was obviously a total control freak.

‘There’s a blanket on the back seat if you don’t mind a few dog hairs. It should only take five minutes or so.’

She lasted three. She was wasting her breath, she knew that, but how could she let him go away thinking that she was someone she wasn’t? She really wanted to hear him admit he was wrong.

‘I’ve never slept with you, you know.’ Or anyone else, though Rebecca’s theory on this sad state of affairs was wrong—it wasn’t because she was a hopeless romantic who couldn’t deal with real emotions. That was the problem. She wanted emotions; she didn’t want soulless sex.

It was just her luck that the one man she had met whom she could imagine sex not being a cold, mechanical exercise with had already been taken. Her brow wrinkled as she recalled Rebecca’s suggestion that it wasn’t accidental she had fallen in love with someone who was inaccessible. Then she found herself recalling that one time when Steven had kissed her.it hadn’t been what she had expected. She hadn’t been carried away by passion; in fact, she had felt oddly removed from the event.

‘Only because I threw you out.’

His scornful observation cut like a blade through Rose’s rambling reflections.

‘Why? What was wrong with me?’ Rose closed her eyes and bit her lip. Could I have sounded more like a rejected lover if I tried?

‘I do not sleep with drunk groupies,’ he announced with disdainful hauteur.

The blood that had returned to her tingling extremities now rushed to her head. ‘Now hang on, I know you probably saved my life, but—’

He cut across her with a sardonic, ‘Probably?’